Idea Stock Exchange

TV has commercials.
"You can teach an old brain new technology tricks," said Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatry professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of iBrain. With people who had little Internet experience, "we found that after just a week of practice, there was a much greater extent of activity particularly in the areas of the brain that make decisions, the thinking brain -- which makes sense because, when you're searching online, you're making a lot of decisions," he said. "It's interactive."

It depends what you would be watching, or would be doing on the internet. Talking about pointless things going on in your life on the internet, with stupid people on Facebook is probably a bigger waste of time than watching intelligent programing on TV, but if you are discussing ideas, or creating something of your own on the internet, it is usually better to express yourself than watch the result of when other people expressed themselves, unless you are stupid... if your stupid, it is probably better you don't express yourself.

There is no such thing as a stupid question

2012-01-08T16:09:00.001-08:00

If you don't know something important, you will be found out. It is better to ask a question that someone will call stupid, than to make a big mistake.
If people are busy, they should be able to tell you to come back later.
If people people are busy, and don't think you need to know the answer they can tell you that they are not going to teach you.

Asking someone who is busy a question that you could figure out yourself, is a stupid question.
Asking someone who is busy a question with an answer that you don't need to know in order to perform your job is a stupid question.
You are paid money because a company thinks you know something, are capable of learning something, or doing something. If you ask too many questions, it will make your employer question if you are really capable of doing those things. And so from a self preservation standpoint, you don't want to appear stupid, or like you don't know things, if you think you can eventually figure them out.
From a business standpoint the only judge is money. Everyone's time is worth money. Businesses pay you to work. You ask questions when you are no longer are able to make progress. So a business would want you to ask a question if there was no way for you to find the answer yourself. However, only a moron could never find the answer themselves. If you and your co worker make the same amount of money, the question is the process of asking them the question will result in less time devoted to the question. However if your coworker makes twice as much money as you, you should be willing to spend twice as much time trying to figure out the question yourself, instead of spending 1/2 the time bugging them.
From a personal standpoint, if you value a relationship with a coworker it depends on if they like answering questions. Also your approach effects the equation. If they like talking, and they are not in the middle of something, asking the question may help your relationship. So a stupid question is one that annoys your coworker, and makes them not want to help you in the future.

Possible Interest of those who agree:

Laziness
The desire to learn.
The desire to talk.

Possible Interest of those who agree:

The desire for solitude.
The desire to keep their knowledge that gives them a competitive advantage to themselves.
The desire to use their time efficiently, and not constantly entertain inquisitive idiots.

Possible common interest:

The desire to use the company's time wisely.
The desire for the company to do well.

Prestigious schools should grade on a curve to stop grade inflation

2012-01-08T16:00:00.001-08:00

Right now you can buy prestige for your kids. It is not difficult to get into Harvard, you just have to have a lot of money, if you don't have a scholarship. Once into Harvard grade inflation ensures that almost anyone gets good grades. And so when businesses hire you, they are either paying you a lot of money because you are smart, or because your daddy has rich friends. You can't give the best jobs to the best students, if everyone at a school has A's. Harvard gives everyone A's.
In order for people or organizations to make the best decisions, they need to have access to the most amount of information.
According to an American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2002 study, in 1966, 22% of all grades given to Harvard undergraduates were A's. That grew to 46% in 1996.

Interest of those who agree:

It is in Harvard's best interest to give everyone who goes to their school good grades. Some of their students are brilliant, and get into Harvard because of their good grades, or scores on standardized test. Harvard gives these students an excellent education, by giving them the best teachers and access to the best equipment. The way Harvard is able to do this is because all the rich parents that pay the full price to send their kids to Harvard. The expensive price for a Harvard, and grade inflation keeps rich parents who are paying for prestige happy, which keeps the whole thing going.

No one wants to pay $100,000 a year for their kid to go to school and get bad grades.

Interest of those who disagree:

The desire to be able to tell your kids that life is fair.

People that agree

Princeton
Wealthy Parents

People that disagree

Harvard
Middle class parents

Webpages that agree

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-03-27-princeton-grades_N.htm

Webpages that disagree

We should spend at lest 4% of GDB on defense

2012-01-08T15:56:00.000-08:00

Reasons to agree

This kind of investment will make up for critical gaps in the modernization of our equipment, personnel and health care efforts.
We have typically spent about 4% of GDP on defense.
4% is a good amount, given our challenges.
Most countries spend about 4% of their GDP. Sometimes people try to make a big deal about how we spend more than other countries, but that is just because our economy is so much bigger than most other countries. Indonesia spends a higher percent of GDP, so does China. Saudi Arabia spend about twice as much as we do. We have a lot of land. Our people are spread out over a large distance. Everyone wants to take out the big dog. We are the protectors of the free world from despotic, tyrannical countries that want to rule the world, and are willing to kill others to be in charge... We would like it if other democracies carried their portion of the responsibilities, but because they won't, we have to protect them.
Our GDP is 13.84 Trillion dollars. 4% of that is 553.6 Billion. The US population is 304,059,724 people. So 553.6 billion dollars per 304 million people is $1,820 per year. That is not too much to for each citizen to pay our government to protect us. That is really the only purpose of government.

Carl sometimes tried to say profound things that were pretty dumb

2012-01-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

Reasons to agree

Carl Sagan said, "It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to 50 words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese‎." This is stupid.
Sagan erroneously predicted in January 1991 that so much smoke from the Kuwaiti oil fires "might get so high as to disrupt agriculture in much of South Asia…"
In 1994, Apple Computer began developing the Power Macintosh 7100. They chose the internal code name "Carl Sagan", the overt reference that the mid-range PowerMac 7100 should make Apple "billions and billions."[3] Behind the scenes, however, it was intended as a scathing criticism of Sagan and his brand of science.[citation needed] Though the internal project name was never used in public marketing, it did come up in Usenet postings and news of the name grew from there. When Sagan learned of this he sued Apple Computer to force the use of a different project name. Other models released conjointly had code names such as "Cold fusion" and "Piltdown Man". This was intentional as Apple engineers had used the names from what they felt were the three greatest science frauds of the twentieth century.[citation needed] Unaware of the true motive behind the code names Sagan was still displeased being associated with what he considered pseudoscience, as he was at the time writing a book discrediting pseudoscience. Though Sagan lost the lawsuit Apple management complied with his demands anyway and renamed the project "BHA" (for Butt-Head Astronomer). Sagan promptly sued Apple for libel over the new name, claiming that it subjected him to contempt and ridicule, but he lost this lawsuit as well. Still, the 7100 saw another name change: it was finally referred to internally as "LAW" (Lawyers Are Wimps).[30][31]
In 1966, Sagan was asked to contribute an interview about the possibility of extraterrestrials to a proposed introduction to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sagan reportedly asked for control and a percentage of the film's box office receipts in return; these terms were rejected.[15]

Interest of those who agree:

Everyone does idiotic things. Sagan was very smart, of course.
Sagan was very concerned about humans not destroying ourselves. That is a good idea.

Criticizing Sagan, because he was an agnostic.

Interest of those who disagree:

Defending Sagan, because he was an agnostic.

Values that disagree

Respect for the dead

Equality

2012-01-08T14:00:00.001-08:00

The numbering system below describes a system that scores groups of people within a range of 1 to 10 by how much they value equality.

These people undervalue equality. People who value equality at a 1, do not value equality very much. These people are willing to accept inhuman, or even unnatural cruelty to others, or specific groups of people. They do not value all life equally. People from their group (family, race, nationality) are acceptable, however they give little or no concern to those from other groups, or actively seek to harm those from other groups.
These people over value equality. Someone who overvalues an otherwise positive value like equality would be willing to sacrifice other good values in order to satisfy equality. These people not only are willing to steel from Peter to give to Paul, but are willing to trample all over such concepts as "freedom of choice", the "law of the harvest", justice, or reasonable application of mercy in order to ensure that Peter does not have anything more than Paul. An example of someone who is overly concerned with equality hate the strong, powerful, or beautiful. These people are not just concerned about equality of opportunity, but also equality of outcome. They are willing to sacrifice freedom, and require massive amounts of power in order to guarantee the outcome that they see fit. They don't care if anyone is happy, just that no one is more happy than others. They are so concerned with equality, that they can not accept that truly evil might be sad, or noble people to experience any happiness. They feel bad for Hitler. These people would say that no tradition, no norm, no action is wrong, or worse than other actions. It is wrong to say that someone is bad, and another person is good. We are all equal, and therefore everyone can be whatever they want as long as it is not better than someone else.

AI, Artificial Intelligence and computer wisdom

2012-01-08T12:42:00.001-08:00

In order for artificial intelligence to take the next big step forward, it will have to do more than retrieve answers to questions, but make decisions like: what should I do with my time. In order to do this we should build databases of beliefs or conclusions, and then brainstorms reasons to agree and disagree. At the very top level
reasons to agree will be added as validation of the belief, and reasons to disagree will be subtracted. Of course reasons will have to be weighted. I believe the most elegant way to do this is to have reasons to agree and disagree with each reason. So that a reason to agree with a reason to agree will give a total of 1/2 of its score to the highest level reason, and a reason to agree with a reason to agree with a reason to agree will only contribute 1/3 of its points to the highest conclusion. I believe with very little work, this system could come to decisions that are more WISE than the average real person. In this way artificial intelligence will become computer wisdom.

Reform

2011-08-06T19:12:00.001-07:00

We should require that our politicians use a transparent decision making process, in which they clearly outline the reasons voted for a bill, and the reasons they hesitated voting for a bill. This process works well for the court system, which is required to give a majority and minority opinion, after they vote. It also works in engineering classes, where students are not only required to get the right answer, but are required to show their work, indicating to the professor how they came to their conclusion. Currently, we don't even require them to pretend that they are acting in our interest by having a formal procedure that they account and explain their actions.

There are many ways we could expose the decision making progress to the light of transparency. For each vote we could require that politicians:

pass tests on subjects that affect their vote. This will support transparency by letting us know if our politicians are even informed or not. If they know nothing about anything, they will no longer be able to keep their ignorance hid from us.
pass a lie detector test. It is wrong to use lie detectors on normal people, but politicians do not have the right to lie to us. For a politician's vote to count they should have to indicate that they:

believe their action will help the country in the long run, and not just get them re-elected, and that they are going to make the right decision for the country.

indicate on a scale of 1-10 how much they agreed with major argument affecting their vote. For many of us the reason that a politician voted to make a bill into law is just as important as the way they voted.
rank the importance of the interest of those who will be affected by their votes.
write their own speeches. We want to know what someone believes not what their handlers believe. The difficult mental exercise of writing speeches is the only way to find out what you really believe. The Gettysburg address helped transform our nation, but thinking about the man who wrote it is what allows us to trust our leaders. We can't trust any of our leaders since they all stopped writing their own speeches. They are actors. They are empty suits. They are zombies. We are stupid to allow this charade to continue, in which we pretend to improve our country by continuing to vote for politicians who pretend to be people.
give book reports once a year on the most important book they think they read that year. Real people with real ideas who are willing to explain themselves clearly are explaining the problems that we face, and are explaining how we can fix our problems. Politicians should no longer be allowed to pretend that they are the experts.
Debate real experts. We don't force politicians to face down real experts, but we do allow them to go on C-Span so they can make ridiculous self serving misrepresented speeches, in which they would never dare treat each other unkindly, because they would be ostracized from their good old boy club.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a fundamentally good idea." ~ Louis Blanc in 1840

2011-05-22T21:12:00.001-07:00

Score:

# of reasons to agree: 2

# of reasons to disagree: -14

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: -1

# of reasons to agree with reasons to disagree: -0

Total Idea Score: 0

Don't like the score? It is easy to change.

Just post a reason to agree or disagree

Reasons to agree

Catholic social teaching holds that everyone has the right to a basic standard of living.
Income inequality is a problem in the USA. (+1-2=-1)
Equality of income opportunity is a problem in the USA.

Reasons to disagree

When you implement "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," magically, everyone starts having quite a lot of need and very little ability.
People will never be motived, without mass brain-washing, to work for the good of society despite the absence of a social mechanism compelling them to work.
When the wealth is redistributed only the redistributers will have wealth!
Young people are drawn to socialism because they are idealistic. Socialism would be nice, if it worked (-2) however it doesn't. On the surface this sounds good. This is why young people gravitate to liberalism. However when they get older, they realize that liberalism has negative un-intended consequences. For instance, how does one go about implementing the "to each according to his needs" part? To give something to someone according to their needs, you have to have it in the first place. Or steal it. And you don't want to trust a government that has the power to take everything from someone. Power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately. And then you see a sinister lining to the "from each according to his ability".
Shouldn't it be "from each according to their free will and energy"? You can drive a horse till it dies, or until it does not have the ability to go any further. Is that the way a government should look at it's citizens? What if I have the ability to be a great architect, but I don't have the motivation? Should the government force me?
The free market leads to better quality,
We should be rewarded by how much we contribute, as determined by the marketplace with a few modifications by government to keep the system fair.
This system requires someone to have the power to determine how much someone else needs. Because governments are made up of men, and men are by nature evil, those in power will always determine that they need much more than others.
When it comes to "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," who gets to decide what those abilities and needs are?
Socialism works fine as long as there is Capitalism to pay for it, but sooner or later, Socialism runs our of other people's money.
The Founding Fathers created government to provide Justice, not fairness.
Socialism is based on the premise that all people are good at heart. One look at the prison population in any country will prove that wrong.
If people think they can make socialism work in a better way, the should only do it with their money. They shouldn't try to take money from people who are not interested in their experiments.
You can agree that we don't have equality of opportunity, and want to try and fix that, but still not support government control of business. For instance, if we remove the property tax funding of education, that way you can give all kids the same amount of money for their education. If we work really hard to try and give each kid a fair start, and say they have equal opportunities, then we can treat adults like grown ups, and keep capitalism that rewards those who really want to work hard, or are smarter, or lucky, and not just those who got a good start in life. Scholarships for the poor, Harvard charging you based on what you parents made, all of these things are good things that we can do to make capitalism more fair, without resorting to socialism, which is too inefficient, and harms people's character by making them lazy.

Interest / Motivation of those who agree:

The desire to be seen as counterintuitive, if you are an American, by supporting a former American enemy (socialism or communism).
The desire for equality of outcome.

Interest / Motivation of those who disagree:

The desire for equality of opportunity.

Books that agree:

The Communist Manifesto

Books that disagree:

Socialism: an economic and sociological analysis by Ludwig Von Mises

People who agree

People who disagree

Web pages that agree

Web pages that disagree

Videos that agree:

Videos that disagree:

Unions are the average person's lobbying firm

2011-02-20T09:09:00.001-08:00

I am trying to brainstorm reasons to agree and disagree. Please help me!

Evaluate the above conclusion (also known as a belief or thesis).

Reasons

(Reasoning score: )

Reasons to disagree:

Unions often represent the needs of the "average people", as long as you define "average people" as union members. Union members are often average people, i.e. good hard working Americans. However, more precisely, unions are the lobbying firm oftheir union members. It may be true that the "average person's" needs are aligned with the union members, but often the union member's desires may conflict with the desire of the larger community of average people. For instance the average person may want the government's budget to be balanced, however a union, as any good special interest, is focused on a more narrow band of goals: the desires of union members. The average person may want to have their kids to have good teachers. The average person may not have a pension, may have to pay for their health care, and may want the people teaching his children to be rewarded and advanced with merit pay. In all these cases the union is going to be lobbying against the desires of the average person, and for the desires of its members. The whole problem is special interest. Good historians are saying this is what destroyed Rome: politicians only cared about their needs. Special interest only cared about their needs. You had the rich merchants trying to get richer, the new Romans vs. the Old Romans. No one cared if the whole thing burned, as long as each group was able to fight for their dirty little scrap of what was left. We need to come reason TOGETHER and determine what is good for the country as a whole. (Reasoning score: )

The current price to buy stock in this belief is $0.95 per share

The Idea Stock Exchange score for this idea is: +3-1=2

The percent that agree is: 92%

R2D(-): 0 R2AD(-): 0 R2DD(+): 0 Total Score: 1

Join the debate! Just leave a comment, and I'll add it to the correct location. Once I get some programmers to help me, this will be automatic.

AI, Artificial Intelligence and computer wisdom

2011-02-11T09:37:00.001-08:00

In order for artificial intelligence to take the next big step
forward, it will have to do more than retrieve answers to questions,
but make decisions like: what should I do with my time. In order to do
this we should build databases of beliefs or conclusions, and then
brainstorms reasons to agree and disagree. At the very top level
reasons to agree will be added as validation of the belief, and
reasons to disagree will be subtracted. Of course reasons will have to
be weighted. I believe the most elegant way to do this is to have
reasons to agree and disagree with each reason. So that a reason to
agree with a reason to agree will give a total of 1/2 of its score to
the highest level reason, and a reason to agree with a reason to agree
with a reason to agree will only contribute 1/3 of its points to the
highest conclusion. I believe with very little work, this system could
come to decisions that are more WISE than the average real person. In
this way artificial intelligence will become computer wisdom.

Rich countries should relax their immigration laws

2011-01-09T14:08:00.001-08:00

I am trying to brainstorm reasons to agree and disagree. Please help me!

Evaluate the above conclusion (also known as a belief or thesis).

Reasons

Rich countries should help poor countries.
It helps poor countries to let people leave that country, and go to richer countries.
Some poor countries don't have enough natural resources to support their population.
Libertarianism principles say that people should be able to do what they want. If someone wants to leave a poor country and go to a rich country, they should be able to.
We should do things that help the most number of people.
Freedom is good.
People should be able to vote with their feet.

Reasons to disagree:

Poor people should stay in their own country, and fix their problems, instead of going to rich countries.
We should help poor countries fix their problems, instead of just taking all their citizens.
If all the poor people were allowed to leave poor countries, they would make all the rich countries poor.
Allowing poor countries to unload all their criminals on Rich nations is unfair.
Allowing poor countries to unload all their uneducated peasants on rich countries is unfair.
We should do things that respect national boundaries.
Countries are important.
Borders are important.
Within the boarders of a country, people should be able to vote with their feet.

Tax money should not go to provocative art

2010-12-22T20:34:00.001-08:00

Society & Culture‎ > ‎Politics‎ > ‎Taxes‎ > ‎Taxation Ethics‎ > ‎

Evaluate the above conclusion (also known as a belief or thesis).

Reasons

To agree:

It is wrong to use taxes for things that people have major moral problems with.
If people want to make statements they should get money from private donors, and not take money from people just trying to make a living, that would feel sickened to know that money they worked hard for went to something they are strongly apposed to.
Government officials should try to use tax Money on only things with broad bipartisan support.
It is wrong to use government money on embryonic stem cell research. Their are plenty of private donors.
Some people would try to use this argument to further about any cause, but that doesn't mean their are not legitimate concern.

Allowing millions of people into our nation without any paperworks poses a very real security issue

2010-12-12T20:25:00.001-08:00

Society & Culture‎ > ‎Politics‎ > ‎Issues‎ > ‎Illegal Immigration‎ > ‎Impact from Illegal Immigration‎ >

Reasons

To agree:

People from Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran can all just get 1 way flights to Mexico, and walk into our country. (Reasoning score: 1)

We should build software that facilitates online forums with the following features and format (click on a link to see further explanation).

2010-11-28T20:33:00.001-08:00

Thesis #1: ¶

Above is the thesis (also know as a conclusion, or a belief). Every page on this site will be dedicated to one thesis, with content organized and tracked so as to either promote or oppose this main thesis.

Reasons

Reasons to AGREE with Thesis #1	Reasons to DISAGREE with Thesis #1
1. Reason to Agree #1 (Evaluate)	Reason to Disagree #1 (Evaluate)
2. Submit a new Reason to Agree	2. Submit a new Reason to Disagree

Interest

Interest of those who AGREE with Thesis #1	Interest of those who DISAGREE with Thesis #1
1. Interest of those who agree#1 (Evaluate)	1. Interest of those who disagree#1 (Evaluate)
2. Submit an interest of those who agree	2. Submit an interest of those who disagree

Common Interest Between Those Who AGREE and DISAGREE with Thesis #1

1. Common interest of between those who agree and disagree. (Evaluate)

1. Submit a common interest between those who agree and disagree with Thesis #1

Opposing Interest Between Those Who Agree and Disagree with Thesis #1

1. Opposing interest between those who agree and disagree. (Evaluate)

1. Submit an opposing Interest Between Those Who Agree and Disagree with Thesis #1

Books

Books that AGREE with Thesis #1	Books that DISAGREE with Thesis #1
1. Book that AGREES with Thesis #1(Evaluate Book)	1. Book that DISAGREE with Thesis #1(Evaluate Book)
2. Submit a book that AGREES with Thesis #1	2. Submit a book that DISAGREES with Thesis #1

Webpages

Webpages that AGREE with Thesis #1	Webpages that DISAGREE with Thesis #1
1. Webpage that AGREES with thesis #1(Evaluate Webpage)	1. Webpage that DISAGREE with thesis #1(Evaluate Webpage)
2. Submit a webpage that AGREES with thesis #1	Submit a webpage that DISAGREE with thesis #1

People

People that AGREE with Thesis #1	People that DISAGREE with Thesis #1
Person that AGREES with Thesis #1(Evaluate Person)	Person that DISAGREE with Thesis #1(Evaluate Person)
People that AGREE with Thesis #1?	People that DISAGREE with Thesis #1?

Videos

Videos that AGREE with Thesis #1	Videos that DISAGREE with Thesis #1
1. Video that AGREES with Thesis #1 (Evaluate Video)	1. Video that DISAGREES with Thesis #1(Evaluate Video)
2. [SubmitVideo Submit a video that AGREES with Thesis #1	2. [SubmitVideo Submit a video that DISAGREES with Thesis #1

Images

Images that AGREE with Thesis #1	Images that DISAGREE with Thesis #1
1. Image that AGREES with Thesis #1 (Evaluate Image)	1. Image that DISAGREES with Thesis #1 (Evaluate Image)
2. Submit an Image that AGREES with Thesis #1	2. Submit an Image that DISAGREES with Thesis #1

Algorithms that promote "better" conclusions according to the above list, as well as the going price people are willing to invest in the belief that a conclusions score will improve (hence the Idea Stock Exchange). We will also include user feedback (votes) in our algorithm giving each conclusion and reason to agree or disagree its score (click on items from the list to see how I anticipate the algorithm could use that item to promote better conclusions). Items on the list with higher scores will be promoted to the top of each list. The top 10 ranked items will appear on the first page, so in the end you will have a page for each conclusion (or Thesis), organized by category, with the top 10 reasons to agree and disagree, interest of those who agree or disagree, including a separate spot for common and opposing interest, the top 10 books, webpages, videos, and people that agree and disagree.
For each thesis their will be an ability to submit references to other places that say the same thing better, to eliminate duplication. As with everything when I say "better" there will be a percentage of people who agree that it says the same thing better, as well as a list of reasons to agree and disagree that it says the same thing better, etc.

"America has nothing to fear from today’s immigrants." Barack Obama speech at National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Jun 28, 2008

2010-11-21T20:47:00.001-08:00

Pros:

(Reasoning score: )

Cons:

Perhaps some people have too much fear from illegal immigration, but saying their is nothing to fear is a vast oversimplification, and is actually a demonization of people with very real and legitimate fear. People who live in gated communities, that send their children to private schools, and are not concerned about the price of healthcare might not have any concerns about illegal immigration, but for low and middle class Americans it is a very real concern. Our public school teachers are overwhelmed with kids that don't speak English, and don't know our customers, they have to leave in communities with disaffected youth, and go to hospitals that are overwhelmed with people that don't pay their bills.
Allowing millions of people to come to our nation without doing any paperworks poses a very real security issue.
Illegal immigrants are no better or worse than any other group of people on the planet. However if they do not speak English, and have a high school education they will have difficulty integrating into our society.
America is going to have hard enough time taking care of our own high school drop outs without importing 70 million of them from our neighboring countries.
Illegal immigrants have a hard time integrating into our society.
Their are many Latin gangs in America including, Latin Kings, Mexican Mafia, Sureños, 38th Street gang, Clanton 14, Culver City Boys 13, Fresno Bulldogs, Jheri Curls, Maras (gangs), Nuestra Familia, Varrio Nuevo Estrada, Venice 13.
Hispanics have a 20% drop-out rate. (From the Institute of Education Sciences, IES, National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education).

____________________________

Interest of those who agree:

The desire to see America grow in size to compete with China.
The desire to make America look more like them, if they are Hispanic.
The desire for America to be more diverse, if they have liberal guilt.
The desire to see America more Catholic.
Financial interest if your company would have to move overseas if not for cheap illegal labor.
Financial interest if you just don't like paying your workers very much.

Interest of those who disagree: %

Rule of law (if some people have to come in the legal way, and wait in line, everyone should have to come in the legal way, and wait their turn in line).
The desire to not see America become more Catholic.
The desire to keep American culture less diverse, or with positive spin more "unified".

_____________

Books that agree:

Books that disagree:

________________

People that agree:

People that disagree:

_______________________

Webpages that agree:

Webpages that disagree:

_______________________

Values that agree:

Multiculturalism
Ethnic pride

Values that disagree:

Rule of Law

Ethnic pride
It is nerdy to analyze issues with this much detail.

The current price to buy stock in this belief is $0.95 per share

The Idea Stock Exchange score for this idea is: +3-1=2

The percent that agree is: 92%

R2D(-): 0 R2AD(-): 0 R2DD(+): 0 Total Score: 1

Join the debate! Just leave a comment, and I'll add it to the correct location. Once I get some programmers to help me, this will be automatic.

John McCain: “It would be impossible to identify and round up all 10 to 11 million of the current undocumented.”

2010-11-21T09:19:00.001-08:00

I have started a new website (not a blog). It's address is: https://sites.google.com/site/yeahneh. The name is sort of stupid, but it comes from "Yeah" and "Neh" as in when you do a voice vote…

So if anyone wants to contribute to it, all I need is your google e-mail address, and you can edit away!

Anyways I want to do a really good job of outlining the major arguments about immigration, as I think it is one of the major issues facing our country. So what I want to do is sort of a wikipedia style group effort of outlining the issues… with that said, I'll just jump in.

John McCain said: "It would be impossible to identify and round up all 10 to 11 million of the current undocumented." He said this in a May 13, 2005 press release titled "Members of Congress Introduce Comprehensive Border Security & Immigration Reform Bill [S 2611].

In the future, I would like to outline all the issues here, but for now we can have a Normal conversation.

Here are some of the reasons that I have heard to disagree with McCain:

1. No one is proposing that we "round illegal aliens up".

2, Illegal Aliens came to America on their own; they don't need someone to drive them away

3. You wouldn't have to get all 11 million illegal aliens to go back, just 1/2 of them in 10 years would be a good start.

4. According to Wikipedia their are 77 million students in America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States). Lets be conservative and say that only 1 in 7 of our elementary and secondary students ride a school bus each morning. This means that our local communities all transport 10 million students each morning. Their are buss drivers that are not driving buses each and every summer, and kids that are not going to school. Local communities could run a program that would only last each summer. Whenever illegal immigrants are found, during the operation of normal police work, they could be incarcerated until their is a buss load of them, a buss driver, and a couple of policemen all get to take a field trip to Mexico. If they have legitimate reasons to be in America, they can file the necessary paperwork from their home country.

Have I forgot anything? Can we say something better? Instead of just producing quality, I want to go back and say things as best as they can be said. If you agree with McCain, why?

A technique taught in Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury, is to focus on interest not positions. In addition to having a place for listing pros and cons, I would like to have a place for the listing of interest. If we are going to make progress sometimes we have to stop listening to the stupid things people are saying, and try to figure out what their motivation is, and what makes them want to say those stupid things. It will often turn out that the real reason someone supports something has nothing to do with the arguments that they try to use to advance their ideas.

With that said, here are some of the interest of those who agree and disagree with McCain:

Interest of those who agree:

1. The desire to see America grow in size to compete with China.

2. The desire to make America look more like them, if they are Hispanic.

3. The desire for America to be more diverse, if they have liberal guilt.

4. The desire to see America more Catholic.

5. Financial interest if your company would have to move overseas if not for cheap illegal labor.

6. Financial interest if you just don't like paying your workers very much.

Interest of those who disagree: %

1. Rule of law (if some people have to come in the legal way, and wait in line, everyone should have to come in the legal way, and wait their turn in line).

2. The desire to not see America become more Catholic.

3. The desire to keep American culture less diverse, or with positive spin more "unified".

Well, I got things started, please HELP ME OUT! I think that we can basically set all the arguments about 10 million aside, and until you can convince people that the rule of law is more important than whatever their underlying interest are, we are going to have a tough row to hoe. So that is my next post: The rule of law is more important than compassion for illegal immigrants.

It was petty of God to send bears to kill youths that made fun of Elijah: Score -3

2010-05-23T12:38:00.001-07:00

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Reasons to agree: %

(Reasoning score: )

R2A(+): 0 R2AA(+): 0 R2DA(-): 0

Reasons to disagree: %

You can believe that the Old Testament was mostly inspired, but not believe every story.
Short stories don't tell every detail. You shouldn't judge the God of the Old Testament from one short story without knowing all the detail. It is better to focus on all the stories, and try to get a general direction.
This story was probably exaggerated over the years, so that it no longer relates what really happened. The moral is to not make fun of religious leaders, but well intended translators over the years probably oversimplified the story, so that the story sounds unjust to our more sensitive ears.

R2D(-): 3 R2AD(-): 0 R2DD(+): 0 Total Score: -3

The God of the Old Testament...

2010-05-23T11:47:00.001-07:00

I have a friend who's Dad was a religious leader. He went on a 2-year mission for his church. Now he is not a big Richard Dawkins fan. He recently posted this on his facebook page...

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

I would like to take these accusations one at a time.

When God said he was a jealous God, he was telling his followers to not worship Ba'al. Worshipers of Ba'al would get their Golden statues glowing hot, and put living babies on the alter. It wasn't wrong for God to tell his followers to not worship other other Gods. If I really was the true God, and I had worked miracles, to prove it, then I would be jealous also if people started worshiping Ba'al. This accusation is stupid, and arrogant, and shows that he is not interested in seeing both sides of an issue. Anyone who spent more than a day looking into this issue would realize that Dawkins is an idiot... God cannot be jealous in the sense that you and I are... over people's houses, and stuff, or the way that unpleasant characters are from history... this is just a stupid guy twisting words, to say how stupid his opponents are...

But if I am missing his point on jealousy, please tell me...

The "petty" thing holds a little more water for me... I'm thinking of those kids that made fun of Elijia and God sent a bear to eat them... that seems sort of petty, from the outside, but they must have needed it, we are not getting the whole story, or it was incorrectly translated, but I agree with Dawkins on this one, that given the text we have, we might be able to find some petty examples of God's behavior... Also those people who tried to steady the ark... yes, they knew the rules, but its not like they were trying to do wrongly, they just saw it wobbling, and reached out to keep it from falling... of course only stupid people make conclusive decisions, without having all the evidence, but from just the text, it seems sort of petty to kill them for just trying to help... perhaps they were evil, and wanted to break the laws, but again, just from the text, I will concede this to Dawkins, unless someone has more evidence, or ideas...

"Unjust" goes with petty... the bears, the steading of the ark... however, if you look at the Old Testament as a whole, the God of the Old Testament is a big promoter of justice... the Solomon Story, about cutting the baby in half: this is a story that tries to get at the truth... The God of the Old Testament promotes justice, more than other books from that time... I would really like to look into it, and get a count of all the stories that seem to promote justice, and those that don't. When Jacob stole the birth-right by tricking his Dad, that does not seem to promote justice... the children of Egypt being killed, just because Pharaoh was stupid does not seem to be just, the killing Sodom and Gamora is fine with me, we are told they were wicked, and God bent over backwards to save those who were righteous... I feel this is self-rightouse of me to start this argument, as though I am the first person to think about this... I know this argument has been going on for a couple of thousands of years... if the God of the Old Testament is just... but I would like to think that a group of amateurs like us could outline, much like Wikipedia, the best arguments for and against the justice of God, and that will continual refinement, we could outline and continually improve our representation of the arguments for and against the belief... One of the apostles said that to believe in God is to know that all the rules will be fair and their will be wonderful surprises. I agree. If you believe in God, you have to believe that eventually everything will make sense, but in the mean time, lets keep our humility, but do the best we can...

"unforgiving control-freak". This gets me mad at Dawkins. He is just throwing mud to be man. What I want is Data. I want Dawkins to try and prove his point, and not just throw mud, and if we are right, I want us to prove it. I want to prove it once and for all... I want to gather all the best data, so that people in the future, will, with very little work, see the arguments made by both sides, well documented, researched, etc. Someone who creates and runs the universe is by definition in control. It is stupid to say that the person who bakes a cake, controls the heat, and ingredient too much. He should just let the oven do what it wants, and let the wheat go free...

"Control-freak" is a 3rd grade accusation, and proves why Dawkins should be ignored. However he is not ignored, and so when he makes substantial accusations, like, "unforgiving", we have to put-up or shut up. Is the God of the Old Testament "unforgiving". Who are major sinners that got a second chance in the Old Testament... he didn't just Kill Pharaoh... he was always sending prophets to "warn" sinning countries. This seems forgiving of sin...

Well that's enough for now: What do you think?

The fact that God allowed Men, Women, and Childen be killed so Israel could have a homeland is problematic: Score: -3

2010-05-16T18:55:00.001-07:00

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The Idea Stock Exchange score for this idea is: +3-1=2

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Reasons to agree: %

What is not to understand. It contradicts that God is Love, and that God killed innocent children.
Its not just problematic that God let bad things happen, like letting children die, but if the Old Testament is to be believed, that he caused them to be killed. Religious scholars go to so much effort to say that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden, but he had to let them make up their own mind, so that he couldn't be blamed for causing them to suffer, but that all goes out the window when he commands Israel to kill whole cities.

R2A(+): 2 R2AA(+): 0 R2DA(-): 0

Reasons to disagree: %

Problematic does not mean insurmountable. The argument most often given is that it served the greater good. This argument says that God is allowed to follow the belief that the ends justifies the means. At first it might seem that only nutcases use this kind of logic. This is because most of us never face life and death decisions. But everyone in the military has to come to some sort of peace with the belief that their actions might kill innocent civilian, but may in the long run serve the greater good. A reasonable, compassionate person, who has reasons to believe in God, who would never use this logic for himself, can give his God more latitude in doing things he doesn't understand.
There is much worse things that happen to people than being killed.
Problematic does not mean insurmountable. You can believe that most of the Old Testament was inspired, but parts of it were messed around with by scribes, and those who took care of the records.
Ethically God is allowed to follow the Bill Cosby principle: "You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out."

R2D(-): 4 R2AD(-): 1 R2DD(+): 0 Total Score: -3

Dawkins is stupid when he says that God's jealousy contributes to him being one of the most unpleasant character in all fiction

2010-05-16T14:49:00.001-07:00

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Background:

Dawkins said: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Reasons to agree: %

When God said he was a jealous God, he was telling his followers to not worship Ba'al. Worshipers of Ba'al would get their Golden statues glowing hot, and put living babies on the alter. It wasn't wrong for God to tell his followers to not worship other other Gods. If I really was the true God, and I had worked miracles, to prove it, then I would be jealous also if people started worshiping Ba'al.
Just because your an athiest doesn't mean you can't think Richard Dawkins is an idiot.

Webpages that agree:

http://www.gotquestions.org/jealous-god.html

Miranda rights are stupid

2009-12-11T05:47:00.001-08:00

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