But "strong privacy laws" don't prevent these documents from being created. It's idiots saving hard evidence of the crime, and no amount of legislation can teach people to be better criminals.
Which major extinction event? Do you really think this is an appropriate comparison to proven major extinction events of the past (e.g Chicxulub, 66 m. years ago)?
The human impact on biodiversity forms one of the primary attributes of the Anthropocene. Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction. Most experts agree that human activities have accelerated the rate of species extinction. The exact rate remains controversial – perhaps 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate of extinction.
It's not just a modern trend, either. Most of the North American megafauna went extinct ~10,000 years ago, around the time when humans first arrived on the continent. We lost the mammoth, mastodon, saber-tooth tiger, dire wolf, giant beaver, ground sloth and more.
New Zealand was the same. Humans arrived around 1300 and we lost the moa and Haarst's eagle (the world's largest flying bird) by around 1400.
Incidentally, the largest species of bird that ever lived was the elephant bird of Madagascar. It weighed up to 730kg (1600lbs) and stood 3m (10ft) tall. It went extinct around the year 1200.
There used to be a lot more interesting animals around, but our ancestors hunted them to extinction. Nobody misses them because nobody alive today ever had them in the first place.
It's sad, but even the extinctions of the coolest, most amazing creatures are quickly forgotten. When the giraffe or blue whale is gone, it will just be another story like the elephant bird.
> it will give scientists a much more accurate method of dating prehistorical events — the dates of fossils, for example.
> “The dream is have a framework independent of the fossils that you can plug the fossils into and see more interesting things — the coexistence of disparate forms, or of similar forms widely separated in location. Now we can place things more accurately in time rather than depending on the fossils to tell us what the time is.”
It's also fascinating to see how it was done:
>By comparing the amount of decay of uranium to that of lead trapped in zircon, the layers in the Arizona core can be dated quite accurately.
What do you mean by fundamental here? For studying astronomy at an university? Then yes, agreed, but I am wondering about the very basic understanding of the principles at all, are you implying that kids today don't learn this anymore? You know, what our solar system is, what the earth is, and it's, well, shape..
This particular cycle was not taught in the Astronomy PhD courses where I attended. Your comment near the top of this thread appears to claim that it's a part of 'basic astronomy'. That is not correct. The precession of the equinoxes is basic astronomy.
(Ha. Firefox's spellcheck doesn't have "precession" in it.)
Guess I should consider myself lucky that I had a physics teacher who taught us about the thing that we stand on and live on, what it is, where it is, what's around and how our solar system works.
Ha, I am really shocked now. Honestly, I can't believe this. I should probably not dare to ask someone on HN if they ever heard about the Milk Way or something.
You think this is equivalent to knowing about the Milky Way? You seem to have put some major significance on something that really has very little baring on our day to day lives. Im sure most countries teach a good deal about the solar system and the planets, It's taught at a very young age in the UK and its refined through the years of school to the point where you should have a good understanding of it all. But we never put any emphasis on this. You know why? Its irrelevant at that level. Unless you are studying for a degree or even higher this won't have any baring on what you are learning.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but if I recall it correctly, Jon Stewart made that name change himself (as your comment and linked source implies), while in Trump's case, it was not done by himself, it was something that his father had done in his life (or maybe even grandfather?).
That is something fundamentally different, but Last Week Tonight is just some comedy show, so one should not expect too much here.
Yes, obviously.
But I am honestly baffled here. I mean, when did anyone really seriously argue otherwise? Isn't that already universal knowledge what you are describing here?
(Well, depends a bit on the definitions, I'd still say that ants are organisms, but so is the ant colony, and yes, you always have to see the bigger picture)
I don't get what the NYT is trying to achieve with their "reporting" here.
(BTW, the title here on HN has been changed, for anyone coming a bit later to these comment threads)
> Isn't that already universal knowledge what you are describing here?
Not only is it not universal knowledge, there are substantial cohorts of people who will vehemently deny that it is true. In fact, there are people asking for additional evidence in other branches of this very discussion!
Nope, downvotes can be for many reasons, disagreement is not required to downvote. (I often downvote comments that I agree with and find non-useful in context, and upvote comments I disagree with but which contribute to productive discussion.)
You seemed to be implying magic by arguing against crime being caused by biochemical processes in the brain. As far as we know all human behavior ultimately boils down to stuff in happening in the brain and the brain is a biochemical machine.
That's quite a stretch to say that I would imply something like that.. You should read the original comment again. To which I was simply writing a reply.
I don't know, maybe you should have a talk with some post-structuralists, or with some other folks who seem to believe that xyz is a "social construct"..
I just extrapolated a bit too unconstrained maybe.
Okay, you can accuse me of erecting a straw man now.
But the thing is, I don't know how many times I've seen this (or very similar) debates unfold. Definitely getting a bit tired of it, to be honest. So I just though, why not skip ahead a bit, leave out some of the usual steps, you know?
no, that would be a different topic (although prisons are probably not the best way to introduce socially beneficial patterns into human mind, quite the opposite).
Whether or not you like the implications behind something doesn't make it less true. There is a book called 'Behave' written by Robert Sapolsky which lays out that human behavior is determined by the configuration of your brain, hormone levels, culture, the environment you were raised in, etc (basically all things over which you have no control).
For example, if you have an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex then you are going to be more impulsive and have a hard time delaying gratification. These people are way more susceptible to committing crimes and it is purely down to bad luck that they weren't born with the right genes (or had some sort of injury that damaged their PFC). Another example is if you have a smaller amygdala, you're going to have a higher pain tolerance and experience less fear than someone with a normal sized amygdala. Again, this can change your behavior quite a bit as you won't be able to relate to what the average person experiences when they are in pain. These people will have less moral compass than others.
With those things in mind, Sapolsky agrees that if an individual poses a threat to others, we should still lock them in prison for the good of society. But the more we understand what leads to human behavior, the more we're going to realize how many things are out of our control (almost all of it).
I'm not sure I follow what your argument is here? Just for your information, Robert Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist from Stanford who has been studying this exact subject for the past 4 decades. The book agrees with your point that looking for a single reason to explain human behavior is impossible and a lot of things contribute (hence why he covers so many determinants of behavior, such as what is going on in your brain, your genes, what is going on with your hormones, where you were born, how you were raised, etc).
I don't see why the nature vs nurture debate is stupid or why how old it is matters? Clearly both things determine human behavior. The main point to be made in Sapolskys book is that almost all determinants of your behavior are out of your control. You don't choose which country you're born in, what genes you have, whether your brain develops properly, whether your parents are kind people or terrible people, what neighborhood you grow up in, what race or gender you are. Perhaps you should read Sapolskys book.
I don't see how that follows. Just because things can be explained by biochemical processes doesn't absolve anyone of responsibility. Even if you assume a person's behavior is completely deterministic, without any free will at all, holding someone responsible for their actions is still the right thing to do. It might change how we should treat those individuals, of course, but it isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Do you mean that there's a biochemical "gene" (or similar) for behaving contrary to whatever someone believes is morally correct? Or that morality is an objective state?
They (downvoters) fail to realize that they are shooting the messengers, nothing more. But smart people understand. They know and will never cease to keeping them honest..
sometimes people asking leading questions that are a bit... let's say tired, aren't all that interesting. if there is a point to be made, they should just make it.
"smart people" (as you say) sometimes prefer forthright discussion.
Yeah, thanks. I am only trying to hint at the possibility that there are other avenues to consider than a simple "crime gene", ie. the answer is probably not as simple as the poster wants.
Genetics and the human body have proven to be increasingly complex.
You really believe that journalism was fundamentally different back then? You never heard that famous John Swinton quote before? I find that a bit hard to believe, actually.
"There is no such a thing in America as an independent press, unless it is out in country towns. You are all slaves. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to express an honest opinion. If you expressed it, you would know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, I would be like Othello before twenty-four hours: my occupation would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to villify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or for what is about the same — his salary. You know this, and I know it; and what foolery to be toasting an "Independent Press"! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the string and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
Here's another good quote, this one from A.J. Liebling:
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
We're definitely living that. One of the great lessons of 2016 for me was how much power is held by those who set the editorial policy of the most-read websites. The people who own the press...
A quote is not evidence, and Swinton died in 1901 according to that page. It tells us one person's perspective (in one moment) of journalism then, and tells us nothing about it now. Do we look at catchy quotes from professors in 1901 to learn what academia is like in 2018?
I find his quote believable, it jives with Noam Chomskys writings and talks on media consolidation and propaganda.
For what it's worth, looking at those catchy quotes from the past tells us how we got to today and why we are in the place we are. It's a very American conceit to dismiss the past as irrelevant.
