dusqi

The human right is a just one irrespective of what "other people do". It's the old "if your friend jumped off a bridge, should you?" scenario. So? Both are wrong. I'd rather not have either on my conscience.

As far as I can tell, most other countries blame the US for the worlds' problems, and the US blames the UN. All the politicians in every country just want a scapegoat, and so since the US happens to be the biggest at the moment, its politicians blame the UN.... and with the US blaming the UN all the time, it just weakens it.

Technically perhaps the Geneva Convention does not apply to them, however practically it was written to guarantee the rights of people. Just because they aren't (officially) sanctioned by a government, and don't have a rank or serial number, it doesn't suddenly mean that they don't have human rights. They kept prisoners awake for 16 days at a time, and kept prisoners in solitary confinement for months at a time. If someone did that to you, you'd break down and cry like a baby, so don't give us this "macho" bs. America amuses me, it acts like it's under some kind of massive onslaught, attacks every hour by organised groups... and so it needs to do whatever it can to survive. Even if some innocent people get hurt or locked up for a few years... it's ok because freedom itself is at stake!! cry cry, waah waah. In reality, if America actually took a high ground, and recognised that freedom is powerful and acts as its own ambassador, so doesn't need torture and poor trials to back it up, then maybe terrorism wouldn't be on the rise.

"speech is your enemy. Never, ever, under any circumstance, say a single word while within a bathroom. Not to a friend.. not to a lover.. not to Jesus himself. Violation of this precept grates against all good things and the way of nature." :D !!

I argued this recently, but was persuaded that it was wrong (by Mad). She said that ignoring something is a good way to keep the status quo going. To change the problem of racism, you have to acknowledge that it is a problem, something that needs changing, and then you can do something about it. Being "colour-blind" to race, just makes people think that it's not a problem, and it is ok to carry on being racist (intentionally or unintentionally).

I particularly like waking up and checking my clock, only to find that it's not time to get up yet, so I can go back to sleep (or get up if there's something exciting to do!) The first and last sweet in a packet always taste the best.. but when you think you've run out, and then find another one.. that post-last sweet tastes divine.

Oh no :( That's so sad :( I hope he gets well soon

I am against the death penalty for many practical reasons (innocent people killed, more expensive than imprisonment, applied more during cases of murders of white people than murders of black people, does not work as a deterrant to crime). I also think that morally it is wrong... because revenge is a decadent emotion that won't actually solve anything. Finally, I thought the point that Ghostranger made about the families of victims wanting closure is an interesting one. Though I'd ask whether it is closure or just revenge? Many months ago I read about victims of crimes meeting the perpetrator and apparently this helped them to find a sense of closure once they understood the reasons that the crime was committed. Though I don't remember details about this program, or about the severity of the crimes committed in it.. it makes me wonder whether the death penalty will bring real closure for the families, or whether understanding is what is really necessary.

It's good to give them a bit of information, something mildly interesting happens every day at least. Perhaps try and tell them one thing that you learned today. If they keep asking questions though, ask your parents how work was, or how the housekeeping was.

I like to imagine that I don't give in to peer pressure. I don't do the 'bad' vices that are brought up straight away when most people consider peer pressure (drugs, etc.) I also try to be a bit weird, and this excuses me from much peer pressure, since people know that I'm weird and will do my own random thing. However, I'm still influenced by the opinions, actions and recommendations of others, as well as general trends in society and advertising. Whether this is peer pressure or not, I'm not sure.

I think that this is important. If you just hear it, then you have to keep the seperate items (5 items: 1,000; 1/10; 1/5; 1/10; x2;) in memory at the same time as working backwards with the problem. Working memory has been shown to be related to IQ. So the more numbers that you can keep in mind and manipulate simultaneously, the higher IQ you are likely to have. The average is between 5 and 9 items in memory. Saying that, even if you work it out from hearing it, I doubt that you'd be a genius still. As an illustration of how it is more difficult.. look at the following similar problem below (that I just made up), and then close your eyes while you work out the answer. Try to work it out it as quickly as possible - don't spend long just memorising the question. "What is eight times, three-fifths of half of a third of one-hundred and fifty?"

Nineteen Eighty-Four A frightening book that year on year becomes more applicable to our lives. I think the question of whether torture and the worst thing that each of us could imagine, could overcome love and your sense of self and reality, is also one that isn't considered enough when this book is discussed. Especially now that religious brain washing is a topical issue. Add to this, the powerful totalitarian nightmare depicted, as well as the other philosophical question of what is real and sane even if everyone else seriously believes something else.

Couple of things to say. Firsly, as is usual when this question is asked, we have a surprising number of people with a ridiculously high IQ here. Strange how the mean is set at 100, yet I've only ever seen one person seriously say that they have an IQ lower than that. Obviously Runescape is a game that draws extremely intelligent people towards it... since it's clearly such a smart game... ;) Secondly, a quick internet search suggests that the correlation between IQ and life earnings is just 0.35 - so anyone sitting there thinking that they're so smart, still has a lot to do to realise their potential. (I realise that life earnings isn't the best measure of life success, but it's easy to compute the figure.)

It all depends on what the lions' preferences are for eating sheep compared to being eaten... whether all the lions have the same preferences, and critically whether the lions know what each others' preferences are.

Ditto that. Though I have got rather good over the years at making out some of the rubbish internet slang without noticing too much.

Nice post, 1 Man Army RIP

Short Term: pass uni with a first degree in Psych. Medium Term: Start my own company because I hate knowing that my work is making someone else rich. Get married to someone that loves me. Have enough time for my wife and work by being able to hire people to do routine tasks (washing, ironing, cleaning, etc.) Long Term before I die: Accrue the equivalent of ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã200m so that I can start a foundation that will give ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã1m worth of research grants per year, and pay ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã1m worth of prize money for top research.

http://www.nationstates.net/dusqi The kind people at Nationstates restored my country to activity after I sent them a request :) I am very impressed, they sorted it within 10 hours, and on a Sunday too Oh, and SpeedOfSound, your link doesn't work. You need to copy the link at the bottom of your nation's page, the one that it says to use to link your friends.

Bah, I was logging in every two weeks or so to check that my nation was still alive, but I forgot about it for a while and now it's been deleted for inactivity. It had a population of 5.406Bn on August 11th. I'm sad now!

fMRI studies of the brain show that the same brain areas are activated when we imagine things as when they actually happen... and since 'experiences' are just neurons in certain areas of the brain firing, you feel and see the same things as when you experience them. Concerning colours, colour experience is partly down to something hard wired in your brain/eyes, since cross-cultural studies show that most people universally consider the focal point of colours (e.g. the best example of 'red') to be about the same amount of hue and value. Similarly, experiments show that children of 4 months have the same colour categories that we have. Colour is also down to social factors though, since some cultures don't have seperate words for 'blue' and 'green', and for people who live in them, it is hard to tell the difference between the two colours. Interestingly, the Dani of Papua New Guinea only have a colour term for 'light' colours, and one for 'dark' colours. This doesn't really solve the issue as to how you'd explain colour to a blind man, but gives some general insight into 'normal' psychological perception of colour.

I can probably follow recipes, but I don't have an instinctive knack for it

All these tips are fine, but when it comes down to it in the end, when you wake up in the morning, you just have to get the heck up. It's quite easy really. There's no trick. You just get up. The sooner you stop thinking about it and mucking around debating it in your head, the sooner you actually will. Let us know whether you manage it tomorrow or not.

I'm a bit more worried about it than those of you that say that congress would never pass it because there would be too much outrage. There should be outrage, but I'd say that the population is generally politically apathetic, especially to internet matters where most people don't have an inkling of understanding. If I recall correctly, various bills to guarantee net neutrality have been voted down in congress.

How can you prove or disprove anything? "You think that's air you're breathing?" Maybe, maybe, maybe. Eventually you have to make a decision with these philosophical questions (based on what you consider to be the evidence), so that you can move on with your life. That's different to other scientific questions, where one day there will be an answer. In that case, it's OK to say that you're not sure yet. As to the decision you make? I think that it probably doesn't matter. As long as you think you've made the decision yourself, you'll be happy with it.

WOOOOOO ANDY!! :D