But there's a huge difference between "I think it would be nice if..." and "it should be the case that...".
The first is a straightforward expression of desire, and possibly a motivation for finding and exploiting opportunities, or for encouraging others to prodcue the object of your desire.
The second is an assertion of an entitlement, and possibly a call for coercing someone else to provide the goods and services to which you claim you're entitled.
Since I don't see an interoperable computing entitlement, I don't like the "should be" clause. I think it would be nice if Linux zealots stopped acting like victims, and used clauses like "I would be content if Microsoft stopped actively opposing interoperability" instead of "I should have interoperability right now!"
There are a lot of dollars on the line for some features that Linux could provide.
But a lot of the developers don't get paid, and most of the software is available for free.
Really, there's been a lot of commercial investment in some aspects of Linux/FOSS.
But there hasn't really been the kind of comprehensive, holistic commercial investment in Linux as a fully-featured, well-rounded OS that other operating systems seem to enjoy (with varying degrees of success, to be sure, but more success than Linux for some).
I should be able to run the word processor of my choice and the email client of my choice REGARDLESS OF PLATFORM.
I think I get what you're trying to say, but the "should be" clause bothers me. It sounds like you think you have some kind of entitlement to a world where computing works exactly the way you would like it to. I get the impression you would prefer that software developers should be compelled by some higher power to make computing the way you wish it were. Like you resent Bill Gates for going out and selling an operating system that doesn't perform according to your ideals.
The reason this attitude bothers me is that three hundred years ago there was no ideal computing, and nobody was entitled to an ideal computing platform. Today there's still no ideal computing platform, and still no reason why their "should" be.
It's like they say: If you want a job done right, do it yourself. Complaining that other people have used their freedom to do their own jobs for their own reasons seems kind of silly. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people have figured out how to get value out of the less-than-ideal computing platforms currently available. Instead of complaining about fictional entitlements, they're taking advantage of available opportunities.
Capitalism does not need marketing. Without marketing, will I starve to death? No, of course not. I will seek to buy food.
Actually, since capitalism allows for competing food vendors, it absolutely does need marketing. Each vendor is competing with the others for your food budget. They each compete by trying to make their food offerings more attractive to you than the offerings of their competitors. They make their offerings more attractive to you through careful study of your likes and dislikes, and then tailor their advertising to appeal to your likes. This is marketing, and it's how capitalists compete with each other for your business.
You may be thinking of communism, which has a single state-run food seller, and no marketing is necesary because there's no choice and no competition.
If there's plenty to go around, then why not spend some of it on boondoggles like Iraq or NASA?
It just seems kind of stupid to me, to complain that we're spending our spare change on one luxury item instead of another luxury item, with all the trouble in the world today...
Dude, there are horrible genocides happening in Africa. North Korea holds Seoul hostage while it builds nuclear weapons and supplies terrorist networks. World temperatures are rising at the same time as world energy resources are dwindling. Ten thousand other horrors are playing out world-wide. And you want to spend the Iraq war funds on telescopes to watch a robot land on Mars?
So, in your opinion, what conditions could be called favorable as a condition for exiting Iraq?
Saddam Hussein is out of power. The Iraqi people are more free than they have been in a long time, to either build a peaceful society or engage in factional violence as they see fit. The other powers in the region have a lot of local instability to keep them and their disgruntled terror organizations occupied. Our military has gained valuable real-world experience in counterinsurgency operations, and has "recharged" the ranks with a cadre of combat veterans. The world doesn't hate the US any more than it used to, although some parts have gotten more vocal about it (which has its own advantages). Conditions seem pretty favorable to me right now. But really, you had me at "Saddam Hussein is out of power."
Has the expense of Iraq been recouped as of yet?
I'm pretty sure it's simplistic and naive to view war as a balance sheet, whether of blood or treasure. Especially for a nation like the U.S. whose military activities consume only a small proportion of either. Anyway, war is costly and wasteful. You trade away expenses that can never be recouped in exchange for some other good, usually not measurable in ecnomic terms.
Has the invasion of Iraq paid off then?
See my first paragraph.
What good does invading a country do if we can't say with some certainty that it paid off.
See my first paragraph. Some of us can say "for sure" that it paid off, at least in some ways. But also keep in mind that war is risky. It doesn't always pay off. That doesn't mean that the risk isn't worth taking.
But now perhaps you could answer a question from me:
It seems odd that you would try to hijack a conversation about whether or not Germany lost WWI in this way. Were you really so impressed with my half-assed rationalizations that you seriously turned to me for help in making sense out of Iraq?
I'd ask you what your own opinions on the subject are, but I get the feeling you're about to tell me. Please, carry on.
Thanks for reminding me of the seemingly arbitrary distinction between England and Britain.
Anyway, a formal surrender is not the exclusive indicator of a loser. Britain and France may have horribly botched the peace, but Germany exited the war under unfavorable conditions. Since the point of war is to exit under favorable conditions, usually at the expense of favorable conditions for your erstwhile opponents, it still seems like Germany flatly lost the war.
That's an interesting and compelling interpretation of events.
And yet it's undeniable that, had Germany been in a position of strength relative to England and France, it could have simply offered to start the fighting again, until a more palatable treaty was presented. Or it could simply have refused to sign, and dared England and France to compel it to sign. The fact is, at the end of the war, Germany was no longer in a position to defend its interests, whereas its wartime enemies were both in a position to impose conditions upon Germany and threaten its interests (your point about England threatening to withhold aid is well taken).
It seems to me that assuming a more generous treaty would be offered, was a grave strategic blunder, and that to cease fighting on such an assumption even worse, and that Germany lost the war at that moment. Germany should have continued fighting until it saw the treaty, or until it had guaranteed equal rights of co-authorship, or until it was in a position to impose its own conditions on its helpess enemies. That it was unable to do any of these things means it lost.
Wikipedia is a collection of book reports or essays on various topics. It is entirely secondary in nature. Not only that, but good Wikipedia articles reference primary sources.
What professor in their right mind would accept someone else's summary or analysis of a topic, instead of making you study the primary sources yourself and write your own summary or analysis?
The question isn't "is Wikipedia reliable enough?", but rather, "do you have the skills and insight and subject matter expertise to be at least as reliable as Wikipedia?" And you can't learn or demonstrate those things by simply citing Wikipedia.
I mean, Cliff's Notes are probably more reliable than Wikipedia is, but no serious lit professor would accept Cliff's Notes in lieu of the original work itself (or an analysis based on Cliff's Notes in place of an analysis based on thorough reading of the original work).
Sure, but they do have a very understandable desire to have a profitable business, and to preserve the conditions which make their business profitable.
And--America being a free country and all--they most certainly do have a right to try to manipulate the laws and customs of the land to preserve those conditions and keep their business profitable.
Just like labor unions vs. automation, and technical support professionals vs. call centers in India. Just like you have the right to try to manipulate the laws and customs of the land to make the current business models obsolete, and to force a significant contraction/reshuffling of the industry.
I'm curious to know how you'd react, if a sudden technological leap forward made your own business model obsolete, and the laws and customs of the land changed to force you out of a job, or into a new career you're unable to retrain for. Unless you're one of those rare saints among all us sinners, history predicts you'd be right at the front of the line, begging the government to preserve the status quo, and demonizing the progressives who were trying to innovate you out of a job; and screw all those people who could benefit from the new technology, if their benefit comes at your expense.
Maybe the telepaths have wiped the floor with us normals, and we just haven't noticed because we have no way of snooping their planning meetings.
Maybe the curent world situation is a mess of the telepaths' making, to keep us normals distracted while they hang out in their clubhouse with their cigars and champagne and telepathic passwords.
Actually, I think that reason is one of my most powerful tools and greatest allies, in being a moral person.
It's reason that has led me to the conclusion that this particular leap of faith is justified, and it's the reasoning of other rational people that I most appreciate in studing the metaphysical conundrums that confront us. My faith is intensely rational and intellectual in nature, and it is based on the rational principle that it best matches observed reality, and best explains the mysterious parts of reality that science cannot.
Frankly, I think your "bad meat" strawman is revolting and offensive. You obviously have no idea what faith is, or the important part that reason plays in making leaps of faith. This is truly sad, since your local bookstore or library probably has shelves full of the reasoning of intelligent, rational people throughout history, who have concluded that faith and reason together make a person more complete than reason alone.
Your idea of faithful people as irrational madmen is very, very wrong.
Technically, humans are "self-replicating probes".
What if the probes are the alien civilization? Still a bad idea? Or just another Darwinian race for resources (which hopefully we can attend as observers, on account of our "probe" technology not needing the same resources as the alien technology)?
I help fund them by donating to cancer based charities,
That's all you had to say, actually.
I never said you should engage in scientific research yourself. But there's always more to it than just the guy in the white lab coat fiddling with test tubes.
For example, much science today depends on computers. If you know a lot about computers, or have a lot of experience with computer support, you could donate your time to a research facility.
Or you could, as you say you do, work very hard at whatever it is you're good at, and then donate your profits to research organizations.
My argument is this: If we say that someone else, somewhere else (e.g., a big pharma CEO) should give more of his own resources to cure cancer, then we have to say the same thing about ourselves, because it's hypocritical to demand sacrifices from somone else for a cause we believe in without demanding the same sacrifices from ourselves.
So how much are you really sacrificing--not just donating your surplus wealth, but actually downgrading your lifestyle by sacrificing non-surplus wealth--for the cause you believe in? And how much moral superiority does your sacrifice actually buy you?
I'm not presuming my morality is better than yours. I'm pretty sure it isn't. What I'm trying to do is understand your morality.
For example, you have a home. I'm sure it's a nice home, but is it really a necessary home? And what about your wife? Can she not support herself? And why three kids? In a world of limited resources and starving children, what on earth possessed you to bring three more into the world, and then favor them at the expense of everybody else that could benefit from your charity?
Also, children are a choice--a luxury, in a sense. You chose to have some, most likely to gratify some personal desire, and now your resources are consumed by your choice of luxuries. Telling the world's poor that you don't have the resources to help them more because you chose to have children instead is functionally equivalent to telling the world's poor you can't help them because you chose to maintain a private helicopter instead.
I'm not convinced that your definition of a normal, simple life is truly "normal" and "simple" to the majority of the people in the world, who are long accustomed to getting by with much less than you seem to take for granted. How much more could you do for the world, if you really wanted to?
I maintain that just like those in the pharmaceutical industry, you could do more if you wanted, and the resources are there if your business practices are altered.
And I'm still not sure what part of your morality justifies the line you draw between your lifestyle and the lifestyle of a typical CEO.
First of all, I deplore "profits before people"--or I would if I wasn't just as guilty of putting my own wants and needs ahead of others' as everybody else is.
My point here is that I don't understand the hypocrisy on display, and I don't understand how you can reconcile your insistence that somebody else, somewhere else, should put people before profits, with your own insistence that because you're not a scientist, you're somehow exempt from this judgement that people should come before profits.
I mean, you don't have to be a scientist to help them in their work. You yourself admit that everybody can get cancer, so everybody shoulde have a personal motive for working on a cure. However, you yourself are not actually working on a cure; rather, you're continuing to insist that if you were somebody else somewhere else, you'd totally work on a cure for cancer.
Why only your spare cash? Why wait for the government to initiate something?
And why single out "typical" CEOs? There's certainly a poverty-stricken, suffering demographic out there that's just as poor relative to you as you are to a typical CEO. Why do you insist on hoarding your time and money, and talking about what little you have to give to those who need more?
Both you and the typical CEO are both equally (and fabulously) wealthy by the standards of the world's poor. By what standard do you judge your own lifestyle to be reasonable, and the CEO's excessive? Is it just that his excess is so much greater than yours? But then where do you draw the line, between "reasonable excess" and "unreasonable excess"? And how do you explain your reasoning to sub-Saharan Africa?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, no doubt.
But there's a huge difference between "I think it would be nice if..." and "it should be the case that...".
The first is a straightforward expression of desire, and possibly a motivation for finding and exploiting opportunities, or for encouraging others to prodcue the object of your desire.
The second is an assertion of an entitlement, and possibly a call for coercing someone else to provide the goods and services to which you claim you're entitled.
Since I don't see an interoperable computing entitlement, I don't like the "should be" clause. I think it would be nice if Linux zealots stopped acting like victims, and used clauses like "I would be content if Microsoft stopped actively opposing interoperability" instead of "I should have interoperability right now!"
There are a lot of dollars on the line for some features that Linux could provide.
But a lot of the developers don't get paid, and most of the software is available for free.
Really, there's been a lot of commercial investment in some aspects of Linux/FOSS.
But there hasn't really been the kind of comprehensive, holistic commercial investment in Linux as a fully-featured, well-rounded OS that other operating systems seem to enjoy (with varying degrees of success, to be sure, but more success than Linux for some).
The reason this attitude bothers me is that three hundred years ago there was no ideal computing, and nobody was entitled to an ideal computing platform. Today there's still no ideal computing platform, and still no reason why their "should" be.
It's like they say: If you want a job done right, do it yourself. Complaining that other people have used their freedom to do their own jobs for their own reasons seems kind of silly. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people have figured out how to get value out of the less-than-ideal computing platforms currently available. Instead of complaining about fictional entitlements, they're taking advantage of available opportunities.
Since we're already in deficit spending, the amount of actual money available is clearly not a limiting factor.
You may be thinking of communism, which has a single state-run food seller, and no marketing is necesary because there's no choice and no competition.
Exactly my point. The logic is absurd.
If there's plenty to go around, then why not spend some of it on boondoggles like Iraq or NASA?
It just seems kind of stupid to me, to complain that we're spending our spare change on one luxury item instead of another luxury item, with all the trouble in the world today...
Hrm. This is interesting. Very interesting.
Dude, there are horrible genocides happening in Africa. North Korea holds Seoul hostage while it builds nuclear weapons and supplies terrorist networks. World temperatures are rising at the same time as world energy resources are dwindling. Ten thousand other horrors are playing out world-wide. And you want to spend the Iraq war funds on telescopes to watch a robot land on Mars?
Who's got the priority problems?
But now perhaps you could answer a question from me:
It seems odd that you would try to hijack a conversation about whether or not Germany lost WWI in this way. Were you really so impressed with my half-assed rationalizations that you seriously turned to me for help in making sense out of Iraq?
I'd ask you what your own opinions on the subject are, but I get the feeling you're about to tell me. Please, carry on.
Thanks for reminding me of the seemingly arbitrary distinction between England and Britain.
Anyway, a formal surrender is not the exclusive indicator of a loser. Britain and France may have horribly botched the peace, but Germany exited the war under unfavorable conditions. Since the point of war is to exit under favorable conditions, usually at the expense of favorable conditions for your erstwhile opponents, it still seems like Germany flatly lost the war.
That's an interesting and compelling interpretation of events.
And yet it's undeniable that, had Germany been in a position of strength relative to England and France, it could have simply offered to start the fighting again, until a more palatable treaty was presented. Or it could simply have refused to sign, and dared England and France to compel it to sign. The fact is, at the end of the war, Germany was no longer in a position to defend its interests, whereas its wartime enemies were both in a position to impose conditions upon Germany and threaten its interests (your point about England threatening to withhold aid is well taken).
It seems to me that assuming a more generous treaty would be offered, was a grave strategic blunder, and that to cease fighting on such an assumption even worse, and that Germany lost the war at that moment. Germany should have continued fighting until it saw the treaty, or until it had guaranteed equal rights of co-authorship, or until it was in a position to impose its own conditions on its helpess enemies. That it was unable to do any of these things means it lost.
Wikipedia is a collection of book reports or essays on various topics. It is entirely secondary in nature. Not only that, but good Wikipedia articles reference primary sources.
What professor in their right mind would accept someone else's summary or analysis of a topic, instead of making you study the primary sources yourself and write your own summary or analysis?
The question isn't "is Wikipedia reliable enough?", but rather, "do you have the skills and insight and subject matter expertise to be at least as reliable as Wikipedia?" And you can't learn or demonstrate those things by simply citing Wikipedia.
I mean, Cliff's Notes are probably more reliable than Wikipedia is, but no serious lit professor would accept Cliff's Notes in lieu of the original work itself (or an analysis based on Cliff's Notes in place of an analysis based on thorough reading of the original work).
Sure, but they do have a very understandable desire to have a profitable business, and to preserve the conditions which make their business profitable.
And--America being a free country and all--they most certainly do have a right to try to manipulate the laws and customs of the land to preserve those conditions and keep their business profitable.
Just like labor unions vs. automation, and technical support professionals vs. call centers in India. Just like you have the right to try to manipulate the laws and customs of the land to make the current business models obsolete, and to force a significant contraction/reshuffling of the industry.
I'm curious to know how you'd react, if a sudden technological leap forward made your own business model obsolete, and the laws and customs of the land changed to force you out of a job, or into a new career you're unable to retrain for. Unless you're one of those rare saints among all us sinners, history predicts you'd be right at the front of the line, begging the government to preserve the status quo, and demonizing the progressives who were trying to innovate you out of a job; and screw all those people who could benefit from the new technology, if their benefit comes at your expense.
The Nobel Prize includes a princely sum of money, actually.
Two Things:
One, it seems almost exploitative, to fund innovation this way.
Two, it seems like a sizeable population of idle rich is necessary, to find a pool of investors sufficient to fund innovation this way.
Maybe the telepaths have wiped the floor with us normals, and we just haven't noticed because we have no way of snooping their planning meetings.
Maybe the curent world situation is a mess of the telepaths' making, to keep us normals distracted while they hang out in their clubhouse with their cigars and champagne and telepathic passwords.
Thank you for clarifying ESS for me.
Actually, I think that reason is one of my most powerful tools and greatest allies, in being a moral person.
It's reason that has led me to the conclusion that this particular leap of faith is justified, and it's the reasoning of other rational people that I most appreciate in studing the metaphysical conundrums that confront us. My faith is intensely rational and intellectual in nature, and it is based on the rational principle that it best matches observed reality, and best explains the mysterious parts of reality that science cannot.
Frankly, I think your "bad meat" strawman is revolting and offensive. You obviously have no idea what faith is, or the important part that reason plays in making leaps of faith. This is truly sad, since your local bookstore or library probably has shelves full of the reasoning of intelligent, rational people throughout history, who have concluded that faith and reason together make a person more complete than reason alone.
Your idea of faithful people as irrational madmen is very, very wrong.
Bla bla bla sophomoric Hollywood philosophy duly noted.
Like there's anything wrong with viruses.
Technically, humans are "self-replicating probes".
What if the probes are the alien civilization? Still a bad idea? Or just another Darwinian race for resources (which hopefully we can attend as observers, on account of our "probe" technology not needing the same resources as the alien technology)?
That's all you had to say, actually.
I never said you should engage in scientific research yourself. But there's always more to it than just the guy in the white lab coat fiddling with test tubes.
For example, much science today depends on computers. If you know a lot about computers, or have a lot of experience with computer support, you could donate your time to a research facility.
Or you could, as you say you do, work very hard at whatever it is you're good at, and then donate your profits to research organizations.
My argument is this: If we say that someone else, somewhere else (e.g., a big pharma CEO) should give more of his own resources to cure cancer, then we have to say the same thing about ourselves, because it's hypocritical to demand sacrifices from somone else for a cause we believe in without demanding the same sacrifices from ourselves.
So how much are you really sacrificing--not just donating your surplus wealth, but actually downgrading your lifestyle by sacrificing non-surplus wealth--for the cause you believe in? And how much moral superiority does your sacrifice actually buy you?
I'm not presuming my morality is better than yours. I'm pretty sure it isn't. What I'm trying to do is understand your morality.
For example, you have a home. I'm sure it's a nice home, but is it really a necessary home? And what about your wife? Can she not support herself? And why three kids? In a world of limited resources and starving children, what on earth possessed you to bring three more into the world, and then favor them at the expense of everybody else that could benefit from your charity?
Also, children are a choice--a luxury, in a sense. You chose to have some, most likely to gratify some personal desire, and now your resources are consumed by your choice of luxuries. Telling the world's poor that you don't have the resources to help them more because you chose to have children instead is functionally equivalent to telling the world's poor you can't help them because you chose to maintain a private helicopter instead.
I'm not convinced that your definition of a normal, simple life is truly "normal" and "simple" to the majority of the people in the world, who are long accustomed to getting by with much less than you seem to take for granted. How much more could you do for the world, if you really wanted to?
I maintain that just like those in the pharmaceutical industry, you could do more if you wanted, and the resources are there if your business practices are altered.
And I'm still not sure what part of your morality justifies the line you draw between your lifestyle and the lifestyle of a typical CEO.
You misunderstand my point.
First of all, I deplore "profits before people"--or I would if I wasn't just as guilty of putting my own wants and needs ahead of others' as everybody else is.
My point here is that I don't understand the hypocrisy on display, and I don't understand how you can reconcile your insistence that somebody else, somewhere else, should put people before profits, with your own insistence that because you're not a scientist, you're somehow exempt from this judgement that people should come before profits.
I mean, you don't have to be a scientist to help them in their work. You yourself admit that everybody can get cancer, so everybody shoulde have a personal motive for working on a cure. However, you yourself are not actually working on a cure; rather, you're continuing to insist that if you were somebody else somewhere else, you'd totally work on a cure for cancer.
Why not help out as who you are, where you are?
Why only your spare cash? Why wait for the government to initiate something?
And why single out "typical" CEOs? There's certainly a poverty-stricken, suffering demographic out there that's just as poor relative to you as you are to a typical CEO. Why do you insist on hoarding your time and money, and talking about what little you have to give to those who need more?
Both you and the typical CEO are both equally (and fabulously) wealthy by the standards of the world's poor. By what standard do you judge your own lifestyle to be reasonable, and the CEO's excessive? Is it just that his excess is so much greater than yours? But then where do you draw the line, between "reasonable excess" and "unreasonable excess"? And how do you explain your reasoning to sub-Saharan Africa?
Aye, and there's the rub.
Personal sacrifice for great justice always seems like a great idea, until you're the one being told to make the sacrifice.