There was a story I read way back where the ridiculously-advanced AIs manipulated artificial pocket universes with computationally-friendly physics so they could solve NP problems in much-less-than-P-time from the perspective of the "real" universe. The dominant AIs were the ones with the best pocket universe designs/resources.
Although I'd guess we're a long ways from having to worry about that.:)
The corporate mindset is built around profiting from disparity, and that applies to information too. Copyright is pervasive and imposed upon us by default, and Art is mostly built on the efforts and influences of those who came before, and just as subject to hoarding, fencing and chilling effects as any other endeavour. Cultural and artistic stagnation? You'll find it where corporate/psychopathic influences are the most pervasive - the "screw you, got mine" and "screw you, getting mine" mentalities coming home to roost (e.g. multi-generational copyright terms).
Life should be unfair. It is better that way.
Translation: I can't feel good about myself if I can't point at someone who has it better or worse than I do.
If you'd kept reading, you'd see his argument is not "he did it too". His argument is, in fact, "here are the differences that shaped my choice".
Also note that, unlike the United States, the voting system in Australia is preferential - it allows you to vote for a third party as your first choice ("I want X, I don't like the two main cretins Y and Z") without it being wasted ("but if we're going to end up with one of those two cretins, I'll pick cretin Z") - and also determines funding in the next election (if X gets enough votes, it also gets more funding to compete with Y and Z next time around).
Not this again. Psychopaths do not make better leaders, and they do not "focus on bold action for the greater good", because psychopaths don't have a greater good: by definition, they are antisocial, having "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others". Any benefit to the greater good as a result of their actions is game theory in action, survival camouflage.
Let's take the example given in that Economist article you cite: "there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger's large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger."
The experiment exists in a metaphorical vacuum. In the real world, we have to consider the thought processes and context:
Utilitarian: "what serves the greater good?" Psychopath: "what's in this for me?"
That is why you don't want psychopaths as leaders - civilian or military - unless you like everyone being utterly expendable for someone else's personal aggrandisement. A utilitarian general will lose a winnable battle to save his country (sacrifice one to save five); a psychopathic general will win or lose the same battle based on which works out better for himself - the country being ruined doesn't matter so long as the increase of his own power is assured.
"Fag" being common Australian slang for "cigarette", I'd guess she said "outside having a fag" (Australians also sometimes leave the "g" silent in "having" when speaking casually). While "faggot" can mean "homosexual (male)" in Australian slang, I've only ever heard it used as a vulgar insult, e.g. "you bloody faggot".
One of the Australian slang terms for sex is "root", so the US-spawned unix T-shirt that reads "got root?" takes on a whole new meaning for Aussies.:)
Oh and +1 internets, tippe, you almost scored me a new keyboard.:)
Oh, "of a certain class"? So that entitles us to throw our ideals under the bus when the pesky little things make life inconvenient for us? Some of the people held at Guantanamo have been found innocent of the crimes with which they were accused. And some of the people held at Guantanamo have been tortured. Care to guess how many have been both? Can you say with absolute certainty that number is zero?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - United States Declaration of Independence
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." - United States Constitution
If you truly believe that the prisoners of Guantanamo are any less deserving of Justice because they are not US citizens on US soil, then I suggest you examine whether your morals may be straying towards the ideals of Al Qaeda than aligned to the ideals of the Founders.
I didn't realise the United States had enshrined "If some of them are only pretending to be innocent, they're all guilty" as a Constitutional Amendment.
Oh wait, it hasn't. As to better at what, and for which country, how about a Government for the United States that will still uphold the ideals of the Constitution even when it's inconvenient.
Perhaps this is just an artifact of the way news about things gets reported... when things go well, we hear nothing.
Pretty much this. Tall Poppy Syndrome + Bad News Sells.
I suspect that if I was maintaining an operating system kernel relied upon by a significant fraction of the entire planet, I too would be vocally upset if someone didn't do their homework and submitted poor quality code. It's not like I could demote them or fire them, it's FOSS after all, but they're still taking up other people's time to fix their mistakes.
It is ALSO the law and custom to determine whether your prisoners are in fact guilty of the crimes of which they are accused, and to release those who are not found guilty of said charges.
Yeah, the fibre level is pretty hard to avoid. Here's something I spotted this afternoon, related to the reveal that the US was recording Telstra's Reach traffic:
Telstra issued a statement defending the agreement.
“This Agreement, at that time 12 years ago, reflected Reach’s operating obligations in the US that require carriers to comply with US domestic law," a Telstra spokesman said.
"It relates to a Telstra joint venture company’s operating obligations in the United States under their domestic law. We understand similar agreements would be in place for all network infrastructure in the US. When operating in any jurisdiction, here or overseas, carriers are legally required to provide various forms of assistance to Government agencies.”
I had modded up the post you replied to. I was going to mod you up as well. I feel that both of you have a point. Then I re-read one line in particular:
"If Americans are ever asked to give up voting and elections, or freedom on speech or religion, or many others, you will know that things have gone too far."
Your voting laws deny universal adult suffrage and your elections are rigged (or at very least involve such incompetence as to be difficult to distinguish from malice). You have "free speech zones" and systemic electronic surveillance of the population. You have people being deprived of their effects, properties and liberties without due and Constitutional process of law, you have government officials publicly committing felonies without being charged, never mind tried, and you have a higher rate of civilian incarceration than China and Russia combined.
Things have gone too far. Not ammo box far, not yet, but your soap, ballot, jury and moving boxes are all partially compromised. Yes, "cold fjord", you are correct that the President has not one but two primary mission objectives. However, "Seumas" is correct that the President is failing in one of them, and I would argue, per your statement, that he is failing in both:
"he is responsible for seeing that the law is carried out, and that the government functions"
The President needs to clean house. If you think I'm being overly dramatic, the US is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I'm in that room, there's no exits, and I've seen what happens to those who upset the gorilla. They're fugitives or dead, and their neighbours are often "acceptable collateral damage". The consequences should the gorilla turn rabid, of that last box being opened, that ordinary people are even discussing opening that last box, should be on the minds of everyone.
As an emigrant from the old USSR once posted (paraphrased): people rarely think about freedom when they have it.
If they applied the same logical fallacy to the Second Amendment, it would not grant US citizens the right to bear any "arms" more advanced than flintlocks, breech loaders, revolvers and cannon.
Yes, tftp's arguments would still hold. When a person does not behave as you think they "should", but is not harming anyone by doing so, is it ethically acceptable to force them to change their behaviour?
No. If you want someone to behave a different way, offer a carrot, not a stick. Offer support. Be their "wingman", if that's the correct idiom. You don't just tell them to "be tough and jump into the deep end" and then walk away without checking whether you need to rescue them from drowning.
And before you say "they are harming themself"... perhaps. Certainly, they may be denying themselves particular opportunities for growth and fulfillment. But those are not the only opportunities that can provide growth and fulfillment. If we want someone to go out and engage in a particular aspect of human life, even though they find it confusing and difficult, but we aren't going to offer any help, then we're out of line.
Hmm. How expensive/hard is it for a lower-to-middle-class Tokyo worker to obtain one of those fields and - just as importantly - obtain/retain a source of income adequate to maintain a permanent dwelling upon it?
For reference, I live in Australia; we have such vast amounts of barely inhabitable land that it can be relatively cheap to migrate from the big cities to the country if you're not picky about where you end up, but you still need a source of income to maintain that living space and there are no fast trains to allow a daily commute to the cities.
Slashdot Mirror
There was a story I read way back where the ridiculously-advanced AIs manipulated artificial pocket universes with computationally-friendly physics so they could solve NP problems in much-less-than-P-time from the perspective of the "real" universe. The dominant AIs were the ones with the best pocket universe designs/resources.
Although I'd guess we're a long ways from having to worry about that. :)
Idle thought: I wonder if / how many internal factions tripped over each other on this one.
*facepalm* Aargh, I just saw what you did there. +1 Internets to you, sir/madam/other.
Any chance of a public link? Xerox here too, and I'd put short odds that more than a few slashdotters are affected.
And yet the incarceration rate for Russia - even for Russia and China combined - is still less than America. Figure that one out.
[strong Aussie accent] That's bullshit, mate. [/accent]
The corporate mindset is built around profiting from disparity, and that applies to information too. Copyright is pervasive and imposed upon us by default, and Art is mostly built on the efforts and influences of those who came before, and just as subject to hoarding, fencing and chilling effects as any other endeavour. Cultural and artistic stagnation? You'll find it where corporate/psychopathic influences are the most pervasive - the "screw you, got mine" and "screw you, getting mine" mentalities coming home to roost (e.g. multi-generational copyright terms).
Translation: I can't feel good about myself if I can't point at someone who has it better or worse than I do.
If you'd kept reading, you'd see his argument is not "he did it too". His argument is, in fact, "here are the differences that shaped my choice".
Also note that, unlike the United States, the voting system in Australia is preferential - it allows you to vote for a third party as your first choice ("I want X, I don't like the two main cretins Y and Z") without it being wasted ("but if we're going to end up with one of those two cretins, I'll pick cretin Z") - and also determines funding in the next election (if X gets enough votes, it also gets more funding to compete with Y and Z next time around).
Not this again. Psychopaths do not make better leaders, and they do not "focus on bold action for the greater good", because psychopaths don't have a greater good: by definition, they are antisocial, having "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others". Any benefit to the greater good as a result of their actions is game theory in action, survival camouflage.
Let's take the example given in that Economist article you cite: "there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger's large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger."
The experiment exists in a metaphorical vacuum. In the real world, we have to consider the thought processes and context:
Utilitarian: "what serves the greater good?"
Psychopath: "what's in this for me?"
That is why you don't want psychopaths as leaders - civilian or military - unless you like everyone being utterly expendable for someone else's personal aggrandisement. A utilitarian general will lose a winnable battle to save his country (sacrifice one to save five); a psychopathic general will win or lose the same battle based on which works out better for himself - the country being ruined doesn't matter so long as the increase of his own power is assured.
"Fag" being common Australian slang for "cigarette", I'd guess she said "outside having a fag" (Australians also sometimes leave the "g" silent in "having" when speaking casually). While "faggot" can mean "homosexual (male)" in Australian slang, I've only ever heard it used as a vulgar insult, e.g. "you bloody faggot".
One of the Australian slang terms for sex is "root", so the US-spawned unix T-shirt that reads "got root?" takes on a whole new meaning for Aussies. :)
Oh and +1 internets, tippe, you almost scored me a new keyboard. :)
Good point. Would need an extra zero to be properly monstrous.
There's probably some sort of unintentional irony in there somewhere.
The US is the 2000lb bull elephant in the room, and it's the one that prefers to do the stuffing.
That said, yeah, the smell of sycophancy is awful.
Note the word "Originally". The high feed-in subsidy was an "early adopter" program, to build up the nascent residential PV industry.
Oh, "of a certain class"? So that entitles us to throw our ideals under the bus when the pesky little things make life inconvenient for us? Some of the people held at Guantanamo have been found innocent of the crimes with which they were accused. And some of the people held at Guantanamo have been tortured. Care to guess how many have been both? Can you say with absolute certainty that number is zero?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - United States Declaration of Independence
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." - United States Constitution
If you truly believe that the prisoners of Guantanamo are any less deserving of Justice because they are not US citizens on US soil, then I suggest you examine whether your morals may be straying towards the ideals of Al Qaeda than aligned to the ideals of the Founders.
I didn't realise the United States had enshrined "If some of them are only pretending to be innocent, they're all guilty" as a Constitutional Amendment.
Oh wait, it hasn't. As to better at what, and for which country, how about a Government for the United States that will still uphold the ideals of the Constitution even when it's inconvenient.
I see your "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" and raise you Murat Kurnaz.
When one compares one's country to others, it should be to show that we're better, not merely less worse.
Perhaps this is just an artifact of the way news about things gets reported... when things go well, we hear nothing.
Pretty much this. Tall Poppy Syndrome + Bad News Sells.
I suspect that if I was maintaining an operating system kernel relied upon by a significant fraction of the entire planet, I too would be vocally upset if someone didn't do their homework and submitted poor quality code. It's not like I could demote them or fire them, it's FOSS after all, but they're still taking up other people's time to fix their mistakes.
It is ALSO the law and custom to determine whether your prisoners are in fact guilty of the crimes of which they are accused, and to release those who are not found guilty of said charges.
Yeah, the fibre level is pretty hard to avoid. Here's something I spotted this afternoon, related to the reveal that the US was recording Telstra's Reach traffic:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/520706/ludlam_demands_telstra_explain_role_us_spying/
Note the part I put in bold....
I had modded up the post you replied to. I was going to mod you up as well. I feel that both of you have a point. Then I re-read one line in particular:
Your voting laws deny universal adult suffrage and your elections are rigged (or at very least involve such incompetence as to be difficult to distinguish from malice). You have "free speech zones" and systemic electronic surveillance of the population. You have people being deprived of their effects, properties and liberties without due and Constitutional process of law, you have government officials publicly committing felonies without being charged, never mind tried, and you have a higher rate of civilian incarceration than China and Russia combined.
Things have gone too far. Not ammo box far, not yet, but your soap, ballot, jury and moving boxes are all partially compromised. Yes, "cold fjord", you are correct that the President has not one but two primary mission objectives. However, "Seumas" is correct that the President is failing in one of them, and I would argue, per your statement, that he is failing in both:
The President needs to clean house. If you think I'm being overly dramatic, the US is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I'm in that room, there's no exits, and I've seen what happens to those who upset the gorilla. They're fugitives or dead, and their neighbours are often "acceptable collateral damage". The consequences should the gorilla turn rabid, of that last box being opened, that ordinary people are even discussing opening that last box, should be on the minds of everyone.
As an emigrant from the old USSR once posted (paraphrased): people rarely think about freedom when they have it.
Although, you said it yourself: occupation and colonization doesn't work and shown to fail most of the time in the past.
The Greens are frogs in a pond frequented by sharks, so I'd not be surprised at all if they'd been kept in the dark and fed fertiliser.
On the other hand, political animals get bigger when you feed them votes, so perhaps it's time to stop feeding the sharks and start feeding the frogs.
Just don't confuse them with the cane toads. Those things are poisonous. :p
If they applied the same logical fallacy to the Second Amendment, it would not grant US citizens the right to bear any "arms" more advanced than flintlocks, breech loaders, revolvers and cannon.
Yes, tftp's arguments would still hold. When a person does not behave as you think they "should", but is not harming anyone by doing so, is it ethically acceptable to force them to change their behaviour?
No. If you want someone to behave a different way, offer a carrot, not a stick. Offer support. Be their "wingman", if that's the correct idiom. You don't just tell them to "be tough and jump into the deep end" and then walk away without checking whether you need to rescue them from drowning.
And before you say "they are harming themself"... perhaps. Certainly, they may be denying themselves particular opportunities for growth and fulfillment. But those are not the only opportunities that can provide growth and fulfillment. If we want someone to go out and engage in a particular aspect of human life, even though they find it confusing and difficult, but we aren't going to offer any help, then we're out of line.
Hmm. How expensive/hard is it for a lower-to-middle-class Tokyo worker to obtain one of those fields and - just as importantly - obtain/retain a source of income adequate to maintain a permanent dwelling upon it?
For reference, I live in Australia; we have such vast amounts of barely inhabitable land that it can be relatively cheap to migrate from the big cities to the country if you're not picky about where you end up, but you still need a source of income to maintain that living space and there are no fast trains to allow a daily commute to the cities.
That depends. Is the industry seeking ethical sysadmins, or sysadmins who will knowingly conceal company malfeasance from the stockholders?