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capefeather, your argument still strikes me as a non sequitur. You do not need to posit the existence of an agreeable morality to seek one, and claiming that morality is objective prior to finding the precise framework by which it is objective is putting the cart before the horse. Let me put it...

I am confused. This is allowed regardless of whether morality is objective or not. You only need to understand what moral statements mean. Morality is a strong opinion on what people should or shouldn't do. It is obviously in any moral agent's best interests that every other moral agent thinks...

Tear gas is not transparent. You have one target and the shooter has dozens. Some people will try to run for it, getting into your line of sight in unpredictable ways. You also can't shoot from anywhere that's affected by the gas unless you happen to have a mask handy, because that shit burns...

The shooter set off tear gas grenades before he started shooting. I hope you're not suggesting people try to shoot through smoke in a crowded, panicked theater because that's pretty fucking irresponsible.

Legislating against polygamy would imply that either every single instance of polygamy is morally wrong (although it is quite possible for healthy polygamous relationships to exist), *or* that polygamy is somehow so attractive that allowing it would open the floodgates to a widespread cultural...

Which church? All religions have their own conception of marriage. Unless for some reason the word "marriage" ought to be reserved for mainstream religions exclusively, nothing stops anyone from making up their own religion which allows gay people to marry. Opportunistic religions or sects of...

That makes no sense. The Apple II was released in 1977. The first version of Windows was released in 1985. You should rather point out that the Apple II was designed and built by Steve Wozniak, not Steve Jobs. Jobs never really did anything on the engineering side, he was more interested in...

My actual definition does not use "and". It uses "or", which is as generous as it gets. That embryos can't even pass such a generous definition is quite telling. It might be unclear to me the "exact" point in time the clump becomes a human. But it is extremely clear to me that this point is...

Yes. Then I guess we don't have a right to get an appendicitis treated either. What about pulling teeth? Can't do that safely without tools either. Now, what about a fetus? The life of a fetus is dependent on an outside factor: the support of the mother's body. So that can't be a "right". But...

Potential to be something does not equal being that thing. If someone destroyed the block of marble the Venus de Milo was carved in, would they be guilty of a crime against art? Of course not. The sculpture was not done yet. Similarly, a fetus has the potential to eventually become a human...

I skipped two or three questions. I find that the latter questions sort of assume that the previous questions were answered in a matter beneficial to his argument, and they are increasingly lunatic as a result. Well, at what point do you think that a human being, with human rights, comes into...

Works for me (GIMP 2.6.10), regardless of whether I right click in the selection, outside the selection or use the global Edit menu. Maybe it's poor Windows support, though that'd be kind of weird. You can try this, though: right click, select, border, set an appropriate width, then use the fill...

I am not sure what you are asking. I wanted to explain that conception itself was not a good threshold, and to illustrate the point I deliberately chose a time span so short that I could be absolutely certain there is no value at all in the embryo. I would say abortion is fine much later than...

That is very cute, but that is not how the real world works at all. Every action we make depends on our current knowledge, leading to a chaotic effect that snowballs very rapidly. Had George not existed, there is no evidence his brother would ever have been in a life threatening situation...

Sure, it's possible. For some people with great talent, luck and motivation. I mean, you just have to know your limits at some point, and be content with pushing them, no matter the end result. If you have the capacity to win a Nobel prize, you probably merely have a one in ten or less chance to...

I know, right? It's a damn shame the whole half of the political spectrum that vehemently opposes this scam never gets in power... That's a better list than I expected, but I don't think it's entirely fair. If you are living forever, you can fully take advantage of technological advancements...

I write in French, unfortunately, else I'd be glad to let you read. I might try to write one of the short stories in English just to see how well I can do it. My English is a lot more technical than it is literary, though, so it doesn't work as well as I'd like for fiction.

I won last year :happybrain: I'm doing it this year too. I am planning to write five short stories 10,000 words apiece. That way I will be sure to actually finish something rather than write the first 50K of a daunting 250K+ novel. Nanowrimo is just about writing 50,000 words in November. It's...

Given that Facebook and other social media were enablers for the Arab Spring, I would say that the average programmer at Facebook has about as much influence on the course of things as you would if you were to go put your life on the line over there. I won't deny that "dying for the cause" is...

Who cares if most iOS games are terrible? Just don't buy them, there are plenty of sites out there that will help you find the good ones. And even if you mess up, 99 cents isn't a huge loss. For the cost of a DS/3DS/PSP game, you can easily get just as much fun out of a dozen iPhone games. I...