Ok, punishment might not remove crime completely. However, it certainly does reduce crime by a very significant amount. There are actual cases that demonstrate this very clearly. (For example, there was a police strike in a Canadian city. This caused the city to basically fall into chaos, with people looting everything in sight, forcing the government to deploy the Canadian equivalent of the national guard and declare martial law for the duration of the strike.)
For example:
USA: 756 of 100.000 people are in jail
Germany: 89 of 100.000 people are in jail
That can't all be explained by longer sentences. There is a much higher crime rate in the USA than in germany. So these hard sentences do nothing.
If there's anything those numbers may demonstrate is that the length of the sentences is not a significant factor in deterring crimes (but probably only after a certain minimum length), not that they are not crime deterrents at all.
What would be telling is the contrast between having those sentences and not having law enforcement at all.
Study after study has shown that punishment as a deterrent doesn't work.
Incorrect.
Ok, punishment might not remove crime completely. However, it certainly does reduce crime by a very significant amount. There are actual cases that demonstrate this very clearly. (For example, there was a police strike in a Canadian city. This caused the city to basically fall into chaos, with people looting everything in sight, forcing the government to deploy the Canadian equivalent of the national guard and declare martial law for the duration of the strike.)
Btw, this article is relevant to the discussion of determinism and predictability. (An interesting point it makes is that Cantor's diagonal argument can be used to show that if there were two entities inside this universe that could predict everything that happens in this universe with absolute accuracy, they could not predict each other with absolute accuracy, and hence what happens in this universe cannot be fully predicted.)
And of course see also this.
Btw, there's another aspect to the practical definition of free will, and that's of responsibility and accountability.
If one would to say that "we don't have free will, it's all an inevitable consequence of deterministic causes (possibly with random quantum variations thrown in)" that would imply that we are not responsible for our actions, and hence not accountable. We didn't do it because we wanted to, because we made the decision. We did it because it was inevitable.
The practical approach to free will ("a person's opinions and decisions are his own, and no other person can force them to have a specific opinion") accounts for responsibility: If someone makes a bad decision, it is his decision, and hence he is responsible for it and should face the consequences.
if only to prevent having an argument with them about it.
Yeah, God forbid students having opinions of their own. They must obey, conform, submit and become part of the brainless collective. Resistance is futile.
A pedantic person would ask "which British accent?", as there are probably hundreds of clearly distinguishable accents in England alone. (Good thing I'm not that pedantic. ;) )
Anyways, personally I love the so-called "posh" English accent. That's the main reason why I like TV series like Keeping Up Appearances.
In some contexts it's customary to put two spaces at the beginning of each paragraph, while in other contexts it's not. I'm not really sure of the exact situations and rules where this might apply.
I don't think it should obsolete it. A two-game run is easier to follow than a three-game run, no matter how much "impressive" of a feat the latter might be. IMO from an entertainment point of view the X+X2 run should stay. (AFAIK it's also quite popular, so dropping it would be quite a bummer.)
For fucks sake... you should have put a poll on this topic: "Should Xkeeper have been banned? I'd vote "meh".
I don't know if public humiliation would have been any better.
(Anyways, this isn't a democracy, and probably for a good reason, as long as the admins don't abuse their position.)
Perhaps I'm an iron-skinned internet veteran, but mere snark, occasional curse words, and name calling are par for the course, in my opinion. Welcome to the internets.
I have to disagree on that point.
In my opinion it doesn't really matter what the average behavior on "the internets" might be, that doesn't mean we should allow such things in this particular forum. This should be a friendly and enjoyable place, not the average free-for-all verbal battleground.
Especially name-calling is egregious. We should treat other people with respect, as fellow human beings who have feelings and emotions. Carelessly insulting them is not acceptable. (Yes, I know I have fallen for this myself sometimes in the heat of the moment, and if I have ever called someone something offensive, I truly apologize. I try to avoid doing this as much as I can.)
Cursewords are an edge case. If it's self-deprecating, then it's often ok (such as "I noticed that my run was really shitty, so I redid it from scratch"), but it becomes less ok when talking about others (such as "your run is shit"). It's preferable to avoid strong cursewords, though.
As for Xkeeper's ban, I don't really have a strong opinion because I don't know the exact course of events. However, I get the impression that the ban came more or less as a surprise to him, and IMO more/clearer warnings could have been issued to him before enacting the ban. For example a private message explaining that his behavior is not acceptable and that if he doesn't correct it, he will be banned.
If you want to for some reason connect the notion of free will to the 'unpredictability' of QM, then wouldn't that make every atom or at least every cell in your body have its own free will? Is "unpredictability" even required for free will?
I think you misunderstand. The argument is that we don't have free will because everything is determined either by deterministic causes or by pure unpredictable randomness. (Basically the only question under discussion was whether the universe is completely deterministic, or whether there are non-deterministic random effects involved.) Actual free will would require a consciousness that transcends physical reality and thus is not bound to it.
Of course there's the third, more pragmatic option (which for some reason went almost completely unnoticed): In practice we can say we have free will because nobody can force someone else to have a certain opinion and make certain decisions, under normal circumstances. From my perspective you make your own decisions, and I can't have full control of them. Hence you have free will.
If you like doorstopper-sized high fantasy novels, I'd recommend the Dragonlance book series. I liked them when I read them (although I haven't read them all).
What was the point in taking damage in the first fight? It seemed to serve no purpose.
Also, I'm not sure I'm happy with the player having to lose on purpose if he wants to change the character.
Thermodynamics are for thermodynamic systems -- quantum systems generally don't apply -- hence talk of entropy is meaningless.
This may be a good article to read about the subject.
I have wondered about the seeming contradiction of there being no "arrow of time" in quantum physics even though the total entropy of a closed system defines a clear arrow of time unambiguously. I still don't understand the explanation, though.
