As a scientist, I do not support the missile defense shield because it does not work.
Imagine:
As a scientist, Thomas Edison abandoned the light bulb because initial attempts to make one did not work.
I find Hagelin's comment here really lacking. He doesn't support a missle defense shield because we do not have a working one? He abandons searching for success because he thus far has encountered only failure?
If these are his only reasons for being against a missle defense, they are lame. He should provide a better, more candid answer here.
And I am not arguing here for or against a missle defense system. I am arguing for better reasoning than he provided in this answer.
BTW, have we seen the Internet-savvy Gore's answers here yet?
This urban legend surfaces from time to time. It is debunked here
It may well be an urban legend, but I hardly think the site debunks it! Rather, they deny it. Very few facts one way or the other are presented w/regard to this, so a study might actually provide useful information.
I am a fan of the various urban legend sites, but just because one of these sites pronounces something an urban legend doesn't mean it is. Read the content on the site itself and see if they make a compelling case before agreeing with it. (This is a general admonition; not a specific one directed at you.)
It certainly makes no sense to me why this impetus for a very rich person to become very much richer, is more important than perhaps thousands of people eating, or getting proper health care, or for fuck's sake, breathing clean air.
We are talking about different moralities here, really. You would shoot Robert to save Steve, particularly when Steve is a pitiable case and Robert is not. Now that is speaking figuratively, of course, but it describes the essense of the point: you would prefer to remove the rights of individuals in the name of what you believe is a higher moral cause.
I say we should respect essential, fundamental indvidual rights, particularly because that course stands the best chance of leading all of us to the greatest happiness. If you assert your right to do with my property as you see fit, then you are asserting your right to do with my life as you see fit. You make me your slave. It doesn't satisfy me that you propose to do this to only a select few. It is fundamentally wrong.
Now, I agree completely with you on the need to provide relief to those who couldn't survive otherwise. I think there is a role government can serve here (as well as private efforts) and taxation would obviously be needed to fund government action. But, the taxation should be fairly and evenly applied to those who can be taxed. And, if tax reductions are to be implemented, they should likewise be applied fairly and evenly. And, we should stop this absurd, semi-subtle implication that the "rich" are somehow "evil" and deserve to have it socked to them.
Especially when, eventually, if this money is kept hidden away from the consumer-level economy, it will weaken the government to the point where ecological regulation will become impossible, and without that, we will all, with 100% certainty, bake like potatoes, choke, shrivel up, and die. Private enterprise cannot do this task. Well, if humanity's survival isn't important enough, then I guess we need to cut the taxes. We all die anyway, at least those super-rich people will die happy.
Gee, I don't think I agree with any of your points here! The super-rich hiding their money from the consumer-level economy? How? They won't spend it? Invest it? Just hide it in their closet? I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't literally mean it is 100% certain we will die from global warming w/o ecological regulation. I don't see a particular connection between taxation and human survival. And, I wouldn't be the first to tell you that money does not necessarily buy happiness.
This hypothetical rich man already has all the happiness money can buy. Repect and credit for his accomplishments are something he can only get from his peers, not the government. Once you have no debt, sound investments, a car/house/wife/dog/and toybox then you're as happy as you can get financially. He's earned this comfortable lifestyle. What more does he need that money can buy?
Did it occur to you to ask him? Seriously. You are advocating your right to decide for him what is best for him.
[...] The ability to earn money, like all other exceptional abilities, creates an obligation to use a small part of your abilities to improve the world. There is no great power that does not carry a great responsibility. It only becomes a sin when a person denies this responsibility and is selfish with their excesses.
Look at your argument here. By claiming there is an obligation, you are asserting your own right to decide how to use the finances you say he has earned. Ownership means nothing if you don't have the right to say how the thing is used. You are advocating taking the decision out of his own hands and giving it to a bureaucracy.
All money was someone's taxed income at one time or another. Consider this; someone who inherited enough money to live off of it without working is one less person with taxable income. That money gets taken out of taxable circulation, potentially for hundreds of years.
Unless those recipients of that inherited money are sewing it into their mattresses, that money is being stored in banks, or is invested to fund productive enterprises. The money that is in the bank is lent to help finance productive enterprises. It is not lost from circulation. It goes toward purchases, salaries, payments of debts, etc. All these activities are taxed in their normal ways. Even the money the recipient's spend on themselves, as consumers, is income to someone and is taxed.
Explain again how this money is taken out of taxable circulation?
That same top 10% also holds more than 50% of all wealth in this country. By that standard, they should be paying 1/2 rather than 1/3 of all taxes.
It is an income tax, not a wealth tax. Those who are paying the vast majority of the income tax (that top 1%, 10%, whatever) are not the same group as those who own the top 1%, 10%, etc of the wealth.
If we have a 10% reduction in the income tax rate for all income tax payers, then it should be obvious that the more you pay into the system, the greater your particular relief will be, in raw dollars. After all, you were paying more raw dollars into the system to begin with. There is nothing unfair about all taxpayers getting the same percentage reduction on their rates.
the point I tried to make basically is that people who don't have a lot of cash just don't make it, I mean, if you'd try and become president with *just* $1M, you'd be lost.
No arguement there. However, my point was that individuals do not need to be rich in order to be elected. The campaigns that support them do. Campaigns with an electable candidate (combo of ideas, charisma, high-profile support) tend to get wealthy rather quickly.
Presidential elections in the US I find an absolute insult to human intelligence, I think it's obvious that you will NOT be voted in as president unless you:
A) Have support from either the Democrats or Republicans
B) Are filthy, stinking rich
For the benefit of us all and to make your point clearer, could you please define for us what qualifies as filthy, stinking rich? Does/did Bill Clinton qualify? How about Jimmy Carter? Eisenhower? Ford?
Probably the best recent example that makes your point would be JFK.
The best recent example that was a party candidate and did not win is probably Ross Perot.
I think you are right, at least for the forseeable future, with regard to needing support from the Republicans or the Democrats. That isn't likely to change either as long as people continue to believe that voting for a 3rd party candidate is equivalent to throwing your vote away. It isn't. Even if they don't win now, their platform becomes part of the national agenda, to whatever degree they receive support for championing it.
Look and Windows, it has a lot of endorsements but that does not mean that it is the best...
Exactly. Endorsements provide an excuse not to think. For example, consider the recent posting on Slashdot today about techies endorsing Gore...
Re:No. Life does not end when you have kids
on
Skiing Down Everest
·
· Score: 2
Just about the riskiest thing we do in normal daily life is to drive our cars and/or cross the street, and both of these are very risky in statistical terms despite the fact that we think of them as mundane.
This is virtually a self-fulfilling statement. The risk that I will die climbing Everest, while bungie-jumping, or while sky diving is about as close to 0% as it can be -- I have no plans to do these things because, to me, they are too risky!!
Therefore, doing those mundane things, like driving my car, sleeping in my bed, playing soccer, etc. most certainly will riskier for me than those other activities.
However, I really would find it interesting to see what percentage of Everest climbers have died climbing it (% of deaths per climbs attempted) and compare that to the percentage of deaths per trips in cars.
Morality has become an outdated concept. [...] Morality [... isn't] relevant to the fast-changing modern world.
I agree with almost all of your comments, but these two statements are silly.
We will never be able to escape morality as long as we are able to think independently and are faced with choices on what courses of action we should take at any given moment. What is made possible by science is one thing. What courses of action we take is another. Science makes it possible to provide nearly infinate energy to power our world, as well as to level a city with a single bomb.
If science makes it possible to engineer people to fill specific roles in society on the premise it will make for a greater collective happiness, should we do it? If you haven't read it, check out "Brave New World."
The point is, we will always have choices before us. Science will continue to provide more and newer choices to us. We still have to choose what actions will be good or bad. Morality is not an outdated concept.
Note, I am distinquishing morality from religion. Religion provides a basis for establishing a morality, but it is not the only source for it.
We should celebrate this medical innovation as a miracle of science which it clearly is, rather than berating it and questioning it on moral grounds.
I agree we should celebrate the innovation, but I do not think we should refrain from questioning its potential application.
From the article: "The Redmond, Wash.-based software company said the address notification feature was only created as a helpful tool for consumers."
If this is truly the only reason for this "feature", then MS should consider why there is such a vocal uproar over it. Perhaps consumers do not want this kind of help from them? If they insist on foisting it on us, despite the protests, then they are only demonstrating their total lack of credibility.
You know, who are the retards that can't face an opinion they don't like? This guy's post may be one many disagree with, but it is not flamebait. Yet, at least one has moderated that way. Is Slashdot just a popularity poll of opinions or is it supposed to strive for intelligent discussion?
Get a clue, moderators! Just because you don't like a person's opinion does not mean that opinion is flamebait. Thanks goodness for meta-moderation!
Of course I'm not going to dislike them *just* because of this. But frankly it's irritating. When I have no bad feelings or dislikes for a band, I like it to stay that way, so when they do something I might not like, well, it tarnishes their image in my mind. Now, if they were being total jerks like metallica, then I *would* have to totally dislike them for it.
Why be irritated with them at all? Think of them as Napster hackers -- they are only demonstrating possible flaws in a system many people perceive as a medium intended for the exchange of mp3s. If this is truly a problem, they have given us incentive to fix/work around it.
In the past on Slashdot, there has been much defense made of similar "abuses" of other programs in the name of increasing security and robustness of design.
Assuming the Higgs boson is eventually proven to exist, what does that mean for string theory? It was my understanding that, according to string theory, mass of particles was a function of the vibration of the strings. Can someone expain this?
---
So, let's say I encode a copy of the DeCSS code into a message that I then encrypt using PGP and then provide a link to it for a friend to retrieve. Taking care to avoid the alternative key problems (my friend physically hands me his public key), I feel I have fairly safely encoded my communication. That's my intent, anyhow.
If the MPAA sends me a letter, do I accuse them of breaking an encryption scheme whose purpose was to control the distribution of sensitive information?
The Congress shall have Power...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
It seems that the authors of the consitution had not intended in any way for Intellectual Property to be a financial protection in the way that it is currently interpreted.
Why would you conclude this? The goal, as stated, is to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Why would providing restrictions on the access to writings and discoveries related to scientific and artistic advancements/creations further that goal? If we assign the rights to their own creations to authors and inventors for a period of time, would this advance knowledge? Wouldn't it make more sense that such new information should be made immediately available to all to benefit from?
It makes sense to me that the Constitution provides for these types of restrictions because there is the expectation that authors and inventors will be able to benefit from their controlling interest for a defined period of time. Therefore, they have a greater incentive to apply their own effort toward artistic and scientific advancement.
Each author/inventor has to define for themselves the benefit they see in working towards the creations they produce. For some, the benefit they are after will be to solve an immediate problem. For others, it will be to help/benefit others. For still others, it will be to reap financial rewards. And, of course, for many, it will be a mix of all of these. But without the protections in place, the authors/inventors have no basis for expecting to benefit at all from their own work. Thus, far less incentives in place for far too many people.
Therefore, it seems to me that the section under discussion implies a wide variety of benefits going to those having the defined exclusive rights, and one of those benefits could reasonably be expected to be financial.
The coffee one gets out of a home coffee machine is about 140 degrees F. A really hot cup of coffee out of a commercial device might hit 160. During the trial, a McDonald's QA manager testified that company policy dictated that their coffee be maintained at not less than 180. That's enough to cause a third degree burn in less than five seconds.
Amazing. And yet every day, hundreds of thousands of people order cups of this skin-charring coffee and consume it!
OK, I don't deny that it could burn you. I do think that most intelligent people can figure that out, even if they don't know that it is literally 180 degrees. That's why the actions of a prudent adult would be to not place anything that hot between their legs in a moving vehicle -- especially if the coffee is contained in a crushable cup! I would think most prudent adults wouldn't even place a styrofoam cup of 140 degree home-brewed coffee between their legs.
When the patent runs out, the RSA algorithm will no longer be tainted by an (evil) patent. I.e. it will be patent-free, correct? Why shun it in that case? Why should the algorithm itself be considered evil?
It doesn't sound like anyone is being dictated to here. The article suggests that the keyboard would still be available. Handwriting recognition is being added to provide more options.
Do we really need a GUI for DOS? For some folks, emphatically yes! Otherwise, the computer would overwhelm them and they would never benefit from the many things it can do. For those who don't need the GUI and had all their needs met with command line DOS, they certainly have the option to continue to use just DOS.
Progress is great! If it is truly progress, it makes human lives better.
Slashdot Mirror
All I can say is: On election day, may the better man win. Even if I don't belive this is going to happen.
Agreed, unfortunately Browne almost certainly will not win.
As a scientist, I do not support the missile defense shield because it does not work.
Imagine:
As a scientist, Thomas Edison abandoned the light bulb because initial attempts to make one did not work.
I find Hagelin's comment here really lacking. He doesn't support a missle defense shield because we do not have a working one? He abandons searching for success because he thus far has encountered only failure?
If these are his only reasons for being against a missle defense, they are lame. He should provide a better, more candid answer here.
And I am not arguing here for or against a missle defense system. I am arguing for better reasoning than he provided in this answer.
BTW, have we seen the Internet-savvy Gore's answers here yet?
Vote Harry Browne!
This urban legend surfaces from time to time. It is debunked here
It may well be an urban legend, but I hardly think the site debunks it! Rather, they deny it. Very few facts one way or the other are presented w/regard to this, so a study might actually provide useful information.
I am a fan of the various urban legend sites, but just because one of these sites pronounces something an urban legend doesn't mean it is. Read the content on the site itself and see if they make a compelling case before agreeing with it. (This is a general admonition; not a specific one directed at you.)
It certainly makes no sense to me why this impetus for a very rich person to become very much richer, is more important than perhaps thousands of people eating, or getting proper health care, or for fuck's sake, breathing clean air.
We are talking about different moralities here, really. You would shoot Robert to save Steve, particularly when Steve is a pitiable case and Robert is not. Now that is speaking figuratively, of course, but it describes the essense of the point: you would prefer to remove the rights of individuals in the name of what you believe is a higher moral cause.
I say we should respect essential, fundamental indvidual rights, particularly because that course stands the best chance of leading all of us to the greatest happiness. If you assert your right to do with my property as you see fit, then you are asserting your right to do with my life as you see fit. You make me your slave. It doesn't satisfy me that you propose to do this to only a select few. It is fundamentally wrong.
Now, I agree completely with you on the need to provide relief to those who couldn't survive otherwise. I think there is a role government can serve here (as well as private efforts) and taxation would obviously be needed to fund government action. But, the taxation should be fairly and evenly applied to those who can be taxed. And, if tax reductions are to be implemented, they should likewise be applied fairly and evenly. And, we should stop this absurd, semi-subtle implication that the "rich" are somehow "evil" and deserve to have it socked to them.
Especially when, eventually, if this money is kept hidden away from the consumer-level economy, it will weaken the government to the point where ecological regulation will become impossible, and without that, we will all, with 100% certainty, bake like potatoes, choke, shrivel up, and die. Private enterprise cannot do this task. Well, if humanity's survival isn't important enough, then I guess we need to cut the taxes. We all die anyway, at least those super-rich people will die happy.
Gee, I don't think I agree with any of your points here! The super-rich hiding their money from the consumer-level economy? How? They won't spend it? Invest it? Just hide it in their closet? I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't literally mean it is 100% certain we will die from global warming w/o ecological regulation. I don't see a particular connection between taxation and human survival. And, I wouldn't be the first to tell you that money does not necessarily buy happiness.
This hypothetical rich man already has all the happiness money can buy. Repect and credit for his accomplishments are something he can only get from his peers, not the government. Once you have no debt, sound investments, a car/house/wife/dog/and toybox then you're as happy as you can get financially. He's earned this comfortable lifestyle. What more does he need that money can buy?
Did it occur to you to ask him? Seriously. You are advocating your right to decide for him what is best for him.
[...] The ability to earn money, like all other exceptional abilities, creates an obligation to use a small part of your abilities to improve the world. There is no great power that does not carry a great responsibility. It only becomes a sin when a person denies this responsibility and is selfish with their excesses.
Look at your argument here. By claiming there is an obligation, you are asserting your own right to decide how to use the finances you say he has earned. Ownership means nothing if you don't have the right to say how the thing is used. You are advocating taking the decision out of his own hands and giving it to a bureaucracy.
All money was someone's taxed income at one time or another. Consider this; someone who inherited enough money to live off of it without working is one less person with taxable income. That money gets taken out of taxable circulation, potentially for hundreds of years.
Unless those recipients of that inherited money are sewing it into their mattresses, that money is being stored in banks, or is invested to fund productive enterprises. The money that is in the bank is lent to help finance productive enterprises. It is not lost from circulation. It goes toward purchases, salaries, payments of debts, etc. All these activities are taxed in their normal ways. Even the money the recipient's spend on themselves, as consumers, is income to someone and is taxed.
Explain again how this money is taken out of taxable circulation?
That same top 10% also holds more than 50% of all wealth in this country. By that standard, they should be paying 1/2 rather than 1/3 of all taxes.
It is an income tax, not a wealth tax. Those who are paying the vast majority of the income tax (that top 1%, 10%, whatever) are not the same group as those who own the top 1%, 10%, etc of the wealth.
If we have a 10% reduction in the income tax rate for all income tax payers, then it should be obvious that the more you pay into the system, the greater your particular relief will be, in raw dollars. After all, you were paying more raw dollars into the system to begin with. There is nothing unfair about all taxpayers getting the same percentage reduction on their rates.
the point I tried to make basically is that people who don't have a lot of cash just don't make it, I mean, if you'd try and become president with *just* $1M, you'd be lost.
No arguement there. However, my point was that individuals do not need to be rich in order to be elected. The campaigns that support them do. Campaigns with an electable candidate (combo of ideas, charisma, high-profile support) tend to get wealthy rather quickly.
Presidential elections in the US I find an absolute insult to human intelligence, I think it's obvious that you will NOT be voted in as president unless you:
A) Have support from either the Democrats or Republicans
B) Are filthy, stinking rich
For the benefit of us all and to make your point clearer, could you please define for us what qualifies as filthy, stinking rich? Does/did Bill Clinton qualify? How about Jimmy Carter? Eisenhower? Ford?
Probably the best recent example that makes your point would be JFK.
The best recent example that was a party candidate and did not win is probably Ross Perot.
I think you are right, at least for the forseeable future, with regard to needing support from the Republicans or the Democrats. That isn't likely to change either as long as people continue to believe that voting for a 3rd party candidate is equivalent to throwing your vote away. It isn't. Even if they don't win now, their platform becomes part of the national agenda, to whatever degree they receive support for championing it.
Look and Windows, it has a lot of endorsements but that does not mean that it is the best...
Exactly. Endorsements provide an excuse not to think. For example, consider the recent posting on Slashdot today about techies endorsing Gore...
Just about the riskiest thing we do in normal daily life is to drive our cars and/or cross the street, and both of these are very risky in statistical terms despite the fact that we think of them as mundane.
This is virtually a self-fulfilling statement. The risk that I will die climbing Everest, while bungie-jumping, or while sky diving is about as close to 0% as it can be -- I have no plans to do these things because, to me, they are too risky!!
Therefore, doing those mundane things, like driving my car, sleeping in my bed, playing soccer, etc. most certainly will riskier for me than those other activities.
However, I really would find it interesting to see what percentage of Everest climbers have died climbing it (% of deaths per climbs attempted) and compare that to the percentage of deaths per trips in cars.
Morality has become an outdated concept. [...]
Morality [... isn't] relevant to the fast-changing modern world.
I agree with almost all of your comments, but these two statements are silly.
We will never be able to escape morality as long as we are able to think independently and are faced with choices on what courses of action we should take at any given moment. What is made possible by science is one thing. What courses of action we take is another. Science makes it possible to provide nearly infinate energy to power our world, as well as to level a city with a single bomb.
If science makes it possible to engineer people to fill specific roles in society on the premise it will make for a greater collective happiness, should we do it? If you haven't read it, check out "Brave New World."
The point is, we will always have choices before us. Science will continue to provide more and newer choices to us. We still have to choose what actions will be good or bad. Morality is not an outdated concept.
Note, I am distinquishing morality from religion. Religion provides a basis for establishing a morality, but it is not the only source for it.
We should celebrate this medical innovation as a miracle of science which it clearly is, rather than berating it and questioning it on moral grounds.
I agree we should celebrate the innovation, but I do not think we should refrain from questioning its potential application.
"The Redmond, Wash.-based software company said the address notification feature was only created as a helpful tool for consumers."
From the README:
Installation instructions for the address notification feature:
1. Bend over
2. Grab ankles
3. Shout "Thank you, Bill!"
"The Redmond, Wash.-based software company said the address notification feature was only created as a helpful tool for consumers."
If this is truly the only reason for this "feature", then MS should consider why there is such a vocal uproar over it. Perhaps consumers do not want this kind of help from them? If they insist on foisting it on us, despite the protests, then they are only demonstrating their total lack of credibility.
You know, who are the retards that can't face an opinion they don't like? This guy's post may be one many disagree with, but it is not flamebait. Yet, at least one has moderated that way. Is Slashdot just a popularity poll of opinions or is it supposed to strive for intelligent discussion?
Get a clue, moderators! Just because you don't like a person's opinion does not mean that opinion is flamebait. Thanks goodness for meta-moderation!
You mean like saying things like "information wants to be free..."?
Maybe corporations are given due process, required to pay taxes, etc., because the law provides for it? Nah!
Why be irritated with them at all? Think of them as Napster hackers -- they are only demonstrating possible flaws in a system many people perceive as a medium intended for the exchange of mp3s. If this is truly a problem, they have given us incentive to fix/work around it.
In the past on Slashdot, there has been much defense made of similar "abuses" of other programs in the name of increasing security and robustness of design.
Assuming the Higgs boson is eventually proven to exist, what does that mean for string theory? It was my understanding that, according to string theory, mass of particles was a function of the vibration of the strings. Can someone expain this?
---
So, let's say I encode a copy of the DeCSS code into a message that I then encrypt using PGP and then provide a link to it for a friend to retrieve. Taking care to avoid the alternative key problems (my friend physically hands me his public key), I feel I have fairly safely encoded my communication. That's my intent, anyhow.
If the MPAA sends me a letter, do I accuse them of breaking an encryption scheme whose purpose was to control the distribution of sensitive information?
It seems that the authors of the consitution had not intended in any way for Intellectual Property to be a financial protection in the way that it is currently interpreted.
Why would you conclude this? The goal, as stated, is to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Why would providing restrictions on the access to writings and discoveries related to scientific and artistic advancements/creations further that goal? If we assign the rights to their own creations to authors and inventors for a period of time, would this advance knowledge? Wouldn't it make more sense that such new information should be made immediately available to all to benefit from?
It makes sense to me that the Constitution provides for these types of restrictions because there is the expectation that authors and inventors will be able to benefit from their controlling interest for a defined period of time. Therefore, they have a greater incentive to apply their own effort toward artistic and scientific advancement.
Each author/inventor has to define for themselves the benefit they see in working towards the creations they produce. For some, the benefit they are after will be to solve an immediate problem. For others, it will be to help/benefit others. For still others, it will be to reap financial rewards. And, of course, for many, it will be a mix of all of these. But without the protections in place, the authors/inventors have no basis for expecting to benefit at all from their own work. Thus, far less incentives in place for far too many people.
Therefore, it seems to me that the section under discussion implies a wide variety of benefits going to those having the defined exclusive rights, and one of those benefits could reasonably be expected to be financial.
--
Amazing. And yet every day, hundreds of thousands of people order cups of this skin-charring coffee and consume it!
OK, I don't deny that it could burn you. I do think that most intelligent people can figure that out, even if they don't know that it is literally 180 degrees. That's why the actions of a prudent adult would be to not place anything that hot between their legs in a moving vehicle -- especially if the coffee is contained in a crushable cup! I would think most prudent adults wouldn't even place a styrofoam cup of 140 degree home-brewed coffee between their legs.
When the patent runs out, the RSA algorithm will no longer be tainted by an (evil) patent. I.e. it will be patent-free, correct? Why shun it in that case? Why should the algorithm itself be considered evil?
I don't understand your logic.
-
Do we really need a GUI for DOS? For some folks, emphatically yes! Otherwise, the computer would overwhelm them and they would never benefit from the many things it can do. For those who don't need the GUI and had all their needs met with command line DOS, they certainly have the option to continue to use just DOS.
Progress is great! If it is truly progress, it makes human lives better.
So, is this an example of applied superstring theory? :)
But of course /. would be a waste of typing... :)