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Comment Re:The "tax excuse" for not adapting (Score 1) 210

Am I being pedantic if I point out that Amazon is not getting out of paying sales tax, it is getting our of being an unpaid collector of sales tax from the buyers on behalf of the state they live in? Collecting sales tax people owe is a service, and has costs (1800 odd sales tax jurisdictions in the US, if I recall correctly, since each town in a county can add their own local sales taxes). Should a state be able to force someone with no presence in the state, who uses no state service, to become an unpaid contractor for the state?

Comment Re:Natural Selection? (Score 1) 639

Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection.

Hmm. I have Diabetes. I am myopic. By natural selection alone, I would be dead. I use glasses (in violation of the fitness rule) to improve my sight. I use (gasp) drugs to fight natural selection and live.

Everytime you go to a doctor and take medicine, arguably that militates against natural selection.

Unfortunately, we have gotten rid of a lot of diseases and phisical handicaps as selection criteria - but others, often overlooked, have come into play. Selection does not necesarily require the adult organism to die, merely not reproducing, or reproducing less fecundly than other seegments of the population or species, can drive selection too. Just check out the figures corelating birth rates and poverty, or birth rates and education to see what is being selected for modern homo sapiens

: If you want a child so badly, lady, go ADOPT ONE.

I think either you have a poor idea of the biological imperative that drives us, or you are delibrately ignoring it for the sake or argument. A desire to have ones genes (or genes close to ones own) to propogate in the gene pool is built in, and far stronger than you give credit for.

What is so wrong about going this route as opposed to paying thousands for a procedure like this? You help a child already alive, and more importantly, you give that child a chance to have a better life, and that is what it's all about.

Atruism is not a survival trait. That is not to say it is not laudable, however, basic human nature, one of the very things that allows us to survive as a species, is enlightened self interest. So I don't think giving a organism carrying none of my genes a better life is what it is all about (but feel free to continue to believe that, all the better for my offspring).

Before y'all jump on me with a flame thrower, I do agre that slefishness needs be moderated with concern for the needs of the herd as well -- humans are not solitary animals, we would have far lower standards of living without division of labour and cooperation. (Also, people may argue that if society did not provide medicine, hospitals and shelter for folks like me who are quite obviously unfit to survive on our own (I would make a lousy hunter gatherer), we could use the resources to better use for folks deemed better investment in the future). Adopting children and caring for the less fortunate in society strengthens it (again, better chances for my offspring/genes to survive). But It is not the only thing that matters.

I guess I should pull on the absestos underwear now

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