Now now children, there's enough constitutional authority out there for everyone. :D

Wow your wit is so sharp I didn't even feel the cut....

It's a very valid argument. You have two choices: action and inaction. You weigh the costs of both and make a choice based on which position will leave you better off!

Funny. Club I go to refers to it as weiqi or baduk....

Not true.

I've been playing the game for several years. How long have you been playing?

And half of the rest is not related to the game.

I dropped out of school during the dot-com boom for a programming job. I was 18 (skipped a grade so I was a sophmore) and it was great fun. I made bundles of money, and spent it as quickly as I made it, convinced I was king of the world in the new economy. (I remember getting a consulting contract in Toronto where they flew me in, paid $2k for me to install red hat on a couple boxes in a colo, and then going out for a wild night on the town in Toronto).

Unfortunately, after the bubble burst, I had no college to attend, got 0 job interviews because everyone was looking for people with degrees in the few jobs that were left, and had quite a difficult time getting back into school. It took a while and I ended up needing to wash dishes at Friendly's (a cross between McDonalds and a diner) to support myself until I got back on my feet.

Believe me when I say your 18 year old made the right choice.

There's actually a number of names for the game in the different countries that play it. Igo is the japanese name, baduk is the korean name, etc.

Depending on who taught you and where you learn it, you may use one of the other (with different variations on the rules of the game depending on region it originates from). Additionally, some of us prefer the any name that is not "go" for the simple fact that it is much more distinctive. (Try googling weiqi and then try googling go and see which one has more irrelevant links)

The thing that always amazes me is while simple games like chess, weiqi, checkers, etc., all seem to have unlimited playability and intricacy, computer games generally don't.

Taking Weiqi as an example, literally you can spend 40 years of your life playing, and there will always be room to get better and add difficulty, and always more interesting. Compare that to the latest FPS you beat and abandon after a few days/weeks/months.

I really have to wonder if 100 years from now, some games like Nethack and DF will end up becoming "classics" in a similar vein as board games...

Never explain by malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

Specious argument. If you're burning coal the process required to burn the coal (whether you're telling me it's the actual flame, or the upstream mining) is killing people.

The number of people being greater than or less than the number of deaths for heart disease or diabetes is also irrelevant to the discussion. Deaths are not something economical you can just decide are acceptable[1]. Can I say that, if I shoot someone, say it's OK because I only take one life, and suicide and heart disease both take so many more each year?

From what I see, you are basically defining your own axioms so that everything is OK, with no reference to standard morality. Your argument is basically: let's assume anything already in the atmosphere can't be bad since it pre exists, and let's not worry about deaths as I'm not the one dying.

[1] For the case of industry. Yes, there are military situations where perhaps this sort of cold hearted calculus is necessary.

Citizen, next time you will refer to propoganda material as the blueprint not a fantasy!

It's a fact that coal plants pollute and those pollutants result in increases of disease and a decrease of the health of a population downwind.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

There's my citation. Maybe you'd care to share yours?

You're a bit too literal. "Noise pollution," "heat pollution," and "light pollution" also involve an excess of something that naturally occurs in the environment.

That does not mean that, for instance, the effects to the environment are not detrimental. Which is why, despite the fact that in a natural ecosystem animals make noises, NYC fines drivers who honk their horn excessively. And why there are rules about when you can land your airplane because it's not nice to wake up residents within a hundred miles of the airport.

So it's a bit naïve to claim that just because something naturally occurs in the environment, an excess won't be bad for society (and shouldn't be controlled).

Not there only if you don't price externalities in to energy prices.

Think of it this way, if I produce something and dump super toxic byproducts into a river, it's great for me. I don't pay to handle the toxic byproducts. However, while I save money, the families down stream who all get cancer are much worse off.

So, as a society, we don't allow chemical plants to save money by poisoning others.

Coal plants also have poisonous byproducts, but they are not required to care. They kill people, but they are not charged the true cost.

Solution is to charge everyone the true cost of what they're doing.