See my previous reply but it's a matter of degree. Asking folks to stay at home is of a lesser degree than forcing them to vaccinate. On the one hand you're asking them to curtail certain social behaviours, on the other you're asking them to involuntarily influence the very makeup of their bodies. Given that our bodies are an extension of ourselves, that's a higher bar to overcome. As part of our very existence we acknowledge the presence of a boundary which is "us" versus "not us".

If you see humans as without self, and believe that identity is an illusion, then asking folks to disregard the bodies they inhabit probably does seem like a reasonable ask. But if self isn't important, then what does any of it matter? Without self, then you might as well let people die if it doesn't matter anyway.

If you believe that your life, if anyone's life, is important then you have to acknowledge the value of the concept of 'self'. And our sense of self is very intimately entwined with our bodies. If someone was to cut off your arm, would you take it personally? Or would you say, "that's part of the machine I inhabit. It was the result of cellular growth over a period of years which resulted in an appendage which I found useful"?

I'm not here to argue which is right, because those sort of thoughts are not the type which occupy an everyday person's existence. At the end of the day, it's important to recognize that the vast majority of the population at large recognizes their bodies as part of themselves. Which makes forcing them to modify their bodies a very very large ask, one which shouldn't be taken lightly.

Two things come to mind at this point:

1. I've formulated a very strong anti-vaxxer argument. Which, as someone who doesn't want to be plagued by disease that's avoidable through vaccination, makes me wary of the effect of this argument.

2. There's no doubt that vaccinations benefit us all. And the science says that vaccinations are not the equivalent of cutting off one's own arm, by and large they are safe and a benefit not just to society as a whole but to ourselves and our families as well.

I believe that most anti-vaxxers are proceeding from a sense of, "if everyone else believes, I don't have to, herd immunity will cover it and I can remain cautious and let everyone else take the risk."

Which, to a certain point, doesn't affect the rest of us at all. If the percentage of anti-vaxxers is below the level required to reach herd immunity then honestly we really shouldn't care if they defer, as long as the quantity of those that defer remains safe for the rest of us.

This makes vaccinations a balance between allowing people to respect the sanctity of their bodies and not allowing their numbers to materially affect the numbers required to reach herd immunity.

So it comes down to a bet.

Do you believe that:

1. Despite education, the number of people resistant to the vaccine will cause our population to fall below herd immunity, making it reasonable to forcibly require them to violate the sanctity of their bodies and hence create precedents with far reaching ramifications. See: my previous example from my other post, in addition to arguments about abortion, and so on.

or

2. We can educate enough of the populace to reach herd immunity, retain the idea that our sense of self includes our bodies, and maintain a critical part of personal freedom which allows us to enjoy life on a level that we wouldn't without it?

Given that 83% of people believe the measles vaccination is safe (source: https://www.washingtonpost.com...) I am willing to throw in with the second option. I believe that you will have a further bump with the fact that practically the whole US population is being exposed to very scary news about the virus, but even if you disregard that bump, an 83% herd immunity would result in an R0 (measure of transmissibility of the virus) of 5.88 (herd immunity = 1-1/R0). In a review of papers from densely populated China, estimations of R0 average 3.28 with a median of 2.79. In most areas of the United States, common sense tells us this number is likely much lower. That is a very comfortable margin and unless you believe that only 69.5 percent of folks would get the vaccination (to use the more conservative average number from a dense population: 1-1/3.28 = .695), then you have to err on the side of protecting individual rights. That's a very conservative scenario, mind, and the margin is probably much much safer than that for a place like the United States.

I hope this comment illustrates that even if you acknowledge the value of vaccinations in herd immunity, the likelihood that any sort of anti-vaccination sentiment would have a material impact on society's safety is very low. In light of that, it's important to not set dangerous precedents when it comes to any impingement upon what you consider to be your self.

That sort of thing is insidious, and same same to making it illegal to not get vaccinated. I don't know what logical fallacy that represents, but these sorts of things are the entrances to the slippery slopes that folks worry about. If you apply that same logic to something you personally don't want to do, maybe that helps to envision why it's a bad idea. Maybe in absence of my knowledge of the full catalog of fallacies we can just call it "the transitive property of totalitarianism".

As an example, maybe you'd be really against anyone reading your thoughts. Or your diary, if that makes it more real. You can't just say, "ok, we'll make it so you can't file your taxes unless law enforcement gets to read your diary." If everyone kept diaries (make that another requirement), and we let law enforcement read them all, surely that would reduce societal harm. If everyone was forced to keep a diary, and it was compulsory to share them with law enforcement, clever folks, not to mention natural language AIs, could detect a lot of potential crime before it happened. But even though it wasn't encoded in our constitution, we as human beings have some sense of privacy and it would be the rare person that would voluntarily submit to such a thing. If it was compulsory we as a society would be made very uncomfortable and our personal standards of ethics would not identify such a thing as just, even if the punishment wasn't jail but rather not being allowed to file taxes. As human beings, we consider our bodies to be pretty sacrosanct. It doesn't feel right to let another human being take control of our bodies, just as much as it doesn't feel right to let them read our minds.

If the goal is to get folks vaccinated, there are much better ways that respect their boundaries. Certainly education is a great one. Remember, we don't actually need *everyone* to get vaccinated for a vaccination effort to work, thanks to herd immunity. There will be some holdouts, but if you can get enough folks to vaccinate then it will be effective. My presumption, and this is admittedly non-precise due to R0 not being fully understood (which effects the percentage required to reach herd immunity and which in and of itself is affected by other behaviors), is that society can get enough folks educated on why it's important to vaccinate for vaccinations to be effective. Especially when we're looking at a threat which is so present in folks' minds due to 24/7 injection of information about what the situation is surrounding this virus.

I write this as one who takes advantage of every vaccine available, so don't take this as an anti-vaxxer argument. Instead, it's an argument that acknowledges each and every human being's personal sovereignty and suggests that there's a better way to approach this that still achieves the goal but doesn't create dangerous precedent :)

What is with the Elon Musk/Ironman comparisons? Last article that I read about the guy, the reporter implied that the Ironman character was BASED on Musk (nevermind that Ironman has probably been around for longer). It almost makes one wonder if he is trying to encourage the comparison, especially with lame videos like the one from TFA. Maybe he's suffering from some grand delusion. Eh, at any rate it's good for an eyeroll or two.

eh, who knows.

Just hack a standalone callerid box. Most of the callerid chips interface over spi, i2c, or the like. No need to involve a full-on modem.

[redacted] concluded the interview by stating that even though he does not consider Mr. Jobs to be a friend, he (Mr. Jobs) possesses the qualities to assume a high level political position. It was [redacted]'s opinion that honest and integrity are not required qualities to hold such a position. [redacted] recommended him for a position of trust and confidence with the government.

That quote alone is awesome on so many levels I can't even begin to describe the joy and mirth I experienced while reading it.

Untrue. The "good ol' boy" networks exist, but in this case the government has long had restrictions on what a bank's balance sheet needs to look like to stay in business. Yes - the buddy can loan Mr. Pennybags money at 1% but he would have to make up that income elsewhere by loaning everyone else money at 15%. No banker I've ever dealt with would do such a favor for any client, regardless of net worth.

Also - it used to be that people would try to skirt the issue by transporting said aircraft to Oregon or whatever tax-friendly state it was registered in on December 31st, and that was enough to satisfy the tax man. However, in recent years this strategy has become much more risky since governments have gotten wise to this tactic.

Most of the Gentoo mocking comes from the fact that it's liked by the same people who have transparent windows in their computers with UV-reactive liquid coolant, but it does have its place. I gave an employee an assignment to build a Gentoo system because it was a good way for them to get hands-on experience with the internals of Linux and the command line. Not something you get from installing the latest Ubuntu distro.

I have actually been pretty impressed by the shift in Microsoft's attitude regarding malware in recent years. Not only are vulnerabilities handled more transparently (though, I suspect, not as transparently as they could be), but they've taken an aggressive stance in going after those like botnet providers who are exploiting the exploits. Seems like they finally woke up to the fact that vulnerabilities actually detract from the value of their product.

fricken laser beams?

Even if you could get him on the phone, he'll never get past the tractor beam. Unless Obi-Wan is nearby, in which case - leave it to him.

Just call R2-D2, he'll make the precise location appear on the monitor.

As another poster mentioned, these are hard to beat. Lots and lots of adapters available, decent software, USB, fast, process just about anything. Mine ran me about $125.

Well it is in this country anyway where we don't have an Autobahn to make use of all that excessive horsepower. Instead, we have to get our kicks from stoplight races where torque plays a much larger part. :)