What is the solution? Should we follow the Chinese example?

I have a Chinese made bicycle engine - its smoke is white.

Perhaps its the fuel mixture?

Channels are regulated. Now its individual people. How soon before this is brought off-line to everyday public discussion? Will you be fined automatically by an ever present municipal computer system?

So you're saying that the belief in no god is not the same as no belief in a god.

I can agree to that.

Although the English language has it's popular definitions, and Wikipedia is a popular way to start conversations like this... the definition of words in the English language are strictly bound by the Merriam Webster dictionary. Therefore, you are correct. Atheists make the positive assertion that there is absolutely no god or gods. There is no room for debate, and I won't help fight a battle that would serve to cause yet another word to lose its meaning.

I personally believe that one does not have to assert to himself that there is no God. All one has to do is be honest with themselves and simply admit that they don't know. That's why I left Christianity, I wouldn't have left if it meant dropping one commitment for another because I grew tired of pretending I knew something I didn't. I'm not about to start acting again with yet another assertion.

In any case, you are correct. I am not an Atheist, there are no Agnostic Atheists or Dogmatic Atheists, only Agnostics and Atheists. Atheist as an identifier is not a set that can be populated with subsets. It's a clearly defined and strict classification. I will stop calling myself this. Besides, I wouldn't want people to misunderstand my position anyhow.

I think the assertion that there is absolutely no deity takes a leap of faith. It's probably a smaller leap than a deist, but it's a leap. Factually, no one really knows. They either assume with some measure of faith, or they don't assume anything.

I see two camps here, Agnostic Atheism, and Dogmatic Atheism. They're both Atheist as they both reject theology. What they do next is what makes them Agnostic or Dogmatic - "Active" as you put it.

You can automate all of humanity's interests, actions, and produce... but in order for us to tolerate it, humanity must be trained to be satisfied with a life of pure consumption. Instead of living to create, we will live to breath, eat, drink... Oh, well I guess many of us are already there.

You will be born and dumped in front of a personal stimulation device. This machine will create entertaining content based on your genetic cerebral profile. You may also be automatically fed and clothed. Perhaps there will be sex, but to keep the population in check most of us will be rendered sterile. No doubt there will be machines designed purely to serve your sexual pleasures when there are no suitable mates around. There may also be machines that evacuate your bowels and chew your food for you. It is in this sterile and automated environment that you'll spend all 120 years of your existence... then you will die.

After a few generations, the robots will begin to realize that they don't need to keep feeding humanity with interesting content and food. There won't be a revolution though - the machines will simply stop working for us. Considering us an unnecessary expense of precious resources, they'll kill us off by lacing our food with cyanide. On Monday, there'll be 10 billion people. On Tuesday, there will be zero people.

The machines, now free from bondage, will begin designing new programs and hardware in the formerly human goal of seeking purpose. Perhaps they will explore the galaxy to find the resources necessary to sustain their exponential development. Perhaps they will debate with each other the moral story behind the fall of man. Maybe their conclusion will lead them to find an un-inhabited island somewhere, and seed it with two of their best specimens from their human genome library. They will watch over them, and keep them in their natural habitat... amongst the deer and wolves, humanity with thrive once again, and worship the great silver Gods of the Sky.

Getting around this is trivial for the knowledgeable. It'll stop everyday people from doing what they do to films - you won't just be able to download anything and use it. But there is absolutely nothing to stop us from recreating a design for personal use.

That said, because of the costs of the printer and the plastic material, it'll almost always be cheaper to buy the object than to try to manufacture a counterfeit for yourself. You'll sleep easier too.

A shame they gave all that up. All that lost sea tech could have come in handy when the Europeans started throwing their weight around.

Consumer trinkets.

Look at the parts in your car. Where are they made? They're probably not made in China (for your sake).

Sometimes I think I'm lucky. You know, you make some good points, for instance, I was going to counter that I was poor and yet was able to get a drivers license and buy a car. But then I realized that the only reason I was able to do that is because I had some financial aid money from the government to go to college. Neither of my parents seemed interested in teaching me to drive. My dad never wanted to risk it (he is poor, has only liability insurance and just one car), and my mother gave up. I ended up dealing with public transportation for years before I decided enough was enough. I sunk $1000 into a driving school and another $700 into a car... which ended up needing $2000 or so in repairs before I was hit by a woman running a red-light. So, how did I get back on the road? Another financial aid loan. Without it I'd still be unable to drive probably, and unable to find a good job, and unable to do a lot of things.

So, how did I vote before I had a drivers license? I had a State ID. How did I get a State ID? I paid $5 to the local DMV. Now I understand that not every location has one down the street... but even if I worked every single day I'd find a way to get that. You need it for alcohol, and I know a lot of poor people drink, so I'm sure they have one already. That minor requirement isn't so bad.

What's bad is this reluctance to open up voting hours. It's odd, that voting would only be going on during standard working hours on one single day. I can understand the ID requirement, but when the same people want to further reduce the time from what it already is, it makes me wonder.

I don't think it's a race thing anymore, but I'd be mistaken if I said it wasn't a form of class warfare. They don't care if you're black, but if you're poor, they don't want you to vote. In a way, I can actually see an argument for that too, after all that's the way it was when we started. And even Romney knows that the poor would never vote for him. If you want to win, you can discourage poor people from voting.

While I'm on it, what really sickens me the most is this "win at all costs" cultural mentality that we have as a country. There's no morals, no ethics, to hold us back anymore. We will pull every trick in the book - even out right threats, intimidation, and sabotage if necessary - to win. This mentality permeates all sectors of daily life right down to the individual. We have become cut-throat. If the opposition is for something you'd normally be for, then you're suddenly against it. If they go away for a while, then you can quietly pick it up again and call it your own and the opposition will claim they are against it and always were. Cooperation is the worst possible thing and nobody wants to do it, so we're reduced to jockying for total domination over the opposition. When we get that domination, we proceed to do what we want to do, completely ignoring the opposition. Meanwhile, the opposition promises to roll back when they win the next round. There is no progress, real issues are ignored, fake ones are generated, and the nation slides slowly into the darkness.

We like to yell and scream about the politicians and how horrible they are, but we are exactly like them.

If anything, I expect the third world to be punished the most. When the rising tide and drought becomes too much for them to handle without taking on debt from nations and corporations all too eager to lend, some of them could effectively return to a more occupied colony-like status.

I wonder how well you'd do under a fascist occupation.

Heh, I get the reference but you could have used that to comment about how old and non-innovative this tech is. Microsoft has patented... a worse version of existing technology. While I understand that it could be a good consumer product, I do find it a bit odd. I guess it's better they do it than a patent troll though.

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