Slashdot Mirror
What Did You Change Your Mind About in 2007?
chrisd writes "The Edge 2008 question (with answers) is in. This year, the question is: 'What did you change your mind about and why?'. Answers are featured from scientists as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Simon Baron-Cohen, George Church, David Brin, J. Craig Venter and the Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, among others. Very interesting to read. For instance, Stewart Brand writes that he now realizes that 'Good old stuff sucks' and Sam Harris has decided that 'Mother Nature is Not Our Friend.' What did Slashdot readers change their minds about in 2007?"
I changed my mind about the war in Iraq because of Ron Paul. I was always sympathetic to the idea of bringing liberty to those overseas, but it is clear now that the source of liberty is individual choices not government ones. Ron Paul made it clear and final that the war is not helping the freedom of the people over there, and it is obviously not helping the freedom of people over here, and is directly responsible for the rise of a police state mentality in the USA, and is contributing greatly to our ongoing economic collapse. As Ron Paul once said, if we want wars all over the planet and want the government babying people from cradle to grave - then we must have an IRS and massive debt. But if we want freedom and liberty, then yes we can get rid of them.
I switched from XP to openSuSE in March, and decided it was too hard to work with, to the point that I pined for Window's familiarity. Temporarily lacking an XP CD, I downloaded Ubuntu as a stopgap. And decided I didn't need that XP CD after all.
To expound on how correct you are, we're not really looking for alternative fuels in the US. It's sad; Europe (as a whole) is a much more agile entity than we are. For some reason, a dozen countries are making economic and social progress faster than a single one that has been an economic powerhouse for the past couple hundred years.
If gasoline were a more appropriate price (e.g., $6/gal), we'd see alternatives popping up. Europe has been paying that much for gas for several years now. At this rate, the US will continue to produce/consume SUV's and trucks until gasoline becomes so expensive that it makes economic sense to switch over to something else. That aside, the US gov't is promoting patent law bullshit instead of realizing that it hinders our economic progress and ties up our courts, just like the war on drugs.
The incentives for the US to stop sucking eggs aren't in place. It feels like there's nothing we can do to stop idiots like Ted Stevens from getting elected. Congress doesn't enact laws that are in our best interests and the president's a moron.
I changed my mind about wanting to live in the US in 2007. It seems worth seriously considering a move to another country or even another continent. I'm thinking about vacationing in London. Canada and the UK don't seem like bad ideas right now. There's more wrong with this country than its president.
"You could almost look at defense of Microsoft as a form of the Stockholm syndrome." -neapolitan
I changed my mind about religion, ironically it was because I started going back to church that I realized I didn't believe any of it.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I'm an academic, and the single biggest reason is that I'm a workaholic and if the place didn't almost shut down for 4 months of the year, I'd work myself to an early grave. As it is now, though, I work my ass off 8 months of the year, and 4 months of the year I'm blessed and cursed to be able to get almost nothing done (well, nothing that requires the organization). It's been very good for my health and mental well-being, if not necessarily for my wallet.
Over the last summer break, I spent about a week staying with my friends who work at a major IT company as developers. I saw their lives, and was envious. They make a lot more money, they come home earlier, and it is virtually impossible for them to work at home, so they don't. "Damn," I thought, "I really did pick the wrong career." But then I noticed something: I was staying at their house in a different country from where I live for a week, and that was just one week out of about 7 or 8 in a row that I didn't have to report to work. I was still getting some things done on the laptop, but that had much more to do with my workaholic nature than necessity. "Damn," I thought, "maybe I picked the right career after all."
The point I'm trying to make is that you are ultimately in control of your time. You are. Really. It's your time. Your life. If you feel that you are losing it to a company, and the money isn't worth it, you need to change gears. It's not their fault. It's your fault for doing it.
Now, this decision will most certainly result in a decrease in income. It may mean you aren't buying a house (if you're in the US, this is a terrible time to buy anyway--wait for the market to really crash first--and if you already bought, you have my sympathy), it may mean that vacation is usually spent on the couch instead of on the beach. It may mean you will be hanging on to your old car and just keeping it going until it dies. It means you don't get the "American Dream" kind of life people in my generation seem to somehow feel is necessary. BUT, you will get your life back.
Depending on who you are as a person--whether you value money or time more--this may or may not be a viable lifestyle choice. But the choice is there.
Finally, however, I want to address this idea that we work harder than our elders. I think that is really only the case on Leave it to Beaver. In talking to my parents, both of their parents worked. Mom got home earlier than Dad (schoolteachers in both cases), but Dad (a lawyer on one side and a shopkeeper on the other) got home late. Anecdotal evidence, I know, but I really think that we have too rosy a view of our elders' lives. In my own parents' case, they run a business that is attached to the house, so they were around a lot, but were also usually working. When my dad had to go out, which was/is almost every day, he didn't come home until late (8-9). He also gets called out to truck wrecks (independent insurance adjuster specializing in the hard stuff that companies hire a third party to handle) in the middle of the night fairly regularly, and might not come shuffling back home for 18 hours, after dealing with cops, insurance companies, grief-ridden truck drivers, and the survivors of the family they just killed. That being said, there are down periods with little work and no money, and I grew up being pulled out of school during those periods to drive around the country and learn things. My parents basically made the same choice I did. Time is more important than money.
Further, think of the Depression generation! They didn't work because there wasn't any. Lots of time, but absolutely no money. If they did work, it was long hours in a dusty field. And before that? The agriculture- and manufacturing-based economy. The ag business is still crazy hours (grew up in a little town--had lots of friends who were farm kids and grew up working), and the only reason manufacturing went to 8 hours a day is that in the 20s factories were literally working people to deat