Well, I know what this poster was thinking: "Quick! First post it, before someone else who can type faster than 9 words a minute writes an insightful and informative post giving away the secret sauce!"
If so, please synopsize in non-sensationalist terms.
Non-bullshit, redacted by lawyers version:
Anyone with access to the NAS over the network and an SSH client can enter a username and password, gain elevated privileges to the cluster, and while not allowing access to the data directly from that interface, access can disable the cluster or delete all the data within it, as well as wiping out partition information, etc.
The password you're looking for is badg3r5. So there. Go forth, my minions! In other news, Slashdot's corporate overlords apparently no longer believe in full disclosure, as it had in the past, and now omit critical information probably because their lawyers have more say in the editorial process than the submitter, editors, or anyone with a clue to spare.:(
Not to mention the fact that a 14 year old girl would have absolutely no chance of passing the Turing test.
The problem though is that pedophiles are experienced and know how to evade traps. They're like cochroaches -- for every one you find, there's fifty more you don't. And considering that western society likes to lock these people up and let them be raped and murdered, instead of studying what the glitch in their wetware is to devise a treatment, or treating their prisoners with compassion... there is a major incentive to not come forward if you're one of the afflicted... and being so afflicted... still more incentive to act out on the impulses.
A pedophile is therefore completely devoted to the task at hand. They will find out how to detect chat bots, and quickly too. Ask about personal history, how they feel about family members... things that a database of responses and algorithms can't simply create on demand and be believable. Most of our brains are devoted to social interaction -- trying to fool it is a frustratingly complex task.
You may catch the 'weak' ones, the low hanging fruit... but all you've done then is strengthen the remaining community... just like overuse of antibiotics. If bacteria can evolve, so can people. This chatbot is a novel approach... but it won't fix the problem. The only thing that'll fix the problem, is fixing the people with the problem -- by figuring out what causes pedophilia, and treating it.
And while we're at it, it might not be a bad idea to start treating our prisoners and mentally ill (largely the same group, if you look at the numbers) with compassion instead of clinging to primitive caveman ethics about needing vengance and going on at length about morality. At the end of the day... if you can't stomach killing people yourself, then you need to figure out how to live with them. And if you can stomach it... you may belong in with them, instead of out here with the rest of us.
This just in: Guy with stake in product says nothing is wrong with product. Film at 11.
Thing is, he's not wrong. Most consumers won't notice. But then, most consumers wouldn't notice if their computer ran on little gerbils inside and the internet was just a series of tubes. But that's no excuse for his handwave. Fragmentation is a problem. Maybe it's not a severe one -- maybe not yet. Maybe developers can muddle through. Maybe, even everything is fine. For now.
But complacency will always get you a kick in the ass by the next best thing in technology, and you can go from cutting edge to curdled milk in no time at all. Iconic brand names of even a few years ago are now nothing more than sign posts in the desert -- Compaq. E Machines. 3Com. They were once all major brands and now they're dust. If you want to stay on the leading edge, you have to push the boundaries. You have to innovate, improve, refine, create. You can't talk about "ecosystems" and "platforms" like they're going to just go right on existing on their own, like they're some timeless thing.
They won't. Android will die someday; Everything does. The only question is how long it'll last -- and if you want that question to be "For a long time yet," then you best listen to the people who work with it every day and say "This is a problem." And you'd better answer back with something better than "No it's not." Address the problem now, while it's small... because trust me when I say... if there's one thing computers are good at, it's multiplying trouble. Exponentially. Don't wait. Fix it. Fix it now. Before you're sitting on the ruined throne of a kingdom of dust.
Thank you so much Ada, you've enlightened an entire generation of developers how wrong we've been our entire careers. Please please teach us the holy grail of never reusing code. We're all listening.
We'll get to that, but first we need to talk about these things called deadlines, managers, and paychecks. After I'm done with the Q&A about those three things, anyone who still wants to seek the Grail may sign up on the sheet here on the desk... (blows away some dust)... Now, open your text books to page 25... -- Ada
You always need to think about memory. Like you need to think about what you're doing. Too bad for the "write app get rich" idiots.
Those "write app get rich" idiots are likely your future employers. They don't know how to program, and they have markedly little understanding of it; That's your job. Oh, and they want it done fast, cheap, and right. Think you can score all three? No? Okay then -- maybe you need to take a step back and realize that programming for money these days is about building a program using a finite number of tools and resources, on a budget, and under a deadline. And I have yet to work on a project where there was enough of anything I needed to do it fast, cheap, and right.
So either I'm one of those "write app get rich idiots", or I'm one of those in the unemployment line I guess. Three guesses which one I picked -- first two don't count. These are the realities of professional programming; We don't have time for perfect... we'll settle for "it compiles" and using something that after hours of beating it with a hammer just started working, but we don't know why... that's just how it is. I didn't write the rules, I just write the code.
Stop loading dozens of fucking libraries and frameworks and learn to really code.
If memory management was so easy, we wouldn't have devoted so much of our programming guides, style manuals, etc., to it. It's not a simple matter of "I wave my hand and the problem goes away." It has existed since before there were "dozens of fucking libraries and frameworks" and at a time when people did know how to "really code"... it has existed since the very. first. computer. And it hasn't been solved to this day.
The main reason, I suppose, is the same reason why we haven't yet found The One True Concrete that all things can be built out of, or the One True Operating System upon which everything can run, or the One True... you get the damn idea. Men much smarter than you have devoted their entire careers to trying to solve the problem, and it's incredibly pretentious of you to toss off a one liner like it's (puts on sunglasses) just a simple matter of programming.
Assumption? Why would I assume we paid for it? You said nothing of cost, why would I assume there was cost? Level 99 Godwin. I'm pretty sure the mem is OVER 9000 Godwin.
You just proved conclusively that you do *not* tolerate such people. You resorted to name calling and belittlement in order to bolster your own prejudice against them. Whether they are right or wrong, you failed to see your own intolerance, and blithely claim you are not intolerant.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of a stampede of raging Tu Quoques, Ad Hominids, and Appeals to Emotion...
Re:DRM is winning
on
How DRM Won
·
· Score: -1, Troll
For the same reason the NSA has a mic and camera up everyones bunghole. We are a nation of apathetic, vapid, content consumers whose primary concerns are trivial and shallow.
No. We're currently being run into the ground by Baby Boomers who have sucked the life out of the country's economy, destroyed the environment, let critical infrastructure rot, and have made education and healthcare nearly unattainable for anyone but themselves. As a result of that "we" (as in the non-boomers) are living hand to mouth, and the only thing that gets us through our meager, shitty, two-part-time-jobs-60-hour-a-week lives is the mediocre entertainment products that we can no longer afford to own but merely "rent" at exorbinant fees under the guise of its convenience.
We're not apathetic, vapid, trivial, or shallow -- we're simply working ourselves into an early grave trying to support the dead weight of the assholes that bankrupted our country to support their own vanity and selfishness... which means we hardly have the energy to give a damn about anything but whether we'll make it to the next paycheck and wondering exactly how many pounds of ramen noodles a person can eat before it kills them.
The only bigots I see are the people who support the perversion of Marriage and have no respect for those who hold differing opinions. Marriage is about children, self sacrifice and is the basic building block of a society. It's not about satisfying whatever lustful whim you are experiencing at the moment.
So I assume then that if hetero couples don't get their bang on the night of the wedding, their marriage is anulled? I assume you were in the front rows of the "Sanctity of Marriage" walk to boot Brittney Spears and so many other celebrities from your ranks? I also suppose then that couples that are sterile and choose to adopt actually won't have the choice to adopt, because we feed all the children into a meat grinder instead? Because if we're going to go there, buddy, let's fucking go there.
Um, no. The political minority here is the gays, not the gay-marriage supporters.
I think the GP has managed to confuse majority by numbers and majority by power. It's a common newbie mistake for people who spend too much time on the internet.;)
You made no indication of how socieity gets the cure from Al Qaeda, you just said that they had one which leaves a lot of ground as to how society would get the information from them. If you had asked if we would be willing to pay them for the cure this conversation would likely be much different and likely closer to your orginal intent.
Hey, it's not my fault the GP made an assumption... All I said was Al Qaeda had the cure. I said nothing about how they got it. But whatever.. it's not like the slashmods will recant and return my karma I burned trying to undo the Level 99 Godwin he made.
You're either trolling or being obtuse, and I'm not sure which. You gave the example of Al Qaeda getting the cure for cancer. I gave the example of Nazi's figuring out viable treatment methods for hypothermia. Sorry boss, but they aren't as dissimilar as a house and a doughnut. Go back and read and think on this without an agenda. I'm on your side in the human rights department, but frankly, your trolling is retarded.
Maybe you need to go back to the original point of this thread, rather than having derailed it and then, when I said your logic was busted, cried a river. I gave a contemporary example of something that had a benefit acquired without a drawback -- namely that the cure for cancer just dropped in Al Qaeda's lap, and asked if paying for that cure would be worth it since we know what the money would be used for. You replied with an example of mass murder and genocide, with the product being a treatment for a medical condition, and have been insisting they're alike.
I don't give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut whether they are or not -- the point was whether it's morally justified to trade for a good or service with someone who wants to harm others for political reasons. You're the one that went full Godwin and then started breathing fire and stomping about angrily when someone said you're making false equivocations, and now you're trying to label your opponent a 'troll'.
I don't know what's worse -- that you're getting modded up for this, or that you're making logical fallacies at the rate of about 1 per 15 words.
STOP RIGHT THERE. I wasn't commenting on entertainment. I was commenting on exactly the portion of his post that I QUOTED. Nothing more, nothing less. If you can't see that, you should really have your vision checked out. While technically a Godwin's law effect, the step was from one reprehensible group having data that helps society to another reprehensible group with the same. You may not like it, but the comment was on target, even though it included the Nazi reference (because his hypothetical HAS happened in the past and to forget it is a disservice).
That's roughly equivalent to saying that buying a house and buying a doughnut are the similar because they both involved an exchange of money. And frankly, that's retarded.
Some of the best advice I was ever given was "trust the art, not the artist." Artists are stupid people like everyone else and will always break your heart if you expect them to be as awesome as you want them to be. Leave them out of it and you'll have a much easier time enjoying art for what it is.
I can enjoy art without making a financial contribution to the artist. I know this is a difficult concept to grasp in the age of RIAA and copyright maximalists, but it was only recently that art became a work for hire, and throughout most of human history art was something you did to pass the time once the business of staying alive was completed. Our ancestors made music and beat drums in the evening because the hunting and gathering of food was done; It was to promote tribal unity, to express emotion. But there was no profit in it. Art will continue well after capitalism is nothing more than a footnote in our history books.
But until it is, we should continue to make educated decisions about what purposes to which our money will be used once it leaves our hands. Some may decide that the cost of the entertainment of watching Mr. Card's work exceeds that of the civil liberties of homosexuals -- that the benefit exceeds the harm. That is their right, and we must respect it.
However, if someone takes the extra step of being socially responsible and not giving Mr. Card money to continue his campaign of bigotry, that should be commended. And I am on the side that works of entertainment are not worth the oppression of a polical minority.
Boycotting the former because of the latter is called an ad hominem.
No, an Ad Hominem attack is not what is in play here. We're discussing whether it is morally justified to support a person or organization whose profit from goods and/or services sold will be used in furtherance of the oppression of a political minority. Mr. Card is the example under discussion.
But tolerance is not the same as acceptance, and this is where you have made a critical flaw in your reasoning. Tolerance means allowing them to participate in the discussion, to excercise free speech. It does not mean we should accept that their position has merit. I tolerate people who reject the theory of evolution, but I do not accept their position is valid. They're still nutjobs. I do not fund organizations that are anti-evolution out of some misguided notion that I must be tolerant of their viewpoint.
And as far as people enjoying Disney movies and Ford cars... well, they may be ignorant, or simply not care enough, or lack alternatives. But that's another kind of logical fallacy -- just because people do it doesn't make it right, and it's no argument for the furtherance of those activities. We all pick and choose our battles -- we can't fight for every righteous cause. But that's no argument for not fighting at all. If I choose to tell Mr. Card to fuck off today, but go to a Chic Fil A tomorrow, that doesn't mean I don't support gay rights... it just means I place more value on not being hungry than not being entertained.
So he's able to see the common sense in the situation ahead of time, but not actually able to practice it. Not sure if that makes him a visionary, an idiot, or both.
Just as we accepted the medical knowledge unlocked by the nazi's during WWII http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html we would use the cure for cancer. The foundation of treatment for hypothermia was all determined through the torture and murder of jews by the NAZI's, and yet we use that information to save lives even today.
That doesn't make it right, nor does it justify a furtherance of those policies. And you're making a false equivocation -- an apples to oranges comparison. There's quite a bit of difference between human experimentation and entertainment. If you can't see that, you should really have your vision checked out. But thank you for playing the Let's Godwin This Because I Don't Want To Deal With the Real Issue game!
Actually, this very question has been applied non-hypothetically to the body of research done by Nazi scientists utilizing experiments done on their prisoners.
Didn't take long to Godwin the discussion, now did it? You must be proud. But more seriously, as long as we're on the subject many of those experiments were done on homosexuals. People remember the Holocaust as being about the Jews, but far more died as political prisoners -- a significant portion of which were homosexuals. Specifically, look up Carl Vaernet who tried to "cure" homosexuality with some highly unethical experimentation. But let's not cast stones in glass houses -- The British did the same thing to Alan Turing and many others, as did the Americans, etc.
There's very little moral high ground here; Countries have long been experimenting on their prisoners or engaging in unethical medical practice. If you think the Nazis were the last to do it, you are severely mistaken. As recently as 1979, it was common practice to sterilize prisoners thought likely to reoffend in the United States... and officials are still trying to get around the laws today. As recently as a few years ago, a case made headlines in California where women were being coerced or manipulated into signing medical documents to get themselves sterilized because the prison wardens thought they were likely to reoffend.
The issue is far from settled, and though your attempt to Godwin the discussion is laughable, the reality is that unethical human experimentation continues to this day under color of authority throughout most of the Western world.
I'm sure Google could turn up a few YEARS worth of reading on the subject for you, because it isn't a simple matter at all.
I'm sure a great many people have endeavored to make the matter complicated -- if you can't make it simple, you can always make it complicated to confuse the hell out of your detractors. But I see no moral ambiguity here with which to justify the maiming and murder of innocents. We have had medical ethics for some time, and doctors the world over have sworn oaths to "do no harm." Regardless of which government or country you're a part of, the ethical mandates there at least are clear.
I do not feel they are any more ambiguous when it comes to the treatment of homosexuals; They are as human as you or I, as deserving of the same freedoms. This is not an assailable position to me, or the majority of my fellow Americans or other enlightened souls throughout the world. We cannot, in good conscience, support bigotry and intolerance for our own profit. And ultimately, that's what this story is about -- it's about a man who is selling us entertainment in exchange for cash he'll use to promote a reprehensible and vile repression of a political minority.
As a society, we cannot condone such actions and then later claim that we are an enlightened people. Mr. Card has a right to say whatever he wants and I'll have words with anyone who disagrees... but I also have the right to tell him to lick a sugar coated fuck off my dick for being a bigoted asshole... and I will encourage anyone who will listen to do the same.
The time for this kind of intolerance has past. It's time we evolve as a society and as a people. It's time to learn from this mistake for the last time, and leave it as nothing more than a footnote of some dark and forgotten age when people didn't treat one another with decency and respect.
I am aware of all the US gun vendor propaganda. None of the recent single-person perpetrated mass murders (Colorado, Arizona, Newtown) could have happened with knives. I am in India.
The murder rate in the United States is 4.8 per 1000. In India, it is 3.5. In Monaco, there were no murders for the entire year recorded. In the Ivory coast, the rate is 56 per 1000. The difference between India and the United States is negligible. You go on at length about "gun vendor propaganda" but the numbers paint a far different picture: Mass murders may make headlines, but just as many people are dying in India as the United States.
The truth is that the murder rate is based on poverty and civil unrest; The availability and type of weapons has little to do with it... Where there's a will, there's a way.
Let me sum up my position on this by example; If Al Qaeda came up with a cure for cancer, would we as a society start using it, or reject it as poisoned fruit? Many a work of science fiction has been around the theme of asking how high of a price are we willing to pay. It is the age old question of whether the ends justify the means.
Granted, this is only a work of entertainment, but his pleadings for tolerance are not dissimilar from this theme; We are being asked to set aside our morality in exchange for some good or service. I don't think though that a work of fiction, regardless of quality, is worth my freedom and liberty, and even less so for others. Supporting this man's works would mean supporting something I find morally objectionable, even vile.
I cannot, in good conscience, support a work, however good, that would lead to harm to others' civil rights. Orson Scott Card -- you have been weighed, measured, and found wanting. I will not support you, and I urge any who place any value at all on civil rights to do the same. We cannot overlook this man's desire to force his own morality on others for our own... entertainment.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I know what this poster was thinking: "Quick! First post it, before someone else who can type faster than 9 words a minute writes an insightful and informative post giving away the secret sauce!"
If so, please synopsize in non-sensationalist terms.
Non-bullshit, redacted by lawyers version:
Anyone with access to the NAS over the network and an SSH client can enter a username and password, gain elevated privileges to the cluster, and while not allowing access to the data directly from that interface, access can disable the cluster or delete all the data within it, as well as wiping out partition information, etc.
The password you're looking for is badg3r5. So there. Go forth, my minions! In other news, Slashdot's corporate overlords apparently no longer believe in full disclosure, as it had in the past, and now omit critical information probably because their lawyers have more say in the editorial process than the submitter, editors, or anyone with a clue to spare. :(
Not to mention the fact that a 14 year old girl would have absolutely no chance of passing the Turing test.
The problem though is that pedophiles are experienced and know how to evade traps. They're like cochroaches -- for every one you find, there's fifty more you don't. And considering that western society likes to lock these people up and let them be raped and murdered, instead of studying what the glitch in their wetware is to devise a treatment, or treating their prisoners with compassion... there is a major incentive to not come forward if you're one of the afflicted... and being so afflicted... still more incentive to act out on the impulses.
A pedophile is therefore completely devoted to the task at hand. They will find out how to detect chat bots, and quickly too. Ask about personal history, how they feel about family members... things that a database of responses and algorithms can't simply create on demand and be believable. Most of our brains are devoted to social interaction -- trying to fool it is a frustratingly complex task.
You may catch the 'weak' ones, the low hanging fruit... but all you've done then is strengthen the remaining community... just like overuse of antibiotics. If bacteria can evolve, so can people. This chatbot is a novel approach... but it won't fix the problem. The only thing that'll fix the problem, is fixing the people with the problem -- by figuring out what causes pedophilia, and treating it.
And while we're at it, it might not be a bad idea to start treating our prisoners and mentally ill (largely the same group, if you look at the numbers) with compassion instead of clinging to primitive caveman ethics about needing vengance and going on at length about morality. At the end of the day... if you can't stomach killing people yourself, then you need to figure out how to live with them. And if you can stomach it... you may belong in with them, instead of out here with the rest of us.
Point is of course, you can't just forget about memory. And garbage collection has no place on a mobile device.
Yeah, but mobile devices are just like our brains... we're really only using 10% of it... the rest is overhead for the operating system. x_x
This just in: Guy with stake in product says nothing is wrong with product. Film at 11.
Thing is, he's not wrong. Most consumers won't notice. But then, most consumers wouldn't notice if their computer ran on little gerbils inside and the internet was just a series of tubes. But that's no excuse for his handwave. Fragmentation is a problem. Maybe it's not a severe one -- maybe not yet. Maybe developers can muddle through. Maybe, even everything is fine. For now.
But complacency will always get you a kick in the ass by the next best thing in technology, and you can go from cutting edge to curdled milk in no time at all. Iconic brand names of even a few years ago are now nothing more than sign posts in the desert -- Compaq. E Machines. 3Com. They were once all major brands and now they're dust. If you want to stay on the leading edge, you have to push the boundaries. You have to innovate, improve, refine, create. You can't talk about "ecosystems" and "platforms" like they're going to just go right on existing on their own, like they're some timeless thing.
They won't. Android will die someday; Everything does. The only question is how long it'll last -- and if you want that question to be "For a long time yet," then you best listen to the people who work with it every day and say "This is a problem." And you'd better answer back with something better than "No it's not." Address the problem now, while it's small... because trust me when I say... if there's one thing computers are good at, it's multiplying trouble. Exponentially. Don't wait. Fix it. Fix it now. Before you're sitting on the ruined throne of a kingdom of dust.
Thank you so much Ada, you've enlightened an entire generation of developers how wrong we've been our entire careers. Please please teach us the holy grail of never reusing code. We're all listening.
We'll get to that, but first we need to talk about these things called deadlines, managers, and paychecks. After I'm done with the Q&A about those three things, anyone who still wants to seek the Grail may sign up on the sheet here on the desk... (blows away some dust)... Now, open your text books to page 25...
-- Ada
You always need to think about memory. Like you need to think about what you're doing.
Too bad for the "write app get rich" idiots.
Those "write app get rich" idiots are likely your future employers. They don't know how to program, and they have markedly little understanding of it; That's your job. Oh, and they want it done fast, cheap, and right. Think you can score all three? No? Okay then -- maybe you need to take a step back and realize that programming for money these days is about building a program using a finite number of tools and resources, on a budget, and under a deadline. And I have yet to work on a project where there was enough of anything I needed to do it fast, cheap, and right.
So either I'm one of those "write app get rich idiots", or I'm one of those in the unemployment line I guess. Three guesses which one I picked -- first two don't count. These are the realities of professional programming; We don't have time for perfect... we'll settle for "it compiles" and using something that after hours of beating it with a hammer just started working, but we don't know why... that's just how it is. I didn't write the rules, I just write the code.
Stop loading dozens of fucking libraries and frameworks and learn to really code.
If memory management was so easy, we wouldn't have devoted so much of our programming guides, style manuals, etc., to it. It's not a simple matter of "I wave my hand and the problem goes away." It has existed since before there were "dozens of fucking libraries and frameworks" and at a time when people did know how to "really code"... it has existed since the very. first. computer. And it hasn't been solved to this day.
The main reason, I suppose, is the same reason why we haven't yet found The One True Concrete that all things can be built out of, or the One True Operating System upon which everything can run, or the One True... you get the damn idea. Men much smarter than you have devoted their entire careers to trying to solve the problem, and it's incredibly pretentious of you to toss off a one liner like it's (puts on sunglasses) just a simple matter of programming.
Assumption? Why would I assume we paid for it? You said nothing of cost, why would I assume there was cost? Level 99 Godwin. I'm pretty sure the mem is OVER 9000 Godwin.
Achievement Unlocked: Missing The Point
Level: 99
You just proved conclusively that you do *not* tolerate such people. You resorted to name calling and belittlement in order to bolster your own prejudice against them. Whether they are right or wrong, you failed to see your own intolerance, and blithely claim you are not intolerant.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of a stampede of raging Tu Quoques, Ad Hominids, and Appeals to Emotion...
For the same reason the NSA has a mic and camera up everyones bunghole. We are a nation of apathetic, vapid, content consumers whose primary concerns are trivial and shallow.
No. We're currently being run into the ground by Baby Boomers who have sucked the life out of the country's economy, destroyed the environment, let critical infrastructure rot, and have made education and healthcare nearly unattainable for anyone but themselves. As a result of that "we" (as in the non-boomers) are living hand to mouth, and the only thing that gets us through our meager, shitty, two-part-time-jobs-60-hour-a-week lives is the mediocre entertainment products that we can no longer afford to own but merely "rent" at exorbinant fees under the guise of its convenience.
We're not apathetic, vapid, trivial, or shallow -- we're simply working ourselves into an early grave trying to support the dead weight of the assholes that bankrupted our country to support their own vanity and selfishness... which means we hardly have the energy to give a damn about anything but whether we'll make it to the next paycheck and wondering exactly how many pounds of ramen noodles a person can eat before it kills them.
The only bigots I see are the people who support the perversion of Marriage and have no respect for those who hold differing opinions. Marriage is about children, self sacrifice and is the basic building block of a society. It's not about satisfying whatever lustful whim you are experiencing at the moment.
So I assume then that if hetero couples don't get their bang on the night of the wedding, their marriage is anulled? I assume you were in the front rows of the "Sanctity of Marriage" walk to boot Brittney Spears and so many other celebrities from your ranks? I also suppose then that couples that are sterile and choose to adopt actually won't have the choice to adopt, because we feed all the children into a meat grinder instead? Because if we're going to go there, buddy, let's fucking go there.
Um, no. The political minority here is the gays, not the gay-marriage supporters.
I think the GP has managed to confuse majority by numbers and majority by power. It's a common newbie mistake for people who spend too much time on the internet. ;)
You made no indication of how socieity gets the cure from Al Qaeda, you just said that they had one which leaves a lot of ground as to how society would get the information from them. If you had asked if we would be willing to pay them for the cure this conversation would likely be much different and likely closer to your orginal intent.
Hey, it's not my fault the GP made an assumption... All I said was Al Qaeda had the cure. I said nothing about how they got it. But whatever.. it's not like the slashmods will recant and return my karma I burned trying to undo the Level 99 Godwin he made.
There are many views on what is socially responsible. I'm reasonably certain your view doesn't have a monopoly on that.
Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure Step 1 for everyone is giving a fuck.
You're either trolling or being obtuse, and I'm not sure which. You gave the example of Al Qaeda getting the cure for cancer. I gave the example of Nazi's figuring out viable treatment methods for hypothermia. Sorry boss, but they aren't as dissimilar as a house and a doughnut. Go back and read and think on this without an agenda. I'm on your side in the human rights department, but frankly, your trolling is retarded.
Maybe you need to go back to the original point of this thread, rather than having derailed it and then, when I said your logic was busted, cried a river. I gave a contemporary example of something that had a benefit acquired without a drawback -- namely that the cure for cancer just dropped in Al Qaeda's lap, and asked if paying for that cure would be worth it since we know what the money would be used for. You replied with an example of mass murder and genocide, with the product being a treatment for a medical condition, and have been insisting they're alike.
I don't give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut whether they are or not -- the point was whether it's morally justified to trade for a good or service with someone who wants to harm others for political reasons. You're the one that went full Godwin and then started breathing fire and stomping about angrily when someone said you're making false equivocations, and now you're trying to label your opponent a 'troll'.
I don't know what's worse -- that you're getting modded up for this, or that you're making logical fallacies at the rate of about 1 per 15 words.
STOP RIGHT THERE. I wasn't commenting on entertainment. I was commenting on exactly the portion of his post that I QUOTED. Nothing more, nothing less. If you can't see that, you should really have your vision checked out. While technically a Godwin's law effect, the step was from one reprehensible group having data that helps society to another reprehensible group with the same. You may not like it, but the comment was on target, even though it included the Nazi reference (because his hypothetical HAS happened in the past and to forget it is a disservice).
That's roughly equivalent to saying that buying a house and buying a doughnut are the similar because they both involved an exchange of money. And frankly, that's retarded.
Some of the best advice I was ever given was "trust the art, not the artist." Artists are stupid people like everyone else and will always break your heart if you expect them to be as awesome as you want them to be. Leave them out of it and you'll have a much easier time enjoying art for what it is.
I can enjoy art without making a financial contribution to the artist. I know this is a difficult concept to grasp in the age of RIAA and copyright maximalists, but it was only recently that art became a work for hire, and throughout most of human history art was something you did to pass the time once the business of staying alive was completed. Our ancestors made music and beat drums in the evening because the hunting and gathering of food was done; It was to promote tribal unity, to express emotion. But there was no profit in it. Art will continue well after capitalism is nothing more than a footnote in our history books.
But until it is, we should continue to make educated decisions about what purposes to which our money will be used once it leaves our hands. Some may decide that the cost of the entertainment of watching Mr. Card's work exceeds that of the civil liberties of homosexuals -- that the benefit exceeds the harm. That is their right, and we must respect it.
However, if someone takes the extra step of being socially responsible and not giving Mr. Card money to continue his campaign of bigotry, that should be commended. And I am on the side that works of entertainment are not worth the oppression of a polical minority.
Boycotting the former because of the latter is called an ad hominem.
No, an Ad Hominem attack is not what is in play here. We're discussing whether it is morally justified to support a person or organization whose profit from goods and/or services sold will be used in furtherance of the oppression of a political minority. Mr. Card is the example under discussion.
But tolerance is not the same as acceptance, and this is where you have made a critical flaw in your reasoning. Tolerance means allowing them to participate in the discussion, to excercise free speech. It does not mean we should accept that their position has merit. I tolerate people who reject the theory of evolution, but I do not accept their position is valid. They're still nutjobs. I do not fund organizations that are anti-evolution out of some misguided notion that I must be tolerant of their viewpoint.
And as far as people enjoying Disney movies and Ford cars... well, they may be ignorant, or simply not care enough, or lack alternatives. But that's another kind of logical fallacy -- just because people do it doesn't make it right, and it's no argument for the furtherance of those activities. We all pick and choose our battles -- we can't fight for every righteous cause. But that's no argument for not fighting at all. If I choose to tell Mr. Card to fuck off today, but go to a Chic Fil A tomorrow, that doesn't mean I don't support gay rights... it just means I place more value on not being hungry than not being entertained.
So he's able to see the common sense in the situation ahead of time, but not actually able to practice it. Not sure if that makes him a visionary, an idiot, or both.
Neither; It makes him a bigot.
Just as we accepted the medical knowledge unlocked by the nazi's during WWII http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html we would use the cure for cancer. The foundation of treatment for hypothermia was all determined through the torture and murder of jews by the NAZI's, and yet we use that information to save lives even today.
That doesn't make it right, nor does it justify a furtherance of those policies. And you're making a false equivocation -- an apples to oranges comparison. There's quite a bit of difference between human experimentation and entertainment. If you can't see that, you should really have your vision checked out. But thank you for playing the Let's Godwin This Because I Don't Want To Deal With the Real Issue game!
Actually, this very question has been applied non-hypothetically to the body of research done by Nazi scientists utilizing experiments done on their prisoners.
Didn't take long to Godwin the discussion, now did it? You must be proud. But more seriously, as long as we're on the subject many of those experiments were done on homosexuals. People remember the Holocaust as being about the Jews, but far more died as political prisoners -- a significant portion of which were homosexuals. Specifically, look up Carl Vaernet who tried to "cure" homosexuality with some highly unethical experimentation. But let's not cast stones in glass houses -- The British did the same thing to Alan Turing and many others, as did the Americans, etc.
There's very little moral high ground here; Countries have long been experimenting on their prisoners or engaging in unethical medical practice. If you think the Nazis were the last to do it, you are severely mistaken. As recently as 1979, it was common practice to sterilize prisoners thought likely to reoffend in the United States... and officials are still trying to get around the laws today. As recently as a few years ago, a case made headlines in California where women were being coerced or manipulated into signing medical documents to get themselves sterilized because the prison wardens thought they were likely to reoffend.
The issue is far from settled, and though your attempt to Godwin the discussion is laughable, the reality is that unethical human experimentation continues to this day under color of authority throughout most of the Western world.
I'm sure Google could turn up a few YEARS worth of reading on the subject for you, because it isn't a simple matter at all.
I'm sure a great many people have endeavored to make the matter complicated -- if you can't make it simple, you can always make it complicated to confuse the hell out of your detractors. But I see no moral ambiguity here with which to justify the maiming and murder of innocents. We have had medical ethics for some time, and doctors the world over have sworn oaths to "do no harm." Regardless of which government or country you're a part of, the ethical mandates there at least are clear.
I do not feel they are any more ambiguous when it comes to the treatment of homosexuals; They are as human as you or I, as deserving of the same freedoms. This is not an assailable position to me, or the majority of my fellow Americans or other enlightened souls throughout the world. We cannot, in good conscience, support bigotry and intolerance for our own profit. And ultimately, that's what this story is about -- it's about a man who is selling us entertainment in exchange for cash he'll use to promote a reprehensible and vile repression of a political minority.
As a society, we cannot condone such actions and then later claim that we are an enlightened people. Mr. Card has a right to say whatever he wants and I'll have words with anyone who disagrees... but I also have the right to tell him to lick a sugar coated fuck off my dick for being a bigoted asshole... and I will encourage anyone who will listen to do the same.
The time for this kind of intolerance has past. It's time we evolve as a society and as a people. It's time to learn from this mistake for the last time, and leave it as nothing more than a footnote of some dark and forgotten age when people didn't treat one another with decency and respect.
I am aware of all the US gun vendor propaganda. None of the recent single-person perpetrated mass murders (Colorado, Arizona, Newtown) could have happened with knives. I am in India.
The murder rate in the United States is 4.8 per 1000. In India, it is 3.5. In Monaco, there were no murders for the entire year recorded. In the Ivory coast, the rate is 56 per 1000. The difference between India and the United States is negligible. You go on at length about "gun vendor propaganda" but the numbers paint a far different picture: Mass murders may make headlines, but just as many people are dying in India as the United States.
The truth is that the murder rate is based on poverty and civil unrest; The availability and type of weapons has little to do with it... Where there's a will, there's a way.
Let me sum up my position on this by example; If Al Qaeda came up with a cure for cancer, would we as a society start using it, or reject it as poisoned fruit? Many a work of science fiction has been around the theme of asking how high of a price are we willing to pay. It is the age old question of whether the ends justify the means.
Granted, this is only a work of entertainment, but his pleadings for tolerance are not dissimilar from this theme; We are being asked to set aside our morality in exchange for some good or service. I don't think though that a work of fiction, regardless of quality, is worth my freedom and liberty, and even less so for others. Supporting this man's works would mean supporting something I find morally objectionable, even vile.
I cannot, in good conscience, support a work, however good, that would lead to harm to others' civil rights. Orson Scott Card -- you have been weighed, measured, and found wanting. I will not support you, and I urge any who place any value at all on civil rights to do the same. We cannot overlook this man's desire to force his own morality on others for our own... entertainment.