Yes he did... but in a more direct way than you think:
Mostly Harmless -
The easiest way to fool a completely logical robot is to feed it the same stimulus sequence over and over again so it gets locked in a loop. This was best demonstrated by the famous Herring Sandwich experiments conducted millennia ago at MISPWOSO (The MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious).
A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches. This was actually the most difficult part of the whole experiment. Once the robot had been programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches, a herring sandwich was placed in front of it. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, "Ah! A herring sandwich! I like herring sandwiches."
It would then bend over and scoop up the herring sandwich in its herring sandwich scoop, and then straighten up again. Unfortunately for the robot, it was fashioned in such a way that the action of straightening up caused the herring sandwich to slip straight back off its herring sandwich scoop and fall on to the floor in front of the robot. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, "Ah! A herring sandwich..., etc., and repeated the same action over and over and over again. The only thing that prevented the herring sandwich from getting bored with the whole damn business and crawling off in search of other ways of passing the time was that the herring sandwich, being just a bit of dead fish between a couple of slices of bread, was marginally less alert to what was going on than was the robot.
The scientists at the Institute thus discovered the driving force behind all change, development and innovation in life, which was this: herring sandwiches. They published a paper to this effect, which was widely criticised as being extremely stupid. They checked their figures and realised that what they had actually discovered was "boredom", or rather, the practical function of boredom. In a fever of excitement they then went on to discover other emotions, Like "irritability", "depression", "reluctance", "ickiness" and so on. The next big breakthrough came when they stopped using herring sandwiches, whereupon a whole welter of new emotions became suddenly available to them for study, such as "relief", "joy", "friskiness", "appetite", "satisfaction", and most important of all, the desire for "happiness'.
This was the biggest breakthrough of all.
Vast wodges of complex computer code governing robot behaviour in all possible contingencies could be replaced very simply. All that robots needed was the capacity to be either bored or happy, and a few conditions that needed to be satisfied in order to bring those states about. They would then work the rest out for themselves.
Does the wheel of your car have "motivation" to go round and round?
Humans are simply survival machines. The end result of 4.5 billion years, give or take, of evolution. What is our "motivation"? We simply do what we do. If that isn't surviving then we aren't around anymore to question the value of it.
Umm yes.... your wheels have a motivation. That motivation is the process taking place in the engine and the drive assembly. That process has motivation; pressure on the gas pedal. That pressure has motivation; the input of the driver.
. So are you discounting these because it's a simple on/off scenario? A case of being impelled or not being impelled? WTF do you think the concept of motivation represents? . I can't help but wonder if the dime-store nihilism (repainted through "science) in the rest of your post has something to do with your narrow perspective.
Dystopia is not only NOT inevitable, it's probably not even likely.
Of course this could digress into a debate over the notion of "progress". . More to the point though consider it from another perspective: What if all of the people proclaiming "the end of life as we know it" have been right every time? . As humans we have an immense ability to rationalize our current situation. Some neuroscientists and psychologists point to evidence that we naturally overvalue what we "have" and undervalue what we "had". (an oversimplification obviously, for a good study of the subject try "How we choose" be Jonah Lehrer) If I give you a snickers nothing will induce you to trade it for a milky way, if I take your snickers and replace it with a milky way you'll experience some nostalgia but before you are finished eating you'll be convinced that you never really wanted the snickers anyway. . Since the 18th century dystopic fiction has been about unintended ramifications of "progress", corporations devaluing individuals, and political entities abusing power. We are currently living in the dystopic visions of a preindustrial society, you love it because it's new and shiny and it's yours. For the environmental and social costs of achieving our modern lifestyle we have not made the world a better place. The planet Earth and meaningful society are not resources which can be mined indefinitely without repercussions.
Really? I mourn for the loss of the individual for the industrial.
You point out that family farms wouldn't support 6 billion people at a sustainable level. I agree, however I would point out that our current system is not doing so either.
Industrial pesticides and fertilizers seem to have been one of the main contributors to killing off ecosystems in lakes, waterways, bays, and the gulf of Mexico. Combined with worldwide overfishing we're rapidly working our way through the world's largest food supply.
Industrial farming and Industrial (fast) food production internationally abuses water supply on par with any other current industry.
Industrial farming has lead to market dumping of cheap grains from industrial countries on poor ones, bankrupting internal means of producing and supplying food long term; and supply is THE key to feeding the world, without manageable supply sustained production is waste.
Finally if you feel population is the real problem consider: Industrial farming may in fact be the cause of the population bloom. In any ecology when you increase available food you will see a growth parallel growth in organisms that feed off of it. Industrial farming causes a "human algea bloom" wherever it starts up, then leaves dead-zones behind when sustainability fails.
I'm not a good person to speak on the subject, if you really care about the issues you brought up consider listening to Vandana Shiva discuss "the Politics of Food". (a simple search from work didn't reveal a good place to listen to a free version... but google - {vandana shiva politics of food torrent} and you'll have plenty to choose from. To influence the mind of another intelligent person I don't think she'd object.
If M$ has a problem with "Systray" then screw 'em. Even your link explains why that name was the most logical association.
I'll start calling it the "notification area" right after I make the following changes: "facial tissue" instead of "kleenex" "tarmacadam" instead of "blacktop" "sherbet" instead of "sherbeRt" "perfectionists" instead of "whiny little jerks"
you may have just been trying to be funny... but it sounded enough like patriotic chest thumping that you successfully trolled me into a response
It was only our commandeering German V2 rocket technology and the pardoning of war criminals like Von Braun that gave America a slight edge in reaching the moon. For a reference point on how close of a race it was read up on the unmanned Luna 15.
That's not a fair thing to say. Sure, "no social life" often means "no prom", "no dates", etc. But, it also means "no exposure to anyone with an alternative lifestyle, culture, perspective on life, opinion", etc. Granted, high schools aren't famous for being a place where kids can be exposed to new perspectives, but personally, I'm very happy with the public school education that allowed me to directly into a large private polytech university. And I'd do it again. Were I homeschooled, I would have been severely crippled when it comes to understanding other people's life experiences.
There are actually forms of interaction with the larger world other than school....
While I was home schooled I had an actual job, interacting with people of all ages. Were I a self absorbed basement dweller I would have been severely crippled when it comes to understanding other people's life experiences.
You are the government (at least you're supposed to be) here in the US, so if you're afraid of the government, you're afraid of yourself. How is that for recursive fear?:-D
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Cool... having a sig that highlights why you should be "afraid of yourself" while commenting on the recursive nature of such fear turns it from being a simple recursion into a complex fractal pattern.
You're looking at if from a perspective that can be generalized "security through obscurity"; at it's core is a hope that limiting the general knowledge of a subject will prevent "bad people" from interfering. Again generalizing the motto could be "The less people know the more everyone is safe."
The weakness of this in practical terms is that people discover things and motivated people can be very creative. If one person or team can accomplish something there is no reason to assume that they are the only ones who possibly could.
Let's think of it in physical terms: To modify your analogy, this is like assuming "I haven't given {violence-prone-teen} a gun; therefore he can't possibly have a gun."
Proper disclosure (which on the surface this seems to be) raises awareness of vulnerabilities and helps motivate those who work towards combating such vulnerabilities. It also means that if those responsible are unwilling/unable to fix the problem that the general public is now aware of a problem and may be able to modify their own vulnerability to it. (With these 2 goals in mind some people follow a firm 2 step process of disclosure; informing "the authorities" first to give them a headstart, then informing the general public.)
Proper disclosure of where a violent teen "might" get a gun disperses the illusion that "I didn't give him a gun so he must be unarmed".
The dilemma does exist that if a vulnerability is not secured after being disclosed then, yes you have essentially given junior directions to a Glock. But as another responder pointed out... this is hardly the only source for potentially malevolent software/code. If junior is determined to kill he will find a way.
Where does your ethical duty fall when you have such knowledge? That's for you to carefully consider and decide (which is the entire concept behind ethics anyway). But many people would advocate for knowledge, aware that knowledge does not automatically make us safe, but secure in their belief that ignorance never makes us safe... it just makes us feel safe.
Maybe a new slogan: Precede with an explanatory: "Accuracy ratings for screenings are not based on how many of your target you find, but on how many false positives you avoid." then hit em with: "This screen is 90% accurate! 90% of the people who pass through here will not even be considered for waterboarding and sexual humiliation!"
or maybe an illustration: "You live in a town of 3000 houses, 911 receives a call reporting a fire at your house number. There are 30 houses (1% of the total) with the same number. The fire company breaks down the doors and smashes the windows of all 30 in random order. All valuables are destroyed by water damage, and just by coincidence your house burns to the ground.Their screening method was 99% accurate, and in fact their method of finding your home was 100% accurate."
or a simple ascii of 2999 zeroes with a 1 hidden among them..... I actually made this and the 90% and 99% and 99.9% versions; but slashdot won't let me post that many repeating characters.
This was before /. and video games....
on
Hung Out to Dry
·
· Score: 1
just because we were all fatties doesn't mean they were.
Of course now you know what terrible fate all of the twinkies and basement dwelling have been saving you from.
I'm not sure exactly what you meant by pointing out that fact... so I'm just going to assume you wanted to inspire a free-association session stemming from that statement. Here goes:
In deep ocean conditions there is very little oxygen near the ocean floor, in shallow water the environment should have abundant oxygen all the way down.
If you deprive a poor man and a rich man of all of their resources, they will be equally broke and unable to sustain their dependents.
If you deprive a oxygen poor environment and an oxygen rich environment of all of their resources, they will be equally dead zones and unable to sustain their dependents.
This will have a bad effect on something, somewhere; now, why is it there?
I'm of the opinion that at this point the only way to get true journalism out of either standard media or independents is to let the current system burn itself down and see what rises from the ashes.
The people who care about quality reporting can encourage the growth of a replacement. If not enough people care then maybe it's time to acknowledge that the zombie apocalypse has already happened and we're living in the aftermath.
I haven't watched the new one yet, but based on something I've heard there's a minor appearance of Terminator fuel cells. Not sure if there's any explanation given, but they're a plot point.
There's also a fuel cell moment in T3 when Ahnold tosses away a damaged cell just before it explodes.
My understanding is that Terminators are powered with a "Mr. Fusion" like the Delorean at the end of back to the future...:-P
In a case where such a situation is possible you shouldn't be passing... this is not a "56 in a 55" sort of device, if the car you "need" to pass is going the speed limit you shouldn't be trying to pass.
aggressive driving is a far bigger risk than either speed or limiters
You appear to presume that it was practiced in latin because it was desired to keep it secret.... rather than deliberate intent except insomuch as one wants to read deliberate intent into their reluctance to change how they practiced their rituals, which I had already said, they had placed a high level of importance on.
It's historically safe to say that by the 16th century it had passed from a matter of tradition to a form of control. At least bible translator William Tyndale strongly felt so, he famously said "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, I will cause the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!" Tyndale made his translation from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, bypassing the "sacred Latin". He was strangled to death and his body burned at the stake for the heresy of allowing the "uneducated" to read the bible.
Yes, once again you can say that this is merely adherence to well founded religious tradition... the tradition of murdering those who bypass the existing authority to teach the people. But it is a tradition of control, and the church having evolved into a quasi-governmental organization was preserving their standing. They controlled education, they certainly controlled the long dead language of Latin, and they controlled the people by insisting that knowledge passed only through the clergy.
oh and back on topic.... it's not a real stretch to imagine M$ saying: "Messages from God only open in Word"
or "Thou SHALT BE CERTIFIED!"
Slashdot Mirror
Yes he did... but in a more direct way than you think:
Mostly Harmless -
The easiest way to fool a completely logical robot is to feed it the same stimulus sequence over and over again so it gets locked in a loop. This was best demonstrated by the famous Herring Sandwich experiments conducted millennia ago at MISPWOSO (The MaxiMegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious).
A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches. This was actually the most difficult part of the whole experiment. Once the robot had been programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches, a herring sandwich was placed in front of it. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, "Ah! A herring sandwich! I like herring sandwiches."
It would then bend over and scoop up the herring sandwich in its herring sandwich scoop, and then straighten up again. Unfortunately for the robot, it was fashioned in such a way that the action of straightening up caused the herring sandwich to slip straight back off its herring sandwich scoop and fall on to the floor in front of the robot. Whereupon the robot thought to itself, "Ah! A herring sandwich..., etc., and repeated the same action over and over and over again. The only thing that prevented the herring sandwich from getting bored with the whole damn business and crawling off in search of other ways of passing the time was that the herring sandwich, being just a bit of dead fish between a couple of slices of bread, was marginally less alert to what was going on than was the robot.
The scientists at the Institute thus discovered the driving force behind all change, development and innovation in life, which was this: herring sandwiches. They published a paper to this effect, which was widely criticised as being extremely stupid. They checked their figures and realised that what they had actually discovered was "boredom", or rather, the practical function of boredom. In a fever of excitement they then went on to discover other emotions, Like "irritability", "depression", "reluctance", "ickiness" and so on. The next big breakthrough came when they stopped using herring sandwiches, whereupon a whole welter of new emotions became suddenly available to them for study, such as "relief", "joy", "friskiness", "appetite", "satisfaction", and most important of all, the desire for "happiness'.
This was the biggest breakthrough of all.
Vast wodges of complex computer code governing robot behaviour in all possible contingencies could be replaced very simply. All that robots needed was the capacity to be either bored or happy, and a few conditions that needed to be satisfied in order to bring those states about. They would then work the rest out for themselves.
Does the wheel of your car have "motivation" to go round and round?
Humans are simply survival machines. The end result of 4.5 billion years, give or take, of evolution. What is our "motivation"? We simply do what we do. If that isn't surviving then we aren't around anymore to question the value of it.
Umm yes.... your wheels have a motivation. That motivation is the process taking place in the engine and the drive assembly.
That process has motivation; pressure on the gas pedal.
That pressure has motivation; the input of the driver.
.
So are you discounting these because it's a simple on/off scenario? A case of being impelled or not being impelled? WTF do you think the concept of motivation represents?
.
I can't help but wonder if the dime-store nihilism (repainted through "science) in the rest of your post has something to do with your narrow perspective.
One of the actual funny parts from Mostly Harmless shows this isn't a new concept in AI.
http://books.google.com/books?id=17kxQrzchwcC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=douglas+adams+%22herring+sandwich%22&source=bl&ots=bJN3KW8ChK&sig=_RJYp8DAkA-UxWF_hksrP1lJkkQ&hl=en&ei=kcCnSrC-OdSAnQeLioGwBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
Dystopia is not only NOT inevitable, it's probably not even likely.
Of course this could digress into a debate over the notion of "progress".
.
More to the point though consider it from another perspective: What if all of the people proclaiming "the end of life as we know it" have been right every time?
.
As humans we have an immense ability to rationalize our current situation. Some neuroscientists and psychologists point to evidence that we naturally overvalue what we "have" and undervalue what we "had". (an oversimplification obviously, for a good study of the subject try "How we choose" be Jonah Lehrer)
If I give you a snickers nothing will induce you to trade it for a milky way, if I take your snickers and replace it with a milky way you'll experience some nostalgia but before you are finished eating you'll be convinced that you never really wanted the snickers anyway.
.
Since the 18th century dystopic fiction has been about unintended ramifications of "progress", corporations devaluing individuals, and political entities abusing power.
We are currently living in the dystopic visions of a preindustrial society, you love it because it's new and shiny and it's yours. For the environmental and social costs of achieving our modern lifestyle we have not made the world a better place. The planet Earth and meaningful society are not resources which can be mined indefinitely without repercussions.
At this point in human development we've got a name for fiction based around a non-dystopian future... it's called fantasy.
Really? I mourn for the loss of the individual for the industrial.
You point out that family farms wouldn't support 6 billion people at a sustainable level. I agree, however I would point out that our current system is not doing so either.
Industrial pesticides and fertilizers seem to have been one of the main contributors to killing off ecosystems in lakes, waterways, bays, and the gulf of Mexico. Combined with worldwide overfishing we're rapidly working our way through the world's largest food supply.
Industrial farming and Industrial (fast) food production internationally abuses water supply on par with any other current industry.
Industrial farming has lead to market dumping of cheap grains from industrial countries on poor ones, bankrupting internal means of producing and supplying food long term; and supply is THE key to feeding the world, without manageable supply sustained production is waste.
Finally if you feel population is the real problem consider:
Industrial farming may in fact be the cause of the population bloom. In any ecology when you increase available food you will see a growth parallel growth in organisms that feed off of it. Industrial farming causes a "human algea bloom" wherever it starts up, then leaves dead-zones behind when sustainability fails.
I'm not a good person to speak on the subject, if you really care about the issues you brought up consider listening to Vandana Shiva discuss "the Politics of Food".
(a simple search from work didn't reveal a good place to listen to a free version... but google - {vandana shiva politics of food torrent} and you'll have plenty to choose from. To influence the mind of another intelligent person I don't think she'd object.
If M$ has a problem with "Systray" then screw 'em. Even your link explains why that name was the most logical association.
I'll start calling it the "notification area" right after I make the following changes:
"facial tissue" instead of "kleenex"
"tarmacadam" instead of "blacktop"
"sherbet" instead of "sherbeRt"
"perfectionists" instead of "whiny little jerks"
you may have just been trying to be funny... but it sounded enough like patriotic chest thumping that you successfully trolled me into a response
It was only our commandeering German V2 rocket technology and the pardoning of war criminals like Von Braun that gave America a slight edge in reaching the moon. For a reference point on how close of a race it was read up on the unmanned Luna 15.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/5737854/Russian-spacecraft-landed-on-moon-hours-before-Americans.html
That's not a fair thing to say. Sure, "no social life" often means "no prom", "no dates", etc. But, it also means "no exposure to anyone with an alternative lifestyle, culture, perspective on life, opinion", etc. Granted, high schools aren't famous for being a place where kids can be exposed to new perspectives, but personally, I'm very happy with the public school education that allowed me to directly into a large private polytech university. And I'd do it again. Were I homeschooled, I would have been severely crippled when it comes to understanding other people's life experiences.
There are actually forms of interaction with the larger world other than school....
While I was home schooled I had an actual job, interacting with people of all ages. Were I a self absorbed basement dweller I would have been severely crippled when it comes to understanding other people's life experiences.
You are the government (at least you're supposed to be) here in the US, so if you're afraid of the government, you're afraid of yourself. How is that for recursive fear? :-D
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Cool... having a sig that highlights why you should be "afraid of yourself" while commenting on the recursive nature of such fear turns it from being a simple recursion into a complex fractal pattern.
You're looking at if from a perspective that can be generalized "security through obscurity"; at it's core is a hope that limiting the general knowledge of a subject will prevent "bad people" from interfering. Again generalizing the motto could be "The less people know the more everyone is safe."
The weakness of this in practical terms is that people discover things and motivated people can be very creative. If one person or team can accomplish something there is no reason to assume that they are the only ones who possibly could.
Let's think of it in physical terms: To modify your analogy, this is like assuming "I haven't given {violence-prone-teen} a gun; therefore he can't possibly have a gun."
Proper disclosure (which on the surface this seems to be) raises awareness of vulnerabilities and helps motivate those who work towards combating such vulnerabilities. It also means that if those responsible are unwilling/unable to fix the problem that the general public is now aware of a problem and may be able to modify their own vulnerability to it. (With these 2 goals in mind some people follow a firm 2 step process of disclosure; informing "the authorities" first to give them a headstart, then informing the general public.)
Proper disclosure of where a violent teen "might" get a gun disperses the illusion that "I didn't give him a gun so he must be unarmed".
The dilemma does exist that if a vulnerability is not secured after being disclosed then, yes you have essentially given junior directions to a Glock. But as another responder pointed out... this is hardly the only source for potentially malevolent software/code. If junior is determined to kill he will find a way.
Where does your ethical duty fall when you have such knowledge?
That's for you to carefully consider and decide (which is the entire concept behind ethics anyway). But many people would advocate for knowledge, aware that knowledge does not automatically make us safe, but secure in their belief that ignorance never makes us safe... it just makes us feel safe.
Thanks Slashdot, your imposed limitation on my ascii art prompted me to make a Gif that I'm very happy with.
I believe this link should work.
http://picasaweb.google.com/H.R.Rambler/MyCreations#slideshow/5361370357908348434 [google.com]
This is the alternate, but you have to click on the magnifying glass to get it to start playing.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wi54UGVjyvlFubM5SuJ7Eg?feat=directlink [google.com]
I created an animated infographic (gif) that does the trick, it's a bit more elaborate than what you had in mind... but I like it.
This is completely work safe, unless you happen to work for fascists who may be offended by their own similarity to the mentality portrayed.
I believe this link should work.
http://picasaweb.google.com/H.R.Rambler/MyCreations#slideshow/5361370357908348434
This is the alternate, but you have to click on the magnifying glass to get it to start playing.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wi54UGVjyvlFubM5SuJ7Eg?feat=directlink
Speaking of cast that makes the movie...
This one will be directed by Sam Reimi; It would be AWESOME if Bruce Campbell plays at least 5 different characters.
Maybe a new slogan:
Precede with an explanatory: "Accuracy ratings for screenings are not based on how many of your target you find, but on how many false positives you avoid."
then hit em with: "This screen is 90% accurate! 90% of the people who pass through here will not even be considered for waterboarding and sexual humiliation!"
or maybe an illustration:
"You live in a town of 3000 houses, 911 receives a call reporting a fire at your house number. There are 30 houses (1% of the total) with the same number. The fire company breaks down the doors and smashes the windows of all 30 in random order. All valuables are destroyed by water damage, and just by coincidence your house burns to the ground.Their screening method was 99% accurate, and in fact their method of finding your home was 100% accurate."
or a simple ascii of 2999 zeroes with a 1 hidden among them..... I actually made this and the 90% and 99% and 99.9% versions; but slashdot won't let me post that many repeating characters.
just because we were all fatties doesn't mean they were.
Of course now you know what terrible fate all of the twinkies and basement dwelling have been saving you from.
There's not a lot of oxygen on the ocean floor.
I'm not sure exactly what you meant by pointing out that fact...
so I'm just going to assume you wanted to inspire a free-association session stemming from that statement. Here goes:
In deep ocean conditions there is very little oxygen near the ocean floor, in shallow water the environment should have abundant oxygen all the way down.
If you deprive a poor man and a rich man of all of their resources, they will be equally broke and unable to sustain their dependents.
If you deprive a oxygen poor environment and an oxygen rich environment of all of their resources, they will be equally dead zones and unable to sustain their dependents.
This will have a bad effect on something, somewhere; now, why is it there?
Yeah.... if you don't understand why you got that message then you probably shouldn't be playing with tools like l0phtcrack.
I agree with both of you...
I'm of the opinion that at this point the only way to get true journalism out of either standard media or independents is to let the current system burn itself down and see what rises from the ashes.
The people who care about quality reporting can encourage the growth of a replacement. If not enough people care then maybe it's time to acknowledge that the zombie apocalypse has already happened and we're living in the aftermath.
make the round hole bigger
I haven't watched the new one yet, but based on something I've heard there's a minor appearance of Terminator fuel cells. Not sure if there's any explanation given, but they're a plot point.
There's also a fuel cell moment in T3 when Ahnold tosses away a damaged cell just before it explodes.
My understanding is that Terminators are powered with a "Mr. Fusion" like the Delorean at the end of back to the future... :-P
Lucy and the Piltdown man were allegedly impossible to fake as well...
Sometimes it's not even intent to deceive, a desire to see results has the ability to create the results you expected to see.
for me.... /doubtful
I wouldn't bet $10 against "we've got an opportunity to learn something" but I'll bet $100 against "this is a world-changer!"
In a case where such a situation is possible you shouldn't be passing... this is not a "56 in a 55" sort of device, if the car you "need" to pass is going the speed limit you shouldn't be trying to pass.
aggressive driving is a far bigger risk than either speed or limiters
Think of this as a proof of concept.
and the concept still seems to be:
conditions represent theoretical conditions
materials represent theoretical materials
reactions represent one possible mechanism
the scientists represent..........???
You appear to presume that it was practiced in latin because it was desired to keep it secret.... rather than deliberate intent except insomuch as one wants to read deliberate intent into their reluctance to change how they practiced their rituals, which I had already said, they had placed a high level of importance on.
It's historically safe to say that by the 16th century it had passed from a matter of tradition to a form of control.
At least bible translator William Tyndale strongly felt so, he famously said "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, I will cause the boy that drives the plow in England to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!"
Tyndale made his translation from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, bypassing the "sacred Latin".
He was strangled to death and his body burned at the stake for the heresy of allowing the "uneducated" to read the bible.
Yes, once again you can say that this is merely adherence to well founded religious tradition... the tradition of murdering those who bypass the existing authority to teach the people.
But it is a tradition of control, and the church having evolved into a quasi-governmental organization was preserving their standing. They controlled education, they certainly controlled the long dead language of Latin, and they controlled the people by insisting that knowledge passed only through the clergy.
oh and back on topic.... it's not a real stretch to imagine M$ saying:
"Messages from God only open in Word"
or
"Thou SHALT BE CERTIFIED!"