I think the school did exactly the right thing - deny that WiFi is harmful (the truth), but take it away anyway in order to appease these people.

Unless there were expensive consequences to leaving the WIFI there, for example a very expensive lawsuit, then no I don't think they did the right thing. Removing the WIFI is a tacit admission that concerns about WIFI are valid. All the parents, friends of parents, children etc all know that a school took WIFI out of classrooms because of concerns about cancer. I agree that sometimes very minor (pointless) concessions can be justified on compassionate grounds, however I think this kind of concession isn't as minor as you do.

It's a sorry state of affairs that 'how' we say something is important rather than only 'what' we say

Not really. The fact that it benefits an argument for it to be delivered clearly and politely isn't a bad thing unless you think a society in which such things are valued at all is a desirable outcome. What's sad is the people who occasionally have something worth sharing but are so completely unable to understand the need to be polite that they can't share it effectively.

Anarchists want an end to use of violence to get what you want.

Stop trying to redefine it. Anarchy is an incredibly vague notion, it means "without rulers", nothing more or less. Some 'anarchists' may believe that this will lead to less violence. Some may believe that it will better suit them. It doesn't really matter what motivates them because the term anarchist doesn't define it.

The vast majority of terrorist acts aren't perpetrated by groups looking for chaos; they have defined goals or believe they are at 'war' with the target. There might be some groups out there that just bomb stuff for shits and giggles but given the comparative rarity I say we wait until we've dealt with the rest first.

I agree with you. Though to be fair, it's probably a smarter waste of money to spend it on making your grid harder to break than some of the security nonsense billions is already being spent on.

It strikes me that probably the single biggest achievement of the security services has been to make it either too hard, or seem too hard, to get a group of like minded individuals together without the government being aware of them. Sure 20 individuals with time, money, expertise and planning could probably cause massive damage to the American economy via targeting the grid. Getting 20 individuals together and planning it without someone in the security services noticing? Not so easy.

Just look at the mess that European colonialism has made of India and Africa

Don't forget Canada and Australia... Oh wait, they don't fit your message.

America is populated by European colonial descendants (and the few natives who survived) as are most of the other first world ex-colonial countries. Which makes sense because, unlike in the middle-east, Africa, South America, South East asia where a small ruling elite of Europeans ran things then vanished at a time of conflict, the people and many of the people administering the country were one and the same.

Answer this question: Is there any data that you want to be **completely unavailable** to law enforcement with **proper warrant**?

Conversations with your lawyer are completely unavailable even with a proper warrant. We have an amendment specifically allowing me to refuse to answer questions that could incriminate me (in the US at least). Finally, if someone came up with a device that could read minds would you be in favour of the government being able to use it on people if they had a 'proper warrant'? Because currently any information in my head is completely unavailable unless I choose to disclose it (though it is a criminal offence to withhold it).

There were people smarter than you hundreds of years ago who knew that neither the military or law enforcement need to be able to use all means, so though you may think they do, that says far more about your inability to keep a rational perspective than any real security needs.

Your an AC posting about something not remotely controversial so you're either lazy or lying and I'll take your claim with a pinch of salt on those grounds. I don't think anyone is claiming that keeping the data available is either simple or cheap; but those points don't make it any less important. If the data a paper is based on isn't available then the paper itself loses value because anyone can write a paper showing anything and if they don't need to provide the data then it's much harder to investigate. You are absolutely right that simply having the data available isn't always enough to be able to use it, however we've also seen examples of where dubious or wrong mathematical methods being applied to data in academic research so it's important that information on this is available with the results of the research.

Even more reason for us to want it putting there. Publishing research based on falsified information should be a pretty major crime and shouldn't be tolerated. It misleads the public, wastes scientists time trying to build on it etc.

It's a perfectly effective store thanks. The money I didn't spend years ago went into savings and investments and is certainly worth more now than it was then in real terms. The fact BTC are seen as being more like gold, something to be hoarded, than a currency is a pretty clear indication that it isn't working very well as a replacement currency.

Pithy but complete nonsense ;)

The fact a compelling sounding but superficial argument can be made that libertarians are basement dwelling rejects it's painfully easy to do the same for other inclinations.

For example: Socialists are people who were so coddled as children by their parents that they are afraid, and don't have the understanding, to run their own lives so need a powerful parent figure to do the thinking and tell them what to do.

Now that's a load of bollocks with no evidence to back it up, exactly like the Libertarian example.

except it's a whole lot easier to carry and the government can't create more of it out of thin air (which is a good thing, if you want your money to have the same or better purchasing power tomorrow as it did today).

A pretty poor argument for bitcoin given the price volatility. The reason most of my investments aren't in gold is that I'm not interested in storing most of my wealth in an asset that will rise and fall based based on market conditions. I'm perfectly happy keeping my savings in a currency that deflates gradually, I can get 4-6% interest on money I don't need for a few years which I'm confident will match or exceed the loss of value due to inflation.

So you decide if deflation would be good for a while. (my opinion - we need a bit of both fluctuating around a nice balance to keep things stable)

I have. It would suck. The rich can avoid debt and sit on their wealth while it accumulates. The poor however can watch as their mortgage increases with value alongside their wages rather than gradually getting smaller. Deflation encourages hoarding wealth and inflation encourages investment and wealth creation. Ideally you don't want a huge amount of either, but a small amount of deflation is certainly better for the economy than deflation.

The idea that someone who owns a £10 million property would hate deflation is nonsense. If he thought that cash would get a better return than property he could sell the asset and hold cash instead. Look at the median networth of an American. It's pretty much sweet FA so who cares if their savings are going to go uup by a couple of % a year when their debts will as well and they often have debts that outweigh savings. Deflation is no use to anyone who isn't able to accumulate, or hasn't already accumulated, money.

The point of Godwinning references is that constantly comparing relatively minor infringements to mind-shatteringly large acts of inhumanity not only doesn't add to debates it quickly destroys them.

When I say something like "I don't think it is wrong for a country to have a leader with considerable powers" if the next response is "That's the sort of thing the NAZIS said, who are you hitler?" any reasonable discussion has ended.

Some events are significant enough that they rightly can be compared reasonably and maybe Godwin shouldn't be claimed in those cases, but until we get some relatively in internet discussions (lololololol) most comparisons to Nazism will be completely inappropriate and unhelpful.

Many people, especially younger people, have their desks in the same room where they sleep, and incidentally change their clothes or partake in other activities.

This. You're a student or a late teen kid at home. Chances are you have a laptop and use it in your 'room' the single room in the house or student accomodation that is yours. Unless you always shutdown your laptop before getting changed, coming back from a shower etc then invariably you're going to wind up undressed in the same room as a device with a camera. Sure you could always turn your laptop to face away but wouldn't it be nice if we could do something to stop the risk entirely rather than force everyone to be mega-paranoid about everything.