271–280 of 520 posts
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In the future we might have array libraries that provide arrays that don't have the 4th element.
That's preposterous, they should just throw an UnluckyIndexAccessException depending on the host's locale.
I find the US prudishness thing so fascinating. I'm travelling at the moment, and meeting lots of Americans (and Europeans for contrast). There's definitely a huge difference in tolerance for swearing and blasphemy. Also several well-educated and seemingly intelligent Americans who hold strong racist opinions. But that's another subject. I guess it all comes down to the religion. Americans do seem to be more religiou…
What's your basis for saying that?
Certainly Song of Songs (in the OT) presents erotic intimacy in a positive manner, and does not to my recollection mention procreation.
In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious behavior, even if it is a small minority . For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them. The other community doesn't care. Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community; even if that community is small, it simply mak…
Exactly what is happening with planes. I'm still astonished every time I get into one and see the missing row 13. It's so ridiculous...
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Enjoying sex isn’t a sin. Sex is supposed to be held in the highest regard. It’s a wonderful and joyous thing. The point is, I believe, to avoid cheapening it, making it less than the truly awesome thing it is. It’s supposed to be a priceless gift shared with your true love. Packaging it and selling it makes it less valuable. I believe that if you approach the subject with that mindset, a lot of the decisions that so…
Replace "sex" with "food" and you just described French culture.
Hypocrites.
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It's not superstitious, it's a measure of caring. The superstitious in this case care very strongly about not having black doors, and they vote with their wallets. The other folks do not give a damn either way, and so shops stop painting doors black. Imagine a small subgroup decides they really, really love black doors. They will pay double price for a black door because they are so hard to find. Shop owner will sati…
> Capitalism is an elegant system for resource allocation, really. I wish more people understood it. It heavily depends on who you are and the type of capitalism in question. The present implementation in many places seems less than elegant. For example CEO pay has been skyrocketing compared to worker wages precisely because as companies have more and more resources, they don't have a reasonable means to distribute t…
And people have access to more advanced goods and services than ever at unprecedentedly cheap prices. Again, I agree we need to lift up our lower class right now, but by many metrics, it's better to be impoverished today than to be middle class 50 years ago, and I think people forget that or don't want to admit it.
The sex-bad-violence-good meme confused me at least since I became aware of its existence aged about 14. I was 16 when I got a letter published in a UK national newspaper on this topic, pointing out the absurdity that deliberate murder could be shown in a cartoon aimed specifically at young kids (i.e. BBFC rating Uc), but people “my own age”[1] couldn’t see pictures of uncensored sex even though we could legally[1] p…
In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious behavior, even if it is a small minority . For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them. The other community doesn't care. Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community; even if that community is small, it simply mak…
One real-world example is Coca Cola [0]. While most of the consumers probably don't care, influence of a small but committed minority made Coca Cola kosher, halal, and vegan. [0] https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/the-re...
Google, etc., seem a lot like the majors of our time. Sure they are private businesses acting according to the business environment they find themselves in, but the outcome may be, in the long run, bad for all of us.
In general, superstitious behavior tends to win over non-superstitious behavior, even if it is a small minority . For example, say there are two communities in a given town; one of the community has decided that black doors were evil, and won't go through them. The other community doesn't care. Shops that have black doors lose the business of the superstitious community; even if that community is small, it simply mak…
Depends on the superstition, if it were "you should say 'black door' every time you see one [and you'll have good luck]" then it would make no difference. It would neither inhibit nor encourage those of the out-group. Let's look at religion: if my religion says "give money to orphans" then you don't need to fight it, it doesn't harm you, if it says "make everyone who's not part of our group subservient or dead" then…