Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Future
cyberkine writes: "The Economist has an interesting article on Microsoft's technology strategies that ends with a very astute comparison with IBM's downfall and resurrection in the wake of its own antitrust battles. 'Microsoft's biggest underlying fear is that it will become like IBM - --a company that still has a strong business but no longer sets computing standards.'"
"oh darn"
while microsoft sets standards in userfriendlyness
Let me just confirm that the sound that you are hearing is, in fact, thousands of Macintosh users laughing.
jedrek
Sorry, this is probably -1 offtopic, but I just want to say, this was a great article - very concise, and almost completely unbiased. It would have been an excellent article, if it weren't for the weasely "% increase, not actual value" graph.
>|<*:=
One day just like so many other insane companies that people support.
Down with Gasoline.
Down with Waste.
Down with Bill.
One day the only corporations that will succeed are the ones that help people. The ones that do something with their billions other than advertise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
OK, I'm open to persuasion. The people who we are killing in Afghanistan right now, military, paramilitary and civilian, how will we convince their grieving friends and relatives not to retaliate in the months and years and generations to come?
Will we do it by winning their hearts and minds? If so, how? When a child's first contact with the USA is watching his mother being blown to pieces by a mis-targetted bomb, how are you going to persuade him not to hate you? "Sorry, kid." isn't going to cut it, not that we will ever apologise for anything we do in a Just Cause. When we are killing either innocent civilians, or (in their own minds) soldiers fighting a holy war, how do we persuade their relatives that the US really is the good guy? Repeated assertion won't do it. We are the Great Satan, remember, and - from the point of view of ground zero, with no access to independent news sources - we're certainly acting like it right now.
OK, let's posit that if we mounted only very surgical strikes to kill or capture only those who actually attack or threaten us, we could avoid retaliation (I don't believe this, but clearly you do). Do you honestly think that we will do that? That we would risk one US serviceman's life if the alternative is dropping another few hundren tons of bombs? We show no sign of that so far. If our aim was actually to take out Osama bin Laden then we'd have smothered Afghanistan not with bombs but with humanitarian aid, then we'd have watched and waited, patiently, patiently, then when bin Laden emerged from his cave, we'd have blown the evil motherfucker's nuts off and brought his head home in a bag. We'll probably still do that, but in the mean time, we've chosen to kill (directly and indirectly) of a lot of people who weren't our enemies before the bombs started falling and the food convoys stopped rolling.
Your argument that we can make a difference by smashing the organisations is valid. But it doesn't take a big organisation or a lot of people to commit an appalling number of murders. Timothy McVeigh got 168 all by himself. And McVeigh also highlights the other problem with the "kill 'em all" argument. Who are "they"? How do you spot "them"? How deep do you cut to excise them? How hard do you crack down on anyone who disagrees with the party line, and how many McVeigh's do you create for every Waco, how many bin Laden's for every Just Cause? How do we create fewer fanatics by using more force?
I do think that we can win the "War on Terrorism". I think that we can make a great start by not projecting military power all across the world, and by not killing civilans through sanctions. We can do it by not using land mines, or cluster bomblets that linger and kill and maim civilians for years, and by not using depleted uranium rounds that cause cancer and birth defects. Basically, I think we can win by doing exactly the opposite of what we are doing right now.
I'm not naive enough to think that we can fix things overnight. It's taken the British government and the IRA 85 years to reach the stage of (today!) agreeing not to be such dicks, and to stop killing each other. But it can be done, if we have the courage, and the fortitude, and the love of liberty and freedom for all that you bandy so lightly. It will mean acknowledging that while our military actions have been justifiable, our punishment of civilian populations is wrong, and that we are sorry. And by "we" I mean us as represented by the Executive. Say it with us, George: "We don't like having done to us as we have done unto others. We've learned our lesson, and we're sorry for being such dicks."
Here's the core of my argument; the US government (not the US people, damn it!) are stone cold evil motherfuckers. They (not you, not we, but they) kill and oppress civilians both domestic and foreign, and they are hated and feared for it. Convince me that the fear can be escalated faster than the hatred, because right now, I can't see any sign of us saying "Hey! Wouldn't it be neat if people hated us less? How could we achieve that?"
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Anybody who tries to change the system in Saudi Arabia (for good or bad) is usually killed or imprisoned for a very long time. There is no free speech, no political dissent, basically no freedom. And where does the Royal Family get is power base? From the good, freedom loving, wholesome US of A.
Now if you were born in Saudi Arabia and you wanted to change the system, how would you feel? Ask yourself why the US Govt has had troops in Saudi Arabia for a very long time. How would you feel if, lets say, the British had complete carrier battle groups off the coast Main and airbases in California. Just who would they be protecting (and please don't say Iraq - Saddam is crazy, but not that crazy, P.S. find Mecca on the map)? Just some thoughts.
Btw, I think the revenge attacks on Afghanistan are completely justified. All nations have the right to protect themselves. I don't believe any other country would act any different if they had the power. But I get pissed off when I hear propaganda that the US is morally superior. Countries do not behave out of moral compunction only out of self interest. As an aside, I realize you did not mention 'morals', but it was implicit in you post.
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal