Yes, I understand your concern with my argument. You, however, misunderstand my argument. I'm trying to point here to the functional equivalency of these two language paradigms and the added ability of functional languages to generate larger, long-term structures which can prevail, since direct optimalization has not yet taken place. This in turn allows for a faster product cycle, thus generating higher return of investment. There are other elements which are profitable, such as the advantage of simpler serialization and parallelization of code. And, for me the most important argument against an imperative design is the ability to generate abstract language structures in a functional language. If you want, I can explain this further.
However, many arguments are maintainable against functional languages. The most important one is the difficulty in understanding time and space complexity in this group. Often, the compiler might optimize, with unexpected results (mostly when it doesn't though). So, don't get me wrong, I don't want to promote functional languages above iterative ones, I just want to show their specific aspects: equivalent to iterative languages, highly abstractable, unexpected optimizations.
Btw., I'm sorry for this late reply, I hope you'll take the time to read it and reply!
No, I'm saying they are functionally equivalent. So, the comparison is bogus. There are other ways to prove this, but this one is the most obvious and straight through sea.
1. Write an assembler in Lisp, changing a list of instructions to their binary equivalents (eg: ( (MOV AX, BX), (SUB AX, 1) ) => binary 2. Write an imperative language in Lisp, which translates to machine language (eg. ( ( decl 'int ( symb "a" ) 5 ) ) ). 3. Write your problem in the language of 2, and generate machine language 4. Execute it
In this way, my program is *always* of equivalent performance, compared with yours.
Sounds like an imperative programmer talking: you 'use' the sort. As if it is a certain step in a program, instead of something that can be interleaved with other calculations.
Yes, but that's for 'an algorithm' (quote). How do you define it for a language? I thought that this is impossible with our current computational maths applied to Turing complete languages (with proof).
No, it does not claim anything about the intrinsic (?) performance. I could claim the same for any Turing machine. Every computable function has a Turing machine equivalent...
Also, it seems we're not discussing programming languages, but programming language compilers (implementations), the speed of which depend lineairly on the stupidity of the programmer making the compiler (slower = slower).
Yes, and your caveat is actually the most important element: for projects that need well definable high-level abstractions, or able to operate on mathematically infinite structures, a functional language wins clearly in comparison with C.
The real question is: allow high profiled lambda abstractions, while keeping space and time complexity as low as an optimized C program.
Well, just to show you that your challenge is easily met... In Lisp, it is easy to write an assembler, which over time allow the same kind of imperative abstractions as are present in C, thus allowing me to write a program with equal speed as in C.
Also, when the nature of the input of a high-level programming language changes, it could optimize its data-structures and algorithms to create a better match with that input. Of course, such a thing could also be implemented in C or Pascal, but requires tremediously more effort.
Oh, and let us not start discussing the intricate details of the TeX language. When LaTeX markup is not sufficient (because there is no package that deals with your intricate markup), one has to work through this incomprehensible language. I've worked with many languages, ranging from the simple imperative/object oriented Python, PHP or Java to the more complex lambda oriented functional languages, to machine oriented ones, but never have I had so many headaches as with TeX.
Don't get me wrong, I often love the typesetting LaTeX delivers, I just don't think it is something to write to heaven about.
Nevertheless, for those who want to see a possible next iteration of LaTeX, give TeXmacs a honest look.
Re:Get rid of the Shell, VI, etc for a month...
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 1
The disappointing thing though, is that we've improved our display and input technologies many-fold in the past decades and you are still stuck with vi and other shell commands.
The hierarchical filesystem is quickly becoming obsolete, but I still don't see the right commands to handle a more ontological approach on the command line.
Principles like KISS are constantly being broken, mostly because there are no underlying standards in application design, GUI design and (more importantly) API design. For new users, this gives a train of headaches, as they have to relearn standards with every new application. A similar trend can be seen in command line utilities who often have a different input and output syntax, do not allow abstractions of data, are awkward to use because text editing needs to be done to pipe data around, etc. etc.
Vim is a great editor in its original design: to be used with simple languages, with a reference to around a 1000 different symbols/classes/variables (or so). Modern API's are a hundredfold larger (or so), which require a quick lookup of data which cannot always be presented hierarchically (and as such, the filesystem is insufficient here). It is a logical choice to move towards a more complex IDE to handle these kinds of problems.
Windows is also more productive because often (not always), things 'just works'. I got my keyboard and mouse (with extra buttons) working without any hassle, without having to find the correct X event codes and remap them to a certain change key-combo because the applications wouldn't eat them. My screen rotation just works out of the box, my soundcards are correctly identified and I can easily choose which one is the default one. There are problems as well, ofcourse: I still have problems synching my phone and Outlook, but in Linux this gave me a kernel crash when I attempted doing this.
And now this: I've been using linux since 1997, and some BSD's a couple of years before that. When I started with the Unix concept, it was clear as crystal: we make simple tools that together become versatile, a bit like advanced LEGO's. Now we life in another world, and the best the linux community has done to reflect this new world of object orientation, quality control, advanced GUI's, device location independence, etc. etc. is to superficially mimic what other companies have been doing. The essence of the design (that was part of the UNIX philosophy) has never been truly understood (or when it was understood, it was in retrospect).
First of all, I would like to emphasize that your diligence and assiduous acquisition of knowledge is, of course, a good thing. But simply providing information is not enough: a great amount of knowledge requires structure in thought and a well founded critical mind. Sometimes, just a few simple axioms can open a new world; axioms that did not need high-speed internet, but would change profoundly the way we think of science and discovery (eg. David Humes principle of induction, or the Peano Axiomas).
Hmmm, so your 'statistical' analysis with N equals 1 'proves' that it cannot be put to a statistical test since your own 'research' has already shown otherwise? Common, get a grip.
Ah, the answer to the fundamental nature of intelligence is, of course, 42 (as has been calculated before). However, we're still searching for the answer (plus the answer to life, the universe and everything).
As our processing devices get exponentially faster and our networking techniques, in combination with parallel processing allow us to combine ever more processing power, it seems that we should be approaching a point where AI should overtake our sense of what we feel is 'intelligent'. However, our search towards modeling human behavior and/or rationality introduces problems that can only be modeled with algorithms that are proven to be NP-complete or even NEXP-complete in the worst case if solved optimally. Our brains, our language, our knowledge of our lack of knowledge is an unending revelation on how optimal our heuristic algorithms, baked into our society, actually are. If this seems gibberish to you, you are most likely right: it is extremely hard to extend our mode of thinking, and therefor to see our endeavors from an outside perspective. When one stands outside of empiricism, and sees the power of mysticism on a society, a believe system that is controlled, but also constantly modified, it is the first step towards understanding what impact religion has had on us. And still, Nietzsche was right: our 'God' is dead, it is dead since we wished it dead, not because we stopped believing in it. How does all this fit into the discussion we are having? Well, AI raised a stone, and showed us what is underneath. The endeavors of computer scientist, mathematicians, psychologists and philosophers have shown us that intelligence is not only an individual undertaking, but is emerging from the communication (and construction of communication protocols) that arch over and define exactly what we see as mathematics (both in a linear as in a recursive functional way). It was Peano who brought our super-sense of calculus to a halt by showing that it was based on 6 rather simple basic axiomas. Now it is our time to understand that our sense of logic and rationality is always in compliance and opposition of that which has already been defined: extremity and transitivity in knowledge and belief.
(ps. on the NP and NEXP topic: as computers get exponentially faster, our algorithms solving space very often get linearly or even logarithmically faster, which is... not that impressive as we often wish it to be)
So, it appears we go back to a masked society. Now, we learn from history and see that the fact that masking happens is an indicator that we feel that there is an unfair judging taking place and we want a level playfield. In the end, we can all take off our masks, because it is who we are, not who we were, that ultimately defines us.
Now, we're so lucky that we have intelligent and abstract thinking personnel managers (newspeak: Human Resource Managers) who will be able to look over such inconveniences as the tracks we leave behind and focus on personality and ability, mixed with some cultural heritage, ignoring the ambiguity of the net altogether. Or, maybe this takes another 50 years to sink in for the working area you might work in (given a lack of such 'Human Resource Managers' at a place near you).
One of the reasons I enjoy classical music so much. But, maybe it's just time for independent musicians to start making music which appeals to our ears, not to the budgets of the big radio-stations.
I guess the part 'it is sold as...'. It is my sincere belief that in order to correctly program, it is important to regard structure as the most important feat of any successful implementation. Comments often appear out of a lack of structure, either because the programming language is not expressive enough, or the programmer does not know the expressiveness of the programming language itself. Therefor, in order to write correct comments, it is important to first focus on the logic language and its abilities, before trying to explain things in an ambiguous natural language. Lastly, I would like to stress that natural language has much more peculiarities than a computer language, and in order to write good comments, it should be mastered as well as the logic language.
But, yes, 'it is sold as...', seems to cover this general inconvenience under the mom of: they are not bright enough to understand. What a load of bullshit, and the worst thing is that I'm afraid I'm in a career that will someday ask the same of me.
What I'm missing in your article are more important things, such as:
* Modularization * Adaptability for future changes * Code structuring (ie. preventing hairy code) * Version control * Writing self-documenting code * Function/procedure pre- and post-conditions and change of state *... (list goes on)
But then again, that's probably not the intended audience for IBM, would it be?
And I can't understand why you take solace with things obviously broken. You adopt your way of working (eg. watching your document in 150% instead of 100%) because of errors in the PDF viewer. Did you file a bug-report?
Unbelievable. You trade those nice smooth highs for that which is produced with an mp3 en/decoder. In my very humble opinion, mp3 is the prime reason why people are dissatisfied with the current developments in audio. CD's don't have the best high frequency range either, and especially for well trained ears, this can be a big nuisance. But MP3 just ruins it all away. Perfectly suitable for those who like to hear only strong bass over their thin plastic 5.1 dolby digital (insert some more marketing wuzz here) audio set. Incomprehensible for those who like to make a separation between the different musical parts in a recorded piece. Also, your nice Numark might have SPDIF out, but without a quality A/D converter, you end up with worse audio than the engineer could deliver for you in his recording studio (working with $10k+ dedicated A/D converters). So, if you're going to put your vinyl on MP3, don't bother: buy your music from iTunes shop. Then again, I feel like I'm reacting to someone who just likes to troll.
Well, if you bring it like that, it is certainly insightful. I've just spend 1 minute reading the rant on empty pizzaboxes and over-rented video's and it somehow is rated 'insightful'. Bye bye, Slashdot!
On reply to 'Wikipedia is not new knowledge'. Agreed, only a person posseses knowledge, but the collaboration does add new structure and is therefor valuable. With the application of knowledge and the cross-pollination of different branches, in combination with the free accessibility, its educational possibilities are endless. To ask for donations shows a true indication of the worth of the material without entangling oneself into obligations one might not be able te keep in a long term.
Ofcourse, there is still alot of research being done, but it is too easy to forget about our fundamentals. A university student should be trained to think outside of the box and, although I might be mistaken, just this process seems to be censored in an increased manner.
Ofcourse, universities are obliged to prepare their students for life after study. Nonetheless, the question oneself should ask is: what life will that be?
It is funny? How do you consider people reading your comments will take it? I personally found it a very simple line of thought, representing exactly that which we are so opposed against. Wikipedia might be a simple database with an editable front-end technically, but just as a painting is nothing more than a piece of linnen with some dried paint on top of it, it can contain a certain emotional value. Or an intellectial value, for that matter. But, I assume you are just flaming right now and that all of this is completely clear to you.
The beauty of Wikipedia in my judgement is in it's continuous progress, it's historical charisteristics. Just consider how a source such as this might evolve over hundreds of years! It could prove to be an invaluable piece of research material, would it be kept for our descendants. Keep in mind that it not only shows 'the truth', but also our current view of loads of different subjects. Moreover, here we see the views not only from the self-proclaimed 'experts' but also from normal everyday citizens.
I've believed in that mode of thinking for a long time. But look where we are now: we've got universities who find more revenue in rolling ready-made students into big industries to do the same as they did 30 years ago, instead of raising them same students in thinking for themselves. Everything is ready-made, and our next generation will not even know what 'thinking for thouself' means. If we're not careful, we're destroying our own society from within. With a source such as wikipedia, we have something substantial, which cannot be valued by money alone. It is the sheer force of many, many people taking the dedication and using their intellect to create something larger than themselves. No dollar (which is not even based on a precious metal anymore) can equal a single part of that. Religious? Maybe. I'd rather be religious if that is what it takes to confince those who do not have the time or interest in trying to understand the philosophy of what would be better for a society as a whole (as opposed to a single instance).
I seriously wished there were more people thinking like you do. Advertisements turns the attitude of the supporters of such a huge database of information away from knowledge and into a money-driven (and short-term investment) ideal. Again, people know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. Isn't the value of such a body of knowledge enough? Should we not try to pursue science and other fundaments of our society in a more monk-like way? I myself think we should. The fundaments of our society have been built upon ideals like that, it would be a shame to throw it all away.
Yes, all of this might sound a bit religious, but forget not that religion has had a firm basis in philosophy. Many of the monk scriptures were not rooted in religious affairs at all, but contained basics of knowledge. What we should do now is built up a new fort of knowledge and let that knowledge value itself (instead of revenue dollars from ads).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I understand your concern with my argument. You, however, misunderstand my argument. I'm trying to point here to the functional equivalency of these two language paradigms and the added ability of functional languages to generate larger, long-term structures which can prevail, since direct optimalization has not yet taken place. This in turn allows for a faster product cycle, thus generating higher return of investment. There are other elements which are profitable, such as the advantage of simpler serialization and parallelization of code. And, for me the most important argument against an imperative design is the ability to generate abstract language structures in a functional language. If you want, I can explain this further.
However, many arguments are maintainable against functional languages. The most important one is the difficulty in understanding time and space complexity in this group. Often, the compiler might optimize, with unexpected results (mostly when it doesn't though). So, don't get me wrong, I don't want to promote functional languages above iterative ones, I just want to show their specific aspects: equivalent to iterative languages, highly abstractable, unexpected optimizations.
Btw., I'm sorry for this late reply, I hope you'll take the time to read it and reply!
No, I'm saying they are functionally equivalent. So, the comparison is bogus. There are other ways to prove this, but this one is the most obvious and straight through sea.
Your challenge is met conceptually:
1. Write an assembler in Lisp, changing a list of instructions to their binary equivalents (eg:
( (MOV AX, BX), (SUB AX, 1) ) => binary
2. Write an imperative language in Lisp, which translates to machine language
(eg. ( ( decl 'int ( symb "a" ) 5 ) ) ).
3. Write your problem in the language of 2, and generate machine language
4. Execute it
In this way, my program is *always* of equivalent performance, compared with yours.
Sounds like an imperative programmer talking: you 'use' the sort. As if it is a certain step in a program, instead of something that can be interleaved with other calculations.
Yes, but that's for 'an algorithm' (quote). How do you define it for a language? I thought that this is impossible with our current computational maths applied to Turing complete languages (with proof).
No, it does not claim anything about the intrinsic (?) performance. I could claim the same for any Turing machine. Every computable function has a Turing machine equivalent...
Also, it seems we're not discussing programming languages, but programming language compilers (implementations), the speed of which depend lineairly on the stupidity of the programmer making the compiler (slower = slower).
Yes, and your caveat is actually the most important element: for projects that need well definable high-level abstractions, or able to operate on mathematically infinite structures, a functional language wins clearly in comparison with C.
The real question is: allow high profiled lambda abstractions, while keeping space and time complexity as low as an optimized C program.
Well, just to show you that your challenge is easily met... In Lisp, it is easy to write an assembler, which over time allow the same kind of imperative abstractions as are present in C, thus allowing me to write a program with equal speed as in C.
Also, when the nature of the input of a high-level programming language changes, it could optimize its data-structures and algorithms to create a better match with that input. Of course, such a thing could also be implemented in C or Pascal, but requires tremediously more effort.
Oh, and let us not start discussing the intricate details of the TeX language. When LaTeX markup is not sufficient (because there is no package that deals with your intricate markup), one has to work through this incomprehensible language. I've worked with many languages, ranging from the simple imperative/object oriented Python, PHP or Java to the more complex lambda oriented functional languages, to machine oriented ones, but never have I had so many headaches as with TeX.
Don't get me wrong, I often love the typesetting LaTeX delivers, I just don't think it is something to write to heaven about.
Nevertheless, for those who want to see a possible next iteration of LaTeX, give TeXmacs a honest look.
The disappointing thing though, is that we've improved our display and input technologies many-fold in the past decades and you are still stuck with vi and other shell commands.
The hierarchical filesystem is quickly becoming obsolete, but I still don't see the right commands to handle a more ontological approach on the command line.
Principles like KISS are constantly being broken, mostly because there are no underlying standards in application design, GUI design and (more importantly) API design. For new users, this gives a train of headaches, as they have to relearn standards with every new application. A similar trend can be seen in command line utilities who often have a different input and output syntax, do not allow abstractions of data, are awkward to use because text editing needs to be done to pipe data around, etc. etc.
Vim is a great editor in its original design: to be used with simple languages, with a reference to around a 1000 different symbols/classes/variables (or so). Modern API's are a hundredfold larger (or so), which require a quick lookup of data which cannot always be presented hierarchically (and as such, the filesystem is insufficient here). It is a logical choice to move towards a more complex IDE to handle these kinds of problems.
Windows is also more productive because often (not always), things 'just works'. I got my keyboard and mouse (with extra buttons) working without any hassle, without having to find the correct X event codes and remap them to a certain change key-combo because the applications wouldn't eat them. My screen rotation just works out of the box, my soundcards are correctly identified and I can easily choose which one is the default one. There are problems as well, ofcourse: I still have problems synching my phone and Outlook, but in Linux this gave me a kernel crash when I attempted doing this.
And now this: I've been using linux since 1997, and some BSD's a couple of years before that. When I started with the Unix concept, it was clear as crystal: we make simple tools that together become versatile, a bit like advanced LEGO's. Now we life in another world, and the best the linux community has done to reflect this new world of object orientation, quality control, advanced GUI's, device location independence, etc. etc. is to superficially mimic what other companies have been doing. The essence of the design (that was part of the UNIX philosophy) has never been truly understood (or when it was understood, it was in retrospect).
First of all, I would like to emphasize that your diligence and assiduous acquisition of knowledge is, of course, a good thing. But simply providing information is not enough: a great amount of knowledge requires structure in thought and a well founded critical mind. Sometimes, just a few simple axioms can open a new world; axioms that did not need high-speed internet, but would change profoundly the way we think of science and discovery (eg. David Humes principle of induction, or the Peano Axiomas).
Hmmm, so your 'statistical' analysis with N equals 1 'proves' that it cannot be put to a statistical test since your own 'research' has already shown otherwise? Common, get a grip.
Ah, the answer to the fundamental nature of intelligence is, of course, 42 (as has been calculated before). However, we're still searching for the answer (plus the answer to life, the universe and everything).
As our processing devices get exponentially faster and our networking techniques, in combination with parallel processing allow us to combine ever more processing power, it seems that we should be approaching a point where AI should overtake our sense of what we feel is 'intelligent'. However, our search towards modeling human behavior and/or rationality introduces problems that can only be modeled with algorithms that are proven to be NP-complete or even NEXP-complete in the worst case if solved optimally. Our brains, our language, our knowledge of our lack of knowledge is an unending revelation on how optimal our heuristic algorithms, baked into our society, actually are.
If this seems gibberish to you, you are most likely right: it is extremely hard to extend our mode of thinking, and therefor to see our endeavors from an outside perspective. When one stands outside of empiricism, and sees the power of mysticism on a society, a believe system that is controlled, but also constantly modified, it is the first step towards understanding what impact religion has had on us. And still, Nietzsche was right: our 'God' is dead, it is dead since we wished it dead, not because we stopped believing in it.
How does all this fit into the discussion we are having? Well, AI raised a stone, and showed us what is underneath. The endeavors of computer scientist, mathematicians, psychologists and philosophers have shown us that intelligence is not only an individual undertaking, but is emerging from the communication (and construction of communication protocols) that arch over and define exactly what we see as mathematics (both in a linear as in a recursive functional way). It was Peano who brought our super-sense of calculus to a halt by showing that it was based on 6 rather simple basic axiomas. Now it is our time to understand that our sense of logic and rationality is always in compliance and opposition of that which has already been defined: extremity and transitivity in knowledge and belief.
(ps. on the NP and NEXP topic: as computers get exponentially faster, our algorithms solving space very often get linearly or even logarithmically faster, which is... not that impressive as we often wish it to be)
How do you make sure you're not going down the illegal drugs scene?
So, it appears we go back to a masked society. Now, we learn from history and see that the fact that masking happens is an indicator that we feel that there is an unfair judging taking place and we want a level playfield. In the end, we can all take off our masks, because it is who we are, not who we were, that ultimately defines us.
Now, we're so lucky that we have intelligent and abstract thinking personnel managers (newspeak: Human Resource Managers) who will be able to look over such inconveniences as the tracks we leave behind and focus on personality and ability, mixed with some cultural heritage, ignoring the ambiguity of the net altogether. Or, maybe this takes another 50 years to sink in for the working area you might work in (given a lack of such 'Human Resource Managers' at a place near you).
One of the reasons I enjoy classical music so much. But, maybe it's just time for independent musicians to start making music which appeals to our ears, not to the budgets of the big radio-stations.
I guess the part 'it is sold as...'. It is my sincere belief that in order to correctly program, it is important to regard structure as the most important feat of any successful implementation. Comments often appear out of a lack of structure, either because the programming language is not expressive enough, or the programmer does not know the expressiveness of the programming language itself. Therefor, in order to write correct comments, it is important to first focus on the logic language and its abilities, before trying to explain things in an ambiguous natural language. Lastly, I would like to stress that natural language has much more peculiarities than a computer language, and in order to write good comments, it should be mastered as well as the logic language.
But, yes, 'it is sold as...', seems to cover this general inconvenience under the mom of: they are not bright enough to understand. What a load of bullshit, and the worst thing is that I'm afraid I'm in a career that will someday ask the same of me.
What I'm missing in your article are more important things, such as:
... (list goes on)
* Modularization
* Adaptability for future changes
* Code structuring (ie. preventing hairy code)
* Version control
* Writing self-documenting code
* Function/procedure pre- and post-conditions and change of state
*
But then again, that's probably not the intended audience for IBM, would it be?
And I can't understand why you take solace with things obviously broken. You adopt your way of working (eg. watching your document in 150% instead of 100%) because of errors in the PDF viewer. Did you file a bug-report?
Unbelievable. You trade those nice smooth highs for that which is produced with an mp3 en/decoder. In my very humble opinion, mp3 is the prime reason why people are dissatisfied with the current developments in audio. CD's don't have the best high frequency range either, and especially for well trained ears, this can be a big nuisance. But MP3 just ruins it all away. Perfectly suitable for those who like to hear only strong bass over their thin plastic 5.1 dolby digital (insert some more marketing wuzz here) audio set. Incomprehensible for those who like to make a separation between the different musical parts in a recorded piece. Also, your nice Numark might have SPDIF out, but without a quality A/D converter, you end up with worse audio than the engineer could deliver for you in his recording studio (working with $10k+ dedicated A/D converters). So, if you're going to put your vinyl on MP3, don't bother: buy your music from iTunes shop. Then again, I feel like I'm reacting to someone who just likes to troll.
Well, if you bring it like that, it is certainly insightful. I've just spend 1 minute reading the rant on empty pizzaboxes and over-rented video's and it somehow is rated 'insightful'. Bye bye, Slashdot!
On reply to 'Wikipedia is not new knowledge'. Agreed, only a person posseses knowledge, but the collaboration does add new structure and is therefor valuable. With the application of knowledge and the cross-pollination of different branches, in combination with the free accessibility, its educational possibilities are endless. To ask for donations shows a true indication of the worth of the material without entangling oneself into obligations one might not be able te keep in a long term.
Ofcourse, there is still alot of research being done, but it is too easy to forget about our fundamentals. A university student should be trained to think outside of the box and, although I might be mistaken, just this process seems to be censored in an increased manner.
Ofcourse, universities are obliged to prepare their students for life after study. Nonetheless, the question oneself should ask is: what life will that be?
It is funny? How do you consider people reading your comments will take it? I personally found it a very simple line of thought, representing exactly that which we are so opposed against. Wikipedia might be a simple database with an editable front-end technically, but just as a painting is nothing more than a piece of linnen with some dried paint on top of it, it can contain a certain emotional value. Or an intellectial value, for that matter. But, I assume you are just flaming right now and that all of this is completely clear to you.
The beauty of Wikipedia in my judgement is in it's continuous progress, it's historical charisteristics. Just consider how a source such as this might evolve over hundreds of years! It could prove to be an invaluable piece of research material, would it be kept for our descendants. Keep in mind that it not only shows 'the truth', but also our current view of loads of different subjects. Moreover, here we see the views not only from the self-proclaimed 'experts' but also from normal everyday citizens.
I've believed in that mode of thinking for a long time. But look where we are now: we've got universities who find more revenue in rolling ready-made students into big industries to do the same as they did 30 years ago, instead of raising them same students in thinking for themselves. Everything is ready-made, and our next generation will not even know what 'thinking for thouself' means. If we're not careful, we're destroying our own society from within. With a source such as wikipedia, we have something substantial, which cannot be valued by money alone. It is the sheer force of many, many people taking the dedication and using their intellect to create something larger than themselves. No dollar (which is not even based on a precious metal anymore) can equal a single part of that. Religious? Maybe. I'd rather be religious if that is what it takes to confince those who do not have the time or interest in trying to understand the philosophy of what would be better for a society as a whole (as opposed to a single instance).
I seriously wished there were more people thinking like you do. Advertisements turns the attitude of the supporters of such a huge database of information away from knowledge and into a money-driven (and short-term investment) ideal. Again, people know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. Isn't the value of such a body of knowledge enough? Should we not try to pursue science and other fundaments of our society in a more monk-like way? I myself think we should. The fundaments of our society have been built upon ideals like that, it would be a shame to throw it all away.
Yes, all of this might sound a bit religious, but forget not that religion has had a firm basis in philosophy. Many of the monk scriptures were not rooted in religious affairs at all, but contained basics of knowledge. What we should do now is built up a new fort of knowledge and let that knowledge value itself (instead of revenue dollars from ads).