My point wasn't that the purpose of the civil war was to end slavery, but that abolition was a direct result anyway. Lincoln made it clear that he'd rather keep the union together than end slavery; the emancipation proclamation occurred when it was obvious that there was no peaceful way to do this.
Of course we still haven't solved the race issue in the US. Last I checked the NAACP was complaining about Jews.
This is something I've never heard of. Could you provide a source for this information? Not only was one of the NAACP's founders Jewish, but the organization was one of the few American groups that spoke out against the Nazi treatment of Jews during the early years of their persecution.
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Personally, I wish every day that the Union had lost the civil war, and we had three nations - the North, South, and West.
And what about slavery?
It might not be the sole, or even main cause of the war, depending on which historians you listen to, but the ending of it was certainly an unqualifiably good thing.
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It's nice to see some thought going into environmental awareness in the computer/internet field; it's been surprisingly lacking so far. Maybe that's a result of the supposed technolibertarian
atmosphere we've all been flaming each other over recently...
--
Maybe not, but it was well-designed. And the storyline might have been cliched, but at least it existed. I mean, with Quake 3 they just got rid of even a semblance of a story. --
PCs will always have the potential to create better games simply because they're more flexible. All the great time-wasting games, from Infocom to Wasteland to Ultima to Starcraft have been great not because they had state-of-the-art graphics, but because they were well-designed. Now PC game makers have fallen into a pit where it's only about the graphics. Considering Id is probably the worst offender, I guess I shouldn't have expected any innovative design ideas in Carmack's speech.
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What gives the government the right to confiscate 40% of one's income
The government is mandated by the people. We vote for them. There have been plenty of candidates who have advocated lower or no taxes, but they tend not to be voted for because the majority of people understand that we need tax revenue to carry out the normal functions of government.
It's called democracy.
We fought the Revolutionary War over a tax rate of 1/2-6%; that was worth killing and dying for
The revolutionary war was fought because Americans wanted autonomy; while the taxes levied by Britain weren't particularly high (I forget the figures, but the typical British taxpayer living in England paid several times that), I don't think that was the sole, or even the most important reason.
How the hell can this be considered a troll? He/she was simply responding to points raised by another poster. This is a discussion board, you know, I don't think you should try to censor things just because you don't agree with them. --
Well I'm very much against the libertarian viewpoint, but it's nice to see a rather civil and less inflammatory promotion of it...
What they (we, actually) really want is the opportunity to accumulate some wealth of our own, and to keep most of it, and to pass it along to those we love when we pass. Is that selfish?
But are you really missing that? I mean, I think the most taxed income bracket is around 35-40%, (including federal and local taxes), so everyone is able to keep "most of" their money. I think a lot of libertarians don't realize how desperate those on the lower end of the economic scale actually are. Government support isn't a matter of whether you can drive a Honda or a BMW; it's often a matter of whether you eat that day or not.
A lot of people think that a government program's failed if it hasn't moved someone up the economic ladder, but that doesn't take into account unquantifiable factors, such as how many hungry people have been fed, or how many homeless people have been given shelter; yes, it would be nice to move people off welfare into self-sufficiency, but I think it's more important that basic needs be met in the short term rather than laying the groundwork for long-term upward mobility.
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Roosevelt created the New Deal precisely because the already present economic system was NOT able to handle the mass of unemployed and hungry people who lost their jobs, often as a result of unrestricted and unregulated capitalism. There are plenty of economists and historians who credit the introduction of a social security system with breaking the usual cycle of a depression every few decades. --
The only psychological studies I can think of off-hand of geekdom are Borsook and Jon Katz. Not a flame, just curious as to how many have been done, and whether the sex ratio is as off as you may think.
As for the premise that you have to be part of a culture to understand it, I can't really agree. Ethnographies are usually written by a cultural outsider; I think only someone who is not indoctrinated into a culture is able to really get a good look at it.
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To give a deeper example of the content of Cyberselfish, Bionomics is the use of biological (and particularly Darwinian) metaphors to describe economic processes, as popularized by Michael Rothschild (Bionomics: Economy as Ecosystem) and then the The Bionomics Institute (TBI).
Actually, social Darwinism was popularized a long time ago by Spencer, but I guess this is an attempt to make it more palatable and less offensive. It all comes down to an attempt to morally justify greed. Personally, I believe economics, like most cultural elements, is closely linked to evolutionary/ecological systems, but it's so simplistic to reduce it to the 19th century idea of "survival of the fittest", especially if you consider how much natural selection theory has changed in the past 100 years.
I have been astounded but not amazed at the deeply adolescent and peevish libertarian attitudes that so many techies cling to, from gun worship to fear of governmental Internet regulation.
Thank you for saying that. Pauline Borsook also put it well in a reply to Eric Raymond's defense of "geek" values (which he, and a lot of slashdot readers, seem to think are synonymous with libertarian ones). She writes in response to his anti-government position
I think there is also something of a reversal of causality in your documentation of political blinders and free markets. It's precisely because I see the political blinders in the technology culture that surrounds us (Quiz: Where would you rather create a start-up, in Chechnya/Sierra Leone or in Northern California where the roads are good and the food and pharmaceutical supply is untainted and bandits don't lurk around corners on Skyline Boulevard and houses mostly won't fall down after they are built and work-study exists and libraries are free and the Arpanet/Internet had 20 years of slow, commercial-free development? All due to the fine invisible hand of government...) that I ask the questions I do and take the positions I hold
Exactly what we've been looking for on all the other planets. Some sort of Amazon society. Standard operating procedure is that we send a team of astronauts (they must have names like "Duke" or "Buzz") onto the planet. They are captured by the warlike Amazons. While imprisoned, the Amazon leader's daughter falls in love with Duke (or Buzz), helps them escape, and they take off in their rocket back to earth.
1. A PPC port is very unlikely. I'd like to apologize to all the PPC users out there. I'd love to see SMAC on the PPC platform, but there is just too much involved in moving our codebase from Intel to PPC...
Actually, the PPC port of Alpha Centauri exists. Yes, I know you were referring to linux on a PPC box, I just wanted to be difficult.
Though if you hate macOS, I can't see why it wouldn't run on darwin... --
Alright, I should probably let this go, but someone has to make a stand here.
Sierra had a handful of decent games. Can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure they existed. But they also made a lot of not-so-good ones. I remember when Lucasfilms Games started making those side-view adventure games that Sierra had originally had the monopoly on, and they just blew away Sierra. Even in the early CGA/EGA days I never saw what was so great about Sierra's graphics; they weren't so much high quality as large and colorful, which a lot of reviewers seemed to like. Their storylines seemed a little too childish, and the ease in which you could die grew annoying.
There were some really great game companies back then; Origin and Electronic Arts probably produced the best consistently, and I don't think Infocom ever had a bad game. But very few people I know think very highly of Sierra. --
Slashdot Mirror
It's too bad, too, I'd rather pay a few dollars a month for access to a first-rate site than see it plastered with garish banner ads...
--
My point wasn't that the purpose of the civil war was to end slavery, but that abolition was a direct result anyway. Lincoln made it clear that he'd rather keep the union together than end slavery; the emancipation proclamation occurred when it was obvious that there was no peaceful way to do this.
Of course we still haven't solved the race issue in the US. Last I checked the NAACP was complaining about Jews.
This is something I've never heard of. Could you provide a source for this information? Not only was one of the NAACP's founders Jewish, but the organization was one of the few American groups that spoke out against the Nazi treatment of Jews during the early years of their persecution.
--
Personally, I wish every day that the Union had lost the civil war, and we had three nations - the North, South, and West.
And what about slavery?
It might not be the sole, or even main cause of the war, depending on which historians you listen to, but the ending of it was certainly an unqualifiably good thing.
--
Not a very appetizing thought.
--
It's nice to see some thought going into environmental awareness in the computer/internet field; it's been surprisingly lacking so far. Maybe that's a result of the supposed technolibertarian atmosphere we've all been flaming each other over recently...
--
Maybe not, but it was well-designed. And the storyline might have been cliched, but at least it existed. I mean, with Quake 3 they just got rid of even a semblance of a story.
--
PCs will always have the potential to create better games simply because they're more flexible. All the great time-wasting games, from Infocom to Wasteland to Ultima to Starcraft have been great not because they had state-of-the-art graphics, but because they were well-designed. Now PC game makers have fallen into a pit where it's only about the graphics. Considering Id is probably the worst offender, I guess I shouldn't have expected any innovative design ideas in Carmack's speech.
--
What gives the government the right to confiscate 40% of one's income
The government is mandated by the people. We vote for them. There have been plenty of candidates who have advocated lower or no taxes, but they tend not to be voted for because the majority of people understand that we need tax revenue to carry out the normal functions of government. It's called democracy.
We fought the Revolutionary War over a tax rate of 1/2-6%; that was worth killing and dying for
The revolutionary war was fought because Americans wanted autonomy; while the taxes levied by Britain weren't particularly high (I forget the figures, but the typical British taxpayer living in England paid several times that), I don't think that was the sole, or even the most important reason.
--
How the hell can this be considered a troll? He/she was simply responding to points raised by another poster. This is a discussion board, you know, I don't think you should try to censor things just because you don't agree with them.
--
Well I'm very much against the libertarian viewpoint, but it's nice to see a rather civil and less inflammatory promotion of it...
What they (we, actually) really want is the opportunity to accumulate some wealth of our own, and to keep most of it, and to pass it along to those we love when we pass. Is that selfish?
But are you really missing that? I mean, I think the most taxed income bracket is around 35-40%, (including federal and local taxes), so everyone is able to keep "most of" their money. I think a lot of libertarians don't realize how desperate those on the lower end of the economic scale actually are. Government support isn't a matter of whether you can drive a Honda or a BMW; it's often a matter of whether you eat that day or not. A lot of people think that a government program's failed if it hasn't moved someone up the economic ladder, but that doesn't take into account unquantifiable factors, such as how many hungry people have been fed, or how many homeless people have been given shelter; yes, it would be nice to move people off welfare into self-sufficiency, but I think it's more important that basic needs be met in the short term rather than laying the groundwork for long-term upward mobility.
--
Roosevelt created the New Deal precisely because the already present economic system was NOT able to handle the mass of unemployed and hungry people who lost their jobs, often as a result of unrestricted and unregulated capitalism. There are plenty of economists and historians who credit the introduction of a social security system with breaking the usual cycle of a depression every few decades.
--
The only psychological studies I can think of off-hand of geekdom are Borsook and Jon Katz. Not a flame, just curious as to how many have been done, and whether the sex ratio is as off as you may think.
As for the premise that you have to be part of a culture to understand it, I can't really agree. Ethnographies are usually written by a cultural outsider; I think only someone who is not indoctrinated into a culture is able to really get a good look at it.
--
Actually, social Darwinism was popularized a long time ago by Spencer, but I guess this is an attempt to make it more palatable and less offensive. It all comes down to an attempt to morally justify greed. Personally, I believe economics, like most cultural elements, is closely linked to evolutionary/ecological systems, but it's so simplistic to reduce it to the 19th century idea of "survival of the fittest", especially if you consider how much natural selection theory has changed in the past 100 years.
I have been astounded but not amazed at the deeply adolescent and peevish libertarian attitudes that so many techies cling to, from gun worship to fear of governmental Internet regulation.
Thank you for saying that. Pauline Borsook also put it well in a reply to Eric Raymond's defense of "geek" values (which he, and a lot of slashdot readers, seem to think are synonymous with libertarian ones). She writes in response to his anti-government position
--
From the article:
The watch can tell time...
Am I missing something groundbreaking and revolutionary here?
--
Kind of ruins the post I guess. This is the real link.
--
Three words: DNA-derived personality simulations.
Or is that four? Or six if you expand the acronym?
Who knows.
--
You know, I'd pay $199 just for a nethack terminal.
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Was watching CNN/fn and saw news about Teradyne...their stock price took a big dip today...wonder if there's a connection.
Yes, I know nobody will read this since it's an old article, but still thought it was funny....
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This news isn't slashdot worthy, IMO. (a bunch of idiots misreading the license agreement, sha...)
I thought that was what slashdot was for...
--
And what are we looking for on Pluto again?
Exactly what we've been looking for on all the other planets. Some sort of Amazon society. Standard operating procedure is that we send a team of astronauts (they must have names like "Duke" or "Buzz") onto the planet. They are captured by the warlike Amazons. While imprisoned, the Amazon leader's daughter falls in love with Duke (or Buzz), helps them escape, and they take off in their rocket back to earth.
I hereby volunteer for the mission.
And I'm changing my name to Duke (or Buzz).
--
Is it really a great idea to name a windowing os the same thing as a well-known windowing environment?
--
1. A PPC port is very unlikely. I'd like to apologize to all the PPC users out there. I'd love to see SMAC on the PPC platform, but there is just too much involved in moving our codebase from Intel to PPC...
Actually, the PPC port of Alpha Centauri exists. Yes, I know you were referring to linux on a PPC box, I just wanted to be difficult.
Though if you hate macOS, I can't see why it wouldn't run on darwin...
--
Alright, I should probably let this go, but someone has to make a stand here.
Sierra had a handful of decent games. Can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure they existed. But they also made a lot of not-so-good ones. I remember when Lucasfilms Games started making those side-view adventure games that Sierra had originally had the monopoly on, and they just blew away Sierra. Even in the early CGA/EGA days I never saw what was so great about Sierra's graphics; they weren't so much high quality as large and colorful, which a lot of reviewers seemed to like. Their storylines seemed a little too childish, and the ease in which you could die grew annoying.
There were some really great game companies back then; Origin and Electronic Arts probably produced the best consistently, and I don't think Infocom ever had a bad game. But very few people I know think very highly of Sierra.
--
I don't see anyone practicing their aim by playing Monkey Island.
You could, however, practice your swordfighting skills...
"You fight like a milkmaid!"
"How appropriate; you fight like a cow!"
Though if you haven't played monkey island this probably doesn't make much sense...
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I'll just go back to BBSes...
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