drcube · HackerTrans

I can sleep at Burning Man with ear splitting sound camps blaring mere feet from my tent. It's called earplugs, they work well and they're very cheap. I've used them to equal success at home on the Fourth of July, too. It simply isn't a big deal. Let Cletus light firecrackers and work on his car in his own drive way. Who the hell are you to tell him otherwise? Go live in an HOA if you want to tell your neighbors how they can and can't behave on their own property.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

I've had a couple employers offer to transfer my personal number to my work-provided cell phone. I said no thanks, and carried two phones around instead. But it was a surprisingly popular option among my coworkers. They'd rather let their boss own their personal, everyday smartphone than carry around two phones.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

And yet, kids still drink and smoke. Yes, age restrictions are foolish and invalid, century of public policy notwithstanding. Not every policy that has existed should continue to exist.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

That's no different from showing yourself to your theater seat replacing ushers, or throwing your hamburger trash away replacing busboys. Pumping your own gas. Or bagging your own groceries at some grocery stores. This is a very old trend and self-checkout is nothing different.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

>The number of sexual partners adults have has been steadily rising

Got a cite for that? I was under the impression the opposite was true.

And even if it is the case, see the book "More Sex is Safer Sex" by Steven Landsburg:

"You’ve read elsewhere about the sin of promiscuity. Let me tell you about the sin of self-restraint.

Suppose you walk into a bar and find four potential sex partners. Two are highly promiscuous; the others venture out only once a year. The promiscuous ones are, of course, more likely to be HIV-positive. That gives you a 50-50 chance of finding a relatively safe match.

But suppose all once-a-year revelers could be transformed into twice-a-year revelers. Then, on any given night, you’d run into twice as many of them. Those two promiscuous bar patrons would be outnumbered by four of their more cautious rivals. Your odds of a relatively safe match just went up from 50-50 to four out of six."

https://slate.com/culture/1996/07/more-sex-is-safer-sex.html

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

Why would you expect more people to miss books? Books didn't go anywhere. Anyone who wants them can easily buy them or borrow them.

You know what I miss? Dead tree user manuals that used to come with hardware and software. That's something that has gone the way of the Dodo, unlike most other books. Luckily I can still buy printed manuals from the FSF.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

The main answer is "minorities". Look at the American South during the Jim Crow era.

Minorities need protection from majorities in democracies. And not just racial, religious or ethnic minorities. Everyone is a minority in multiple ways.

You have hobbies, beliefs, goals and connections that the majority in your country doesn't have. And they are all at risk under a democracy. This is why we don't have a "pure" democracy. This is why the Founders put many anti-democratic features in the US Constitution.

Every right you enjoy is a point where society drew a line and said "this will not be subject to a vote".

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

Democracy is not a synonym for "good". Whether something is democratic or not tells you very little about whether it is worth keeping. Most things are not democratic, nor should they be.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

If a homeless person was living in your home, even if you invited him there in the first place, you still have every right to kick him out of your home if you decide you don't want him there anymore. Even if it's winter, and he'll die of starvation or freeze out on the streets without your hospitality. It may be a cruel and heartless thing to do, but it's perfectly legal, and should remain so. I believe we should have at least as much autonomy over our own bodies as over our real estate.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

Farm living shows it isn't a paradox.

1) Animals on family farms are actually treated pretty well. "Torture" is absolutely not the word for it, though it probably does apply to varieties of factory farming, in effect if not intent.

2) More animals die, in absolute numbers, from plowing fields and harvesting crops than are slaughtered for their meat, mostly because we choose large animals for their meat while small animals like to live in grain fields. The only way to conclude that vegetarianism is more ethical is to discount the lives of smaller, wild animals in comparison to their larger, meat-producing cousins, or else define having habitats and homes destroyed, starving to death, or being snagged on a thresher as more humane treatment than being stunned and having their throat slit after being fed and cared for until adulthood.

In general, living closer to nature shows that death and suffering is unavoidable. Certainly we should strive to minimize suffering, but interruption of a huge source of food for most of the human population is a bad way to go about it.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

If a fish were living inside your body, you'd have the right to expel it, too. That has nothing to do with the treatment fish deserve or don't deserve, and everything to do with human bodily autonomy.

drcube

7 lat temudiscuss

What if it prevents one accident today, but causes two accidents tomorrow?

drcube

14 lat temudiscuss

We already have the metric system. An inch is defined as 2.54 centimeters. Et cetera. I can't think of a single way in which we're NOT metric, except that stubborn people refuse to let go of gallons, miles and pounds.

Every item you buy in the stores will be measured in metric units. Just because we call it a gallon doesn't mean it isn't actually 3.785 liters. And just because the serving size is a cup, doesn't mean it isn't actually 240mL. And check the nutrition label sometimes. It's all metric.

http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-public/documents/image/...

So what's the problem again?

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