it's all about perception in the eyes of the general public. it's all about media headlines. in which cases, you're ADD-addled lulz seeking pimple faced teenagers made a real and genuine impact. not because they actually did something technically impressive, but because they made headlines
But did they make an impact that is in line with their goals? As you said, it's about perception. I wonder how the general public perceives these events.... I *suspect* they see Mastercard and Visa as victims. Which, I'll grant, is a genuine impact, but it seems counterproductive.
Ah, I see. So they are our betters and we should not question them. Perhaps they should govern.
This is absurd. A free society should respect the free exchange of ideas. If you don't like the ideas, then debate them. But don't attack the speaker in lieu of what is spoken. Would it make a difference if some guy cured cancer and *then* said that Moore was a "fat demagogue"? And if we want to talk about pure accomplishment, GW Bush achieved far more than Michael Moore. Most would agree this is not a good thing, but by your reasoning, none of us should have the right to say so (including Moore, of course), because we'll never be in that position.
Well, sometimes the *only* way to protest is to break the law, and some laws do need to be broken, but, as a rule of thumb, only when the law itself is unjust. There may be exceptions, but I don't think this is one of them. It's not even Wikileaks doing this, but you're probably right that people will make that association. If Wikileaks and Julian Assange are on a march to martyrdom, do you really want to let them be martyred *and* confuse the issue by letting Mastercard and Visa look like victims too?
If it's true that they bowed to government pressure, then they need to be shamed for it. But if you make them admit it by bullying them, in what way are you better than the government you're opposing? The only difference between you and them is a power gulf. Personally, I think it's important to maintain the moral high ground as well.
I don't intend to participate, but everyone I've talked to about the subject has smiled a little at the news that a credit leviathan or retail juggernaut was, even for the briefest of moments, crippled by people who had had enough of them.
Except they weren't really crippled. I honestly don't even know, off the top of my head, what is on either of their main websites. Presumably brand logos and lots of generic marketing-speak. Can you get a credit card directly from them? I suppose you probably can (all my cards are through banks). Would anyone bother? I get a million credit offers a week in the mail and I get hassled about another one everywhere I shop.
Anonymous take down websites for a few days. Woah, big deal! Much better than, I don't know, starting a war in a foreign country and bombing buildings full of civilians to the ground because your over-equipped soldiers are afraid of an idiot with a pistol hiding inside.
Anonymous could have been killing people like the fanatics who kill doctors who practice abortions. They could assault people with paint like some stupid animal rights activists. They could be bombing corporation headquarters like some "ecologists" do.
And presumably those things would be bad enough to earn your disapproval? This isn't an argument at all. Something isn't ok just because it isn't something worse.
I'm scared that I will raise my kids and live most of my life in a world similar to Nazi Germany.
Ah, there it is. Is there some corollary to Godwin's law that the longer an individual diatribe goes the closer the probability of referencing the Nazis reaches 1?
I don't think we're far enough gone that we have to resort to bullying and hooliganism to get our way. Maybe that day will come. Maybe I'm wrong and it's already here. But in the meantime, let's not make Visa and Mastercard look like victims of a nefarious hacker conspiracy. It's not going to help the cause.
Fair points all around. I can definitely see why it would impact netbook sales given that netbooks seem much more in direct competition.
I'm not sure the iPad in its current form, even with more memory and printing capability could compare to a PC, and if it got to the point that it could, I'm not sure what would distinguish the two. For example, I could bemoan the lack of input devices like keyboards, game controllers, etc. that severely narrow the device's usefulness. And you could counter that there's nothing in principle that prevents those things from being added to some future version. I could complain that the OS is still, fundamentally, a mobile OS with serious limitations, and you could point out that there's nothing, in principle that prevents the next generation from running a more full featured OS. But at some point, it just becomes another sort of PC.
As for love of the devices, I say give it time. New technologies are hot and sexy, no doubt, but they don't get to be new forever, and I wonder if people will be less forgiving of a device's flaws and limitations after that initial wonder and excitement begins to die down. It was certainly my experience with the iPhone. At first, I was blown away, but I take it for granted, now, so I don't tend to notice when it does things well, and instead, I notice when it does things poorly. I still feel the device is a net positive, but I've begun to define the device more by what it can't do or can't do well rather than by what it can.
Sure they are. The iPad has already had a notable impact on the sales of PCs.
Yeah? Link?
I confess some ignorance here. I was basing my original statement purely off of the summary, which claimed that PC sales continue to rise. If true, it's enough for an informal argument expressing skepticism that the iPhones and iPads are directly competing all that much. I say informal because it's always possible that sales, in theory, should be rising *more*, but that seems a nitpick to me. In any case, if a significant proportion of iPad sales come at the expense of PC sales, it seems hard to explain how this market could have arisen out of nowhere without absolutely devastating the PC market.
Most people can't get by with just a bike, however most will not only be able to get by with something like an iPad, but will actually prefer it.
Comparing a bike and a car is a disingenuous analogy.
Most people will be able to get by with an iPad? Really? You think that? In the absence of a relevant study, I suppose I can't refute that point, but every experience I've had suggests otherwise. I don't know a single iPad owner or iPhone owner who does not also own a PC. In fact... of all the people I know, I can't think of one off the top of my head who does not own a PC. Some of these PCs are several years old, granted, but they use them and could not do without them.
Likewise most people will continue using PCs even if they also buy smartphones and tablets.
Not likely. Most people fucking hate their PC and love their iPhone/iPad.
I'm not sure what makes you think that exactly. A study? Because if it's personal experience, mine conflicts. Most people I know love their computers. And iPhone love isn't universal. I get disappointed with mine from time to time, my best friend is canceling his in favor of a Droid, and my girlfriend has been fuming angry over hers many many times. I'd say I feel net positive about the device, but no more so than about any PC I've ever owned.
So the politician threatens to tell everyone about how he was elected through unscrupulous practices? And he does this in order to shut down wikileaks, of all things?
The point is that nothing is being supplanted. People are buying more phones, but they aren't buying *fewer* PCs. It would be like if there was a massive health kick in this country and everyone started buying bicycles... but they'd almost all still need cars. Likewise most people will continue using PCs even if they also buy smartphones and tablets. I mean, sure, there'd be some people who would conclude they don't actually need a car, and there'll be some people who will conclude they don't actually need a PC, but the two are mostly unrelated.
Might as well mention that anyway. A smartphone is hardly a replacement for a PC. I won't say there's *no one* with a smartphone and no access to a PC, but I suspect it's pretty rare.
Having virtual farm is pointless if you can have a real one.
So I guess you don't play military shooters either because you could join the real army?
In principle, I think I agree with your point, that the fantasy can be more appealing than reality even for things you *could* do, but joining the military is a pretty dramatic example. In a military shooter, you can be a mega-badass without having to go through grueling training, be shipped off overseas, spend most of your time not actually fighting, and then finally get killed for real by a sniper you never saw or a bomb no one detected in time. At least with something like Farmville, many of the players probably could.... you know, have plants and take care of them.
So, if I thought that it was evil to eat chocolate you wouldn't think I was crazy?
Presumably I agree with you, in general, about the answers to most moral questions. So sure, I'd think it was awfully bizarre of you to ascribe such importance to the eating of chocolate, particularly since I've come to expect certain common ground from other human beings. But imagine instead, if you had said you thought it was evil to eat humans. If we put certain restrictions on that, like that they have to be humans who consented and later died of natural causes, I still wouldn't blink an eye if you expressed such an opinion. In principle, it's not any different, it just causes immediate revulsion in most human beings.
And that's where I think all morality ultimately comes from. We have a feeling of what is right and wrong that has come from a long evolutionary history that has conditioned our behavior to be social, cooperative animals. But the universe doesn't care about one human being killing another any more than it cares about a human being eating a cocoa bean.
If you don't believe that there is an absolute moral code than I think you are crazy to still think that morals are important.
Do you believe that there are absolute right and wrong feelings? If, for example, you were to experience a familial loss, you and I would experience different feelings. I would feel sympathy for you, but you would feel pain. Even if we experienced completely analogous events, our feelings would likely be different. Is one feeling right and another one wrong? And if there is no right or wrong feeling, does that mean feelings aren't important?
Morals are like feelings to me. I *feel* that it is wrong to hurt other people, to cheat them, or to steal from them. I don't feel that it is wrong to eat chocolate ice cream, and it is difficult for me to relate to the idea that anyone would feel that way, but I can't think of a single thing that makes it *fundamentally* different. The things that matter to us are always subjective. The reason this can appear absolute is that we feel very strongly and we mostly tend to agree... hardly surprising since we're so similar.... and many of the things we consider morally right have been important to the survival of our species.
Basically, you believe that, even though there is nothing inherently superior in your moral code, you should fight and kill people to prevent them from fighting and killing people in ways that violate your moral code. I find such a moral code repugnant. You don't want to fight and kill people because your moral code is superior, but just because they don't follow your code.,
Inherently superior? I mean, you're neglecting that he *does* firmly believe his moral code is superior. He *does* find more merit with it. He just recognizes that there is no absolute authority to look to that will affirm his belief. You don't have to believe a competing morality is "just as good" as yours in order to be a moral relativist. You just have to accept that there's no objective standard that proves yours to be better.
If there is no absolute moral code, there is no such thing as "right" or "wrong", there is just what I prefer.
Bollocks. There is such a thing as right and wrong, it's just a matter of opinion rather than fact. That's like saying that if there's no absolute direction for gravity there is no such thing as "up" or "down". Right and wrong are defined relative to your moral beliefs, which are subjective. But then again, your moral beliefs are subjective too. You just don't believe they are.
The gravitas of a moral belief doesn't come from whether it is relative or absolute. It comes from how much it matters to you. Does it bother you that you don't believe in an absolutely correct answer for which ice cream flavor is the best? It certainly doesn't appear to. Why not? Presumably because it's a question that ultimately doesn't matter to you, because it doesn't impact you tremendously. Well make no mistake, a moral relativist such as myself cares a lot about how people answer moral questions. I also can feel that people are right or wrong in their answers. In principle, I can do everything the absolutist can do and more because I am not hung up on trying to determine the indeterminable or reason the unreasonable (i.e. whether something is *intrinsically* moral or not). If I find something that shakes my moral foundation, I can adapt much more quickly to the new perspective, because I don't have to first wrestle with some ridiculous notion of whether something is still moral despite no longer *seeming* moral (or still immoral despite no longer seeming immoral). It's impossible to determine if something is absolutely moral, so belief in moral absolutism only makes one resistant to new ideas.
Except that the stakes are significantly higher. If your morality is different but not in conflict with mine, then yes, it's not appreciably different from arguing over ice cream flavors. But the comparison pointlessly trivializes the discussion. Relativistic morality is *not* like ice cream flavor preference because exercising your opinion of morality has a dramatic impact on others.
Here, I'll trivialize it the other way. If there can be absolute morality, why can't there be absolute superiority of ice cream flavors? If a person can be wrong, in the absolute sense, for thinking that it is ok to steal, then why can't they be wrong, in the absolute sense, for thinking that chocolate is better than vanilla?
Moral relativism is about observing things the *way they are*. You may think it's important for their to be some absolute authority on right and wrong, and you may really want there to be one, but there isn't one any more than there's some absolute right answer to the best ice cream flavor (even if, for some strange reason, you really wanted to believe there was). The difference is that the question of right and wrong *matters* to people, and it matters to them what we do about it. But whether or not it matters doesn't change the fundamental principle.
That's where you run into problems. Some people do think murder is right, some people do think rape is alright, some people do think slavery is right; according to your previous statement, you believe that they should fight for that, even if you personally find it repugnant.
Actually, the moral relativist doesn't have to believe that. The moral relativist just admits that there is no fundamental way to judge his morals as more or less correct than the murderer/rapist/slaver's morals. He doesn't have to think they *should* fight for it. Maybe he doesn't think that fighting for what you believe in is intrinsically moral and instead is moral only if you are fighting for what's right (in his mind). Perfectly internally consistent. Moral relativism is no handicap at all. Moral absolutists seem to have trouble with that idea.
I think there might be a bit of equivocation going on here. Moral relativism is an observation more than it is an opinion. A moral relativist *observes* that there is no known way to evaluate the fundamental correctness or incorrectness of opinions about right and wrong. I think GP maybe spoke a bit imprecisely with the notion of someone having "every right" to believe something. They simply *do* believe something, and there is no objective metric by which to prove that belief *incorrect*. But even if you could, it wouldn't necessarily stop them from believing it. Functionally, the only difference between absolute morality and moral relativism is that moral relativism includes an admission that no absolute standard of judgement exists.
The lack of an absolute standard does not prevent you from telling people what you think they ought to think, and it doesn't stop you from taking action to impose your beliefs on them. Similarly, if there *were* an absolute standard, it would not prevent an "incorrect" person from disagreeing with the standard and telling you what they think you ought to think, and it wouldn't stop them from taking action to impose their beliefs on you. For all practical purposes, it really doesn't matter if there's an absolute morality or not, because people have the freedom of will to believe whatever they want.... so a parsimonious theory of morality should reject the notion as irrelevant.
The problem I see people run into most commonly is the idea that there needs to be an absolute morality in order for someone to be justified in foisting it upon others. If it's just your opinion, what validity does it have to other people? But on the other hand, what empowerment do you have to force an absolute morality on people who reject it? Does the absolute morality contain a clause that it is moral to enforce the morality? I suppose it must. But if that's the case, then the same can be done with a relative morality. Your relative morality could *also* contain the clause that it is moral to enforce it on others. So ultimately, it doesn't matter whether the morality is absolute or not. I guess if it matters *to you* whether you think a morality is absolute or not, then it will make a difference *to you*.... but, in principle, there's no reason why it should matter.
And while we're talking about eating meat, I think that anyone who wants to eat meat should have to participate in the slaughtering, dressing, cooking, and eating of an animal in sequence,
Okay, as long as anyone that wants to eat vegetables has to plant them, grow them, nurture them, and then harvest them.
or take a full tour of a feedlot and slaughterhouse, in order to get a license to be permitted to eat meat.
The primary deterrent here seems to be the hassle. People will be squeamish, sure, and it may gross them out. But then later, they'll smell a juicy hamburger and won't resist it. I went to a sewage treatment plant with a group of classmates on a field trip back in middle school, and they showed how nausea-inducing waste water is transformed into drinking water. Sure, we were all grossed out at the time, but I'd be shocked if a single one of these people now has sworn off ever drinking tap water (at least because of that, anyway). People get over it.
Yet, you just told us what we should do to prevent something that you think is bad:
“we should just use our supposedly intelligent minds to perfect in vitro meat so that no animals will have to suffer”.
If there are no absolute morals, you don’t get to have an opinion about how other people ought to behave. Your morals don’t apply to them.
Bollocks. There doesn't need to be an absolute morality for people to impose their morals on others. It comes down to three things: what you believe, what others believe, and what you can impose on them. If 99% of people agree murder is wrong and they all also agree that it's merely an arbitrary convention they all happen to hold, it doesn't mean their hands are tied in dealing with the 1% who disagree.
Every logical argument for a given moral choice boils down to an assumed common ground. In this case, he's presumably assuming that everyone feels that killing animals is a bad thing. If you don't feel that way, there's not really a lot he can do to change your mind, so why bother? Personally, I like the idea of something that cuts down on the suffering of animals.... but I like affordable meat even better. So I sympathize with his opinion, but ultimately reject his policy recommendation. And so it goes.
Oh come on. Look how anti-Palin this board is. Anyone who dislikes Palin doesn't have to slum around and compromise with johnnys-come-lately.;)
But seriously, the reason why you hold an opinion is *at least* as important to me as the fact that you hold it. For example, I've had long arguments with atheists who arrived at their opinion via the Problem of Evil, which I think is the wrong reason to be an atheist. If I had some agenda that revolved around converting as many people to atheism as possible, maybe I'd follow your strategy, but I have no such agenda, personally. I want people to agree with me, but only if for the right reasons.
And besides, that's pretty tame as insults go. He wasn't 'gentle' exactly, but I was wondering the same thing, and I'm glad someone said it. If we were talking about properly insulting people, sure, I'm with you, but not because it's wrong to insult people who agree with you. It's wrong to insult people who've done nothing to deserve it. For example, *being* an idiot doesn't make you deserving of being called one. Being an idiot *and acting like a jerk* perhaps.
The central assumption, of course, is the defeatist notion that all government can ever be is bad, so a small bad thing is better than a large bad thing.
..... or, perhaps more charitably, that the larger a government gets, the more corrupt, bloated, and inefficient it is. This might even be accurate, but only in the sense that something large and complex is harder to make efficient. Probably worth it, though.... most of the small, efficient governments I can think of were also tyrannies.
Personally, I'm with you. I think it's possible to make government better, but first, enough of us have to want to.
I suspect they'd have to add more than laws to get this bad. Constitutional amendments more like. The judiciary can lay the smack down on this sort of thing.
But I think the general case is that you're not paying close attention until you have to. I don't know, maybe I'm the only person who can't drive 50 miles in a straight line without daydreaming, but my experience has consistently been that I occupy my mind with other things when nothing interesting is happening on the road and then switch immediately to full concentration when there's some indication a situation is developing. It's hard to be precise with this and be clear about exactly what we're talking about, but my sense is that I notice the situation developing and immediately switch my attention to it with plenty of time to handle the situation.
The notion that you can get off / drop the phone in the moment of an accident just doesn't seem to jibe with reality.
Ah, but you see I have the certainty that comes with personal experience, and the most compelling argument of all: the anecdotal one.
But I'm only partly kidding. I've had lots of times where I miss a solid 30 seconds of what someone said on a call because a traffic situation developed. I don't even think about it. Just like how your eye automatically spots movement, when you have a lot of driving experience, you recognize troubling patterns. "I'm coming up to pass this person, but he's coming up on the guy ahead of him faster than you'd expect him to.... he might unexpectedly come over into my lane.... I'll give him room...." 10 seconds later "I'm sorry, could you repeat what you were just saying?"
These studies don't jibe with my own personal experience. I don't think I've ever driven over the legal limit, but I have driven while buzzing a bit, and I can feel that I'm just not as sharp. The few times a distraction has caused any kind of concern, it's been an altogether different feeling. Maybe someone slammed on the brakes while I was looking down at the radio for a moment. But I recognize that those sorts of things are possibilities and I account for them. Say by keeping a safe following distance.
People just don't. Instead, they have massively increased risk of accidents, just like drunk drivers, and it seems to be as universal a negative as driving drunk. It also seems to be even MORE voluntary, since once you're drunk, the decision to drive is made while impaired.
If anything, maybe we should hold cell-drivers more accountable than drunk ones.
Except that drunkenness is far easier to define than distractedness. You set a legal limit. People don't drive if they're over that limit. It's easy to know what the rule is and it makes sense. What about distractedness? Certainly it's bad to text someone while driving. Is it bad to receive texts too? Maybe you were reading them? But how can we know if they always pop up on your phone even without you having to interact with it? It's probably bad to talk on a handset while driving. But what about a hands free? At that point, the only distraction is conversation. Certainly we can't outlaw all conversation while driving, so how can we fairly apply such a rule?
Maybe we should outlaw other bad or distracting driving habits. Maybe drivers shouldn't be allowed to use the radio..... hmmm... but then they might have to talk to a passenger, and that's probably dangerous.... well, we should definitely outlaw food or drink. Also, imagine the danger that coffee represents. You could accidentally spill it or burn your tongue... maybe we can allow iced coffee... but we should definitely ban kids. They shout and fight with one another. Massively distracting. Also, bumper stickers. A person might be following you too closely and not paying attention to the road while trying to read it. That seems dangerous.
And no, this isn't slippery slope. It's reductio ad absurdum. I just don't think there's any consistent way to legislate out driving distractions, and it's silly to try...
And one final thing on the comparison between drunk driving and cell phone use. People all over the country drive while using cell phones, whether handsets (admittedly a bad idea) or handsfree. If we replaced every one of those people with a drunk driver, you think we'd see no significant change in crash and fatality rates?
I have personally been in 3 car crashes that were my fault. The first two were when I was 16 and under no distractions whatsoever. I was just an inexperienced kid. The third was years later when I drove tired and fell asleep at the wheel. *THAT* is a serious problem. I've never made that mistake again. But cell phones? Please. I've been more distracted by hot girls walking on the sidewalk than by cell phones. And surely we shouldn't outlaw THAT
Maybe you are an avid counterstrike player--there have been studies that show people who played a lot of FPS games with voice chat (CS being the big one) were no more impaired by talking on a handsfree phone than they would be with no phone.
Heh well, I do play a lot of FPS games (including Counter-strike at one point). But to me the point here is that you are in control of your own attentiveness. If I'm driving on an unfamiliar in-town road with intersections, pedestrians, and some uncertainty over where I'm going, my attention is more focused than if I'm on a 50 mile straight stretch of interstate with minimal traffic. It's only natural, I think. When I'm in the former situation, I simply cannot concentrate on a conversation. If I'm on a handsfree, a handset, talking to a passenger, or whatever, I will hear very little of what you say. In the latter case, on the other hand, even if I'm not being distracted externally, boredom takes over and I'll daydream, thereby distracting myself. Distractions only significantly impair you if you prioritize them.
Everybody else however loses focus and reaction time whether the conversation is being held in their hand, clipped into their ear, or beamed over the car stereo. I think the reason talking to a person in the car with you is acceptable is that that person also has the ability to react ("DUDE LOOK OUT") and interrupt the conversation.
Interesting, but that can't be the explanation. Certainly we don't expect that some noisy kids in the backseat are going to be warning you about road hazards, and no one will take any steps to ban children from vehicles. The explanation is that we accept that we can't outlaw passengers. Also, I'm not convinced that "DUDE LOOK OUT" helps more than it hurts. Maybe it does sometimes, but it is, itself, a distraction. My girlfriend has shouted false alarms before where I was aware of what she was talking about, was accounting for it already, and her alarm made me look for something *else* in a panic.
Slashdot Mirror
it's all about perception in the eyes of the general public. it's all about media headlines. in which cases, you're ADD-addled lulz seeking pimple faced teenagers made a real and genuine impact. not because they actually did something technically impressive, but because they made headlines
But did they make an impact that is in line with their goals? As you said, it's about perception. I wonder how the general public perceives these events.... I *suspect* they see Mastercard and Visa as victims. Which, I'll grant, is a genuine impact, but it seems counterproductive.
Ah, I see. So they are our betters and we should not question them. Perhaps they should govern.
This is absurd. A free society should respect the free exchange of ideas. If you don't like the ideas, then debate them. But don't attack the speaker in lieu of what is spoken. Would it make a difference if some guy cured cancer and *then* said that Moore was a "fat demagogue"? And if we want to talk about pure accomplishment, GW Bush achieved far more than Michael Moore. Most would agree this is not a good thing, but by your reasoning, none of us should have the right to say so (including Moore, of course), because we'll never be in that position.
Well, sometimes the *only* way to protest is to break the law, and some laws do need to be broken, but, as a rule of thumb, only when the law itself is unjust. There may be exceptions, but I don't think this is one of them. It's not even Wikileaks doing this, but you're probably right that people will make that association. If Wikileaks and Julian Assange are on a march to martyrdom, do you really want to let them be martyred *and* confuse the issue by letting Mastercard and Visa look like victims too?
If it's true that they bowed to government pressure, then they need to be shamed for it. But if you make them admit it by bullying them, in what way are you better than the government you're opposing? The only difference between you and them is a power gulf. Personally, I think it's important to maintain the moral high ground as well.
I don't intend to participate, but everyone I've talked to about the subject has smiled a little at the news that a credit leviathan or retail juggernaut was, even for the briefest of moments, crippled by people who had had enough of them.
Except they weren't really crippled. I honestly don't even know, off the top of my head, what is on either of their main websites. Presumably brand logos and lots of generic marketing-speak. Can you get a credit card directly from them? I suppose you probably can (all my cards are through banks). Would anyone bother? I get a million credit offers a week in the mail and I get hassled about another one everywhere I shop.
Anonymous take down websites for a few days. Woah, big deal! Much better than, I don't know, starting a war in a foreign country and bombing buildings full of civilians to the ground because your over-equipped soldiers are afraid of an idiot with a pistol hiding inside. Anonymous could have been killing people like the fanatics who kill doctors who practice abortions. They could assault people with paint like some stupid animal rights activists. They could be bombing corporation headquarters like some "ecologists" do.
And presumably those things would be bad enough to earn your disapproval? This isn't an argument at all. Something isn't ok just because it isn't something worse.
I'm scared that I will raise my kids and live most of my life in a world similar to Nazi Germany.
Ah, there it is. Is there some corollary to Godwin's law that the longer an individual diatribe goes the closer the probability of referencing the Nazis reaches 1?
I don't think we're far enough gone that we have to resort to bullying and hooliganism to get our way. Maybe that day will come. Maybe I'm wrong and it's already here. But in the meantime, let's not make Visa and Mastercard look like victims of a nefarious hacker conspiracy. It's not going to help the cause.
Fair points all around. I can definitely see why it would impact netbook sales given that netbooks seem much more in direct competition.
I'm not sure the iPad in its current form, even with more memory and printing capability could compare to a PC, and if it got to the point that it could, I'm not sure what would distinguish the two. For example, I could bemoan the lack of input devices like keyboards, game controllers, etc. that severely narrow the device's usefulness. And you could counter that there's nothing in principle that prevents those things from being added to some future version. I could complain that the OS is still, fundamentally, a mobile OS with serious limitations, and you could point out that there's nothing, in principle that prevents the next generation from running a more full featured OS. But at some point, it just becomes another sort of PC.
As for love of the devices, I say give it time. New technologies are hot and sexy, no doubt, but they don't get to be new forever, and I wonder if people will be less forgiving of a device's flaws and limitations after that initial wonder and excitement begins to die down. It was certainly my experience with the iPhone. At first, I was blown away, but I take it for granted, now, so I don't tend to notice when it does things well, and instead, I notice when it does things poorly. I still feel the device is a net positive, but I've begun to define the device more by what it can't do or can't do well rather than by what it can.
Sure they are. The iPad has already had a notable impact on the sales of PCs.
Yeah? Link? I confess some ignorance here. I was basing my original statement purely off of the summary, which claimed that PC sales continue to rise. If true, it's enough for an informal argument expressing skepticism that the iPhones and iPads are directly competing all that much. I say informal because it's always possible that sales, in theory, should be rising *more*, but that seems a nitpick to me. In any case, if a significant proportion of iPad sales come at the expense of PC sales, it seems hard to explain how this market could have arisen out of nowhere without absolutely devastating the PC market.
Most people can't get by with just a bike, however most will not only be able to get by with something like an iPad, but will actually prefer it.
Comparing a bike and a car is a disingenuous analogy.
Most people will be able to get by with an iPad? Really? You think that? In the absence of a relevant study, I suppose I can't refute that point, but every experience I've had suggests otherwise. I don't know a single iPad owner or iPhone owner who does not also own a PC. In fact... of all the people I know, I can't think of one off the top of my head who does not own a PC. Some of these PCs are several years old, granted, but they use them and could not do without them.
Likewise most people will continue using PCs even if they also buy smartphones and tablets.
Not likely. Most people fucking hate their PC and love their iPhone/iPad.
I'm not sure what makes you think that exactly. A study? Because if it's personal experience, mine conflicts. Most people I know love their computers. And iPhone love isn't universal. I get disappointed with mine from time to time, my best friend is canceling his in favor of a Droid, and my girlfriend has been fuming angry over hers many many times. I'd say I feel net positive about the device, but no more so than about any PC I've ever owned.
So the politician threatens to tell everyone about how he was elected through unscrupulous practices? And he does this in order to shut down wikileaks, of all things?
The point is that nothing is being supplanted. People are buying more phones, but they aren't buying *fewer* PCs. It would be like if there was a massive health kick in this country and everyone started buying bicycles... but they'd almost all still need cars. Likewise most people will continue using PCs even if they also buy smartphones and tablets. I mean, sure, there'd be some people who would conclude they don't actually need a car, and there'll be some people who will conclude they don't actually need a PC, but the two are mostly unrelated.
Might as well mention that anyway. A smartphone is hardly a replacement for a PC. I won't say there's *no one* with a smartphone and no access to a PC, but I suspect it's pretty rare.
Having virtual farm is pointless if you can have a real one.
So I guess you don't play military shooters either because you could join the real army?
In principle, I think I agree with your point, that the fantasy can be more appealing than reality even for things you *could* do, but joining the military is a pretty dramatic example. In a military shooter, you can be a mega-badass without having to go through grueling training, be shipped off overseas, spend most of your time not actually fighting, and then finally get killed for real by a sniper you never saw or a bomb no one detected in time. At least with something like Farmville, many of the players probably could.... you know, have plants and take care of them.
So, if I thought that it was evil to eat chocolate you wouldn't think I was crazy?
Presumably I agree with you, in general, about the answers to most moral questions. So sure, I'd think it was awfully bizarre of you to ascribe such importance to the eating of chocolate, particularly since I've come to expect certain common ground from other human beings. But imagine instead, if you had said you thought it was evil to eat humans. If we put certain restrictions on that, like that they have to be humans who consented and later died of natural causes, I still wouldn't blink an eye if you expressed such an opinion. In principle, it's not any different, it just causes immediate revulsion in most human beings.
And that's where I think all morality ultimately comes from. We have a feeling of what is right and wrong that has come from a long evolutionary history that has conditioned our behavior to be social, cooperative animals. But the universe doesn't care about one human being killing another any more than it cares about a human being eating a cocoa bean.
If you don't believe that there is an absolute moral code than I think you are crazy to still think that morals are important.
Do you believe that there are absolute right and wrong feelings? If, for example, you were to experience a familial loss, you and I would experience different feelings. I would feel sympathy for you, but you would feel pain. Even if we experienced completely analogous events, our feelings would likely be different. Is one feeling right and another one wrong? And if there is no right or wrong feeling, does that mean feelings aren't important?
Morals are like feelings to me. I *feel* that it is wrong to hurt other people, to cheat them, or to steal from them. I don't feel that it is wrong to eat chocolate ice cream, and it is difficult for me to relate to the idea that anyone would feel that way, but I can't think of a single thing that makes it *fundamentally* different. The things that matter to us are always subjective. The reason this can appear absolute is that we feel very strongly and we mostly tend to agree... hardly surprising since we're so similar.... and many of the things we consider morally right have been important to the survival of our species.
Basically, you believe that, even though there is nothing inherently superior in your moral code, you should fight and kill people to prevent them from fighting and killing people in ways that violate your moral code. I find such a moral code repugnant. You don't want to fight and kill people because your moral code is superior, but just because they don't follow your code.,
Inherently superior? I mean, you're neglecting that he *does* firmly believe his moral code is superior. He *does* find more merit with it. He just recognizes that there is no absolute authority to look to that will affirm his belief. You don't have to believe a competing morality is "just as good" as yours in order to be a moral relativist. You just have to accept that there's no objective standard that proves yours to be better.
If there is no absolute moral code, there is no such thing as "right" or "wrong", there is just what I prefer.
Bollocks. There is such a thing as right and wrong, it's just a matter of opinion rather than fact. That's like saying that if there's no absolute direction for gravity there is no such thing as "up" or "down". Right and wrong are defined relative to your moral beliefs, which are subjective. But then again, your moral beliefs are subjective too. You just don't believe they are.
The gravitas of a moral belief doesn't come from whether it is relative or absolute. It comes from how much it matters to you. Does it bother you that you don't believe in an absolutely correct answer for which ice cream flavor is the best? It certainly doesn't appear to. Why not? Presumably because it's a question that ultimately doesn't matter to you, because it doesn't impact you tremendously. Well make no mistake, a moral relativist such as myself cares a lot about how people answer moral questions. I also can feel that people are right or wrong in their answers. In principle, I can do everything the absolutist can do and more because I am not hung up on trying to determine the indeterminable or reason the unreasonable (i.e. whether something is *intrinsically* moral or not). If I find something that shakes my moral foundation, I can adapt much more quickly to the new perspective, because I don't have to first wrestle with some ridiculous notion of whether something is still moral despite no longer *seeming* moral (or still immoral despite no longer seeming immoral). It's impossible to determine if something is absolutely moral, so belief in moral absolutism only makes one resistant to new ideas.
Except that the stakes are significantly higher. If your morality is different but not in conflict with mine, then yes, it's not appreciably different from arguing over ice cream flavors. But the comparison pointlessly trivializes the discussion. Relativistic morality is *not* like ice cream flavor preference because exercising your opinion of morality has a dramatic impact on others.
Here, I'll trivialize it the other way. If there can be absolute morality, why can't there be absolute superiority of ice cream flavors? If a person can be wrong, in the absolute sense, for thinking that it is ok to steal, then why can't they be wrong, in the absolute sense, for thinking that chocolate is better than vanilla?
Moral relativism is about observing things the *way they are*. You may think it's important for their to be some absolute authority on right and wrong, and you may really want there to be one, but there isn't one any more than there's some absolute right answer to the best ice cream flavor (even if, for some strange reason, you really wanted to believe there was). The difference is that the question of right and wrong *matters* to people, and it matters to them what we do about it. But whether or not it matters doesn't change the fundamental principle.
That's where you run into problems. Some people do think murder is right, some people do think rape is alright, some people do think slavery is right; according to your previous statement, you believe that they should fight for that, even if you personally find it repugnant.
Actually, the moral relativist doesn't have to believe that. The moral relativist just admits that there is no fundamental way to judge his morals as more or less correct than the murderer/rapist/slaver's morals. He doesn't have to think they *should* fight for it. Maybe he doesn't think that fighting for what you believe in is intrinsically moral and instead is moral only if you are fighting for what's right (in his mind). Perfectly internally consistent. Moral relativism is no handicap at all. Moral absolutists seem to have trouble with that idea.
I think there might be a bit of equivocation going on here. Moral relativism is an observation more than it is an opinion. A moral relativist *observes* that there is no known way to evaluate the fundamental correctness or incorrectness of opinions about right and wrong. I think GP maybe spoke a bit imprecisely with the notion of someone having "every right" to believe something. They simply *do* believe something, and there is no objective metric by which to prove that belief *incorrect*. But even if you could, it wouldn't necessarily stop them from believing it. Functionally, the only difference between absolute morality and moral relativism is that moral relativism includes an admission that no absolute standard of judgement exists.
The lack of an absolute standard does not prevent you from telling people what you think they ought to think, and it doesn't stop you from taking action to impose your beliefs on them. Similarly, if there *were* an absolute standard, it would not prevent an "incorrect" person from disagreeing with the standard and telling you what they think you ought to think, and it wouldn't stop them from taking action to impose their beliefs on you. For all practical purposes, it really doesn't matter if there's an absolute morality or not, because people have the freedom of will to believe whatever they want.... so a parsimonious theory of morality should reject the notion as irrelevant.
The problem I see people run into most commonly is the idea that there needs to be an absolute morality in order for someone to be justified in foisting it upon others. If it's just your opinion, what validity does it have to other people? But on the other hand, what empowerment do you have to force an absolute morality on people who reject it? Does the absolute morality contain a clause that it is moral to enforce the morality? I suppose it must. But if that's the case, then the same can be done with a relative morality. Your relative morality could *also* contain the clause that it is moral to enforce it on others. So ultimately, it doesn't matter whether the morality is absolute or not. I guess if it matters *to you* whether you think a morality is absolute or not, then it will make a difference *to you*.... but, in principle, there's no reason why it should matter.
And while we're talking about eating meat, I think that anyone who wants to eat meat should have to participate in the slaughtering, dressing, cooking, and eating of an animal in sequence,
Okay, as long as anyone that wants to eat vegetables has to plant them, grow them, nurture them, and then harvest them.
or take a full tour of a feedlot and slaughterhouse, in order to get a license to be permitted to eat meat.
The primary deterrent here seems to be the hassle. People will be squeamish, sure, and it may gross them out. But then later, they'll smell a juicy hamburger and won't resist it. I went to a sewage treatment plant with a group of classmates on a field trip back in middle school, and they showed how nausea-inducing waste water is transformed into drinking water. Sure, we were all grossed out at the time, but I'd be shocked if a single one of these people now has sworn off ever drinking tap water (at least because of that, anyway). People get over it.
There are no absolute morals.
Yet, you just told us what we should do to prevent something that you think is bad:
“we should just use our supposedly intelligent minds to perfect in vitro meat so that no animals will have to suffer”.
If there are no absolute morals, you don’t get to have an opinion about how other people ought to behave. Your morals don’t apply to them.
Bollocks. There doesn't need to be an absolute morality for people to impose their morals on others. It comes down to three things: what you believe, what others believe, and what you can impose on them. If 99% of people agree murder is wrong and they all also agree that it's merely an arbitrary convention they all happen to hold, it doesn't mean their hands are tied in dealing with the 1% who disagree.
Every logical argument for a given moral choice boils down to an assumed common ground. In this case, he's presumably assuming that everyone feels that killing animals is a bad thing. If you don't feel that way, there's not really a lot he can do to change your mind, so why bother? Personally, I like the idea of something that cuts down on the suffering of animals.... but I like affordable meat even better. So I sympathize with his opinion, but ultimately reject his policy recommendation. And so it goes.
Oh come on. Look how anti-Palin this board is. Anyone who dislikes Palin doesn't have to slum around and compromise with johnnys-come-lately. ;)
But seriously, the reason why you hold an opinion is *at least* as important to me as the fact that you hold it. For example, I've had long arguments with atheists who arrived at their opinion via the Problem of Evil, which I think is the wrong reason to be an atheist. If I had some agenda that revolved around converting as many people to atheism as possible, maybe I'd follow your strategy, but I have no such agenda, personally. I want people to agree with me, but only if for the right reasons.
And besides, that's pretty tame as insults go. He wasn't 'gentle' exactly, but I was wondering the same thing, and I'm glad someone said it. If we were talking about properly insulting people, sure, I'm with you, but not because it's wrong to insult people who agree with you. It's wrong to insult people who've done nothing to deserve it. For example, *being* an idiot doesn't make you deserving of being called one. Being an idiot *and acting like a jerk* perhaps.
The central assumption, of course, is the defeatist notion that all government can ever be is bad, so a small bad thing is better than a large bad thing.
..... or, perhaps more charitably, that the larger a government gets, the more corrupt, bloated, and inefficient it is. This might even be accurate, but only in the sense that something large and complex is harder to make efficient. Probably worth it, though.... most of the small, efficient governments I can think of were also tyrannies.
Personally, I'm with you. I think it's possible to make government better, but first, enough of us have to want to.
I suspect they'd have to add more than laws to get this bad. Constitutional amendments more like. The judiciary can lay the smack down on this sort of thing.
But I think the general case is that you're not paying close attention until you have to. I don't know, maybe I'm the only person who can't drive 50 miles in a straight line without daydreaming, but my experience has consistently been that I occupy my mind with other things when nothing interesting is happening on the road and then switch immediately to full concentration when there's some indication a situation is developing. It's hard to be precise with this and be clear about exactly what we're talking about, but my sense is that I notice the situation developing and immediately switch my attention to it with plenty of time to handle the situation.
The notion that you can get off / drop the phone in the moment of an accident just doesn't seem to jibe with reality.
Ah, but you see I have the certainty that comes with personal experience, and the most compelling argument of all: the anecdotal one.
But I'm only partly kidding. I've had lots of times where I miss a solid 30 seconds of what someone said on a call because a traffic situation developed. I don't even think about it. Just like how your eye automatically spots movement, when you have a lot of driving experience, you recognize troubling patterns. "I'm coming up to pass this person, but he's coming up on the guy ahead of him faster than you'd expect him to.... he might unexpectedly come over into my lane.... I'll give him room...." 10 seconds later "I'm sorry, could you repeat what you were just saying?"
These studies don't jibe with my own personal experience. I don't think I've ever driven over the legal limit, but I have driven while buzzing a bit, and I can feel that I'm just not as sharp. The few times a distraction has caused any kind of concern, it's been an altogether different feeling. Maybe someone slammed on the brakes while I was looking down at the radio for a moment. But I recognize that those sorts of things are possibilities and I account for them. Say by keeping a safe following distance.
People just don't. Instead, they have massively increased risk of accidents, just like drunk drivers, and it seems to be as universal a negative as driving drunk. It also seems to be even MORE voluntary, since once you're drunk, the decision to drive is made while impaired.
If anything, maybe we should hold cell-drivers more accountable than drunk ones.
Except that drunkenness is far easier to define than distractedness. You set a legal limit. People don't drive if they're over that limit. It's easy to know what the rule is and it makes sense. What about distractedness? Certainly it's bad to text someone while driving. Is it bad to receive texts too? Maybe you were reading them? But how can we know if they always pop up on your phone even without you having to interact with it? It's probably bad to talk on a handset while driving. But what about a hands free? At that point, the only distraction is conversation. Certainly we can't outlaw all conversation while driving, so how can we fairly apply such a rule?
Maybe we should outlaw other bad or distracting driving habits. Maybe drivers shouldn't be allowed to use the radio..... hmmm... but then they might have to talk to a passenger, and that's probably dangerous.... well, we should definitely outlaw food or drink. Also, imagine the danger that coffee represents. You could accidentally spill it or burn your tongue... maybe we can allow iced coffee... but we should definitely ban kids. They shout and fight with one another. Massively distracting. Also, bumper stickers. A person might be following you too closely and not paying attention to the road while trying to read it. That seems dangerous.
And no, this isn't slippery slope. It's reductio ad absurdum. I just don't think there's any consistent way to legislate out driving distractions, and it's silly to try...
And one final thing on the comparison between drunk driving and cell phone use. People all over the country drive while using cell phones, whether handsets (admittedly a bad idea) or handsfree. If we replaced every one of those people with a drunk driver, you think we'd see no significant change in crash and fatality rates?
I have personally been in 3 car crashes that were my fault. The first two were when I was 16 and under no distractions whatsoever. I was just an inexperienced kid. The third was years later when I drove tired and fell asleep at the wheel. *THAT* is a serious problem. I've never made that mistake again. But cell phones? Please. I've been more distracted by hot girls walking on the sidewalk than by cell phones. And surely we shouldn't outlaw THAT
Maybe you are an avid counterstrike player--there have been studies that show people who played a lot of FPS games with voice chat (CS being the big one) were no more impaired by talking on a handsfree phone than they would be with no phone.
Heh well, I do play a lot of FPS games (including Counter-strike at one point). But to me the point here is that you are in control of your own attentiveness. If I'm driving on an unfamiliar in-town road with intersections, pedestrians, and some uncertainty over where I'm going, my attention is more focused than if I'm on a 50 mile straight stretch of interstate with minimal traffic. It's only natural, I think. When I'm in the former situation, I simply cannot concentrate on a conversation. If I'm on a handsfree, a handset, talking to a passenger, or whatever, I will hear very little of what you say. In the latter case, on the other hand, even if I'm not being distracted externally, boredom takes over and I'll daydream, thereby distracting myself. Distractions only significantly impair you if you prioritize them.
Everybody else however loses focus and reaction time whether the conversation is being held in their hand, clipped into their ear, or beamed over the car stereo. I think the reason talking to a person in the car with you is acceptable is that that person also has the ability to react ("DUDE LOOK OUT") and interrupt the conversation.
Interesting, but that can't be the explanation. Certainly we don't expect that some noisy kids in the backseat are going to be warning you about road hazards, and no one will take any steps to ban children from vehicles. The explanation is that we accept that we can't outlaw passengers. Also, I'm not convinced that "DUDE LOOK OUT" helps more than it hurts. Maybe it does sometimes, but it is, itself, a distraction. My girlfriend has shouted false alarms before where I was aware of what she was talking about, was accounting for it already, and her alarm made me look for something *else* in a panic.
Turn the car into a faraday cage
Fine, then I'll buy a convertible :)