Pity yourself, it's an excellent summary of what you are doing now :-)

There's no intelligent debate to be had, or a debate at all. It's just the government violating the highest law of the land, and people who give a shit trying to stop them. They had no moral high ground since the beginning.

The point is, if the situation is dire and serious, the message should be as well.

Whilst that is true, paradoxically, the more dire and serious the message is, the easier for our controlled press outlets to manipulate it into something else, so the less people listen. Perhaps Snowden is just pressing a point in presenting the argument that way to make it, feel, really personal because it is.

When you're pointing out an injustice being committed by the government, you should be trying to get people to think.

You are right, I sense they will think 'EWWWW', however it's a mammoth task getting people to do anything until they understand why its in their own self interest. Slowly the legal framework is put in place, the use of such powers concealed and, sometimes not acted on. People never feel the impact and are dumbed down enough to be apathetic enough to allow more freedoms to be stolen. Look at the silly monkey

The self involved aspects of our own culture works against us as vanity makes so many of us desperately shallow and ignorant. Meanwhile those remaining in our western society who understand what freedoms are being stolen and twisted against us, scream in frustration as democracy is turned into a parody of what was supposed to be. A trapped is only closed when all avenues of escape are.

It would seem though that even in the intelligence agencies there are people saying 'this is gone far enough', recognised whoever is pushing this agenda as a domestic enemy and have been brave enough to stand up to the systemic corruption that is threatening to collapse Western society the same way the USSR was. They are ejected from the machinery.

I just hope that democracy doesn't become the experimental blip in history between monarchies and ogliarchies because we were too afraid and lazy to face the responsibilities of living in one.

Mainly from people like yourself who are so hoplessly inferior to the rest of the normal thinking population I would be need 3/4 of my brain removed to have double your wit. Obviously you are unable to explain whatever point you have to make, even when given an opportunity to do so. I can only gather that you are pointless. So back to 4chan, b/tard/.

Now get the fuck off my lawn.

atoms, quarks and energy

legislation, mandates, buildings and chairs, cars, carpet, leasing agreements, legal departments, policy review boards. Snakes and snails and puppy dogs tails

It's fairly obvious that you are one of "those people" who haven't held any position that was responsible for anything other than themselves. If you ever work hard enough to understand higher levels of an organization, either in the business or government world, you will understand that the reporting and functional processes are as real as the dumb look on your face when you look in the mirror. That "nonresistant ethereal entity" controls much of your life.

Now go back to flipping burgers.

True, but also outside the scope of your question as they don't "comprise governments poorly organized systems".

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

It doesn't make the process any less of a component, it's just "something other than people".

When a person is in a government organization they have effectively zero lattitude to change it, they are a functional component that are either a tool that can be used or a problem that has to be solved all the way up the management chain to the executive. And even the executive has to make a government department function according to the articles of law that enacted it. Even the one person left who can change it, government minister or congresscritter, *still* has to act within the legal functional requirements of the Department. This covers the entire scope of your question.

A government department is a legal entity as much as a corporation is a legal entity as much as a person is a legal entity. If you choose to have a simpletons view of the world, that's fine. It won't change because you don't understand it.

Are you even vaugely serious. Have you ever read a peice of legislation longer than 10 pages in its entirety? The entire legal system is made up of words that can have you executed in some places. That's real, there is a legal process that dictates people to behave as functional components in an organization and act in a specific role.

Look, I only answered your question because I though your sig was fairly on the mark. However even government departments form components of the "system" you are describing.

Your mindset blames the people who need a job not the people that can resolve the functional issues of government. By all respects you should get this and I fucking truley regret trying to gently answer your question in a way that didn't make you look like a complete fucking idiot.

From the moderation, it suggests that pretty much the rest of slashdot gets this but I'll correct you grammar and answer it in the closed narrow way you need it answered:

Are government's and their poorly organized systems, comprised of something other than people?

Yes.

Stop being a fucking pedantic idiot. You asked:

Are governments and their poorly organized systems comprised of something other than people?

I answered processes. They're also comprised of legislation, mandates, buildings and chairs. All of these things were made by people however that is not what you asked. Under such ridiculous pedantry I could answer atoms, quarks and energy which would give you an accurate answer, just not a particularly useful one based on a reasonable supposition of what is meant by 'what a government department is comprised of'.

In a word, Processes. People are just the components it's the processes and procedural rules that determine the behavior orf the system - poorly organized or not.

Anyway, I think Australia would really benefit from this concept.

No, we don't really. Existing Uranium mining operations recently allowed a 2 million litre spill of radioactive concentrated sulphuric acid to spill into a world heritage national park. Extensive radionuclide handling in an area that is also a large food bowl for the world would not really be a good idea. Infrastructure operations of that kind are an accident waiting to happen. Any enrichment occurring on our soil would also make us a target and increase the already large intelligence apparatus that operates here.

They need to get it approved just once (scale won't influence the rate of NIMBYism, those opposed to the repository would oppose it at any scale),

Well I oppose it and uranium mining because the incompetence of the mining industry getting yellowcake and having industrial accidents where they just say "sowwy" and continue on mining as if nothing happened continues. Given that why should I expect any more than that. They already conduct acid leach mining here which is illegal in the US and Russia - but no worries, just do it in Australia because they're ignorant pie eaters that wouldn't care anyway. Fuck that, I care, we were forced to mine yellow cake and now the world wants to send it back because Dixie Lee Ray was full of shit.

My concern is that Australia is the driest continent in the world and the water table our farmers use would be put at extreme risk from such a proposal so there are plenty of sensible reasons to object to this proposal. *ANY* accident would expose all Australians to radioisotope analogues. Sea transport of the many thousands of tons of this material would also introduce the risk of shipping accidents and security hazzards in transit. So calling it NIMBYism is just a way of making excuses for not knowing all the issues and I'm fairly certain you are reasonable enough to recognise there are more than just the issues I've mentioned here.

they'll get a HUGE amount of income for little work,

Our other markets dwarf this, we just don't need it.

and they'll pretty much have nuclear power suppliers held hostage thereafter, as none are going to want to go back to having to try to get local permission to build a repository after their public has been told that it wouldn't happen.

So why on earth would you let it come into my realm. If it does, I will lobby harder than ever to put staggeringly unfair prices on accessing these facilities. Besides why would the countries give up their fuel reserves to Australia when they can use them, themselves? Hawke is just playing a role put to him by S er co so that they get a return on the rail line infrastructure they built through the dead heart. Waste arrives in Adelaide or Darwin, travels by rail to where ever the waste goes.

Aboriginals have final say about what is done with their land, but a "intervention" a few years ago change their legal title on the land so the government can now *tell* them they are getting a spent fuel repository. So plenty of profit for everyone else except the Australian tax payer - so no thanks.

And they'll have a tremendous resource for any sort of future isotope or fuel refining that might prove economically viable. I mean, imagine that... picture having all of the world's spent fuel, and then having a technical solution or geopolitical situation that makes it cheaper to get fuel from the waste than to mine new uranium. You're suddenly the near-exclusive nuclear fuel supplier to the entire world. Or supplier of medical isotopes, or isotopes for goods irradiation, or whatever else the future may demand.

Well, so what? We already are a near-exclusive nuclear fuel supplier to the entire world (I think South Africa is another) and we maintain on small 10 megawatt reactor for doing those other things so there is no real benefit.

America would do far better for handling this properly because you have Granite mountains that have been geologically stable. Why wouldn't America just build the facility that Yucca tries to be so that she can still have access to her fuel reserves.

Right now it looks as though Australians, many of whom objected to uranium mining in the first place because they feared the things that have now eventuated are now being asked to take this material back in a highly toxic form to maintain the rest of the world voracious energy consumption.

It's just a bad idea, but one that corporate interests are using mouth pieces like Hawke for so it looks like a fait accompli has gone through due process.

Given that what the GP said is true, that there is no evidence that praying makes any difference whatsoever, it would make more sense to instead spend the time doing something that does make a difference. If all the hours wasted in the world praying, and going to church were instead spent helping fix an elderly neighbours fence, doing a charity run, or learning about medicine to become a doctor, the world would be a whole lot better place.

It seems fitting to point this out: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/art...

"It's not that your wrong, it's just that when every response to emotion is biochemically and electrically analysed, we will all still be human beings, and the suffering or joy won't be anly less real. Is there anything wrong with praying because you are happy or grateful?"

I think I can answer this. Yes, there is. You see, people pray because they want to pretend they're doing something good, they want to satisfy themselves that they're achieving something.

keh? So just to get this clear, you object to someone spending their time praying because they are happy or grateful. Have you considered that that statement is quite ridiculous.

Effectively it's an excuse you give to yourself to either give credit to yourself for doing something you didn't, or because you can't be arsed to do anything more worthwhile.

Would you be refering to my prayers for strength to make it to the end of three hundred pages of anti-terrorism legislation and have enough energy to write letters to politicians to lobby the impact out of it in defence of my fellow citizens human rights?

So by what ethical framework are you judging what is worthwhile?

And who the fuck are you to judge me?

Given that what the GP said is true, that there is no evidence that praying makes any difference whatsoever, it would make more sense to instead spend the time doing something that does make a difference.

Well it isn't given, it's just an assumption, however I'll be happy to review any peer-reviewed science you can supply.

If all the hours wasted in the world praying, and going to church were instead spent helping fix an elderly neighbours fence, doing a charity run, or learning about medicine to become a doctor, the world would be a whole lot better place.

What about feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, diseased, alcoholics, domestic violence victims and so on. For all of the hypocrisy of the catholic church it engages in many acts of charity on a day to day basis as an institutionalised organisation. Newsflash: They all pray.

So yes, praying is a bad thing, it is selfish self-appeasement that uses up time that could instead be invested in real actual genuinely good causes that actually make people's lives better, rather than exist just to pretend you're making someone elses life better.

You mean, like TV?

It's an excuse for inaction, or for assuaging guilt and nothing more.

Perhaps for some, for others it is the opposite. I've found people to be incredibly variable.

Then perhaps I might elaborate on my trolling. Yes, I'm an asshole.

Yes you are, but it doesn't mean you have to be cruel as well because you certainly aren't being kind.

Sometimes that is what is needed.

Tell that to someone who is completely broken, alone and tortured by circumstances, or in some cases, actually tortured. Your words would offer them nothing and the world has become a little uglier for you having uttered them. I pray people mod you down, but, I'll probably be modded down for that.

Prayer is not just some harmless little habbit. It's woo. One of a large number of similar superstitions. While many may have conviction in the power of prayer, every scientific investigation and even just basic common sense says it does squat.

It's not that your wrong, it's just that when every response to emotion is biochemically and electrically analysed, we will all still be human beings, and the suffering or joy won't be anly less real. Is there anything wrong with praying because you are happy or grateful?

Common sense is subjective for an individual.

People *die* because they trust in the power of prayer rather than medicine, just as they die because they get suckered into homeopathy or crystal healing or a hundred other piece of nonsense. Worse, children die because their parents are convinced of the power of prayer.

Well if someone's prays for healing comes in the form of medicine or technology and they refuse it then they are just ignorant fools. If some charlatan convinces someone they have a cure when they don't then that is immoral and sometimes criminal and should be persued as such. If a child's life is on the line when there is the means to save a life then that is also a welfare matter.

This scientifically-nonsensical rubbish needs to be pointed out.

Well you may think it is an intelligent thing to say, however it isn't a very wise thing to say. There other other bodies of knowledge besides science. Science has not even explained 'consciousness' yet, prayer is probably still something that is beyond testing as I can really see you developing a way to measure sincerity.

What are you going to do walk up to someone who has lost a loved one, or is praying for this ninth lung operation to stabilise enough for a lung transplant, or a domestic violence sufferer or one one else in a fucked up situation to rate the effectiveness of thier prayer on a scale from one to ten.

It doesn't matter if it is scientifically proven or not.

Your opinion on the matter is as frightening as any Islam, Christian or Jewish fundamentalist. Rabid Fundamentalist Dawkinism.

It's followers need to be challenged into providing verifiable, repeatable, non-cherry-picked evidence in support of their superstition - and, if no such evidence can be provided, then the followers need to be convinced of their error.

Then why don't you fork out some cash from your own pocket to defend human rights issues? Answer the prayers around the world for people suffering under tyrants and you will have your evidence. Go answer the prayers of those who are starving or sleeping in the rain and you will have your evidence. They prayed you would be magnanamous and stop being, as you described yourself, such an asshole.

And if they remain convicted in spite of all evidence to the contary then it is the duty of all right-thinking people to make a mockery of them, so that others may see the error before they too fall prey.

Sometimes all that is needed to give a person the will to survive is prayer. Would you make a mockery of a torture or war survivor who said they prayed a deal with god so that they could live?

Prayer is something of an odd case, in that even those who claim to believe in the power usually act as if they do not. They will pray for their loved one's to be healed, but take them to the hospital regardless.

Because they are not idiots. After that they pray nothing will go wrong in the surgery, that the doctor won't make a mistake, that it will be a success and they keep praying whether their loved one lives or dies. If they pray for an answer and it came then you would be stupid to ignore it. That's just stupid.

There are a few exceptions who die for their superstition, but these are the exception.

Well that is the definition of a fundamentalist. Will you kill me for my superstitions, like a fundamentalist would?

That does not excuse prayer: It only makes the error more apparent.

Your entire post smacks of the kind of moral superiority that has started many a murderous religious crusade.

and Drop Bears, hideous, sneaky, Drop Bears. It's cruel to convince people, especially tourists, that they don't exist. It just makes them prey.