Most importantly, I do not think there exists any (non entirely negligible) pressure group here demanding the right to bear arms. Surely if it were a "natural right" of some kind, there would be more protest, wouldn't there?
Not necessarily; it's a natural right (IMHO), not a natural desire. The obvious difference is, a significant portion of Americans want to bear arms, which makes it an issue of liberty.
Switzerland is arguably the most democratic state on Earth, its laws being the clear expression, for the better or for the worse, of the will of the people
Quite true, from my understanding of their government. The US were founded by people who dreaded such a system... "Tyranny of the Majority" was the phrase of the time. And that, in a sense, is the source of the incessant argument: the sense of "I don't give a damn what most people want, I have rights!"
This conflict sits deep below many of America's hot-button issues: Libertarianism vs. Majoritarianism. So deep that most people aren't really cognizant of it. But, stuffing my opinion in a nutshell, that's why Americans don't simply do something about this, one way or the other.
But is it prudent to let people from way back in the XVIIIth century, be they the Founding Fathers of the nation, make decisions on such contemporary problems as modern criminality?
Unquestionably, no. But that's not how many of us see the matter. I, for instance, see the US Constitution as a far finer expression of my own views on government than anything with which we'd be likely to replace it.
Remember in 1932 when FDR declared a national bank holiday and closed down all the banks for a few day to still the Great Depression panic and help restore confidence in America's banking system? I think that's what we could use here -- a chance to examine the gun control laws in the United States while gun sales are temporarily down.
I had to laugh when I read this. Funny you should pick out an example which has cause to make many Libertarians much more angry than gun control. It was under FDR's threat of court-packing that the Supreme Court essentially decided to make the Commerce Clause so expansive that the 10th Amendment didn't overturn a single Federal law (including the Brady Act) for the next 60 years. Closing the banks (like just about every part of the New Deal) was unconstitutional, and a vicious blow against freedom. Besides, IMHO, that it didn't work.
FDR's administration can be summed up by quoting him: "I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation."
Suffice it to say, I'm not persuaded.:-) I would sooner we suspend all gun laws, while we give ourselves a chance to discuss the matter. But I appreciate the note of openness; tolerance for people with different views is hugely important. I'm all for calm dialogue.
It's called direct democracy, and there's no better form of government.
Again, I could scarcely disagree more. That the majority of people hold a view does not make it right. If a democracy chooses not to respect the rights of the minority, I don't think there are many worse forms of government. A constitutionally limited goverment for me, thank you.
I must say, the current problem doesn't strike me as a gun issue, except incidentally. This is a symptom of a larger problem.
Chapter 16 of de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, a book analysing the state of American society, published in 1831, is entitled, "Causes which Mitigate the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States". The first cause is, "ABSENCE OF CENTRALIZED ADMINISTRATION. The national majority does not pretend to do everything--Is obliged to employ the town and county magistrates to execute its sovereign will." The passage is so excellent I'm tempted to reproduce more of it here, but you've got the link...
Anyway, I think that the present problem threatens more than gun rights, and out to be seen in context. A large Federal bureaucracy, IMHO, is unnecessary save to enforce laws which pass beyond the proper scope of the Federal Government. And in that connection, the threat to freedom is clear... the Brady Law, the CDA and the Clipper Chip initiative are all obviously beyond the Ennumerated Powers of the Federal Government, and ought not, IMO, to be seen as wholly seperate issues.
Is there some particular reason you wanted to be able to type while in the tub, or am I missing the whole point of this?
You're missing the whole point. This is an important breakthrough in the field of geek hygene. Apparently you've never worked with hackers who refuse to leave the keyboard for any reason except to go to the bathroom or (perhaps) sleep.
With this innovation, you could either:
a) Convince them to leave the desk for the tub, arguing that it will no longer mean being bored for five minutes, or
b) Hose them down where they sit. If they complain that you're disturbing their compiler hacking/Command and Conquer playing, intimate you're surprised that something like this would disturb their powers of concentration. This will generally shut them up, and on future occasions they will do their damnedest to act like they don't notice, and like it's not even slowing down their typing.
Interesting... They compare the lowest end 21264 to the highest end K7. Looks real fair to me! NOT!;-)
They're also comparing the 21264, which they're saying is around $3500 (though their system had extra stuff and was more like $5500), to the Athelon system which they seem to be saying is around $2000.
Don't let the "budget" label fool you, though, as the system still carries a hefty price tag of +/- $3500.
Cool! Where do I find the -$3500 deal?;-)
Let me point out an article I liked from Linux Gazette on how to build your own inexpensive Alpha. It's almost 2 years old, so some of the details aren't as relevant, but I think some of the stuff explaining the gotchas of the Alpha platform for someone used to x86 (like me) are still informative.
I still want to actually build my own Alpha... as the Penguin-Ferrari article points out, we need diversity, and anyway I like messing with different stuff. Anybody know of more recent articles, or have personal experiences to offer?
I'm not arguing that this was the wrong forum to answer non-free software questions. I merely question whether from a practical standpoint he would want to go into non-free software matter in front of a mostly free software crowd in a way that might turn some people against him for no good reason.
I know. Which, for instance, is why I ended my questions (the last, philosophical ones) with a bit that got clipped from the final interview:
I understand that you might not wish to tie the ideas you publically sponsor to those which you hold personally, but I think it'd be gratifying for many of us to get a better sense of "where is Richard Stallman coming from?"
If I were the principal crusader for a particular viewpoint on a given issue, I'd try to minimize any partisan statements on other, unrelated issues in order to avoid stirring up controversy.
Yes, and you'd be quite right. Stallman always does this. It's mostly okay, but after years and years it gets boring. And I think that's what this interview was about... a lot of the crowd here knows his view on the free software issues darned well. The personal views were what made this a really good interview, IMHO.
I don't want any proprietary vendor held to answer for its products
Uhh... look, I'm generally as libertarian as the next guy around here, and I like to see contracts respected... but I hope (and cautiously assume) you're only talking about software here. If you mean that it should be legal to sell childrens' car-seats made of balsa wood, or soup with botulin (so long as it's listed amongst the ingredients) - your logical conclusion is unacceptable to me. Call me a socialist.
Political pressure is unfortunately an influence on most all political figures.
Policial pressure not always have the most palatable results, but think about your statement for a second. A political figure who is uninfluenced by political pressure is, by definition, I would think, a dictator...
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While this would be a likely first question to pop into the mind of a geek, I doubt the Pastors of Muppets are as familiar with what technology is on the horizon.
Hence, I would strongly suggest pointing them to the Gnutella home page and the Freenet home page. The what is Gnutella? stuff is a little hard to find on their page, and should perhaps be pointed out directly.
It might be well to provide short synopses as well... just in case they, like so many/.ers, aren't inclined to read before posting.;-)
I agree. I don't think that this was appropriate... especially since these are the most diplomatic and inoffensive utterances I believe I've ever heard from RMS. Actually, the warning seems a little more sensationalistic than anything... like some of his replies were pornographic, or something.;-)
This is the most well-balanced, well-spoken interviews with RMS that I've read in a long while.
I thought the same thing. His responses were measured, objective, and - God help us - polite! He kept saying things like, "I think" such-and-such, or "I feel" so-and so, rather than "this is incorrect" or "people who do this are" whatever. No wonder it took him two weeks to formulate his responses!
At the same time, he really didn't change his tune, or compromise his position in any way. I think he would further his purposes much better if he kept up this tact. I like this RMS much better.
It's unfortunate to see Stallman mentioning issues about which he does not appear to be terribly informed in a message about free software. I'm referring specifically to his points about overpopulation, environmentalism, and the ACLU.
I disagree. I found it delightful to finally get him to speak of his beliefs and of larger philosophical issues, because frankly I've heard all the free software stuff before. There's only so many things to say, and so he tends to repeat himself.
This forum was open to ask the man any sort of questions, and we did. Many of them were personal. And anyway, you can't really divorce the issue of free software from its ethical context.
First, by associating himself with left wing causes such as these, he immediately alienates those who might not share his views on them.
He generally does not tie his free software politics to his more personal views. I, amongst others, asked him specifically about his personal views. And I, for one, was not alienated, though I sit on the other end of the political spectrum. I was glad to hear him speak his mind, rather than say something boring and inoffensive.
Interestingly, he once criticized a free software paper of mine because it used a gun control analogy. The disagreement was not with the issue per se, but rather that a controversial topic simply creates un-necessarily creates division where none should exist.
If this were a paper on free software, I'd criticize him for bringing unnecessary baggage to the table. This was an interview.
The second problem is substantive.
The second problem is not a problem. This was a forum for him to answer questions, not to have to defend his answers. That you (or I) feel his views are wrong is beside the point.
RMS's take on right and wrong is very Kantian, although I wonder if he's ever read Kant.
God, I hope not. Poor man! Nobody deserves that.
I have a feeling that his ideas of right and wrong are entirely subjective. Even if you claim to be looking effects to other people, you still look from your own eyes. This is problematic, and unavoidable.
I think you're conflating moral subjectivism with epistemic subjectivism. The fact that you're looking through your own eyes does not mean that there is not an objective truth to the matter. It means that your understanding of that truth is subjective. RMS states as much: Unfortunately, there's no way to place to get complete certainty about what's right and what's wrong.
That's a long way from saying that right and wrong are themselves subjective notions, like "tasty" and "icky".
From a philosophic standpoint, RMS's views are rather weak. His natural rights argument, while practically plagarized from Locke, fall apart quickly when questioned (i.e. What natural right to life does a man have who is drowning in the ocean?).
Natural, in this context, means "inherent", and all moral argument (as with rights) is directed towards moral agents, which the ocean is not. By your reasoning, we have scarcely any basis to make ethical pronouncements at all. What does it mean to have a law against killing someone, when a bear eats him? I'm no Lockean, really, but I'd have to say arguments for natural rights are a bit more robust than you give them credit for.
Rights are really just conventions created by modern liberal thought.
As a fairly red-necked conservative, in most people's eyes, I disagree. Classical liberal thought, perhaps... libertarian, we'd call it these days. Modern liberals don't much hold with the right to keep and bear arms, for instance, or your right to conduct your economic activities as you see fit.
His proclaimed athism also tends to conflict with his rejection of relativism. If there is no God, where does his basis for judgment come from? Natural moral sense decays under questioning in a universe without God. Without God, one must make a personal judgement, which is w/out authority. This is the foundation of relativism.
Not at all. To say moral truths cannot exist without a God is like saying that mathematical truths or physical truths cannot exist without a God. There is no contradiction inherent in saying that the wrongness of murder is simply an aspect of the universe, for instance, like gravity.
Anyway, even traditional Christian theology often has made God the curator of morality, rather than the author. Plato's great question, "Does God love the good because it's good, or is what's good good because God loves it?" divides up Christians neatly into Divine Command and Natural Law camps. (Uh, oh... I'm starting to repeat myself from former posts! Sure sign of ranting!) Catholicism, for instance, says God loves what's good because it's good, thus making good again Natural, and God's existence ancillary (my words, not theirs!). Though be warned, IANAC.:-)
I can't help but think about all the pain and anguish this must be causing the Karma-whores whose questions got answered, but minus their 'handles.'
Your concern is noted, and appreciated. I, for one, have been wailing and gnashing my teeth, stripped of the glory that was rightfully mine. When folks like you care, it sheds a little light into the darkness of our despair, it makes the cruelty of the world easier to endure. Thank you.
You may not agree with some of the things the ACLU doesn't fight but doesn't make them worse that companies and bills that ARE harmful.
You're right. What does make them perhaps as bad (from the standpoint of a civil libertarian) is when they fight against civil liberty in favor of civil entitlements.
Ongoing case in point: the gays-in-the-Boy Scouts. The ACLU argues that the Boy Scouts are a "common carrier", like the phone companies, offering services which must not be denied to a certain segment of the population. They argue that this is more important than the freedom of association which a private organization enjoys.
The ACLU does not fail to fight for our 2nd or 10th amendment rights because they lack resources to wage all battles, but because most of their members are on America's traditional "left". The same considerations inform their stances on affirmative action, welfare, and sundry other issues.
Now whether you think their stances are good or bad is another matter. I sometimes do, and often don't. But Reality Master is at least quite right in saying that "they are NOT the defenders of rights that they would like people to think".
On the other hand, this does open up a new and exciting revenue stream for music superstars who just aren't making as much money selling albums any more *grin*
what are the elements that make the user's experience better?
One of Perl's little slogans, as most of you know, is that, "easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible." (Whether Perl makes things so is beside the point.) This seems a pretty decent way to look at the whole thing, since after all, a language is ultimately a user interface.
We want to communicate with computers. A flexible grammar and, unless you're into ones and zeroes, a rich vocabulary are needed for hard things to be possible. The Windows GUI notoriously lacks these. Trying to get anything unusual or sophisticated done with it is like trying to write a novel in simple sentences. You'd better be Ernest Hemingway.
Unix, just by virtue of using symbolic language as its primary interface, tends to make hard things possible. It is notoriously difficult to learn, but then natural languages aren't any easier. Funny how we expect kids to work their butts off, and all kids' stuff to be educational, when most adults watch Baywatch and get distressed when the file doesn't look like a file. The secret to learning to use a computer well is the secret to doing anything well: work hard at it.
Anyway, I think easy things being easy is largely about abbreviating common tasks. Aliasing, making shortcuts, dragging and dropping, and so on. Discovering which tasks are common is an inherently empirical matter, which is why it's nice when the end user can abbreviate things himself. Of course abbreviating things is itself a common task, and needs to be easy.
And of course, the patterns recur at different levels. You could almost see Unix config files like Grep's command line switches. Both programs exist to make common tasks easier, the options to make more difficult things possible.
Which presents us with questions. When we argue about choice and consistency, do we mean within the UI, or between UIs? We like it that we can choose different Unices, but we want each to be internally consistent. But the functionality within each is not static; it's partially determined by your shell or window manager. Fine... we like our choice of shells, but we want each to be internally consistent. But the functionality is partially determined by your utilities.
I guess I'd say that the big thing about a UI is that it be useful. Useful for some person or people for some task or tasks... and the more of each, the merrier. But asking what is necessary in a UI doesn't make much sense to me, because it depends on both the user and the task. I want my car to have a different UI than my toothbrush, and from my mother's car... the latter is an *automatic* (ugh!). Don't try to reduce all tools to the One True Tool.
Well, normally nothing irritates me like the anti-big word people... but they're usually an insecure bunch, and I don't hear that here. As I noted, this post wasn't fully-baked; it was written during a small window of internet access on a trip. As a consequence, I can see something in what you say... though not everything. There is a certain point to the post. The writing could have been better. And at any rate, I haven't been a freshman jackass in a long time.:-)
Well, this was an interesting review of a fifteen year old film.:-) I liked the blurb about the new release to justify the whole thing as "news"... but then, hey, I've never been a "Slashdot minimalist". I, for one, prefer "interesting" to strictly "newsworthy".
This is an early post, so I'm going to make a guess. I'm going to guess that this review will irritate a bunch of people. It tries to pull too much stuff into orbit around the author's worldview, a sort of "kitchen-sink" theorizing that seems to me just what vexes people about JonKatz.
Hackers and Crackers, Randal Schwartz, the Woz, Open Source, the Hacker Ethic... all by analogy with a renegade air-conditioner repairman. Maybe there's something there. I thought the correlation novel, anyway. But it's not tight. The review reaches out for things which have the feel of the theory and pulls them in, without the sort of fastidious discernment which many analytical people feel as a moral obligation: asking themselves, in strict fashion, "does this really belong here?"
Just an interesting dichotomy I've noticed here on Slashdot. At one extreme, people so exuberent about their Grand Unified Theory of Hacking that they'll find a half-baked way to use it to predict the weather. On the other hand those abstemious fellows who seem uncomfortable posting without a full set of MLA footnotes.
This post lies somewhere between. It's not entirely baked either.:-) Nor, however, as ambitious as the review. It's a bit tighter, and as a consequence not as likely to peeve folks (I hope!)
And likely to generate interesting criticism... I hope.
Since I didn't notice it posted elsewhere, let me point out an abridged version of an address Billington made in 1994: Electronic Content and Civilization's Discontent. It is relevant to the article at hand, and might be of interest. It's fairly short, too.
This has got to be a troll. No one but hardcore fundies still try to assert that there can be no intersubjective morality without the presence of a deity
It is not a troll, and you read way too much into the question. It is meant as it is stated, with no implication that one or more gods are necessary to morality. Perhaps I should have stated this explicitly, but I was striving to be brief. I feel it's simply an interesting question... God is an easy answer, but not the only one. I mention Stallman's atheism because that's the word he uses himself, a word which invokes religous ideas by negation, thus IMHO inviting both the question and the sort of language it's couched in.
In fact, that assertion (that only God can dictate morality) has serious problems, since it assumes that if the deity were to declare (say) murder to be ethical, that it would therefore be ethical to murder.
Yes, yes, if you're a divine command type. Natural law theology has it's own problems, but that's not one of them. And deism, bla bla bla. But what sort of universe does RMS believe in, and where does morality fit into it?
Though I may be projecting, I suspect Stallman is a utilitarian - one who believes that those acts which have a "positive" effect on society as a whole are moral, and those which have a "negative" effect are immoral.
That would be just the sort of answer I'd love to get... from the man himself, of course. Talk about a theory that has serious problems, btw! Not that that makes it false...
But what are "positive" and "negative" to be understood in terms of? Pleasure and pain, like ol' Bentham and Mill? And how would he tie them to free software?
I really am not interested in tearing apart anyone's ideas, though. I'd just like to know what RMS' are... they're sure to be interesting. The fact that you can only answer in terms of your suspicions seems to me a validation of the Utility of my questions.;-)
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Not necessarily; it's a natural right (IMHO), not a natural desire. The obvious difference is, a significant portion of Americans want to bear arms, which makes it an issue of liberty.
Switzerland is arguably the most democratic state on Earth, its laws being the clear expression, for the better or for the worse, of the will of the people
Quite true, from my understanding of their government. The US were founded by people who dreaded such a system... "Tyranny of the Majority" was the phrase of the time. And that, in a sense, is the source of the incessant argument: the sense of "I don't give a damn what most people want, I have rights!"
This conflict sits deep below many of America's hot-button issues: Libertarianism vs. Majoritarianism. So deep that most people aren't really cognizant of it. But, stuffing my opinion in a nutshell, that's why Americans don't simply do something about this, one way or the other.
But is it prudent to let people from way back in the XVIIIth century, be they the Founding Fathers of the nation, make decisions on such contemporary problems as modern criminality?
Unquestionably, no. But that's not how many of us see the matter. I, for instance, see the US Constitution as a far finer expression of my own views on government than anything with which we'd be likely to replace it.
I had to laugh when I read this. Funny you should pick out an example which has cause to make many Libertarians much more angry than gun control. It was under FDR's threat of court-packing that the Supreme Court essentially decided to make the Commerce Clause so expansive that the 10th Amendment didn't overturn a single Federal law (including the Brady Act) for the next 60 years. Closing the banks (like just about every part of the New Deal) was unconstitutional, and a vicious blow against freedom. Besides, IMHO, that it didn't work.
FDR's administration can be summed up by quoting him: "I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation."
Suffice it to say, I'm not persuaded. :-) I would sooner we suspend all gun laws, while we give ourselves a chance to discuss the matter. But I appreciate the note of openness; tolerance for people with different views is hugely important. I'm all for calm dialogue.
It's called direct democracy, and there's no better form of government.
Again, I could scarcely disagree more. That the majority of people hold a view does not make it right. If a democracy chooses not to respect the rights of the minority, I don't think there are many worse forms of government. A constitutionally limited goverment for me, thank you.
Chapter 16 of de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, a book analysing the state of American society, published in 1831, is entitled, "Causes which Mitigate the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States". The first cause is, "ABSENCE OF CENTRALIZED ADMINISTRATION. The national majority does not pretend to do everything--Is obliged to employ the town and county magistrates to execute its sovereign will." The passage is so excellent I'm tempted to reproduce more of it here, but you've got the link...
Anyway, I think that the present problem threatens more than gun rights, and out to be seen in context. A large Federal bureaucracy, IMHO, is unnecessary save to enforce laws which pass beyond the proper scope of the Federal Government. And in that connection, the threat to freedom is clear... the Brady Law, the CDA and the Clipper Chip initiative are all obviously beyond the Ennumerated Powers of the Federal Government, and ought not, IMO, to be seen as wholly seperate issues.
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You're missing the whole point. This is an important breakthrough in the field of geek hygene. Apparently you've never worked with hackers who refuse to leave the keyboard for any reason except to go to the bathroom or (perhaps) sleep.
With this innovation, you could either:
a) Convince them to leave the desk for the tub, arguing that it will no longer mean being bored for five minutes, or
b) Hose them down where they sit. If they complain that you're disturbing their compiler hacking/Command and Conquer playing, intimate you're surprised that something like this would disturb their powers of concentration. This will generally shut them up, and on future occasions they will do their damnedest to act like they don't notice, and like it's not even slowing down their typing.
They're also comparing the 21264, which they're saying is around $3500 (though their system had extra stuff and was more like $5500), to the Athelon system which they seem to be saying is around $2000.
You're right. It's fair... NOT! :-)
Cool! Where do I find the -$3500 deal? ;-)
Let me point out an article I liked from Linux Gazette on how to build your own inexpensive Alpha. It's almost 2 years old, so some of the details aren't as relevant, but I think some of the stuff explaining the gotchas of the Alpha platform for someone used to x86 (like me) are still informative.
I still want to actually build my own Alpha... as the Penguin-Ferrari article points out, we need diversity, and anyway I like messing with different stuff. Anybody know of more recent articles, or have personal experiences to offer?
As it happens, I understood you perfectly. :-)
I'm not arguing that this was the wrong forum to answer non-free software questions. I merely question whether from a practical standpoint he would want to go into non-free software matter in front of a mostly free software crowd in a way that might turn some people against him for no good reason.
I know. Which, for instance, is why I ended my questions (the last, philosophical ones) with a bit that got clipped from the final interview:
If I were the principal crusader for a particular viewpoint on a given issue, I'd try to minimize any partisan statements on other, unrelated issues in order to avoid stirring up controversy.
Yes, and you'd be quite right. Stallman always does this. It's mostly okay, but after years and years it gets boring. And I think that's what this interview was about... a lot of the crowd here knows his view on the free software issues darned well. The personal views were what made this a really good interview, IMHO.
I don't want any proprietary vendor held to answer for its products
Uhh... look, I'm generally as libertarian as the next guy around here, and I like to see contracts respected... but I hope (and cautiously assume) you're only talking about software here. If you mean that it should be legal to sell childrens' car-seats made of balsa wood, or soup with botulin (so long as it's listed amongst the ingredients) - your logical conclusion is unacceptable to me. Call me a socialist.
Policial pressure not always have the most palatable results, but think about your statement for a second. A political figure who is uninfluenced by political pressure is, by definition, I would think, a dictator...
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No, but plenty of reason's I'd love to have it execute the idiot who sent it.
Hence, I would strongly suggest pointing them to the Gnutella home page and the Freenet home page. The what is Gnutella? stuff is a little hard to find on their page, and should perhaps be pointed out directly.
It might be well to provide short synopses as well... just in case they, like so many /.ers, aren't inclined to read before posting. ;-)
I agree. I don't think that this was appropriate... especially since these are the most diplomatic and inoffensive utterances I believe I've ever heard from RMS. Actually, the warning seems a little more sensationalistic than anything... like some of his replies were pornographic, or something. ;-)
I thought the same thing. His responses were measured, objective, and - God help us - polite! He kept saying things like, "I think" such-and-such, or "I feel" so-and so, rather than "this is incorrect" or "people who do this are" whatever. No wonder it took him two weeks to formulate his responses!
At the same time, he really didn't change his tune, or compromise his position in any way. I think he would further his purposes much better if he kept up this tact. I like this RMS much better.
I disagree. I found it delightful to finally get him to speak of his beliefs and of larger philosophical issues, because frankly I've heard all the free software stuff before. There's only so many things to say, and so he tends to repeat himself.
This forum was open to ask the man any sort of questions, and we did. Many of them were personal. And anyway, you can't really divorce the issue of free software from its ethical context.
First, by associating himself with left wing causes such as these, he immediately alienates those who might not share his views on them.
He generally does not tie his free software politics to his more personal views. I, amongst others, asked him specifically about his personal views. And I, for one, was not alienated, though I sit on the other end of the political spectrum. I was glad to hear him speak his mind, rather than say something boring and inoffensive.
Interestingly, he once criticized a free software paper of mine because it used a gun control analogy. The disagreement was not with the issue per se, but rather that a controversial topic simply creates un-necessarily creates division where none should exist.
If this were a paper on free software, I'd criticize him for bringing unnecessary baggage to the table. This was an interview.
The second problem is substantive.
The second problem is not a problem. This was a forum for him to answer questions, not to have to defend his answers. That you (or I) feel his views are wrong is beside the point.
God, I hope not. Poor man! Nobody deserves that.
I have a feeling that his ideas of right and wrong are entirely subjective. Even if you claim to be looking effects to other people, you still look from your own eyes. This is problematic, and unavoidable.
I think you're conflating moral subjectivism with epistemic subjectivism. The fact that you're looking through your own eyes does not mean that there is not an objective truth to the matter. It means that your understanding of that truth is subjective. RMS states as much: Unfortunately, there's no way to place to get complete certainty about what's right and what's wrong.
That's a long way from saying that right and wrong are themselves subjective notions, like "tasty" and "icky".
From a philosophic standpoint, RMS's views are rather weak. His natural rights argument, while practically plagarized from Locke, fall apart quickly when questioned (i.e. What natural right to life does a man have who is drowning in the ocean?).
Natural, in this context, means "inherent", and all moral argument (as with rights) is directed towards moral agents, which the ocean is not. By your reasoning, we have scarcely any basis to make ethical pronouncements at all. What does it mean to have a law against killing someone, when a bear eats him? I'm no Lockean, really, but I'd have to say arguments for natural rights are a bit more robust than you give them credit for.
Rights are really just conventions created by modern liberal thought.
As a fairly red-necked conservative, in most people's eyes, I disagree. Classical liberal thought, perhaps... libertarian, we'd call it these days. Modern liberals don't much hold with the right to keep and bear arms, for instance, or your right to conduct your economic activities as you see fit.
His proclaimed athism also tends to conflict with his rejection of relativism. If there is no God, where does his basis for judgment come from? Natural moral sense decays under questioning in a universe without God. Without God, one must make a personal judgement, which is w/out authority. This is the foundation of relativism.
Not at all. To say moral truths cannot exist without a God is like saying that mathematical truths or physical truths cannot exist without a God. There is no contradiction inherent in saying that the wrongness of murder is simply an aspect of the universe, for instance, like gravity.
Anyway, even traditional Christian theology often has made God the curator of morality, rather than the author. Plato's great question, "Does God love the good because it's good, or is what's good good because God loves it?" divides up Christians neatly into Divine Command and Natural Law camps. (Uh, oh... I'm starting to repeat myself from former posts! Sure sign of ranting!) Catholicism, for instance, says God loves what's good because it's good, thus making good again Natural, and God's existence ancillary (my words, not theirs!). Though be warned, IANAC. :-)
Your concern is noted, and appreciated. I, for one, have been wailing and gnashing my teeth, stripped of the glory that was rightfully mine. When folks like you care, it sheds a little light into the darkness of our despair, it makes the cruelty of the world easier to endure. Thank you.
You're right. What does make them perhaps as bad (from the standpoint of a civil libertarian) is when they fight against civil liberty in favor of civil entitlements.
Ongoing case in point: the gays-in-the-Boy Scouts. The ACLU argues that the Boy Scouts are a "common carrier", like the phone companies, offering services which must not be denied to a certain segment of the population. They argue that this is more important than the freedom of association which a private organization enjoys.
The ACLU does not fail to fight for our 2nd or 10th amendment rights because they lack resources to wage all battles, but because most of their members are on America's traditional "left". The same considerations inform their stances on affirmative action, welfare, and sundry other issues.
Now whether you think their stances are good or bad is another matter. I sometimes do, and often don't. But Reality Master is at least quite right in saying that "they are NOT the defenders of rights that they would like people to think".
What new revenue stream does Napster open?
The stream of revenue from lawsuits. It's a joke.
One of Perl's little slogans, as most of you know, is that, "easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible." (Whether Perl makes things so is beside the point.) This seems a pretty decent way to look at the whole thing, since after all, a language is ultimately a user interface.
We want to communicate with computers. A flexible grammar and, unless you're into ones and zeroes, a rich vocabulary are needed for hard things to be possible. The Windows GUI notoriously lacks these. Trying to get anything unusual or sophisticated done with it is like trying to write a novel in simple sentences. You'd better be Ernest Hemingway.
Unix, just by virtue of using symbolic language as its primary interface, tends to make hard things possible. It is notoriously difficult to learn, but then natural languages aren't any easier. Funny how we expect kids to work their butts off, and all kids' stuff to be educational, when most adults watch Baywatch and get distressed when the file doesn't look like a file. The secret to learning to use a computer well is the secret to doing anything well: work hard at it.
Anyway, I think easy things being easy is largely about abbreviating common tasks. Aliasing, making shortcuts, dragging and dropping, and so on. Discovering which tasks are common is an inherently empirical matter, which is why it's nice when the end user can abbreviate things himself. Of course abbreviating things is itself a common task, and needs to be easy.
And of course, the patterns recur at different levels. You could almost see Unix config files like Grep's command line switches. Both programs exist to make common tasks easier, the options to make more difficult things possible.
Which presents us with questions. When we argue about choice and consistency, do we mean within the UI, or between UIs? We like it that we can choose different Unices, but we want each to be internally consistent. But the functionality within each is not static; it's partially determined by your shell or window manager. Fine... we like our choice of shells, but we want each to be internally consistent. But the functionality is partially determined by your utilities.
I guess I'd say that the big thing about a UI is that it be useful. Useful for some person or people for some task or tasks... and the more of each, the merrier. But asking what is necessary in a UI doesn't make much sense to me, because it depends on both the user and the task. I want my car to have a different UI than my toothbrush, and from my mother's car... the latter is an *automatic* (ugh!). Don't try to reduce all tools to the One True Tool.
Well, normally nothing irritates me like the anti-big word people... but they're usually an insecure bunch, and I don't hear that here. As I noted, this post wasn't fully-baked; it was written during a small window of internet access on a trip. As a consequence, I can see something in what you say... though not everything. There is a certain point to the post. The writing could have been better. And at any rate, I haven't been a freshman jackass in a long time. :-)
But it's good to see how some see you, so thanks.
This is an early post, so I'm going to make a guess. I'm going to guess that this review will irritate a bunch of people. It tries to pull too much stuff into orbit around the author's worldview, a sort of "kitchen-sink" theorizing that seems to me just what vexes people about JonKatz.
Hackers and Crackers, Randal Schwartz, the Woz, Open Source, the Hacker Ethic... all by analogy with a renegade air-conditioner repairman. Maybe there's something there. I thought the correlation novel, anyway. But it's not tight. The review reaches out for things which have the feel of the theory and pulls them in, without the sort of fastidious discernment which many analytical people feel as a moral obligation: asking themselves, in strict fashion, "does this really belong here?"
Just an interesting dichotomy I've noticed here on Slashdot. At one extreme, people so exuberent about their Grand Unified Theory of Hacking that they'll find a half-baked way to use it to predict the weather. On the other hand those abstemious fellows who seem uncomfortable posting without a full set of MLA footnotes.
This post lies somewhere between. It's not entirely baked either. :-) Nor, however, as ambitious as the review. It's a bit tighter, and as a consequence not as likely to peeve folks (I hope!)
And likely to generate interesting criticism... I hope.
Since I didn't notice it posted elsewhere, let me point out an abridged version of an address Billington made in 1994: Electronic Content and Civilization's Discontent . It is relevant to the article at hand, and might be of interest. It's fairly short, too.
It is not a troll, and you read way too much into the question. It is meant as it is stated, with no implication that one or more gods are necessary to morality. Perhaps I should have stated this explicitly, but I was striving to be brief. I feel it's simply an interesting question... God is an easy answer, but not the only one. I mention Stallman's atheism because that's the word he uses himself, a word which invokes religous ideas by negation, thus IMHO inviting both the question and the sort of language it's couched in.
In fact, that assertion (that only God can dictate morality) has serious problems, since it assumes that if the deity were to declare (say) murder to be ethical, that it would therefore be ethical to murder.
Yes, yes, if you're a divine command type. Natural law theology has it's own problems, but that's not one of them. And deism, bla bla bla. But what sort of universe does RMS believe in, and where does morality fit into it?
Though I may be projecting, I suspect Stallman is a utilitarian - one who believes that those acts which have a "positive" effect on society as a whole are moral, and those which have a "negative" effect are immoral.
That would be just the sort of answer I'd love to get... from the man himself, of course. Talk about a theory that has serious problems, btw! Not that that makes it false...
But what are "positive" and "negative" to be understood in terms of? Pleasure and pain, like ol' Bentham and Mill? And how would he tie them to free software?
I really am not interested in tearing apart anyone's ideas, though. I'd just like to know what RMS' are... they're sure to be interesting. The fact that you can only answer in terms of your suspicions seems to me a validation of the Utility of my questions. ;-)