back_beyond

I made no attempt to dismiss or excuse the South's role in upholding slavery. Your quibble is not with me.

One perspective is that these Southerners died defending their home against a foreign invasion. Despite being vastly outmanned and outgunned, they withstood five bitter years. Some view honor in that.

[REDACTED]

Don't I?

What are the benefits of developing such technology?

As an atheist, and someone critical of religion and its practices elsewhere in this thread, your faith seems quite reasonable. The notion of "ignorance breeds fear" is at play somewhere here.

I appreciate the civil discussion and insight.

What is prayer if not speaking directly to a deity?

To a, presumably, educated person like yourself, yes, religion is likely more in the domain cultural evolution. Can the same be said for all? Many would claim to have a personal relationship with their deity(ies).

God told me to never eat anything. Where is the distinction between mentally ill and religious?

Is fasting during Ramadan a data-driven decision?

Have you found that the freed mental cycles came later in the month, after adjusting to the fast? In my experience, fasting requires even more mental effort than I'd normally spend just to ignore hunger pangs.

There need not be a distinction. Your hobby could literally be to kill your own food.

Hell, we can't help it! The definition keeps changing!

As if the chicken had a chance when you kill it "with your hands"... No reason to be condescending towards another's hobby.

We seem to be in complete agreement. Personally, I do not conceal carry; however, my point was to state why some might want to do so.

It's sad that people are often confronted by violent criminals. If this time were to come, should we just hope that police and/or bystanders will protect us? Criminals seek situations where neither is readily available.

Questioning the accuracy and objectivity of such a simulation seems perfectly valid.

Some people do exclusively rent guns and never take them out of the firing range. If this is your only intended use, that's probably the best strategy. However, like others have suggested, an additional reason to own a gun is self-defense; a gun stored at the firing range is completely ineffective in this regard.

Recreation. Many people enjoy visiting a firing range.

We should not forget that flush also refers to the time when a person's face becomes red.

As in, your face will go flush if you realize your credit card reader is not flush because you might have just flushed all your winnings from having a poker flush down the toilet.

Edit: November 9th!

The day is November 5th 2016, and the top post on HN is "Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States". Comments read "it is a sad day for the United States" and "I don't understand, Hillary was polling well".

No where did I mention armed resistance. This discussion is framed the wrong way. It isn't about plastic/wooden/metal sticks that eject lead, it is about whether citizens should give up their rights.

The death of my entire family at the hands of a gunman, while incredibly tragic, would not make me any less pro-gun. As other commenters have stated, the right to own guns is fundamental to the identity of many Americans. If the government could take away our guns, what else could they do?

This thread is missing Google's PR team and links to its SRE book

Sure, this is something that I can support. The parent post seemed too simplistic a characterization.

Apparently I did miss the memo. All successful people are a result of luck and leaching. TIL.

Actually that is, in my opinion, a perverted world view. Surely you don't believe it.

We should limit a community's exposure, even if it's organic and consistently one of the most active[1] on all of Reddit? What if we gave extra votes to lesser-represented political parties because, you know, they have good ideas too - right? Let's not pretend that this algorithmic change won't have the same impact.

[1] http://redditlist.com/

If restricting the message of a movement isn't censorship, that's news to me.

I understood that. Let me clarify: what are examples of racism and bigotry that have gained traction? Let's define "gained traction" as 1000 upvotes. Although, I'm open to a better definition.