Kevin O'Leary needs to be punched in the face. I know, violence is wrong, but when an uber wealthy fellow openly declares the world's poorest are a just a hard days work away from his status, he needs to punched in the face for it. Every time he says it someone has to inflict enough physical pain on him until he learns to stop doing it. He probably won't learn why, but at least he'll learn to stop.

I say that as someone largely pro-capitalist. Human beings are easily corrupted, and terrible people are drawn to wealth and power and work harder to achieve it. Capitalism at least pits them against each other in trying to get or make more stuff. The one thing that capitalism has a strong historically track record for is growth. It leaves more stuff for everyone to share, though it does nothing for distributing it better. Wealth redistribution schemes though invariably lead to less and less left to be redistributed. In short, capitalism rewards hard work(albeit not even-handedly) while socialism does not. Hard work means more stuff, less work means less.

Of course if you take either to extreme they are both awful, you've got to have a middle ground. Ideally you want that middle ground to be reached and agreed upon democratically. America is imperfect, terribly so, but it's IMHO a far, far cry closer to the ideal than most anywhere else in this regard.

The Wachowskis have a pretty mixed track record. Since this gives barely a hint of a plot I might wait for reviews.

Got burnt by Prometheus, so I'm not trusting any more movies based purely by specky sci-fi and an intriguing concept.

Sebelius was a pretty popular Democrat governor in Kansas, which is a bit of an oxymoron considering how solidly Red-State KS is. It is all just political grandstanding, but being from KS originally it makes me happy to see her do the very (IMHO) Kansas-type thing and refuse to pass the buck for the website snafus in her opening statement.

Especially when it becomes very clear that all the Republican questions were expecting her to fit their stereotype of what they think of as an "East-Coast Liberal" and spin, pass the buck, and shift blame at every opportunity.

Kansas has a track record with a lot of political epic fails (evolution in schools comes to mind), but one thing your average Kansan is usually pretty proud of is personal integrity and owning up to one's mistakes. Seems like Sebelius is a good representative of that quality that most Kansans would claim to hold dear.

Depends on your definition of revolution, I suppose.

Look at Europe for a minute.

- The Greeks see the rise of Golden Dawn, an openly fascist party.
- Marine Le Pen's FN, an extreme right wing nationalist party, is polling at #1 in France.
- Italy got rid of Berlusconi, which for them is about as close to a revolution as you can get without massive bloodshed.
- The society in the UK has gone so unimaginably lopsided that the Red Cross is handing out food packets for the first time since the end of World War 2.
- Let's not even talk about the Hungarian government and its atrocious track record over the last years.

These are some pretty drastic changes, and rarely for the better.

sure,because our justice system has proven itself to be such a shining example of objective and fair treatment to those who defy the power of this government.

see:bradley manning

with the track record of this and previous administrations in regards to whistleblowers who expose our own governments corrupt and oftentimes illegal practices abroad.snowden played this card exactly how he should have...smart.

due process? gone.
habeas corpus?not anymore.

day in court? please.

critical thinking?
take your own advice.

Well I'm humbled enough to admit that I know as much about nuclear energy production as a primary schoolboy. Extant history of large-scale operations leaves a foul taste for everyone, or should. How many European countries ditched the idea of ever using nuclear energy? How many phaseouts planned?

Out with the old if it's not a potential ELE (extinction level enterprise).

LD just made the scariest prediction considered all morning and begs the question, "Does the planet really need China playing around with tinker-toy nuke power plants considering their track-record for building ginormous engineering disasters?" They may have a 1000-year-plan for empire but their characteristic program of increase as their world economic status grows seems a, 'many trials, many errors' approach.

That their success in economic influence has been accomplished through producing sub-standard plastic bullshit consumer products, sub-standard textiles, etc. with indigenous slave-labor to sell the bullshit to robotic consumers like U.S., Mexico, (insert non-Asian nations here) while cornering the market on raw materials for their machine should be of preeminent concern beyond that of how humans will get the power they need to continue turning the planet into something ugly.

Look at what they accomplished in space just the other day with their launching of that satellite-grabber. Here's another new level of paranoia I can agree with;
"In March 2013, a new law that "prohibits anyone from China setting foot in a NASA building" was passed."(wiki)

China in space
What a frightening concept.

I can't wait to be one of the millions of people who would no longer consider stepping foot on that boat. It has a bad track record.

It is not it's fault, but still, much like my insurance company, I'll still remember forever.

I really believe that was Obama's main problem. I hate the guy now for his track-record, but I feel like he was really a naive idealist. I think once an individual becomes president, they're sat down in a little room and told how shit really works, and I think there's such scary shit in there that:
A) it's clear there's nothing they can do to change it
B) if they try to change it there will be a unified front that will effectively smear them
C) if they try to call out the unified front and how things "really work", the unified front will effectively smear them
D) (not likely, but): they're told straight up from the "real authority" in the US that if they have X% of influence on Y# of specific topics, and if they contradict the authoritative interests they'll be outright disposed of.
Don't feel like "D" is realistic, but at this point I wouldn't put anything past the people who've clearly had an iron grip on the US for some time now.

http://www.troublesmith.net/site_images/misc/snowman2016.jpg

As I've been saying since the first Xbox: This is Microsoft. Why did people embrace them in the first place? Track-record means nothing to consumers...

Yeah, but on Steam, you'll keep your games library going foward to a new PC or a new OS. Maybe the next Xbox (Xbox "Two" or whatever) will be backward compatible but I won't take that chance, based on their track record about BC...

It's just a bad deal. Too much control.

Although, they (MS) showed great games! Too bad.

For me, this generation will be PC-Steam first, then PS4 and maybe I'll buy a Xbox One if they change their policy.

@criticalthud - Pretty much completely eradicating smallpox and polio, rabies is no longer a death sentence, there has been a 55% reduction in cardiovascular disease fatalities since the fifties, there is a 90% childhood leukemia survival rate, transplants, bacterial infections are generally no longer a big deal...

This is just what comes to me off the top of my head, with research I could go on for hours.

Of course there are flaws and in some cases corruption in western medicine just as you would expect with any such massively complex and lucrative human endeavor, but trying to equate it with the blatant quackery of "alternative medicine" only displays your intentional ignorance of reality and makes you the butt of any joke.

I have no patience for this kind of mindless drivel. Somehow, it has become trendy to ignore the benefits of modern medicine. Honestly, I don't care if you die needlessly of cancer because you waited too long to see some western doctors, but when scum like you try to contribute to the general atmosphere of rampant unfounded mistrust of science based techniques that have an astoundingly successful track record, then you are trying to spread your inane poison and I have to reprimand your idiocy.




http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195150698.001.0001/acprof-9780195150698-chapter-18

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/news/childhood-leukemia-survival-rates-improve-significantly

No, nothing is the only thing the UN ever does. It similarly did nothing to stop the Rwandan genocide. It similarly did nothing to stop Saddam's genocide of the Kurds. It similarly did nothing to stop Saddam's genocide of Shia Iraqis. Seems perfectly consistent that it continue it's track record without requiring any manner of puppet/fear conspiracy theory.

Actually, that's exactly what I say, and average modern human morality is considerably superior to the filth that the biblical God advocates.

The moral standard of western civilization is founded upon judeo-christian beliefs. Read:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595555455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366921071&sr=8-1&keywords=book+that+made+your+world

Following the morality the biblical God advocates is the hardest thing you will ever do. The standard of today is a superficial, politically correct morality where you pretend to be nice to people but curse them when they aren't around. God requires a transformation on the inside where you have genuine love for your fellow man.

I am only saying that they are wrong by todays generally agreed upon moral standards. Some of these moral standards are extremely effective and have been around since very early human communities, so they only have the illusion of being absolute due to high adherence rate.

Are you saying nigh universal adherence to certain moral standards isn't evidence for an absolute standard of morality?

Murder, theft, oppression and incest are three fairly obvious examples. The evolutionarily advantageous trait of society building tends to list it's effectiveness when such things are widespread. But we have a very long human tradition of sanctioning and celebrating murder and theft as long as it occurs well outside our cohort. Killing other tribes is celebrated in the bible, as is stealing their possessions. Ethically justified slavery took another 4000 years to mostly get rid of, and hell, it was common practice to fuck your fifteen year old cousin all the way up to about the late 1800s here in the good old US of A as long as it was under the marital auspices of the church, of course.

Yep, but thank God that his just definition of morality - if we didn't have god's guidance through scripture, we'd probably do crazy shit!

You don't understand what God was doing in the Old Testament, or why He did it the way He did. It is morally consistent with His goodness and holiness, and there are logical reasons for why this is so. So far you are not interested in hearing them or discussing them. When you are let me know. In the end you don't have any excuse for suppressing the truth about Jesus, no matter what you think about how God acted in the Old Testament.

Using the word 'absolute' is a concession to brevity, but nice try - seriously dude, this is laughable and it wouldn't even stand up in Jr. High debate - absolutes do exist, they just need to be well justified, and yes if you want to be nitpicky about it there is an ever so remote chance that 1+1 is not equal to two in some distant corner of the universe. But as humans with an admittedly limited scope of understanding, we have to accept that level of certainty. If you want to relegate your theory to claiming its space somewhere in the possibility that we might be wrong about the whole 2+2=4 thing, go right on ahead.

There, that's what I meant by absolute. happy?

Basically, what you're saying is that because 2+2 probably equals four everywhere in the Universe, you are free to make absolute statements about morality? The fact is that your belief system leaves you with no justification for any absolute statement what so ever. Why should 2 + 2 always equal 4 in the first place? Can you tell me why the laws of physics should work in the same way 5 seconds from now without using circular reasoning?

Can you justify any piece of knowledge without God? If you can then tell me one thing you know and how you know it. Could you be wrong about everything you know?

Well then thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass in the whole god based morality thing. I prefer to have a really good reason to never slaughter innocent kids. But thanks for finally answering my question: there has been a good reason to butcher a toddler after all! Praise The Lord, for he is good!

It comes back to the same question: As the giver of life, and the adjudicator of His Creation, is it wrong for God to take life?

And here's another interesting brain tickler. If everything god commands is right, and god has a track record of testing his faithful with their willingness to commit infanticide, how can you say that this lady isn't moral?

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-08-17/news/0108170166_1_baby-s-death-baby-s-father-documents

The scripture is finished and anything which contradicts it is not of God.

Wrong, I know that things are wrong because humans and cultures have a long history of interacting with reality, and certain strategies have been more successful than others. You haven't spent one iota of your time discrediting this notion, whereas I have given you plenty of examples crediting mine and discrediting yours.

What I am supposed to be discrediting? You're asking me to nail jello to a wall. You have not even defined what "successful" is supposed to mean beyond pure survival. In that case, every civilization has been successful. Tell me what your definition of success is supposed to be.

For the millionth time, I have no hopes of convincing you of anything - you'll defend your stance against literally any proof. But you seem to come here on the sift with the intent of demonstrating to others that there is some logical basis for your beliefs.

What proof? The foundation of atheism stands upon the shifting sands of relative truth. You, the atheist, ultimately make yourself the measure of all truth. Because of that, you can't tell me a single fact about the world that you can justify.

Well you're failing miserably, mainly because you are only capable of restating the following sentence as if it is an agreed upon truth:

"Not only is the entire concept logically contradictory, but it doesn't match our experience, which is that some things are absolutely wrong. "

I don't expect you to have any good support for that, but the audience out there just waiting to be convinced, they will need at least something.

Torturing babies for fun; not absolutely wrong?

I'm still waiting for you to give Stalin some kind, any kind of argument as to why he should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you can't tell Stalin why he is wrong, then you have no hope of escaping the charge of incoherency.

@shinyblurry - And here's another interesting brain tickler. If everything god commands is right, and god has a track record of testing his faithful with their willingness to commit infanticide, how can you say that this lady isn't moral?

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-08-17/news/0108170166_1_baby-s-death-baby-s-father-documents

"Humanitarian imperialism" already has a pretty abysmal track record to learn from.