All you are going to end up with is Adbar AND Gator on your computer. There is no reason to believe that Adbar would replace any other type of advertising. It would just amount to MORE advertising on the Internet. Ads in adbar as well as ads embedded in the site itself. See, the sites you visit want to make money too. It isn't like the money Google would get from this would somehow trickle down to other sites.
Voluntarily installing adbar is stupid. It would be like installing a device that sits on top of your TV and scrolls advertisements while you watch shows... that also have advertisment.
Re:iptables -I FORWARD -s isp/20 -j DROP
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Spam's U.S. Roots
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Yeah, I'm sure [spammer ISP] is really worried about a few Slashdot readers blocking their netblock at their Linux workstation. And if anyone is using Linux/iptables as a major network router, they are probably not worth communicating with anyway.;-)
Re:If Walmart were just as evil as Microsoft...
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Well, I was speaking more in terms of competative practices, effect on communities, and the eyesores that the stores have become and not necessarily in terms of consumer relations, but OK. I hear ya.;-)
Still, I don't like Walmart and I would not be proud to have them on my side.
I didn't assume you are selfish and shallow. I said your idea of the American dream is selfish and shallow. You expressed it very clearly. There was no need to assume. I'm not trying to prove anything. Either you take my opinion to heart or you don't. I don't really care. I just felt like I should express it. I'm just exercising my freedom, that's all.
BTW, I didn't say anything about Microsoft or Bill Gates taking away my freedom. I do chose not to use Windows. I use Linux almost exclusivly. Nice of you to assume that I feel my freedoms have been abridged by Bill Gates though. Been nice chatting with ya.
So basically in your selfishness and shallowness you have taken freedom for granted. Nothing "wrong" with that, I guess. But it is still selfish and shallow.
That is a shallow and depressing idea of the "American Dream." To be rich? Here I thought it was about freedom of expression and experience. Apparently they are merely means for becoming rich. No wonder this society is so fucked up.
Re:Join the Revolution
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Linux vs. Windows
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It is a sign that the "revolution" is just as corrupt as Microsoft itself. I'm not proud to have Walmart on my "side." Walmart is just as evil as Microsoft... just in a different industry.
I my opinion all this Linux vs. Microsoft stuff is stupid. I mean, it is useful to make a technical comparison to decide which is the best or preferable tool for the job, but do we really need to turn this into a war? I use Linux almost exclusively at work and at home because it works for me, not because it might be a thorn in Microsoft's side.
The reason Apple and Sun can integrate the OS so well with the hardware isn't so much because they designed the hardware (although I'm sure that helps). It is because the set of hardware is very limited and easy to test/certify. You can say "This OS is certified to run on a SPARCStation 20" and it will most likely run well on that hardware. How many video cards, SCSI adapters, motherboards, CPUs, etc does Windows and Linux have to support? How many PC vendors are there each with their own quirks? The permutations are infinite.
If I remember correctly from physics, under normal Earth conditions, heat dissipates much more quickly through conduction and convection than it does through radiation. Also, the windows blocking IR from the inside would still tend to cool the inside of a car (in the case of a parked car) because the windows would absorb the IR from the inside and conduct the heat to the cooler outside air. Now, if the windows *reflected* the IR, that would be a different story, but AFAIK, the coating in question absorbs IR.
Ban them? Nah. They are people too, ya know. I say we hobble them. Maybe a good baseball bat to the knees. Of course, that will probably put them in front of a computer for more hours of the day which would probably make the problem worse, but at least they'll be in pain.
Ever notice how the inside of a car gets HOTTER than the outside air? That is from the sun's radiation, not conduction through the metal (or glass). If you could block the heat from the sun, cars would be much easier to cool and they might not get so damn hot when parked.
But the zippiest part of the GUI comes from the integration of graphics with the windows kernel.
That is also where a lot of instability comes from.
I actually love the FREEDOM of choosing between aplication priority and background process priority, and if something like this exists on linux, please tell me more about it!
It doesn't address the issue I am talking about. Choosing to enhance background priority is for servers and actually makes the problem on the desktop worse. Linux has the best of both worlds, IMO. A good balance. Linux does have the option of improving desktop performance even more with the pre-emptable kernel patch (2.4.x) or option (2.6.x).
Windows let you choose what you want, linux gui's, mostly gnome, decide for you. But that's another story...
You actually have it the wrong way around. Linux lets you choose what you want. Gnome is only one of those choices. Not to mention the choice of distribution which can make all the difference in the world.
Wait, I dont get it... users have no concept of most people on slashdot because they expect feedback for their actions as opposed to no change in cursor, no apparent activity? I'm happy to say im not part of that moronic group, content to sit and way to see if their click actually registered
I suppose after using Windows for too long it becomes difficult to have faith in your computer's willingness and ability to do what you tell it to do.
I'm guessing you are one of those people who send 20 copies of a print job to a print queue when the first 19 don't show up at the printer (feedback). And then when the print queue is fixed, tons of paper is wasted unless you run and delete the jobs.
or not. feedback that something is happening is important, linux lacks much of it
It's not a bug, it's a feature. There are better ways to show feedback than bringing the system to a crawl. Sheesh.
Log in to a KDE/Linux machine (or at least mine) and it can be 20 seconds before the desktop is displayed. At least with Windows XP you can actually do useful work while the background stuff is loading.
Something useful like.... waiting 15 seconds for the Start Menu to open?
Why would an hourglass icon from an application you're not currently using disturb you? That seems a little strange to me. If you're not using it, why do you even pay attention to its existance?
I find that when I get an hourglass in a app, the rest of the system is often too busy to service my requests effectively. Better than Windows 98, yea, but still bad.
Here's a point you seem to have missed: the hourglass cursor is controlled by the application, not the operating system. The application tells windows to use it when it is busy & therefore can't respond to user requests. Windows also uses it if an application doesn't have a predefined cursor and isn't responding to events.P>
I know the theory, thanks. I'm just telling you what I experience on a regular basis on various installations.
Oh, and the hourglass/arrow is a feedback indicator. It's telling you that the computer has responded to your request, but you can now go on to do something else if you want.
HA!
The lack of a similar system in Linux desktops is really annoying, I find. KDE has an almost acceptable approach where a box is displayed on the panel to indicate an application is starting, but it isn't nearly as good (because the hourglass arrow cursor is an OS level feature of windows, so can achieve things KDE/Gnome/whatever couldn't achieve without a kernel patch).
Well, I don't run KDE in particular, but I find that an hourglass simply isn't necessary in Linux. If I want to know if it is responding to my request, I can usually just look at the HD light (unless I've just recently run that command and everything is in cache). I would much rather the system not bother me with "feedback" and just do what I tell it. The fact that you can hardly tell if Linux is processing your request a big plus in my book. That means it is truly multitasking. I understand why many users might appreciate "feedback," but I have stuff to do.
Windows multitasks as well as Linux for me. I don't understand why you have a problem with it.
I recently did an export in Outlook to a.pst file on a client's XP workstation and the system was barely usable while that was happening. I don't know why this kind of thing doesn't bother you. My guess is that you don't do much CPU or I/O intensive work in either Windows or Linux.
As for your hourglass pointer problems -- maybe you should check to make sure you're using Windows XP and not 98. An hourglass means the current application (not the entire system) is too busy to respond to you,
Certainly XP is a vast improvement over 98 in terms of system responsiveness, but hangs and lags still happen enough to annoy me in XP and 2K. Certainly more than any Linux desktop I've run. Sometimes I don't even get the courtesey of the hourglass in Windows.
and the hourglass/pointer combo means that the current application is processing your request in the background, but remains responsive to user commands.
I don't mind an hourglass inside a particular application. That is understandable. I just don't like it when that hourglass follows me when I try to switch to another app while I am waiting.
Another thing that pisses me off in the Windows world are "Would you like to restart your computer?" windows that won't go away unless you restart your computer. I thought I would be clever once and kill the application producing the window. But THAT rebooted my computer. I was so pissed. I was working on something.
Anyway, I find less aggravation in a desktop, such as Linux, that doesn't try to do too much (without me asking). Less is more, as they say.
And that is why most people in/. have no concept of users.
I didn't say it wasn't an appropriate tradeoff. I understand users. I simply stated that for me, personally, it isn't a desirable tradeoff. I am a user too, ya know.
Most users don't multitask. They sit down and do one thing at a time. Maybe they will push something to the background but rarely is it something that crunches (move Word to the background where it is waiting on the user to type something while they pull up an email reader to send email to someone).
I'm not a cruncher at all... on Windows. If I am on Windows it is because I am using Word or whatever. The hangs and lags I come accross are during day to day operations. Perhaps the problem isn't proper multitasking but with a highly integrated desktop. With so many interdependencies it is no wonder the system hits deadlock-like states.
As far as hanging the GUI, I had Mandrake 9.2 completely lock the system hardcore solid today 5 times. The cause? I clicked the Install Software thing too many times from the GUI. I was impatient and thought I had missed so I clicked again... then again... because the thing is so responsive... Then it got into some state where the only solution was to power cycle the machine.
And that is why users have no concept of most people in/.
-matthew
Totally. I don't really care about a slight improvement in minimizing windows or scrolling in a web browser or whatever. I want to know why does Windows still give the hourglass? I am sick of doing something in one app that brings a Windows machine to a crawl or worse, hang. Login to a Windows XP machine and it can be up to 30 seconds before the harddrive quiets down enough to get any work done. Yeah, the Windows GUI feels pretty zippy once it is loaded, but I can't tell you how much even the occassional hourglass outside of the working app pisses me off. And what is with that hourglass/arrow combination pointer? Is the computer too busy or not? Make up your mind!
Unless my Linux machine is thrashing REALLY hard because of a runaway app or something, it never lags. No hourglasses. My desktop menus always pops up when I need them. I can have 3 applications crunching away in the background and my machine remains faily responsive with no hanging of the GUI.
I think Microsoft has made the GUI zippy at the expense of proper multitasking. But I guess that is their choice to make that tradeoff. I prefer proper multitasking, personally.
-matthew
Re:The future sucks, it always does
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Well, deception may be evil, but why are you so sure that "corporations" are more deceptive than... well, anyone?
First of all, corporations aren't people. It bothers me that our government gives a corporation, as an entity, the rights of a citizen. Which implicitly excuses the individuals who run the corporations from direct responsibility for what the corporation does in many cases,
All I'm saying is that being part of a corporation doesn't excuse deception. You seem to think it is OK because it is inevitable.
Never claimed it did,
You have. Many times you have taken all the burden of responsibility off of corporations and put it on consumers. SPAM problem? Blame the few who respond to SPAM. God forbid you actually hold the spammer reponsible for their actions. No.
but the fact that you assume "corporation" is synonymous with "unethical" and "dishonest" betrays a sort of bias on your part.
You are presuming that about me. I'm perferctly willing to accept that corporations can be honest and ethical. But the sad fact is that a good number aren't. Have you ever spent much time dealing with a marketing department? I have, and it is disgusting.
And "self-intrest" doesn't need to be hishonest, unethical, or "evil". It's a part of life. We're all self-interested. So the question gets to be, how are you going to deal with that fact?
I'd prefer not to institutionalize self-interest such that it becomes all pervasive and amplified to an almost unbearable degree as we have in our society.
In relation to spam, yeah, spam is a pain in the butt. Obviously, someone likes it. Some consumers feel this is a valid form of advertising, or it wouldn't be profitable. In other words, your sh*t is another man's shinola. Arguing about whether inevitable things are "good" or "bad" often fails to be productive. You want to do something about it, dry up the demand. As long as there's a demand, someone will step up to fill the supply.
Once again, Bullshit. There is nothing I can do about the 1 in 1000 who respond to SPAM. I already am doing something about SPAM, though. I work for an ISP and we block a good percentage of it. Of course, this is resources we shouldn't have to utilize. Spammers are abusing our resources, without paying us a dime, to send email that our customers don't want. And that is wrong. At least the USPS gets compensated for delivering junk mail. Did you know that more than 60% of all email that goes over the internet is SPAM?
I'm sorry if you don't see that this is a real problem. You can argue all the "cold hard realities" you want, but your amoral attitude isn't going to get very far with me.
yeah, I've been exposed to marketing ALL MY LIFE. So have you. Are you going to admit yourself incapable of making rational decisions?
I don't underestimate the impact that marketing has had on me. Whatever decisions I do make have been influenced by a lifetime of marketing exposure no matter what I do. And I resent that.
To a significant degree, I feel brainwashed. You should too. Especially you. You seem to have bought into the capitalist system and all of its "cold realies" and assumptions about human nature hook, line and sinker. It bothers me to talk to people like you. It diminishes any hope I might have of a better tomorrow.
Ah, but that's my point. A capitalistic society understands that, so long as their's "your stupidity", someone will step up to the plate to take advantage of it.
Bullshit again. By this logic, we should find some way to institutionalize theft because there will always be people who leave themselves open to theft and always a theif to "step up to the plate."
Corporations are not more or less likely to do so.
Perhaps not, but they are in a position to do it on a much larger scale.
What are you going to do, make "the government" keep people from taking advantage of your stupidity?
You m
Re:The future sucks, it always does
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Let me put it this way. When someone thinks in terms of, "Companies want to make money off of me, which is greedy. Greed is evil, therefore companies are bad," I find this sort of thing communistic.
I doubt the book makes such a simplistic and thoughtless statement about capitalism. It wouldn't be a very interesting book if it did.
Corporations aren't evil. They won't make commercials that we won't watch.
But they will make commercials that deceive you and influence your values. By the Judeo-Christian definiton, that is evil. But then, I'm no Christian and evil isn't much a part of my vocabulary. Suffice it to say that there is some basis for the sentiment that corporations are "evil." At least some are.
They won't sell products we won't buy.
If you don't like the actions of a given corporation, alter their interests. Boycott until the get their priotities straight. Any businessman worth his salt knows that dissatisfied customers aren't good for business.
Wow, you are really getting all geared up for the coming American corpocracy, aren't you? What does one do in the case of a virtual monopoly where there is only one viable choice for a product or service. What do you do when one corporation owns practically all the media, for example? We're not too far from this today.
Also, we don't always have the option to vote with our wallets. I mean, not all companies deal with consumers directly.
I don't want to start a capitolist/communist flame war or something.
Communism has nothing to do with this. It is just a red herring, as they say. It is a convenient way for people you to discredit any critic of capitalism.
If you want to point the finger at "the cultprit" behind advertising pervading our lives, look in the mirror. You want to blame someone for the spam problem, don't attack spammers, attack the retards who buy products advertised through spam. If it weren't for them, spam would be ineffective, and no one would pay the spammers to advertise, and it would dry up.
Please excuse the flame, but that is utter bullshit. A person (spammer in this case) is just as responsible for his or her actions as anyone else. Being part of a corporation doesn't magically excuse people from acting ethically and honestly.
So, if we ever have implants in our brains reading our thoughts and sending it out to corporations, and beeming back advertisements, then the problem isn't "corporate interests". The real villian is our own stupidity. OK? We never should have allowed ourselves to get into that mess.
Well gee, why don't you take *all* responsibility away from corporations while you are at it? Why don't we just let them advertise in any way they want and leave it to the people to tell what is the truth and what is outright lies. I'm sorry, but you can't reasonally expect people to make rational decisions when they are exposed to the kind of marketing that they are exposed to ALL THEIR LIVES. If only capitalism were limited to a weekly trip to the market or something. But no, it is all pervasive. Simple competition has turned into a frenzy of advertisement as corporations go to war over every last penny in our bank acounts... and then some. It is me against thousands of corporations and them against each other. Pardon me if your whole "people should know better" falls on deaf ears. I wouldn't like it if my neighbor decieved me into buying something. Why should I like it when corporations do it?
And I don't care what high ideals and peppermint and gumdrops you have in mind, putting microchips that can read your mind and control your thoughts, and then turning control over these chips to anyone is really stupid. Really really stupid. So the idea that "this technology was corrupted by corporate interests- if only the mind-control chips were used for good!" is silly. It would be a technology just aching to be misused, whoever was at the controls.
Sci-Fi isn't about the future. It is about the present. It most definitly isn't saying "things might not be so good no matter what you do." Sci-Fi opens our eyes to current problems and issues so we can make things better or at least preventing them from gettign as bad as the story. Fiction is a way of abstracting current issues so that we might understand them better. Well, that and for entertainment.
Slashdot Mirror
All you are going to end up with is Adbar AND Gator on your computer. There is no reason to believe that Adbar would replace any other type of advertising. It would just amount to MORE advertising on the Internet. Ads in adbar as well as ads embedded in the site itself. See, the sites you visit want to make money too. It isn't like the money Google would get from this would somehow trickle down to other sites.
Voluntarily installing adbar is stupid. It would be like installing a device that sits on top of your TV and scrolls advertisements while you watch shows... that also have advertisment.
Yeah, I'm sure [spammer ISP] is really worried about a few Slashdot readers blocking their netblock at their Linux workstation. And if anyone is using Linux/iptables as a major network router, they are probably not worth communicating with anyway. ;-)
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/moral/w almart
Well, I was speaking more in terms of competative practices, effect on communities, and the eyesores that the stores have become and not necessarily in terms of consumer relations, but OK. I hear ya. ;-)
Still, I don't like Walmart and I would not be proud to have them on my side.
-matthew
I didn't assume you are selfish and shallow. I said your idea of the American dream is selfish and shallow. You expressed it very clearly. There was no need to assume. I'm not trying to prove anything. Either you take my opinion to heart or you don't. I don't really care. I just felt like I should express it. I'm just exercising my freedom,
that's all.
BTW, I didn't say anything about Microsoft or Bill Gates taking away my freedom. I do chose not to use Windows. I use Linux almost exclusivly. Nice of you to assume that I feel my freedoms have been abridged by Bill Gates though. Been nice chatting with ya.
-matthew
So basically in your selfishness and shallowness you have taken freedom for granted. Nothing "wrong" with that, I guess. But it is still selfish and shallow.
That is a shallow and depressing idea of the "American Dream." To be rich? Here I thought it was about freedom of expression and experience. Apparently they are merely means for becoming rich. No wonder this society is so fucked up.
What are you talking about?
It is a sign that the "revolution" is just as corrupt as Microsoft itself. I'm not proud to have Walmart on my "side." Walmart is just as evil as Microsoft... just in a different industry.
I my opinion all this Linux vs. Microsoft stuff is stupid. I mean, it is useful to make a technical comparison to decide which is the best or preferable tool for the job, but do we really need to turn this into a war? I use Linux almost exclusively at work and at home because it works for me, not because it might be a thorn in Microsoft's side.
-matthew
Why would Sun choose Opteron, with all of its x86 cruft, when they could get the more pure and open POWER architecture?
The reason Apple and Sun can integrate the OS so well with the hardware isn't so much because they designed the hardware (although I'm sure that helps). It is because the set of hardware is very limited and easy to test/certify. You can say "This OS is certified to run on a SPARCStation 20" and it will most likely run well on that hardware. How many video cards, SCSI adapters, motherboards, CPUs, etc does Windows and Linux have to support? How many PC vendors are there each with their own quirks? The permutations are infinite.
Commies? The Linux advocates, of course :-)
-matthew.
If I remember correctly from physics, under normal Earth conditions, heat dissipates much more quickly through conduction and convection than it does through radiation. Also, the windows blocking IR from the inside would still tend to cool the inside of a car (in the case of a parked car) because the windows would absorb the IR from the inside and conduct the heat to the cooler outside air. Now, if the windows *reflected* the IR, that would be a different story, but AFAIK, the coating in question absorbs IR.
Ban them? Nah. They are people too, ya know. I say we hobble them. Maybe a good baseball bat to the knees. Of course, that will probably put them in front of a computer for more hours of the day which would probably make the problem worse, but at least they'll be in pain.
Ever notice how the inside of a car gets HOTTER than the outside air? That is from the sun's radiation, not conduction through the metal (or glass). If you could block the heat from the sun, cars would be much easier to cool and they might not get so damn hot when parked.
That is also where a lot of instability comes from.
I actually love the FREEDOM of choosing between aplication priority and background process priority, and if something like this exists on linux, please tell me more about it!
It doesn't address the issue I am talking about. Choosing to enhance background priority is for servers and actually makes the problem on the desktop worse. Linux has the best of both worlds, IMO. A good balance. Linux does have the option of improving desktop performance even more with the pre-emptable kernel patch (2.4.x) or option (2.6.x).
Windows let you choose what you want, linux gui's, mostly gnome, decide for you. But that's another story...
You actually have it the wrong way around. Linux lets you choose what you want. Gnome is only one of those choices. Not to mention the choice of distribution which can make all the difference in the world.
-matthew
I suppose after using Windows for too long it becomes difficult to have faith in your computer's willingness and ability to do what you tell it to do.
I'm guessing you are one of those people who send 20 copies of a print job to a print queue when the first 19 don't show up at the printer (feedback). And then when the print queue is fixed, tons of paper is wasted unless you run and delete the jobs.
or not. feedback that something is happening is important, linux lacks much of it
It's not a bug, it's a feature. There are better ways to show feedback than bringing the system to a crawl. Sheesh.
-matthew
Something useful like.... waiting 15 seconds for the Start Menu to open?
Why would an hourglass icon from an application you're not currently using disturb you? That seems a little strange to me. If you're not using it, why do you even pay attention to its existance?
I find that when I get an hourglass in a app, the rest of the system is often too busy to service my requests effectively. Better than Windows 98, yea, but still bad.
Here's a point you seem to have missed: the hourglass cursor is controlled by the application, not the operating system. The application tells windows to use it when it is busy & therefore can't respond to user requests. Windows also uses it if an application doesn't have a predefined cursor and isn't responding to events.P> I know the theory, thanks. I'm just telling you what I experience on a regular basis on various installations.
Oh, and the hourglass/arrow is a feedback indicator. It's telling you that the computer has responded to your request, but you can now go on to do something else if you want.
HA!
The lack of a similar system in Linux desktops is really annoying, I find. KDE has an almost acceptable approach where a box is displayed on the panel to indicate an application is starting, but it isn't nearly as good (because the hourglass arrow cursor is an OS level feature of windows, so can achieve things KDE/Gnome/whatever couldn't achieve without a kernel patch).
Well, I don't run KDE in particular, but I find that an hourglass simply isn't necessary in Linux. If I want to know if it is responding to my request, I can usually just look at the HD light (unless I've just recently run that command and everything is in cache). I would much rather the system not bother me with "feedback" and just do what I tell it. The fact that you can hardly tell if Linux is processing your request a big plus in my book. That means it is truly multitasking. I understand why many users might appreciate "feedback," but I have stuff to do.
Windows multitasks as well as Linux for me. I don't understand why you have a problem with it.
I recently did an export in Outlook to a .pst file on a client's XP workstation and the system was barely usable while that was happening. I don't know why this kind of thing doesn't bother you. My guess is that you don't do much CPU or I/O intensive work in either Windows or Linux.
-matthew
Certainly XP is a vast improvement over 98 in terms of system responsiveness, but hangs and lags still happen enough to annoy me in XP and 2K. Certainly more than any Linux desktop I've run. Sometimes I don't even get the courtesey of the hourglass in Windows.
and the hourglass/pointer combo means that the current application is processing your request in the background, but remains responsive to user commands.
That is the theory, anyway...
-matthew
Another thing that pisses me off in the Windows world are "Would you like to restart your computer?" windows that won't go away unless you restart your computer. I thought I would be clever once and kill the application producing the window. But THAT rebooted my computer. I was so pissed. I was working on something.
Anyway, I find less aggravation in a desktop, such as Linux, that doesn't try to do too much (without me asking). Less is more, as they say.
-matthew
I didn't say it wasn't an appropriate tradeoff. I understand users. I simply stated that for me, personally, it isn't a desirable tradeoff. I am a user too, ya know.
Most users don't multitask. They sit down and do one thing at a time. Maybe they will push something to the background but rarely is it something that crunches (move Word to the background where it is waiting on the user to type something while they pull up an email reader to send email to someone).
I'm not a cruncher at all... on Windows. If I am on Windows it is because I am using Word or whatever. The hangs and lags I come accross are during day to day operations. Perhaps the problem isn't proper multitasking but with a highly integrated desktop. With so many interdependencies it is no wonder the system hits deadlock-like states.
As far as hanging the GUI, I had Mandrake 9.2 completely lock the system hardcore solid today 5 times. The cause? I clicked the Install Software thing too many times from the GUI. I was impatient and thought I had missed so I clicked again... then again... because the thing is so responsive... Then it got into some state where the only solution was to power cycle the machine.
And that is why users have no concept of most people in /.
-matthew
Unless my Linux machine is thrashing REALLY hard because of a runaway app or something, it never lags. No hourglasses. My desktop menus always pops up when I need them. I can have 3 applications crunching away in the background and my machine remains faily responsive with no hanging of the GUI.
I think Microsoft has made the GUI zippy at the expense of proper multitasking. But I guess that is their choice to make that tradeoff. I prefer proper multitasking, personally.
-matthew
First of all, corporations aren't people. It bothers me that our government gives a corporation, as an entity, the rights of a citizen. Which implicitly excuses the individuals who run the corporations from direct responsibility for what the corporation does in many cases,
All I'm saying is that being part of a corporation doesn't excuse deception. You seem to think it is OK because it is inevitable.
Never claimed it did,
You have. Many times you have taken all the burden of responsibility off of corporations and put it on consumers. SPAM problem? Blame the few who respond to SPAM. God forbid you actually hold the spammer reponsible for their actions. No.
but the fact that you assume "corporation" is synonymous with "unethical" and "dishonest" betrays a sort of bias on your part.
You are presuming that about me. I'm perferctly willing to accept that corporations can be honest and ethical. But the sad fact is that a good number aren't. Have you ever spent much time dealing with a marketing department? I have, and it is disgusting.
And "self-intrest" doesn't need to be hishonest, unethical, or "evil". It's a part of life. We're all self-interested. So the question gets to be, how are you going to deal with that fact?
I'd prefer not to institutionalize self-interest such that it becomes all pervasive and amplified to an almost unbearable degree as we have in our society.
In relation to spam, yeah, spam is a pain in the butt. Obviously, someone likes it. Some consumers feel this is a valid form of advertising, or it wouldn't be profitable. In other words, your sh*t is another man's shinola. Arguing about whether inevitable things are "good" or "bad" often fails to be productive. You want to do something about it, dry up the demand. As long as there's a demand, someone will step up to fill the supply.
Once again, Bullshit. There is nothing I can do about the 1 in 1000 who respond to SPAM. I already am doing something about SPAM, though. I work for an ISP and we block a good percentage of it. Of course, this is resources we shouldn't have to utilize. Spammers are abusing our resources, without paying us a dime, to send email that our customers don't want. And that is wrong. At least the USPS gets compensated for delivering junk mail. Did you know that more than 60% of all email that goes over the internet is SPAM?
I'm sorry if you don't see that this is a real problem. You can argue all the "cold hard realities" you want, but your amoral attitude isn't going to get very far with me.
yeah, I've been exposed to marketing ALL MY LIFE. So have you. Are you going to admit yourself incapable of making rational decisions?
I don't underestimate the impact that marketing has had on me. Whatever decisions I do make have been influenced by a lifetime of marketing exposure no matter what I do. And I resent that. To a significant degree, I feel brainwashed. You should too. Especially you. You seem to have bought into the capitalist system and all of its "cold realies" and assumptions about human nature hook, line and sinker. It bothers me to talk to people like you. It diminishes any hope I might have of a better tomorrow.
Ah, but that's my point. A capitalistic society understands that, so long as their's "your stupidity", someone will step up to the plate to take advantage of it. Bullshit again. By this logic, we should find some way to institutionalize theft because there will always be people who leave themselves open to theft and always a theif to "step up to the plate."
Corporations are not more or less likely to do so.
Perhaps not, but they are in a position to do it on a much larger scale.
What are you going to do, make "the government" keep people from taking advantage of your stupidity?
You m
I doubt the book makes such a simplistic and thoughtless statement about capitalism. It wouldn't be a very interesting book if it did.
Corporations aren't evil. They won't make commercials that we won't watch.
But they will make commercials that deceive you and influence your values. By the Judeo-Christian definiton, that is evil. But then, I'm no Christian and evil isn't much a part of my vocabulary. Suffice it to say that there is some basis for the sentiment that corporations are "evil." At least some are.
They won't sell products we won't buy. If you don't like the actions of a given corporation, alter their interests. Boycott until the get their priotities straight. Any businessman worth his salt knows that dissatisfied customers aren't good for business.
Wow, you are really getting all geared up for the coming American corpocracy, aren't you? What does one do in the case of a virtual monopoly where there is only one viable choice for a product or service. What do you do when one corporation owns practically all the media, for example? We're not too far from this today.
Also, we don't always have the option to vote with our wallets. I mean, not all companies deal with consumers directly.
I don't want to start a capitolist/communist flame war or something.
Communism has nothing to do with this. It is just a red herring, as they say. It is a convenient way for people you to discredit any critic of capitalism.
If you want to point the finger at "the cultprit" behind advertising pervading our lives, look in the mirror. You want to blame someone for the spam problem, don't attack spammers, attack the retards who buy products advertised through spam. If it weren't for them, spam would be ineffective, and no one would pay the spammers to advertise, and it would dry up.
Please excuse the flame, but that is utter bullshit. A person (spammer in this case) is just as responsible for his or her actions as anyone else. Being part of a corporation doesn't magically excuse people from acting ethically and honestly.
So, if we ever have implants in our brains reading our thoughts and sending it out to corporations, and beeming back advertisements, then the problem isn't "corporate interests". The real villian is our own stupidity. OK? We never should have allowed ourselves to get into that mess.
Well gee, why don't you take *all* responsibility away from corporations while you are at it? Why don't we just let them advertise in any way they want and leave it to the people to tell what is the truth and what is outright lies. I'm sorry, but you can't reasonally expect people to make rational decisions when they are exposed to the kind of marketing that they are exposed to ALL THEIR LIVES. If only capitalism were limited to a weekly trip to the market or something. But no, it is all pervasive. Simple competition has turned into a frenzy of advertisement as corporations go to war over every last penny in our bank acounts... and then some. It is me against thousands of corporations and them against each other. Pardon me if your whole "people should know better" falls on deaf ears. I wouldn't like it if my neighbor decieved me into buying something. Why should I like it when corporations do it?
And I don't care what high ideals and peppermint and gumdrops you have in mind, putting microchips that can read your mind and control your thoughts, and then turning control over these chips to anyone is really stupid. Really really stupid. So the idea that "this technology was corrupted by corporate interests- if only the mind-control chips were used for good!" is silly. It would be a technology just aching to be misused, whoever was at the controls.
True, but this doesn't excuse the
Sci-Fi isn't about the future. It is about the present. It most definitly isn't saying "things might not be so good no matter what you do." Sci-Fi opens our eyes to current problems and issues so we can make things better or at least preventing them from gettign as bad as the story. Fiction is a way of abstracting current issues so that we might understand them better. Well, that and for entertainment.
-matthew