The argument I have for making it "artificially bad" right now is to preserve the remaining crude oil to ration it out for non-fuel purposes, like plastics, or reserving it for strategic fuel purposes.
Then your argument fails. The consequence of a single country (like the US) inventing some scheme to ration oil internally is of no consquence for any country that does not adopt your policy of making things "artificially bad."
Unfortunately, even if the US doesn't use the remaining crude oil, someone will. Even if the US made the cost of oil based products triple and thus supressed it's use internally, the slack that was created would be taken up by other countries.
Unless you are advocating a single world government, that can ration it? That might work, but would be a bit of a challenge, not to mention undesireable in other ways.
Certainly your argument is rational in that IF we managed to do it THEN we would have more stockpiles later but there appears no real way to globally "ration" oil besides the prices charged - and that will remain based on the actual monetary cost to extract, not some trumped up value.
There is a certain incompatibility between "timetables" and "quickly adapting to changes in demand"
Nope, not really.
You simply need your system to be able to determine how to return to the timetable schedules as fast as possible in the event of blocked or broken track/trains etc.
It's not about controlling their population growth, it's about controlling them to such an extent that you even control their sexuality.
With such control, you can certainly get merely cash, or political movements out of it. You can either encourage reproduction (like the Catholics) or discourage population growth (like state run china).
FWIW, I view your post as almost reasonable. It's the almost that I am at odds with. I try to not take any prescription drugs because of the vast number of potential side effects most of them have. I will not take asprin for a normal headache - i just prefer to deal with it.
However, I think you go a bit off the deep end eschewing drugs, as well as painting people who have issues in poor light.
Eschew aspirin for, oh I don't know, yoga and water?
Ok, so I actually do yoga and still get migraines. Now what?
Chances are if you're fat, lazy, and dehydrated, your body isn't healthy.
Ok, Im not fat, lazy or dehydrated. (5'11" and ~145, Tai Chi & Kung Fu x4/week each (i know, i need to practice more!), Yoga x1-2 week, ~1 hour per each session, and I drink plenty of water every day). Now what?
Keeping the joints in shape by something like Tai Chi or Yoga (which is mostly stretching and holding poses) tends to help.
Funny you should mention that. I do practice Tai Chi. I still get migraines. Now what?
If I have chronic headaches, you should not be prescribing narcotics: I need a chiropractor (the kind with an X-ray machine,
Ok, I *also* go to a chiropractor -- you know the kind with an X-ray machine -- about 1/month.
I still get migraines.
At what point should I consider a drug??? I guess never, or is that also "stupid"?
Sure, I could up my routines to 4-8 hours a day (they say the straight sword takes 10,000 8 hr days to Master). Maybe that would do it. But I certainly wouldn't be working or living in a house.
Similarly, I don't need acupuncture and spirit walking if I have syphilis; I need penicillin. Don't be stupid
What an interesting thing to say. If I had followed your advice to get rid of my migraines, I would be pretty pissed off now (since I do that anyway and IT DOESN'T WORK). It would have been very stupid to follow your advice, considering that doing so would not have let me reach the goal, and wasted countless hours. The fact that there are other benefits involved doesn't really weigh into this as the primary goal was not reached.
At what point do you consider your own advice as stupid, considering that it has failed in this particular trial?
n.b. - i don't particularly care if you believe me, it's all true anyways.
The same material created in a creative commons manner could be just as long (if that really means anything) and better.
Such a book could be bought for the cost of printing it, or even the cost of the digital bits (i.e. "basically" free).
Especially for something like Calculus.
Any upates or "modules" for such thing like Matlab or Mathematica, etc., could easily be created as plug in additional content. Perhaps even leveraging the people who want us to use those programs? Hmm. Maybe they would pay money to be included in the project? After all it is generally true that people tend to try and pull what they know from school into work environments.
So, even if the up front cost to do the basics would be $10M (which would be absolutely ridiculous) if there are even 1M students who ever use it the nominal cost is $10 + printing/digital distribution.
In fact, I think it could probably be done "for free" harnessing all the teachers who want a decent (and cheap) textbook. Maybe $10K in hardware and hosting, although Google seems to have a pretty good deal for collab that might be free... put it up as a torrent and save bandwidth... yup, looks pretty clost to free to me.
So, don't try to tell me that $170 for a Calculus book is a "fair price". Puhleeze.
Your Overton window is slid so far to one side that I'm afraid you have whiplash.
You might in fact, be missing being paid to read a text (like the one that has a module on Mathematica).
Hmm. Considering the number of websites that get cracked and the passwords revealed it could be a problem.
Except for the fact that no person will ever be actually looking at it, or analyzing it.
This is a perfect case of security by obscurity.
That pass wouldn't be good for any other site and they would just ignore it. No one is going to madly go through random looking passwords for obscure patterns. Unless they are just really bored.
Someone who would be doing it maliciously wouldn't waste the development time on such a low probability success rate. There is no money in that.
So I guess Chrome, Opera, Iron, Seamonkey, and dozens of other web browsers are completely insecure?
Theoretically yes, those programs are totally insecure on any machine you do not own.
As are any other programs installed on that machine.
This is simply due to the fact that what you see isn't necessarily what you get. The machine may have any number of programs running that will hide the truth from you, steal your password as you enter it into Iron, Chrome, Opera, Seamonkey, or dozens of other web browsers.
In fact, how do you even know that you are running Opera, Chrome, or what have you on such a machine? Because it "looks like" it? Even checking the hash on that machine could give you a false security, if the Owner is good enough (that is, he can have the hash reported as correct even if it really isn't).
But I am curious, do you really think FF is the only secure browser out there?
That wasn't his point. His point was if it doesn't have FF it is likely not his machine, but has some other Owner. And then the rest follows as above.
I suspect that no one would use such a system until they demonstrate continuity.
By continuity, I mean that the individual would be concious of the process happening, as consciousness flowed from one substrate to another. And perhaps one might actually want round trip continuity (there, and back again) just to be sure.
If it is just a program/imprint that happens to be able to think and react exactly like I do, it's not me and there is absolutely no way I am going to then go commit bodily suicide so "I" can "be immortal". Because "I" am not, there is just another being that happens to be a lot like me but it is certainly not me.
But EasterBerry does have a point. I just think he takes it too far. Companies whose competition uses morally questionable but legal practices face financial pressure to do likewise. Companies that are required by law to do questionable actives have a very difficult decision.
Creating a company is hard, creating a sustainable company harder still. I agree that companies have a hard road. But I would posit that this is their burden - not an "out". That is, perhaps they should be lobbying to make the morally questionable practices illegal instead of adopting them. Or advertise based on this difference - after all would you trust a company that was morally questionable? Etc.! However, that takes work and brains. It is certainly much easier to just "get along". But perhaps not right.
I have a private company. If I was required by law to do questionable activities I would rather shutter my doors than comply. I, myself, do not want the moral burden AND I do not want to make my employees morally culpable by complying, either. I must admit, though, that if legally required to perform some action and closing wasn't an option to skirt it that I might weigh my freedom or life more highly than the action. I'm not really sure where that line is for me (what actions I would/would not perform to stay free/alive), but I must admit it is there.
Now wait a minute. I thought we had established that there exist a class of "immoral" laws.
I seem to recall that you used Nazis as an example of that (or was that just to cut the thread dead?:) )
I thought that you pressing me for laws that are currently in force that are immoral was trying to argue that no such laws currently exits.
I admit that you now have me confused.
Which is it? Does legality trump morality as you now state, or not, as you stated in previous posts?
Every job that corporation provided is now gone. How do you reconcile the burden of this with the burden of potentially immoral actions?
This appears to be a rift in our respective logic patterns.
I don't consider companies that do immoral things to be actually "looking after" their employees. In fact, they are making employees morally culpable for the actions of the corporation to some degree by the fact that the corp employs them. Perhaps they should look after their people by not doing immoral things or not have any people to look after. So yes, pull out. If more companies acted this way I believe you would find a sea change in the sets of immoral laws.
The rest of your argument boils down to "well, other people do it!", which isn't really a very valid argument when talking about morality. All you are saying is that there exist quite a few immoral companies. At least if they pull out they are not making their other employees morally culpable.
So, you still haven't answered my questions about legal actions that are immoral. Do you believe they exist?
I'll give you another hypothetical. What if there was a corporation that lobbied for laws to increase it's profits? Happens all the time, legal (and legality trumps morality in your book) so therefore morality doesn't need to be taken into account?
On a less hypothetical level, how would you feel if it was the prison industry, and the laws they are lobbying for are laws designed to incarcerate a higher percentage of the population, and this fact is the basis for their lobbying? Still moral since it is legal? By the way, this example is actually true, and happened in the US. Sick and twisted IMO.
The fact is if I have a PADD with usable software and I say "I'll transfer that file on xyz to you", the other person can't even say "thanks" before it's done. Depending on the sensitivity of the info, perhaps it warns me it can't do that, or even redacts it before transfer. Etc.
I'm sure they can also come up with a way to sequence readings, or save stuff to look at later, or even have different "places" to virtually put the stuff on subject A.
Having half a dozen or bookshelf of those things on my desk would be just stupid.
The only reason to do that in the show is so they don't have to have a scene where the crewman says "I've been working so hard on this for a long time", or use valuable time to show them working. All they have to do is show a bunch of stacked and scattered PADDs with the crewman face planted onto one to get the concept across.
I believe that even in 10 years or so everyone will look back at that and think - "WTF does the guy have so many computers on the desk for?"
I can't help be repeat the quote from Penny Arcade here
The quite funny thing about that quote is it is both true and untrue.
All those uber users out there who are pressing on the oh so shiny neon glyphs are going to be the underclass. Oh, except for the ones with Capital. As always, they will be the ruling class.
But, many of those that have "all that sneer" are still going to be creating the actual tech that everyone else uses. They have no need to "get with the fucking program", they are creating the program.
Now, on topic, I actually can't help but wonder how much (not if) they copied from ST. I mean, you get a built in resonance to a set of Ideals the closer you can make it to something that was seen by Millions on TV, week after week. What marketing dept wouldn't like that? Buy my device and you too can live in the Federation.
I'm saying that you can't call a company evil for doing something they are legally required to.
And I disagreed. As I stated, I don't believe a corporations right to profit trumps human rights, no matter the laws of any particular country.
Again, with the exception of Nazi Germany where you HAD to sell out people who were in one of the groups slated for death I can't think of many laws make you evil by sheer compliance with them.
I see where you are coming from. Again I disagree. Read my previous post about human rights vs shareholder rights. There are any number of unjust laws that corporations comply with due to profit motives. I think that makes them evil.
If the government's law officials request or order Google to hand over information, that's not evidence that Google doesn't respect user privacy, it's merely evidence that Google is being law abiding citizens and helping the police track down a criminal.
And when that "criminal" is a member of Falun Gong (as their crime)? After all it's the law, so Google is just being a law abiding citizen. Bollocks, I say. Google would be evil in this specific case, in my mind.
So, here we have a specific example. You declare it would not evil (as I understand it), I declare it would be. Do you still stand by your broad statement?:
I'm saying that you can't call a company evil for doing something they are legally required to.
Your posts also seem to presuppose that what a company is trying to do cannot be classified as evil if it is legal due to shareholder rights issues. I would still like you to sort out that from the previous posts.
I guess this is a more important point (at least for me) than the edge case of wondering if a corp is evil only considering actions it is legally required to take in order to profit in that country.
To your point of view, is a company that complies with import/export restrictions not evil, even if procuring 1,000 tasers that will be used for torture? Based on your previous posts I would have to conclude you think that's not evil.
For what it's worth, I don't believe Google's actions in the Brazil case to be evil and their actions in China, as you said, at worst neutral.
Their actions as shown through the leaked doc also seem neutral, at worst, at the moment.
Free pass if they're doing something they have to do to comply with a law.
What laws are you thinking of specifically that you have to be evil not to break?
Ah, I see. Hmm. I guess it depends on where you place "making more money" on the hierarchy of morality (that a company should have). You appear to place it right below "comply with the law" and somewhere above "respect human rights". I tend to place "making more money" below "respect human rights".
So, pick your laws, there are plenty that abrogate various human rights that companies are complying with.
Also, I was really more intereted in a corollary. As a 'hacker' i tend to like to see how things come apart.
The quote is:
corporation on Google's scale I feel has an obligation to its employees and shareholders such that the penalty/risk of going against a law on moral grounds compared to the potential gain is not something they can do.
My beef with this is that too often "obligations to shareholders" are a scapegoat for doing evil. In other words "obligations to shareholders" comes above such things as "respect human rights" in those hierarchies. And I don't believe it or those hierarchies.
A question that better captures my objection to this angle is - "Can a corporation comply with the letter of the law and still be evil?"
And that depends on your hierarchy of morality. From your standpoint would that be impossible (since employees and shareholders trump morality)? If it's not impossible, how do you reconcile this with your statement I quoted above?
I'm pretty sure the HR department had no say in the matter.
I'm pretty sure "someone" on the board decided to use this to get rid of him no matter what and this was extremely convenient.
I'm sure that otherwise it would have never become known.
How much money do I have to be worth before the rules don't apply to me anymore?
The fact that you ask this is indicative that you are not in that class of beings. People who are in that class are already aware that the rules don't apply to them.
Really? You believe that every law is inherently good because it is a law?
Or that one must obey every law to be good (even ones that you feel are evil)?
Hmm.
I mean, my whole statement was: sometimes obeying laws can be considered evil.
I was really wondering whether to post what seems like such an obvious statement, but I guess it was correct, given your response.
If you could, please let me know your reasoning behind "questioning" this.
What questions do you have? Really, I am interested!
I mean, in the degraded case my statement is obviously true. If the law says thay you cannot turn in pedophiles (since you appear to believe the reverse is commendable) is obeying that law evil or not? Or further degraded - consider "lawful" genocides - is obeying that law good?
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you believe it is the smallest meaningful unit of time? Because it is the amount of time it takes a photon to travel 1 planck length?
Hmm. I thought that Planck time was just a constant that was formed from other sets of magic numbers that happened to have the units of time?
Do you feel that there are no processes which can happen in shorter lengths of time?
Regards.
How many of those terrorist attacks against trains have been in the US?
I would imagine that after the first one in the US the US government would enforce TSA style screenings on rail as well.
In fact, if high speed rail actually gets going, they will almost certainly want to extend the amount of money they can suck up by hiring screeners.
Regards.
The argument I have for making it "artificially bad" right now is to preserve the remaining crude oil to ration it out for non-fuel purposes, like plastics, or reserving it for strategic fuel purposes.
Then your argument fails. The consequence of a single country (like the US) inventing some scheme to ration oil internally is of no consquence for any country that does not adopt your policy of making things "artificially bad."
Unfortunately, even if the US doesn't use the remaining crude oil, someone will. Even if the US made the cost of oil based products triple and thus supressed it's use internally, the slack that was created would be taken up by other countries.
Unless you are advocating a single world government, that can ration it? That might work, but would be a bit of a challenge, not to mention undesireable in other ways.
Certainly your argument is rational in that IF we managed to do it THEN we would have more stockpiles later but there appears no real way to globally "ration" oil besides the prices charged - and that will remain based on the actual monetary cost to extract, not some trumped up value.
Regards.
There is a certain incompatibility between "timetables" and "quickly adapting to changes in demand"
Nope, not really.
You simply need your system to be able to determine how to return to the timetable schedules as fast as possible in the event of blocked or broken track/trains etc.
Regards.
You misunderstand.
It's not about controlling their population growth, it's about controlling them to such an extent that you even control their sexuality.
With such control, you can certainly get merely cash, or political movements out of it. You can either encourage reproduction (like the Catholics) or discourage population growth (like state run china).
Power.
Regards.
So it is your contention that what Jesus did in the Temple was out of hate?
Hmm.
That might just not pass muster with anyone even slightly familiar with the story.
Regards.
Hmm. I both agree and disagree with you.
FWIW, I view your post as almost reasonable. It's the almost that I am at odds with. I try to not take any prescription drugs because of the vast number of potential side effects most of them have. I will not take asprin for a normal headache - i just prefer to deal with it.
However, I think you go a bit off the deep end eschewing drugs, as well as painting people who have issues in poor light.
Eschew aspirin for, oh I don't know, yoga and water?
Ok, so I actually do yoga and still get migraines. Now what?
Chances are if you're fat, lazy, and dehydrated, your body isn't healthy.
Ok, Im not fat, lazy or dehydrated. (5'11" and ~145, Tai Chi & Kung Fu x4/week each (i know, i need to practice more!), Yoga x1-2 week, ~1 hour per each session, and I drink plenty of water every day). Now what?
Keeping the joints in shape by something like Tai Chi or Yoga (which is mostly stretching and holding poses) tends to help.
Funny you should mention that. I do practice Tai Chi. I still get migraines. Now what?
If I have chronic headaches, you should not be prescribing narcotics: I need a chiropractor (the kind with an X-ray machine,
Ok, I *also* go to a chiropractor -- you know the kind with an X-ray machine -- about 1/month.
I still get migraines.
At what point should I consider a drug??? I guess never, or is that also "stupid"?
Sure, I could up my routines to 4-8 hours a day (they say the straight sword takes 10,000 8 hr days to Master). Maybe that would do it. But I certainly wouldn't be working or living in a house.
Similarly, I don't need acupuncture and spirit walking if I have syphilis; I need penicillin. Don't be stupid
What an interesting thing to say. If I had followed your advice to get rid of my migraines, I would be pretty pissed off now (since I do that anyway and IT DOESN'T WORK). It would have been very stupid to follow your advice, considering that doing so would not have let me reach the goal, and wasted countless hours. The fact that there are other benefits involved doesn't really weigh into this as the primary goal was not reached.
At what point do you consider your own advice as stupid, considering that it has failed in this particular trial?
n.b. - i don't particularly care if you believe me, it's all true anyways.
Regards.
That makes no sense. According to your metric the more it sells the less valuable it is.
No, he is saying that the more is sells, the cheaper the individual cost of copies should be.
The problem with textbooks like Calculus is the price.
There is absolutely no reason a Calculus book should sell for $170.
See my comment here .
There is a risk factor there, he could have made little or no money from his book, like many other authors out there. He sells a lot, good
And if the book was $10, I wouldn't have a problem with that model.
Regards.
Yes, even $60/book is pretty bad.
See my comment here .
Regards.
No, no it's not a fair price.
The same material created in a creative commons manner could be just as long (if that really means anything) and better.
Such a book could be bought for the cost of printing it, or even the cost of the digital bits (i.e. "basically" free).
Especially for something like Calculus.
Any upates or "modules" for such thing like Matlab or Mathematica, etc., could easily be created as plug in additional content. Perhaps even leveraging the people who want us to use those programs? Hmm. Maybe they would pay money to be included in the project? After all it is generally true that people tend to try and pull what they know from school into work environments.
So, even if the up front cost to do the basics would be $10M (which would be absolutely ridiculous) if there are even 1M students who ever use it the nominal cost is $10 + printing/digital distribution.
In fact, I think it could probably be done "for free" harnessing all the teachers who want a decent (and cheap) textbook. Maybe $10K in hardware and hosting, although Google seems to have a pretty good deal for collab that might be free... put it up as a torrent and save bandwidth... yup, looks pretty clost to free to me.
So, don't try to tell me that $170 for a Calculus book is a "fair price". Puhleeze.
Your Overton window is slid so far to one side that I'm afraid you have whiplash.
You might in fact, be missing being paid to read a text (like the one that has a module on Mathematica).
Regards.
Hmm. Considering the number of websites that get cracked and the passwords revealed it could be a problem.
Except for the fact that no person will ever be actually looking at it, or analyzing it.
This is a perfect case of security by obscurity.
That pass wouldn't be good for any other site and they would just ignore it. No one is going to madly go through random looking passwords for obscure patterns. Unless they are just really bored.
Someone who would be doing it maliciously wouldn't waste the development time on such a low probability success rate. There is no money in that.
Regards.
So, how many sites do you feel would need to be cracked to be able to reverse engineer your formula?
Just wondering.
Regards.
So I guess Chrome, Opera, Iron, Seamonkey, and dozens of other web browsers are completely insecure?
Theoretically yes, those programs are totally insecure on any machine you do not own.
As are any other programs installed on that machine.
This is simply due to the fact that what you see isn't necessarily what you get. The machine may have any number of programs running that will hide the truth from you, steal your password as you enter it into Iron, Chrome, Opera, Seamonkey, or dozens of other web browsers.
In fact, how do you even know that you are running Opera, Chrome, or what have you on such a machine? Because it "looks like" it? Even checking the hash on that machine could give you a false security, if the Owner is good enough (that is, he can have the hash reported as correct even if it really isn't).
But I am curious, do you really think FF is the only secure browser out there?
That wasn't his point. His point was if it doesn't have FF it is likely not his machine, but has some other Owner. And then the rest follows as above.
Regards.
Again, the premise of this is that the government/corporations control all long haul traffic to such a degree that users need an alternate network.
Why would they allow any traffic from your mesh onto their lines? Do you feel that it would be impossible to do?
Your solution seems to presuppose a world where we don't need a wireless mesh network in the first place.
Regards.
I suspect that no one would use such a system until they demonstrate continuity.
By continuity, I mean that the individual would be concious of the process happening, as consciousness flowed from one substrate to another. And perhaps one might actually want round trip continuity (there, and back again) just to be sure.
If it is just a program/imprint that happens to be able to think and react exactly like I do, it's not me and there is absolutely no way I am going to then go commit bodily suicide so "I" can "be immortal". Because "I" am not, there is just another being that happens to be a lot like me but it is certainly not me.
Regards
But EasterBerry does have a point. I just think he takes it too far. Companies whose competition uses morally questionable but legal practices face financial pressure to do likewise. Companies that are required by law to do questionable actives have a very difficult decision.
Creating a company is hard, creating a sustainable company harder still. I agree that companies have a hard road. But I would posit that this is their burden - not an "out". That is, perhaps they should be lobbying to make the morally questionable practices illegal instead of adopting them. Or advertise based on this difference - after all would you trust a company that was morally questionable? Etc.! However, that takes work and brains. It is certainly much easier to just "get along". But perhaps not right.
I have a private company. If I was required by law to do questionable activities I would rather shutter my doors than comply. I, myself, do not want the moral burden AND I do not want to make my employees morally culpable by complying, either. I must admit, though, that if legally required to perform some action and closing wasn't an option to skirt it that I might weigh my freedom or life more highly than the action. I'm not really sure where that line is for me (what actions I would/would not perform to stay free/alive), but I must admit it is there.
Regards.
profit doesn't trump morality. Legality does.
Now wait a minute. I thought we had established that there exist a class of "immoral" laws.
I seem to recall that you used Nazis as an example of that (or was that just to cut the thread dead? :) )
I thought that you pressing me for laws that are currently in force that are immoral was trying to argue that no such laws currently exits.
I admit that you now have me confused.
Which is it? Does legality trump morality as you now state, or not, as you stated in previous posts?
Every job that corporation provided is now gone. How do you reconcile the burden of this with the burden of potentially immoral actions?
This appears to be a rift in our respective logic patterns.
I don't consider companies that do immoral things to be actually "looking after" their employees. In fact, they are making employees morally culpable for the actions of the corporation to some degree by the fact that the corp employs them. Perhaps they should look after their people by not doing immoral things or not have any people to look after. So yes, pull out. If more companies acted this way I believe you would find a sea change in the sets of immoral laws.
The rest of your argument boils down to "well, other people do it!", which isn't really a very valid argument when talking about morality. All you are saying is that there exist quite a few immoral companies. At least if they pull out they are not making their other employees morally culpable.
So, you still haven't answered my questions about legal actions that are immoral. Do you believe they exist?
I'll give you another hypothetical. What if there was a corporation that lobbied for laws to increase it's profits? Happens all the time, legal (and legality trumps morality in your book) so therefore morality doesn't need to be taken into account?
On a less hypothetical level, how would you feel if it was the prison industry, and the laws they are lobbying for are laws designed to incarcerate a higher percentage of the population, and this fact is the basis for their lobbying? Still moral since it is legal? By the way, this example is actually true, and happened in the US. Sick and twisted IMO.
Regards.
And I still want to know if you believe profit trumps morality or answer any of those questions I put to you.
China requiring Yahoo to give information about political dissenters? Is that close enough or do you want another?
Regards
When all that can be done on a single device?
No.
In a future world with actually usable software?
Hell no.
The fact is if I have a PADD with usable software and I say "I'll transfer that file on xyz to you", the other person can't even say "thanks" before it's done. Depending on the sensitivity of the info, perhaps it warns me it can't do that, or even redacts it before transfer. Etc.
I'm sure they can also come up with a way to sequence readings, or save stuff to look at later, or even have different "places" to virtually put the stuff on subject A.
Having half a dozen or bookshelf of those things on my desk would be just stupid.
The only reason to do that in the show is so they don't have to have a scene where the crewman says "I've been working so hard on this for a long time", or use valuable time to show them working. All they have to do is show a bunch of stacked and scattered PADDs with the crewman face planted onto one to get the concept across.
I believe that even in 10 years or so everyone will look back at that and think - "WTF does the guy have so many computers on the desk for?"
Regards.
I can't help be repeat the quote from Penny Arcade here
The quite funny thing about that quote is it is both true and untrue.
All those uber users out there who are pressing on the oh so shiny neon glyphs are going to be the underclass. Oh, except for the ones with Capital. As always, they will be the ruling class.
But, many of those that have "all that sneer" are still going to be creating the actual tech that everyone else uses. They have no need to "get with the fucking program", they are creating the program.
Now, on topic, I actually can't help but wonder how much (not if) they copied from ST. I mean, you get a built in resonance to a set of Ideals the closer you can make it to something that was seen by Millions on TV, week after week. What marketing dept wouldn't like that? Buy my device and you too can live in the Federation.
Regards.
I'm saying that you can't call a company evil for doing something they are legally required to.
And I disagreed. As I stated, I don't believe a corporations right to profit trumps human rights, no matter the laws of any particular country.
Again, with the exception of Nazi Germany where you HAD to sell out people who were in one of the groups slated for death I can't think of many laws make you evil by sheer compliance with them.
I see where you are coming from. Again I disagree. Read my previous post about human rights vs shareholder rights. There are any number of unjust laws that corporations comply with due to profit motives. I think that makes them evil.
If the government's law officials request or order Google to hand over information, that's not evidence that Google doesn't respect user privacy, it's merely evidence that Google is being law abiding citizens and helping the police track down a criminal.
And when that "criminal" is a member of Falun Gong (as their crime)? After all it's the law, so Google is just being a law abiding citizen. Bollocks, I say. Google would be evil in this specific case, in my mind.
So, here we have a specific example. You declare it would not evil (as I understand it), I declare it would be. Do you still stand by your broad statement?:
I'm saying that you can't call a company evil for doing something they are legally required to.
Your posts also seem to presuppose that what a company is trying to do cannot be classified as evil if it is legal due to shareholder rights issues. I would still like you to sort out that from the previous posts.
I guess this is a more important point (at least for me) than the edge case of wondering if a corp is evil only considering actions it is legally required to take in order to profit in that country.
To your point of view, is a company that complies with import/export restrictions not evil, even if procuring 1,000 tasers that will be used for torture? Based on your previous posts I would have to conclude you think that's not evil.
For what it's worth, I don't believe Google's actions in the Brazil case to be evil and their actions in China, as you said, at worst neutral.
Their actions as shown through the leaked doc also seem neutral, at worst, at the moment.
Regards.
Free pass if they're doing something they have to do to comply with a law.
What laws are you thinking of specifically that you have to be evil not to break?
Ah, I see. Hmm. I guess it depends on where you place "making more money" on the hierarchy of morality (that a company should have). You appear to place it right below "comply with the law" and somewhere above "respect human rights". I tend to place "making more money" below "respect human rights".
So, pick your laws, there are plenty that abrogate various human rights that companies are complying with.
Also, I was really more intereted in a corollary. As a 'hacker' i tend to like to see how things come apart.
The quote is:
corporation on Google's scale I feel has an obligation to its employees and shareholders such that the penalty/risk of going against a law on moral grounds compared to the potential gain is not something they can do.
My beef with this is that too often "obligations to shareholders" are a scapegoat for doing evil. In other words "obligations to shareholders" comes above such things as "respect human rights" in those hierarchies. And I don't believe it or those hierarchies.
A question that better captures my objection to this angle is - "Can a corporation comply with the letter of the law and still be evil?"
And that depends on your hierarchy of morality. From your standpoint would that be impossible (since employees and shareholders trump morality)? If it's not impossible, how do you reconcile this with your statement I quoted above?
Regards.
I question that a corporation complying with the law, even at the expense of its customers, can be considered evil.
Wow. Complete moral free pass for corporations. Just wow.
I guess I really have no other questions.
Thanks.
I'm pretty sure the HR department had no say in the matter.
I'm pretty sure "someone" on the board decided to use this to get rid of him no matter what and this was extremely convenient.
I'm sure that otherwise it would have never become known.
How much money do I have to be worth before the rules don't apply to me anymore?
The fact that you ask this is indicative that you are not in that class of beings. People who are in that class are already aware that the rules don't apply to them.
Regards.
Really? You believe that every law is inherently good because it is a law?
Or that one must obey every law to be good (even ones that you feel are evil)?
Hmm.
I mean, my whole statement was: sometimes obeying laws can be considered evil.
I was really wondering whether to post what seems like such an obvious statement, but I guess it was correct, given your response.
If you could, please let me know your reasoning behind "questioning" this.
What questions do you have? Really, I am interested!
I mean, in the degraded case my statement is obviously true. If the law says thay you cannot turn in pedophiles (since you appear to believe the reverse is commendable) is obeying that law evil or not? Or further degraded - consider "lawful" genocides - is obeying that law good?
So, bring on your questions.
Regards