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Comment Grand Cultural Errors (Score 1) 259

As early as the 1950s, critics of the establishment's public education system said its main purpose was to produce a contented and functional workforce. And they were right. They were so right that even they themselves did not understand the full implications: they were so right that it ultimately made them wrong. And then they won, and we are facing the consequences. Not just since 2013: Arne Duncan was indeed an unmitigated disaster for American education, but much of the problem is older than him. And no one is willing to admit that what came before worked better.

Submission + - Slashdot Alum Samzenpus's Fractured Veil Hits Kickstarter

CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus,who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!

Comment Re: One thing is certain (Score 1) 548

A large number of cases, huh? And what is that number, exactly? Have there been dozens of cases? Hundreds? Do you even know?

If you don't want to trust the FDA's certification of this medicine as safe when administered under a doctor's supervision, that's your prerogative. What about the WHO, which includes it on their list of essential medicines? What about the EU's regulatory bodies, who are famous (or infamous, depending on perspective) for their abundance of caution, yet also certify this drug as safe when used under a doctor's care.

There are cases where people have died, yes. Often it comes out that these people drank aquarium cleaner, having mistaken it for the drug (there is in fact one type with a similar-sounding formula). In other cases they overdosed, in yet others there were interactions with other meds, and in a few there were the QT problems that get so mugh hype. All of these could have been prevented if a doctor had been properly supervising the use of these drugs: the side effects you mention do exist and are no joke, but these cases are preventable. So let doctors supervise.

Comment Tough call (Score 2) 128

There's a lot to be said for a marketplace of ideas in which credentials cannot be abused because identities are hard to verify. However, anonymity itself is not immune to its own forms of abuse, and as this article points out, the abuse of anonymity has run so rife, with such devastating effects, that some compelling arguments can be made that it may very well not have been worthwhile on balance.

If there were an easier way to dox and shame the abusers of anonymity, it might go a long way toward addressing anonymity's problems. Abuse the privilege, lose the privilege, and potentially a lot more besides.

Comment Viewpoints (Score 1) 472

Part of the problem is that we don't really have a good grasp of how long it generally takes life to form. We have some sense of how long it took for us, but not much of a way to know if this is fairly average, or unusually fast or slow.

Of all the sentient species that will ever exist in the universe, one of them must have developed first. That could be us.

Comment Re: This is why ... (Score 1) 78

You teach people like people as long as they are willing to be taught like people, and you assume they're willing until proven otherwise. That is only decent and good. Duh.

But some people refuse to learn like people. Compassion is giving people what they need, which does not always mesh so well with what they want. If what they need are sterner measures, so be it. They need to learn.

Comment Hypersonic... glide? (Score 1) 189

Am I missing something here? How the heck do you sustain a glide at even supersonic speeds, to say nothing of hypersonic, for any length of time? Without any thrust to keep the vehicle accelerating past the limits of air resistance, shouldn't it get jolted back to subsonic speeds extremely quickly (and probably catastrophically, from the perspective of the vehicle and anything in it)?

Or is this good old Soviet (neo-Soviet?) engineering/ingenuity being put to work again?

Comment Re: Absolutely it would have (Score 2) 81

One could argue that the ties to real identity are exactly what make it social media: certainly your "avatar based social media" has not had the same kind of destructive effects, but one could argue that the fact of its basis in avatars disqualifies it as "social media" in the first place.

This isn't just snobbery. The reason you can't count avatars as social media is, in fact, the very same reason avatars don't have the same destructive effects as social media: it's all just pretend, and everyone knows it. The connecting power and destructive power of social media are inextricably linked to real identity, which avatars deliberately sever.

Comment Re: This is why ... (Score 1) 78

No, they do. They get their jollies from watching people in pain. It's pure sadism, nothing more.

Ever watch newborn puppies playing? It's not as cute as it sounds. There's yelping, and whimpering, and sometimes even blood, because the puppies haven't yet figured out that biting hurts. They don't learn except by being bitten. So, too, with bullies. Escalate as hard as you have to, and eventually they grow up and function.

Comment The inefficiencies of travel (Score 1) 153

3D is about immersing yourself in an illusory space. This works well for entertainment and certain specific kinds of education, but that's only a small part of what the Internet gets used for. Most of the time people are just looking to find and/or peruse information as quickly as they can. They aren't looking to be entertained, and so the illusion of moving them through space only slows them down for no real gain. You can circumvent this to a limited degree with teleportation, but this negates 3D's only real advantage anyway -you might as well be using 2D if you aren't going to be moving through space- so why bother?

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