Let me get this straight. You can remember dozens of phone numbers, your bank pin, your social security number, your address, your wife's birthday, the final score in the last 7 super bowls but you can't remember an 6-8(ish) digit string of numbers, letters and a special character that YOU GOT TO CHOOSE? Yeah, we get to choose, except you tell us not to choose any of those easy things.
I find it interesting that you identify these services as critical. Last I checked, none of these were necessary for sustaining life or maintaining a livable environment. "Critical" always requires a "for what". No one claims the Internet/TV/phone is critical for *staying alive*, but they are critical for fully participating in modern society.
I wish people would actually read what I write before obliquely accusing me of a lack of reading comprehension skills. My original post said "The FCC may have something to say about that", not "they will have something to say about that". I'm quite aware of the FCC's rules regarding common vs. exclusive use areas, thank you. Hrm... The part *you quoted* in your initial post *strongly* implies you have done exactly what you're complaining about: "They live in an apartment building that won't let them install a satellite dish, like the majority of new yorkers, so basically they are at the mercy of Time Warner cable."
Although if you *truly* did mean exactly what you wrote, and fully understood what you were replying to, as well as being fully aware of the details of the FCC rules, then I'll definitely call your writing skills into question, because you apparently didn't communicate your thoughts very well, and it sounded much more like you didn't really know what you were talking about. And even if you did, radish's post was much more clear and informative than yours.
The problem then becomes we have wasteful spending like a "fiber line to nowhere." I'd rather spend the money, thereby unavoidably "wasting" some of it, than to not spend the money at all.
Think of the various government-built roads, highways and interstates. Many are a waste, are unused or in disrepair. Even so, even with all the waste and all the negative side-effects, we're *much* better off for having had it done.
"Dark fiber" and "fiber to nowhere" is now an extant resource which *can* be utilized (and in *many* places *is* being utilized).
As a general rule, some wasted infrastructure is better than no infrastructure at all.
Pay attention! The last mile IS controlled by the government Is contradicted by:
The fact that your local government sells monopolies to the first highest bidder doesn't mean that Time Warner is originally in control. The problem is that the government abdicated any useful control of the "last mile" in the name of free-market fundamentalism.
Even the most minimal of market control, such as requiring Time-Warner/Comcast/etc. to allow competitors access to that "last mile", thus returning competition to the market. Then this "I'm gonna charge $30 for the bandwidth of a $6 HD rental" nonsense would be corrected by market forces. As it is, people aren't going to switch providers, they just won't take advantage of the potential of the Internet. In this scenario, *everyone* loses (even Time-Warner).
If the government is going to grant a full-monopoly, then the government absolutely *must* take an active role in regulating the services. You can't rely on the free market if you've set up a monopoly.
50MB/mo or not, they still take up a spot on the DSLAM---there are costs beyond sending data in and out of the network. I highly doubt Time-Warner Internet customers take up a slot in a DSLAM. Although many definitely will if T-W follows through with this ridiculous plan.
Regardless of all that, the technology hardware footprint of a single home Internet user is really *very* small, and definitely only a minute fraction of the standard $50/month bill.
I think you've got it completely backwards. Open Source is *not* about innovation, it's about building solid products. In general, the only thing truly innovative about Open Source software is the Open Source model itself.
Innovation is a by-product of research, and research is something that is almost *never* done by Open Source developers. What Open Source is really good at is applying innovations already discovered. Essentially, engineering using known techniques.
Now let's go manufacturing open source hardware... And what innovations would you expect from Open Source hardware (aside from the model itself)?
That's why Open Source is not taking over from the end-user perspective--it's just not innovating enough. It's only for the types of applications which are essentially solved, where progress is made by incrementally refining something, that Open Source is taking over and will be unstoppable.
Research is expensive. Very expensive. The only reason Open Source has taken off as a software development model is that software development can be done very cheaply. It will be quite difficult for an Open Source team to create new and innovative hardware. They just won't have the resources.
It's clear you're just a "let's be realistic, Windows is king, end of story" kind of guy. I don't really disagree with you on that count as far as generalities go, but you're over-applying that mindset.
Just like the "Windows is the most popular OS" is an immutable fact, so is "all new Macs ship with both 64-bit CPUs and a 64-bit OS", as is, "a very small percentage of new PCs ship with 64-bit Windows". The only real question is whether Windows' overall market share is enough to make up for the abysmal fraction of which is made of up 64-bit Windows. Since the Mac makes up about 7% of the current market share, around over 8% of PCs must ship with a 64-bit Windows in order to keep up.
I would be interested to see more general numbers than those from Steam, but merely saying "those numbers don't match my worldview, so therefore they are invalid" is not a valid counter-argument. At least I *have* provided some numbers. All you've provided is your intuition.
Huh ? No meaningful "fraction" of PCs has been sold without a 64 bit CPU for quite some time. While there are plenty of 64-bit CPUs available, I suspect the low-end chips account for a significant share of the PC market (and 0% of the Mac market). But I have no numbers, so it's just "is not", "is so".
It would be jaw-droppingly astounding if that were true, given 64 bit OS X has only been out for a matter of months, whereas even 64-bit Vista has been out for over a year. It's been out for about a year, and no one buys it. Right now, *every Mac* ships with Leopard, and Apple has sold millions of retail copies of Leopard and millions of Core 2 Duos w/ Tiger.
Personally, I'd be amazed if there were more OS X 10.5 boxes out there than 64-bit XP boxes (let alone including 64-bit Windows 2003 machines as well). Well, numbers are hard to find, but from Steam, the combined total of 64-bit Windows accounted for 3.2% of their users in November of last year. One would assume Valve users would be more likely to be running a 64-bit version of Windows compared with the average user (for example, aside from gamers being more likely to be enthusiasts who will actually seek *out* a 64-bit OS, they are also significantly less likely to be running on older hardware which cannot even *run* a 64-bit OS).
So, while Windows may have a ~90% market share, and Mac OS ~7%, even among the Windows high end enthusiast segment, 64-bit Windows only comprises ~3%. So, while there are still too many assumptions to say "Leopard on 64-bit CPUs is x million, all 64-bit Windows is y million", the numbers we *do* have show the uptake of 64-bit Windows is a *very* small percentage of all new PCs, and the uptake of 64-bit Leopard running Macs is 100% of all new Macs.
However, even if Windows 64-bit *is* more common than Mac 64-bit, the momentum is on the Mac's side, and none of this has any bearing on your statement (which was what this all is in reply to) that, "neither Linux's, or OSX's, situations have really changed markedly since it was written (with the exception of OS X gaining full "64-bitness")." I'd say Mac OS X's "situation" *has* changed markedly. Apple went from selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 32-bit OS to selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 64-bit OS. I don't see how you can not call that a "marked change".
Reading that paper today, it's difficult to see how anyone could assert the "winner" _won't_ be Windows. It has all the hardware support, the software support, the inertia, the legacy support and the "features" that ESR identifies as being necessary, while neither Linux's, or OSX's, situations have really changed markedly since it was written (with the exception of OS X gaining full "64-bitness"). I wouldn't be too sure about that. *Right now*, every Mac sold ships with a 64-bit OS, whereas even on the fraction of PCs sold with 64-bit CPUs, only a fraction of *those* actually run 64-bit Vista.
I would be very surprised if Mac OS X wasn't the most widely deployed 64-bit OS.
While I think you are overstating WINE's compatibility, and XP's incompatibility, even assuming it's as you portray it, that would only make Linux more compatible with old software the same way it's more compatible with old hardware. This may very well be seen as a benefit, but it's not something that could fairly be called "more compatible" without pointing out the condition "with older hardware and software".
Yes, in fact everyone must believe in some idea fully. Not really. Just because I act on something as though it's an absolute (i.e., the sun will rise tomorrow) does not mean I must therefore believe in it fully. But like you said:
However, this isn't really what you are arguing about. So I'll just leave it at that.
there is an absolute universal moral rule I disagree. Morality is a human thing, and therefore subjective (i.e., varies depending on the human state at any given time).
However, since there is a fact of the matter about which is important in each case then the the function mapping situations to the correct moral choice will be an absolute moral principle. Except that I hold that this function mapping is not immutable. Murder is generally considered to be immoral these days. But back when there were no police or courts, murder might be your only recourse in certain situations (in fact, that's still true today, for example when a burglar has your family at gunpoint, it's generally not considered immoral to murder him (s/murder/kill/ in this paragraph if you must, the overall meaning doesn't change)).
My point being that any specific mapping is not going to be complete, universal and perpetual. Instead, it's highly dynamic. The morality of the jungle is different from the morality of the city. The morality on a sinking ship is different from the morality in the theater. The morality of 1776 is different from the morality of 2008.
Morality is a subjective thing. It always has been and always will be. Fundamentalism is contrary to this fact and that is *precisely* why it fails so miserably as a mode of human existence.
I'm not talking about objective reality (what you're referring to), but subjective reality. Our reasonably precise view of objective reality is limited pretty much to (as I already stated) math and physics (and to lesser degrees the other hard sciences). Everything else is more and more subjective, due to our imperfect and limited senses and our imperfect minds.
Your stair example is physics, a subject upon which there should be little contention, except at the edges which are very far removed from our daily experiences.
There is exactly 1 truth, which is a partial unknown. I'd call the universe more than just partially unknown. It's monumentally greater than 99% unknown, and it's those unknowns which are *exactly* the types of things which should *not* fall under fundamentalist views. The reason for this is fairly simple:
1. Given we *don't* know the answer 2. we are really just guessing, 3. so it's foolish to think our guess will happen to be exactly and universally true.
(this is one of the most basic ideas behind science)
For that reason, we *must* be willing to let reality mold our beliefs, and not the other way around.
It's kind of ironic that you use the stair example, since that really exposes the flaw of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism takes an idea and states that it is absolutely and universally true and takes no heed of reality. If a fundamentalist thinks that jumping backwards over some stairs will not result in injury (think: snake handlers), they will not let reality affect their beliefs, and instead, when they *are* injured, they make excuses ("I didn't have enough faith", "god works in mysterious ways", "god will not be tested", etc.), when the obvious truth is that jumping backwards over stairs is *highly* likely to cause injury.
You're right that I haven't read the article, and wasn't meaning to defend it in particular, just the notion that engineer-types seem prone to fundamentalism (not necessarily of the jihadist type, just generic "One True Way" type things, like Linux distros or grammar sticklers).
On the specific topic of Islamic fundamentalism, I would suspect engineers to be less likely to fall into that group due to being more immune to religion in general, although I could see those engineers who *do* fully accept a religion to be more likely to be of the extremist-type, due to the tendency towards taking things literally, absolutely, and to their logical ends (traits which help engineers in subjects like math and physics, but don't apply to pretty much anything else).
Nor will they be - MS no longer employ people capable of writing a kernel. Dave Cutler, who was the lead architect of the NT kernel still works for Microsoft today. Given his kernel work since joining Microsoft, I don't think he's as good a counter-example as his pre-MS work implies.
Re:Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...
on
Time for a Vista Do-Over?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Tell you what, Microsoft: You come up with an OS that outperforms XP Pro SP2, has some useful new features, is efficient, compatible, maybe even costs less, and then blow me, and I'll give your new OS a try. How's that sound? Sounds like you haven't found ALL the great things about Linux yet. I've highlighted three things which I don't think really apply to Linux over Windows. The first one is the biggest problem with Linux in general. I can't think of any "useful new features" Linux has ever provided for the end-user. There are plenty of such features for the sysadmin and programmer.
The second item is not so bad as to be a critical shortcoming, but it's difficult to call Linux more compatible than Windows for anything other than old hardware (which is one of Linux's strengths, but this doesn't carry over to a general claim of better compatibility).
As for the third item... Maybe I'm just trying the wrong distros.
While I agree with your general statement about human nature, I think that FSF-style fundamentalism is quite distinct from sports fans or brand loyalists. FSF-style fundamentalism starts from a specific logical premise and seeks to mold the world to match those premises. It pretends to be logical. Sports fans and brand loyalists do not tend to come to their conclusions as the end of a series of logical steps.
BTW, I don't mean to pick on the FSF specifically (I'm quite sympathetic to their ideals), they are just a great example of the form of fundamentalism I'm referring to.
If it wasn't a personal name, it would be 'Thank the god' or 'Thank a god' or 'Thank some god' or 'Thank any god' or 'Thank whichever god was responsible for that near escape!' The phrase makes no sense unless the word is a proper name, and so it should take a capital letter. Well, thank goodness you cleared that up.
God gets a capital letter because it's a proper noun, because it's a name, and whether or not the thing it names exists as a clearly-defined entity is quite irrelevant. My opposition to capitalization is not due to the fact that I don't believe god exists. It stems primarily from the fact that, the Christian god's name is not "God", it's just that to Christians, it's the *only* god, so they capitalize its name, not out of respect for English grammar, but to point out that there is only one true god. Just like how Jesus' name is not "Lord". Additionally, when I talk about not believing in god, or talk about the general concept of a god, etc., I'm not confining my comments to the Christian god, but to the whole realm of gods (and goddesses).
Oh, it makes it perfectly clear. It says 'My disdain for religious belief is so important to me that I'm wilfully going to violate the rules of written English just to emphasise my contempt for the whole concept.' No, it just means I'm not going to follow a rule (which I don't even think you are applying correctly--but even if you are) if it muddies my position.
"God" is a concept, and it's not a concept I feel worth capitalizing except when at the beginning of a sentence. To do otherwise would imply a reverence for something which I hold in contempt. I don't hold the rules of English grammar as an exceptionally high ideal either. I do make an effort to follow best practices, but will gladly deviate from them if it helps communication. To do otherwise would defeat the whole point of using a language to begin with.
Please don't do it. Please don't tell me what to do. I am fully capable of making my own decisions, and offending your sense of proper grammar is not a great concern of mine.
I'm not sure exactly what you are getting at, but:
But if you believe in equality of outcome (ie. you believe everybody should not have the same chances, but the same amount of money), then you can't believe in motive. So you *have* to believe in means. is not true at all in any way whatsoever.
One does not have to "believe" fully in one idea or another. Sometimes equality of outcome is important, sometimes equality of opportunity is important, sometimes *inequality* is important.
Sometimes it's the means which matter most, sometimes is the motive. Sometimes it's the ends. Or any combination thereof.
To take your examples, guns *do* kill people (the literally-minded might chime in that it's the bullet, but pedantry aside, the point stands). People kill people. Both statements are true. Some people with a gun are *more* likely to kill someone. Some people with a gun are *less* likely to kill someone. To take any side of the argument as an absolute (i.e., fundamentalism) is foolish, because it contradicts reality (the key flaw in fundamentalism and extremism).
Your other example, of the opposition to nuclear power further illuminates this point. There's no single reason behind most things. To elevate one reason above all others is, almost always, counter-productive, because it's counter-reality.
I don't know exactly what those examples really have to do with what I wrote before, since I stated that equating engineers with terrorists is silly. On the other hand, the apparent tendency towards fundamentalism (not *Islamic* fundamentalism, nor terrorist fundamentalism, just some (often relatively benign) form of fundamentalism, even if it's just emacs vs. vi) among engineer-types is worth looking into. There may be nothing there, but even a cursory familiarity with slashdot gives the impression that there's *something* to the notion.
Personally, I think it has to do with engineers being very literal-minded (hence all the grammar nazi's and people whose pet peeves are something as silly as when people say, "I could care less"), and also above-average in intelligence (or at least in thoughtfulness), which sort of works off each other leading to strong opinions about the way things should be. For the engineer, the ideals tend to be technical (i.e., which is the best way to write a program, what's the proper way to phrase a sentence, what exactly is the way to measure the Kessel Run, etc.). For the jihadists, the ideals are theological. It seems like fundamentalism is something innate to humans which certain external and internal forces can amplify. It also seems fairly clear that fundamentalism never seems to lead to good ends (except in the very rare cases where a concept truly does appear universally valid, such as with math and physics), so it's worthwhile to study it in situations where it arises, both in its most evil forms, and in its more benign.
Not everyone who says, "thank god", is actually referring to any specific god and is merely using a colloquialism.
As for the "Him", "His", nonsense, aren't people referring to a *specific* "him" in those cases (that was part of your argument)?
"God" isn't a him or a her. It's a concept. People who consider that concept to be a real entity tend to want to codify that belief with a capital g. Those that don't tend to not want to be confused for someone who considers god to be anything more than a concept, and prefer to lowercase g in order to make *that* position clear.
To tell people to adhere to (what you claim to be proper) grammar at the expense of the meaning they are trying to convey is to apply (what you claim to be proper) grammar where it doesn't belong.
Words are meant to convey meaning, not meant to adhere to an arbitrary set of rules. When those rules work *against* the conveyance of meaning, adherence to those rules becomes of questionable value.
Yeah, *that* doesn't sound like a fundamentalist mindset.
Anyone who takes an idea and expands to into a universal absolute (with the exception of a few situations where this is reasonable, such as in math and physics) is a fundamentalist. That's what the Islamic terrorists are doing, is what strong libertarians do (which you appear to be, although you could be an objectivist--yet another form of fundamentalism).
That's not to equate the evilness of all forms of fundamentalism, but merely to compare the mindset, which seems quite reasonable.
As for engineers having that mindset, reading any form of geek site, it seems like there's a lot of fundamentalism among this group. GNU, the FSF, and much of Open Source shows *strong* signs of fundamentalism.
Comparing engineers with terrorists is just sensationalism, but noting the level of fundamentalism among engineers, at least on the surface, seems worth investigating.
Slashdot Mirror
But this took place in the US, so not only is it allowed, it's encouraged.
Actually, wouldn't that be the exception?
Oh wait...
Although if you *truly* did mean exactly what you wrote, and fully understood what you were replying to, as well as being fully aware of the details of the FCC rules, then I'll definitely call your writing skills into question, because you apparently didn't communicate your thoughts very well, and it sounded much more like you didn't really know what you were talking about. And even if you did, radish's post was much more clear and informative than yours.
Think of the various government-built roads, highways and interstates. Many are a waste, are unused or in disrepair. Even so, even with all the waste and all the negative side-effects, we're *much* better off for having had it done.
"Dark fiber" and "fiber to nowhere" is now an extant resource which *can* be utilized (and in *many* places *is* being utilized).
As a general rule, some wasted infrastructure is better than no infrastructure at all.
Even the most minimal of market control, such as requiring Time-Warner/Comcast/etc. to allow competitors access to that "last mile", thus returning competition to the market. Then this "I'm gonna charge $30 for the bandwidth of a $6 HD rental" nonsense would be corrected by market forces. As it is, people aren't going to switch providers, they just won't take advantage of the potential of the Internet. In this scenario, *everyone* loses (even Time-Warner).
If the government is going to grant a full-monopoly, then the government absolutely *must* take an active role in regulating the services. You can't rely on the free market if you've set up a monopoly.
Regardless of all that, the technology hardware footprint of a single home Internet user is really *very* small, and definitely only a minute fraction of the standard $50/month bill.
Innovation is a by-product of research, and research is something that is almost *never* done by Open Source developers. What Open Source is really good at is applying innovations already discovered. Essentially, engineering using known techniques. Now let's go manufacturing open source hardware... And what innovations would you expect from Open Source hardware (aside from the model itself)?
That's why Open Source is not taking over from the end-user perspective--it's just not innovating enough. It's only for the types of applications which are essentially solved, where progress is made by incrementally refining something, that Open Source is taking over and will be unstoppable.
Research is expensive. Very expensive. The only reason Open Source has taken off as a software development model is that software development can be done very cheaply. It will be quite difficult for an Open Source team to create new and innovative hardware. They just won't have the resources.
It's clear you're just a "let's be realistic, Windows is king, end of story" kind of guy. I don't really disagree with you on that count as far as generalities go, but you're over-applying that mindset.
Just like the "Windows is the most popular OS" is an immutable fact, so is "all new Macs ship with both 64-bit CPUs and a 64-bit OS", as is, "a very small percentage of new PCs ship with 64-bit Windows". The only real question is whether Windows' overall market share is enough to make up for the abysmal fraction of which is made of up 64-bit Windows. Since the Mac makes up about 7% of the current market share, around over 8% of PCs must ship with a 64-bit Windows in order to keep up.
I would be interested to see more general numbers than those from Steam, but merely saying "those numbers don't match my worldview, so therefore they are invalid" is not a valid counter-argument. At least I *have* provided some numbers. All you've provided is your intuition.
So, while Windows may have a ~90% market share, and Mac OS ~7%, even among the Windows high end enthusiast segment, 64-bit Windows only comprises ~3%. So, while there are still too many assumptions to say "Leopard on 64-bit CPUs is x million, all 64-bit Windows is y million", the numbers we *do* have show the uptake of 64-bit Windows is a *very* small percentage of all new PCs, and the uptake of 64-bit Leopard running Macs is 100% of all new Macs.
However, even if Windows 64-bit *is* more common than Mac 64-bit, the momentum is on the Mac's side, and none of this has any bearing on your statement (which was what this all is in reply to) that, "neither Linux's, or OSX's, situations have really changed markedly since it was written (with the exception of OS X gaining full "64-bitness")." I'd say Mac OS X's "situation" *has* changed markedly. Apple went from selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 32-bit OS to selling 100% of their Macs with 64-bit CPUs and a 64-bit OS. I don't see how you can not call that a "marked change".
I would be very surprised if Mac OS X wasn't the most widely deployed 64-bit OS.
While I think you are overstating WINE's compatibility, and XP's incompatibility, even assuming it's as you portray it, that would only make Linux more compatible with old software the same way it's more compatible with old hardware. This may very well be seen as a benefit, but it's not something that could fairly be called "more compatible" without pointing out the condition "with older hardware and software".
My point being that any specific mapping is not going to be complete, universal and perpetual. Instead, it's highly dynamic. The morality of the jungle is different from the morality of the city. The morality on a sinking ship is different from the morality in the theater. The morality of 1776 is different from the morality of 2008.
Morality is a subjective thing. It always has been and always will be. Fundamentalism is contrary to this fact and that is *precisely* why it fails so miserably as a mode of human existence.
Your stair example is physics, a subject upon which there should be little contention, except at the edges which are very far removed from our daily experiences. There is exactly 1 truth, which is a partial unknown. I'd call the universe more than just partially unknown. It's monumentally greater than 99% unknown, and it's those unknowns which are *exactly* the types of things which should *not* fall under fundamentalist views. The reason for this is fairly simple:
1. Given we *don't* know the answer
2. we are really just guessing,
3. so it's foolish to think our guess will happen to be exactly and universally true.
(this is one of the most basic ideas behind science)
For that reason, we *must* be willing to let reality mold our beliefs, and not the other way around.
It's kind of ironic that you use the stair example, since that really exposes the flaw of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism takes an idea and states that it is absolutely and universally true and takes no heed of reality. If a fundamentalist thinks that jumping backwards over some stairs will not result in injury (think: snake handlers), they will not let reality affect their beliefs, and instead, when they *are* injured, they make excuses ("I didn't have enough faith", "god works in mysterious ways", "god will not be tested", etc.), when the obvious truth is that jumping backwards over stairs is *highly* likely to cause injury.
You're right that I haven't read the article, and wasn't meaning to defend it in particular, just the notion that engineer-types seem prone to fundamentalism (not necessarily of the jihadist type, just generic "One True Way" type things, like Linux distros or grammar sticklers).
On the specific topic of Islamic fundamentalism, I would suspect engineers to be less likely to fall into that group due to being more immune to religion in general, although I could see those engineers who *do* fully accept a religion to be more likely to be of the extremist-type, due to the tendency towards taking things literally, absolutely, and to their logical ends (traits which help engineers in subjects like math and physics, but don't apply to pretty much anything else).
The second item is not so bad as to be a critical shortcoming, but it's difficult to call Linux more compatible than Windows for anything other than old hardware (which is one of Linux's strengths, but this doesn't carry over to a general claim of better compatibility).
As for the third item... Maybe I'm just trying the wrong distros.
That's great advice, I only wish Objectivists would use it even half as often as they give it. :-)
While I agree with your general statement about human nature, I think that FSF-style fundamentalism is quite distinct from sports fans or brand loyalists. FSF-style fundamentalism starts from a specific logical premise and seeks to mold the world to match those premises. It pretends to be logical. Sports fans and brand loyalists do not tend to come to their conclusions as the end of a series of logical steps.
BTW, I don't mean to pick on the FSF specifically (I'm quite sympathetic to their ideals), they are just a great example of the form of fundamentalism I'm referring to.
"God" is a concept, and it's not a concept I feel worth capitalizing except when at the beginning of a sentence. To do otherwise would imply a reverence for something which I hold in contempt. I don't hold the rules of English grammar as an exceptionally high ideal either. I do make an effort to follow best practices, but will gladly deviate from them if it helps communication. To do otherwise would defeat the whole point of using a language to begin with. Please don't do it. Please don't tell me what to do. I am fully capable of making my own decisions, and offending your sense of proper grammar is not a great concern of mine.
One does not have to "believe" fully in one idea or another. Sometimes equality of outcome is important, sometimes equality of opportunity is important, sometimes *inequality* is important.
Sometimes it's the means which matter most, sometimes is the motive. Sometimes it's the ends. Or any combination thereof.
To take your examples, guns *do* kill people (the literally-minded might chime in that it's the bullet, but pedantry aside, the point stands). People kill people. Both statements are true. Some people with a gun are *more* likely to kill someone. Some people with a gun are *less* likely to kill someone. To take any side of the argument as an absolute (i.e., fundamentalism) is foolish, because it contradicts reality (the key flaw in fundamentalism and extremism).
Your other example, of the opposition to nuclear power further illuminates this point. There's no single reason behind most things. To elevate one reason above all others is, almost always, counter-productive, because it's counter-reality.
I don't know exactly what those examples really have to do with what I wrote before, since I stated that equating engineers with terrorists is silly. On the other hand, the apparent tendency towards fundamentalism (not *Islamic* fundamentalism, nor terrorist fundamentalism, just some (often relatively benign) form of fundamentalism, even if it's just emacs vs. vi) among engineer-types is worth looking into. There may be nothing there, but even a cursory familiarity with slashdot gives the impression that there's *something* to the notion.
Personally, I think it has to do with engineers being very literal-minded (hence all the grammar nazi's and people whose pet peeves are something as silly as when people say, "I could care less"), and also above-average in intelligence (or at least in thoughtfulness), which sort of works off each other leading to strong opinions about the way things should be. For the engineer, the ideals tend to be technical (i.e., which is the best way to write a program, what's the proper way to phrase a sentence, what exactly is the way to measure the Kessel Run, etc.). For the jihadists, the ideals are theological. It seems like fundamentalism is something innate to humans which certain external and internal forces can amplify. It also seems fairly clear that fundamentalism never seems to lead to good ends (except in the very rare cases where a concept truly does appear universally valid, such as with math and physics), so it's worthwhile to study it in situations where it arises, both in its most evil forms, and in its more benign.
Not everyone who says, "thank god", is actually referring to any specific god and is merely using a colloquialism.
As for the "Him", "His", nonsense, aren't people referring to a *specific* "him" in those cases (that was part of your argument)?
"God" isn't a him or a her. It's a concept. People who consider that concept to be a real entity tend to want to codify that belief with a capital g. Those that don't tend to not want to be confused for someone who considers god to be anything more than a concept, and prefer to lowercase g in order to make *that* position clear.
To tell people to adhere to (what you claim to be proper) grammar at the expense of the meaning they are trying to convey is to apply (what you claim to be proper) grammar where it doesn't belong.
Words are meant to convey meaning, not meant to adhere to an arbitrary set of rules. When those rules work *against* the conveyance of meaning, adherence to those rules becomes of questionable value.
Yeah, *that* doesn't sound like a fundamentalist mindset.
Anyone who takes an idea and expands to into a universal absolute (with the exception of a few situations where this is reasonable, such as in math and physics) is a fundamentalist. That's what the Islamic terrorists are doing, is what strong libertarians do (which you appear to be, although you could be an objectivist--yet another form of fundamentalism).
That's not to equate the evilness of all forms of fundamentalism, but merely to compare the mindset, which seems quite reasonable.
As for engineers having that mindset, reading any form of geek site, it seems like there's a lot of fundamentalism among this group. GNU, the FSF, and much of Open Source shows *strong* signs of fundamentalism.
Comparing engineers with terrorists is just sensationalism, but noting the level of fundamentalism among engineers, at least on the surface, seems worth investigating.