People told us to give 110%, but 108.4% was the best we could manage.

I had a similar experience. I was raised in a Conservative/Fundamentalist Christian environment. Sometime shortly after undergrad, I realised I didn't believe those things anymore, and how many were logically indefensible. I now identify as a Progressive Christian, sometimes leaning toward Deism.

I believe in God, as a fact, from philosophical arguments. Primarily First Cause and the Ontological Argument (maths minor here). Logically demonstrating Jesus is God is a bit harder, but, I think he was about as good as any man who lived, and the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, so, eh. Theologically, I'm at a point where I'm not sure it matters. One of my favorite quotes is a paraphrase of Marcus Aurelius,

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

I have a lot of friends who outright rejected Theism when confronted with the indefensible. Which I understand, but don't agree with. I think that rejection is often a continuation of the black-and-white philosophy of Fundamentalism and Conservatism. When faced with incontrovertible facts against black, it's easy to flip to white, rather than recognising it's not "black" which is wrong, so much as the dualistic worldview itself.

do you still believe that there is someone who will greet us after your death?

Again, I lean toward Deism. I'd like to believe in an afterlife, but I don't think it would be the horror many people think if there isn't. Time doesn't cease to exist after it happens, if that makes any sense. As Mark Twain said, "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

Do you still talk to God and ask for his help even though the belief is fading away?

Yes. Though I wouldn't say my belief is fading away. I'd rather say I deconstructed my faith and rejected the indefensible, and am now rebuilding it.

I'd add, I think a great many people, especially Fundamentalists, mistake God for themselves. That is, "God" is whatever they want and whatever supports them. That may mean rationalising their selfishness, or it may mean condemning vices they dislike in themselves. But regardless, it's self-worship, and bad. It's something I actively think about and try to avoid in myself. And also, just because many people worship themselves and call it God, doesn't mean a real, impartial, omnipotent God doesn't exist.

I'd also add, that I think "good" and "evil" are immature misconceptions. People aren't "evil", they're broken. The conservative theology of eternal damnation is childish. The philosophy of punishment because people "deserve it" is childish. People need helped, and fixed, not "punished" because they're "bad". Children think "bad actions are punished"; adults realise "bad actions are given negative reinforcement to teach good behavior". The purpose of all pain is learning, not some warped concept of justice. Suffering is bad. It takes a sick or childish mind to think otherwise.

You might be interested in Fowler's theory of Stages of Faith.

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is also a fantastic read, but especially for anyone caught between fanaticism and atheism. It doesn't have answers, so much as advice for living well, and honest, rational thought.

Something's wrong? Use our fucking democracy like everybody else.

Democracy is not some magical idea which gives justice to everyone, if only they work with the system. Pure Democracy definitively allows the majority to oppress the minority. The 51% can and will oppress the 49%. That's one of the reasons the US has a Republic. But even the Republic allows systematic oppression of minorities, as much as we try to prevent it.

When the system does not give power to your group, it is not possible to work within the system to fix it.

That said, I agree:

Silencing other people who're working hard to be heard themselves is not fucking acceptable.

Civil disobedience should not involve silencing others to be heard.

Fuck #blacklivesmatter.

Yes, yes, these are only two people and this is only a small minority of the people waving this banner, but that's pretty much always the case.

You're condoning discriminating against entire disparate groups for the actions of a few? I...what? Really? Really?

We don't have good ETA. We all have day jobs, unfortunately. But I can tell you where I am.

Right now, Hubski is a monolithic Arc app storing data as flat files.

My current list looks something like this:

1. Write an app reading SQL and serving JSON over REST, as an internal API. This will serve things like /post/id rather than /user/posts, and is not only unwieldy as a public API, but also serves private data like mail.

2. Write a script to convert the flat files to SQL.

3. Convert the Arc code to read from the internal API.

4. Write an External API, with endpoints like /user/posts, /posts/global, /tag/, etc. Hard, because it needs authentication to serve private user data. Easy, because we'll already have an internal API app to modify, and data will be in SQL.

The internal API is necessary before an external API. It will fix scalability issues we're having, it enables and simplifies a lot of other features we want to add, and most of the work transfers to the external anyway.

I'm about 60% done with 1 and 2, bearing in mind the 80–20 rule. But again, I have limited spare time. I'm also on vacation next week, so I'm losing the next two weekends. I'm conservatively hoping to have the internal API deployed for most data in a couple months, and to have an external API by the new year. I know that's long, believe me, it frustrates me more than anyone. If this were my full-time job, I could have it done in two weeks, tops.

Incidentally, if anyone is super-anxious to see the new API and conversion code I'm working on, I could be persuaded to put it on github sooner rather than later. It's all Racket LISP.

Going thru the Arc code to release it is also on my list. But, writing new Racket is more fun than poring thru old Arc looking for security concerns.

You don't need an API. You can always scrape.

All this "vehemence" and disdainful language

I'm sorry. I picked an arbitrary synonym of "strongly." It wasn't meant to be offensive to you or anyone.

for you to paint me up as Scrooge McDuck.

I didn't say anything about you. I was expressing my opinion on an idea, not about any person or people.

it's beside the fucking point.

I mentioned my past because it was exactly my point: for the greater part of my life, I have been in a position where such a fee would have been too much.

combined with the plea to poverty is just... distasteful. And rude.

My feelings, and argument, is that what seems like a nominal fee is untenable to many people. You're telling me my position itself is 'rude' and 'distasteful.' I don't know what to say to that. I'm sorry you find that opinion rude, but it isn't meant to be, and it isn't meant to offend or insult. I do feel it's a valid position, and I don't think it's hateful to the wealthy to defend those who aren't (among whom, my past self).

Honestly, it feels like you're telling me I can't have strong feelings on an idea without offending you personally. You've repeatedly taken things I said, and interpreted them as things I didn't say, and had no intention of implying. I do apologise, it wasn't my intention to insult or attack you or anyone. From your words, I'm honestly not sure how I can hold or express my opinion without insulting you; and I don't know what to say to that besides, 'I'm sorry.'

Agreed. Axioms are created, everything else is a property of those axioms and 'discovered.'

Those basic axioms tend to be the most useful in our universe, but they were still 'created.' We often define or create other axioms, for example, taxicab geometries are imminently useful for modelling paths in cities. We created the rules for the taxicab geometry, as with Euclidian geometry, but we didn't create the properties that emerge from those rules.

I think maybe the confusion comes from a misunderstood analogy: people think 'if you build a castle of LEGOs, you created that castle; aren't maths likewise created?' The misunderstanding is that mathematical theorems and properties aren't like the castle, they're like the potential to build a castle from those given LEGOs. The child created the castle, but she only discovered the possibility of building a castle, which always existed as a property of those LEGOs.

scripture is meaningless without interpretation

A fantastic theologian at my undergrad university makes the same point in his book,

Someone once asked me to have a discussion about 1 Corinthians 14 and charismatic gifts. I said, "Great. I'd love to."

So I started, "The way I interpret this passage..." and he cut me off and said, "I'm not interested in your interpretation. I'm only interested in what the Bible says."

I said, "Okay, my bad" and read the passage aloud.

Then I sat there, and he sat there, and I sat there, and he sat there.

And he said, "Well?"

I said, "Well, what?"

He said, "You just read the passage."

I said, "You weren't interested in my interpretation."

He said, "Okay what's your interpretation?" And on we went.

I completely agree. That's why I identify as a Progressive Christian. Because the word "Christian" means something different to everyone. I'm sure Islam is the same. Adding an adjective gives it a little more meaning.

It's also why I stopped wearing a cross, and started wearing a Franciscan pendant (I'm not Catholic). Because the symbol of the cross is likewise diluted to meaninglessness. People argue Jesus taught completely opposite things. There isn't nearly so much argument about the teachings of Francis of Assisi.

I'm not saying I think judicial decisions should be immortalized for all time. Society's understanding of morality changes over time, and government needs provisions to adapt.

But separation of powers exists for a reason. If the Supreme Court throws out a bill and Congress immediately passes a new bill that says "everything before, and the judicial branch can't throw it out," that's not ok. The amendment process is a compromise. It seeks to allow changes to prior law and judicial precedent without giving the legislative branch overt power to disregard the judicial. The presumption is that anything capable of garnering 2/3 majorities in both the House and Senate, as well as approval of 3/4 of state legislatures, probably represents a fundamental shift in society, and ought be permitted to overrule prior law and precedent.

I realize I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know. My point is, I understand government needs the ability to adapt to societal changes; but no one government branch should have the power to completely disregard another.

I actually think the amendment process is pretty reasonable. What I don't think is reasonable, is for any legislator to vote for something which explicitly overrides the judicial branch, which they know doesn't have overwhelming societal or legislative support. Most certainly not something which prohibits future judicial intercession. They might as well have said "I believe in autocracy." Or perhaps, "When a legislator does it, that means it's not illegal."

Protester's side:

Unarmed black man is assassinated by 94% white police department. Protesters start protesting. Unaffiliated bad people take advantage to loot. Police use military-grade violence to disperse peaceful protests. Police arrest journalists and destroy or dismantle their equipment. Governor declares he's about to remove the county police. FBI opens investigation into initial death. Protests ongoing.

Police side:

Suspect assaults officer and is shot resisting arrest. Protesters make it a race issue and began rioting and looting. Police use reasonable force to disperse rioters. National media makes it a race issue. Internet portrays rioters as heroes and police as villains. Police help journalists stay safe and transport their equipment. Police chief graciously hopes it won't be necessary to tear-gas the state senator again. Rioting ongoing.

Disclaimer: I'm biased in support of the protesters.

EDIT:

Missouri Highway Patrol announced to take over Ferguson security.

I was probably 10 or 11 when I first started working on my grandfather's tobacco farm.

We didn't just harvest. We planted in the spring, riding on a setter behind a tractor. In the summer, we harvested. Adults cut and staked, and everyone came later and hauled the stakes onto wagons. We children weren't allowed to stake, or touch the machetes or razor-sharp spikes. Many of us cut firewood at home; the machetes weren't nearly so dangerous as the spikes, which would go through your palm like butter. Yeah, kids couldn't touch those.

hand-pulling tobacco and panning it with a harvester

I have no idea what that is. Must be a different method.

We then hung it in barn rafters 4-5 stories high, handing it up from the wagons. I loved that part; I've always loved heights. No more dangerous than climbing trees at home.

Finally, in the winter, we pulled it down and stripped the dried leaves, and put them in a baling compactor.

Was it dangerous? No more than playing in our backyard at home.

Nearly 75% reported a range of devastating symptoms

Never happened to me, nor anyone, adult or child, I knew. I suspect this is grossly exaggerated. If you're working in the sun for days at a time, at some point you're going to get a headache or feel nauseous.

eating lunch with tobacco gum all over your hands

Only if you're a nitwit and don't wash your hands first. Water is always available, you can't work in the heat without it. Tobacco gum is sticky, but it comes right off with a modest amount of scrubbing. We usually wore gloves anyway.

the money was given directly to her parents.

What I earned, and every kid I knew, got to keep. We earned $100-300 a week back when the minimum wage was $5.15. As a kid, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me, and in retrospect taught a valuable lesson of the correlation of hard work and money.

I don't know any kids who worked in tobacco who didn't do it for a relative, and as far as I know kept the pay.

no place to go to the bathroom

Yeah, in the trees behind the field. That was neither unusual nor unhealthy. Anyone who grew up with land probably did that on a weekly basis voluntarily anyway.

Are there kids forced to work for no pay, 12 hours a day, and made or allowed to use dangerous implements like spikes? I'm sure there are. And I wholeheartedly agree their parents should be investigated for abuse. On an individual basis. But I never met one.

As someone who grew up doing this, I think the article is way overblown, and the data overly anecdotal, cherry-picked, and manipulated to support preconceived notions.