"We have nothing to prove, and certainly not to people with closed minds,"

The only way you'd have nothing to prove is if you didn't make any claims. If you said, "This homeopathic solution is just water," you'd have nothing to prove. That much is obvious. But since you say, "Thanks to the memory of water this homeopathic solution can cure various ailments," well- that's something you need to prove.

Am I the only scifi nerd that thinks the premise for this show sounds awful?

"However the stitches or code only make sense to those who are familiar with the language or patterns."

That's just not true. My wife does embroidery, and I know nothing about it. But, I can look at the back side and see the stitches and I can make intuitive judgments about the structure, design and reasoning of those stitches. I can't evaluate the details, but I can tell a good pattern from a bad one.

On the same token, I've recontextualized computer code as poetry. Even people who don't understand the logic and the syntax of a program can recognize good, clean code from clumsy, confusing code.

@Xopher: Well, it's not an entirely stupid one. It depends on the kind of society you're in. For our society, I agree. For a smaller, more agrarian society, it's a perfectly reasonable idea.

codesuidae: Actually, one of my reasons for advocating household corporations is that they're more adaptable in the future.

Marriage defines a specific kind of relationship. The push for same-sex marriage is merely extending that definition slightly. This doesn't address the future needs of society at all.

Your sci-fi example is a good one, but we can illustrate the need for this arrangement without getting quite so esoteric. Think of the extended family- a venerable tradition that has no protection under current marriage law. Then, of course, the role of group marriages- another venerable tradition that never really caught on in the west (historical Mormons excluded). Same for the small commune.

@flamingphonebook: Except marriage isn't treated as a contract. Some of the aspects of marriage is handled like a contract, some aspects are handled like a corporation, and some have no analog anywhere else in the law.

The most important difference is that the marriage contract is actually among three parties- the participants and the state. The state grants rewards based on the conditions of the contract. Because it has the power to grant rewards (for example, tax breaks), it retains some power to dictate the conditions.

Don't you see how that's a double edged sword? If the state has the power to grant tax benefits to married people, it has a vested interest in controlling the institution of marriage.

In contrast, in a "household corporation", there would be no special tax benefits from the state. The state's only role in the arrangement is to adjudicate disputes between members of the corporation and in the interaction of the corporation with other entities.

@Largemarge (#49): How is it "more rights" when you're giving more power to the government?

If the state can't sanction marriage, then the citizens have infinite power to explore as individuals and groups what marriage means and the infinity of possible ways of structuring a family.

If you give the state the power to recognize marriages, you're allowing the state to define what kinds of families can exist. Even if we allow same-sex marriages, we now are betraying our bias against group marriage, polygamy, temporary marriage, extended family arrangements, and so on.

Allowing the state to sanction marriage is less freedom for everyone. Marriage belongs to the participants and their community- not the state.

@Iwood (#48): You're still harping on the technical aspects of what constitutes a corporation. I agree with your points. But reforming how corporations are recognized is a different debate. I am a corporation, so I don't have any inherent bias against fictional persons. But their rights and liabilities are improperly managed in our society.

I think every individual should have legal recognition as at least ten different fictional persons. We have to get past this idea that an individual is a single functional unit- that a person is an atom. Individuals aren't- they are entirely "dividual".

@Antinous: Shall I rephrase?

The state often misuses and abuses its power, therefore, we should be extremely careful and restrictive about which powers we grant the state.

That's why the 9th and 10th Amendments exist. To explicitly limit the government's power and expand that of the citizens.

@Lexica: I see the source of our confusion.

Marriage is a fundamental human right. I'll grant that, in the same way reading a book is a fundamental human right. If that's what you want to do, go ahead and do it!

State-sanctioned marriage is not a fundamental human right. It's a horrible idea and shouldn't exist. The state should have no power to recognize marriage. By granting the state that power, we give the state the power to make it conditional and turn it from a "human right" into a privilege.

Is this more clear?

@IWood: That's better handled via corporate reform thought. That's entirely separate from creating a new specialized class of corporation to replace marriage.

Er, I disagree with many SCOTUS decisions.

@Largemarge: The supreme court isn't the boss of me. I disagree with man SCOTUS decisions, and this is one of them. I agree with the impact, but not the reasoning.

State-sanctioned marriage is not a fundamental right. It's a wacky contrivance and should not exist. The state should not have that power, regardless of what SCOTUS says.

@XOPHER: "They can only PROVE their proposition by those mental gymnastics if they ignore the obvious counterarguments;"

And... your point is? Remember, the state brings us such reasonable things as endless war, the TSA and bottled water bans, the ongoing drug war, "think of the children" motivated campaigns and all that garbage.

The state rarely acts in a reasonable fashion. I don't see why we should expect reason on this one issue, when it isn't applied on many others.

If the state defines marriage, it has the power to define it however it likes. There may be constitutional limitations, but since marriage isn't generally discussed in constitutions that's legally debatable.

In any case, this gives the majority the ability to define marriage however they like. The state is, to a large extent, the majority. In the age of the pander-bears, the majority holds more power than ever. If we remove the power of the state to define marriage, we take that power away from the majority. We remove a major source of pander-bear bamboo, and things work better.

@aimless: I'm not #18. I didn't even read #18 completely, because it rapidly descended into incomprehensibility. My bit of devil's advocating was #23.

BoingBoing- you guys should really look into setting up a link-back reply system like Gawker sites use. Or threaded replies. Or something.

@aimless: How is getting married a fundamental right? I think it's unfair for them to be denied the state sponsorship that others get, but getting married is hardly a fundamental right. That's like saying a driver's license is a fundamental right.

It's unfair and injust to offer privleges to some and deny them to others. But marriage is certainly a privilege, not a right.

@codesuidae: Hey, I'm just devil's advocating. I don't think there is any value in state sanctioned marriage that can't be better managed under corporate or contract law. I think a group of college roommates sharing an apartment are worthy of the same privleges as a married couple sharing an apartment.

@zebob: Since marriage is a legal construct, laws are defined by the state, then the definition (and purpose) of marriage is free to be defined by the state.

Which is why I oppose any state-sponsored marriage.

Now, I am married, so there is a bit of hypocrisy there. Hey, I'm no sucker. I'll take the carrot, even if I oppose the motivations for handing it out.

By the way- I don't agree with any of those above premises. I'm just pointing out that a clever person can do mental gymnastics to prove their premises by their conclusion.

codesuidae: The issue is that the State can make non-religious cases for forbidding same sex marriage.

1) Marriage exists to produce, provide for, and raise children.
2) The future of the State rests upon the production and proper training/indoctrination of children.
3) Ergo, the state has the power and responsibility to define marriage as between a man and woman, with the anticipation that most such couples will provide children for the state.

This, of course, offers an Achilles's heel- that definition should allow polygamy. Encourage it, in point of fact. One male can impregnate many women. There is perhaps an argument that they cannot properly rear those children, but group marriage answers that objection.

@IWood: Too many? I think we have too few. I could do with a few extra fictional identities for various purposes.

Destroy marriage. It's superfluous. The benefits granted by the state sanctioned union are better handled as a subset of corporate law. Individuals should be free to join into household corporations that allow the pooling and sharing of resources.

The beauty of this is that it is completely non-discriminatory. Two people, six people, any arrangement of genders or even complete asexuals can join into a household corporation. There are no special conditions or requirements, except that the members must be able to enter into legal agreements. Children can be entered into a household corporation by their legal guardians; through adoption law, the corporation could become the legal guardian.

It's more feature rich than marriage, more legally and logically consistent, leverages an existing and powerful legal framework, and removes the state from matters of romance, religion, or social organization.

Well, once someone finds out what the "triggers" are for suspicion, it's an easy system to DDoS. I imagine when the city council gets the bill from the police department, things will change.

@syphax - finally, someone twigs to the point I'm trying to make. The car is the payload, you're the dead weight. Your car shouldn't need you- you can barely stand up straight! Bipedal locomotion is novel, but it's just a fad.

In all seriousness, I don't have a horse in this race. I don't own a car or a bike. Bikes are for sissies that want an extra wheel for no good reason. Unicycles uber alles!

//That was the real reason for all of my comments.
//Bicyclists suck.

@Lexica: you move one ton on your bike? I think not.

@RacingChikin: because calories are not a unit of work. Calories are an (antiquated) unit of energy, specifically heat. Joules are the SI unit of energy, including heat but- important to this case- mechanical work.

Which is what I'm discussing. Engineers use input energy and output work to discuss efficiency.

"And since we're talking about the energy required to move a HUMAN, not a CAR"

No, we're not. We're discussing which produces the most work for the least energy. Car wins, easy. If you deem the mass of the car as unimportant, then yes- you're entirely right.

Which goes back to my previous comment: you should sit at home, and your car should be free range. It's more efficient about using energy than you are. If we abandoned people entirely, we'd save far more energy than merely abandoning or restricting our use of cars.

@nolongeranon: no, it's about work. Work is force * distance, and force = mass * acceleration.

More mass moved across the same distance is more work. More work for less energy is more efficient. Ergo, your car- which weighs more than 10xs the average marathoner undergoes more force. Ergo, more work has been performed and at a lower energy cost per joule of work.

As I said earlier- the issue with a car is that nobody really cares about the car getting from place to place. The car exists to get you from place to place. So if we remove the mass of the car from the factor of work (since we don't care about the car), then YES- cars are inefficient.

The point I'm making is that you shouldn't use your car. That's a waste. Your car should be free to roam as it sees fit, because that's far more efficient than letting you roam as you see fit.

Patently false. Get on a bike and ride till you run out of gas.

It takes about 6lbs(1 gallon) of fuel to move 1 ton 20 miles. Let's say you can travel the same distance on 4 Snicker's bars. Off the top of my head, I don't recall what that weighs. Say each snickers bar is 4oz, that's 1lb of fuel to move .10 tons (if you're big boned anyway).

That's 1/6th the fuel for 1/10th the work. Car wins.

ILL LICH: "These kinds of rumours are dreamed up to justify laziness and selfishness. "

Right. Laziness and selfishness don't need to be justified. They're their own reward.

But these rumors do have a value. They draw attention to the fact that your body sucks. You throw off all kinds of waste heat, barely extract any energy from your fuel (most of your fuel mass just passes through!), you have a wasteful, clumsy and impractical mode of upright locomotion. And the list goes on.

This is a real problem that barely anyone is actively addressing. Humans, designed by the process of evolution, are adapted to an environment that no longer exists. Our bodies are ill suited to the modern environment that we've created.

Down with bipeds! Down with digestion!

Your body is far less efficient at turning fuel into energy than a car. Pound for pound, your car is definitely more efficient than you are.

But most of the pounds in your car are absolutely wasted if the primary purpose of your car is to move your butt around. Because you're not just moving you around- you're moving this steel behemoth around. The fact that you're inside is more of a coincidence.

That said, all you two wheeled cyclists are posers! Uni FTW!

Count me as a happy gun owner. It's fun and relaxing to go out target shooting.

I'm _always_ thirsty. This comes from being a trainer in the past, I think. I'd spend the whole day talking, and that makes you thirsty, so I'd drink huge amounts of water. Now, even though I don't train any more, I still feel the need to drink constantly.

"We have evidence, but you can't see it. And we can't give you evidence that we have evidence. You get our word, but hey- we're from the government, and we're here to help. Would we ever lie to you?"

in a way, making fun of them, finding a way to say, 'That's not cool -- that's anything but cool.'

Ah yes, PSAs to teach children what "cool" is. This should work out great.

I mean, I remember how great those anti-drug PSAs were, and everyone just stopped using drugs. That's the power of making things "not cool", y'know. One PSA and BOOM- end the drug war. It worked for them, I don't see why it can't work for the movie industry.

If I were at Burning Man, I'd probably want to commit suicide too.