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Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas
CHESTER COPPERPOT writes "Scott Berkun writes an interesting essay on 'Why smart people defend bad ideas'. He states a number of interesting highlights on smart people and dumb ideas. From the article: 'In the software industry, the common example of thinking at the wrong level is a team of rock star programmers who can make anything, but don't really know what to make: so they tend to build whatever things come to mind, never stopping to find someone who might not be adept at writing code, but can see where the value of their programming skills would be best applied.'."
Tom Smykowski: It's a "Jump to Conclusions Mat". You see, you have this mat, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.
Michael Bolton: That is the worst idea I've ever heard.
Samir: Yes, this is horrible, this idea.
Ego.
I knew a guy that programmed a music "jukebox" ... didn't have the heart to tell him that at most parties I went to the people just had a winamp and a folder open.
There are a lot of people who can literally do ANYTHING, and partly because of this they end up doing NOTHING. Kind of like a horse caught between two bales of hay.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Wait- is that the real chester copperpot, or just someone using the nickname chester copperpot?
My genetic programming website: http://www.helpmefigurethisout.com/
Why smart people defend bad ideas
By Scott Berkun, April 2005
We all know someone that's intelligent, but who occasionally defends obviously bad ideas. Why does this happen? How can smart people take up positions that defy any reasonable logic? Having spent many years working with smart people I've catalogued many of the ways this happens, and I have advice on what to do about it. I feel qualified to write this essay as I'm a recovering smart person myself and I've defended several very bad ideas. So if nothing else this essay serves as a kind of personal therapy session. However, I fully suspect you'll get more than just entertainment value (Look, Scott is stupider than we thought!) out of what I have to say on this topic.
Success at defending bad ideas
The monty python argument sketchI'm not proud to admit that I have a degree in Logic and Computation from Carnegie Mellon University. Majoring in logic is not the kind of thing that makes people want to talk to you at parties, or read your essays. But one thing I did learn after years of studying advanced logic theory is that proficiency in argument can easily be used to overpower others, even when you are dead wrong. If you learn a few tricks of logic and debate, you can refute the obvious, and defend the ridiculous. If the people you're arguing with aren't as comfortable in the tactics of argument, or aren't as arrogant as you are, they may even give in and agree with you.
The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they're wrong. This is bad. Worse, if they got away with it when they were young (say, because they were smarter than their parents, their friends, and their parent's friends) they've probably built an ego around being right, and will therefore defend their perfect record of invented righteousness to the death. Smart people often fall into the trap of preferring to be right even if it's based in delusion, or results in them, or their loved ones, becoming miserable. (Somewhere in your town there is a row of graves at the cemetery, called smartypants lane, filled with people who were buried at poorly attended funerals, whose headstones say Well, at least I was right.)
Until they come face to face with someone who is tenacious enough to dissect their logic, and resilient enough to endure the thinly veiled intellectual abuse they dish out during debate (e.g. You don't really think that do you? or Well if you knew the rule/law/corollary you wouldn't say such things), they're never forced to question their ability to defend bad ideas. Opportunities for this are rare: a new boss, a new co-worker, a new spouse. But if their obsessive-ness about being right is strong enough, they'll reject those people out of hand before they question their own biases and self-manipulations. It can be easier for smart people who have a habit of defending bad ideas to change jobs, spouses, or cities rather than honestly examine what is at the core of their psyche (and often, their misery).
Short of obtaining a degree in logic, or studying the nuances of debate, remember this one simple rule for defusing those who are skilled at defending bad ideas: Simply because they cannot be proven wrong, does not make them right. Most of the tricks of logic and debate refute questions and attacks, but fail to establish any true justification for a given idea.
For example, just because you can't prove that I'm not the king of France reincarnated doesn't make it so. So when someone tells you "My plan A is the best because no one has explained how it will fail" know that there is a logical gap in this argument. Simply because no one has described how it will fail, doesn't necessarily make it the best plan. It's possible than plans B, C, D and E all have the same quality, or that the reason no one has described how A will fail is that no one has had more than 30 seconds to scrutinize the plan. As we'll discuss later, diffusing bad thinking requires someone (probab
Slashdot
This is another way of starting a sig with this and ending it with that.
No less so than the smaller number than supported the other bad idea.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Like that time everyone wanted to give a multi-billion dollar corporation hundreds of millions of dollars to make another season of a mediocre TV show. That was a great idea, wasn't it?
Oh, and then there was the tens of thousands of dallars they gave to that guy who ran a copyright-material-file-trading-site. That turned out smashingly well.
And-- umm--- hrm.
{pause}
UTF-8: There and Back Again
why have pictures at all? i mean, stock photos, tv-stills, pictures of lunch... what does that have to do with the essay?
perhaps he can have another essay on his site, "Why I Put Random Photos Inline With My Essays"
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I can think of a counter-example: Apple. The Apple user base was stuck in a rut for quite a while due to their ego and fanaticism.
Insert GOP/DNC joke here.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
a lot of it has to do with ego, and a lot of it has to do with committing to something and saying "this is what we are going with"
some people invest a lot of time into ideas and when they see their ideas threatened, they throw up the defense like no other. it transends programming all the way up to world politics.
i am guilty of it, but i have gotten better at admiting my mistakes and using it as something to build upon. it takes a lot to realize when you are at fault and you fucked up.
3, 2, 1... :)
A better example would be Mozilla XUL.
Gee, it only took 5 years to make it work right, it adds a fuckload of bloat, and nobody uses it as a development platform (including AOL), but yet it's the BEST IDEA EVER.
IMO people that can do ANYTHING are likely
an INTP http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html personality type. This would explain why they don't always produce much. Merely proving to themselves that they CAN do it is quite enough.
- Difficult conversations, a book about confronting people in tough situations.
- The argument clinic, Monty Python (If you've never seen it, watch it before reading this script. It's in the 3rd season, disc 9 of the boxed set). Also see the splunge scene in episode 6.
- Games people play, Eric Byrne. A book on transactional analyis: a model for why people behave as they do in certain situations.
- The informed argument, Robert Miller. Textbook style coverage of both proper and unfair argument tactics.
- With good reason, Morris Engel. a short summary of common logic manipulations, explained with a sense of humor (over a dozen cartoons).
- Why smart people can be so stupid, Salon.com
Best. Citation. Ever.
It's simple. Everyone can have dumb ideas. It's our god given right. And if you think that you are going to pry them from our cold dead fingers, you have another think coming. We can come up with all the bad ideas that we want, and we STILL have more good ideas than the less fortunate. So I say LEAVE US ALONE!
Just because I refuse to argue with you
does not mean that I agree with you, or
that you are right.
considered smart?
Probably because they did well in school. But school (at least in the US) wasn't designed to teach people to think, but to teach them to memorize facts and follow directions.
opera singers screaming
15 languages
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
There are lots of very capable coders out there who make excelent code for other techies, but for this very reason the UI often sucks. The individualism and "if you don't like it, fix the code yourself" attitude of many open source projects means that people who aren't code junkies, but are excelent at understanding what a user might want get excluded from the process far too often.
TFA: From what we know of evolution ...
...
I think this is hillareous, and also quite sad
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Michael Shermer wrote in his book "Why people believe weird things" that smart people believe stupid things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-intelligent reasons. It comes down to intellectual attribution bias and confirmation bias
Doesn't the software industry also contain plenty of "rock star programmers" are told what to do by the powers that be (ie: management) who would fit the inept statement and believe to understand the value of various applications? At least this is the feeling one gets when reading about "the man" holding OSS down, PHBs, etc. on this site at least.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Or in other words... this whole article is meant as a defense for the existence and proliferation of "managers", whose MBA degrees supposedly give them the magical ability to manage and control, without actually knowing anything worth damn about what they are managing.
There is no excuse to put in charge MBA-only types (or individuals whose knowledge base does not correspond with that of the company's). How can a "manager" manage and make clear, informed decisions about the direction of his/her company, if he/she has only a vague idea of wtf is being done? Look at HP.
Yes, mod me down if you are a PHB type, or some weak moron who needs a complete dipshit in a suit to tell him day-to-day what to do.
You're describing somebody who is so afraid of making a bad decision, they can't make any. TFA describes pretty much the opposite problem: being unfraid to risk a bad decision, but never being able to admit that it was bad.
Ok, I know I shouldn't respond to a sig, but I couldn't help myself:
Look really fast?
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
When someone, or a team, puts so much hard work into something pride prevents one from stepping back to say "Wow. That's really messed up. We need to abandon/start over/find a new job"...leadership is lacking. It doesn't necessarily mean that every project needs a dictator. Sometimes a person will step up and provide direction before disappearing into the masses. Sometimes natural chaos works, sometimes a king is sorely lacking. Direction should never be taked for granted, however.
the bad idea that blind people are useless. You should hear some of his hate rants about the blind. The idiot blames the blind for most of the problems with this site. Even after seeing that excluding the blind there's still plenty of trolls, he still clings to the bad idea that the blind are the trolls.
Why does he hate the blind so? Why is his hatred so strong that it overrides logic and experience?
What I've often seen is that really smart people can end up being really stupid because they have not yet run into that challenge that really tests them, so they don't have the experience of having to do real intellectual work. I remember a friend in high school who sailed through everything and got a near perfect score on the SAT only to crash and burn, flunking everything his first year. He'd gotten by his entire life on quick thinking, and had never had to do any real intellectual heavy lifting and when confronted with the need, he simply did not have an practice.
This is not to say all really smart people do this. But it is a danger among the smart who never really made themselves work.
The cake is a pie
Wouldn't a better example be a group-think by the board of directors that brings in a "rockstar" CEO to burn the company to the ground because usually, this CEO has no vision beyond the next quarter?
Consider the case of HP -- the company was basically dis-assembled in the name of trying to become more effecient.
Rare is the case where a bigwig actually DOES turn the company around and make a comeback (Steve Jobs is a good example here, but Steve is few and far between).
And yet, boards of directors make the same bad mistakes, again and again. Why is that?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Here is a prime example.
Thomas Edison was violently opposed to AC
even though AC was much better for power transmission.
Edison thought that everything should be DC.
Bad ideas exist for a reason. Each failure is a lesson to learn from...
[o]_O
is when people who are very intelligent compared to the rest of the public think they know it all. I think there is probably nothing worse than arguing with someone who thinks that because they are brilliant in one area that they are now all of a sudden uniquely qualified to render an opinion in all areas.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I think the issue at hand is that many people confuse leadership ability with skill. Being a good programmer doesn't necessarily make you a good project manager, nor is the best manager also the best coder. It's sometimes the case, and certainly some very skilled people successfully rise into management because their skill translates into seeing the big picture and hence being a good manager.
But not all really skilled people see the big picture, and that's when ego kicks in. They can't stand taking orders from somebody less skilled than them. People complain about pointy-headed PHB's with no skills getting paid more that them, but the reality is that having 20 coders is a waste if they lack direction, and ideally, that's what the PHB is there for.
Whether the PHB is actually effective is another story. Leadership is a nebulous thing and much harder to quantify and identify than skill - hence the embarrasing examples that slip through the cracks.
No, it's the best idea EV*A*R !
The majority of Kerry supporters are blue-collar.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
My Agile Advice blog is all about this. Basically - how do you go between chaos (caused for example by really smart people with no direction), and bureaucracy (caused for example, by people who know what needs to be done, but don't have a clue how to do it).
(* Blatant Self Promotion - but blog has tons of great info and concepts and is not directly commercial)
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they're wrong.
I've known smart people like that.
And fantastically dumb people like that.
I've had someone argue that the queen of England isn't rich, and get this, when I explained that she's the biggest land owner in the U.K. and she made about 27 million a year last time I checked, he argued that she isn't rich because when she dies someone else will inherit her money (unlike Bill Gates, who'll bring it with him to the afterlife?).
Smart people just defend their insanity with more flair.
You can't take the sky from me...
I quite deliberately confront people with, and defend, astonishingly bad ideas. (For example: "If the US government really wants to save as many lives as possible, they should give everybody two weeks' notice and then drop a nuclear bomb in the center of Jerusalem. This would destroy the largest cause of Israeli-Palestinian violence.") I do this not because I actually believe such things, but because I want to find people who are willing to contradict me and justify their positions.
Sadly, the vast majority of people either disagree without justification, or (even more worryingly) agree without justification -- which just demonstrates how unwilling most sheep^Wpeople are to engage in thought and/or debate.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
...because people are not rational. We are sometimes temporarily capable of rationality, but the other 99% of the time we're ruled by subconscious forces. We arrogantly think in terms of making intelligent choices, but modern brain science is showing that decisions are an illusion, that there is only behavior, and that our behavior is out of our conscious control.
So smart-schmart. Intelligence has nothing to do with it.
This really resonates with me.
image challenge system that displays mixed cases of images but only accepts lowercase answers....
'more educated' != smart.
I look at it a kinda like this:
:P).
i zed.jpg (love those Maine coons).
The brain works on weighted probability. These weights change and readjust as we take in information. Taking some liberties with this idea, it seems like a good as time as ever to plug a section of my undergraduate paper: "An Observational Analysis of Machine Cognizance". (Disclaimer: I said undergraduate, haha
Imagine that human memory works on a sliding scale, one of infinitely negative and infinitely positive collections of like objects. These upper and lower bounds are set by the experiences of the individuals.
Let's say you have two cats. Cat one is newborn kitten, while cat two is http://www.isfullofcrap.com/albums/Cats/buddha2.s
By looking at that image, you have just redefined your own maximum in relation to the object "cat".
The more cats you look at, the more they all begin to look the same and you begin to tune out any old cat that may cross your path. But you'll always remember that big fat cat as the biggest you've ever seen (the maximum values, which can change) and newborn as the smallest cat you've ever seen (the minimum), while the "middle ground" deteriorates under the weight of the average cat. The more cats you see, the less you remember. Not only that, but cats they may appear big to other people, begin to seem normal to you. You've just seen to many damn cats to care anymore (call it desensitizing the mind, or information overload if you will). But you always remember the biggest and smallest. The best and worst.
Couldn't this just be like the fattest cat scenario? These people have taken in so much that only things on the extreme end of the scale seem to have any relevance, while the rest just seems to be repetitive and mundane?
"Look really fast."
Yeah...then I'd just be a little hesitant, and only mildly lost.
Come to think of it, the above describes most of us anyway. Hmmm.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
In order to hypothesize we simplify. Using the idea of Occam's Razor we make a number of assumptions and the assumptions we make have a number of presuppositons attached to them. This is how we hypothesize in order to predict and once our predictions are shown to be correct we theorize. Gregory Bateson investigated these ideas in his book Mind and Nature. Smart people should defend dumb/wrong ideas, if they are concerned about falsification as the leading idea in the progress of scince, because the smarter the person the more likely the argument will be logical and the more logical the argument the more able we are to potentially falsify or verify it.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Every organization with a sufficent number of tech geeks (approximately three, in my experience) has one obnoxious asshole who is constantly throwing out awful ideas and defending them vehemently. If you haven't, you either work alone, or you are the obnoxious asshole.
Nowhere in the article does he suggest that deferring to your manager is always the right course, and, in fact, we have this:
So, you know. RTFA, and all.
never stopping to find someone who might not be adept at writing code, but can see where the value of their programming skills would be best applied.
So let's say I'm that someone. Where can I post my ideas and have it analyzed and eventually handed off to programmers for implementation?
Thank you - I left that off my own response.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Yes, we've heard this argument before.
Yes its half the problem.
Yes, it would be nice if it were fixed.
No your comment is not insightful.
Yes, it looks like you are just fishing for karma. Albeit, I do prefer your post to all the trolls. Just try saying something original next time.
Sorry; maybe I've been around so long I'm becoming a grumpy old man.
What he's saying:
As a condition of being smart, defending ideas is a natural skill. Sometimes that skill takes precedent over rational thought and smart people will focus so much on being right that they will forget to think rationally.
There, I just saved you 10 minutes of reading.
Where's my check?
The Internet is generally stupid
Lots of ideas become 'good' or 'bad' only with hindsight. (E.g., pet rocks, E-books...) And, 'smart' doesn't always mean 'prescient' ...or 'lucky'...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Call them stupid, Stupid.
Why does it happen so often in IT? If you've been in IT a while, you can probably think of a dozen or more examples were you thought "oh, so they've re-invented $FOO, but this time they call it $BAR, wonderful". $FOO could be "hierarchic databases" and $BAR could be "XML databases" for instance.
.. is it because there's no "fabrication" phase (just write a program, you're done and it costs nothing to copy). Lack of foundation knowledge in school??
I studied engineering in school and I never saw this phenomenon on the scale it exists in IT.
Is it a lack of "barrier to entry"? (I.e., anybody can be a programmer)
*was*???
Any really intelligent person will weigh all sides of an issue before making a decision.
The great ones are the ones that select the facet that is the least known, but has no good reason to be unknown; and they make it very well known - either just because, or because they can.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
wtf is a "Klien Bottle"?
That haiku is wrong.
It is short a syllable.
Better luck next time.
yeh, then this thing called os x came out and completely rocked.
remember that?
The essay's title is probably derived from Paul Graham's essay Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas. Recommended read by the way, that man has insight.
In the software industry, the common example of thinking at the wrong level is a team of rock star programmers who can make anything, but don't really know what to make: so they tend to build whatever things come to mind, never stopping to find someone who might not be adept at writing code, but can see where the value of their programming skills would be best applied
Well, that explains Daikatana
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
By the by - the parent was a Total Troll, but a fairly insightful Troll, IMHO. At least he didn't accuse George Bush of being the goatse man, or something...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I can hear the manager guy from Dilbert chuckling in a sinister way as he read this, saying to himself "Finally, someone to defend my existence."
Because the majority of the executives and Members of the Board do not capable of identifying what needs to be done or the person who can accomplish it.
If they cannot define the criteria (other than "turn the company around") how will they be able to find a person who can successfully implement those criteria?
Instead, they go with "rock star" CEO's.
Here's a quick example. Get 100 pennies. Toss them in the air. Take out the "bad" pennies that came up tails. You should have about 50 left.
Do it again. You should have about 25 "performing" pennies.
Again, now you have weeded out the dead wood and you're left with a dozen or "successful" pennies.
Again, now you have the half dozen or so "highly successful" pennies.
Once more and you have the few "rock star" pennies. These are the pennies you pay millions of dollars to turn your company around. These are the pennies that don't make mistakes. These are the pennies that understand management and the market.
And hiring CEO's is even worse than that. At least with the pennies, they only had a couple of factors influencing them. Companies have all kinds of influences from overseas competition to economic depression to lawsuits and so forth.
If a CEO makes a decision, and the company increases in value, how do you know that it was anything other than mere luck?
Maybe his decision was extremely stupid and a thousand other decisions would have increased the company's value even more.
Which is why one of the first actions of the new CEO is usually to secure the golden parachutes for himself and other execs.
Are the Chinese dumb? No. The average score of a Chinese on a calculus/trigonometry test is significantly above average, outscoring the nearest American.
The problem here is that we are mistaking test-score smarts or book smarts for compassion and kindness. Smarts do not imply kindness. Hitler was smart. Most Chinese are smart. Yet, most observers would agree that both are brutal.
Anybody remember the much hyped Rocket Science games from the mid-90's? A team of hotshot game developers form a company and nearly every game sucked ass. Rocket Science was a text book case of what NOT to do, yet history repeated itself on far, far larger scale with the dot-com mania and collapse.
BTW, I am not a script.
- The first kind of fool is a smart person who defends and idea because it is an old idea, and worked in the past....
- The second type defends and idea because it is new assuming it must be better...
Both positions are equally bad.... The tricky thing with ideas is being able to recognize and discriminate the good ideas from the bad ideas. I have yet to master this skill.There are lots of very capable coders out there who make excelent code for other techies, but for this very reason the UI often sucks.
I write apps for techies and I write apps for non-techies. The UIs and requirements are very different. Apps written for techies and accepted by techies is not proprly judged by non-techies, and vica versa. The arrogance is found in the people in both camps who insist that UI should fit their camp when it was written for the other camp.
If I write an app for techies and they like it, there is nothing "wrong" with it. Often, "techie" interfaces are aimed at functionality, not "point click drool". Thus any remarks about it being ugly are simply irrelevant.
The individualism and "if you don't like it, fix the code yourself" attitude of many open source projects means that people who aren't code junkies, but are excelent at understanding what a user might want get excluded from the process far too often.
And if they aren't the "target market" of the code author(s) that is just fine. Quite frankly much of the apps I write are not intended for end-user non-technical people and I don't care if they don't like it. Nor should I. Making it pretty will NOT enhance my market in the slightest, it will only pollute it. The same goes for end-user non-technical apps I write.
And finally, there is the "you get what you pay for" comment. Most open soruce apps are done for free. As such, Joe EndUser has no right to be "included" in the process.
Now to tie it all up with the favorite computer analogy: cars. GM (for example) sells cars. They sell cars for the enduser, and cars for the techie. Most people are familiar with the first category. But they also sell race-only versions of some of their cars, such as the C5R or upcoming C6R. The general public has zero input into these models, as it should be. Other companies also make race cars. These are oriented around a specific purpose.
The Mosler for example is a race-oriented car. Sure you can drive it on the street (and end user could buy and drive one), but it is aimed at being a performance auto for the track. It is the "code written by geeks for geeks" side.
Then you have the minivans and sedans, for example. They are built for the general consumer (the end user w/o technical skills). Sure a racer can drive one, even adapt it for racing (tens of thousands of Americans do this every year), but as a racer their input is not part of the design process or feature list. Witness the near-universal elimination of options like radio-delete and ac-delete.
IMO, nearly all these rants about ugly yet functional interfaces versus pretty but reduced functionality but pretty shiney interface fall under the categories above. Everybody wants a hand-built Ferrari for the price of a 10 year old wrecked and stripped Geo Metro. And they blame the "industry" for them not getting it.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Geeks can get infatuated with an idea that seems good, ignoring other good ideas that conflict with it. We used to call this "the tyranny of the single idea" - especially ideas that seem so good that they're treated as a "magic bullet", or (from a perhaps gentler folk era) a "panacea". This seems to be an variant of the Usenet wisdom immortalized in /usr/bin/fortune as "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
--
make install -not war
Are the Chinese dumb? No. The average score of a Chinese on a calculus/trigonometry test is significantly above average, outscoring the nearest American.
That is because they actually use that stuff over there. We don't make physical stuff anymore, and thus don't deal with geometry etc. as much. We make junk bonds and bad movies, and you don't need trig for that.
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe... they aren't all that smart. Now, to answer the question why does society recognize absolute cretins as people of respectable intelligence?
The haiku is right.
You mispronounced opera.
It's three syllables.
hahah flamebait, thats cute. see, you proved my point. everything i said was truth. its obvious reality that 911 was an inside job. yet it would start a "flame war" here, amungst all the smart people. its about focus. theres a mountain of evidence that most of you just refuse to address. but its real simple, anyone who thinks 19 dudes jacked four jets and flew them around for an hour with no response is not very smart. period.
this is too funny.
Low self esteem which is a long-term estimation of self and high ego which is a transitory and ephemeral estimation. You can't replace the former with the latter any more than you can replace a proper diet with nothing but Cheetos and Ding Dongs no matter how much some try. And you can't invent the former simply with empty exercises. You have to examine yourself, be honest in both directions good and bad, and accept the outcome and the options for change as needed and commit to those changes or at least the endless path to the unattainable goals.
But the usual response is the "sour grapes" one instead. These geniuses feel the world doesn't like them and regard them highly enough. They hate the world for that. They begin to respond accordingly with a haughty sneering disregard for others' accomplishments and abilities outside of their fold. Non-geeks are "lusers" and worse.
Admit they are wrong? Fark no. That would be embracing the death of their artificial self they've made of ego straw. They can't face and embrace true emptiness that comes with the finality of true understanding and acceptance. They can't because of fear. Non-geeks may be right that they deserve derision and scorn. Non-geeks may be right that technical smarts aren't as good as hot social skills. Non-geeks may be right and they may be... wrong. And if the geek is wrong, then he isn't smart. And if he isn't at least smart, then he has nothing else and consequently would be... nothing.
I went through gifted classes with kids who exemplified this thinking. Everything was about showing off their smarts. Making a calculator out of flashlight bulbs and switches. Creating new number and word games every single day. Designing new things and creating new programs and writing new reports every day. At all times, they had to be smarter. Any mistakes were not ignored as you ignore the dog barking outside while watching the football game. They were ignored in the style of a child covering their eyes with their hands and plugging their ears with their thumbs at night in the dark in fright desperately trying to ignore the things that go bump in the night.
Because if they were wrong, then they weren't as smart as all that, and if they weren't smart, then they had nothing and were nothing. This would be the same as accepting total psychic death. If you are nothing, then how can you be?
This is the mindset of most of the Linux world today. If they are wrong, then Microsoft by default is right and there is no other outcome. They cannot be wrong but learn and grow. They can't see that Windows is easier to install, configure, use, and support than any Unix variant for the average person and try to make Linux as easy. They can't backtrack and admit mistakes and leave it to others to fix their sloppy work on the theory that at least it is free. On this score, Microsoft is smart and sexy because they will after a while admit, say "we screwed up", and shrug and move on. The geek brigades besieging the MS world on the field outside never do.
Well as someone who went through gifted classes and was maxing out the scores on all the IQ tests they could throw at me in grade school, I can confidently say to them, you can be and in fact are more often than not wrong. And the courage and intelligence to admit this and learn from it is far greater an intellectual exercise than making X11 behave with a new video driver while using Vi on a Chinese keyboard when your first language is French.
I would further say to these people, let your fear go. You're wrong all the time starting with that you're wrong that being wrong means you're nothing. You are not secretly dumb because your intelligence is less than omniscience or because real world things trip you up as opposed to computer world things. And when you get older, you will get slower and you will seem less brilliant. If you insist on believing that your smarts are all you have, then when they are gone you truly will have nothing.
Stop the worrying. Save time. Embrace the death of yourself. Begin recompiling self version 2.0.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Being a great leader does not mean you're good a managing people or doing the tech work.
Great managers aren't great leaders (or great techs).
Great techs don't make great leaders or great managers.
A leader has the vision and stays focused on that while overcoming or avoiding obstacles.
A manager handles the day to day crap to support the vision.
A tech follows the manager's schedule to produce the means to achieve the vision.
I agree completely that leadership is difficult to quantify. Unless it is going completely wrong.
And I guess under the totalitarian theocratic regime of the Lama the Tibetian people are going to be any better of?
Except the idea of XUL is a good one, albeit a little ahead of it's time.
i seriously have the oposite problem, i come up with stuff endlessly, but programming makes my head spin. I at least know enough to talk with them people. I can never find any tho. Hmm what to do
Rather Interesting...
http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html
This sentence contradicts itself - no actually it doesn't.
Good blog, dude.
This is a failure of language that I've often wondered about.
We call this "being right", but really, it's not, not if it's done defending something wrong. It's an expression that hides the truth of the behaviour: A dominance game.
Most people who want to be "right" simply want to... "win" the dialog. They want authority, they want the other(s) to submit to them as the dominant primate. They rationalise it, but it's not right to defend something wrong, so why can't we stop calling it that? Aside from the fact that I'm one man against seven billion, I mean.
You can't take the sky from me...
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You would think smart people would be running the USA
I think the last time that happened was in the Carter administration.
For those that code OS projects, why do you do it? If you're not willing to go the whole mile, what's the point? Is it that you want to show everyone what a crappy UI you can muster? I don't get it. For those that say, "if you don't like it, do it yourself," I'd like to offer this: "if you're only willing to do a half-assed job, why bother?"
Hey, would you want to be the guy who stands up and admits that we spent $300+ billion and killed 100,000+ people by mistake? Anyone who does that will get torn limb from limb by both the left (who want a scapegoat) and the right (who want to maintain their delusions of competence and morality).
Back in the old BeOS days, they used to talk about companies playing games of "launchpad chicken". This is the situation where the a software release is scheduled to be shipped on a certain date, and all the engineers know that the software has no chance of being shippable by that date, but nobody wants to be the guy who tells management and ends up being blamed for the schedule slipping. So everybody keeps their head down and says nothing, hoping that someone else will be the one to admit that things are screwed up. And so the release date gets nearer and nearer, and management have no idea how bad the situation is until it's too late to do much about it. I'd say there is something similar going on between the American government and the American public -- everyone in the government and the military knows how badly things have been screwed up, but nobody wants to be the one to tell the public about it, and (inevitably) get blamed for the failure.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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McDonald's at first was a bad idea. Why sell food for more than someone can reasonably cook it at home? Even still, why should someone eat the food at McDonald's every day for work because it is bad for them and will make them fat if they eat too much? Why are people willing to work too hard at McDonald's for minimum wage instead of getting a real job? Face it, McDonald's is a bad idea, yet it makes billions of dollars.
Microsoft Windows, also a bad idea. Full of security holes, exploits, prone to malware infections, poor quality control, memory leaks, sluggish performance unless you own the latest hardware, and ends up being a large part of the cost of a new PC. Yet it sells like hotcakes and makes Microsoft billions of dollars.
The Internet, a bad idea. You open up your computer to the rest of the world and walreware infections. Web sites are full of such misinformation, people post their own personal opinions as fact on blogs, everywhere you go is a porn peddler or spammer or scam artist. People are paying as much as $22 to $24 a month for dial-up access, when other ISPs are offering $9.99 or lower for the same bandwidth and services. Bad information, negativity, trolls, and other bad things lurk everywhere. Yet more and more people keep signing up new accounts.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Most of the time the point is just "fun". We don't do this to serve you, we do it for our own enjoyment. However, sometimes the point is "to get stuff done". In which case we do just enough to the job done and then we put up what we've got so others don't have to start from scratch. If you need more than my bare minimum then I expect you to code what you need, not come whining back to me that I didn't do what you need. The alternative is to start from scratch, so I think you should consider yourself lucky that I went to the bother of putting my stuff out there (and it is a bother).
Ultimately, if you can't take open source and tailor it to your own needs then you need to either put up or shut up. Either put up code or cash to get it to do what you want or shut up and use what you've been given.
On the other hand, if you've already paid someone for some open source software feel free to bitch and moan to that person as much as you like. Feel free to tell everyone that person didn't supply you what you paid them to supply you.
How we know is more important than what we know.
In my younger years, I took this to mean "Do everything, because you can". Now that I'm in college, that entire lesson was bunk, and now I'm stuck with a bunch of what I'd consider useless knowledge.
[...] something a lot of us are blessed/cursed with [...]
The problem with it is futility [...]
Sadly, I don't see an easy solution.
In art, it's known as the "white page syndrome".
You have a clean, white canvas, on it your talents enable you to paint anything. So you sit there, awash in the mental miasma of the endless possibilities assailing you.
The way I deal with it is to stop thinking and draw a random line, then based on what this restricts the possibilities to, I can build around it.
And the use I found for my "useless" knowledge is to wait for the conditions under which it will become usefull.
Maybe you'll be at a job interview and you'll have knowledge of something the interviewer is passionate about: Bang, you have the edge, you get chosen over the other equally qualified applicants.
My knowledge of all-around trivia actually became usefull when I was employed in a company that did some localisation work, it wasn't what I did there, but whenever the translators were faced with a subject they were unfamiliar with, they came to me. The kids in highschool were hostile to me for being a know-it-all, but at that job it made me quite popular.
Off course, I still feel this... lassitude, sometimes. I haven't found an easy solution, but since in a hundred years' time we'll all be dead, we might as well be ourselves while we can : )
You can't take the sky from me...
No, that's because Chinese schools do a very very good job at training students to memorize things. Most of them howevery openly admit they have no idea how to use it beyond exams.
This is exactly why there are so many non-technical requirements for a college degree. If you were expected to just be able to code or build stuff then a degree from a two year tech school would do it, but for a Bachelor's degree you have to get all kinds of English, History, Literature, and non-technical electives.
Many of my friends are English grad students. When I need code help I ask someone in my department, but I bounce all my project ideas off of them. It was several years ago that they requested a public webpage where they could all go in and collaborativly edit a single document. I was too young in my coding years to produce one but it turned out to be a great idea. They're now called wikis.
Direct away from face when opening.
Smart people defend bad ideas...
because there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom.
In part the article talks about how to handle yourself in a conversation with a someone who is wrong but (successfully) verbally agressive. This reminds me of a great book called _The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense_ [insert your own Amazon affiliate link here...] which discusses all kinds of conversation techniques for dealing with people who have mastered various annoying habits that seem to keep you from making your point. And if you don't think you need this book to help yourself then you should read it to learn about all the unfair, annoying and childish ways you can dominate a conversation. Just in case...
Damn it, the average score of average American's taking Calculus exams score is mean. We need to do something about it so at least half of those taking the test will score above the median.
And I'll tell them what to do. That's why there are IT business degrees. I have tons of great ideas, but I'm not a great coder. I'm the missing link to success, lets team up.
< generality > Genius is an abnormality in every sense of the word.
There are a lot of good ideas that sound irrational. Its a good thing that intelligent people are willing to defend odd ideas. Some of them are very successful and we all benefit.</ generality >
But I buy what this guy says; If you want to prevent stupid ideas, get the 'smart mistake makers' in a room with other smart guys who have the ability to challenge what they say based on some rational basis.
Put the person in a situation where trying to bully their way into being right will not bring them their desired ego trip, which is a strong motivation for persisting with their bad idea.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Are they only "bad" because they differ from your own? Who's to judge?
Normally I'd say you were nuts about this, but I come from a family with a long line of Annapolis graduates, and a lot of people high up in the Navy believe to this day that FDR let Pearl Harbor happen because it was the only way to galvanize public support for a war...
I thought so as well. And I believe that story was also linked on Slashdot. Guess we got another 'dupe' here
I think the author wrote this entirely about my most recent ex.
Victoria, are you listening? This is why you're such a bitch!
There are quite a few leaps of interpretation from the brain imaging data to the conclusion that free will is an illusion.
OK, so you see that area A lights up before area B does. Other facts led you to conclude that area A is involved in carrying out actions and that area B is involved in evaluating and choosing them. But when you concluded that you were making assumptions. You're making still another layer of assumption if you interpret the data to mean that we're deluding ourselves when we think we choose our actions.
One perfectly good alternative explanation is that we have "free won't" instead of "free will", and that our conscious decision making has veto power over impulsive actions. Compare it to speculative execution in a modern CPU.
People that know how to do things, rarely know what things to do. They aren't users and have nothing in common with users.
The result is alot of poeple doing stuff noone needs or wants. Just look at SourceForge, 100 of everything.
Solution: log yourself off once in a while and visit the big blue room.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Slashdot should change it's slogan from "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" to "Slashdot: smart people defending bad ideas". Never before have I seen a more apropos description of this very sight than the article linked herein.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Who's got the sig?
Something to the effect of:
Ideas are delicate things, do not attack them. Attack the people instead.
Luckily you kept your mouth shut. Sometimes shooting down an idea is good - like when your buddy decides to buy a large house with a woman with which there is no legal bond. Otherwise, give them the benefit of the doubt - you'll probably wind up in a better mood.
A Similar Essay "Why Smart People have Bad Ideas" by Paul Graham. http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html
Signature is for people who have more than a dollar in their bank accounts.
At least they know it in the first place, which is a good step up from america where idiots still believe in children's bedtime stories as fact.
Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas
Because their parents, and/or religious leaders, tell them to.
*puts on asbestos suit*
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Maybe not, but it was *their* totalitarian theocratic regime.
Imagine how people would feel if the Chinese tried to overthrow the totalitarian theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia, or the United States...
The face of 'evil' is always the face of total need
Doesn't this look to similar to a Paul Graham's essay, Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas: http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html ?
Even the title is the too similar.
Pupeno
The main reason people don't like to admit they are wrong is because those concepts that they vocalize had to have spent some time filtering through their cognitive process.
As such, by the time it becomes vocalized, it has probably sustained a number of other concepts as well in their understanding. If it was wrong alone, then there's little concern, and less willingness to let it go.
However, when something you've used to verify countless other pieces of information has proven to be wrong, then there's a whole segment of your understanding that needs to be recalculated; with a deeply-held belief, this can be a really disconcerting experience, which, despite being a cliche, the saying "whole life is a lie" can feel frighteningly true.
Simply put, the longer you believe yourself to be right about something, the more associations you make between this assumption and other conclusions, the harder it becomes to let it go.
In academia, this is especially important, since a person learns so many facts over such a short period, that they have a vast interconnected web of "knowledge" that, if one of those facts were to have been disrupted, it might cause a catastrophic collapse of the whole framework of reason they have constructed, depending on how central that concept was to their thinking.
If some fact is holding all of your knowledge up, then you'll have a difficult time adapting to the realization it's wrong. You'll have to take all the time it took you to create those conclusions that were effected, and recreate a new set. The longer it's been, the longer it takes.
This is why the RIAA and MPAA are fighting so hard; why Microsoft sneers at Linux every chance it gets, and why SCO is on this foolish crusade. A concept they held dear is proving wrong, and they cannot accept it, because, as a previous poster very accurately described, without that central concept they held so dear, they really are nothing.*shrug* Just my $.02
The Penguin Producer
Three words
"Pride of authorship"
The first thing is to avoid defending bad ideas or bad things is this. 1 admit you're stupid and 2 never assume. Doesn't matter how smart people say you are or how smart you think you are. You're stupid and human. Smarts is just a label for insecure people.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
DO not doubt that the authority of the Lama was itself totalitarian, it has been suppressed from its former place of obscurity into the abyss almost completely by the cause of Tibet becoming fashionable for rock stars and others who are supposedly smart but not at all familiar with the situations that they are advocating the worst case as solutions to. Donations alone did not establish all of the former temples, the resources were often taken by force of threat of social stigma or by direct physical force in a greater part than what was donated by willful decision to do so.
EOM
Start a corp, name yourself CEO, give it a cool company name, and you can hire these brilliant people for cheap/decent rate, they'll respect you because of your title(brilliance and common wisdom are two very different things).
Then you can be the not-so-good coder(or even better, a good coder) who controls the brilliant coders.
I'm so drink that this all makes sence. fuck.
troll on mother fukers, and by the way all you fags at anti-slash are just that Fags!
give the USA back to the native Americans or go home and shut the fuck up.
Different people have different ideas about what makes good software. UI is normally pretty far down my list. What bothers me much more is stuff that just doesn't work.
that Stephen Hawking is a great man. Revisionist thinking of his own work. No ego. No posturing. Doesn't matter that 29 years went into it. Doesn't matter the world heard you say differently. The truth is the truth.
Ok I have had this problem with my boss where he will come in every 15 minutes and interrupt my programing with what i would call a "bad idea", i would not consider myself a "smart person" and i would defiantly not consider him one either, but i would defiantly class myself above him in logical thinking.
On Friday he called me into his office and reamed me out for not implementing his ideas right then, and wondering why i tell him ideas he has may take some time to implement. He then went on to slander me personally and then lie to me about how much money was used for the project budget, when I personally know how much money was spent.
I am very level headed about my programing and give precise times on when goals can be meet, but goals are changing ever 15 minutes with his ideas so estimations are harder and harder by the day.
His reaming continued on about how I can implement some ideas in 5 minutes and others in weeks.
How should I go about dealing with this problem, I need a way to express my discontent with his yelling at me with the expression that things take time, his ideas aren't always the best or logical and that because i can solve a problem in 5 minutes one time that a week for another is the right way.
PS my code structure, commenting and general design has suffered greatly because of his "ideas" / pestering and lack of mile stones.
PPS im applying for new positions, how should I go about telling new business why I am leaving or why I will not use him as a reference ?
- MOSKIE
It was a despotic and destructive regime, far from the illusions that its exiled leader has attempted to spread and met success at spreading amongst those ignorant of history and the realities of the Tibetan theocratic despotism. Read the following before attempting to support the reestablishing that despotic regime: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Parenti_Ti bet.htm
Well, they didn't have anyone beating them up for practicing their religion, for one thing..
Really, if you're going to try to claim that the Tibetans have benefitted from Mao's land-grab, you're way off the deep end.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I use it every day. And I still don't like it.
new != good in apple's case.
you'll grow out of it soon hopefully.
I used to be a bit like that when I was a kid but actually its a crashingly purile thing to go around doing, I'm guessing you haven't hit 20 yet. Possibly you are still the wrong side of adolescence.
Apart from automatically labelling you as an asshole, the truth is that the people most able to contradict you and justify their positions intelligently are the very people who'll avoid saying anything to you on matters you are interested in if thats how you behave. You see not everyone is caught up in your mindset, you've pretty much labelled yourself as not worthy of addressing seriously. You appear to imagine people care what you think of them and its not necessarily true. And thats if they twig you are playing some sort of devil's advocacy games. Otherwise you have announced to the world at large you are a dolt and frankly theres far too many of them around (e.g., people who suggest simplistic solutions to complex problems) for it to be worth correcting them. By suggesting a ludicrous plan such as the above it would rarely if ever be worth correcting you because it would be clear there are literally hours and hours of issues and historical incidents to inform you of and get out of the way. Who has the time? Better to nod, mutter something non-commital and go and find someone to talk to.
The further problem is that you are confusing willingness to get into an argument with you with a willingness to think and ultimately act independently anyway.
Get my drift? Please drop the habit. Its doing you no favours.
Consequences ensue.
...utter garbage!!
That is awesome. Thank you. :)
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
Religious tolerance and tolerance for an oppressive plutocratic theocratic despotism that maintained the use of serfs until its rightful elimination. I suppose you believe that they were better off in the manorial system of serfdom and brutal torture and amputations for infringements of frivolous laws or for attempting to live without paying taxes for everything short of breathing itself? For women to be selected and raped at the will of the lamas? If not, then research the history of the situation before displaying ignorance again. Start with this: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Parenti_Ti bet.htm
Most Chinese believe that if an atrocity occurred in 1830 in the West, that atrocity justifies Chinese committing atrocities in 2005. Most Chinese act and think in this way. I kid you not.
People who drive SUVs signal when they're changing lanes? Where is this?
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Someone who was an idiot modded that insightful. There was no insight, but a bunch of stupid ranting.
When people learn new ways of doing things, they often forget or disregard other possible ways of doing things. Most people assume the new ways they learn are better, and they often are. However, it is a quite easy way to get a group of people in a rut, especially if they only work with each other and, shall we say, "don't get out much."
This happens in the musical world as well. As a composer, learning new rules and methods leads to writing that better follows and can more skillfully and effectively bend these rules. However, I've noticed that once I learn any given rule, I forever think in terms of that rule. If I ever want to ignore that rule, I am "actively" ignoring it. Once a new method is learned, methods that are oblivious to it vanish from one's repertoire, for better or worse.
I somehow thought this was relevant to the topic.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
This new system costs less than our current system which works and which we already paid for, and has many new features which we somehow lived without for all these years. I'm just so amazed by the complexity I can't wait to switch us over as soon as possible. Sure, there will be some downtime and migration costs, but there's no sense in worrying over short term expenses for something this important.
The occupation of Tibet is not atrocity, and the Chinese government can not even begin to approach the degree of torture (amputation, rape, exposure, beatings, slavery, etc.) that were the daily fare of the plutocratic theocratic despotism of Tibet. Research it, start with the previously provided link.
The writer is talking about poseurs and pseudo-intellectuals. You know - the ones you can't *avoid* hearing at parties... These people know that they are not *that* smart and try to protect their image of intelligence by defending every statement. While they believe that they have successfully pulled this off (as in the article...) what they have really done is convinced practically everyone around that they have no clue.
In contrast, the majority of *really* smart people don't really care if they're wrong occasionally since they *know* that they are smart and being wrong once in a while is no biggie and they'll learn something so that they will be right (again) the next time...
"Most Chinese act and think this way." How come as a Chinese myself, I have never met such people? Slashdotters should choose a way to be funny that doesn't insult and that doesn't distort the basic fact. Let's see how long the American forces are going to occupy Iraq.
Source? Last I knew the 'average Chinese' was an uneducated peasant farmer.
(Not a troll, it's a valid and true statement)
Beware blue cats moving at
Just have some particular skills that's all.
Smart guy is one who knows when, where and what to do and think. Of course with long term in mind.
I like your description, but for the most part it would be more accurate if you were to omit the first word after the colon. Or even the first three words.
Xenu loves you!
Considering that the author of this essay is a former Microsoft employee, I'm not sure he's one to talk about exposing bad ideas.
Was it John le Carré who said that the only valid reason to reelect Bush was to make him, and not someone else, take care of the mess he's made. And thus take responsibility.
Hope 4 years will be enough.
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation
http://img210.echo.cx/my.php?image=steps9gg.png Sorry, it just sprung to mind.
Not quite. Quote from http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200505/29/eng200 50529_187357.html
"In 1978, China had a poor-stricken population of 250 million, and the figure has declined to around 30 million today." Assuming even that relatively high end figure is very close to only 2% of the 1.4 billion Chinese citizens classified as below the poverty level in China. The average Chinese citizen is more like the average Japanese citizen than might seem to be evident from your fully false statement that the average was an uneducated farmer. The similarity even applies to population age spectrum projections, they are both increasingly older populations.
So whats your point?
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
You're trolling, but I'll bite.
Countries are taken over all the time, their ownership changes hands and has changed hands quite often over the past few thousand years.
This also happened with the natives of North and South America. What happened that you seem enraged about, is the fact that Christopher Columbus and many others "discovered" a new land in the eyes of Europe and other lands and began to populate it / make it their own and remove it's inhabitants.
This has been happening all over the world. However, it is the most recent example on such a large scale AND you fail to realize other cultures in Europe and Asia have had this done for centuries. What have you to say about them? Break the Chineese "Republic" up and back into is multiple warring countries? Give Poland back to the old Germanic tribes from how many hundreds of years ago? Give one tribal land back to the "old tribe" somewhere in africa?
What happened even exzisted among the Native Americans. They had wars. They had conflicts. They had many things that we also don't know about because their written history was almost zero.
You and the rest of the "... give the USA back to the native Americans or go home and shut the fuck up. people need to take your own advice and Shut the FUCK up. The United States of America were what our founding fathers created out of such conquored lands and hence never belonged to the native americans. It then and now belongs to us.
So get a grip on reality, take some fucking history lessons AND a healthy dose of STFU. Now let's get back to the discussion at hand.
Ignorant fools.
Now I see why this digital lifestyle rot, as well as PDA's, 3D desktops, laser-pistol cell phones, Windows version 10^9 etc etc ad nauseum are peddled at all of us. A bunch of really smart people dreaming up what they think is interesting and presenting it to us as some sort of evolutionary social necessity, AKA as a "must-have". Interesting stuff sometimes, but you sure as hell don't need it like they tell you you do.
Why do people even defend dreck like that? If you can't even put your name to it why bother.
Om, nomnomnom...
To digress, I heard a truly bizarre story in college. I was taking "Mongols in History" (senior year and my requirements were fulfilled), and one of the students told us this:
This story is a totally uncorroborated rumor, but I think I believe it. It's genius in its own way-- brutal, effective, and discreet.
I'm probably too buried for anyone to read this, but if you do, has anyone else ever heard something similar?
Please, for the love of God, no more car analogies.
To label something a "bad idea" is to have an opinion that ones proposition or idea is bad.
Therefore, the subjectivity lies not in the person who proposes the idea, but rather the critic who says the idea is bad.
maybe you should learn to read. and then shut the fuck up.
all I suggested was that people bitching about Tibet should look at their own history first. for most people here that's America. in my case, from the UK, it's Northern Ireland. Tibet was part of China before Northern Ireland was part of the UK. then Tibet was independent for a while before going back under Mao.
once you've learned to read, look at my posts. I haven't implied any of this occupating is right or wrong or that it upsets me. I just want people to be consistent about bitching about this kind of thing.
How do you teach someone how to apply knowledge they've acquired? Can you teach someone every scientific fact about a brick, and then throw it hard at them and expect them not to get brained?
You're nothing; like me.
"The average score of a Chinese on a calculus/trigonometry test is significantly above average..."
Obviously the parent is not Chinese. Nah, just kidding. You could've said "...above the global average..." to make it clearer, though.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
Is genocide actually a bad thing? If you could wipe out 3/4s of the earth's population instantly and painlessly (without causing individual suffering), would it not be a good idea to do so? This would slow down our destruction of the earth's environment, reduce population density of the world's most crowded areas, and have lots of little trickle-down benefits for the surviving 25% of humanity.
If you believe genocide is actually bad under any circumstances, you should be able to support that believe with a convincing argument.
Bravo. But how many lines of coke did you have to do before you could make it sound so pissed off? ;)
You're nothing; like me.
Two Diet-Cokes with lime in a can. Family fridge pack. I'm on my 5th tonight.
/fight club :P
Do not FUCK with us
...is of the Paul G. Allen Computer Science building at the University of Washington.
Your post didn't imply anything about the comparisons of Tibet. At least it didn't to me. If that's the case and I made a mistake, my apologies. But from what the grandparent said it was merely an example, one I believe you took out of context and possibly misapplied your arguement.
In either case, it was his way of showing the differences within smart people but having quite the diverse cultural and educationally influencial background.
Sorry to get on your case, but those kind of posts about Native Americans get on my case, when they're serious about it that is. So it's a bit of a sore spot for me when people actually believe this, at least when you come from my perspective. I have a significant portion of Native American ethnic background, beliefs (an honest comparison of such) and respect for that part of my culture and I don't believe that the land the USA resides on belongs to us, or any land for that matter. The US of A can reside anywhere on this planet regardless of physical location. It's an ideal and one that's worked for us for quite some time. "Owning" property or land is a matter of occupancy and who deserves it at any given time period. That is what I believe to know to be the truth. Foolish idea? Who of our fellow man is to determine that?
Yeah. That was my version of a knee jerk reaction to your post. It's a good thing I don't get offended easily.
Have a great day!
Only people with skill and/or knowledge. Doing these, in other people's view, 'stupid things' is exactly what gives people skill and knowledge. It's also known as learning/practicing/exploring.
I dont know if I'm smart or dumb, but this guy is so boring....
Did somebody actually read through the end ?
Despites the several reference to "sex" this was neither entertaining nor insightful..
What is "free will", anyway? From your wording, the only reasonable interpretation I can come up with is "some force not part of the brain which influences brain activity"--but most brain studies I've heard of assume there is no such thing. You can't prove the lack of free will if you assumed it in the first place!
I think a more reasonable explanation of "free will" would be chaos theory--if brains are even as chaotic as say, the weather, then we're a long way from being able to comprehend why they do what they do, if it's even possible to do so at all. Our behavior may be ruled by physical interactions, but if we can't know or predict what those interactions are, is that practically any different from having some invisible entity (a soul, maybe) pulling the brain's strings, at least to the extent we lack such knowledge or cannot make such predictions?
I *have* researched it, sunshine. I'm quite familiar with the propaganda that Mao cooked up to justify his land-grab, and I'm also quite aware that even those fantasies don't hold a candle to the atrocities of the "Cultural Revolution."
If you want to start comparing injuries, I think you'd better own up to the fact that Mao killed more Chinese than Tojo.
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hitler was stupid. Not many people would think its a good idea to anger more than three continents.
I would look for a better source than a Chinese government mouthpiece. They have every incentive to lie about the economy.
I remember during the Soviet Union days officials always denied that poverty existed in the worker's paradise. When Western TV visited Russia and tried to film the beggars the government minders would always cover the camera lens with their hands.
he deserves it.
(the last line was my favorite)
You imply that if a land is taken by force from original occupiers .. that is legitimate, moral, and right? No need to feel bad about handing out the smallpox blankets?
Am I getting u straight?
I heard someone doing that recently...what the heck is the name of that song and who is it by? I want to hear it!
Hmmm, I'm apparently not a human, so says the script.
I sing the doggie electric!
...deriding religion on Slashdot. Why, I think that's never been done before.
It's a special kind of funny to see folks who fancy themselves "out-there", real "edgy thinking" being about as cliched as can possibly be imagined. Who do they think they're foolin?
For me there are two kinds of people in the world, one kind feels the need to have the things done but they lack the potential, the other kind has he potential but they lack the need to have things done, their skills are only useful to serve others, not themselves, and this is the way it has to be, one has to learn to cooperate.
In moments of boredom when no challenges are made, people of the second kind will just do anything to improve their skills, this includes aiming at virtual objectives with the sole purpose of learning with the development process. They don't care much whether they accomplish their virtual objectives successfully or not as long as they feel that they have learned enough with them. Those virtual objectives are the so called bad ideas. Let the people of the first kind (the ones with the need) lead the people of the second kind (the ones with the potential) and you get amazing results.
The favorite idol of us all, Mr. Gates, wrote in his N.Y.T. column, that according to what he has seen, the most common reason why smart people fail professionally and/or financially is their lack of focus.
I don't think this is so easy. We need both general people and focused people, but both attitudes have their risks. Focusing on details is laborous and boring and as a such a sought after capability. But a narrow expert easily becomes weak and expandable in a community.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
I think I am going to mod the parent up because, as the replies make clear, it inspires some thinking that is different from the usual one. Especially if you substitute/USA/China/ and /natives/tibetans/
Now if you want my own opinion about China and Tibet, I think Tibet was ill-fated, being between two great nations, on what should be discussed is not that the Chinese took Tibet, but how they took it. A great civilization should be civilized.
Take the Chinese for example. The majority of them insist that Tibet should be occupied by Chinese military forces.
That would probably be due to the fact that information is very strictly controlled in China. If the only source you have for information is the communist media, then the persecution of the Tibetans, the Uighurs, Falun Gong, and the Tienanmen Square Massacre will all seem like the enlightened policies of a benevolent state.
When I chat with Chinese people via the internet, they all know that they lost a relative or two during the 1960's, but they have no idea that Mao's "great leap forward" debacle killed something more than twenty million people.
Likewise, they have no idea that that little twerp of a Stalinist runt running North Korea let three million people starve to death so that his pride wouldn't be hurt by getting out of the way of the foreign aid that could have saved them.
Chinese people aren't stupid, by any means. Just observing the ingenuity with which they work around their totalitarian masters, making a living while paying lip-service to the memory of the man who killed around thirty million of them ("great leader", indeed!), will show you that they're remarkably resourceful.
What gives me great hope for China, is the way that the Chinese I speak with are so eager to find out what the thugs don't want them to know. Back when Deng ordered the slaughter in 1989, he had to bring in troops from far out in the country, who had no idea what was going on in Beijing, since the local garrison wouldn't have opened fire on unarmed protestors.
The commies will fall, and they will fall because internal communication is improving by leaps and bounds. One thing a totalitarian regime needs above all else to stay in power, is the ability to lie and effectively supress the truth. That ability is rapidly slipping away from the Chinese government, and sooner or later, they'll fall just like the Soviets. Once that happens, hold on to your hat, because China will accomplish some truly amazing things.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Hitler was smart. Most Chinese are smart. Yet, most observers would agree that both are brutal."
Are you saying most Chinese are brutal?
give the USA back to the native Americans
Umm... Which ones?
Keep in mind that they did quite a lot of pushing each other around before any Europeans set foot on the continent.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
DUH, yah i recently watched a documentary where the guy said "and luckally the three carriers just happened to sail out to sea a few days before"
its all staged
911 is the biggest fraud in history. the facts are blatantly obvious. and its funny how people will debate it without researching, they just repeat what the man in the tv told them.
Huh? You're saying you have no problem with the Native Americans being conquered and their lands becoming part of the USA. So how can you have a problem with the Tibetans being conquered and their lands becoming part of China? That's the point the grandparent was making.
I am trolling
Most of the time the point is just "fun". We don't do this to serve you, we do it for our own enjoyment. However, sometimes the point is "to get stuff done". In which case we do just enough to the job done and then we put up what we've got so others don't have to start from scratch.
That's great, and if you're doing it for fun, more power to you. It's the OSS folks that complain about companies / governments/ individuals not adopting OSs that miss the point - people do care about how well the can get stuff done, and poor UI's or msiisng features that intefere with that makes them look elswhere.
If you need more than my bare minimum then I expect you to code what you need, not come whining back to me that I didn't do what you need. The alternative is to start from scratch, so I think you should consider yourself lucky that I went to the bother of putting my stuff out there (and it is a bother).
There's another alternative - buy a commercial package that does what you need - and given MS' profits for teh last qtr I'd say a lot of people are chosing that alternative. That's the key - if OSS deveopers want people to use their software, then it has to be a viable alternative; simply being free is not enough if it doesn't do what is needed.
Just as you can't be bothered to add features; users can't be bothered to improve OSS when other alternatives exist; they decide their time and money are better spent elsewhere.
Which is why it is good that you do OSS development for fun, since most people neither care nor consider themselves lucky that someone bothered to develop OSS software - they just want stuff that works.
Ultimately, if you can't take open source and tailor it to your own needs then you need to either put up or shut up. Either put up code or cash to get it to do what you want or shut up and use what you've been given.
They do - look at MS revenues or Apple's compared to donations for OSS projects, or even Redhat's revenue.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Seriously -- the first step to making good decisions is to have a realistic understanding of one's place, and the value of one's work product in the greater scheme of things. Dialing back the ego and pathological insecurities/approval seeking etc^6 behavior goes a long way. (And, as of yet, rock stars don't get outsourced to Mumbai)
I'm sorry... rock star programmers... sheesh!
Depends on how you look at it, doesn't it? Personally I think invading Iraq was a scam pulled of by very smart people. It was very succesful and gave them exactly what they wanted. And like with prestidigitation, the bits you're looking at aren't the bits you should be looking at.
Why would anyone ever defend an idea they know to be bad, other than as a tool to understand someone elses point of view or because of some brain abnormality?
1)Examine the context on both sides.
2)Establish a common context as an environment for discussion.
3)Maintain awareness of departures from '2' in discussion and resolve.
If the idea is to understand rather than to win, most bad ideas are dismissed or evolve into better ones.
This approach works best when applied by both sides but can be a very powerful tool when the goal is to win. In competitive sales for example.
Often what seems to be 'functional' interfaces for expert users have major usability issues with the intended users.
OS products often fall into this trap, as the people who develop them (expert as a user can be) make something that is 'functional' for them and mostly unusable for the majority of people who may want to use the product.
That is why designers can be useful, and why designers with technical (designer/engineers) are so useful.
Also, to the grandparent: A good interface isn't one that is so flashy that it has huge usability problems, instead it is one that does consider aesthetics and functionality to make a usable product for all of its users.
And this is why Edward de Bono makes for interesting reading. I wont bother detailing his bio but point you to his website. de Bono spent the early part of his life working on the structure and self organisation of the brain.
He has spent considerable more time trying to get people to think better. For example in a thinking exercise he tries to explain why people (not just smart ones) argue incorrect results to problems through a simple example:
Good ideas flow from good thinking. Good thinking is (mostly) about changing perception not logic or argument.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Going off topic for a moment: Something needs to be done about these fucking codes you need to enter to post a comment. Half of them are almost illegible!
There is usually a lot of energy at the start of a meeting and ideas are quickly introduced and tossed out. At the end of a meeting people are tired and will choose what seems to be a compromise solution. So if you want your idea accepted it's more important when and how it's presented than what it actually is.
at least in advertising...
(i am not a machine)
There's another alternative - buy a commercial package that does what you need - and given MS' profits for teh last qtr I'd say a lot of people are chosing that alternative. That's the key - if OSS deveopers want people to use their software, then it has to be a viable alternative; simply being free is not enough if it doesn't do what is needed.
You got it right, but missed it. :)
Most of us don't care if you, or anyone else, uses the stuff we write. Your needs weren't considered in the first place; the code was written because we needed it.
If you use the result, great; maybe you'll use it to solve some problem that will bug us some day. But if you don't, it's not going to bother us in the slightest because unless we're being paid to care about what you want, there's no reason for us to do it -- and we don't.
I would say that I am mostly in the second camp, but when I really think about it, I'm actually just at one of the levels of fractal recursion within this concept.
I'm a relatively high level programmer that works best directly with people who are relatively computer inclined, but overall business inclined. I have a knack to relate to their fundamental needs when they have a hard time expressing it, and I've been lucky to be able to express my limitations and abilities to their level.
That basically means -they- are the abstraction from the highest levels of the business to me, and -I- am the abstraction from the lower levels of computing to them. This concept basically extends in both directions away from me in a fractal manner.
That is not to say that I work directly with the people at the lower levels though, I've been so fortunate that they worked for me. Linux, perl, apache, gnu.... I am basically the target -user- for so many of these things, I am basically in the first camp overall when all the things I use are taken into consideration.
To even attempt to contemplate all the levels of abstraction that are involved in this line of thinking... Try to really imagine it, all the interdependencies between people in order to operate this modern world.
These sorts of 'there are 2 kinds of people....' classifications that are actually fractal levels of abstraction exist in many dimensions. Teachers.. Doctors.. Construction Workers.. Firemen.. Think about how the personality differences that veer people into the things they do, versus the people that do things that support them, versus things that are seemingly unrelated, but if you gave it a little thought, you'd probably only be a few degrees of seperation to a meaningful dependancy.
So, if I conquer USA and claim it to be a part of France now, you would be cool with that??
i often times take the side of the negative or bad idea in this case in order to instigate debate/discussion sake. my roommate and i would often have discussions regarding moral questions, or just plain simple ones. but if we both agree on one side, then we don't really get to see all the argumentive points on the other side.
like the case of suicide, both of us knows it's wrong to kill yourself (others may disagree here), but if we both agree to that, there's really nothing to debate/discuss/argue about. so i usually choose the opposite side and in this case would be defending why suicide should be allowed. though this will be defending a bad idea, but it lays out valid points for both sides of the argument. in fact usually, not only do we get a deeper understanding of the question, but it reaffirms both our belief in the 1st place.
HD Trailers
I think there is a technique that Scotty forgot to mention (or perhaps didn't know about?).
You can defuse almost any intelligent-yet-idiot-stubborn person by simply asking questions. The questions shouldn't be intricate webs of knowledge or anything like that -- just keep it simple. Because, if it truly is a whacky idea, the smart guy or gal will sooner (if you become versed at this technique) or later arrive at some statements which make no sense at all. And then you go in for the kill (if you are a smart-yet-idiot yourself) or leave a window open for the other person to change their opinion (if you are wise).
Another perk is that you can use the question technique against any type of person. This might seem insignificant, but it is in fact a really important aspect since many of the smart-idiot people have lots of credibility which can make your other chances of winning an argument against them pretty slim. (For some reason, people think that just because you have a PhD in micro biology or theoretical philosophy, you know everything including car repair and hockey tactics.)
1 -- China and Tibet have been under one government in the past and speak a related languages
2 -- If Tibet had aligned with India, China would not have been able to defeat India as easily.
3 -- With Tibet as part of China, it can't be manipulated and oppressed by the West any more
4 -- The fact that China was able to defeat Tibet so easily shows that there was a dangerous power vacuum there without China; the same is true of East Turkestan etc.
5 -- Your turn will come, gwailo.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
When you whack the two bales together, the horse often darts out from in between them and gets away. Unless you use HUGE bales of hay.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Now we got derailed from calculus to statistics. :-)
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Wow... Talk about missing the point of a post! That was great, thanks. Very funny.
No, I'm not laughing WITH you...
You rail on and on, apparently spitting froth all over your keyboard and monitor, over a sarcastic jab! It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I was less than impressed with that essay. It read like the kind of drivel I might write, but don't, because I worry that it would come across as drivel written by a pompous egomaniac. But I doubt anyone's reading this article's comments by now, so, that said:
:-)
Smartness is pretty irrelevant. I mean, it's a fuzzy relative blob of a term to start with, particularly in the context of people doing stupid things, but beyond that it's not really a key factor.
I assume the thinking is that stupid people defend bad ideas 'because they're stupid'. That is, they don't understand that it's a bad idea to start off with. So you don't need to think about why stupid people defend bad ideas, it's obvious right?
But there aren't smart people who understand everything and are always right. They don't exist. There are people who don't understand anything, but they're not generally to be found defending it, so they're not really significant to the original question.
So one of the reasons people - both smart and stupid - might be seen to defend bad ideas is because they genuinely don't believe it's a bad idea. Of course, that links in with the definition of a 'bad idea' which is another fuzzy relative blob. But one blob at a time. This also leads us on to what happens when we reach the point where they really should understand it actually is a bad idea (allowing for the fuzzy blob factor course).
And the ultimate reason, I think, is that people (both smart and stupid) want to be right, and smart - or at least, want people to think they are.
This all stems from the (bad) idea that being right is good and being wrong is bad. Being smart is good and being stupid is bad. And if you're right, you are smart, and if you're wrong, you are stupid. And therefore if you admit you were wrong, you're admitting you were stupid. And you don't want people to think you're stupid.
We also usually learn that you don't always actually have to be right to get the credit for it. You can be wrong, but if you convince people you're right, it counts! Conversely, you can be right, but if people think you're wrong, it doesn't count. It's more important that people think you're right than to actually be right.
If we weren't so bothered about being thought of as smart, not stupid, perhaps this wouldn't be such a problem. And when you get down to it, there's really not that much difference. The people we think of as smart frequently do pretty dumb things, and the people we think of as stupid can surprise us.
Hey, my lunch is ready.
So, in conclusion, I blame society.
To provide another strange example consider the life of Ezra Pound. One of the distinguishing marks of his prose was his somewhat justified, almost always arrogant posture of intelectual superiority. His verse however was informed by bigotry, structured by imitation, and almost entirely recanted at the end of his life over a moral awakening that came far too late for pity. Being able to write in 18 languages doesn't mean a man has anything worth writting about.
"Because Good is Dumb."
Wait a minute! Who gets to decide what is a "bad idea" and what isn't? Who has the power of making the definition? Whoever has the power to make the definition automatically wins, by definition, because they set the rules of the game. Everyone else has to play by their rules. So this guy is saying he is smarter than "smart people" and can decide what is a bad idea? Isn't that hubris? If not him, then who is the final arbiter? And how do we get every smart person to agree to be arbited by that powerful person? The reason people defend "bad ideas" is they don't agree to let someone else have the power to declare what they believe a "bad idea".
Most of us don't care if you, or anyone else, uses the stuff we write. Your needs weren't considered in the first place; the code was written because we needed it.
If you use the result, great; maybe you'll use it to solve some problem that will bug us some day. But if you don't, it's not going to bother us in the slightest because unless we're being paid to care about what you want, there's no reason for us to do it -- and we don't.
Which is why people who are trying to gain broader acceptance of OSS face an uphill battle - they're competing with people who want to identify and meet the needs of their customers.
It's great that people code for their own enjoyment; I understand that because I've done it as well(but my code is no where near the level of people releasing OSS code, which is OK because it does what I need it to do) and that's why I take pictures.
What I was looking at was what is impeding wider use of OSS software and the challenges of getting it to be a viable alternative in the marketplace.
That's what I find interesting - watching how some are trying to turn OSS into a movement while being unable to exert any control over what the people coding are doing - it's a quite a social / economic phenomena.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The Tibetans would be better off under the Lamas in much the same way the Poles were better off after the Soviets liberated them from the Nazis. In both cases, the solution is sub-optimal.
I'm all for a free Tibet, but that means a Tibet that's ruled by neither the Chinese nor a bunch of monks.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
This, while annoying, isn't the real problem. I like to think of myself as one of these smarter individuals. The problem is that I don't have the focus to see something through to completion. I start 15 projects and finish none of them. I'll do some really interesting stuff, and when an employer asks why it wasn't completed, I say, "Well, X came out and they already have a good UI, so I figured I'd drop that one" or "This tweak here actually fixed X application, so we don't need a brand new one for that."
The only reason we need middle-level management is because of this sole reason. The rest of the time, we have the technical experience to know what's industry standard and what operates quicker and etc. We just have problems COMPLETING the projects we're given.
Or so I would like to think.
And of course a newspaper called The People's Daily from China is a fount of accurate information on Chinese demographics.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
It may not be as bad as it seems. Yes, the down modded post might "boil down" to a simple disagreement, but the mod is often based on what you "boiled away" to get at the core.
Flamebait is essentially a disagreement with one "side" of a discussion, but phrased in such a way at to invite/incite overly emotional rebuttal by that "side" and thus foster the conceptualization of the discussion as a fight between two intrinsically opposing sides.
A troll often poses as a simple disagreement, but the key is that it's a pose--the poster may or may not actually disagree, but the post is falsly cast (or cliped from a standard file); it is not an honest response or contribution to the discussion.
So yes, you are right, but I submit that posts should be modded on their flavor as well as their substance; someone making a perfectly valid point in foul and abusive language deserves to be modded down as much as someone who is offtopic (for example), if only to keep the discourse civil.
--MarkusQ
"you believe in self."
You do not believe in self?
Should people not beleive that they exist? You must mean something different than what you imply. Tell me you do.
Or are you one of those people who defend bad ideas?
give the USA back to the native Americans or go home and shut the fuck up.
When all those Anglos, Saxons, Jutes, and Normans get the Hell out of the British isles, I'll return to my ancestral Celtic homeland.
If the rest of Europe is real nice, we'll let them keep central and western Europe for themselves, even though we have claims on that, too.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Your argument seems to boil down to this:
You: God exists. He has power, majesty, he loves us and takes care of us.
Skeptic: No, for you offer no proof beyond your words
You: Your mind is closed
Skeptic: Perhaps. Can you give us some proof?
You: Your mind is closed to the possibility of God [pulls out chewbaca defense using atomic theory]
Skeptic: So you're saying there is no proof?
No need to feel bad about handing out the smallpox blankets?
No, I see no need to feel bad about unsubstantiated myths.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Habeas Corpus is a good thing worth writting about. ;-)
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Eris gave me a blow job and let me do anal on her. I finally made her a 3 input girl.
And she said it was the best sex she ever had. She called it the "big bang".
Godwin's Law now applies to Slashdot? What a way end a thread!
Besides, you've forgotten the better example that many Americans think that conquering Iraq has helped prevent terrorism.
But, I think the Rockstar programmers did a great job!
Fnord.
Why not try to develop your skills in areas where you don't excel, like writing, or psychology? You've described yourself as a person with excellent technical abilities, but you obviously haven't had success with your personal or political ambitions.
"...you can change the world IF your party will support you."
It seems unlikely that that you've accomplshed everything you could possibly be interested in. The world is huge, and there are billions of people and a lot of stuff in it. College, in comparison, is a fishbowl. It's a place to aquire the skills you will use to persue your goals in the world.
For you, the first step is probably to look beyond college, or at least beyond your own field of study. Take classes where you won't be instantly successful. Finish out if you can, and explore the world a little. Don't dump yourself directly into the workforce unless you need to; travel.
Any polymath will tell you that you've got to be patient with yourself. Give yourself some time to figure out what you want to do next.
"There's another alternative - buy a commercial package that does what you need - and given MS' profits for teh last qtr I'd say a lot of people are chosing that alternative."
Then why don't you just go ahead and buy it instead of complaining about my free work? That is the whole point! Instead of putting money where your mouth is, you people keep complaining about volunteer work.
"since most people neither care nor consider themselves lucky that someone bothered to develop OSS software - they just want stuff that works."
Good for them, but those people are not the problem. The people who keep complaining about OSS instead of buying whatever commercial software they need, are the problem.
If I want everybody to use my software, then I'd make it userfriendly. But if I write a piece of software for fun for free, then what gives you the right to keep complaining about it all day all night?
And, though I agree that E-books seem patently a solution in search of a problem, the consensus was initially otherwise
I know! I got a bad grade in a school paper because I refused to work on their assumption that "off COURSE ebooks will kill the paper book", instead of weighing the good and bad of it I disagreed with the source material and explained quite thouroughly that even though ebooks take up almost no space, they'll never replace paper with a battery powered device that requires special lightng conditions, clean environments and that even under the best of circumstances are hard on the eyes.
You can't take the sky from me...
> Smarts do not imply kindness.
While that is true, "smarts" generally implies enough wisdom to know that screwing someone for short-term, transiant, non-essential gain is a very poor long term strategy. By this measure both Hitler and Mao did not possess "smarts".
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
The same way people learn everything maybe: through use? If U.S. schools tought math by using it to do something instead of as a bunch of problems to be "worked out", perhaps math scores would be higher?
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Second, the best information I'm aware of says orientals have an IQ advantage of about 6 points over the average human.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
They really are trolls or flamebait. Your ego is simply preventing you from realizing it because you agree with them.
This is utter utter crap. There are at least a hundred million roaming unemployed in China. Just think for a second : about half of the people employed by the state or state owned enterprises before Deng came to power have been sacked as these businesses became unprofitable.
"
The narrow official definition of unemployment leaves out millions of people who are out of work, by a common-sense definition. A good place to start is to ask who is out of work and needs a job but is not counted in the official unemployment figures. These are the main categories:
# Xia gang, or "off-post" workers, not registered as unemployed and still contractually tied to their work-units, possibly receiving short-term very limited benefits.
# Surplus, unpaid but not officially laid off workers at state-owned enterprises (SOEs), technically hired but economically expendable.
# Laid-off workers still contractually tied to their work units.
# Migrant agricultural and rural workers who move to cities, an estimated 94 million of them, or more.
# Surplus rural workers.
# Workers who disappear into the informal economy.
"
It is of course very difficult to get any sensible information out of China. The only people counted as unemployed are those who had a job in a city and lost it. That rate is about 10% of official urban workers, ie 30 million out of 300 million . The biggest portion left out are the roaming agricultural workers - at the very least a hundred million out of work due to cheap food imports from the US, Canada, the Ukraine etc.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FD01Ad01.html
is the reference I forgot...
"The narrow official definition of unemployment leaves out millions of people who are out of work, by a common-sense definition."
Pretty much like in the US.
We innovate things, they copy and mass produce them. You can't teach innovation in school. You can, however, create an environment where innovation is revered and rewarded, values you don't normally associate with authoritarian communism. Innovation doesn't show up in test scores. I would say let them have the scores.
Junk bonds are an innovative way to raise money, profit in exchange for risk. Bad movies? 50% of all movies are below average. One persons bad movie is anothers classic.
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
"You and the rest of the "... give the USA back to the native Americans or go home and shut the fuck up. people need to take your own advice and Shut the FUCK up. The United States of America were what our founding fathers created out of such conquored lands and hence never belonged to the native americans. It then and now belongs to us."
What the hell could anyone, anywhere possibly be thinking who would write this ?!?!?! What is it precisely that are you arguing belonged to America before there was a country called America ? The land originally declared to be America most certainly had lots of people in it before whitey showed up, parked a boat, and started growing corn. But hey, yeah, there wasn't a Native Empire of Non-Whitey Badasses or whatever to make the good-buy/bad-guy distinction comfortably clear, so I guess no one should fault you for having no way to conceive of the way things actually happened. In short, to borrow a phrase," Shut the FUCK up "
and go back to your football games and war movies. Its arguably better for you than non-sequitor, ass-in-head senseless opinions, which is precisely what you thought you were trying to rant about."Ignorant fools."
Ignoramus twat.If you don't have any goals you basically have nowhere to aim, without direction you'll start going in circles.
So write down 101 things you think you might like to do in your life, anything, trivial stuff as well as difficult stuff. Cross them off as you do them, cross them off as your goals change, add new ones as you think of them.
Deleted
.. how many people actually think they're smart. Most people I know may be smart in some areas, but not so smart in others. A truly 'smart' person in my mind wouldn't ever accept that they are so. There is SO much to learn in this world, it is nearly impossible to learn it all in one lifetime.
Why do stupid people think the idea is more important than the debate?
Odd, I always thought people with overly patronizing attitudes were the stupid ones. I don't even know what you origignal argument was or if I agree or disagree, but I can say with certainty that if you greet some discussion that originates from a different direction than you like with a sneer than you are missing much and probably incapable of having a real discussion WITH.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're describing somebody who is so afraid of making a bad decision, they can't make any.
That's unfair. It can also be the choice that (as in the original posters horse/hay analogy) that all choices are so tempting you just can't decide which is MOST tempting and therefore do not move. Inaction need not be out of fear, when indecision serves just as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, you're right! The US is a totalitarian theocratic regime! That explains why all the screeching hippies have been bulldozed into mass graves with bullets in their fucking skulls!
Oh, wait: they haven't.
I'm sure this type of overblown rhetoric impresses the hell out of your little hippie buddies down at the espresso shop, but in the real world it just makes you look like an idiot.
Sorry.
Exactly. I'll admit, lots of OSS is just by techies for techies and it serves its job with varying degrees of success.
When the local high school considered adopting a Linux distro over Windows they sat down and crunched the numbers. They were impressed that once they got it set up Linux was just as functional as Windows for everything they wanted to do, but they figured in the TCO of Linux and ran away miffed.
The final lesson of the entire experience for them was while they wouldn't buy a car with the hood sealed shut, they didn't want to have to install a completely seperate electrical system for the dashboard, the radio, and the lamps then worry about servicing the entire thing when it broke down.
Nah, it's just that the message here is "if you're good at kicking a ball or looking pretty while pretending to sing, you'll be more successful and respected than if you're a good engineer, physician and so on."
I read an article once about a study that concluded that many dumb people think they are smart. ..."
Conversely, smart people often feel they aren't that smart.
Keep this in mind when you read all the posts that start with "As a smart person, I
I wish I had the article. I believe it was printed in the San Jose Mercury news about 10 years ago.
Speaking of electrical celebrities, I think Tesla trumped Edison as defender of bad ideas. He incessantly pursued such endeavors as wireless transmission of power (feasible, but awfully impractical) and his death ray (a bad idea to defend bad ideas!).
I see this a lot in the opensource community.
Tons of coders... but nothing new or innovative, or tons of useless programs, or variants of programs that do the same function.
We have enough text editors and calculators.
Then there are projects that simply clone professional projects, but once they get to a level of where the app seems to be up to working standards, not necessarily even up to the original application's standards, they just stay at that level. even if you're lacking some huge features.
The only opensource apps that seem to be more complete, and even have better features than their closed source counterparts are ones that are backed financially or by a company filled with experienced programmers.. WITH VISION.
That's the point. You need vision to make a program with new features or functions no one thought to make. Sadly, much of opensource lacks this. The worst part is, if you want to join p a project beause you have great ideas, you often get rejected because the project already formed its own little pact, they might accept some patches from you, but because what you may want to do is something they deem shitty, more times than not they wont look at it twice. So then you're forced to fork the project, making yet another application out there that will confuse people because no there's one that does the same as project A but with some added features.
Not trolling or looking to troll, pointing out a reality that needs to be addressed.
Just opensource is a great example of programmers who can program, but they have zero vision, and change scares them.
u may think that's obvious, but it's not. ... their grades were: 10, 2,1,1,1
... and u have only ONE student above it ... or 20% of the students !
imagine u had 5 students taking a test
the MedianGrade grade is (10+2+1+1+1)/5 = 3
math works in misterious ways :)
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Using that same reasoning, it's clear that you're totally opposed to the dictatorship currently ruling China.
I can't say the same for the Sino-astoturfers spreading the anti-Lama meme.
Well, somebody probably needs to chime in about the difference between the etablishment/expansion of a democratic country, and a communist dictatorship increasing it's land mass.
I suppose it could be me, but what the hell...
"There's another alternative - buy a commercial package that does what you need - and given MS' profits for teh last qtr I'd say a lot of people are chosing that alternative."
Then why don't you just go ahead and buy it instead of complaining about my free work? That is the whole point! Instead of putting money where your mouth is, you people keep complaining about volunteer work.
I do buy it, and I'm not complaining about your work. I take issue with the OSS evangelists that want people / organizations to use OSS and then get upset when the same people say that they won't use it because it doesn't meet their needs. I don't expect a programmer to modify their work because I want them too, but there are OSS advocates who seem to believe it should be used simply because it is free and readily modifiable. Those are the ones that need to buy a clue (or create a GPL's version) if they really want to revolutionalize the way software is created and distributed.
You obviously don't care to be part of that effort, that's fine; I respect that.
"since most people neither care nor consider themselves lucky that someone bothered to develop OSS software - they just want stuff that works."
Good for them, but those people are not the problem. The people who keep complaining about OSS instead of buying whatever commercial software they need, are the problem.
If I want everybody to use my software, then I'd make it userfriendly. But if I write a piece of software for fun for free, then what gives you the right to keep complaining about it all day all night?
Yes, there are people who complain the software XYZ hasn't implemented some feature and go on to demand the developer do so - ignoring those idiots is an unfortunate by product of making software freely available.
OTOH, if someone says you should adopted OSS for you're own use, pointing out the reasons it won't work for you is perfectly legitimate - you're not expecting them to fix those problems unless they want you to adopt the software.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Wow. Has China punched a hole in the Great Firewall to let authentic China-indoctrinated thinkers emerge to read and comment on Slashdot, or have they established cells of astroturfers outside the country?
I call it bullshit artist. I can do the same thing. Discussing something with someone is easy, use your head, and ask questions and learn as you go. If youre good, they think you know what youre talking about.
Now, i would be impressed if you could walk in and redesign a reactor cooling system, or go in and be able to take over the library for a week, or win the indy 500, or deliver a baby or something.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
This point has been made in other replies to you, but I thought I'd expand on it. The claim that god created the universe doesn't answer the question of what came first, it just pushes it back a step. The question becomes, where did god come from?
...
The possible answers are, "he" appeared out of nowhere, he was always there, or he was created by another god. If he appeared out of nowhere or he was always there, the same explanation could be applied directly to the universe, and there is no logical need for god's existence. If he was created by another god, then we can start over with that one
I see nothing more or less absurd about the idea that the universe was created by a god, who was created by another god, who was created by a third god, who popped out of nowhere, than that the universe was created by the God you posit. Neither theory explains anything more than does the idea that there were no gods at all. Once more, it comes back to faith.
Interesting question. The Queen owns countless estates, castles and priceless works of art and historical artifacts. But the wealth really doesn't belong to her. She's a steward who takes care of it.
:-)
But if the Queen decided tomorrow "I am going to put Buckingham Palace up for sale on ebay", she wouldn't get very far.
If Bill Gates decided to sell his house, he could do so.
Now even so, the salary that the Queen makes yearly in order to handle this wealth is still more than I'd make in a lifetime, and by that factor she's still very wealthy. But she's not quite like Bill Gates. Then again, the Queen has a much stronger government lobby than Gates does, so I guess it depends...
Clearly this is the dinstinction that someone was trying to make, but because you were so unwilling to lose the argument you refused to listen to the points he was making.
How did Mao make reports, historical records, the invasions and records held in Sri lanka dealing with events and that were written 30 years and more before his birth? He did not, you are simply sated with the idea that Communists are wrong somehow and accept the doctrine spread by a disposed dictatorial theocrat whose regime, despite recent claims of consideration of reforms, still makes anything else, by sources ranging far and wide throughout history in the last 300 years particularly, the Lama order to be as bad and worse in areas than the Ancien Regime was in France. You have not actually educated yourself in the area, only in the popular propaganda against Communism in China, when it, outside of the First Emperor, has done more for China than very close to everything else.
What you just calculated was the mean value.
The median in this case is 1.
I attend an engineering college in the US, but there are a high percentage of Chinese and Indian students here. I agree that they can blow us away with math skills, and to agree with another poster, they can't innovate. From what I've seen on research teams and build projects, they cannot think outside the box. I've seen firsthand an Indian dude do 4x the amount of math required to make the results look like what he "expected" vs. just plotting the outlying point and -questioning- why that occured.
Also, I bet their average math scores are only collected from their students who get to attend school. I'm sure all 1 billion people aren't on average any better than the rest of us. Agreedm those who do get educated are probably better, but it's not a fair comparison when you're collecting data from American potheads that are forced to take tests so their school gets funding.
USA has always been a country of openmindness. So you are the only one that does not belong, therefore, you should be the one to shut the fuck up. Sincerely,
Isn't that what they feed everyone in KINDERGARDEN; "You can do anything if you just put your mind to it"?
In my younger years, I took this to mean "Do everything, because you can". Now that I'm in FIRST GRADE, that entire lesson was bunk, and now I'm stuck with a bunch of what I'd consider useless knowledge.
The "Pretender" gene, as I often call it (after the TV series) is something a lot of us are blessed/cursed with. We have the ability to sit down at a BOOK and COLOR anything, then get up, walk into a BACKYARD, pick up JUNK and build A FORT, then go to a FRIEND'S HOUSE and IMPRESS THEM.
The problem with it is futility. Others like me, myself included, find it futile at times to do anything, since we've done everything we're interested in doing. Us general-purpose, disposable task people have to cast ourselves into single purpose, repetitive task people, and that's really hard for us, in FIRST GRADE, and in life.
Sadly, I don't see an easy solution. Except I won't be telling my children that "They can do anything". I'll tell them "you can do something. but it's up to you to choose what that something is."
MAYBE I'LL CURE AIDS, STOP WAR, END DEATH AND SUFFERING BY NOON TOMORROW. AFTER ALL, I CAN DO ANYTHING. I'M DELUDED.
I'm posting anonymous because I can't believe myself for replying to a troll.
1 -- China and Tibet have been under one government in the past and speak a related languages
How many centuries ago was that? Also, France and Germany have been under the same government. Kwait and Iraq have been under the same government. The US and IK have been under the same government. Does that justify military aggression or union? Not in the least bit. Language relatedness means nothing. There are mountain loads of countries that speak languages related to Chinese. Would that justify Chinese militarism towards them? Logically speaking the answer is no.
2 -- If Tibet had aligned with India, China would not have been able to defeat India as easily.
That's just Chinese propaganda hocus pocus. China defeated India? What on Earth does that mean? India is an independent country. Hey, any country that is not China could have aligned with any other country that wasn't China. Does that mean China is justified in invading any country on Earth? This makes not the slightest sense.
3 -- With Tibet as part of China, it can't be manipulated and oppressed by the West any more
The only country that manipulated and oppressed Tibet was the People's Republic of China. Did you know that THE EXACT SAME JUSTIFICATION WAS USED for the Empire of Japan to invade much of Asia during World War II? Was that a good thing?
4 -- The fact that China was able to defeat Tibet so easily shows that there was a dangerous power vacuum there without China; the same is true of East Turkestan etc.
You're basically saying that any country China could easily defeat, China has the right to, and an obligation to, invade. That's a severely severely severely insane logic. China was so wrong to invade Tibet, there's no gray area here.
Here's a link with some data about IQ scores and GDPs of various nations.
_ IQ#Estimates_of_other_countries
http://www.sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm
wikipedia has the same data here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by
In general, countries formed from Asian immigrants have high IQs. Particularly Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Hong Kong's average of 107 is number one in the world. Asian Americans also have very high average IQs. Scores are also quite decent in Japan and S. Korea. However IQ averages accross large asian countries such as China and India are about equal to those of the average North American or European. Interestingly, the group documented with the highest average IQ is Jewish Americans. I've seen studies putting that average at an astounding 113. Interestingly the average IQ of Jewish people in Isreal is only 94. Maybe some argument can be made that only more intelligent people were able to successfully immigrate out of China to HK or the US, giving the US an unbalanced racial IQ make up. It would stand to reason that the really smart Jews from Europe would have been in New York during the holocaust. Most of those living in Isreal now are decended from those who did NOT get out of Europe in time. Meanwhile the barriers for Mexicans coming to the US haven't been nearly so high, so perhaps there isn't much IQ selective pressure on those immigrant communities. Same thing would go for Africans caught by slavers a couple of hundred years ago.
Just my 2 cents.
I'm a gnu world man.
YOU CAN'T TEACH INNOVATION IN SCHOOL....
Agreed. The reason our country tends to be innovative is referred to in the article. Innovation comes from diversity of source. Having a myriad of people from disparate backgrounds, all with prodigious problem solving abilities... something good will arise from that. You'll get strong ideas from people used to defending their positions and are thus resistant to peer pressure.
Taking that a step further, you need a leader who KNOWS when the killer idea has been hit upon.
Gonna reveal my geek roots for a minute: When I was a kid I read these cheesy books by a guy named Piers Anthony - called BIO OF A SPACE TYRANT. The guy's name was Hope Hubris and he rose from a small agricultural colony floating in the Jovian atmosphere to become the leader of the Jovian colonies. It was always pointed out in the books that Hope Hubris, in and of himself, was not particularly talented. He was never great at any one thing, other than at getting the best people united under one cause. For some reason, really smart and talented people put their faith in him to lead them, to champion their cause.
I've noticed that most people who are great at designing widgets have a noted inability to grasp the bigger picture. I think it's really true that for the most part, leaders and innovators can't be taught. They arise as a consequence of conditions.
I also agree with you in regards to test scores. Test scores don't measure the quality of our innovation... they measure the quality of our work force. That said, if the United States ceases to innovate, we become inherently disadvantaged because of the inferior workforce we produce because of our less regimented education system.
In regards to innovation, our society seeks to crush that too... through homogeniety (sp). Stifle immigration and champion media culture, and you have everyone thinking the same things... doing the same thing... being the same things. That again robs us of innovation. Somewhere, some really innovative person has just discovered video games, or MTV, and it's a wrap for that guy.
In other words, *and I can't believe that I'm saying this* some concepts of the traditionally republican ideal make sense. Free capitalism.... leave everyone to their own devices - make everyone hustle for everything that they have, and you have an efficient economy. This makes sense.
Unfortunately, we live in a very decadent society. Everyone has too much (even "poor" people), and this makes for satisfied people. Satisfied people don't innovate. Therein lies the trouble, and why we have much to fear from countries like India and China (Africa is next - they also have a billion people, and AIDS is stabilizing. It actually is on the decline in urban centers. If they lose a quarter of their population, they still have 3/4 of a billion people rapidly migrating to urban centers and embracing education. On top of that, the African continent has a treasure trove of natural resources left untapped because of civil strife. China will always be hindered because it cannot power it's population. India will be hindered because most of its population practices a religion diametrically opposed to the ideals of capitalism. Africa can both power and feed itself, and is rapidly embracing Catholicism and Christianity). I'm rambling.
un burrito me trampeó.
Huh? Back then the US was a controlled colony and revenue source of a pretty strong (not absolute, but far from purely symbolic) monarchy. Yes, they later rebelled and set up a representative democracy - but who says china won't do the same?
I am trolling
To a great extent this issue reminds me of the observations made of those more and less likely to believe in the supernatural. Sceptics are likely to miss pattern that exists, and believers are likely to invent non-existent pattern (or so we believe). To spot counter-cultural pattern, then, is also to be more likely to invent pattern that isn't there.
The trouble being that there are many conclusions that the informed or observant can make that differ from "common sense", and the brain being what it is, we don't necessarily know the steps of how to get there. This doesn't make us wrong... or right; our perception is different.
I'll pick an example that generates more heat than light on slashdot: how do illegal downloads effect aggregate sales of music and movies? The common man is sure that IP infringement must lead to reduced sales, yet many slashdotters believe this not to be the case, and a few even believe the opposite.
What is the truth? The form of the question can affect the outcome. For example: restrict your study to (relatively poor) students, and you get the "common sense" result. Aggregate sales using a detailed and sophisticated economic analysis, and you get no effect. But maybe our intellect is misleading us: if we get goods for free, although it might shift our spending onto other music and movies, are we perhaps less motivated to work in the first place? with this larger frame of reference, it appears that the intelligent individual has quite possibly picked a convenient intermediate-sized frame of reference, when a frame of reference that was larger still would (perhaps) reveal 'theft' from the economy as a whole. This is a bit of a conconcted 'counter-example', though: our greed is such that we're likely to keep working to own more, regardless of how much we have.
What about software patents? Most of us here (myself included) are anti. Assuming (for the moment) that the 'anti' stance is right, why then do so many lawyers believe the converse? I doubt that it's wholly because of their self-interest (although that might bias them); it's because of a particular view of the business of business, of the value and importance of contract and of property, and of incentives and defined rights that meld, to the lawerly mind, with morality, and the natural way of things. To break with this, brings them to presuppose harm, and their experience with the concrete (case by case), rather than the systemic effects reinforces this way of thinking. Is the abstract argument really wrong? That it's harm to think of examples of avenues that will be impeded (they haven't been thought of yet!) doesn't make them any less real. Here, then, the emphasis upon concreteness is itself misleading.
Another example: minimum wages. I believe that one of my own JEs illustrates this well. I don't think that I (arguing for a minimum) argued at my best, and Red Warrior applied some experience, but neither of us "won", I feel. However, one thing's for sure; most of the pro-free-market intellectuals ignore the 'monopsony' effect of deliberately cartelising the labour force, so that the first level of abstraction is misleading as to the degree of the effect on unemployment. To some extent, then, here the 'simple' reaction that it redistributes wealth the the relatively poor has a lot of truth to it. The intellectual's love of pristine, perfect, simple systems can and does mislead. My stance might itself be flawed. The intellectual's stance often comes from a deeper analysis or intuition, and they could easily be at a loss to explain it. From this difficulty, it's difficult to decide which way is the truth. Not all difficulty is denial.
Wikileaks, no DNS
If you're gonna correct someone, at least spell mode right.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
1. A starts with a general fuzzy idea of smart people
,
2. B points out some frequent weaknesses of smart people
3. A adjusts idea of who is smart so the idea of 'smartness' remains impeccable.
"If the subject would have been TRUELY smart-intelligent-clever she would not make such mistakes"...
I suppose this shift is a good example of one of the counterproductive effects that can come from being smart(clever.intelligent).
The sequence above is not wrong, but it achieves nothing. It can even slow down the exploration of the subject.
Well, 'nothing'... There's the ego feeling of being right and the ability to defend it well, and the prestige value of the words is saved.
To get any value from the author's claims about smart people
it's better approach to use the more limited interpretation of 'smart'.
The relation with Tibet was conciliatory until reactionary nobles instigated violence against China when Tibet was allowed as separate entity with only foreign relations under Chinese control. The Cultural Revolution is separate, if you were familiar with any history of the area to the degree necessary you would already know that-you are lying poorly. At least improve that before responding. Chinese government has admitted mistakes with implementation of the C. Revolution, but Tibet can not claim any particular damage from it or even the occupation. For interest, the US CIA and the exiled nobles attempted to reestablish the plutocratic theocratic dictatorship and failed to do so as the general populace, no the Chinese army, killed the majority of the nobles rushed in to attempt to reclaim their former unjustified status. Check references of provided link, do independent research; for your integrity do not just accept popular propaganda in place of history. Aside, damn the modified Slashdot-2 minute limit after 100 minutes listed-this website is useless now.
Hehe.
If you're going to correct somebody correcting somebody, make sure that what you're correcting isn't in fact correct to start with, and that "correcting" the correction won't make the correction wrong.
Whew.
Yes, the mode is 1. The median, however, is also 1, in the case of the data set "10 2 1 1 1", which is what the great grandparent post specified.
Even smart people can have stupid ideas or views on particular issues.
Real life is not as black and white as Starwars.(tm)
But if you do that in this context then you're falling to the "begging the question" fallacy (the "What created God" is relevant in terms of the Thomas Aquinas demonstration of the existence of God, explained in the GP's post).
If you state that God exists by definition, then you can't use their properties to demonstrate the existence of God. Either you accept (as you do) that God is a definition and not a proven fact, or you admit that Aquinas' logic is not sound because God fails to conform to the laws of physics (and thus a physical reasoning can't prove its existence).
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
The legal system uses a mixture of(at least) two models:
- the old "crime and punishment" system which is derived from a morality where a guilty person has to suffer to pay for a sin,
whatever the consequences. It's not fair to punish a lunatic.
- And the more pragmatic approach, where the effect of punishment is taken in account.
Can punishment have a correcting effect or not? Should this person be taken out of circulation?
In the first case, guilt is related to responsibility and to free will. In the second,
you want to know if you have the right person, and if the person has some control over his behaviour, but guilt(blame) is less relevant.
Imagine a model in which component A observes a thought in component B, and adjusts the contexts for component B so that the next thought of component B will think itself in another way as before.
A bit late, you might think. Yes, a bit late. Still, a lot better than nothing. And a lot richer than just a veto.
No offense there comrade, but perhaps you might take a moment to wonder why those of us who aren't living under the yoke of the Red Dynasty don't take a ChiCom party rag as any kind of authoritative source..
After all, doesn't the "People's Daily" also claim that nobody was murdered in Tienanmen Square in 1989?
All in all, I give the People's Daily about the same level of credence that I'd give to Jerry Fallwell's screed-of-the-month, or any of L. Ron Hubbard's ravings.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
+1 Funny.
USA has always been a country that claims open-mindedness, tolerance, liberty, and justice. Unfortunately, it seams more like a country where people are trained to believe that they live in a paradise of open-mindness, tolerance, liberty, and justice, even when this is usually not the case.
Just one example of this: All throughout the 20th century, the USA fought several wars (some justified and some very debatable) to protect "liberty", "justice", "our rights", and "our way of life". But at the very same time, the discrimination against the black people, though unconstitutional, was rampant. So much for the "free and fair" "way of life".
I have been living in the US for three years now, and I have come to the conclusion that I am free to think and say whatever I like as long as it's exactly what others want me to think and say. Will I be sent to jail for doing otherwise? No, (at least not yet). But the response of the people is always aggressive, even threatening. The land of open-mindedness? Sorry, I don't think so.
Just food for thought.
Very well, though I assume the comrade greeting was in jest. From even the US CIA 2005 World Fact book, the manipulation ground of the US government in the following link are supporting statistics; focus on the area including Israel, UK, US, Ireland, and China): http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph-T/eco_pop_be l_pov_lin&int=-1
The mentioned statistic for China has further decreased by 10% further last year. The average of percentage of population below poverty level in this list is 25.5%, while both US and China then are each far below even using the moderately outdated measures used for the list it is China that still has with modification and estimate from the antagonistic US CIA only 10~9% compared to the US at 12.7% from the same year. The perception that the majority of Chinese citizens or even the average economic level is that of the poor farmer is outdated by two decades and more. The post by user listen refuses this by falsely pursuing unemployment rates rather than poverty rates despite employment meanings differing between nations as consequences differ.
Teach them why they do it and how it works instead of forcing them to memorize names, numbers, and formulas they won't remember 3 months later.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
source
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
Right.. You can add to that list a lot of CEOs (Fiorina?) and a even more politicians.
Nope. The US engaged in the largest 'land grab' and conquest of Native Americans after independence had been established. There was abuse when it was a colony, but it pales by comparison to the 'westward expansion' of the 19th century.
We can all hope China will one day set up a representative democracy (again). They had one for a short period in the early to mid 20th Century. Sun Yat Sen was instrumental in that period. Sadly, the Communists didn't carry on with his vision of a free China. (nor did the KMT, for that matter)
MOD PARENT UP: this is the reason I read at 0. It's not anti-American, it's getting to be a fact. Gay-bashers will often say that they live in an open-minded country and in the same breath call someone with a different sexual orientation a fag.
God Arises: Evidence of God in Nature & Science is a good book on the same topic.
Islam encourages human beings to think and utilise their mind.
...regions that are beyond the realm of science. If time is linear, what was the cause of the first event? If time is circular, how was the cycle created?
Here is approximately the boundaries of science:
Hypothesis: Since Big Bang about 14*10^9 years ago, the universe have been governed by the same laws of nature without exception.
Disprove that. Prove that we have taken impossible leaps of evolution, or that species have appeared from nowhere. Prove that energy has been created or destroyed. Prove that the laws of nature aren't constant. Prove that exceptions, or should we call them miracles occur.
The origins of the Universe will always be a mystery to me. But religion has completely and utterly failed to give any faith that there is any divine presence in the universe, beyond perhaps as an observer.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I just saved that image.
Thanks for the "overblown rhetoric", AC, but you might want to reparse my second sentence there.
My point was about national sovereignty, but if you're from the US of A you might have missed that bit.
Also, I'm unaware of any hippies, screeching or otherwise, having been bulldozed into mass graves in Tibet. Or Saudi Arabia for that matter. If you have better information in this regard, please share.
Within the US, maybe you'll remember, there have been a number of occasions, probably most famously Chicago 1968, when the authorities have in fact gassed, beaten and shot 'hippies', so maybe you should leave the high horse routine alone, for now.
And next time, please refrain from shrill paranoiac hyperbole, it rarely (if ever) improves an argument.
The face of 'evil' is always the face of total need
"...the average score of average American's taking Calculus exams..."
his post is in fact inconsistent, he starts with the Average and then switches to Median ... it's like 50% my bad and 50% his ;)
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Doh.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
From what I've heard the word average can mean either a mean value, a median or even a mode.
This is how Darrell Huff uses the word in his excellent book How to lie with statistics. (If you haven't read it, pick it up. Right now.)
but thx anyway ...
and to clarify this beyond any "statistic lie", my AverageGrade = the Arithmetic Mean of the grades
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WTF is a myriad?
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Are those the same Chigao authorities who were intentionally provoked by agents provocateur?
Ghandi worked because of British restraint.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Reactionary?
You lost me there, pinko.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't mind terribly. could you pick a country that supports the idea of "siesta" though? much obliged!
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Heh.
But you know that the Celts weren't native to the British Isles either right?
Ireland's first homid settlers were probably the Neanderthals. Then, on the homo sapien side, the first to arrive were the aboriginal Maglemose, then the Neolithic Danubians turned up, who were there for thousands of years and built the great stone tombs and momuments, before being followed by the "Bell-Beaker" people (who may have been early Celts), followed by the arrival of later celts, and so on.
Only when the Tuatha De Danan take their rightful place as the sole heirs of Ireland can Ireland be free!
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
One thing the US government should do is honor the treaties it signed when fucking over the Native Americans. If you have been paying attention to the news over the last 5 years there have been some major breaches, a few led to the loss of life among people already fucked for a large portion of history.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
For an ubsubstantiated myth it made it into a lot of text books.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
For an ubsubstantiated myth it made it into a lot of text books.
So what? American textbooks are, by and large, crap. World history books often treat Moses and Mohammed as real historical figures, but that doesn't make them less unsubstantiated myths.
The facts of the smallpox blanket claims are this: Amherst at one point mentioned the idea of sending smallpox infected blankets to the Indians; some time later, there was a smallpox outbreak among the Indians. But there's no evidence that the idea was ever seriously considered, let alone acted upon, and lacking that, any inference of causation suffers from a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Maybe you should post something to snopes then.
After reading a bit more in depth (I was aparenly mislead for the most part) via some google searches, Someone did try.
"There is no evidence that Col. Bouquet took any action on Amherst's letter, but there is evidence that Captain Ecuyer at Fort Pitt did.
"Out of our regard for them (two Indian chiefs) we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect (William Trent)."
Mostly it looks like white men inadvertantly helped spread smallpox amongst the Native Americans by catchign it and then getting kiled. The trophies the warriors would take were infected and helped to spread it around.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=definition+my riad&btnG=Google+Search
Oh, I know what a "myriad" is.
But "a myriad" is a grating, wrong use of the word.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
He used the word correctly. I didn't realize that you were a grammer nazi without a clue to how the language works or I wouldn't have bothred. Asshole.
The fact that Occam was a theist in no way invalidates the use of his rule in arguments against the existance of God. His happiness is not our concern.
Occam's Razor is a tool. It doesn't exist to support your hypotheses, only to test them.
The whole "smallpox to the Indians" claim has been frequently touted and exaggerated by some of the more militant Atheists, who have emphasized not that Jeffery Amhurst was a white guy, but that he called himself a Christian. Some (not all, but a fair selection) of the web sources have tended to take the claims of widespread, deliberate spread of the disease uncritically. In trying to decide just how common the use of Smallpox as germ warfare really was, I reccomend disregarding two types of sites:
1. Those that are mostly anti-Christian first, and historical second (at best). These mention Amhurst as an example of the failings of the Christian religion, but don't discuss what the beliefs of Cpt. Ecuyer and others were (several of the people who may have deliberately tried to pass Smallpox on to Native Americans were apparently "freethinkers". In most of that handfull of cases where action was discussed, we don't know if anything deliberate actually happened, nor do we know if a single attempt actually worked. The chance some white guy caught Smallpox trying to infect some Native Americans was always higher than the chance he succeeded). Any site that claims to even have a firm estimate on the numbers of Native Americans deliberately killed by such methods is lieing with statistics, at best.
2. Those sites that try to make the same points re. Colombus and other earlier white guys who did not yet even know of the germ theory of disease, as though they were morally responsible for not knowing it yet. Claims that Columbus was in posession of secret knowledge that made it possible for him to use germs as a deliberate weapon should be a dead give away that the site has an axe to grind.
Who is John Cabal?