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Bill Gates's Plan To Improve Our World
An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates has written an article in Wired outlining his strategy to improve people's lives through philanthropy and investment in technology and the sciences. He says, 'We want to give our wealth back to society in a way that has the most impact, and so we look for opportunities to invest for the largest returns. That means tackling the world's biggest problems and funding the most likely solutions. That's an even greater challenge than it sounds. I don't have a magic formula for prioritizing the world's problems. You could make a good case for poverty, disease, hunger, war, poor education, bad governance, political instability, weak trade, or mistreatment of women. ...I am a devout fan of capitalism. It is the best system ever devised for making self-interest serve the wider interest. This system is responsible for many of the great advances that have improved the lives of billions—from airplanes to air-conditioning to computers. But capitalism alone can't address the needs of the very poor. This means market-driven innovation can actually widen the gap between rich and poor. ... We take a double-pronged approach: (1) Narrow the gap so that advances for the rich world reach the poor world faster, and (2) turn more of the world's IQ toward devising solutions to problems that only people in the poor world face.'"
Of course someone who made a lot of money helping a lot of other people make a lot of money helping millions of people have jobs to do. While pissing off the largest portion of the readership here due to quality of the product. I'm pretty sure this isn't going to get a fair shake here on Slashdot.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Why stop there? If you posit that religion is the single cause for most of those problems world-wide, then you must also see that certain religions are highly correlated to many of those issues, while other religions have a low or inverse correlation.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Religion is just one form of control. Get rid of it, and something else will be used, be it patriotism, racism, drugs, financial ruin or sports.
I am a devout fan of capitalism. It is the best system ever devised for making self-interest serve the wider interest.
The argument can be made that capitalism widens the divide between rich and poor. The old question remains whether unbridled capitalism and philanthropy can better address the world's woes, or, would a more socialist political structure like those seen in Scandinavian countries better address and more quickly narrow the divide.
And you assert he is wrong, because....? Jealousy, or just because rich people necessarily must be "evil" in order to further the cause of class warfare?
Don't forget money.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
'We want to give our wealth back to society in a
... BURN THE WITCH!
No, seriously. As a percentage of net earnings, the rich contribute far less as an aggregate group than the poor. There's an inverse relationship between income and charity. The more you make, the less you give, proportionally speaking. You can outline all the reasons why it would be better if this wasn't the case... I doubt you'll find much disagreement here. But making the case for it doesn't mean anyone's going to adopt it; A concept Mr. Gates and the company he used to captain both seem ill-equipped to grasp. Simply understanding the problem better doesn't result in a solution; It is one of the oldest delusions humanity has to offer... that knowledge will lead to action.
Instead, we need to figure out why people give proportionally less, and address the issue within that cognitive framework. And the Just world phenomenon is a great place to start: The belief that you deserve whatever is happening, or has happened, to you. Fundamentally, I think you'll find the reason the rich give less is because on a subconscious level, having adopted the belief that they earned their wealth rather than simply having won a cosmic lottery, they then build on that with confirmation bias. That is, every action that comes after that in some fashion just confirms that they're more deserving than the next guy... and eventually, that makes them not very charitable. Afterall, if I did it, you can do it, right? It's such a basic failure of reasoning that entire books have been written on the subject, and yet... here we are... still not getting it.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Nothing is ever that simple and any attempt to boil something so vast down to a single word, no matter how far reaching, is naive. Religions exists because of various human needs, and people believe because of various needs. It can enrich lives or impoverish them. It can motivate, or demotivate. It can create and destroy. Help and Harm. Like anything manmade it can be used for peace, and for war.
Terrible acts done in the name of religion are symptoms of deeper, more intertwined problems in how we relate to one another, terrible teachings symptomatic of human needs for order, control, and normalcy. Absence of religion would not simply make the world a better place on it's own, something else would take the place, both good and bad, that religion serves . "If god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him"
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
The dude still brings home like 5 billion a year. He's always relevant.
Bzzt. Thanks for playing.
You can highlight lots of examples of power-hungry idiots using certain religious ideology to cause harm, but it's no more dangerous than power-hungry idiots finding some other, perhaps less convenient, excuse to do the same thing. Many have done that as well.
Even if you had a point, which you don't, "correlation does not equal causation" (we can't have a Slashdot post that doesn't mention that fact, or Nazis, or "trusting trust")
In the old days when this was a small town calling itself a city, I'd frequently be at a play with Bill or some other event.
I like his focus on where we need to fix it, but the cold hard fact is he lives in an area where the ultra-rich are taxed much less than the poor, and he goes to great lengths not to pay taxes on many levels.
Capitalism is no problem - but Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, railed against Mercantalism that Bill worships at the head of.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I know a lot of people are going to downvote the hell out of this, but it is a sad truth.
A lot of the countries that suffer from these problems have a hugely corrupt religious following throughout them, or many warring religions.
And often times these groups have a pyramid approach where the "more important" people get most of anything and the "poor peasant turds" get the scraps. I remember we got past that corruption of nobility nonsense back in the stupid ages.
Religion itself is not bad, but without regulation it is.
And with time, that also gets out of control so trying to regulate it is GOING to straight up require hostile action, regardless.
It is a tragic world we live in. People like to pretend we are in an age of enlightenment, are we fuck, we are still baby steps at best. It is just like those morons that think humanity is in the space age, NOPE, that is like saying the iron age started when some dude tripped over some ferrite. Not how it works, sorry. Humanity is at best in the baby steps towards an actual space age. Come back in maybe 100 years if we don't blow ourselves up over fossils, again.
Well, maaaaybe 50 if these space mining operations actually do come about. Planetary Resources actually did have a really huge and so far pretty efficient schedule from what I remember reading recently, they are already sticking to plans more-or-less. I can't WAIT to be a space pir--trucker.
You must also see that certain religions are highly correlated to many of those issues, while other religions have a low or inverse correlation.
I.e: "This religion is good. Other religions are bad"
That's the exact argument that keeps humanity killing each other over stupid ideas. Fuck all of them.
Most of the hate for Microsoft was due to their monopoly status; not so much anymore. That monopoly let them sit on their laurels and collect money without needing to produce the best product quality. Today, MS the _underdog_ in a lot of hugely important markets. Furthermore, Gates is only a Chairman at MS anymore and has little or nothing to do with day to day operations. He's spent a an enormous amount of time, effort, and money sincerely trying (and in many cases succeeding) to make things a little better for humans everywhere. People need to let go of the hate, it's no longer useful in this context.
Human beings.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Such a bullshit response.
You have to be completely blind to 20th century world history and quite ignorant on top of that, to truly believe that the elimination of religion would actually solve even some of the world's problems.
Religion.
Atheism.
Magnitude of evil perpetrated by "bad" people with religion == Magnitude of evil perpetrated by "bad" people without religion.
Religion is almost never the driving factor. In the absence of religion, such people would have found other means and justifications to perpetrate their evil. There are many such examples in history.
Unfortunately, the castigation of religion often reveals a hatred of religion more than a hatred of the evil acts.
This is worth a read:
http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/
TL;DR
Gates's and others' philanthropy prolongs poverty by sowing as it does the seed of more inequality (in Gates's case, through the formation of health policies in the third world that make it easier for Western drug companies to open up markets for treatments there). They give away the fruit, but never the trees.
As Oscar Wilde observed of the philanthropists of his era: ‘They seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty, but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it.’ Then and now, as Wilde said, ‘the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.’
This is really the question that needs to be addressed: why is poverty still possible - and why can it even get worse - after 200 years of Gates's capitalism? Surely by now if capitalism was the answer, we'd not be where we are today.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Although evil has been committed in the name of religion, I would still say that more has been done through religion to ease human suffering than any other system. By contrast, governments have killed more people than religion ever could, and if that government is a theocracy it is still a government. In the 20th century the tyrannical governments of Russia, Germany, and China have slaughtered hundreds of millions of people. Many of the best hospitals in the world are run by religious organizations, there are many religious orphanages, and in every major city you can find a mission that focuses on the homeless. To blame everything on religion is just an easy answer for the popular culture which talks a good game but in the end does very little for the poor unless of course there is photo op involved.
Wrong, the problem today is corruption and people accepting corruption as the normal. Our current shitty state of the union is not due to any Religion, it's due to corrupt people in power. The only thing mentioning Religion does is to show that religion is not above or beyond being corrupted.
Fact: The Catholic Church never taught people that pedophilia was correct, or good, or just. In fact they taught (and teach) their followers that it was bad, illegal, and that they would spend the rest of their lives in hell if they were to commit these acts. Meanwhile a bunch of corrupt leaders sat in a back room committing the crimes or covering up for those that did. That's not "Religion", that is "Corruption".
As long as you have biases and bigotry it's hard to see where the real problems are. While you bitch about "Religion A" being bad, the same corrupt fuckers are sitting behind a corrupted government, doing the same corrupt things. They laugh at how ignorant the masses are, and how easily they are fooled by bullshit propaganda.
"The Noble Lie" is not something that only "Good" can use, it's also something that corrupt evil people use.
Oh, and Bill Gates is corrupt lying fuck that I would not trust with my used toilet paper, let alone tell us what changes we need to make in the world or what sciences we should be studying.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I don't have a magic formula for prioritizing the world's problems. You could make a good case for poverty, disease, hunger, war, poor education, bad governance, political instability, weak trade, or mistreatment of women.
All of those things are good causes, but since Gates is struggling to find a place to begin, I'd like to suggest that he starts by fixing the blight-on-humanity that he created. Microsoft screws many of us over on a regular basis. It hurts the economy. It hurts technological progress. How about pushing his company to be more cooperative? How about pushing for open standards? How about pushing back against terrible patent and copyright abuses, insane EULAs, and absurd licensing fees? How about open sourcing old versions of their software so that software from a few decades ago can be preserved for historical/artistic purposes, if for no other reason?
It's like a man coming into your house, pissing all over your rug, and then saying he's struggling to figure out how he can improve your property value. Maybe start by not pissing on my rug anymore?
Yeah Right -provided you are on the right end the rich interest's end.
Look at it in context. He starts by paying homage to capitalism so people won't call him a blasphemer for saying "capitalism alone can't address the needs of the very poor" (damn, am I really defending Bill Gates?).
Like the US and Imperialist Europe and their economic manipulation/hegemony?
It's always so much easier to blame "them", and ignore the problems that many 3rd world countries have created for themselves.
I know a lot of people are going to downvote the hell out of this, but it is a sad truth.
Did you forget what site you are on? This is Slashdot, any pro atheist comment gets +5 informative/insightful and anything discussing not just a Religion, but contemplation of a "Creator" gets you -234 Flamebait/Troll.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Greed. Which is, of course, based on fear, which, is, of course, the penalty of human awareness. Unregulated capitalism certainly equals any other system in terms of global destruction and hardship for the people at the bottom. The greediest and most psychopathic people rise to the top of any unregulated system.
Someone forgot to tell Bain Capital.
I personally know someone who worked for a mid-sized IT firm out of Texas. They were small but growing and successful. Then Bain Capital stepped in, waived some money around and purchased the company. The day after the deal was finalized, everyone was fired and the company was liquidized - sold of bit by bit. The poor lady is now in the Mid-West working in a call center.
Capitalism for the wider interests my ass. When the wider interests are served, it's incidental. Capitalists only care about the 99% when it means making more money off of them, and they wouldn't serve the wider interests if they didn't have to. Granted, they often do, but it's not because they are on the moral high ground. Perhaps Bill Gates really truly is trying to say that the evils of capitalism truly equal good for the people, but I don't think that makes it a good system - it's open to mutation and a future where we see the raw, unabashed, exploitation of the people. Like I said, it's incidental. We are carefully watching the US government become dystopian, while corporations are more quietly doing the same. Bill gates might be a true philanthropist, but he is nearly alone in his level of giving and is kidding himself if he believes all capitalists have the greater good or wider interests at heart.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Does this means he will fund Linux?
Humans.
The usual retort to that is that it's reversing cause and effect.
Religion does not cause poverty and misery. It's wealth and happiness that leads to secularism, agnosticism, atheism and the sort of bland and bloodless liberal theism which for most practical purposes is functionally equivalent to atheism or agnosticism.
In developed countries, the welfare system allows people to never work at all during their lives and produce as many babies as possible. So all this does is lead to a population explosion of yet more people on welfare.
Wow, are you living in the past (particularly about the US). Welfare queens driving Cadillacs was a line Reagan pushed in the 80's. In case you pulled a Rip van Winkle, here's an update: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act
P.S. Don't say anything good about George III.
'We want to give our wealth back to society in a way that has the most impact, and so we look for opportunities to invest for the largest returns.
Well, Mr. Gates, here's how:
Don't take away their wealth in the first place.
It's well-established fact that the poor make the best use of money. There is less waste and more immediate progress than with any organisation or institute. Micro-credits are a blasting success wherever they are granted in the interest of helping people. (they fail when the same banks that caused the housing bubble/burst get in on the game hoping to make a quick buck, because they don't screen the applicants).
Monopoly rent is known to damage the economy disproportionately. For every $ you give to charity now, Mr. Gates, you've already taken two away.
"Don't be a greedy bastard." is a much, much better formula for helping other people than giving away even most of your money. Because it's not a zero-sum game, it's not just redistribution of wealth, the 1% gain most of their wealth not just by taking it from the rest, but by causing damage in excess of their profit.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Mod parent up.
The knee-jerk response that Religion is the source of all problem indicates a very poor grasp of history of the last hundred years.
Religion is at best used as an excuse, but was never the principal cause of any major conflict since the Crusades.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Fact: The Catholic Church never taught people that pedophilia was correct, or good, or just.
There are two kinds of teaching - the one "by the letter" and the one by action.
On paper, the Hells Angels are a Harley Davidson fan club, you know?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Bill wants you all to love him, that's all.... and vote him a Nobel Peace prize for saving the world. He's been trying for a while now, one wonders how much money he has invested in pursuit of the prize.
I prefer Classic Slashdot.
True. Your point?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Most insightful comment today.
After the way he "improved" my computing experience over the last few decades, I will take my chances without his plan.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Or it represents the majority opinion, but you surely wouldn't allow yourself to accept that now, would you
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Religion is a convenient wrapping paper when you need to move the crowds, that's it. As the masses are by definition uneducated and uninterested morons, it's simpler to pitch geopolitical issues in terms easily understood by many rather than telling the truth. Leaving aside natural events, the only two (human) driving factors for history are influence and wealth. These are the things that trigger wars, civil wars, revolutions, migrations, etc... And this will never stop because if you can't compete for resources and influence in a civilised manner, it might be that your best rational option is to use violence. As Emil Cioran wrote "L'heure du crime ne sonne pas en même temps pour tous les peuples. Ainsi s'explique la permanence de l'histoire." which roughly translates to "Murder time does not come at the same time for all nations. This explains the continuity of history."
Oh, and Bill Gates is a corrupt lying fuck that I would not trust with my used toilet paper, let alone tell us what changes we need to make in the world or what sciences we should be studying.
Assholes with power and a laundry list of excuses, religion among them, anti-religion too.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Depends. The majority of Slashdot? The majority of the World? The majority of the US? I have no confidence that the majority of Slashdot is atheist, but the mod system ensures that people rarely speak of Religion or creation. If you are talking about the majority of the population, the majority is Religious in one form or another.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"l. Our current shitty state of the union is not due to any Religion, it's due to corrupt people in power."
it's SPECIFICALLY becasue of religion. Pay attention.
We have representatives that want the world to be shitty so their second coming will arrive.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Airplanes got invented by individuals - the french were gliding down hillsides and the Wrights read about that and said "fuckin' cool lets do that" and then did it better than anyone else. Only after did they try to commercialize it and capitalism caused some ugly things along the way. Air conditioning I'm not sure about. And Computers were invented for war, not capitalism. Of course business will take anything and try to market it to everyone in order to make a buck, so business does bring advances to the people. That doesn't mean it's the only way, but it was proven effective. In general it doesn't cause innovation. Shit, DOS was a personal project that Bill Gates bought from his friend (without disclosing who he was selling it to and hence got it relatively cheap) - point is that these things often come about due to interests other than capitalism.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." I think that is true enough... may be just a saying but how in hell he will do that. I mean. First, Capitalism is a competitive thing... people loose, people win, that should be clear even for Bill Gates. What we need here to erradicate poverty is a cooperative system. Money is just a device, an invention that grew bigger than its purpose. This guy may be the smartests guy alive for business but he needs to see outside the box. Funny thing is he has the time and the money to do so... so questions arise on what is the real plan or how he plans to do it. For as long as I remember each year we have more benefical concerts, programs, donations, etc... the amount of money destined to charity is huge... I agree is not well managed but poverty increases at a higher rate. Something must be wrong in the wiring of capitalism.
http://www.quasarcr.com/
"Religion does not cause poverty and misery."
telling people to keep copulating and having children or they won't get a place in their heaven causes a lot of poverty and misery.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Bill Gates isn't some evil person. He ran a business, did some thing we don'y like, paid for those mistakes.
Now he is rich and helping the world.
He is a person.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
1. statistically, poor people likely to have a lot kids, whether religous or not. well off people do not, whether religous or not. most well off people in first world countries have a religion, but they don't even have enough kids to maintain population
2. people do what they want and justify it whether they have religion or not, it's human nature
3. Many religions have hard work and self-improvement as commandment
4. Atheists also engage in crazy talk and actions, and have even outdone Hitler in body count on at least two occasions
5. Science, engineering, medicine, psychology and philosphy have been used as basic for being self-righteous just as much as religion
Humans are troublesome creatures, the problems will persist with and without religion
Poor logic, glad to see you play the game certain people want you to play. You can only teach by example when people can see the example. In the case of Catholic priests raping children, it was actively hidden.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
So every member of a Church is a Priest? If that is not true, then your "Actually it does" is contradicted by your next statement.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
While an interesting line of conspiracy to study, it's also not relevant to the root cause. Remove the corruption and the problem is solved, argue about it being a luciferian conspiracy and you get nowhere.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
" The rich of today pale in comparison to the wealthy of the last century. "
laughably false.
", the 'wealth gap' was much wider, yet the standard of living for the poor was rising, "
It was rising because the gap was getting narrower.
" not falling the way it is today."
when the gap is increasing.
100 years ago free market enslaved children in sweat shops, poisoned bodies of water, allow real owners to destroy anything in their past. Whole cities would have coal ash in the air all the time, created monopolies that remove choice.
Study some fucking history.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Jeezus Bill, if both you and Warren Buffet really want to make the greatest impact on humanity, use every cent of your wealth to establish a global free press foundation beholden to no person or government. Only via this method can humankind be as sure as is humanly possible that we're getting an unbiased view. Fund a Free Press Foundation now!
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
"Religion does not cause poverty and misery."
telling people to keep copulating and having children or they won't get a place in their heaven causes a lot of poverty and misery.
Wow - did you read the Bible while standing on your head or something? Nowhere outside of one Old Testament reference ("be fruitful and multiply", which was a *blessing*, not a commandment) can you find any such thing.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Religion is just one form of control.
In world history and human behavior, religion provided a common moral framework which allowed a society to retain some level of stability as it grew in size. A large society without any common moral framework will become increasingly domestically unstable, and ultimately become ungovernable as a single sovereign entity without a civil war & mass slaughter if nothing changes.
Of course, religion has also been used by tyrants to create fanatics and spark wars. But the fact remains that the beginnings of early civilization would never have succeeded in attaining any long term stability without religion. The Magna Carta and Western ideas of natural rights were based upon tenets taken from Christianity.
People in general in large societies need to have a spiritual faith in something larger than themselves and belief in a core set of moral standards to give them spiritual strength, sense of mercy and charity, and restraint in their negative animal impulses and temptations.
The more civil, kind, and peaceful the population is on it's own without coercion by force, the more individual freedom that can exist, and a common moral framework is essential. Technically, I suppose if there were some other *equally effective and voluntarily as attractive/popular* non-religious societal moral framework, it could take the place of religion, but I know of none that can adequately meet all those essential requirements.
So far, there has never been a society that had Atheism as one of it's tenets that didn't end up a totalitarian hellhole that killed millions and horrified the world at large. There has also been any number of horrible societies/nations that are/have been fanatically religious, or more realistically, have had a group of leaders who use/used certain selected parts of religions to create fanatical supporters/fighters, like Christian fanatics during the Crusades and the current attacks by religious-fanatic Islamic extremists.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Thanks for the fun - always enjoyable to tweak the Evangelical Atheists.
He is a person.
People suck.
I'm unclear, does that mean I should feel sorry for myself compared to people living with endemic malaria?
I'm guessing that he's not taking submissions...just pursuing things on his own?
Jhyrryl
Hardly see how. Religion offers the incentive that if you're to kill someone you might go to hell over it. Atheism lends itself to the fact that there is nothing after death so we might as well do whatever we like.
Careful, your neighbour might be an Atheist and at any point jump the fence and fuck your wife while you're out ...
See same old prejudices, same only rhetoric. Atheism is just the new black in the sphere of religion.
So, if you feel that Atheism gives you a sense of responsibility and place in your community. Then I guess it's the appropriate Religion for you after all. Ha! Atheism a religion! you gotta be crazy right?
Religion = a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.
Atheism = disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
A Religious Atheist. Someone who has a great devotion to the lack of belief of God [or gods].
The rich of today pale in comparison to the wealthy of the last century. Rockefellers, Carnegies had 10 times as much wealth as Bill Gates, the 'wealth gap' was much wider, yet the standard of living for the poor was rising, not falling the way it is today.
Wow! 10 times more!? Got a source for this interesting claim? You wouldn't just be makin' stuff up would you?
From what I can find the incomes of the top 1%, and the top 0.01%, etc., is at or above the GDP share of the beginning of the 20th century.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Atheism is not a "tenet". It is simply the lack of faith in the supernatural.
There are quite a few irreligious societies, in fact if not in name, that are doing quite well -- the Japanese, for instance, and some European countries (~20% religious).
"poverty, disease, hunger, war, poor education, bad governance, political instability, weak trade, or mistreatment of women". We could add deforestation, global warming, dwindling supplies of fresh water, etc.
But aren't all these symptoms of an exploding human population over the last few centuries and especially the last few decades. If you don't do something to fix that problem, then you're wasting your time and money on anything else. I like capitalism too but I don't think capitalism solves all problems and a fair number of problems are better addressed with socialism.
All of us know that whosoever dares criticise the "free market" in any form or way whatsoever in front of a US audience will automatically be branded a 'Bleeding Heart Liberal', a 'Socialist', if not 'Communist' by that same audience (depending on their mood and how threatened they feel) without further investigation of what he actually has to say.
Practically the only way a US audience will pause long enough to actually listen is to bring impeccable credentials as a 'Capitalist' and to start off by clear endorsements of Capitalism in general. Only then is it considered acceptable to point out one or two weaknesses or deficiencies of the system and suggest improvements.
This is what Bill Gates has done, and he's one of the few people alive who can not only say something like that and still be listened to, but who *wants* to point anything like that out to the world. I guess that Warren Buffet is another, but I wouldn't know many others. That's why he said that.
And please note that the quality of MS software or its competitive practices have no bearing on the issue.
Poor logic, glad to see you play the game certain people want you to play.
Put your energy to thinking deeper instead of personal attacks.
In the case of Catholic priests raping children, it was actively hidden.
From the outside world, yes. Within the catholic church, the guilty were actively protected. Supporting people in their actions is a common way to show them they are ok. The same effect is visible in many other areas.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
outlining his strategy to improve people's lives
His resignation and suicide. But since he's put in such a fine effort to date, I'm inclined to be more leniant.
Capitalism is all about maximizing profit, so using the world's IQ toward devising solutions for people who cannot afford to buy products is a horrible capitalist strategy. It's taking resources that could be spent on maximizing profits by developing products for more profitable demographics and shifting them towards something systemically unprofitable. I'm not trying to take anything away from the hard work that Bill is doing - he seems determined to use his money to make the world a better place, but I can't help but see some cognitive dissonance going on in his defense of capitalism.
There really was not a personal attack, I was pointing out what would be obvious if you were not guilty of what you claim I need to do. Put your energy into deeper thinking. I gave the examples, you refuse to attempt comprehension.
If what you stated was true, hundreds of millions of Catholics would have been involved in raping children and covering up the crimes. What is there, about a billion registered Catholics in the world? (Rough guess, I'm not going to waste time on digging up that stat for your ludicrous line of thinking.)
In reality, there were a hundred or so priests over a couple of decades engaged in the acts and probably a few hundred higher level clergy (bishop/cardinal/pope) that knew about the crimes and facilitated the cover ups. Meanwhile, the billion or so (roughly) Catholics had no idea so could not have learned from the example.
It's either you are wrong, or by your reasoning if you work in a company that has a criminal that you don't know about, you are going to be guilty of the the same crimes because you can learn by osmosis and don't actually have to see an example to learn from it. I believe you realize how stupid that would be, but would probably have difficulty putting your own bigotry in that example because, well, it's bigotry.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I think you are pretty close stating religion as the cause; from what I see every war that has ever been waged has been a banker's war... over who owns what.
In the early Bible days, it was over who had dominion over the tax paying / tithing populace.
Every war I have studied was over who had rights to tax others. Right now it seems the America is being allowed by the world bank to run rampant with bad money policy because our armed forces enforce the banking elite's ownership claims. Our government seems to have been sold to the bankers. And as long as money can buy enforcement of claims, bankers will continue printing it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
he didn't pay for those mistakes, he simply bought a cover up.
Charity and donations won't change the nature of the system of exploitation.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/29/gates-foundation-gm-monsanto
especially when its for profit.
He's also critizing capitalism elsewhere to shift the blame of his own, continuing capitalist endevors.
He also uses his status as a philinthroper to specificly target and silence unrelated critism of himself and his work at microsoft.
The argument "it worked for the ancient people it must be OK" is not a good one.
Oh? Has basic human nature taken a sudden radical evolutionary turn since the beginnings of modern human societies some 5,000 years ago?
Although it may have indeed been helpful, people of ancient times would also tell you that acupuncture works and that rhino horn will give you a bigger human horn. Some people still believe that today because it is ancient tradition, see the theme here?
I never said religion was not without faults, pitfalls, and dangers. Religions, like governments, are made up of people susceptible to all the faults that all people are susceptible to.
Hence why you're far more likely to be killed by your own government than any terrorist group However, as you noted and I also noted in my preceding post, there hasn't been any comparable belief system tried that could take it's place without horrific consequences.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
> So far, there has never been a society that had Atheism as one of it's tenets
I think the problem with Stalinist Russia was Stalin. It was also not free of religion, it placed Stalin in that role instead.
The concept that you need religion to preach morals is completely preposterous. Religion is a human creation after all, so clearly we already have an ingrained sense of morals.
It's hard for me to see Bill Gates beyond being a spoiled, insecure boy. He talks about all these grand visions (The Road Ahead, et al) yet clearly is out of touch with the real world and the realities of human nature to the point that he dreams up these fanciful dreams of utopia that only get taken seriously because he happens to be insanely rich. It's hard for me to see Bill Gates as machiavellian or otherwise diabolical (not that he doesn't throw a good capitalist tantrum now and again), because he's so clearly scared of being caught for what he isn't -- a man in charge of his own fate. He can't possibly be able to imagine living a life not saddled to his silver, free to be bold like many of the "not haves". If he were to no longer "have", then he'd lose the very thing that defines him -- massive wealth. His ego must be terrified at the idea that he is nothing more than paper and ink.
So he props up these grand visions and philanthropic ventures as a way to give validation to his existence, never manning up to working out his own inner deficiencies. And since he lacks the real world understanding to do so himself, he allies with Warren Buffet types to guide him on what he should do, swallowing completely their belief in the supremacy of the capitalist ethos. But his "plans to improve our world" always come off as childish and unworkable. Indeed, can anyone here enumerate the number of grand plans Bill Gates has put forth that have fulfilled their objectives in improving our world? (that's an honest question, by the way)
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
Wrong, the problem today is corruption and people accepting corruption as the normal.
Corruption, as in caring only about oneself and fuck everyone else, is a natural instinct. Unethical behavior is fair game if you can get away with it. The animal world works almost exclusively on this principle. Why is it any wonder that people accept corruption as normal?
We should be designing our society not based on the premise of moral players, but immoral ones. This is why Capitalism has been celebrated as such a success: It converts natural purely selfish behavior into benefit for the common good. Even sociopaths can be productive members of society! Hurray!
However, pure Capitalism tends to let a sizable percentage of the population just starve. So we tried to build a public institution that would help all the citizens achieve their full potential: a large, sophisticated government. Unfortunately, government work requires ethical conduct, and temptation to corruption is great. To achieve further progress, we need to place more checks on corruption wherever it can do the most damage. Right now the lack of oversight of the NSA, and their resulting unethical conduct, are generating news. The power of lobbyists is also going unchecked, and we have had some poor legislative outcomes that do not benefit the greater society because of this. Many politicians rely on corporate money to get elected, and so legislate favorably to the corporations, not the general public. These are definitely problems that needs addressing. However, no one is suggesting that what they are doing is unnatural or unexpected. Corruption is very natural.
Fact: The Catholic Church never taught people that pedophilia was correct, or good, or just. In fact they taught (and teach) their followers that it was bad, illegal, and that they would spend the rest of their lives in hell if they were to commit these acts.
I'm curious where this actually comes up in Catholic dogma. Has the Catholic church traditionally had a problem with this? Obviously they've always objected to adultery, so they would require a properly sanctioned marriage. Aside from those objections, however, are there any traditional catholic age limits?
Corruption, as in caring only about oneself and fuck everyone else, is a natural instinct. Unethical behavior is fair game if you can get away with it. The animal world works almost exclusively on this principle. Why is it any wonder that people accept corruption as normal?
Humans have a learning potential that animals do not. If you buy into the bullshit that 'you are just an animal" then shame on you. I'm guessing that you have never or read some very critical Philosophy work, or never quite grasped the full meaning if you did. Spend some time studying the whole of Plato's "The Republic". No, reading the Wiki page does not count.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Like it or not, the thing that atheism has in common with religion is that both are belief systems.
Does your brain hurt when you try to formulate a sentence to justify garbage like that?
READ MY LIPS. Being skeptical of weird stuff is not a "belief system" just a rational mind doing its work.
Not falling for supernatural scams is not a "lack of faith", it's not a lack of anything, just a rational mind doing its work.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I'm guessing the line "unethical behavior is fair game if you can get away with it" set off this response. I do not want to say that unethical behavior is OK, but rather that it is an instinct. It is foolish to expect everyone (especially those in power) to grow beyond their primal instincts and act ethically. Personally, I do not condone unethical behavior.
Please explain how religion has no part in the mistreatment of women.
Atheism is a religion.
Do you think Christianity is the only religion?
"There's an inverse relationship between income and charity. The more you make, the less you give, proportionally speaking."
Compounding this problem is the fact that we tolerate it.
A recent example of this is with the recent Philippines tsunami. The NBA players association decided to give 250,000 in relief aid, as mentioned in a PR statement that was apparently issued with some pride. In case it's not clear, we're talking about a group of crazy-rich athletes with an average salary of $5,000,000 donating about $600 each. To see just how terrible this, consider this. If you earn $50,000 a year, and you decided to forego a $25 pizza for the family for one week and donated that money to the disaster victims, mathematically you're FOUR TIMES as generous as an NBA player.
They recently decided to double it to $500,000. What a bunch of heroes.
And yeah, before you ask, I gave. I earn less than $30,000 a year, and I sent over $100. I'm not knocking anybody in my pay range for not sending as much. I'm talking about the superrich expecting accolades for doing jack shit, and the idiotic masses obliging them.
Does your brain hurt when you try to formulate a sentence to justify garbage like that?
A strong, almost violent, reaction to questioning what they've said is an unfortunate trait of religious fanatics. As a defense mechanism, they attempt insults or ridicule, rather than engage in reasonable debate.
READ MY LIPS.
George Bush, Sr. posts on Slashdot? Cool. What were you saying about new taxes, Mr. President?
Being skeptical of weird stuff is not a "belief system"
Do you not believe in it, or are you, as you stated, just skeptical? That would make you an agnostic. It's true that agnostics don't have a belief system, as by definition they don't know what to believe. Atheists are another matter.
Not falling for supernatural scams is not a "lack of faith"
Take it up with the GP, he's the one who chose the phrase "lack of faith". Does this disagreement between you and him arise from a schism in atheism?
it's not a lack of anything
Perhaps a refresher would help. "Lack" as a noun is defined as "the state of being without". If you do not have a belief in something, then you lack that belief. Similarly, I do not have a third arm, hence I lack a third arm. Or am I being culturally insensitive, and the use of the word "lack" signifies a transgression or taboo amongst atheists?
The problem is that all religions are based on untruths and most of them on lies. Unless all forms of advancement are ruthlessly suppressed, the untruths will be identified and corrected, undermining the religion. Hence religions are inherently unstable, and cannot provide a long term basis for a behaviorally stable advancing society.
What is needed is a rational, true philosophy. Religion by its very nature cannot provide such a philosophy because religions claim to have the ultimate, perfect, immutable truth: sooner or later reality is seen to conflict with the religion and if it changes then it will be seen not to be perfect.
Of course, most people are either too stupid or too uncaring to notice such changes, and historically many religions have lost many of their fundamentals through such changes, resulting in their failure as a guiding force.
Early civilization is too far removed in time for us to know what was going on, much less what mechanisms held it together. To say religion held it together and spurred it along is mere speculation without any predictive power. It's much more likely that the advantages of trade, division of labor, and the shift to farming made civilization possible. A common religion is not necessary to civilization as long as enough members accept nonviolence and honesty as their normal practice.
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I'm not claiming you are wrong, or that the person you responded to is wrong. As mentioned, that discussion does not change or solve our current problems so it's unprovable conspiracy theory for now. If you want to study a bit of that conspiracy Mark Dice's books do a decent job of it. "Illuminati Fact vs. Fiction" is interesting not just for the luciferian connecting conspiracy, but points at hundreds of other books that go back to the 1800s showing similar conspiracy discussions.
A few things on your points: 1. It does not take a large sect or group of people to want shitty conditions to get us shitty conditions. The state of politics in most places should make that apparent. 2. I personally don't know crap about the current teaching of luciferian cults. Reading some of the documents confiscated in the 1700s and assuming similarity to their teachings today, you can't compare them to what you know of Religions. 3. See item 2.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Unfortunately, the castigation of religion often reveals a hatred of religion more than a hatred of the evil acts.
The fundamental problem with religion is that it encourages fuzzy, bullshit thinking. Before you know it you've proven that black is white and you know how that winds up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Religion is almost never the driving factor. In the absence of religion, such people would have found other means and justifications to perpetrate their evil. There are many such examples in history.
Yes, but those evildoers would mostly be beneath the notice of history if it wasn't for their ability to move the masses with the lever of religion.
There are other levers, but religion is the longest and comes most easily to hand.
I think you are pretty close stating religion as the cause; from what I see every war that has ever been waged has been a banker's war... over who owns what.
You've got it. Personal property is the root of all evil. Doesn't matter whether you're claiming dominion over a piece of ground, or a piece of food, or a piece of ass. When you act selfishly, others will get left out.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't agree that instinct is at play as much as social teachings. Human nature is selfish to a point, that I would agree with. That said, we have society's that at least for a time were not full of self serving people and ruled by selfish people. Take most of ancient Greece for example, and even early Rome that adopted the Athenian form of Government. It fell apart the first time when the Government started to be ruled by people that were completely self serving. I won't go further on Rome because it's too complex or a Slashdot post, but the point is that we can learn not to be "selfish animals" and have done so for small periods of history.
Personally I believe that the "you are just an animal" arguments serve the corrupt in power much more than they serve you, so ask if it's possible to be untrue and just part of the game to keep you in the proverbial cave.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Wow, do you ever have a narrow vision of religion. Consider Valhalla.
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To your first question, this comes up in a whole lot of anti-religion posts, and is probably the number 2 on the "reasons to hate Religion" topic list. First would be blaming Religion for all the wars and deaths from wars.
To your second question, I have no idea if there is an age limit that can be fixed (meaning impossible due to lack of historical records). It would probably match the historical average for the region where they were practicing. Back then, they didn't mark legal age by a fixed number of years but rather by convenience. This was especially true with women where the practice was to pay the prospective husband to marry the woman. If the family could not afford a dowry, it may be 20 years old before marriage. If they could afford the dowry, the recordings say "youth" which assumes passed childhood probably marked by puberty and the woman's first period. Since men were waiting for dowries there is no reason to believe that their selection was any different. Perhaps a strong large guy would have been married off quickly, but the majority would have been mid-teens by most records.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
While I'll admit that Slashdot has a pro-atheist slant, I've posted things in the past mentioning my religious beliefs without getting modded down as a troll. The trick is not to toss your religion out there as "The One True Path That Everyone Should Convert To Now" or use your religion as the sole basis of your argument and expect that everyone else will fall in line (e.g. "my religion says X and that's why it should be a federal law").
However, if you are expressing a personal opinion that only affects you based on a religious belief, people won't automatically shout you down. Some will disagree with you, sure, but they tend to be calm and reasoned about it. Yes, some will feel the need to "disagree" by insulting you for having any sort of religious belief at all - as if this is better than the religious folks who insult people who don't follow "The Right Religion" - but they are the minority and easily ignored.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I have argued not a Religion, but that the concept of having a creator is valid from a Philosophical perspective on several occasions and was marked off as Troll or Flame bait for doing so. I'm sure it depends on who has mod points on a given day.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
This is what I keyed off of (which is, incidentally, what your Wikipedia cite refers to).
I'm thinking that someone at Wikipedia was more or less asleep at the switch. ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Any attempt to narrow down the driving forces of history results in willfully ignoring some factors and squeezing others into categories into which they do not fit. How do you factor ideology (many cases) or mental disease (Idi Amin's syphilis, for example). I've seen it argued that the Gutenberg press caused the American Revolution. Do you honestly think that influence and wealth ran the Underground Railway, or caused John Brown's attack at Harper's ferry?
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Mao Zedong's One Child Policy and the resultant selective abortion of girls (due to cultural preference towards boys) stands out as an example...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Obama would still be a terrible danger to this country if he were not corrupt. It's entirely possible that if his minions were not busy feathering their own nests and hiding their blunders, they'd be much more effectively advancing their evil agenda.
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So your suggestion is to educate everyone to be more ethical and less susceptible to corruption, right? This might be doable, but it is very difficult. A large number of poor people lead very difficult lives. They would be very difficult to persuade into purely ethical behavior, when they perceive lots of injustice being done to them by the ruling class. Athenians might have had a more ethical citizen body because not everyone was allowed to be a citizen. We do not have that luxury. Also, any system relying on trust in ethical behavior is unstable and susceptible to subversion. Basically, a smart unethical actor has an advantage over a large number of ethical ones. Anyway, this is an interesting topic.. I wish more people participated.
I was getting a better opinion about Bill Gates with his charitable efforts and then he went and created InBloom (along with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp). For those who don't know, InBloom was created to help school districts manage data. To that end, they are collecting hundreds of data points on students. Examples include home addresses, SSN, medial diagnoses (autism/deafness/emotional disturbance), whether they were disciplined and how much including any jail time, and whether the student gets pregnant. To make matters worse, they are storing it in the cloud. (We all know cloud storage is 100% secure, right?) Not only don't they need parental approval (the law governing schools protecting student information was amended to allow the schools to participate), but parents can't even opt out. Yes, if you have kids in Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Louisiana, or New York, your childs' information may already be in the cloud.
Thanks, Gates for seriously compromising my son's personal information and leaving me nearly powerless to stop it. (I can protest, but the politicians here have all drunk large amounts of InBloom Kool-Aid and think us parents are just annoying pests to be ignored.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Under pure Capitalism there is no such thing as a minimum wage or most other rules that make employment expensive. A minimum wage is the primary cause of unemployment, which can lead to not having enough money to feed oneself.
Both historically and theoretically Capitalism provides the greatest food production.
Your joke isn't funny.
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I'm curious where this actually comes up in Catholic dogma.
It's in the catechism itself (look for item 2389, halfway down the page) :
"Connected to incest is any sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on children or adolescents entrusted to their care. The offense is compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it all their lives; and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing."
Also, consider that even without that specific prohibition, child marriage is (and has pretty much always been) prohibited, as is sex outside of marriage. Combined, it covers things neatly.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I never said it was easy, I said it was possible. Public schools in my opinion should spend a long time teaching people about Plato's "The Republic". Socrates had most things correct. It's not easy to grasp many of his concepts but every child in elementary school should be able to understand the majority of "The Allegory of the Cave", defend themselves against common fallacies, and be able to communicate without fallacy. Those three things alone would make a huge difference.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It's usually the first that comes to mind (and is the largest globally by population), but very few others actually require one to pump out kids.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Not really sure what you mean, sorry? In any case, "Be Fruitful and Multiple" (pru urvu) is a commandment. It's one of the 613 commandments (mitzvot) Jews are obligated to live by (and the Torah is, after all, a Jewish text).
While you've been exceptionally polite about just how right you are, I somehow can't feel too bad pointing out a small flaw in your reasoning. The method of calculating his adjusted wealth used there is percentage of GDP, not standard adjusted dollars. In regular old adjusted dollars, his net worth, when he had $1.5 billion sometime around 1930 was about $21 billion. It actually goes up if you go back a bit, but it never goes up above about $25 billion in adjusted dollars. If you think about that in terms of wages, a job that roughly equates to a minimum wage job in 1914 would be 50 cents per hour. Map that to a modern $8.00 an hour job and you're looking at about a 16 times increase, so that pretty much puts Rockerfeller's wealth, relative to the average working stiff of his time, in the neighborhood of a modern billionaire with something like $20 to $30 billion.
The percentage of GDP theory is an interesting one, but it isn't a realistic way of comparing wealth across a century of time. The problem is that you're basically saying that a big 10 kg fish in a small pond is bigger than a 20 kg fish in the ocean beause one is in a small pond and the other is in the ocean. Would rockerfeller have been richer if he had the same wealth and moved to a country with a smaller GDP (but the same or higher gdp per capita)? Would he have been poorer if he moved to a country with a larger GDP (but, once again, the same GDP per capita)?
I recall that he's doing work on disease and education, and he supports certain political beliefs. It looks like he's making some headway on disease, but his political choices are dubious. He's active in developing and proselytizing "Common Core", a markedly inferior lockstep education system that extends America's slide into inferiority.
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Under pure Capitalism there is no such thing as a minimum wage or most other rules that make employment expensive. A minimum wage is the primary cause of unemployment, which can lead to not having enough money to feed oneself.
WHAT? Where did this insane idea that Capitalism is a free for all without regulation come from? It's surely not in Adam Smith's work when he defined the economic system. Adam Smith was very clear that the Government must be a regulator for Capitalism to work.
You are also absolutely wrong about minimum wage being the primary cause of unemployment. I was trying to think of an analogy to show how wrong that was, and I can't because it's a very bizarre thing to say. I guess it's kind of like claiming that having dimes causes the devaluation of currency. I'm sure I can come up with some arguments to try and show that statement is valid. If you spend a couple seconds to consider the complexity of the subject you should realize that my arguments, even if true, don't mean that if we did away with dimes devaluation would suddenly vanish.
Trade deficits without penalties or tariffs on imports cause much more unemployment than having a minimum wage. No cap on salaries and bonuses for executives cause more unemployment than minimum wage. The unfair tax system causes more unemployment than having a minimum wage. Those are three starter topics, but the complexity of unemployment currently is much more than the four items mentioned. I'm just trying to show where your statement is wrong.
Both historically and theoretically Capitalism provides the greatest food production.
Your joke isn't funny.
That point, I very much agree with you on though I don't perceive the person you responded to was joking.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
and carrying on the family name has its base in religion.
You can't tell me marriage doesn't have its roots in religion.
2.1 billion Christians vs 2.4 billion Muslims.
Looked into this a bit more. It looks like it was typically 12 years of age, based on pre-catholic roman law, but was as low as 7 years old and sometimes younger in catholic medieval europe.
That's a law against incest that broadens the definition of incest to include adopted and foster children and godchildren, wards, etc. That clearly covers special cases and not the general case. From what I can find from a little searching, it looks like the Catholic church mostly adopted the pre-christian Roman marriage age of 12 years old, but allowed marriages at 7 years old or younger in medieval Europe.
"Did you forget what site you are on? This is Slashdot, any pro atheist comment gets +5 informative/insightful and anything discussing not just a Religion, but contemplation of a "Creator" gets you -234 Flamebait/Troll."
Most of slashdot would have no problem with the hypothesis of a creator if it wasn't tangled in with the mysticism of religions we know are not from any higher intelligence. The problem with your opinion is the vast overwhelming majority of 'creator believers' are religious, i.e. they get their idea of what caused life/the universe to exist from a source people more intelligent then you know to be false. Many of whom were raised in such religions and outgrew them and found them wanting due to the amount of thought, effort and struggle to free themselves from the lies they were taught.
That means people who espouse such beliefs are getting their beliefs from a source that is known to be filled with lies and nonsense that is not true. Maybe, just maybe, people look down on religious people for their lack of effort they put into disproving their own beliefs? To pursue truth you must want to ask the question, how can this be false? That's what a good truth seeker does. Religious people do the opposite, they take a belief and then build mountains of bad thinking on top of their feelings.
Their feelings are not checked by an honest appraisal of the evidence but dis-ingenuousness wish fulfillment they call 'faith' run amok. The reason why many people are so hostile is because religious people who make such statements like yourself are oblivious to their own errors and mistakes of thought. Many used to try to reason with such people, but many such peoples minds are too far gone. They are incapable of seeing their own errors and thinking straight. Hence many people on slashdot downvote such comments because it shows at the very least, an immense amount of intellectual dishonesty or not anywhere near enough time spent actually reading the bible itself and other works of critical thinking.
Religious belief in creator is the equivalent of fox news to intelligent people on the planet. Nerds tend to be disbelievers because - I know you might find this hard to believe, many of them came from homes and were former believers themselves at one point. So maybe, just maybe. They are more aware then you of how false religion really is.
Ah, yes, it sure helps to lobby for strong copyright protections so the poor won't be able to afford education. And while we're at it, also lobby for veto-rights on ideas, so if any poor sob has the same idea as you already patented can be sued into oblivion.
Hypocrisy at its best.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Very rarely have I agreed with Bill Gates to such an extent.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In reality, there were a hundred or so priests over a couple of decades engaged in the acts and probably a few hundred higher level clergy (bishop/cardinal/pope) that knew about the crimes and facilitated the cover ups. Meanwhile, the billion or so (roughly) Catholics had no idea so could not have learned from the example.
So we are simply talking about different n. For you, the base sum is all catholics, while for me it is the priesthood. On which it seems we both agree even the highest levels were involved.
And incidentally, yes you can be jailed for being a member of organized crime, even if you claim (truthfully or not) that you knew nothing about it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Do you not believe in it, or are you, as you stated, just skeptical? That would make you an agnostic.
Do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Are you just skeptical about it? Are you a-flyingspaghettimonster-ist or just agnostic?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
That point, I very much agree with you on though I don't perceive the person you responded to was joking.
Yeah, the wording was not historically accurate, nor 100% serious either. I was trying to make a point that government is not working well because it relies too much on the people in it being ethical. My opinion is that the type of government we currently have is not necessarily a total failure. Instead of drastically downsizing it and cutting social programs, we should consider introducing more checks against corruption. I kind of know what to expect from the libertarians here on Slashdot, so I'm not eagerly awaiting the alternative opinion (or more flame). That path has been tread many times before on this site.
"Religion does not cause poverty and misery."
telling people to keep copulating and having children or they won't get a place in their heaven causes a lot of poverty and misery.
Well, yes, but only if people listen. People only seem listen to religion's "advice" about family planning or the lack thereof in countries where there is no pension system and women aren't allowed into the work force, which pretty much means that the pension system is giving birth to at least two sons who can provide for you when you are too old to work.
"But capitalism alone can't address the needs of the very poor."
Nice to see a hyper-wealthy businessperson actually admit this.
If capitalism is so great why is the U.S. only #1 is stealing wages from workers? The U.S. ranks poorly in healthcare value, education, quality of life, and a host of other areas. Whatever the U.S. has, it is certainly NOT capitalism. Try selling narcotics and see how capitalism works for you.
Hope is the currency of fools
The fact that you think that supernaturalism and religion are synonymous demonstrates that you don't understand religion very well. Atheism just means not a theist -- 'a' is a prefix that means 'not.' If you don't believe in God but you believe in ghosts, you're an atheist. Sure, some religions incorporate supernaturalism -- fundamentalist Christians and some variants of Hinduism, for example -- but many do not and supernaturalism isn't a necessary component of religion. Zen Buddhism, Taoism, non-fundamentalist Christianity, and non-Orthodox Judaism are a couple examples.
A common trend you'll see among the religious -- that the stupid also believe in the supernatural -- you'll see among atheists as well. An atheist who believes that aliens built the pyramids is just as crazy as the Christian who believes that Jesus of Nazareth performed miracles. The crazies will be crazies, religion or no religion.
Being skeptical of weird stuff doesn't mean one can't be religious so that's not a valid definition of atheism. Atheism is a strict belief that any form of theism is incorrect. That may not be a very complicated (or rational) belief system, but it's still a belief system.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Prong 3: get rid of Windows 8
Or it represents the majority opinion, but you surely wouldn't allow yourself to accept that now, would you
There's no '-1 disagree' option in moderation.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
it's not a lack of anything
Well, perhaps a lack of gullibility . . .
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
My 1980s biology textbook has the rather startling fact that the worldwide spending on finding a cure or treatment for malaria, at that time the world's largest killer by far, was $8 million. The spending on just cancer research in just the United States that same year was over $500 million. The Gates Foundation should be long remembered for its efforts at spurring research on malaria remediation alone, even if it did nothing else.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Atheism is not a "tenet". It is simply the lack of faith in the supernatural.
A tenet may be a belief. Lack of faith in the supernatural (God, gods, whatever) is the central tenet of atheism. Like it or not, the thing that atheism has in common with religion is that both are belief systems.
Atheists don't sit around actively disbelieving; they just don't actively believe. The thing that most theists tend to not understand about atheists is that we mentally categorize the invisible man in the sky with things like fairies, unicorns, and the modern moderate republican.
I'm not really nitpicking, but pointing out some very obvious issues with your points. Studying is a time consuming task, but important for the debate. If you study the concepts of Capitalism and the US form of Government your arguments are simply incorrect.
I was trying to make a point that government is not working well because it relies too much on the people in it being ethical.
Would this statement not be true for _any_ government to work for the benefit of the members of society instead of the minority in power? British Parliament for example has the same reliance on ethical people holding votes as the US does.
My opinion is that the type of government we currently have is not necessarily a total failure. Instead of drastically downsizing it and cutting social programs, we should consider introducing more checks against corruption.
Those two sentences contradict each other. Our Government worked for a long time because it was designed where the Federal Government was very small and easy to have oversight on. Our "type" of Government is based on Socrates definition of "The Republic" as recorded by Plato. If you study that work, then read the Federalist Papers, Constitution, and Bill of Rights things should make sense.
In other words, out Government currently is not the "type" it was designed to be. Our Government was designed as the rudder of a ship, and what we have now is the Government trying to be the whole ship and most of the water the ship is sitting in. It can't work that way and remain a Democratic Republic. You don't fix it by simply adding more checks to the system. We already have checks in Government and those also have become too big to be effective. The whole purpose of the GSA for example is accountability. Maybe you heard about these guys throwing lavish parties on your tax dollars, and if not, well, you can read up on it.
I kind of know what to expect from the libertarians here on Slashdot, so I'm not eagerly awaiting the alternative opinion (or more flame). That path has been tread many times before on this site.
I'm not sure how it's expected to be a rational debate when there is little to no rational arguments. If you had given more accurate information people would have difficulty flaming you. Where people on both sides turn to the flame wars is because neither side relies on the truth in their arguments, but rather false information, fabricated history, and wild fallacies.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
No, we are not talking about a different "n". You claimed that every Catholic was learning by example that pedophilia was "right". Now you moved the mark and claimed it was just the priests, which would still be incorrect as there are probably a million or so priests and the majority had no idea the crimes were happening. Many priests left the clergy when they found out what was happening, and the majority of clergy was just as outraged as the rest of us when the can of worms was opened.
Your logic would still be wrong for all of the Bishops and Cardinals where there are many tens of thousands of those, and a very small percentage (less than .1%) was complicit in the cover up and knowledge of what was happening.
Reread your last statement, its nonsense as written. I gave a correct analogy which you did not or can not counter. A person can not learn by osmosis, which is what you are still trying to claim. You don't have to like the fact, but the fact is that you are biased to a point of being irrational. If you don't like being irrational, you can work to change it. Hell, I have spent decades contemplating my own biases and trying to get rid of them (with a reasonable amount of success).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Probably because one can't discuss religion without making some massively irrational statements. That's the whole issue: religion is based on assumptions, and when one tries to use those assumptions in the real world, in the presence of others, they will be called into question. And quite rightly so.
They all replaced religion with a new religion featuring them as the figurehead.
"This means market-driven innovation can actually widen the gap between rich and poor."
Somehow I see republicans everywhere hissing "lies!" *gasp*
Was it Roman law that it was 12? Curious to your resource if that is true since I have never seen the Roman Law on age. Most other societies near the time of Rome had no fixed age for marriage. Jewish society said that "Children" could not be married, but then as now the onset of puberty varies which would have marked a person as a "youth".
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
So the Philosophical question "Does the Universe require a Creator?" is nonsense, irrational, has no purpose, or has been answered? Perhaps you have no interest in the question, however that question does have bearing on ethics and morality. Theology at least from the perspective of "The Noble Lie" is a valid line of questioning and reason.
Sounds like you have a lot of bias and would not be able to discuss these concepts fairly, so I won't go further than pointing out that your statement is full of bias.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Thanks for your replies. I can't agree with you on everything, but that's fine. The government we currently have is mainly a function of what the people have voted for over the centuries. It is a bit pointless to argue about what it was designed to do at the very beginning. The people living today are the ones responsible for their government.
Clearly there is a difference between how the US government and most European governments are structured. Europeans tend to get better representation of the people in their governments. Perhaps it is due to proportional representation or other differences in the way elections are conducted. The US electoral system does seem outdated in comparison (but really hard to change). And the Europeans also tend to have large governments financing social safety nets, while still managing to keep corruption low. I'm guessing your opinion is that the Europeans are better educated, and so able to construct better governments. I can't really argue against that. I think it is more or less true that the people get the government they deserve.
There are at least a half dozen distinct different forms of atheism. The few that are inherently compatible with agnosticism are not faith-based, but the rest of them quite necessarily are.
But your definition of atheism is easily disproved anyway; absolute statements require only one counterexample. I have no belief in the "supernatural" whatsoever. Everything that exists, exists in nature. I am not an atheist and would resent being called one; I am an ordained religious theist (pantheist, essential monist variety). Therefore your definition of atheism is false, according to the rules of logic and science.
Did you know that there are several atheist religions? Did you know that many atheists believe in the supernatural? No, of course you didn't. We are all subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect; if you decide to study theology you'll be come less confident of your understanding of atheism the more you learn. A planet is smooth as a billiard ball if you look at it from far enough away.
An interesting talk about what Tech tends to do and what Tech should do.
Wish I had mod points, that is easily the best analysis of the existence of religion I've seen yet.
I would point out something though- the Christian Fanatics during the Crusades were reacting to 600 years worth of attacks by religious fanatic Islamic extremists- and they failed because they were less fanatical than their counterparts. In a war of fanaticism, the crazy always wins.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Given what has happened to the European Union economically in the last 10 years, and what has happened to the Japanese in the last 20, I can't call either "doing quite well".
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"READ MY LIPS. Being skeptical of weird stuff is not a "belief system" just a rational mind doing its work."
Says the fanatical extremist believer in skepticism.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If you take my rudder vs. ship example you can see the issue I have with your arguments. That people are convinced that Government needs to be a big ship does not make it correct. People need to understand the rudder analogy and push for those changes to reign in what we have now in Government. If people have been duped over a long period of time or a short period of time makes no difference. The purpose needs to go back to being a rudder.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Do you not believe in it, or are you, as you stated, just skeptical? That would make you an agnostic. It's true that agnostics don't have a belief system, as by definition they don't know what to believe. Atheists are another matter.
So completely wrong and people are modding this insightful?!?
A skeptic and an agnostic are not the same thing.
An agnostic is not defined anything like "they don't know what to believe".
An agnostic is one who thinks that it is not possible to know whether or not there is a god.
A gnostic thinks that it is possible to know whether or not there is a god.
Gnosticism speaks to what can be known, it doesn't say anything about belief.
So if you think it's impossible to know whether or not god exists, but choose to believe that he does, then you are an agnostic theist.
If you think that it is possible to know that (whether or not you actually do know) and choose not to believe, then you are a gnostic atheist.
The other two combinations are left as an exercise for the reader which I would suggest you actually do since you are this badly informed on the topic
"As a defense mechanism, they attempt insults or ridicule, rather than engage in reasonable debate."
That's known as projection on your part.
You claimed that every Catholic was learning by example that pedophilia was "right".
You want to read that into my words. So are we here to win an argument and imaginary points or is this going somewhere?
A person can not learn by osmosis, which is what you are still trying to claim.
There's a difference between osmosis and example. Again, you are twisting my words in order to win an argument.
My original point was very simple: You don't have to read something from a book to teach it. Behaving in a certain way teaches people that this behaviour is ok, without anyone explicitly stating it.
In the catholic church, the fact that these crimes were covered up by the highest levels certainly sent the message that they were acceptable. I didn't say "good" anywhere - there is also tolerance. Here's a less political example: Everyone drives 10 above the speed limit where I live. Literally, everyone. You're honked at if you drive the speed limit. Nowhere in any book does it say that 10 above is legal. Few would go on record saying it's the right way to drive. But everyone does it, because it is widely accepted. And new drivers quickly learn it as being the norm.
When you're a catholic priest and you rape a dozen kids, and nothing at all happens, and ten years later someone learns about it within the church and their official reaction is to move you to a different country so you can't be prosecuted - that doesn't exactly teach you that you were wrong, does it? The rest of society pretty much agrees that the proper way to teach you this was wrong is 20 years in the slammer, not a promotion.
Am I biased? You bet I am. That doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Is this the same Bill Gates who wants population control with health care and vaccines? Or do I understand what he said at T.E.D wrongly?
I read Am I biased? You bet I am. That doesn't mean I'm wrong. and I have to laugh. You admit that you are biased so your vision of right and wrong is by definition skewed. Your appeal to emotion and denial of your own words shows how delusional bias can make a person.
I have no patience for bigots that deny facts to support their beliefs. Have fun in what ever fantasy land you are living in.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You read what you want to read.
That I am biased doesn't make me wrong. It doesn't make me right, either. But it is stupid to attempt to derive truth out of the fact that someone - omg! - happens to have an opinion.
You admit that you are biased so your vision of right and wrong is by definition skewed
Merriam-Webster defines bias as ": a strong interest in something or ability to do something", among other things. There is an element of prejudice in bias. But wherever you get your definition from is a fantasy land of pure logic that doesn't exist. You are biased, too. Maybe less strongly, certainly less obviously, and definitely less openly.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Amazing that someone with a 3 digit ID can't read a dictionary. Either that or you are so defensive to your asinine belief that you refuse to look at simple fact.
No more nicety, no more discussion. Go pound some sand bigot!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The wikipedia article on marriage in ancient rome has a quote:
Later the jurist Ulpian wrote on the Lex Julia et Papia, “Only those women with whom intercourse is not unlawful can be kept in concubinage without the fear of committing a crime”.[45] He also said that “anyone can keep a concubine of any age unless she is less than twelve years old.
So, that pretty strongly indicates that the permissable age for sex (not going to call it the age of consent, because consent certainly didn't have much to do with it in many arranged marriages) was typically 12 years old. Once again, this would have varied depending on the times, although it probably didn't go higher than 12. Naturally it would also vary depending on who was getting married. For marriages that were important for business or political reasons, exceptions surely would have been made.
The Soviet union based their belief structure, education, and economics on logic and science and engineering, and outdid Hitler with body count
The bits of the EU that are worst off are the more religious bits, incidentally.
Why doesn't Gates adopt/provide http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/insurance_plans?zip_code=85008
Casteism
Amazing how you turned away more and more from discussing an argument to personal attacks, ignoring and dropping the points you couldn't refute at every step, until there's just 3 lines left. Your next response, if you have one left at all, will probably be less than one sentence.
It's been enlightening. :-)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Nice catch! Thanks for the response and information.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The first problem is POPULATION.
period.
It's just that nobody dares to even mention it.
People talk about global warming, pollution, even to some extend about the swindling soil resources, but nobody has balls to tell the people that we are just too many using up too many resources and that the obvious solution is just to stop crapping out more humans as if we were a plague of afids. And this is valid for both, the poor countries and the rich ones where a single children uses up so many resources as a whole small village in Africa. And that just because children are considered a sort of consumer item such as HD TVs or mobile phones.
And instead of attacking the problem we are wasting time, resources and efforts in empty symbol-politik such as vaccinating the newborn in Africa to rid them from smallpox so that they can die later from AIDS, starvation or killed in a war.
Stupid humanity, stupid plague.
-- 29A the number of the Beast