Hmm.. ok, I see. Yeah, you've pretty much convinced me I was wrong. Encouraging paranoia is pretty much the same as lying, even without trying to consider the other effects of manipulation (inna final analysis, etc etc)
My basic moral outlook is that as people mature they develop a sense of reason and conscience, and the moral question is ultimately a matter of being true to your own conscience. So in my opinion, law exists to keep people free, and should be separate from morality. Thus laws against murder, slavery etc. are good laws. A law against drinking alcohol, while it might improve people's lives, since it tries to usurp the individual's free will unnecessarily. Not an original idea, I know.
Ok, so far so good. But these are all very grand principles and are not always useful in specific situations. Which is just as well, otherwise what's the point in a conscience, eh?
I guess what I want (sometimes) to do is to encourage people to develop their consciences. But I guess the only way to do that is to try to actually interact with people on a personal basis, serve as a good example, and maybe teach them to think. This is very frustrating since there is no immediate gratification. But yeah, I see now that is probably the only way to go. If I actually could make people afraid of a nonexistent punishing agency, it wouldn't be any better for them than actually making such a thing real anyway. Whew.
Ok, thanks for the heads up, and I will now resolve to quite slashdot cold turkey.
Sorry for taking so long, I was banned from posting for a few days.
I doubt that you really have a consistent position here... probably due to a misguided notion of privacy. For moral questions, privacy should be defined morally, not legally.
To give an example: If I videotape people changing their clothes, and no one but myself knows of the existence of these tapes... i.e., I don't ask for permission, and I don't distribute them, then according to your position, this is hurting no one, and no one should care about what I'm doing.
But my own feeling is that this is a clear invasion of privacy, and I should do what I can to discourage it. Granted, it may not directly hurt the people videotaped, but it at least hurts the videotaper.
Which is not to say that eliminates the videotaper's right to privacy, so this is something which should not be pursued by the investigative arm of the government. [Abusive situations or selling of material is of course different, and should be actively investigated.] But I see nothing wrong with my trying to help people develop their sense of conscience... it's nothing I can force, and I don't claim my view of morality is absolutely correct. I feel justified in doing this for the same reasons that I feel it would be wrong for me to encourage people to beat up homeless people. (I know, that's a stretch, but I can't think of a better example at the moment.)
Of course, this is mostly a contorted excuse to troll, but I don't think trolling is always such a terrible thing.
I'd like to eventually get into nanotechnology, but are there other fields that are starting to become edge-breaking that would be beneficial to learn?
yo yo, fuck dis shit.. jes gots get da props to de classics: mah man Lagrange, Maxwell... an' Newton that pussy eatin cock suckin foo'. Dis "nano" shit ain't nothin' but mutherfuckin jerkoffs... heh heh ah mean, less ya got dat quantum mechanikal shit, but ya gots to get yer shit first... an i tells ya, when the shit goes down, ain't no "lectronics associates degree" gonna get ya the nanogoo. word
If it keeps a few more people looking over their shoulders, I'm happy. Paranoia is no substitute for morality, but it sure is better than nothing.
If I did want to catch freenet users I'd hand out trojans (as it were) since that would actually work. But that's clearly illegal, so I may as well leave that to The Feds. (muhahahaha...)
Now that you mention it, I can't think of any good fantasy film.
Mr. Dick, I don't know of any good American fantasy movies. There are good period dramas such as The Lion in Winter, some good comedies (The Court Jester) but the serious treatments of fantasy all seem to end up looking like camp at best (Ladyhawke, Willow, The Dark Crystal, etc...) You might even be led to believe that this is a problem inherent to the genre, that fantasy is necessarily a silly idea and cannot be the setting for a truly heroic and sweeping drama.
This is not true.
The real defect is with the Anglo-American view of fantasy and faerie as a children's pastime. This is not the case in all cultures. The stories collected by the Brothers Grimm were not just for children. But in America we inherit the English tradition that faniciful stories are for children, as with Lang's Red Fairy Book and so on.
But not all cultures of today regard fancy as childish. In particular, there are many animated fantasy-dramas produced in Japan. These are in fact adult, in every sense of the word. Anime, as it is called, is not just animated pornography, tentacle rape, and sailor-suited tarts. It also encompasses a wide and serious range of fantasy, from the Tolkienesque to the traditional Japanese (Totoro, Princess Mononoke...)
Although it may be difficult to get your hands on these, if you have the opportunity, it is worth investigating. Although anime is not for everyone, it has much to recommend it. (and occasionally even has Dolby 5.1 sound for the true geek)
Just to give fair warning to all you you deal in illegal (US) pornography:
I'm currently hacking together a munged Freenet server for a Freenet Wall Of Shame.
I do not oppose Freenet. Actually, I think it may not just be useful in safeguarding our liberty -- it may even be essential.
That is why I am trying to protect content. I am not trying to eliminate underage porn from Freenet, but if we don't do something it will become the focus of the network, and it will be shut down... not to mention all the people such as myself who are not willing to donate system resources to promote the exploitation of minors.
If anyone else here is working on a similar project, please note it below as we may be able to collaborate.
Those corporate PIGFUCKERS!! They don't know how to build up, or support communities -- no, they thrive on pain, torment, and destruction!
Jealous of the success of Linus Torvalds and our tribe they are trying to reinstitute the Cathedral through the only means at their disposal -- main force.
Well, I'm mad as hell and not going to take it any more. Sony and NEC have had their chance to join the cluetrain. But they have ignored it, and us, for far too long.
I hearby call ONE AND ALL for a BOYCOTT of all Sony products!
It will be hard, but we must resist the corporate powers of Intellectual Property and Darkness!!
(Exceptions may be made for certain Sony products, such as Aibo, anime DVDs, Vaio laptops, movies with neat-o special effects, and so on.)
You may ask, why no boycott of Yahoo!? Well, unfortunately they have no products, and hence are untouchable by anyone save the Government itself.
Why are most of the optical counting machines in Florida in Republican areas, where the shitty old punchcard systems are in place in Democratic strongholds?
It is at the most local level (city, county, etc.) that voting equipment is procured and maintained.
Therefore, if the "shitty old punchcard systems" are really only in use in Democratic strongholds, I suppose it is the Democrats that you must blame.
It is ironic that the American word 'program' is used when the concept was actually invented here in Britain! The first writer of computer programs was Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and close friend of Charles Babbage. It is sometimes implied that the relationship of Babbage and Lovelace was more than platonic, but a close study of her letters reveals otherwise. Although the two shared a common interest, they do not seem to have gotten along all that well -- although she was, in fact, the secret lover of the famous Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who by all accounts was quite a rake in his youth.
So what are you saying... that there's some sort of absolute moral code that trumps the law?
Funny, I thought that attitude was limited to idiots like Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, etc.
Re:Moderate this up! (was -- Re:Netfuture issue #1
on
Golden Rice
·
· Score: 1
Ok, I read the article and I summarize the salient points:
1: It probably won't do any good. (People want white rice, greens are better, etc.)
2: The plant probably won't work (as well) anyway.
My answer is: these arguments are all speculative. Why not try it and find out? The cost is little. There is no risk of this rice supplanting white rice. Sure, maybe people won't use it, but it's worth a shot. And the only way to find out if the plant is less hardy etc. is to try it and find out.
If the wholistic approach means sitting back and saying "Here's the problems that might exist" and making no effort to actually try something out, then I'm glad it went out of fashion along with Aristotilean science.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/soviet/int erceptors.htm
thank you
You really don't understand what printf does, do you.
Facts to brighten your day:
1. Bush has already ruled out NMD. He favours TMD.
2. Moscow already has TMD.
3. The Russians have said they hope to sell their system to India.
True. It is a grave matter, with grave consequences.
This man may well be executed for what he did.
It is somewhat more likely he will get life via plea bargain instead. IMO this is just as good for the country.
Hmm.. ok, I see. Yeah, you've pretty much convinced me I was wrong. Encouraging paranoia is pretty much the same as lying, even without trying to consider the other effects of manipulation (inna final analysis, etc etc)
My basic moral outlook is that as people mature they develop a sense of reason and conscience, and the moral question is ultimately a matter of being true to your own conscience. So in my opinion, law exists to keep people free, and should be separate from morality. Thus laws against murder, slavery etc. are good laws. A law against drinking alcohol, while it might improve people's lives, since it tries to usurp the individual's free will unnecessarily. Not an original idea, I know.
Ok, so far so good. But these are all very grand principles and are not always useful in specific situations. Which is just as well, otherwise what's the point in a conscience, eh?
I guess what I want (sometimes) to do is to encourage people to develop their consciences. But I guess the only way to do that is to try to actually interact with people on a personal basis, serve as a good example, and maybe teach them to think. This is very frustrating since there is no immediate gratification. But yeah, I see now that is probably the only way to go. If I actually could make people afraid of a nonexistent punishing agency, it wouldn't be any better for them than actually making such a thing real anyway. Whew.
Ok, thanks for the heads up, and I will now resolve to quite slashdot cold turkey.
Sorry for taking so long, I was banned from posting for a few days.
I doubt that you really have a consistent position here... probably due to a misguided notion of privacy. For moral questions, privacy should be defined morally, not legally.
To give an example:
If I videotape people changing their clothes, and no one but myself knows of the existence of these tapes... i.e., I don't ask for permission, and I don't distribute them, then according to your position, this is hurting no one, and no one should care about what I'm doing.
But my own feeling is that this is a clear invasion of privacy, and I should do what I can to discourage it. Granted, it may not directly hurt the people videotaped, but it at least hurts the videotaper.
Which is not to say that eliminates the videotaper's right to privacy, so this is something which should not be pursued by the investigative arm of the government.
[Abusive situations or selling of material is of course different, and should be actively investigated.]
But I see nothing wrong with my trying to help people develop their sense of conscience... it's nothing I can force, and I don't claim my view of morality is absolutely correct. I feel justified in doing this for the same reasons that I feel it would be wrong for me to encourage people to beat up homeless people. (I know, that's a stretch, but I can't think of a better example at the moment.)
Of course, this is mostly a contorted excuse to troll, but I don't think trolling is always such a terrible thing.
I'd like to eventually get into nanotechnology, but are there other fields that are starting to become edge-breaking that would be beneficial to learn?
yo yo, fuck dis shit.. jes gots get da props to de classics: mah man Lagrange, Maxwell... an' Newton that pussy eatin cock suckin foo'. Dis "nano" shit ain't nothin' but mutherfuckin jerkoffs... heh heh ah mean, less ya got dat quantum mechanikal shit, but ya gots to get yer shit first... an i tells ya, when the shit goes down, ain't no "lectronics associates degree" gonna get ya the nanogoo. word
I call it "trolling with a conscience."
If it keeps a few more people looking over their shoulders, I'm happy. Paranoia is no substitute for morality, but it sure is better than nothing.
If I did want to catch freenet users I'd hand out trojans (as it were) since that would actually work. But that's clearly illegal, so I may as well leave that to The Feds. (muhahahaha...)
I hate people who hate apologetics.
Please mark down the above post as a troll.
thank you
Now that you mention it, I can't think of any good fantasy film.
Mr. Dick,
I don't know of any good American fantasy movies. There are good period dramas such as The Lion in Winter, some good comedies (The Court Jester) but the serious treatments of fantasy all seem to end up looking like camp at best (Ladyhawke, Willow, The Dark Crystal, etc...) You might even be led to believe that this is a problem inherent to the genre, that fantasy is necessarily a silly idea and cannot be the setting for a truly heroic and sweeping drama.
This is not true.
The real defect is with the Anglo-American view of fantasy and faerie as a children's pastime. This is not the case in all cultures. The stories collected by the Brothers Grimm were not just for children. But in America we inherit the English tradition that faniciful stories are for children, as with Lang's Red Fairy Book and so on.
But not all cultures of today regard fancy as childish. In particular, there are many animated fantasy-dramas produced in Japan. These are in fact adult, in every sense of the word. Anime, as it is called, is not just animated pornography, tentacle rape, and sailor-suited tarts. It also encompasses a wide and serious range of fantasy, from the Tolkienesque to the traditional Japanese (Totoro, Princess Mononoke...)
Although it may be difficult to get your hands on these, if you have the opportunity, it is worth investigating. Although anime is not for everyone, it has much to recommend it. (and occasionally even has Dolby 5.1 sound for the true geek)
Just to give fair warning to all you you deal in illegal (US) pornography:
I'm currently hacking together a munged Freenet server for a Freenet Wall Of Shame.
I do not oppose Freenet. Actually, I think it may not just be useful in safeguarding our liberty -- it may even be essential.
That is why I am trying to protect content. I am not trying to eliminate underage porn from Freenet, but if we don't do something it will become the focus of the network, and it will be shut down... not to mention all the people such as myself who are not willing to donate system resources to promote the exploitation of minors.
If anyone else here is working on a similar project, please note it below as we may be able to collaborate.
Duuuuude! Q. Fabius Max! Where you been these 2200 yrs??
Not bad...
Sure... The Youngest Known Life Keeps Getting Younger
A computer can do things that a Turing machine cannot. (e.g. the C=64 had a nondeterministic random number generator)
Those corporate PIGFUCKERS!! They don't know how to build up, or support communities -- no, they thrive on pain, torment, and destruction !
Jealous of the success of Linus Torvalds and our tribe they are trying to reinstitute the Cathedral through the only means at their disposal -- main force.
Well, I'm mad as hell and not going to take it any more. Sony and NEC have had their chance to join the cluetrain. But they have ignored it, and us, for far too long.
I hearby call ONE AND ALL for a BOYCOTT of all Sony products!
It will be hard, but we must resist the corporate powers of Intellectual Property and Darkness!!
(Exceptions may be made for certain Sony products, such as Aibo, anime DVDs, Vaio laptops, movies with neat-o special effects, and so on.)
You may ask, why no boycott of Yahoo!? Well, unfortunately they have no products, and hence are untouchable by anyone save the Government itself.
yeah, what you really need are multiple accounts. then your mod points can really be put to good use.
better yet, once you have identified one of the bastards, nail'em with a ddos! sweet justice...
no, it was probly K-racked!
Actually, I expect cracker detection to be the cornerstone of our new economy. kjh26flk3jf
Why are most of the optical counting machines in Florida in Republican areas, where the shitty old punchcard systems are in place in Democratic strongholds?
It is at the most local level (city, county, etc.) that voting equipment is procured and maintained.
Therefore, if the "shitty old punchcard systems" are really only in use in Democratic strongholds, I suppose it is the Democrats that you must blame.
It is ironic that the American word 'program' is used when the concept was actually invented here in Britain! The first writer of computer programs was Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and close friend of Charles Babbage. It is sometimes implied that the relationship of Babbage and Lovelace was more than platonic, but a close study of her letters reveals otherwise. Although the two shared a common interest, they do not seem to have gotten along all that well -- although she was, in fact, the secret lover of the famous Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who by all accounts was quite a rake in his youth.
So what are you saying... that there's some sort of absolute moral code that trumps the law?
Funny, I thought that attitude was limited to idiots like Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, etc.
Ok, I read the article and I summarize the salient points:
1: It probably won't do any good. (People want white rice, greens are better, etc.)
2: The plant probably won't work (as well) anyway.
My answer is: these arguments are all speculative. Why not try it and find out? The cost is little. There is no risk of this rice supplanting white rice. Sure, maybe people won't use it, but it's worth a shot. And the only way to find out if the plant is less hardy etc. is to try it and find out.
If the wholistic approach means sitting back and saying "Here's the problems that might exist" and making no effort to actually try something out, then I'm glad it went out of fashion along with Aristotilean science.