You only *watch*, in the first place, the programs they *want* you to watch. (insert Twilight Zone theme here).
They can want you to watch, but you won't watch unless you want to watch. But if what you want to watch isn't what they want you to watch, then you can't watch. So maybe you give up wanting to watch what you want, and decide to want what they want, so that they get what they want.
But why do you want what you want? Is what you want what they want you to want? Or does it go the other way, where you don't want what they want and so they stop wanting what they want and instead want what you want so that what you want is what they give?
Who wants? And who's is the first want? One want to rule them all? Did any of you really want that film? Or is it all because the author wanted what you didn't know you wanted and when he gave it you all said, "this I want!!"
The power is shared. The wants are co-created between all the parties involved. Give me just enough of what I want and I'll be satisfied.
The crap acting you see in commercials now is going to take place inside your favourite drama or sci-fi adventure. Also expect more of those fucking tickers at the bottom, top, and sides of your screen.
Great! So I can finally find out where to buy a real working light sabre! Oooh, and I want one of those spellbooks from Buffy.... and one of those cool Eagles from Space1999... I'm going to just love landing in the car park at work in one of those. Do they do good finance on them? What's the fine print--"nuclear fuel not included"?
Funny how the MSCE in his story has to call tech support and it takes 2 days. Dammit, anyone can call tech support.
Was it that the tech support guy, called J.C., was actually Christ, and that even his miracle working couldn't get the machine to work, and so he had to resort to calling the help line??
Listen, if it doesn't belong to you, you don't have any rights over it. This guy was a contractor at Intel, yet he tried to crack their password file without permission. Can you not understand why Intel was a bit upset?
If that is an accurate and full description of the case, and what he did, then why is there even any controversy about it? Why is it even on Slashdot? Why is anyone even supporting him? Are they all stupid? Sounds like it.
Cracking research is a healthy activity, on your own time, with your own password file.
Fine. That improves the security of your own system. But what about the security of organisations that we rely upon? That's what I was referring to when I said that tolerating some cracking activity would be healthy.
Sheesh, I can't believe the idiots defending this child.
Well, you know, I was really just replying to an earlier post about analogies. I'm really not sure what the facts are in this case. He says he got different instructions from different people.
Anyhow, computer security is full of gray areas. On the one hand, there's one extreme view that says that any data on a network should be protected by the sysadmin. ie. if you can get to it then you're entitled to it. The other extreme is that an organisation owns its own data and nobody is alowed to mess with it ie. web site policies requiring people to get permission before they can be linked to.
Now in between these extremes are most common sense cases. But exactly where you draw the line between right and wrong, and the degree of punishment, is a matter of what you value. So please don't call people "idiots" for defending this guy. They've drawn the line a bit differently to you.
It's not that "it's all relative/opinion". Here in the UK we have the right to ramble. That's walking on paths that go across farmer's land ie. private property. It drives some farmers nuts (to the point that they build barns across the paths), but it's considered a social good that people be alowed to walk across the countryside. People value it and it supports much of the tourist industry. Compare that to South Africa, where you were alowed to shoot to kill any intruder in your home.
So where do we draw the line with computer security? How much effort should the hacker be shown to have made? How much effort should the sysadmins make to protect their stuff? How "public" should our networks be considered? Should you have a licence to run a website? Etc. Etc.
Enough with the stupid analogies. They don't apply in this case.
If there's no damage to the data on the system, then why compare it to blowing up a bank vault? And if the bank "robber" is only trying combinations, well, how did he get into the bank in the first place? He probably broke in, so again, there is damage to property.
So I agree that the analogy does not apply.
At a stretch, it seems more like walking down the road, looking into each car window to see what's inside. Ie. only interacting with the publically available photons.
Now maybe password cracking is also like trying each car door to see if it's locked. But then that's a very suspicious looking activity, but perhaps only because many people naturally lock their car doors. Ie. it's not an issue to be curious about.
Whearas in computer security, it's all very complex and we're still learning how to do it. So "research" is a more valid reason. It's in the social good to find these security holes.
After all, we don't want China or whever the new BigBad is, crippling a country's infrastructure.
So perhaps we should recognise that cracking research is a healthy activity, and should be welcomed the way we welcome someone calling out, "hey, bozo, you left your car lights on!".
Microsoft knew about the security hole in XP for 5 weeks yet they continued to tout it as the most secure system ever.
Here in the UK we have the Advertising Standards Authority. They monitor adverts and register complaints. Recently they ruled that the British Telecom ISP could not be allowed to advertise themselves as "fast and reliable", as they had received complaints from users of the service. (BT internet ad withdrawn)
Theres comfort in identifying with a disabled group.
I know we're getting way OT here, but as you've mentioned this, I'm reminded of my wife, who is studying/practicing sign language.
Her course covers "Deaf Issues" and "Deaf culture". She is being taught that a lot of deaf people want sign language to be recognised as an official national language (here in the U.K.)
Also, more interestingly, on the issue of using medical proceedures to "correct"[1] deafness in children, many deaf people are against it. They would rather that deafness be recognised as a cultural (and natural) condition, and that it be called Deafness (capitalised), maybe as a sign of respect, like you capitalize the names of countries.
It's an interesting question, which forces one to reveal their values. Do you value cultural diversity where no-one and no-thing are meant to be better or healthier than anything else? Or do you take a modern, "common sense" approach, whereby you believe that everyone wants to make money and being deaf just reduces your employment opportunities ?
In a sense, this whole debate (call me pretentious) is about the war between these two values/POV. Is mild autism merely a natural cultural diversification (oooh, long words, must be bollocks), or is it a disease, a discomfort for its sufferers and their relatives, that impedes their having a "normal" modern life?
[1] "correct" being itself a value judgement
I love the smell of political incorrectness in the morning. --K.W.
You can't learn anything by studying Zen for 20 years. Just ask a Zen master.
Obviously. I've read enough books on Zen that start with "you won't learn anything reading this book" to know that. As has anyone who's picked up a book on Zen.
I didn't say "learning". You added that. So I used the word "study". Guess I should have used "practice". What I meant was, "do it to find out". Study in the sense of finding out.
You could have guessed from the context that I meant study/practice. I meant study in the sense of deepening understanding. Which comes about through the practice of the various Zen ways, meditation, koans, discipline, "Who am I?", etc. And you already know that.
So sure, but just because satori is undescribable, "He who speaks does not know", it doesn't mean that Zen masters always stay silent. They write! They give lectures! D.T. Suzuki was considered the greatest living Zen scholar. He had his satori. He wrote books. Ken Wilber had his satori. He continues to write books.
As one irritated Buddhist asked Ken in an interview, "So what do you know that the Buddha doesn't??", KW: "How to drive a jeep."
The mapping of your concept space onto mine pre-supposes my own post-contextual usage. In a very pre-evolutionary way, the multi-dimensional concept space in which our ideas move (what Glieber and Friesch define as the "Geshaltmorph") is defined by our own context, therefore your criticism of my post is invalid. Wiber's writing are, indeed, within the limitations of our own understanding of post-Gesthaltmorph contextualizations , "bollocks".
Christians babble this same nonsense about their favorite imaginary friend.
Don't label me a religious nut.
Sheeesh. I wasn't talking about "spirituality". But as you've brought it up, go study Zen for 20 years and then come back and tell us that there's no such thing as "spirituality".
I suggest that before you bother reading this long post you take a look at the web site the poster recommends and about "Ken Wilber". Read his very interesting article "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality". In England we call this type of stuff "bollocks".
LOL! Need I tell you what we call people like you in England?
Wilber is a philosopher and so has to deal with academic language. That particular article was written in response to another academic. But if you read his books, you'll find that he can take some very muddy stuff look very clear.
So before anyone takes your advice, I suggest they remember that you don't know what you're talking about.
I truly doubt there is an increase in autism, just an increase in the number of children they are diagnosing as autistic. I never believed or trusted in psychologist in the first place.
Well, when we study people, as Psychology does, we get into very tricky territory.
Basically there's this desire to be scientific. We know that science works because we put a man on the moon. So we want everything to be scientific. Like, if it science, then it's true.
But science can only answer certain questions. What is it's mass? Where is the brain activity? But then there's this whole other half of knowing, which is about meaning and context and interpretation. And this stuff cannot be known objectively. It can only be interpreted, and the trick is to find the best interpretation.
For example, you can objectively measure heart rate. But what is the meaning of the heart rate? Is it because the patient is angry? or excited? or aroused? Which word would the patient use to best describe what they are feeling? Or would you rather just look at their face, to see if they are angry? But now you're still having to interpret. Are they angry? Do they have bad indigestion?
Meaning exists in the mind, and not in the physical brain mass. You can measure chemicals in the brain, but if you want to know what the patient is experiencing, then you have to ask them. And their answer will have to be interpreted. (Well, he says he feels fine, but he didn't sound too sure)
So meethinks that here we have a thing called autism that can't be measured by a machine (unless they find a specific brain region that can be tied to it). And it affects how people interact socially. Now I challenge you to find an objective, performed automatically by machine, test that can measure social inteaction.
No way. The machine would have to not only register language, body posture, etc. but would have to know the meaning of all those things. It would have to practically be sentient, so that it could interpret what it's seeing. At which point it becomes just as subjective as anybody else.
Now until they find a way to measure the brain that is directly tied to autism... we have to interpret what the person is doing (is he just tired or is he antisocial?) which is frought with difficulty... but that doesn't mean that autism "doesn't exist".
So I think the trouble with that test, on the site which you linked, is that it tries to turn a subjective, interpretationally based test, into something which gives you a number for an answer.
Nope. Sorry. No numbers allowed. This is an interpretation, (and possibly a good one, depending on who's performing the evaluation). So the best that the test can be said to "result" in is a, "probably yes", "probably no", or "let's keep an eye on this".
So what we're doing is distinguishing between Objective Truth that can be measured, and Subjective Authenticity which must be interpreted. This is a distinction made by Ken Wilber, when he looked at many fields of human knowledge and asked himself how it could all possibly fit together. And he noticed that not only were there these two categories, but that our scientifically driven modern world thinks that science is the only kind of truth. Which is half right. The Objective can be studied scientifically. Man walked on the moon! But the subjective aspects, like what's really going on inside a person's experience, THAT can only be found out by talking to the person, interacting with them, interpreting their inner world.
Science won't reveal meaning. "Honey, I love you", "Don't be silly dear. There's no such thing as love in reality. Your brain is merely swishing around some chemicals. When you give me a present I know it's just your brain chemistry acting up. Oh, you want to have sex? But that's just your testosterone. Here's some pills I got from the doctor. The'll re-adjust your chemistry balance."
So we have to see that in addition to the noble truths of science, there's also the noble authenticity of interpretation.
Don't say, "It's not scientific! So it's a pile of crap!" But also, (and this maybe applies to those psychologists), don't pretend that something youve discovered via interpretation is actually something objective and scientific. Just be sure that your interpretation is a good one, and that you check it with other, suitably prepared people who also agree the same meaning. Just like English speakers can interpret English, and be fairly close in their meaning of the words.
Rather, given this phenomenon, "autism", can we study it objectively? Can we study it subjectively? Can we use both what the equiment tells us and what our interpretations tell us? What can we find out about autism, through studying it via both channels?
Don't bother trying to educate Mac users. You can lead them to information but you can't make them think.
Please try to expand your thinking beyond simple categories. By "mac users" you presumably mean "anyone who uses a mac".
I know you're speaking generally about people you've met or who's comments you've read, but by turning that into a general statement about how "mac users don't think", well, boyyy-o, you're just making yourself look simple-minded, and insulting a whole bunch of people who happen to use computers with an Apple badge.
But hey, you're entitled to your opinion. Just try to make it a good one.:P
Re:Its been done before - and failed before.
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This is IT?
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It was an outstanding failure, mainly due to safety concerns on busy roads
Those things made you about 3.5' high -- very vulnerable looking on a busy road.
Compare that to a bicycle, where you can look motorists in the eye.
IT is more like a bicycle for people who wouldn't otherwise use a bicycle.
Its called "We the people". We, me and you, andeveryone else, needs to stand up and claim our rights time and time again. Its a pitty so many people just don't care, and makes it even worse for those who do and do fight.
Yes, and by "We the people" you presumably mean, "Earthlings" and not just "Americans" or "My neighbourhood".
I mean, that's all I was saying, that "We the Americans" aren't going to "save the planet". It's going to take the agreement of "We the people of Earth". And right now, corporations, driven by profit, are the ones who see the World as their market. They are trans-national in a way that most people don't identify with. (If "We the people of Earth" sounds odd or just wrong, then you probably don't identify with that view either.)
So as we all start using the same products, (Gap, McDonalds, Windows everywhere and all that), the planet becomes a smaller place and we start being less "Us v. them" and more just "All of us, We the people of Earth".
So all I wondered was whether the corporations are, in a way, accidentally doing us a favour, because, by trying to exert themselves everywhere, they give all of us (the Chinese, the Americans, the British etc., ie. We the People of Earth) a sort of common issue, or even enemy.
And seeing as the corporations are trans-national, We will demand a trans-national body to keep them in check and represent us... ie. a World Government.
And a W.G. would just happen to be useful for deciding what action to take about the environmental crisis (whatever shape or form it can be scientifically shown to have). For without a W.G., no country will let itself be put to a disadvantage by cutting pollution and hurting it's economy, while other countries continue expanding and polluting. And we've got the whole third world still waiting to catch-up to our developed pullution levels.
Anyhow, just a thought. And waaaaaaay OT:)
Re:This is not the traditional embedded market
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Here in the UK they have been putting plasma screens in motorway service stations to show adverts and bits of news and travel info.
Yep. The other day my dash through the crowded train station foyer, while quickly glancing at the screens to see which platform the very next train would be leaving from... I was stopped in my tracks staring at the BSODs.
I think the whole human race has been going downhill ever since the beginning.
A sort of Romantic notion. But it's also been going uphill--it's called the "Dialectic of Progress", or, "Good news, bad news". Every evolutionary advancement becomes itself a new problem that has to be solved.
We could still be apes, and the planet wouldn't suffer, but then what's the point of a planet if it can't breed minds? The biosphere creates an environment where a noosphere can emerge.
Somewhere right now a highly skilled person is writing a song. Somewhere right now a highly skilled person is targetting a bomb. Good news, bad news.
Offtopic (not really): I'm curious whether in the grander evolutionary pattern, it's necessary that corporations aquire all this power, (such as permanent control of IP), and become bigger than countries, thus making it necessary that an organisation bigger than countries be formed to put them back in line. ie. a World Government. A world government may be the only body big enough to tackle the environmental crisis (irrespective of whether it's warming or cooling, and exactly when oil will run out).
Heh, while I don't think it's very kind or respectful to pick apart what someone says in so lengthy a manner, sometimes it's just plain funny to do so.:)
As an additional point, I think some people basically value competition and getting ahead, and so when a company like Monopolysoft does "bad stuff", those who value competition/getting ahead find it difficult to actually condemn the company, because, deep down, they value what the company does... I mean, they Won, and people who believe in getting ahead, believe in Winning.
Ie. if you win, it must be because you deserve to.
So basically, a lot of people can't bring themselves to call Monopolysoft "bad" because in their value system, deep down, winning is "good".
So they either have to change their personal value system, which they've maybe based much of their lives on, or they have to stick to their guns and censor out of their awareness any real knowledge of the "bad".
Similarly, people who value "community bonding" will find it very easy to call any company "bad" because they personally value equality and community, where, basically, because everyone is equal, then no-one should be better, ie. no-one deserves to "win", and if they do "win" an advantage or status, it must have been by oppressing all the others who are just trying to relate on an equal basis. Hence this type of person will filter out any "good" that a company has done, any justly earned rewards for their services.
Basically, we see what we want to believe. Ho! WisdomRUs. You want fries with that insight???
Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, magnifico... oh, oh, ohh, oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no mama mi-ia, mama-mi-ia, mama-mi-ia let me go...
Oh where am I'ah where am I'ah, where am I'ah tell me so,
Eee'Sp'a has a rocket put aside for me.
For me
For me
So do you think you can launch me, up into the sky-yyyah
So do you think you can spin me and let me fly-yyah
Oh baby - please do this to me baby
Just gotta find out, just gotta find out where is here!
Ohh lat-ahh, ooh long-ahh,
No-one really wanders
Anyone receives,
Every-one latitudes, every-one longitudes,
Everywhere they go.
Great, So basically you don't know anything about GTK and... Perfect, just perfect
And as a further improvement on perfection, some other 15 year old mods you down "Redundant"!
But is that "Redundant" because it's already generally and widely understood that useless posts will get modded up?? D'uh, stating the obvious or what.
But then there's the commercial aspects of the video game industry. A lot of games are made for money. It's much like the film industry, I think, where you've got some works that are obviously done to make a buck (the latest Schwarzenegger flick) and then some that are done for the passion of the craft (Wes Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, to name a few of the better of the younger generation, and so on).
I guess that we recognise that "almost anything" can be art, especially if it was done to evoke a feeling or express something (which includes "Yeehaa" as you run over those nuns).
The difficulty, once we're accepted this broad and open outlook, is "the gallery cleaners accidentally threw away an exhibit" syndrome ( Cleaner dumps Hirst installation).
And the issue here is, that while all expressive work can be called art, some works have more depth of expression than others. Ie. there is art, and there is great Art, High Art.
If all you want to express in your art is "hunger", then you can paint lots of skinny sad people. If what you want to express is "funny revulsion", then you could can some faeces. But if what you want to express is some ideal about the Virgin Mary, then you'll have to get a Leonardo to do it. And if you want to express something about the nature of Reality, and the Meaning of Life, then you'll have to get an enlightened Zen painter/calligrapher to do it. The art can only be as deep or high as the inner state of the artist.
So it's all art, especially video games included, and galleries, in the sense that they are museums, should catalog and preserve this stuff. But in the sense that they are arbitrators of greatness, they may want to give it a rest with Hirst's work.
"I wanted to paint a scary shark, but realised I could never paint it to be really scary, so I just got a real one and put it in formaldehyde, and it looked scary". Yeah, nice one Damian.
There's a deep-seated strain of virulent fascism in Europe that's been intermittently expressed in politics and popular culture for most of the 20th century. Hitler and Mussolini didn't come out nowhere
Yes, you're highlighting something often overlooked in our talk about "freedom" -- namely, we can afford to let people be free to have their say only once they have reached a certain level of moral/social/cognitive development.
Just like you don't let your two year old kid do whatever it wants, we also have to keep in check the more 'primitive' aspects of our society.
Now who's to say what's primitive? Well, we can generally agree that we want to be rid of murder, violence etc., and work from there. Yes, people have different opinion, and yes, no-one should "dictate", but on the whole, there are certain "levels", where we say that one thing is better than another.
It's like, a James Bond villain ("I want to blow up the world and rule it") is like a highly intelligent and sophisticated man but with the moral development of a 2 year old ("Me! ME! I want! I want! Me! Me!!")
Society's job is to educate people past the lower, but developmentally unavoidable, parts of our human-ness, so that we can become people who are free because we have a good enough idea about what's right and wrong, and are hence free to do the right thing.
Banning hate literature may help to reduce the degree to which people who are morally under-developed are further damaged and mis-lead. Society has to find ways to educate them beyond their archic racial divisions, and integrate them into a healthy nation centric or even world centric identity. Then and only then, once you've adjusted to the system, can you start to go beyond the system.
But my own understanding is on the whole very limited. Here's what a master philosopher has to say:
The brilliance of the Founding Fathers was that they found a way to take this rare, elite stance--demanding equality and freedom for all--and force it on an entire population as the backbone of a series of legal and behavioral codes that demanded that, even if individuals are not at moral-stage 5 in their own interiors, they must conform their exterior behavior to rules consistent with a moral-stage-5 act (e.g., you do not have to love me, but if you shoot me they will lock you up). Thus, at their best, the laws of America embodied an attempt to encode higher, postconventional, worldcentric responses--regardless of race, sex, color, or creed--implemented with the consent of the governed (the moral-stage-5 social contract), even if those laws were developmentally ahead of most of the governed. The legal, judicial, and political structures of the United States thus acted, in their best instances, as both a higher elitist stance imposed on the population at large and a magnet of psychological and cultural development for its peoples, who could grow into the worldcentric values of freedom and equality embedded in and informing the codes.
-- Ken Wilber
Slashdot Mirror
You only *watch*, in the first place, the programs they *want* you to watch. (insert Twilight Zone theme here).
They can want you to watch, but you won't watch unless you want to watch. But if what you want to watch isn't what they want you to watch, then you can't watch. So maybe you give up wanting to watch what you want, and decide to want what they want, so that they get what they want.
But why do you want what you want? Is what you want what they want you to want? Or does it go the other way, where you don't want what they want and so they stop wanting what they want and instead want what you want so that what you want is what they give?
Who wants? And who's is the first want? One want to rule them all? Did any of you really want that film? Or is it all because the author wanted what you didn't know you wanted and when he gave it you all said, "this I want!!"
The power is shared. The wants are co-created between all the parties involved. Give me just enough of what I want and I'll be satisfied.
The crap acting you see in commercials now is going to take place inside your favourite drama or sci-fi adventure. Also expect more of those fucking tickers at the bottom, top, and sides of your screen.
Great! So I can finally find out where to buy a real working light sabre! Oooh, and I want one of those spellbooks from Buffy.... and one of those cool Eagles from Space1999... I'm going to just love landing in the car park at work in one of those. Do they do good finance on them? What's the fine print--"nuclear fuel not included"?
soo... any suggestions?
How about a real Jack-in-a-box that pops out when you've got mail?
Or an espresso machine linked to a key press counter... 20k and time for another coffee
Or how about some of those Metropolis spark generators for gaming... get hit by a BFG blast and really feel it
Funny how the MSCE in his story has to call tech support and it takes 2 days. Dammit, anyone can call tech support.
Was it that the tech support guy, called J.C., was actually Christ, and that even his miracle working couldn't get the machine to work, and so he had to resort to calling the help line??
Listen, if it doesn't belong to you, you don't have any rights over it. This guy was a contractor at Intel, yet he tried to crack their password file without permission. Can you not understand why Intel was a bit upset?
If that is an accurate and full description of the case, and what he did, then why is there even any controversy about it? Why is it even on Slashdot? Why is anyone even supporting him? Are they all stupid? Sounds like it.
Cracking research is a healthy activity, on your own time, with your own password file.
Fine. That improves the security of your own system. But what about the security of organisations that we rely upon? That's what I was referring to when I said that tolerating some cracking activity would be healthy.
Sheesh, I can't believe the idiots defending this child.
Well, you know, I was really just replying to an earlier post about analogies. I'm really not sure what the facts are in this case. He says he got different instructions from different people.
Anyhow, computer security is full of gray areas. On the one hand, there's one extreme view that says that any data on a network should be protected by the sysadmin. ie. if you can get to it then you're entitled to it. The other extreme is that an organisation owns its own data and nobody is alowed to mess with it ie. web site policies requiring people to get permission before they can be linked to.
Now in between these extremes are most common sense cases. But exactly where you draw the line between right and wrong, and the degree of punishment, is a matter of what you value. So please don't call people "idiots" for defending this guy. They've drawn the line a bit differently to you.
It's not that "it's all relative/opinion". Here in the UK we have the right to ramble. That's walking on paths that go across farmer's land ie. private property. It drives some farmers nuts (to the point that they build barns across the paths), but it's considered a social good that people be alowed to walk across the countryside. People value it and it supports much of the tourist industry. Compare that to South Africa, where you were alowed to shoot to kill any intruder in your home.
So where do we draw the line with computer security? How much effort should the hacker be shown to have made? How much effort should the sysadmins make to protect their stuff? How "public" should our networks be considered? Should you have a licence to run a website? Etc. Etc.
Merry Christmas, Christians.
Enough with the stupid analogies. They don't apply in this case.
If there's no damage to the data on the system, then why compare it to blowing up a bank vault? And if the bank "robber" is only trying combinations, well, how did he get into the bank in the first place? He probably broke in, so again, there is damage to property.
So I agree that the analogy does not apply.
At a stretch, it seems more like walking down the road, looking into each car window to see what's inside. Ie. only interacting with the publically available photons.
Now maybe password cracking is also like trying each car door to see if it's locked. But then that's a very suspicious looking activity, but perhaps only because many people naturally lock their car doors. Ie. it's not an issue to be curious about.
Whearas in computer security, it's all very complex and we're still learning how to do it. So "research" is a more valid reason. It's in the social good to find these security holes.
After all, we don't want China or whever the new BigBad is, crippling a country's infrastructure.
So perhaps we should recognise that cracking research is a healthy activity, and should be welcomed the way we welcome someone calling out, "hey, bozo, you left your car lights on!".
Microsoft knew about the security hole in XP for 5 weeks yet they continued to tout it as the most secure system ever.
Here in the UK we have the Advertising Standards Authority. They monitor adverts and register complaints. Recently they ruled that the British Telecom ISP could not be allowed to advertise themselves as "fast and reliable", as they had received complaints from users of the service. (BT internet ad withdrawn)
Do you have a similar organisation in the USA?
Theres comfort in identifying with a disabled group.
I know we're getting way OT here, but as you've mentioned this, I'm reminded of my wife, who is studying/practicing sign language.
Her course covers "Deaf Issues" and "Deaf culture". She is being taught that a lot of deaf people want sign language to be recognised as an official national language (here in the U.K.)
Also, more interestingly, on the issue of using medical proceedures to "correct"[1] deafness in children, many deaf people are against it. They would rather that deafness be recognised as a cultural (and natural) condition, and that it be called Deafness (capitalised), maybe as a sign of respect, like you capitalize the names of countries.
It's an interesting question, which forces one to reveal their values. Do you value cultural diversity where no-one and no-thing are meant to be better or healthier than anything else? Or do you take a modern, "common sense" approach, whereby you believe that everyone wants to make money and being deaf just reduces your employment opportunities ?
In a sense, this whole debate (call me pretentious) is about the war between these two values/POV. Is mild autism merely a natural cultural diversification (oooh, long words, must be bollocks), or is it a disease, a discomfort for its sufferers and their relatives, that impedes their having a "normal" modern life?
[1] "correct" being itself a value judgement
I love the smell of political incorrectness in the morning. --K.W.
You can't learn anything by studying Zen for 20 years. Just ask a Zen master.
Obviously. I've read enough books on Zen that start with "you won't learn anything reading this book" to know that. As has anyone who's picked up a book on Zen.
I didn't say "learning". You added that. So I used the word "study". Guess I should have used "practice". What I meant was, "do it to find out". Study in the sense of finding out.
You could have guessed from the context that I meant study/practice. I meant study in the sense of deepening understanding. Which comes about through the practice of the various Zen ways, meditation, koans, discipline, "Who am I?", etc. And you already know that.
So sure, but just because satori is undescribable, "He who speaks does not know", it doesn't mean that Zen masters always stay silent. They write! They give lectures! D.T. Suzuki was considered the greatest living Zen scholar. He had his satori. He wrote books. Ken Wilber had his satori. He continues to write books.
As one irritated Buddhist asked Ken in an interview, "So what do you know that the Buddha doesn't??", KW: "How to drive a jeep."
The mapping of your concept space onto mine pre-supposes my own post-contextual usage. In a very pre-evolutionary way, the multi-dimensional concept space in which our ideas move (what Glieber and Friesch define as the "Geshaltmorph") is defined by our own context, therefore your criticism of my post is invalid. Wiber's writing are, indeed, within the limitations of our own understanding of post-Gesthaltmorph contextualizations , "bollocks".
Bye bye now, my bored friend.
Christians babble this same nonsense about their favorite imaginary friend.
Don't label me a religious nut.
Sheeesh. I wasn't talking about "spirituality". But as you've brought it up, go study Zen for 20 years and then come back and tell us that there's no such thing as "spirituality".
Now go troll somewhere else.
I suggest that before you bother reading this long post you take a look at the web site the poster recommends and about "Ken Wilber". Read his very interesting article "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality". In England we call this type of stuff "bollocks".
LOL! Need I tell you what we call people like you in England?
Wilber is a philosopher and so has to deal with academic language. That particular article was written in response to another academic. But if you read his books, you'll find that he can take some very muddy stuff look very clear.
So before anyone takes your advice, I suggest they remember that you don't know what you're talking about.
Cheers matey!
I truly doubt there is an increase in autism, just an increase in the number of children they are diagnosing as autistic. I never believed or trusted in psychologist in the first place.
Well, when we study people, as Psychology does, we get into very tricky territory.
Basically there's this desire to be scientific. We know that science works because we put a man on the moon. So we want everything to be scientific. Like, if it science, then it's true.
But science can only answer certain questions. What is it's mass? Where is the brain activity? But then there's this whole other half of knowing, which is about meaning and context and interpretation. And this stuff cannot be known objectively. It can only be interpreted, and the trick is to find the best interpretation.
For example, you can objectively measure heart rate. But what is the meaning of the heart rate? Is it because the patient is angry? or excited? or aroused? Which word would the patient use to best describe what they are feeling? Or would you rather just look at their face, to see if they are angry? But now you're still having to interpret. Are they angry? Do they have bad indigestion?
Meaning exists in the mind, and not in the physical brain mass. You can measure chemicals in the brain, but if you want to know what the patient is experiencing, then you have to ask them. And their answer will have to be interpreted. (Well, he says he feels fine, but he didn't sound too sure)
So meethinks that here we have a thing called autism that can't be measured by a machine (unless they find a specific brain region that can be tied to it). And it affects how people interact socially. Now I challenge you to find an objective, performed automatically by machine, test that can measure social inteaction.
No way. The machine would have to not only register language, body posture, etc. but would have to know the meaning of all those things. It would have to practically be sentient, so that it could interpret what it's seeing. At which point it becomes just as subjective as anybody else.
Now until they find a way to measure the brain that is directly tied to autism... we have to interpret what the person is doing (is he just tired or is he antisocial?) which is frought with difficulty... but that doesn't mean that autism "doesn't exist".
So I think the trouble with that test, on the site which you linked, is that it tries to turn a subjective, interpretationally based test, into something which gives you a number for an answer.
Nope. Sorry. No numbers allowed. This is an interpretation, (and possibly a good one, depending on who's performing the evaluation). So the best that the test can be said to "result" in is a, "probably yes", "probably no", or "let's keep an eye on this".
So what we're doing is distinguishing between Objective Truth that can be measured, and Subjective Authenticity which must be interpreted. This is a distinction made by Ken Wilber, when he looked at many fields of human knowledge and asked himself how it could all possibly fit together. And he noticed that not only were there these two categories, but that our scientifically driven modern world thinks that science is the only kind of truth. Which is half right. The Objective can be studied scientifically. Man walked on the moon! But the subjective aspects, like what's really going on inside a person's experience, THAT can only be found out by talking to the person, interacting with them, interpreting their inner world.
Science won't reveal meaning. "Honey, I love you", "Don't be silly dear. There's no such thing as love in reality. Your brain is merely swishing around some chemicals. When you give me a present I know it's just your brain chemistry acting up. Oh, you want to have sex? But that's just your testosterone. Here's some pills I got from the doctor. The'll re-adjust your chemistry balance."
So we have to see that in addition to the noble truths of science, there's also the noble authenticity of interpretation.
Don't say, "It's not scientific! So it's a pile of crap!" But also, (and this maybe applies to those psychologists), don't pretend that something youve discovered via interpretation is actually something objective and scientific. Just be sure that your interpretation is a good one, and that you check it with other, suitably prepared people who also agree the same meaning. Just like English speakers can interpret English, and be fairly close in their meaning of the words.
Rather, given this phenomenon, "autism", can we study it objectively? Can we study it subjectively? Can we use both what the equiment tells us and what our interpretations tell us? What can we find out about autism, through studying it via both channels?
Don't bother trying to educate Mac users. You can lead them to information but you can't make them think.
Please try to expand your thinking beyond simple categories. By "mac users" you presumably mean "anyone who uses a mac".
I know you're speaking generally about people you've met or who's comments you've read, but by turning that into a general statement about how "mac users don't think", well, boyyy-o, you're just making yourself look simple-minded, and insulting a whole bunch of people who happen to use computers with an Apple badge.
But hey, you're entitled to your opinion. Just try to make it a good one. :P
It was an outstanding failure, mainly due to safety concerns on busy roads
Those things made you about 3.5' high -- very vulnerable looking on a busy road.
Compare that to a bicycle, where you can look motorists in the eye.
IT is more like a bicycle for people who wouldn't otherwise use a bicycle.
Its called "We the people". We, me and you, andeveryone else, needs to stand up and claim our rights time and time again. Its a pitty so many people just don't care, and makes it even worse for those who do and do fight.
Yes, and by "We the people" you presumably mean, "Earthlings" and not just "Americans" or "My neighbourhood".
I mean, that's all I was saying, that "We the Americans" aren't going to "save the planet". It's going to take the agreement of "We the people of Earth". And right now, corporations, driven by profit, are the ones who see the World as their market. They are trans-national in a way that most people don't identify with. (If "We the people of Earth" sounds odd or just wrong, then you probably don't identify with that view either.)
So as we all start using the same products, (Gap, McDonalds, Windows everywhere and all that), the planet becomes a smaller place and we start being less "Us v. them" and more just "All of us, We the people of Earth".
So all I wondered was whether the corporations are, in a way, accidentally doing us a favour, because, by trying to exert themselves everywhere, they give all of us (the Chinese, the Americans, the British etc., ie. We the People of Earth) a sort of common issue, or even enemy.
And seeing as the corporations are trans-national, We will demand a trans-national body to keep them in check and represent us... ie. a World Government.
And a W.G. would just happen to be useful for deciding what action to take about the environmental crisis (whatever shape or form it can be scientifically shown to have). For without a W.G., no country will let itself be put to a disadvantage by cutting pollution and hurting it's economy, while other countries continue expanding and polluting. And we've got the whole third world still waiting to catch-up to our developed pullution levels.
Anyhow, just a thought. And waaaaaaay OT :)
Here in the UK they have been putting plasma screens in motorway service stations to show adverts and bits of news and travel info.
Yep. The other day my dash through the crowded train station foyer, while quickly glancing at the screens to see which platform the very next train would be leaving from... I was stopped in my tracks staring at the BSODs.
I think the whole human race has been going downhill ever since the beginning.
A sort of Romantic notion. But it's also been going uphill--it's called the "Dialectic of Progress", or, "Good news, bad news". Every evolutionary advancement becomes itself a new problem that has to be solved.
We could still be apes, and the planet wouldn't suffer, but then what's the point of a planet if it can't breed minds? The biosphere creates an environment where a noosphere can emerge.
Somewhere right now a highly skilled person is writing a song. Somewhere right now a highly skilled person is targetting a bomb. Good news, bad news.
Offtopic (not really): I'm curious whether in the grander evolutionary pattern, it's necessary that corporations aquire all this power, (such as permanent control of IP), and become bigger than countries, thus making it necessary that an organisation bigger than countries be formed to put them back in line. ie. a World Government. A world government may be the only body big enough to tackle the environmental crisis (irrespective of whether it's warming or cooling, and exactly when oil will run out).
PS. I must try that drink...
Read A Brief History of Everything
Heh, while I don't think it's very kind or respectful to pick apart what someone says in so lengthy a manner, sometimes it's just plain funny to do so. :)
As an additional point, I think some people basically value competition and getting ahead, and so when a company like Monopolysoft does "bad stuff", those who value competition/getting ahead find it difficult to actually condemn the company, because, deep down, they value what the company does... I mean, they Won, and people who believe in getting ahead, believe in Winning.
Ie. if you win, it must be because you deserve to.
So basically, a lot of people can't bring themselves to call Monopolysoft "bad" because in their value system, deep down, winning is "good".
So they either have to change their personal value system, which they've maybe based much of their lives on, or they have to stick to their guns and censor out of their awareness any real knowledge of the "bad".
Similarly, people who value "community bonding" will find it very easy to call any company "bad" because they personally value equality and community, where, basically, because everyone is equal, then no-one should be better, ie. no-one deserves to "win", and if they do "win" an advantage or status, it must have been by oppressing all the others who are just trying to relate on an equal basis. Hence this type of person will filter out any "good" that a company has done, any justly earned rewards for their services.
Basically, we see what we want to believe. Ho! WisdomRUs. You want fries with that insight???
Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, magnifico... oh, oh, ohh, oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no mama mi-ia, mama-mi-ia, mama-mi-ia let me go...
Oh where am I'ah where am I'ah, where am I'ah tell me so,
Eee'Sp'a has a rocket put aside for me.
For me
For me
So do you think you can launch me, up into the sky-yyyah
So do you think you can spin me and let me fly-yyah
Oh baby - please do this to me baby
Just gotta find out, just gotta find out where is here!
Ohh lat-ahh, ooh long-ahh,
No-one really wanders
Anyone receives,
Every-one latitudes, every-one longitudes,
Everywhere they go.
(Mod: -1 Awful)
Great, So basically you don't know anything about GTK and... Perfect, just perfect
And as a further improvement on perfection, some other 15 year old mods you down "Redundant"!
But is that "Redundant" because it's already generally and widely understood that useless posts will get modded up?? D'uh, stating the obvious or what.
Do your dreams have soundtracks?
What happens when a company sells a product that nobody wants? Um, let's see, that can't be hard to figure out.
They're killing the format. Plain and simple. And forcing people to think of alternatives, big time.
But then there's the commercial aspects of the video game industry. A lot of games are made for money. It's much like the film industry, I think, where you've got some works that are obviously done to make a buck (the latest Schwarzenegger flick) and then some that are done for the passion of the craft (Wes Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, to name a few of the better of the younger generation, and so on).
I guess that we recognise that "almost anything" can be art, especially if it was done to evoke a feeling or express something (which includes "Yeehaa" as you run over those nuns).
The difficulty, once we're accepted this broad and open outlook, is "the gallery cleaners accidentally threw away an exhibit" syndrome ( Cleaner dumps Hirst installation).
And the issue here is, that while all expressive work can be called art, some works have more depth of expression than others. Ie. there is art, and there is great Art, High Art.
If all you want to express in your art is "hunger", then you can paint lots of skinny sad people. If what you want to express is "funny revulsion", then you could can some faeces. But if what you want to express is some ideal about the Virgin Mary, then you'll have to get a Leonardo to do it. And if you want to express something about the nature of Reality, and the Meaning of Life, then you'll have to get an enlightened Zen painter/calligrapher to do it. The art can only be as deep or high as the inner state of the artist.
So it's all art, especially video games included, and galleries, in the sense that they are museums, should catalog and preserve this stuff. But in the sense that they are arbitrators of greatness, they may want to give it a rest with Hirst's work.
"I wanted to paint a scary shark, but realised I could never paint it to be really scary, so I just got a real one and put it in formaldehyde, and it looked scary". Yeah, nice one Damian.
There's a deep-seated strain of virulent fascism in Europe that's been intermittently expressed in politics and popular culture for most of the 20th century. Hitler and Mussolini didn't come out nowhere
Yes, you're highlighting something often overlooked in our talk about "freedom" -- namely, we can afford to let people be free to have their say only once they have reached a certain level of moral/social/cognitive development.
Just like you don't let your two year old kid do whatever it wants, we also have to keep in check the more 'primitive' aspects of our society.
Now who's to say what's primitive? Well, we can generally agree that we want to be rid of murder, violence etc., and work from there. Yes, people have different opinion, and yes, no-one should "dictate", but on the whole, there are certain "levels", where we say that one thing is better than another.
It's like, a James Bond villain ("I want to blow up the world and rule it") is like a highly intelligent and sophisticated man but with the moral development of a 2 year old ("Me! ME! I want! I want! Me! Me!!")
Society's job is to educate people past the lower, but developmentally unavoidable, parts of our human-ness, so that we can become people who are free because we have a good enough idea about what's right and wrong, and are hence free to do the right thing.
Banning hate literature may help to reduce the degree to which people who are morally under-developed are further damaged and mis-lead. Society has to find ways to educate them beyond their archic racial divisions, and integrate them into a healthy nation centric or even world centric identity. Then and only then, once you've adjusted to the system, can you start to go beyond the system.
But my own understanding is on the whole very limited. Here's what a master philosopher has to say: