However, they're still a ways to go before they can actually create new information.
This is true of most people.
Once they can do that though, that's when AI becomes a reality.
I always found it interesting that computers are never good enough until they can beat the best that humanity has to offer. Computers could beat most people at chess long before beating grand masters, but it wasn't until computers could beat the best human in the world that they were good enough. Likewise, Watson had to beat the best Jeopardy players before being good enough. So now, computers have to be better than the best doctor before being good enough. So, even if you make a computer that could graduate in the middle of a class of doctors, it won't be good enough until it can do better than them all. I just find it interesting as it says so much about us.
When people talk about thinking outside of the box, the box they are referring to is education. College may provide knowledge for someone, but it doesn't provide intellect.
"In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad." -Friedrich Nietzsche
"Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught"-Oscar Wilde
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Just because I think things are relative doesn't mean I don't have my own viewpoint. Man why is it when I bring up that history is full of examples of calling small fighting groups rebels or terrorists based on which side your on I'm sticking my head in the sand. I'm just recognizing that terrorist has been used either way. It's easy to say in hindsight that the word was misused and that is really my point.
Had the Nazis won would we be talking about how bad the Nazis are? Probably not. There are plenty of people in the south that would put the KKK ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. but I wouldn't. Acknowledging there are different viewpoints is an entirely different thing than defending or supporting those viewpoints.
Unfortunately, the mere suggestion that someone else has there own reasons for doing things has launched many posts telling me how wrong I am. The mere fact that people disagree is my point. I'm simply stating that throughout history people have disagreed about what's bad and what's good and what a terrorists is.
The British called our founding fathers terrorists. Does that mean I agree with that NO. It simply means that throughout history the only consistent thing terrorist has meant is a small force fighting a much larger one and unfortunately, vastly overwhelmed forces often resort to targeting civilians. Additionally, it wasn't even until relatively recent (with respect to human history) that there was a separation of military and civilian targets. Atlanta was burned to the ground during the Civil War. Was that terrorism? The Nazis sent rockets into London. Was that terrorism? I would say so, but it was usually just called war. A uniformed openly state sponsored army does not usually get labeled a terrorist.
The fact that there are people who think the complete opposite of what you (or I) do makes these terms relative to the people using them. That alone makes no statement as to what's right or wrong in and of itself. Sorry, I even brought it up here. We can pretend that good and bad have always meant the same thing throughout history, that's fine I won't debate it anymore. All our enemies are just evil, it's as simple as that.
Debating rights in China is a different debate than arguing the Chinese authority did anything differently than any other authority. They did what they did not because they were communists, or because they were evil but because they were in charge and wanted it to stay that way.
Everything is relative and there is no good and no evil
Historically and culturally pretty much. I think it's wrong that the government in my country tells people what they can ingest and who they can marry. Others in this country might find it evil that people would want to ingest certain things or marry certain people.
I'm not saying nothing is wrong, but I find the term evil to be a more a supernatural idea and thus subject to the whims of culture. Put simply I think it's wrong to directly affect someone else in a manner they do not want (I could extend that to also thinking it is wrong to not protect someone when you can). Most other things are probably opinion and historically change with time.
I have heard there were between 100,000 and 1 million people involved with Tienanmen square, so it was on a much larger scale. Not sure what the percentages would mean, but I'm not really equating the specifics anyway. I'm just saying authority maintains its authority however it needs to. There are many factors that differentiate each conflict. But one factor is consistent and that is authority maintaining authority. At least visually the infamous picture of the student standing in front of the tank in Tienanmen Square is not that far off from the student putting a flower in the gun of a national guardsman. Considering the similarities in those photos and how different we are supposed to be from the Chinese it's kind of sad.
Civilian meet authority.
I'm single with no children and may be out of a job soon. I've considered that I can work anywhere in the world. I have not considered China. I like the freedoms we have here and in general the West. I just realize that the authority here will do whatever is necessary to maintain itself just like there. If single digit deaths is all that it takes then why kill more? It's unlikely the Chinese killed more than they thought necessary. After all, however many they killed, it's what they thought was necessary.
We can debate the rights we feel the Chinese people should have. We can debate which side is right and which is not. But we shouldn't think authority doing what it did is any different than any other authority.
I mentioned the bases because it is something that causes some people in that area to dislike us. I can accept that there may be good reasons for those bases. I can accept that the governments of those countries allow them to be there. But I don't dismiss their existence there as a reason for causing people not to like us. Or at least as you say a basis for terrorists propaganda.
Personally, I think the number one reason most people fight offensively (outside of nationalism) is poverty and hunger. It's easy to get people to fight when they're hungry and it's easy to say 'your hungry because those other guys are evil'. It's a common tool to blame hunger and poverty on the enemy to promote violent action throughout history. Without that poverty it would be unlikely people there would care as much about our bases anymore than we care that foreign troops train at our bases (not an exact analogy but there are no foreign bases on US soil that I'm aware of).
I understand why people take issue with calling into question the validity of labeling someone a terrorists. It's just that historically terrorists are very interchangeable with rebels. Criminals commit crimes and are thus called criminals. It's a fairly specific term and generally doesn't relate to ideology. I haven't seen the Cryps and Bloods defend what they do because they are fighting for their way of life. If they did begin to do that they would move from criminal to some ideological label determined by the very factors I'm bringing up. We would call them terrorists and they would call themselves rebels.
Terrorists commit terror and are labeled terrorist. The problem is, any fighting force creates terror (if 'Shock and Awe' didn't create some kind of terror it wouldn't be as useful) so the term terrorist gets used to describe a smaller fighting force and the tactics that comes with. Almost all fighting forces that are vastly overwhelmed resort to 'terrorism', like the Sons of Liberty. Heroes today. And I'm glad they did what they had to (like burning the Governors house down). I've seen many western media reports use Chechen rebels when discussing Chechnya. Likewise I see Russian media reports use the term Chechen terrorists. Those terms don't really tell me anything about what the conflict is about.
When Osama Bin Laden et al. were fighting our enemy, the Russians, we called them freedom fighters. When they fight us, they're terrorists. Same people, the only thing that really changed is who they're fighting. I don't even think their ideology for fighting the West and the Russians is different.
My attack on the English language (Hey I'm a slashdotter right?:) ) was that the term terrorists is very subjective and doesn't really define anything specific to the person being called one. I personally think criminal is more specific to breaking the law without connotation of ideology. For instance, while Rosa Parks could be called a criminal, the ideological aspect of her 'law breaking' changes that for most people.
Rebels, revolutionaries and terrorists are all very similar and in large part differentiated by the victor and whose side you are on. In other words they get used so much by authority that they lose any real meaning. Calling them terrorists means nothing about which ideology is right, it only means which side is bigger and deflects attention from why they are fighting us as well as why we should be fighting them.
If we're only fighting them because they are terrorists that doesn't tell me which side is right any more than the British labeling the Sons of Liberty as terrorists tells me which side is right.
Now with all that. I submit that if we are fighting to lift oppression, therefore increasing prosperity, and thus eliminating much of the reason they would want (or be motivated) to attack us. I'm 100% on board.
The best, most honest, real response I've gotten so far. Everyone else just got mad at me for pointing out that many of the terms we use to describe opposing sides are subjective.
Name calling now? Really? At least tell me where I defended fascists or murderers. I even tried typing in Caps that I don't support them. But because I take issue with some terms that are emotionally loaded I'm now defending something? OK I DON'T DEFEND THEIR BEHAVIOR, I just think it's worth understanding it to better fight it and many of the terms used do nothing to understand it.
Geez. First the statement that it was for their own good was in reference to converting people to Christianity. This was done to the Native Americans too and it's not an unsupported view of history. In the context of the post in which I was replying, the statement was made that our founding fathers fought for secular freedom of everyone. I was pointing out that this was not entirely true (3/5 compromise, women's suffrage) They fought for the freedoms of white men because by and large they were white men. And before you mention that there were black people or women fighting in the revolution too, there are women fighting for fundamental Islam as well.
Secondly, I'm not turning a blind eye to anything and the emotional response (swearing comes from an emotional part of the brain and is not processed the way other words are) of your post is precisely my point. Labeling the enemy as terrorist or evil doesn't really mean anything other than to tell you what you're own viewpoint is. I don't know how much clearer I can be. I DO NOT SUPPORT WHAT THEY ARE FIGHTING FOR. I'm only pointing out that they are fighting for their way of life much like we would fight for ours (right or wrong, people often fight for the status quo). They didn't put military bases in our country, we put ours in theirs. If you do not understand the enemy, how are you every going to fight them? Labeling them terrorists does nothing to help understand them. Sorry if that makes you mad.
If it makes you feel better call them evil, bad guys, terrorist or whatever you want. None of those terms do anything to understand why they're fighting us.
The "terrorists" then fought for secular freedom for everyone
hmmm, except black people. I'm pretty sure there were many slaves that were not Christian (and certainly not Western Christians) but were then forced to become so. For there own good of course, savages that they were/sarcasm.
The terrorists now fight for religious oppression of those who are not Muslim or male.
Many of them would argue they fight for there way of life (that we don't agree with) and against what they see as oppression by a foreign government. I believe there may even be some females taking up that fight.
Again, I'm not siding with them. I'm merely pointing out that the word terrorist is a very subjective one and has hardly any objective meaning. A terrorist is simply 1. Someone fighting a force much larger than themselves and thus has to fight 'dirty'. and 2. Someone who is fighting for a cause you don't believe in.
I just find words like terrorist serving no purpose other than emotional.
I didn't say anyone should be able to kill anyone, I only wanted to point out that it is what it is. It's still wrong.
waving a machine gun and slaughtering bystanders - terrorist
They may not have had machine guns back then but I believe many founding fathers of the United States where called terrorists by the British. It all has to do with who won and which side you are supporting.
I just want to point out as these threads get started that everything is relative. There are fine lines between terrorists, rebels, rioters and demonstrators and typically that line is determined by the winners and which side you're on. So, before we deride the Chinese government we should remember the workers riots at the turn of the century in the U.S. where many were killed by authorities, or the race riots of the 60s, again where many died, the following war demonstrators where again authority put them down, the Chicago riots, the L.A. riots and all the other riots that we call riots because they were put down and we live here.
I'm not saying any of it is right or siding with any side but the Chinese authority protect that authority just like authority in any other country, including whichever one you happen to live in.
I can't remember where I heard it exactly but I think it was something similar to this or this. I do not know where I picked up the specific idea that earth's possible orbits were influenced by it's wave-particle function. The idea was the if a planet has a wave function as predicted then that wave function would influence it's orbit. I'm not a physicist though so I'm not going to defend the idea, it's just something I remember hearing in relation to electron orbits.
Longtime since I thought about this, but isn't everything a wave-particle? I remember reading somewhere that even the earth has properties of wave such that it has specific orbits around the sun. As I recall the orbits only differ by millimeters (something to do with the way the wave function lines up in orbits around the sun similar to why electrons exist in certain orbits but not in between) but nonetheless the earth has wave properties too.
Many of those posts already had replies. I don't always feel the need to repeat a thought that's already been stated. You won't find any post of mine supporting the hack so don't attribute anything to me that's conjecture. I don't think exposing consumer data to the public is right nor do I think hacking Sony to begin with is right. I took issue with a post that made the explicit argument that both admitted Sony was shifty and then excused it because it didn't affect them personally. I don't *always* take issue with implicit arguments. If you would like to point out a post that makes the explicit argument (like the one I replied to) that hacking consumer data is ok because it didn't affect the poster and there is not already a reply to it that points out what I did, I would be happy to make the same argument to them as well.
Don't get me wrong I like choice. But I think we're just off on semantics. I think choice by its nature leads to complexity and a lack of choice leads to simplicity. It's not much of a leap to argue that the choice of Android devices vs the lack of choice in iPhone devices makes the Android 'ecosystem' more complex than the Apple's. In other words, the lack of complexity with respect to choice diminishes what choice really is. The more hamburgers I have to choose from the more complex their differences become. Sesame seed vs not. Wheat vs white vs rye vs sourdough. And that's just the bread. Angus or ground beef. Fast vs Dining. Condiments mean more choices means more complexity. McDonald's doesn't offer bacon on their burgers (I haven't eaten a McDonald's burger in years so that may have changed) because doing so would increase the complexity of (pre)making them even though they have bacon at breakfast. It's difficult to have complexity without choice and it's difficult to have choice without adding complexity.
Personally, I don't think having 10 near identical items is really a choice. In your example of differently branded strawberry jelly there must be some difference or there isn't a choice. If the product is similar then it comes down to price vs quality vs quantity vs shelf-life vs 'pretty picture on the label' vs 'easy to open lid' vs 'squeeze bottle' vs 'insert product differentiation' which leads to complexity. Without that complexity what choice is there really?
I just want to be sure I understand your point. Unless something personally affects you you don't care? Most people feel this way? That does explain a lot about the world.
Choice is better. Every style of product always sells better when there is choice. Doesn't matter if it's smartphones, computers, clothes or even food like hamburgers.
He saw that one of the problems with KFC, and all fast food restaurants of the day, was that they had much too complicated menu’s. He then worked with Colonel Sanders to drastically simplify the menus, focusing on a few signature meals. This small change particularly helped turn around the KFC franchise; and, though it was a minor thing, helped revolutionize fast food restaurant menus all over the world. Even to this day, the staple of most fast food restaurants is their overly simplistic menus, focusing on a handful of signature meals.
Slashdot Mirror
However, they're still a ways to go before they can actually create new information.
This is true of most people.
Once they can do that though, that's when AI becomes a reality.
I always found it interesting that computers are never good enough until they can beat the best that humanity has to offer. Computers could beat most people at chess long before beating grand masters, but it wasn't until computers could beat the best human in the world that they were good enough. Likewise, Watson had to beat the best Jeopardy players before being good enough. So now, computers have to be better than the best doctor before being good enough. So, even if you make a computer that could graduate in the middle of a class of doctors, it won't be good enough until it can do better than them all. I just find it interesting as it says so much about us.
When people talk about thinking outside of the box, the box they are referring to is education. College may provide knowledge for someone, but it doesn't provide intellect.
Education and intellect are hardly synonymous.
"In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad." -Friedrich Nietzsche
"Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught"-Oscar Wilde
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
What's somewhat amusing is that many of the great thinkers we study in education had few good things to say about education.
“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” - Oscar Wilde
Just because I think things are relative doesn't mean I don't have my own viewpoint. Man why is it when I bring up that history is full of examples of calling small fighting groups rebels or terrorists based on which side your on I'm sticking my head in the sand. I'm just recognizing that terrorist has been used either way. It's easy to say in hindsight that the word was misused and that is really my point.
Had the Nazis won would we be talking about how bad the Nazis are? Probably not. There are plenty of people in the south that would put the KKK ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. but I wouldn't. Acknowledging there are different viewpoints is an entirely different thing than defending or supporting those viewpoints.
Unfortunately, the mere suggestion that someone else has there own reasons for doing things has launched many posts telling me how wrong I am. The mere fact that people disagree is my point. I'm simply stating that throughout history people have disagreed about what's bad and what's good and what a terrorists is.
The British called our founding fathers terrorists. Does that mean I agree with that NO. It simply means that throughout history the only consistent thing terrorist has meant is a small force fighting a much larger one and unfortunately, vastly overwhelmed forces often resort to targeting civilians. Additionally, it wasn't even until relatively recent (with respect to human history) that there was a separation of military and civilian targets. Atlanta was burned to the ground during the Civil War. Was that terrorism? The Nazis sent rockets into London. Was that terrorism? I would say so, but it was usually just called war. A uniformed openly state sponsored army does not usually get labeled a terrorist.
The fact that there are people who think the complete opposite of what you (or I) do makes these terms relative to the people using them. That alone makes no statement as to what's right or wrong in and of itself. Sorry, I even brought it up here. We can pretend that good and bad have always meant the same thing throughout history, that's fine I won't debate it anymore. All our enemies are just evil, it's as simple as that.
Everything is relative and there is no good and no evil
Historically and culturally pretty much. I think it's wrong that the government in my country tells people what they can ingest and who they can marry. Others in this country might find it evil that people would want to ingest certain things or marry certain people.
I'm not saying nothing is wrong, but I find the term evil to be a more a supernatural idea and thus subject to the whims of culture. Put simply I think it's wrong to directly affect someone else in a manner they do not want (I could extend that to also thinking it is wrong to not protect someone when you can). Most other things are probably opinion and historically change with time.
I have heard there were between 100,000 and 1 million people involved with Tienanmen square, so it was on a much larger scale. Not sure what the percentages would mean, but I'm not really equating the specifics anyway. I'm just saying authority maintains its authority however it needs to. There are many factors that differentiate each conflict. But one factor is consistent and that is authority maintaining authority. At least visually the infamous picture of the student standing in front of the tank in Tienanmen Square is not that far off from the student putting a flower in the gun of a national guardsman. Considering the similarities in those photos and how different we are supposed to be from the Chinese it's kind of sad.
Civilian meet authority.
I'm single with no children and may be out of a job soon. I've considered that I can work anywhere in the world. I have not considered China. I like the freedoms we have here and in general the West. I just realize that the authority here will do whatever is necessary to maintain itself just like there. If single digit deaths is all that it takes then why kill more? It's unlikely the Chinese killed more than they thought necessary. After all, however many they killed, it's what they thought was necessary.
We can debate the rights we feel the Chinese people should have. We can debate which side is right and which is not. But we shouldn't think authority doing what it did is any different than any other authority.
I mentioned the bases because it is something that causes some people in that area to dislike us. I can accept that there may be good reasons for those bases. I can accept that the governments of those countries allow them to be there. But I don't dismiss their existence there as a reason for causing people not to like us. Or at least as you say a basis for terrorists propaganda.
:) ) was that the term terrorists is very subjective and doesn't really define anything specific to the person being called one. I personally think criminal is more specific to breaking the law without connotation of ideology. For instance, while Rosa Parks could be called a criminal, the ideological aspect of her 'law breaking' changes that for most people.
Personally, I think the number one reason most people fight offensively (outside of nationalism) is poverty and hunger. It's easy to get people to fight when they're hungry and it's easy to say 'your hungry because those other guys are evil'. It's a common tool to blame hunger and poverty on the enemy to promote violent action throughout history. Without that poverty it would be unlikely people there would care as much about our bases anymore than we care that foreign troops train at our bases (not an exact analogy but there are no foreign bases on US soil that I'm aware of).
I understand why people take issue with calling into question the validity of labeling someone a terrorists. It's just that historically terrorists are very interchangeable with rebels. Criminals commit crimes and are thus called criminals. It's a fairly specific term and generally doesn't relate to ideology. I haven't seen the Cryps and Bloods defend what they do because they are fighting for their way of life. If they did begin to do that they would move from criminal to some ideological label determined by the very factors I'm bringing up. We would call them terrorists and they would call themselves rebels.
Terrorists commit terror and are labeled terrorist. The problem is, any fighting force creates terror (if 'Shock and Awe' didn't create some kind of terror it wouldn't be as useful) so the term terrorist gets used to describe a smaller fighting force and the tactics that comes with. Almost all fighting forces that are vastly overwhelmed resort to 'terrorism', like the Sons of Liberty. Heroes today. And I'm glad they did what they had to (like burning the Governors house down). I've seen many western media reports use Chechen rebels when discussing Chechnya. Likewise I see Russian media reports use the term Chechen terrorists. Those terms don't really tell me anything about what the conflict is about.
When Osama Bin Laden et al. were fighting our enemy, the Russians, we called them freedom fighters. When they fight us, they're terrorists. Same people, the only thing that really changed is who they're fighting. I don't even think their ideology for fighting the West and the Russians is different.
My attack on the English language (Hey I'm a slashdotter right?
Rebels, revolutionaries and terrorists are all very similar and in large part differentiated by the victor and whose side you are on. In other words they get used so much by authority that they lose any real meaning. Calling them terrorists means nothing about which ideology is right, it only means which side is bigger and deflects attention from why they are fighting us as well as why we should be fighting them.
If we're only fighting them because they are terrorists that doesn't tell me which side is right any more than the British labeling the Sons of Liberty as terrorists tells me which side is right.
Now with all that. I submit that if we are fighting to lift oppression, therefore increasing prosperity, and thus eliminating much of the reason they would want (or be motivated) to attack us. I'm 100% on board.
The best, most honest, real response I've gotten so far. Everyone else just got mad at me for pointing out that many of the terms we use to describe opposing sides are subjective.
Does the fact that women die for Islam mean they're fighting for women's rights?
Name calling now? Really? At least tell me where I defended fascists or murderers. I even tried typing in Caps that I don't support them. But because I take issue with some terms that are emotionally loaded I'm now defending something? OK I DON'T DEFEND THEIR BEHAVIOR, I just think it's worth understanding it to better fight it and many of the terms used do nothing to understand it.
Geez. First the statement that it was for their own good was in reference to converting people to Christianity. This was done to the Native Americans too and it's not an unsupported view of history. In the context of the post in which I was replying, the statement was made that our founding fathers fought for secular freedom of everyone. I was pointing out that this was not entirely true (3/5 compromise, women's suffrage) They fought for the freedoms of white men because by and large they were white men. And before you mention that there were black people or women fighting in the revolution too, there are women fighting for fundamental Islam as well.
Secondly, I'm not turning a blind eye to anything and the emotional response (swearing comes from an emotional part of the brain and is not processed the way other words are) of your post is precisely my point. Labeling the enemy as terrorist or evil doesn't really mean anything other than to tell you what you're own viewpoint is. I don't know how much clearer I can be. I DO NOT SUPPORT WHAT THEY ARE FIGHTING FOR. I'm only pointing out that they are fighting for their way of life much like we would fight for ours (right or wrong, people often fight for the status quo). They didn't put military bases in our country, we put ours in theirs. If you do not understand the enemy, how are you every going to fight them? Labeling them terrorists does nothing to help understand them. Sorry if that makes you mad.
If it makes you feel better call them evil, bad guys, terrorist or whatever you want. None of those terms do anything to understand why they're fighting us.
Also by 60s I meant 1960s.
Yes, I meant to put 20th in between the and century. Thanks for clearing that up though, I'm sure it caused great confusion.
The "terrorists" then fought for secular freedom for everyone
hmmm, except black people. I'm pretty sure there were many slaves that were not Christian (and certainly not Western Christians) but were then forced to become so. For there own good of course, savages that they were /sarcasm.
The terrorists now fight for religious oppression of those who are not Muslim or male.
Many of them would argue they fight for there way of life (that we don't agree with) and against what they see as oppression by a foreign government. I believe there may even be some females taking up that fight.
Again, I'm not siding with them. I'm merely pointing out that the word terrorist is a very subjective one and has hardly any objective meaning. A terrorist is simply 1. Someone fighting a force much larger than themselves and thus has to fight 'dirty'. and 2. Someone who is fighting for a cause you don't believe in.
I just find words like terrorist serving no purpose other than emotional.
waving a machine gun and slaughtering bystanders - terrorist
They may not have had machine guns back then but I believe many founding fathers of the United States where called terrorists by the British. It all has to do with who won and which side you are supporting.
I just want to point out as these threads get started that everything is relative. There are fine lines between terrorists, rebels, rioters and demonstrators and typically that line is determined by the winners and which side you're on. So, before we deride the Chinese government we should remember the workers riots at the turn of the century in the U.S. where many were killed by authorities, or the race riots of the 60s, again where many died, the following war demonstrators where again authority put them down, the Chicago riots, the L.A. riots and all the other riots that we call riots because they were put down and we live here.
I'm not saying any of it is right or siding with any side but the Chinese authority protect that authority just like authority in any other country, including whichever one you happen to live in.
I can't remember where I heard it exactly but I think it was something similar to this or this. I do not know where I picked up the specific idea that earth's possible orbits were influenced by it's wave-particle function. The idea was the if a planet has a wave function as predicted then that wave function would influence it's orbit. I'm not a physicist though so I'm not going to defend the idea, it's just something I remember hearing in relation to electron orbits.
Longtime since I thought about this, but isn't everything a wave-particle? I remember reading somewhere that even the earth has properties of wave such that it has specific orbits around the sun. As I recall the orbits only differ by millimeters (something to do with the way the wave function lines up in orbits around the sun similar to why electrons exist in certain orbits but not in between) but nonetheless the earth has wave properties too.
Many of those posts already had replies. I don't always feel the need to repeat a thought that's already been stated. You won't find any post of mine supporting the hack so don't attribute anything to me that's conjecture. I don't think exposing consumer data to the public is right nor do I think hacking Sony to begin with is right. I took issue with a post that made the explicit argument that both admitted Sony was shifty and then excused it because it didn't affect them personally. I don't *always* take issue with implicit arguments. If you would like to point out a post that makes the explicit argument (like the one I replied to) that hacking consumer data is ok because it didn't affect the poster and there is not already a reply to it that points out what I did, I would be happy to make the same argument to them as well.
Don't get me wrong I like choice. But I think we're just off on semantics. I think choice by its nature leads to complexity and a lack of choice leads to simplicity. It's not much of a leap to argue that the choice of Android devices vs the lack of choice in iPhone devices makes the Android 'ecosystem' more complex than the Apple's. In other words, the lack of complexity with respect to choice diminishes what choice really is. The more hamburgers I have to choose from the more complex their differences become. Sesame seed vs not. Wheat vs white vs rye vs sourdough. And that's just the bread. Angus or ground beef. Fast vs Dining. Condiments mean more choices means more complexity. McDonald's doesn't offer bacon on their burgers (I haven't eaten a McDonald's burger in years so that may have changed) because doing so would increase the complexity of (pre)making them even though they have bacon at breakfast. It's difficult to have complexity without choice and it's difficult to have choice without adding complexity.
Personally, I don't think having 10 near identical items is really a choice. In your example of differently branded strawberry jelly there must be some difference or there isn't a choice. If the product is similar then it comes down to price vs quality vs quantity vs shelf-life vs 'pretty picture on the label' vs 'easy to open lid' vs 'squeeze bottle' vs 'insert product differentiation' which leads to complexity. Without that complexity what choice is there really?
Your confusing choice with complicity.
:) And you are confusing complicity with complexity. jk I'm sure it was a typo.
focusing on a few signature meals
focusing on a handful of signature meals
How about this then. Ok I'll grant that choice is good, but not necessarily that more choice is always better.
I just want to be sure I understand your point. Unless something personally affects you you don't care? Most people feel this way? That does explain a lot about the world.
Choice is better. Every style of product always sells better when there is choice. Doesn't matter if it's smartphones, computers, clothes or even food like hamburgers.
I don't think Dave Thomas would agree
He saw that one of the problems with KFC, and all fast food restaurants of the day, was that they had much too complicated menu’s. He then worked with Colonel Sanders to drastically simplify the menus, focusing on a few signature meals. This small change particularly helped turn around the KFC franchise; and, though it was a minor thing, helped revolutionize fast food restaurant menus all over the world. Even to this day, the staple of most fast food restaurants is their overly simplistic menus, focusing on a handful of signature meals.