This is, presumably, because most of the programming languages (you're likely to use) were created by English speakers, so the keyboard layout they are easiest to code with is UK/USA. Had the language been invented by a Polish guy, you can bet he'd be using an entirely different character set to end lines etc.
Well being is hardly subjective. The reason why you insist the argument is subjective is because you're trying to simply put it away in that box of 'subjective morality' you created long ago and never thought about again. Things are changing though. Simply think of how simple it is to know that life in the west results in more well being then life in, say, Zimbabwe. I'm sure you can think of many reasons why this is so. These reasons such as economy, health, education, legal system etc are all factual and hence in the domain of science. We can look at these and decide which ones are more conductive to well being and which are not. The same is true for veiling women or beating children in school. These behaviors can be looked at scientifically and we can know if they lead to more or to less happy people. We can know this for a fact. This is all that matters.
This huge box called subjective morality in which failed philosophers have historically thrown all attempts to look at morality scientifically, is about to be taken apart. It's about time too. You can think for yourself and be at the beginning of the wave, or you can parrot what you've been taught until everyone else around you figures it out first. Your choice.
The Sam Harris TED video I posted earlier will explain everything I said much more eloquently and with much greater clarity, for anyone who wants to listen, btw.
We can use wellbeing instead of happiness and we don't need to define a level of absolute wellbeing. This is unnecessary. It is enough if know which decisions/states will lead to more wellbeing than others.
No, those are primary moral questions. Because the happiness of others is directly related to the wellbeing of the society as a whole and the stability and the wellbeing of the society as a whole is clearly the catalyst of our own wellbeing. Morality needn't be more complicated than that (though the term is loaded with religious bullshit).
In addition to that, we are programmed to care about others. This is a simple matter of nature. I have no interest to talk about exceptions or to discuss why our chemistry works the way it does, but the matter of fact is that most people care about their fellow human beings.
Again, this is simply in addition to the first point, which places our concern for our own wellbeing above that of others. We, are, as you say selfish beings. But we are also reasonable and intelligent beings.
As far as science not being able to tell us what is better. This is patently wrong. "Better" simply means better at producing our wellbeing and that of others. Any other argument relating somehow to some morality of the entire universe and/or unconscious matter is clearly ludicrous. Only people in funny hats need be concerned with the opinion of the universe, the rest of us can be content with providing a better society for ourselves.
Now, the question you propose is in reality very simple to answer within this framework of wellbeing for myself and others, like yourself. We both know that the extinction of the human race will not make ourselves or our children happier, or even existent for that matter. It is only when you attempt to think of morality as somehow applying to the entire universe where things become obtuse.
So again, within the framework of providing wellbeing for conscious beings (and we know our level of concern scales with the level of consciousness a being exhibits), these question simply become question like "Will destroying the entire human race be conductive of a happy society".
Well Mr. Slippery, now that I've thought about it, no, I think it will not.
Not only that, but scientific thinking is arguably the best way to think about morals. What makes us and others around us happy? What decreases suffering both ours and that of others?
Surely, those are questions that have factual answers and some approaches will be better and some worse at promoting wellbeing and decreasing suffering. This puts moral questions squarely into the realm of science.
Again, watch the Sam Harris video for a much clearer and brutally honest talk on the topic of science and morality.
What is the other side of committing genocide? Please tell me, I'd love to hear you generalize that too.
Again, you're trying to create a generalization that applies to both the American civil war and the war in ex-Yugoslavia. There is no common thread there. We were (five) different nationalities and cultures with different wishes for the futures of our countries. We split, and now we are different countries. I know even you can tell the difference in sides as you went for "almost as nasty" in your initial post. Though, you may want to learn, in a slightly more detailed way, the histories of our countries before playing expert on slashdot.
Of course, none of this bears any similarity to the civil war in USA.
As a Bosnian, let me point out that neither Croats nor Muslims in Bosnia were nearly as bad as Serbs. Maybe if you took a bit of time from trying to fit everything into one tidy world view where your neat generalization applies to everything, you'd learn that Serbia went to war with Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia and finally Kosovo. This alone should make it blindingly obvious to anyone who the bad guy is
Because, sometimes there really is a bad guy and someone needs to make him pay.
My apologies if that ruins your neat little theory of Europe vs USA culture.
oh, certainly. i've been using vista for a few months now and i like it just fine. i think businesses are just waiting to see if there are any major bugs and, of course, to test their specific software packages for compatibility. there is obviously the speed issue too, but that's always the case with a new os. mind you, i did have to disable all of the 'security' features to be able to work with it.
i just found it funny that the desktop question applied so well to vista this time.
it would, from microsoft's point of view. unless you think that vista is actually good and are using it, unlike most of us here, in which case it would be pretty bad.
mind you, i'm not saying they will take all the horrible new 'features' from vista and load them onto xp, i'm just saying it might make business sense for them to put some pressure on xp users. it'd certainly get people to move on to vista sooner.
if they could only make it to, like, surf myspace too. that'd make it totally worth the money.
i'd buy two of them just so i can do both at the same time.
the article should have been named: 'should apple buy ibm? macs are already unique and beautiful snowflakes, now running 30% more uniquely and beautifuly!'
but amd can still make the fans. to keep cool, you know?
indeed, it is one of the many mysteries surrounding amd and apple fanboism.
personally, i believe they multiply by cell division, during amd/apple keynotes.
Slashdot Mirror
This is, presumably, because most of the programming languages (you're likely to use) were created by English speakers, so the keyboard layout they are easiest to code with is UK/USA. Had the language been invented by a Polish guy, you can bet he'd be using an entirely different character set to end lines etc.
Well being is hardly subjective. The reason why you insist the argument is subjective is because you're trying to simply put it away in that box of 'subjective morality' you created long ago and never thought about again. Things are changing though. Simply think of how simple it is to know that life in the west results in more well being then life in, say, Zimbabwe. I'm sure you can think of many reasons why this is so. These reasons such as economy, health, education, legal system etc are all factual and hence in the domain of science. We can look at these and decide which ones are more conductive to well being and which are not. The same is true for veiling women or beating children in school. These behaviors can be looked at scientifically and we can know if they lead to more or to less happy people. We can know this for a fact. This is all that matters.
This huge box called subjective morality in which failed philosophers have historically thrown all attempts to look at morality scientifically, is about to be taken apart. It's about time too. You can think for yourself and be at the beginning of the wave, or you can parrot what you've been taught until everyone else around you figures it out first. Your choice.
The Sam Harris TED video I posted earlier will explain everything I said much more eloquently and with much greater clarity, for anyone who wants to listen, btw.
We can use wellbeing instead of happiness and we don't need to define a level of absolute wellbeing. This is unnecessary. It is enough if know which decisions/states will lead to more wellbeing than others.
No, those are primary moral questions. Because the happiness of others is directly related to the wellbeing of the society as a whole and the stability and the wellbeing of the society as a whole is clearly the catalyst of our own wellbeing. Morality needn't be more complicated than that (though the term is loaded with religious bullshit).
In addition to that, we are programmed to care about others. This is a simple matter of nature. I have no interest to talk about exceptions or to discuss why our chemistry works the way it does, but the matter of fact is that most people care about their fellow human beings.
Again, this is simply in addition to the first point, which places our concern for our own wellbeing above that of others. We, are, as you say selfish beings. But we are also reasonable and intelligent beings.
As far as science not being able to tell us what is better. This is patently wrong. "Better" simply means better at producing our wellbeing and that of others. Any other argument relating somehow to some morality of the entire universe and/or unconscious matter is clearly ludicrous. Only people in funny hats need be concerned with the opinion of the universe, the rest of us can be content with providing a better society for ourselves.
Now, the question you propose is in reality very simple to answer within this framework of wellbeing for myself and others, like yourself. We both know that the extinction of the human race will not make ourselves or our children happier, or even existent for that matter. It is only when you attempt to think of morality as somehow applying to the entire universe where things become obtuse.
So again, within the framework of providing wellbeing for conscious beings (and we know our level of concern scales with the level of consciousness a being exhibits), these question simply become question like "Will destroying the entire human race be conductive of a happy society".
Well Mr. Slippery, now that I've thought about it, no, I think it will not.
No, you are wrong. Science can answer moral questions, as Sam Harris eloquently argues in his latest TED speech
Not only that, but scientific thinking is arguably the best way to think about morals. What makes us and others around us happy? What decreases suffering both ours and that of others?
Surely, those are questions that have factual answers and some approaches will be better and some worse at promoting wellbeing and decreasing suffering. This puts moral questions squarely into the realm of science.
Again, watch the Sam Harris video for a much clearer and brutally honest talk on the topic of science and morality.
What is the other side of committing genocide? Please tell me, I'd love to hear you generalize that too.
Again, you're trying to create a generalization that applies to both the American civil war and the war in ex-Yugoslavia. There is no common thread there. We were (five) different nationalities and cultures with different wishes for the futures of our countries. We split, and now we are different countries. I know even you can tell the difference in sides as you went for "almost as nasty" in your initial post. Though, you may want to learn, in a slightly more detailed way, the histories of our countries before playing expert on slashdot.
Of course, none of this bears any similarity to the civil war in USA.
As a Bosnian, let me point out that neither Croats nor Muslims in Bosnia were nearly as bad as Serbs. Maybe if you took a bit of time from trying to fit everything into one tidy world view where your neat generalization applies to everything, you'd learn that Serbia went to war with Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia and finally Kosovo. This alone should make it blindingly obvious to anyone who the bad guy is
Because, sometimes there really is a bad guy and someone needs to make him pay.
My apologies if that ruins your neat little theory of Europe vs USA culture.
in modern japan
thermodynamics obey you
??? profit
oh, certainly. i've been using vista for a few months now and i like it just fine. i think businesses are just waiting to see if there are any major bugs and, of course, to test their specific software packages for compatibility. there is obviously the speed issue too, but that's always the case with a new os. mind you, i did have to disable all of the 'security' features to be able to work with it. i just found it funny that the desktop question applied so well to vista this time.
will 2008 be the year of vista on the desktop? stay tuned to find out!
it would, from microsoft's point of view. unless you think that vista is actually good and are using it, unlike most of us here, in which case it would be pretty bad. mind you, i'm not saying they will take all the horrible new 'features' from vista and load them onto xp, i'm just saying it might make business sense for them to put some pressure on xp users. it'd certainly get people to move on to vista sooner.
i can't help thinking sp3 will make xp so much like vista, that you might as well go the whole way. sure hope i'm wrong though.
don't worry about it, god is patching that on tuesday.
if they could only make it to, like, surf myspace too. that'd make it totally worth the money. i'd buy two of them just so i can do both at the same time.
cool, they got it down to two steps. 1. show ads without actual content 2. profit!
the article should have been named: 'should apple buy ibm? macs are already unique and beautiful snowflakes, now running 30% more uniquely and beautifuly!' but amd can still make the fans. to keep cool, you know?
indeed, it is one of the many mysteries surrounding amd and apple fanboism. personally, i believe they multiply by cell division, during amd/apple keynotes.