Actually, I think right vs wrong can be learned through experience without parents, or gods. By the time we reach adulthood we've all suffered to some extent, and most of us (the sane ones) have a sense of empathy. So as we grow older we find out what things are hurtful and, hopefully, decide that it's wrong to do those things to others.
I do think the process of gaining morality would be a lot smoother with some good parents, but I still don't see the need for a god.
While I agree with you completely, I don't think that's the big reason why morality without religion is better than with. The big reason is that a grown person should be able to tell between right and wrong without the threat of punishment by a glorified Santa Klaus hanging over their heads. If they can't, that just shows them to be immature at best, dangerous at worst and, ironically, immoral in either case. What happens when their deity tells them to do something horrible? Oh wait, we already know.
And was your Radeon 9100 free? 'Cause I was just looking for a processor. But in addition I got graphics that are good enough for every pc game I have. Which includes Portal, so 2007. And no, I'm not saying that that is awesome. But it's certainly not shit, either. And, as your post demonstrates, only gamers give a fuck.
Intel graphics are only shit for gamers who want maximum settings for recent games. For everything else, and even for casual gamers, they are fine. At this very moment I'm just taking a quick break from playing HL-2 with an I3's graphics. Resolution is fine, fps is fine, cowbell is maxed out. Go look at some youtube videos to see how well the gma 4500 (precurser to the current gen) does with Crysis.
Awesome. I just watched that for the Nth time last night. But I never associated those two guys until your post. But that's definitely how I'll think of Jobs from now on. But let me edit it a bit...
"Ok... Valleywag, fuckface. First, take a big step back... and literally, FUCK YOUR OWN FACE! I don't know what kind of techno-blog bullshit power play you're trying to pull here, but gadgets, Jack, are my territory. So whatever you're thinking, you'd better think again! Otherwise I'm gonna have to head down there and I will rain down an ungodly fucking firestorm upon you! You're gonna have to call fucking Groklaw and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I'm talking about a scorched earth, motherfucker! I will massacre you! I WILL FUCK YOU UP LIKE BRIAN LAM!!! [hangs up] [to assistant] Can you find out who that was?"
How do we know it was him? I've heard a few of these stories about emails from Jobs. Too many to believe, IMO. I'm sitting at home on a Saturday night getting drunk and playing old fps games with my intel graphics and posting on/., and even I don't have time to answer all the emails I get... Just sayin'.
All of the good that you devote to another human being when you have a child can be done by adopting. There are *so* many children out there, in every country, that need parents. Requiring that your child be a genetic descendant is pure egotism. "Forget that other kid that I could be raising, I want a shiny new one, that looks like me and has my genes".
No, this doesn't come from the position that humans are bad and more are worse. It comes from the position that an adopted child you raise will take after you in the most important ways, you still get all the benefits of parenthood and, as a plus, you're doing good for someone else who otherwise might have had a shitty life. The insistence of people on having their own is pure selfishness.
I wouldn't say a lucky guess. You don't have to see something to infer it's existence. The spread of a disease, the way it's spread, and the ways to stop it from spreading could all have led them to the conclusion that the disease was caused by some air-bound, invisible (to them) agent. Those Romans and ancient Indians seemed like smart guys. Presumably, they could imagine that some things were too small to be seen. They did both come up with the idea of the atom, after all.
I agree with you that even kings used to defecate in their own bedrooms, but I'm inclined to see that as a relatively temporary period that was the result of advances in civil engineering outpacing advances in medicine. Kings, and other rich people, got used to the smells because they had to if they wanted to live in their stone castles and fortresses.
Ideally, we would have had plumbing as soon as we stopped being nomads. Unfortunately, we had to deal with centuries (millennia?) of filthy people who shat where they sat. Even the lowest mammals know not to do that (whoa, those rhymed). But if it's the choice between dealing with a stinky house and dying from exposure/bandits, what can you do?
But again, I agree with the idea. Those were some nasty guys. But I suspect they knew it was nasty.
I also have to go through this. Try making a strong password with one or more numbers. Like eiV12f,Ad. And only change the numbers in an easy way to remember. eiV12f,Ad->eiV23f,Ad->eiV34f,Ad.. and so on.
I got first post once, but I didn't even say "first post" or any other misspelled incarnation of it, as I assumed (incorrectly) that someone else would have gotten it by the time my comment went up.
But there it was, at the top of the pile.
Now, when I hear someone say they have no regrets in life, I can only sigh and sadly look down at my feet.
People who exaggerate are worse than Hitler. I've lived in several non-NY American cities, and visited plenty of others, and got around on public transportation just fine. Sometimes they were big cities, sometimes they were small. Sometimes they were even on the west coast.
This is AWESOME!. We'll all be rich! Rich as astronauts! Because, of course, the value that we humans put into diamonds are because of their inherent worth to our quality of life and has nothing to do with the fact that we're a bunch of yahoos..
I fully admit that watches are valuable as a status-symbol. But that's not saying much. People are stupid. They value lumps of metals and rocks, too. Shit whose only useful purpose is to make good conductors and cut stuff.
And as for "pushing the envelope of what is possible..", the scientific achievements that were required to make even the cheapest digital watch is *far* more of a testament to the ingenuity of the human race than anything that will ever be in a mechanical watch. Either my phone, or my cheap digital watch keep better time than any "fine Rolex or Omega" mechanical watch. And I have little to no respect for anyone who would respect me for having one on my wrist.
A work of fiction is basically a creation of an extraordinary situation (the "what if..") with one or more protagonists. It is usually an extraordinary situation or else the story would be boring. The author then writes about how the protagonists deal with it, and how it all plays out. The story isn't really about the situation, it's about the human reaction to the situation. That's where we get our vicarious fix. Does the protagonist deal with it the way she does because she is an amazing human being? Or because she has fatal flaws? How would we deal with the situation?, etc. One of the challenges is to have the protagonists behave in a believable manner. That is a challenge because, this being an extraordinary situation, it's not one that we get to observe often.
The *only* difference with science-fiction is that the situation is even more extraordinary. So extraordinary that it's never happened, probably never will, and may be physically impossible. But the story is *still* about how the protagonist deals with the situation, not about the aliens/black-hole/time-machine. Our human reaction to the entirely-unheard-of situation is the interesting part of science-fiction, not the situation itself. And the fact that it's a situation which may only exist in the author's mind makes the challenge to make the human reaction believable even harder.
I was amazed to see how many stars you can see with your naked eyes when I visited the 'dark' continent of Africa few years back.
Several years ago I was on a bus at night in the middle of Tanzania. At one point I found myself looking up into the sky at some large puffy black things. It took me several moments to realize that they were clouds, and they were blocking the starlight. I was so used to clouds being *brighter* than the rest of the sky due to reflected light from the city, not darker.
Not so true anymore. MLB, NHL and NBA offer online viewing, for a price. If you're only casually into sports, it's not worth it. But if you only have cable in order to watch sports, it's a no-brainer. Their price is cheaper than a cable package, and offers more games.
And I, for one, welcome our new TV overlords. I already ditched cable 'cause I was sick and tired of paying for 100+ channels, when all I wanted were the 3 sports channels. I haven't signed up yet, but when March Madness comes around, I probably will.
Yeah, I thought you were probably joking, which is why I tried to be funny in my response. And anyway, being an NDP supporter, I've grown a pretty thick skin, so I wouldn't have been offended even if you weren't joking.
Well, I don't know. Let me see... umm.. There was that one thing.. Man, it's on the top of my head. You know, the thing that's been used to compare Canada and the States so often recently... What was that? Something about health care? Shit, this is going to bug me all night...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I think right vs wrong can be learned through experience without parents, or gods. By the time we reach adulthood we've all suffered to some extent, and most of us (the sane ones) have a sense of empathy. So as we grow older we find out what things are hurtful and, hopefully, decide that it's wrong to do those things to others.
I do think the process of gaining morality would be a lot smoother with some good parents, but I still don't see the need for a god.
While I agree with you completely, I don't think that's the big reason why morality without religion is better than with. The big reason is that a grown person should be able to tell between right and wrong without the threat of punishment by a glorified Santa Klaus hanging over their heads. If they can't, that just shows them to be immature at best, dangerous at worst and, ironically, immoral in either case. What happens when their deity tells them to do something horrible? Oh wait, we already know.
And was your Radeon 9100 free? 'Cause I was just looking for a processor. But in addition I got graphics that are good enough for every pc game I have. Which includes Portal, so 2007. And no, I'm not saying that that is awesome. But it's certainly not shit, either. And, as your post demonstrates, only gamers give a fuck.
Intel graphics are only shit for gamers who want maximum settings for recent games. For everything else, and even for casual gamers, they are fine. At this very moment I'm just taking a quick break from playing HL-2 with an I3's graphics. Resolution is fine, fps is fine, cowbell is maxed out. Go look at some youtube videos to see how well the gma 4500 (precurser to the current gen) does with Crysis.
Awesome. I just watched that for the Nth time last night. But I never associated those two guys until your post. But that's definitely how I'll think of Jobs from now on. But let me edit it a bit...
"Ok... Valleywag, fuckface. First, take a big step back... and literally, FUCK YOUR OWN FACE! I don't know what kind of techno-blog bullshit power play you're trying to pull here, but gadgets, Jack, are my territory. So whatever you're thinking, you'd better think again! Otherwise I'm gonna have to head down there and I will rain down an ungodly fucking firestorm upon you! You're gonna have to call fucking Groklaw and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I'm talking about a scorched earth, motherfucker! I will massacre you! I WILL FUCK YOU UP LIKE BRIAN LAM!!! [hangs up] [to assistant] Can you find out who that was?"
How do we know it was him? I've heard a few of these stories about emails from Jobs. Too many to believe, IMO. I'm sitting at home on a Saturday night getting drunk and playing old fps games with my intel graphics and posting on /., and even I don't have time to answer all the emails I get... Just sayin'.
Relax. He lived, so it's ok to joke about it. If I ever survive something like that I'll be joking about it all the time.
All of the good that you devote to another human being when you have a child can be done by adopting. There are *so* many children out there, in every country, that need parents. Requiring that your child be a genetic descendant is pure egotism. "Forget that other kid that I could be raising, I want a shiny new one, that looks like me and has my genes".
No, this doesn't come from the position that humans are bad and more are worse. It comes from the position that an adopted child you raise will take after you in the most important ways, you still get all the benefits of parenthood and, as a plus, you're doing good for someone else who otherwise might have had a shitty life. The insistence of people on having their own is pure selfishness.
I wouldn't say a lucky guess. You don't have to see something to infer it's existence. The spread of a disease, the way it's spread, and the ways to stop it from spreading could all have led them to the conclusion that the disease was caused by some air-bound, invisible (to them) agent. Those Romans and ancient Indians seemed like smart guys. Presumably, they could imagine that some things were too small to be seen. They did both come up with the idea of the atom, after all.
I agree with you that even kings used to defecate in their own bedrooms, but I'm inclined to see that as a relatively temporary period that was the result of advances in civil engineering outpacing advances in medicine. Kings, and other rich people, got used to the smells because they had to if they wanted to live in their stone castles and fortresses.
Ideally, we would have had plumbing as soon as we stopped being nomads. Unfortunately, we had to deal with centuries (millennia?) of filthy people who shat where they sat. Even the lowest mammals know not to do that (whoa, those rhymed). But if it's the choice between dealing with a stinky house and dying from exposure/bandits, what can you do?
But again, I agree with the idea. Those were some nasty guys. But I suspect they knew it was nasty.
I also have to go through this. Try making a strong password with one or more numbers. Like eiV12f,Ad. And only change the numbers in an easy way to remember. eiV12f,Ad->eiV23f,Ad->eiV34f,Ad .. and so on.
Good thing you didn't waste it.
I got first post once, but I didn't even say "first post" or any other misspelled incarnation of it, as I assumed (incorrectly) that someone else would have gotten it by the time my comment went up.
But there it was, at the top of the pile.
Now, when I hear someone say they have no regrets in life, I can only sigh and sadly look down at my feet.
People who exaggerate are worse than Hitler. I've lived in several non-NY American cities, and visited plenty of others, and got around on public transportation just fine. Sometimes they were big cities, sometimes they were small. Sometimes they were even on the west coast.
I didn't see this one in there... I once typed it into some code by accident. It's more common than you'd expect.
This is AWESOME!. We'll all be rich! Rich as astronauts! Because, of course, the value that we humans put into diamonds are because of their inherent worth to our quality of life and has nothing to do with the fact that we're a bunch of yahoos..
Haven't you heard? Netcraft is dead.
Umm... Netcraft confirms it?
If you ask me, yes. Yes it is.
I fully admit that watches are valuable as a status-symbol. But that's not saying much. People are stupid. They value lumps of metals and rocks, too. Shit whose only useful purpose is to make good conductors and cut stuff.
And as for "pushing the envelope of what is possible..", the scientific achievements that were required to make even the cheapest digital watch is *far* more of a testament to the ingenuity of the human race than anything that will ever be in a mechanical watch. Either my phone, or my cheap digital watch keep better time than any "fine Rolex or Omega" mechanical watch. And I have little to no respect for anyone who would respect me for having one on my wrist.
In summary, fancy watches are for stupid yahoos.
A work of fiction is basically a creation of an extraordinary situation (the "what if..") with one or more protagonists. It is usually an extraordinary situation or else the story would be boring. The author then writes about how the protagonists deal with it, and how it all plays out. The story isn't really about the situation, it's about the human reaction to the situation. That's where we get our vicarious fix. Does the protagonist deal with it the way she does because she is an amazing human being? Or because she has fatal flaws? How would we deal with the situation?, etc. One of the challenges is to have the protagonists behave in a believable manner. That is a challenge because, this being an extraordinary situation, it's not one that we get to observe often.
The *only* difference with science-fiction is that the situation is even more extraordinary. So extraordinary that it's never happened, probably never will, and may be physically impossible. But the story is *still* about how the protagonist deals with the situation, not about the aliens/black-hole/time-machine. Our human reaction to the entirely-unheard-of situation is the interesting part of science-fiction, not the situation itself. And the fact that it's a situation which may only exist in the author's mind makes the challenge to make the human reaction believable even harder.
I was amazed to see how many stars you can see with your naked eyes when I visited the 'dark' continent of Africa few years back.
Several years ago I was on a bus at night in the middle of Tanzania. At one point I found myself looking up into the sky at some large puffy black things. It took me several moments to realize that they were clouds, and they were blocking the starlight. I was so used to clouds being *brighter* than the rest of the sky due to reflected light from the city, not darker.
Holy crap, it's even better than I imagined! :)
Picture Half-life's Xen, Doom's Hell, or some Final Fantasy dimension rendered with these. Awesome.
Not so true anymore. MLB, NHL and NBA offer online viewing, for a price. If you're only casually into sports, it's not worth it. But if you only have cable in order to watch sports, it's a no-brainer. Their price is cheaper than a cable package, and offers more games.
And I, for one, welcome our new TV overlords. I already ditched cable 'cause I was sick and tired of paying for 100+ channels, when all I wanted were the 3 sports channels. I haven't signed up yet, but when March Madness comes around, I probably will.
Yeah, I thought you were probably joking, which is why I tried to be funny in my response. And anyway, being an NDP supporter, I've grown a pretty thick skin, so I wouldn't have been offended even if you weren't joking.
Well, I don't know. Let me see... umm.. There was that one thing.. Man, it's on the top of my head. You know, the thing that's been used to compare Canada and the States so often recently... What was that? Something about health care? Shit, this is going to bug me all night...