Nah, it was always the same. The lack of overtaking is commonly blamed on high downforce, carbon brakes, and super short braking distances, but it actually wasn't any better before they put wings on cars. Same thing: the rich, fast teams qualify and start at the front and stay at the front and get richer and faster...with the occasional fall from grace (Mclaren) or rise from obscurity (Brawn->Mercedes). As cool as they are technologically, development series like F1 tends to result in boring races.

ed: Oh, and using ground effect has been banned since 81(?). Interestingly, Indycars use the ground effect (though without the skirts so it's not as effective as the F1 ground effect cars), and by virtue of being a (mostly) spec series, has much better races.

As with all things, it's not necessarily a law change that need to happen. Laws don't drive the zeitgeist, the zeitgeist drive laws (or should).

People need to be dissuaded from wanting to have guns. In Europe, people don't really want a gun, and don't even see a need for one. Sure, there are hunters and they have guns, and sure you can get one if you're in a dangerous area with bears and shit, but actually getting a gun is when you're hunted by mafia or something like that and you're desperate. Why would you ever want to walk around with a gun? I don't really get it.

Perhaps people have a fantasy about being a hero, where they shoot the bad guy. Everyone has that as a kid; most kids also grow up.

There's something deeply satisfying about firing a gun - power at your fingertips. Control. Maybe it's a control thing. People don't like to be out of control, with a gun they always have something to fall back on to control the situation.

Maybe it's a macho thing, although women carry guns too. I don't know the statistic of it, but I would imagine more men do than women. Men are intrinsically destructive while women are creative - it's our nature. We men beat up our rivals to gain access to that sweetest fruit of all: peach. Perhaps it's an extension of power; an penis extension. Don't pull the trigger, squeeze it tenderly. You are the gun; look down the aim at your target and fire.

Maybe there's some brain vs brawn in it. I would wager good money that as intelligence goes up, gun ownership goes down. No statistics to back it up, but I'd love to see if it's true. Brains are taking over everything - it's the decade of the Nerd. Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams could get all the girls and gets all the admiration in the big world, while Dick McKickaball failed to make the team and married Candace the exotic dancer his friends hired for him on his 21st birthday. But at least he could shoot JJ Abrams in the face with his 4½ inch death stick.

Society doesn't really gain much from guns does it?

It has its own market and thus gets people to move money around with someone around to skim the top. dft said this in point 2 as well. This could be done for worse stuff though - snuff porn has a market; heroin has a market.

Mutually Assured Destruction is always a fun acronym to throw around. If everyone does eye for an eye, the world will go blind, I've heard somewhere. Probably a shitty western or something.

Feelings of security? If I have a gun, do I feel safer from the people around me that may or may not also have guns? I would feel safer in my home, I think. If I feared home invasions. Home invasions are a weird thing; very rare in europe to the best of my knowledge, even though we don't have guns. Seems like something that would only happen if there was an enormous disparity between poor and rich, making the poor desperate (and lazy) enough to want to do a home invasion. If Brian the Aryan Man-God makes 10 million billion $$ a year, and Rommel the Dirty Mexican doesn't get anything because he has to pay child support off his social security and also cover his meth addication, then the chance of Rommel doing a home invasion is greater than if Rommel makes half of what Brian does. Maybe we need to raise the floor, instead of raising the ceiling on the extrema of wealth to lose the desire of guns.

Maybe it's all of the factors at once, and we have someone like the NRA pushing everyone to want all of them. I want security. I'm afraid. I have a small dick. Home invasions happen all the time. Schools get shot by crazies, I need to defend myself.

Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

There... the demons went away. Guns are your friends.

This is a serious record, more for the airplane design than for the throwing brawn. This isn't "most eggs eaten in 5 minutes". There are flight engineers who spend thousands of hours on this because it's relevant to their field and demonstrates their understanding of thrust, lift and glide. I've heard the engineers actually spend more time making the tools to form the plane than designing or throwing the plane itself.

Proof that brawn and brain can work together. Also, maybe Wally should call it 'StoneWall'

Other downsides: personal vendettas, poor training caused disasters, criminals with a badge, etc, etc.

I understand the sentiment behind the idea, but it's putting way too much trust in the masses.

>> ^dgandhi:

>> ^hpqp:
@dgandhi and @GenjiKilpatrick
I don't know if it's because my faith in humanity is practically non-existent, but I have a hard time imagining a society which does not have some form of law enforcement, for when the preventive measures and education fail... The powerful (be that with brawn or dough) will always be tempted to prey on the weak, and some will heed that temptation. Then what?

I'm inclined to respond "Yes, obviously, look at how the police act.".
I'm not claiming that power vacuums will somehow remain vacant, I'm simply suggesting that there are probably better ways to fill them. I think that any number of radical departures could serve the need to reduce power abuse better than the current system.
My favorite option is going to lose me libertarian support, but I think conscription would work very well for law enforcement.
Lets say that everybody had to serve 21 days every 3 years, 7 weekends of training followed by 1 week of enforcement. We have some professional trainers, but the cops on the street are civilians for 99.3% of their lives. Since the number of officers would be very high in this case, most of them won't even have to take time off work, they just have a gun, badge and a radio with them at all times, and the closest officers are dispatched to do what is needed.
Down side: everybody has to do it.
Up side: more cops, nobody has to do it much, and nobody get in the habit of being above the law.

>> ^hpqp:

@dgandhi and @GenjiKilpatrick
I don't know if it's because my faith in humanity is practically non-existent, but I have a hard time imagining a society which does not have some form of law enforcement, for when the preventive measures and education fail... The powerful (be that with brawn or dough) will always be tempted to prey on the weak, and some will heed that temptation. Then what?


I'm inclined to respond "Yes, obviously, look at how the police act.".

I'm not claiming that power vacuums will somehow remain vacant, I'm simply suggesting that there are probably better ways to fill them. I think that any number of radical departures could serve the need to reduce power abuse better than the current system.

My favorite option is going to lose me libertarian support, but I think conscription would work very well for law enforcement.

Lets say that everybody had to serve 21 days every 3 years, 7 weekends of training followed by 1 week of enforcement. We have some professional trainers, but the cops on the street are civilians for 99.3% of their lives. Since the number of officers would be very high in this case, most of them won't even have to take time off work, they just have a gun, badge and a radio with them at all times, and the closest officers are dispatched to do what is needed.

Down side: everybody has to do it.
Up side: more cops, nobody has to do it much, and nobody get in the habit of being above the law.

@dgandhi and @GenjiKilpatrick

I don't know if it's because my faith in humanity is practically non-existent, but I have a hard time imagining a society which does not have some form of law enforcement, for when the preventive measures and education fail... The powerful (be that with brawn or dough) will always be tempted to prey on the weak, and some will heed that temptation. Then what?

Bodacious

by Primus


Who's gonna ride Bodacious?
Who's gonna tame him down?
Look out for Bodacious,
he's bound to hold his ground.
Here comes Bodacious,
ya'll just step aside.
Big and bad Bodacious
takes a toll from those who ride.

Bodacious am a whole lotta' bull
over nineteen hundred pounds.
He's born in Galry, Oklahoma
and he's the baddest sonsabitch around
if a Burma bull ever were a super star
then Bodacious just might be.
He's a cream colored, beefy brawn,
full-fledged, four footed bovine celebrity.

Who's gonna ride Bodacious?
Who's gonna tame him down?
Look out for Bodacious,
he's bound to hold his ground.
Here comes Bodacious,
ya'll just step aside.
Big and bad Bodacious
takes a toll from those who ride.

Young Bo met a man named Tuff Hedeman
at the start of his buckin' spree
and Tuff became one of the few to make the whistle
back in Nineteen Ninety Three.

Tuff tried to ride Bo again at the finals
in Nineteen Ninety Five.
Bodacious had got a little older and wiser
Tuff barely came out alive.

SOLO

Bodacious am a whole lotta' bull
over nineteen hundred pounds.
He's born in Galry, Oklahoma
and he's the baddest sonsabitch around
if a Burma bull ever were a super star
then Bodacious just might be.
He's a cream colored, beefy brawn,
full-fledged, four footed bovine celebrity.

Who's gonna ride Bodacious?
Who's gonna tame him down?
Look out for Bodacious,
he's bound to hold his ground.
Here comes Bodacious,
ya'll just step aside.
Big and bad Bodacious
takes a toll from those who ride.

Who's gonna ride Bodacious?
Who's gonna tame him down?
Look out for Bodacious,
he's bound to hold his ground.
Here comes Bodacious,
ya'll just step aside.
Big Badass Bodacious
will take a big hunk outta your hide

Hey you two! Get a room!!!

In reply to this comment by laura:
Congratulations!
Your brains and brawn have earned you "Laura"!!!
(I'm a sucker for the Brains and Brawn combo.)
Did I mention that I love you? No?
Well, "I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Congratulations!
Your brains and brawn have earned you "Laura"!!!
(I'm a sucker for the Brains and Brawn combo.)
Did I mention that I love you? No?
Well, "I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Picard is clearly the superior Captain, which involves using your brain more than your brawn. It's a shame that the movies transformed Picard into a pseudo-kirk action hero that a Captain should not be. The series handled it better.

Also I'm such a nerd.

In any case, I sort of disliked the death of Kirk too, because it was so lackluster (both this and the one used). He could have gone out in flames, hair-piece burning and all (oh yeah, I went there), which could give him a hero's end; sacrificing himself to save the others, like Spock in wrath of khan, or they could make a statement about death as a non-heroic thing - it hits when you least expect it. I think they sort of did the last, much like the death of Sirius Black in Harry Potter.

Mike seems to have some serious anger management issues. I'd say he needs to grow up a little, apparently lots of brawn, not much brain.

nerdhist, you gotta watch this. It's a real battle between brains and brawn. It's more than a documentary of a democratic political campaign. It's called _street fight_ and a gifted candidate goes against a sack of shit old boy network. It's a good show even if you don't root for the underdog.
http://www.marshallcurry.com/streetfight.html

Just goes to show the advantages of intelligence and agility over brawn. It's no wonder the ape family eventually produced the dominate species of the planet.