159 thoughts on “Admitting Mistakes”

  1. Alan Fox said:

    OK I see plenty of guns on display at airports now when visiting but it is possible for a society to survive where there is no right for private citizens to possess firearms.

    Of course society can “survive” .. but as what, ultimately? Here’s a brief history on gun control and the genocide that quickly ensued:
    http://www.mercyseat.net/gun_genocide.html

    Without private ownership of guns, what is the deterrent to tyranny? Tyranny is also a form of society; does that make it acceptable?

  3. William J. Murray: but as what, ultimately?

    As the one I live in, for instance, where the thought of having a gun in the home is beyond strange. O, there are criminals out there, and some of them have guns. But still gun-related incidents are so rare that every one of them makes the front page days in a row. Most of us here fail to understand what exactly it is that the NRA-clique in the States are getting so worked up about. To us it sounds like you all want your coats lined with plastique and live detonators – no, not to blow stuff up, but to prevent stuff from being blown up. Crazy.

  5. William J. Murray: Without private ownership of guns, what is the deterrent to tyranny? Tyranny is also a form of society; does that make it acceptable?

    I can only add that no UK private citizens routinely own or carry firearms and the UK has not so far descended into tyranny.

  6. Gralgrathor: As the one I live in, for instance, where the thought of having a gun in the home is beyond strange.

    I live in France now, and, though the firearms restrictions are not as stringent as the UK, gun crime and accidents are infrequent enough to make the papers. You’re from mainland Europe, I think, too?

  9. William J. Murray,

    Followed your link, William. That’s one scary site. The authors claim Nazi Germany is the best example of where gun control led to genocide. I’ve never heard that argument before. I’ll try and read through the article as it relates to Nazi Germany but I’m already wondering why Germany today, having some of the strictest controls on guns and other weapons has not therefore descended into tyranny.

  10. Richardthughes: Democracy, enfranchisement.

    A reasonably fair society helps, too. Change such as peaceful or violent revolution can be triggered when a population (or a large enough fraction) finds life so unfair that they will risk action against stability.

  13. Followed your link, William. That’s one scary site. The authors claim Nazi Germany is the best example of where gun control led to genocide. I’ve never heard that argument before. I’ll try and read through the article as it relates to Nazi Germany but I’m already wondering why Germany today, having some of the strictest controls on guns and other weapons has not therefore descended into tyranny.

    I guess that depends on what you call tyranny.

    “When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley. – George Carlin

    When the tyrannical ideology is infused in every aspect of the culture, from movies to music to TV, to what is reported and what is not, to how it is spun regardless of the facts (as with so-called “gun control”); when having some views is considered a hate crime and expressing personal biases and opinions in your own home can force you out of business, you may not even recognize the tyranny you live under – especially when you have been trained since birth to think along the lines of the status quo.

    Caste systems have been in place in some countries for hundreds (if not thousands) of years; we would probably all consider this a form of tyranny. Millions lived under the rule of kings and monarchs for hundreds of years, their best dream to be of a wise and even-handed ruler instead of a cruel and despotic one. Would those that lived under the rule of a wise and beloved monarch consider their situation to be one of tyranny?

    Here in the USA, our forefathers left England and went to war for independents because they couldn’t stand the tyranny of government rule, good or bad. Perhaps that explains the difference between cultures; some people require being ruled, being told by a monarchy of some sort what they can and cannot do. This why the USA was founded on the concept of unalienable rights that even the government cannot broach.

    If there is nothing beyond the jurisdiction of the government, then all you can have is tyranny of some sort or another, even if it is smiley-faced tyranny most can live with.

  15. keiths:

    Even Alan admitted that the behavior of the sterile castes has a genetic explanation:

    Indeed they are 0.75 related to each other so the behaviour makes sense “genetically”.

    Alan:

    Whoa there trigger! Note those scare-quotes. It’s an empty phrase unless you can explain what a genetic explanation is in comparison to an explanation.

    Alan,

    You asked for Joe’s assessment, and he gave it:

    Soldier ants or soldier termites do not behave as they do because they inherit the behavior (let alone the morphology) culturally. Their actions and morphology are phenotypes that are coded by genes, expressed in the context of the environment.

    That is a genetic explanation, no scare-quotes required. It’s time to accept your mistake and move on.

    Remember what Dobzhansky said. All biology is evolution.

    That isn’t what Dobzhansky said.

  16. FWIW, I think you should put the rest of Joe’s remark there–you know, the part that indicated you were clearly wrong.

  17. Here, I’ll do it for you:

    However that is not to say that their genes differ from those of their worker sibs. It is fairly clear that they do not differ in any particular way. They are thought to be random members of the pool of sibs. The chemical signals that lead them to become soldiers are not well understood, but it is clear that they differ in morphology and behavior as a result of those signals, starting from the same genotypes as their worker sibs.

    That part mysteriously disappeared from your little excerpt above. I’m sure that was just an oversight though.

  18. BTW, as we’re continuing with your nonsense, I have two questions for you. One, I’ve already asked you, but you didn’t answer it.

    Did you or did you not realize that I had clearly indicated that I was NOT calling for additional moderation when you (twice) subsequently posted that I was?

    And also this (which, if it is too complicated a distinction for you, let me apologize in advance): Can you tell the difference between someone saying that (i) this site should have more intensive moderation than it does; and (ii) and someone saying that on his/her own site, he/she would moderate it more strictly than is done here, without calling for more moderation here at SZ?

    Please read that closely, tell me if you can understand the difference, and then go back and read all the bullshit links you posted on this subject above and see if they still make sense to you.

    And, btw, you could try ‘Rapunzel’ for my name, but I bet you’d just be wrong again.

  19. walto,

    Your obsession is getting the best of you.

    Joe didn’t contradict himself. None of what you added is in conflict with his earlier statement:

    Their actions and morphology are phenotypes that are coded by genes, expressed in the context of the environment.

    As I said, the behavior of the sterile castes requires a genetic explanation.

  20. walto,

    Can you tell the difference between someone saying that (i) this site should have more intensive moderation than it does; and (ii) and someone saying that on his/her own site, he/she would moderate it more strictly than is done here, without calling for more moderation here at SZ?

    Sure, I can tell the difference.

    Look at the comments of yours that I linked to. They are all about moderation here at TSZ, not at your hypothetical site. That includes your strange suggestion that moderators should insert bolded orange comments into people’s posts.

    Your comments, your responsibility.

  22. You could try ‘Rumplekudzo’–but you’d just be wrong AGAIN! It’s kind of amazing how one person can be so consistently wrong about pretty much everything he posts here. Defies the laws of probability almost.

    You have to be trying. Admit it.

    Edit: oh, and you still didn’t answer my first question. Will we get a lie there or just another ‘inaccuracy’?? Is that question too hard for you as well?

  23. I’m sorry, all, to be so obsessive about this, it’s just that I do soooo love a cheerful acknowledgement!

    Edit: BTW, regarding the orange thing you like to link over and over, I’m guessing you must have missed this subsequent post of mine about it:

    Alan Fox,

    Alan Fox: Seriously, I couldn’t contemplate such a move.

    That’s OK, my suggestion wasn’t really in earnest. I was really just trying to make a point about the impossibility of demarcating all the types of objectionable behavior while simultaneously tweaking someone who posts a lot here.

    Please continue to post links of our conversation, because I’ve clearly forgotten some of the best stuff. There are about three more places on that page where I say I don’t actually want more moderation. Keep the bullshit coming!!

  24. Christ, Walt.

    Your comments are your responsibility, whether you like it or not.

    If you want to avoid this kind of embarrassment in the future, then think before you click ‘Post Comment’.

  26. William J. Murray: I guess that depends on what you call tyranny.

    “When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley. – George Carlin

    Which belies your fantastical idea that personal armaments are a “deterrent to tyranny”. Who are you going to shoot? Some sneaker-wearing geeks at Stanford who have just invented the most recent algorithm for crowd surveillance?

    The gun fondlers don’t have any legitimate targets. There’s no one for them to aim at. Do the gun fondlers really think that picking off a state representative here, a couple of cops there, is going to help in any way? It’s not as if they’re even smart enough – or organized enough – to have a program of targeted assassination that might possibly lead to a difference in public policy.

    You’re never going to have enough personal firepower to win a face-to-face showdown with the local law enforcement, much less with the faceless geeks in the corridors of Koch Industries, Google, or the NSA.

    When the tyrannical ideology is infused in every aspect of the culture, from movies to music to TV, to what is reported and what is not, to how it is spun regardless of the facts (as with so-called “gun control”); when having some views is considered a hate crime and expressing personal biases and opinions in your own home can force you out of business, you may not even recognize the tyranny you live under – especially when you have been trained since birth to think along the lines of the status quo.

    Caste systems have been in place in some countries for hundreds (if not thousands) of years; we would probably all consider this a form of tyranny.Millions lived under the rule of kings and monarchs for hundreds of years, their best dream to be of a wise and even-handed ruler instead of a cruel and despotic one. Would those that lived under the rule of a wise and beloved monarch consider their situation to be one of tyranny?

    Okay, and what does any of this admirable poetry have to do with “gun rights” or gun evil?

    Here in the USA, our forefathers left England

    Speak for yourself, white man.

    Not MY forefathers.

    I’m a USian, as patriotic as anyone else, and my ancestors were no friends of those who “left England” for the colonies.

    and went to war for independents [sic] because they couldn’t stand the tyranny of government rule, good or bad.

    Yeah, mebbe. Or mebbe it was because the founding fathers were terrorists who happened to get lucky with their insurrection in an era when the legitimate (British) government was encumbered with war elsewhere, and having eked out a victory, the former-terrorists now-the-new-government glamorized their side of the story. History is written by the victors.

    Perhaps that explains the difference between cultures; some people require being ruled, being told by a monarchy of some sort what they can and cannot do.This why the USA was founded on the concept of unalienable rights that even the government cannot broach.

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

    If not the king’s ministers, then the bureaucrats appointed by your elected representatives; if not the bureaucrats, then the worker bees in the back rooms of Koch, BofA, Catholic Health Association, News Corp.

    Who are you going to point your gun at? Who is a target worth shooting “as a deterrent to tyranny”?

    ETA: I want to make clear that “you” in the above is not addressing William as the “you” personally, but rather any typical gun fondler who claims that 2A-gun-rights are helpful for (current/future) anti-government/anti-fascist uprisings. I don’t believe that William spends any more time than I do thinking about who should be assassinated in the public interest, nor that he would actually target anyone in cold blood.

  29. hotshoe: ETA: I want to make clear that “you” in the above is not addressing William as the “you” personally, but rather any typical gun fondler who claims that 2A-gun-rights are helpful for (current/future) anti-government/anti-fascist uprisings.

    It’s bizzare. That there really are people out there (ammosexuals) that have drunk so deeply of the Alex Jones Inforwars cool-aid that they really think that the guberment is out to steal their guns so they can suppress you!

  30. walto:
    Christ, Walt.

    heh heh Walt heh.

    Thanks for the giggle.

    Oh, wait, am I not supposed to be giggling here?

    keiths Srs Bsns.

  33. keiths: But you still haven’t told us: do you prefer ‘walto’, ‘Walter’, or something else, like “Rumplekudzo”?

    If you have not worked that out by now, it is because of your communication problem.

  34. How about “The guy who the poster known as ‘keiths’ cheerfully asserts not to care if a few Yids get jailed for protesting the draft [because] they’re Yiddish-speaking, and socialists, and their liberties aren’t important the way [his] are”?

    Admittedly, it’s kind of long but it perfectly captures what you repeatedly insist is not an error. Everyone would immediately recognize me, anyhow.

  36. walto,

    Everyone would immediately recognize me, anyhow.

    That’s for sure. Everyone does immediately recognize that comments like that are walto comments, sui generis.

  38. petrushka,

    Peer review fail.

    Indeed. Neil doesn’t pay a lot of attention to his peers.

  39. hotshoe,

    Oh, wait, am I not supposed to be giggling here?

    No, please do! I like it much better when you are laughing as opposed to policing other people’s comments.

  40. “Talent borrows, genius steals” –
    I stole that from Oscar Wilde.

  42. William J. Murray: When fascism comes to America, it will not be

    It will be on the backs of those who promote the private ownership and use of guns. Madness. Simple madness.

  43. OMagain: the guberment is out to steal their guns so they can suppress you!

    You should see our gvt. Bunch of pathetic lame-asses. But they’re still not crazy enough to give voters the means to reduce the number of votes.

  44. OMagain: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/18/florida-dad-killed-by-neighbors-stray-bullet-as-family-welcomes-home-newborn/
    I’m glad I live far far away from the madness

    That news encapsulates every single thing wrong with the current NRA 2A-gun-rights stance.

    “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. Yeah, people with guns kill people. If the idiot neighbor had been sitting in his front room fondling his pocket knife, it wouldn’t have accidentally discharged into the home next door killing the new father. Sure, if the bad neighbor actually intended to murder the new dad, he could probably do it with a knife, or set the house on fire, or something … but only the massive overstock of guns in US hands can cause these daily “accidental murders” with such ease.

    Their spurious calls for more gun-safety training would not have helped one bit, either. Because drunk / drugged / clinically retarded / insane / juvenile / senile / anyone could be in a room with a gun and ignore whatever safety training they had received. “It wasn’t loaded” … “I wasn’t pointing it at him” … “I just dropped it and it went off” … Or, as this guy said, after saying he picked the gun up by the trigger “The damn gun doesn’t usually shoot[.] You have to squeeze the hell out of the trigger to shoot it.” Tell me how much gun-safety training is going to fix that kind of stupidity.

    Yeah, he didn’t mean to murder his neighbor. He didn’t personally kill his neighbor, his gun impersonally killed his neighbor. The only thing he had to contribute was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in guns-for-all America.

    And now at least three lives have been destroyed, the father’s and the surviving mother and baby’s.

    But we can’t even get guns out of the hands of known criminals because the procedures necessary to do so (registration, sharing background-check info among different law enforcement agencies, closing gun-show loopholes, etc.) are seen by the NRA nuts as abridging the “rights” of upstanding citizens to buy as many guns as they can afford. So they lobby “on principle” against even the most reasonable, most minimal regulations, and the net effect is that they’re advocating GUNS FOR ALL. More guns everywhere is always their answer.

    In exchange for their 2A-guns-deterrent-to-tyranny propaganda, the rest of us civilians have to put up with a top-ten rank in Unintentional Firearm-related Deaths worldwide. UFD in America is about a hundred times greater than Austria, Japan, Sweden, UK, etc. But no price is too great to pay for freedom, right?

    I don’t care if you want to hunt deer. Fine, go hunt. I don’t care if you want to train with a militia because you can’t trust the gubmint. Fine, go train. I don’t care if you want to use your gun to kill yourself. Fine, sorry, just get it over with. Just don’t take me – or any other innocents – with you when you do.

  45. keiths:
    hotshoe,

    No, please do!I like it much better when you are laughing as opposed to policing other people’s comments.

    Jesus fuck, keiths. Give it a fucking rest.

  47. Gralgrathor:
    Alan Fox,

    Netherlands. Sorry, have to go watch soccer now. Theyre up against the Aussies.

    Didn’t watch the match (I guess Football is more fun to play) but looks like you’re on a roll. Could it be this time at last?

  48. keiths: Remember what Dobzhansky said. All biology is evolution.

    That isn’t what Dobzhansky said.

    There’s a little error here, Keith. You might note the absence of a colon or quotation marks. certainly no blockquotes. Here is where I quote Dobzhansky. I was summarizing, not quoting. Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate the technique of “cheerfully” admitting a mistake when you have a moment?

  49. Alan Fox: Could it be this time at last?

    Probably not. But watching the game in town with loads of pretty young damsels drinking liberally is fun no matter how it all ends. Just as long as it doesn’t end too soon.

  50. Alan,

    I was summarizing, not quoting.

    Right, and I pointed out that your summary was incorrect.

    Dobzhansky said that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

    You said:

    Remember what Dobzhansky said. All biology is evolution.

    “All biology is evolution” doesn’t make sense. Dobzhansky was smarter than that.

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