One must already have a concept about what is measurable, what to measure, and how to measure it before data can be collected I think the point the article was trying to make is that this idea is now wrong. There are petabytes of already collected data out there. You don't need to have any idea what is measurable, what to measure or how to measure it. You just throw statistical tools at those petabytes of raw data. You don't even need a model. Then magically we find out that vegetarians who wear blue pants on Tuesday and were born in November are more likely to get cancer and should get checked regularly, or something. We don't even need to know why, it's not important. Or at least I think that's what the article was trying to say.
Re:The explanation is obvious
on
Terminal Chaos
·
· Score: 3, Funny
The price per ticket isn't enough to cover the cost of doing business, Yeah, but the make up for it in volume.
Lets take these points one by one. First, it is not a flawed idea, it is a flawed implementation. All privacy concerns can be easily mitigated, with or without cooperation from RFID manufacturers. Pop your undies in the microwave for ten seconds and they won't be reporting back to the mothership, don't worry. Second, they are a technological solution to a physical, not social problem: inventory tracking. The fact that they are being used in other ways does not change the fact that this is what they were invented for, and they do a good job keeping costs down and efficiency up.
Bruce was complaining about their use in passports. So, screen the passports so they can't be read unless opened. Besides the passport issue, here is Stallman's fear:
Progress in gel batteries could result in RFIDs readable from 300 feet. If one of them is inserted in something you carry, you could be scanned from a block away! Total monitoring of everyone's movements could be a reality. Gosh, that could never happen with any other kind of technology, oh wait, spies have been doing that for years, and tracking people over a much longer distance. How would protesting RFID change that, exactly? There are much, much scarier things to protest against than RFID tags, get some perspective please.
Oh, absolutely. Never repress feelings. That will only lead to denial of one's true self, creation of a shadow self, and subsequent loss of unity and self control.
But don't give in to feelings either. An adult should be able to feel their emotions, acknowledge their validity, and still choose an action based on logic.
Should. Not always capable of it myself, but I try.
Lest you think I was bragging, I have to point out that I was talking about success that I feel was deserved. I don't feel like much success is deserved, but I know a few really nice, honest, decent, hard working people who are more successful than I am, and I feel good when contemplating their success. It feels natural and just that they should succede more than I have. I'm not that driven to succede. Maybe that's part of it too.
Exactly right. Most success is not warranted, and most warranted success is not well rewarded. But let me give you an example. I have a friend who's family is Buddhist and they have started bakeries that employ underprivileged youth and adults. And they still give a lot to charity. They are just all around nice, popular, and fairly wealthy people. They are wealthier than I am, but I feel good about that because, quite frankly, they are more deserving than I am, in my opinion.
In your own twisted and childish mind. But you've made my point for me, human nature has two sides, and it is influenced by culture. Here, I've adopted the 'asshole culture' that you are obviously familiar with.
As you have not yet understood my point, I seriously doubt your ability to assess its dissolution, but thank you for playing, "How to be a whiny pussy."
I'm only following your lead, asshole. I never said altruism is MY dominant nature, I'm a fucking asshole. Sorry, no hippy peace and love here, just science.
I kept it civil in the face of increasing hostility from you, but you had to keep pushing. Now I let out a little bit of what you've been trying to dish and you turn into a whiny schoolgirl. Have a little spine and some self respect, you fucking cuntflap.
NO! Damn it, WHY do you insist on misrepresenting what I've said?
OF course violence is inherent in human nature. So is love and cooperation. Culture can emphasize one part or the other.
Oh fuck it, you are simply an asshole who can't argue, can't back up his assertions, uses straw men and ad hominems to try to win a point, can't stay consistent in his own presentation of facts, and can't comprehend basic English.
I have thoroughly owned you in this argument. You have nothing, no facts, no logic, no consistency, no references. Nothing. If you'd like to keep swinging and missing, go for it. It's your humiliation, not mine.
You cannot change human nature with culture learning, eh? Then perhaps you'd like to refute this quotation:
sure, we don't have to fight and scrounge for food anymore, but this has only been true for the last century. which, not coincidentally, the last century has seen a relaxation of sexual mores. I think what this guy is saying is that our culture has changed because of changes in resources, and this has produced a profound change in the nature of human sexuality. Oh wait, that guy was YOU. Fucking idiot. You can't even stay consistent in your own ideas. Why do I always get sucked into pointless arguments with obstreperous morons? You'd think I'd have learned by now...
Exactly right, because evolution is a fact. Speciation has been observed in the lab. Evolution happens, and it has been witnessed directly. Hard to argue with plain facts like that.
The theory is called natural selection, and it can most certainly be refuted. The fact that you do not even understand the terminology, what is fact and what is theory, leads me to believe that you are a fucking idiot without an ounce of sense in your thick little skull.
No, communism was another form of authoritarianism that emphasized not sharing, but obedience. But your reference to it here sheds a lot of light on your antipathy. You see me as someone who wants to force human nature to be a particular way. I am not, I don't need to force it.
Modern economic research proves you wrong about human nature. Google 'reciprocity fairness economic research' or look up the ultimatum game (a good start at wikipedia, it should lead to many of the other research games.) Humans are naturally more cooperative than selfish. In fact, it is culture that emphasizes selfishness.
Humans will often take a personal loss to enforce fairness. In the ultimatum game, played for many months salary in experiments in India, a person is given a certain amount of money. They can give any amount or none of it to the other player, who then can accept the deal, or reject it, in which case no one gets anything.
The logical, self interested person will always accept any amount of money, and only reject a 100%-0% split. That is the prediction that free market theory makes, and it is dead wrong. People will work against their self interest in order to punish unfairness.
This particular game is played in a vacuum. You don't know who you are playing against, and you only pay one round. Other games are different, and let people know who they are playing against and play more than one round.
The interesting thing about those games is that culture matters. In group games, if enough people are cooperative, almost everyone will be because it makes more sense. If enough people start out selfish, almost everyone will be, to protect themselves.
If human nature is unchanging, then why is the isolated rain-forest tribe described in The Continuum Concept (among MANY others) so different? Why do they never engage in war? Why do their children never tease each other, or even play competitive games?
You continue to make unfounded assertions you can't back up with data. I continue to give references and new data. When you simply refuse to accept one set of data, I bring out different supporting facts.
In short, you exemplify my signature. All you are doing is contradicting me, without backing up your claims. I'm through arguing with you because it is boring, you haven't given me any new facts to work with, only unfounded opinion, which is worthless.
Please point to me where I said one side of human nature can dominate the other completely.
Please point out where I said I want to start a utopia.
I said that culture can emphasize the cooperative or the selfish side of human nature. I gave references. But you are so fucking convinced you are right and I am wrong (even though you have yet to demonstrate an understanding of what I'm saying) that you feel it's okay to attack me personally.
You haven't refuted a thing I've said. Hell, you haven't even understood a thing I've said, and I've put it in terms a six year could understand. Maybe if you weren't retarded, you could have finished your little movie faster.
Are you being deliberately dense? You seem to be trying to twist my words around to fit some idea you have in your head of who I am and what I am like, and you couldn't be further from the truth. If you'd stop and actually read what I said, you'd see we aren't in disagreement over much but the details.
Here's what happened: before agriculture, when famine and drought happened, people moved on.
Before 4500 BC, the Sahara and central Asia were fertile grasslands. But then they dried up. You had societies with surpluses and advanced organization running out of food for the first time ever. They did what had not been done before: they went to war.
Look at the archeological record, before this time: no walled cities. No weapons that were only for killing humans. No mass graves. After this time, you see all that.
Famine means no B vitamins for developing myeling sheaths. You had a whole generation of post traumatic stress, starving adults raising a whole generation of brain damaged kids. The culture of war and famine was locked in.
I provided references for you to read that back up my points. Can you do the same to back up your ideas? Until you can, I am going to put it back on you: you have a negative view that you are projecting onto all of human culture for all time, and human nature is more nuanced than that.
Do utopias always fail? Go read about the Mondragon Cooperative. Read The Continuum Concept. You are wrong about certain details and I have the data to back it up, you don't.
Human nature has both positive and negative aspects. Culture and learning can emphasize one side or the other of this nature. What is so hard to understand about that?
Why do you feel so threatened by the idea that humans may have a natural, caring, cooperative side to their nature? You feel threatened enough to engage in attacking obvious straw men, and making ad hominems against me. Something in you does not want to believe this could be true, yet it isn't even that far from what you yourself have said. Why is that?
yes, GP needs to re-evaluate his understanding of that word. Cynicism is EXACTLY what one should practice when one doesn't have the experience for insight. Yes and no. Not cynicism in the modern sense of disbelieving in anything good and decent. Cynicism in the original sense of not believing or disbelieving anything.
Human nature has two natural modes that are resource dependent. In times of plentiful resources, sharing and cooperation make more sense. There are always local scarcities and disasters, so when a society has more than enough in general, it makes the most sense to share and cooperate, to build support networks.
In times of famine, it makes sense to look after yourself and your own, and not to share with others. What is so hard to understand about that?
Of course things like jealousy and envy are natural, but they are not the only natural emotional responses to a given situation. One can feel pleasure in the accomplishments of another. One can enjoy it when one's friends or partner makes other friends, or even takes other lovers. One does not have to feel threatened. Although both types of responses are natural, it is the culture one grows up in that determines which response is more natural for you.
I gave you a good reference, at least glance at it. You may also want to examine Saharasia by James DeMeo. It makes a case that the culture of famine was mentally 'locked in' to most societies around 4500BC, when the first huge climate change after the development of agriculture happened.
Slashdot Mirror
That is the point, people got the famine mode locked in. It isn't just about current resources.
Cartman? Is that you?
You right wing trolls are pretty good too.
No, we're the best kind of trolls. Come on, who's better at pissing people off than a smug, whiny hippie like me?
Oh man, you are using actual tinfoil for your hat? You know that's made from aluminum, right? Aluminum amplifies the mind control rays.
Lets take these points one by one. First, it is not a flawed idea, it is a flawed implementation. All privacy concerns can be easily mitigated, with or without cooperation from RFID manufacturers. Pop your undies in the microwave for ten seconds and they won't be reporting back to the mothership, don't worry. Second, they are a technological solution to a physical, not social problem: inventory tracking. The fact that they are being used in other ways does not change the fact that this is what they were invented for, and they do a good job keeping costs down and efficiency up.
Bruce was complaining about their use in passports. So, screen the passports so they can't be read unless opened. Besides the passport issue, here is Stallman's fear:
Progress in gel batteries could result in RFIDs readable from 300 feet. If one of them is inserted in something you carry, you could be scanned from a block away! Total monitoring of everyone's movements could be a reality. Gosh, that could never happen with any other kind of technology, oh wait, spies have been doing that for years, and tracking people over a much longer distance. How would protesting RFID change that, exactly? There are much, much scarier things to protest against than RFID tags, get some perspective please.Oh, absolutely. Never repress feelings. That will only lead to denial of one's true self, creation of a shadow self, and subsequent loss of unity and self control.
But don't give in to feelings either. An adult should be able to feel their emotions, acknowledge their validity, and still choose an action based on logic.
Should. Not always capable of it myself, but I try.
Lest you think I was bragging, I have to point out that I was talking about success that I feel was deserved. I don't feel like much success is deserved, but I know a few really nice, honest, decent, hard working people who are more successful than I am, and I feel good when contemplating their success. It feels natural and just that they should succede more than I have. I'm not that driven to succede. Maybe that's part of it too.
Exactly right. Most success is not warranted, and most warranted success is not well rewarded. But let me give you an example. I have a friend who's family is Buddhist and they have started bakeries that employ underprivileged youth and adults. And they still give a lot to charity. They are just all around nice, popular, and fairly wealthy people. They are wealthier than I am, but I feel good about that because, quite frankly, they are more deserving than I am, in my opinion.
Well, my trunk has a spare tire, but there's no air in it. Only good old fashioned nerd-fat.
No, he means that mod points are fattening.
No karma for underrated, either, because there is no meta-moderation on under and overrated.
In your own twisted and childish mind. But you've made my point for me, human nature has two sides, and it is influenced by culture. Here, I've adopted the 'asshole culture' that you are obviously familiar with.
As you have not yet understood my point, I seriously doubt your ability to assess its dissolution, but thank you for playing, "How to be a whiny pussy."
Sad for you, because I do. But I'm weird that way.
I'm only following your lead, asshole. I never said altruism is MY dominant nature, I'm a fucking asshole. Sorry, no hippy peace and love here, just science.
I kept it civil in the face of increasing hostility from you, but you had to keep pushing. Now I let out a little bit of what you've been trying to dish and you turn into a whiny schoolgirl. Have a little spine and some self respect, you fucking cuntflap.
NO! Damn it, WHY do you insist on misrepresenting what I've said?
OF course violence is inherent in human nature. So is love and cooperation. Culture can emphasize one part or the other.
Oh fuck it, you are simply an asshole who can't argue, can't back up his assertions, uses straw men and ad hominems to try to win a point, can't stay consistent in his own presentation of facts, and can't comprehend basic English.
I have thoroughly owned you in this argument. You have nothing, no facts, no logic, no consistency, no references. Nothing. If you'd like to keep swinging and missing, go for it. It's your humiliation, not mine.
You cannot change human nature with culture learning, eh? Then perhaps you'd like to refute this quotation:
sure, we don't have to fight and scrounge for food anymore, but this has only been true for the last century. which, not coincidentally, the last century has seen a relaxation of sexual mores. I think what this guy is saying is that our culture has changed because of changes in resources, and this has produced a profound change in the nature of human sexuality. Oh wait, that guy was YOU. Fucking idiot. You can't even stay consistent in your own ideas. Why do I always get sucked into pointless arguments with obstreperous morons? You'd think I'd have learned by now...Exactly right, because evolution is a fact. Speciation has been observed in the lab. Evolution happens, and it has been witnessed directly. Hard to argue with plain facts like that.
The theory is called natural selection, and it can most certainly be refuted. The fact that you do not even understand the terminology, what is fact and what is theory, leads me to believe that you are a fucking idiot without an ounce of sense in your thick little skull.
No, communism was another form of authoritarianism that emphasized not sharing, but obedience. But your reference to it here sheds a lot of light on your antipathy. You see me as someone who wants to force human nature to be a particular way. I am not, I don't need to force it.
Modern economic research proves you wrong about human nature. Google 'reciprocity fairness economic research' or look up the ultimatum game (a good start at wikipedia, it should lead to many of the other research games.) Humans are naturally more cooperative than selfish. In fact, it is culture that emphasizes selfishness.
Humans will often take a personal loss to enforce fairness. In the ultimatum game, played for many months salary in experiments in India, a person is given a certain amount of money. They can give any amount or none of it to the other player, who then can accept the deal, or reject it, in which case no one gets anything.
The logical, self interested person will always accept any amount of money, and only reject a 100%-0% split. That is the prediction that free market theory makes, and it is dead wrong. People will work against their self interest in order to punish unfairness.
This particular game is played in a vacuum. You don't know who you are playing against, and you only pay one round. Other games are different, and let people know who they are playing against and play more than one round.
The interesting thing about those games is that culture matters. In group games, if enough people are cooperative, almost everyone will be because it makes more sense. If enough people start out selfish, almost everyone will be, to protect themselves.
If human nature is unchanging, then why is the isolated rain-forest tribe described in The Continuum Concept (among MANY others) so different? Why do they never engage in war? Why do their children never tease each other, or even play competitive games?
You continue to make unfounded assertions you can't back up with data. I continue to give references and new data. When you simply refuse to accept one set of data, I bring out different supporting facts.
In short, you exemplify my signature. All you are doing is contradicting me, without backing up your claims. I'm through arguing with you because it is boring, you haven't given me any new facts to work with, only unfounded opinion, which is worthless.
Nothing. Isn't that weird?
Please point to me where I said one side of human nature can dominate the other completely.
Please point out where I said I want to start a utopia.
I said that culture can emphasize the cooperative or the selfish side of human nature. I gave references. But you are so fucking convinced you are right and I am wrong (even though you have yet to demonstrate an understanding of what I'm saying) that you feel it's okay to attack me personally.
You haven't refuted a thing I've said. Hell, you haven't even understood a thing I've said, and I've put it in terms a six year could understand. Maybe if you weren't retarded, you could have finished your little movie faster.
(snicker)
Are you being deliberately dense? You seem to be trying to twist my words around to fit some idea you have in your head of who I am and what I am like, and you couldn't be further from the truth. If you'd stop and actually read what I said, you'd see we aren't in disagreement over much but the details.
Here's what happened: before agriculture, when famine and drought happened, people moved on.
Before 4500 BC, the Sahara and central Asia were fertile grasslands. But then they dried up. You had societies with surpluses and advanced organization running out of food for the first time ever. They did what had not been done before: they went to war.
Look at the archeological record, before this time: no walled cities. No weapons that were only for killing humans. No mass graves. After this time, you see all that.
Famine means no B vitamins for developing myeling sheaths. You had a whole generation of post traumatic stress, starving adults raising a whole generation of brain damaged kids. The culture of war and famine was locked in.
I provided references for you to read that back up my points. Can you do the same to back up your ideas? Until you can, I am going to put it back on you: you have a negative view that you are projecting onto all of human culture for all time, and human nature is more nuanced than that.
Do utopias always fail? Go read about the Mondragon Cooperative. Read The Continuum Concept. You are wrong about certain details and I have the data to back it up, you don't.
Human nature has both positive and negative aspects. Culture and learning can emphasize one side or the other of this nature. What is so hard to understand about that?
Why do you feel so threatened by the idea that humans may have a natural, caring, cooperative side to their nature? You feel threatened enough to engage in attacking obvious straw men, and making ad hominems against me. Something in you does not want to believe this could be true, yet it isn't even that far from what you yourself have said. Why is that?
Human nature has two natural modes that are resource dependent. In times of plentiful resources, sharing and cooperation make more sense. There are always local scarcities and disasters, so when a society has more than enough in general, it makes the most sense to share and cooperate, to build support networks.
In times of famine, it makes sense to look after yourself and your own, and not to share with others. What is so hard to understand about that?
Of course things like jealousy and envy are natural, but they are not the only natural emotional responses to a given situation. One can feel pleasure in the accomplishments of another. One can enjoy it when one's friends or partner makes other friends, or even takes other lovers. One does not have to feel threatened. Although both types of responses are natural, it is the culture one grows up in that determines which response is more natural for you.
I gave you a good reference, at least glance at it. You may also want to examine Saharasia by James DeMeo. It makes a case that the culture of famine was mentally 'locked in' to most societies around 4500BC, when the first huge climate change after the development of agriculture happened.