Low entry barriers = low profit margins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry

Links like that are the reason I read Slashdot.

Technically you are correct, but that's not the point. Assuming a normal distribution 68% are within one standard deviation of the mean. 95% within two standard deviations. Theoretically targeting the 50th percentile provides access to the largest possible market. In practice, I think Facebook games are aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Wikipedia does not have an encyclopedia article for Accumulation.

http://www.ted.com/talks/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html

For comparison, US consumers spent almost 10 billion in theaters and almost 9 billion on DVDs in 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704789404574636531903626624.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect

I guess you're all grown up now, secure and confident in your own unique identity. I think it's safe to say, you would not be the person you are now if you had not been able to privately explore the things you used to be ashamed of.

It's the stuff everyone else develops that you have to be suspicious of.

You're right, I'm totally taking it on faith that objective reality exists. Perfect accuracy does not have to be possible in order for it to be true that some perceptions are more accurate than others.

Take a ruler. Multiple people observe the ruler under various conditions. Very nearly all people agree that the ruler appears straight in almost all circumstances. Multiple people place the ruler next to the line and agree that the edge of the ruler and the line are a similar shape. The majority of observations that the ruler appears straight are more likely to be relatively accurate than the contradictory observation that the line appears curved. Probability can be calculated mechanically.

Perceived judgment is the same as perceived choice, or any other aspect of apparent free will. It doesn't eliminate the possibility of illusion. My point was not to argue which state is more likely, only to maintain that determinism is a logical possibility by correcting a misunderstanding about what an illusion is.

Actually war is not a very effective control on population growth. For instance in World War II 72 million people were killed. That's a lot of people, but still only about 3% of the people who were alive in 1940. In spite of all that killing, population grew by about 8% between 1940 and 1950.

I think starvation counts as a natural cause of death. Modern science is working on a "cure" for that too.

These abstract moral absolutes are more likely to exist in terms of efficiency than right and wrong. Cooperation is more efficient than fighting.

No, illusion is when perception does not accurately reflect reality. It does not imply choice. Take the Hering Illusion for example. The red lines appear to be curved even though they are actually straight. We don't choose to see the lines one way or the other. That's just the way we see them.

Of course it's obvious that we have free will. We make hundreds of choices every day. But the fact that free will is obvious does not eliminate the possibility that it could be an illusion.

There is no feeling quite like the one you get when a real person looks you in the eye and says "thank you". When you know they aren't merely being polite, that you've made a real impact on their life. It's like a drug. Those of us who know what that feels like crave more of it. Writing a check may be more efficient, but it doesn't produce the same feeling. Sure, it may very well be selfish to want to be there to hear that "thank you" in person. This is one case where I have no problem with selfishness.