Is my x going to be positive or negative? A little bit of background: I have a value of x somewhere between 0 and pi.
Hmmm...since all values of x in the range (0,pi) are positive, I can authoritatively state your x is going to be positive.
On the off chance that you meant to ask, "Is my value of sin(x) going to be positive?" I can authoritatively state your value of sin(x) is going to be positive.
You misunderstand the context in which the term fallacy is used here.
Certainly I misused 'fallacy' for the purpose of humor. I believe it was misused in the same way in The Princess Bride, but it's been some time since I've seen it and I might be misremembering.
In the discipline of rhetoric, a fallacy is, to speak generally, a false argument.
Just for the record let me state that I believe a fallacious argument to be an argument rendered defective by an error in reasoning.
No. Appeal to authority is NEVER a good argument, it is always a bad argument,
On the contrary. One well known counterexample is the use of expert witnesses in a court of law.
assuming we know nothing else about the knowledge of the listener,
Why should we assume any such thing? An argument is cogent or not regardless of the knowledge or lack thereof of the listener. The salient point is that if the premises are obvious or can be checked and the reasoning lacks error, then the conclusion is true (or in the case of inductive logic--can be relied upon to the stated degree.)
or need to make a quick decision.
Why so? I would think that if a quick decision were necessary, an appeal to expert authority would be more desirable.
You are also wrong to imply that general acceptance of an idea makes it true.
Certainly correct. However, at most I implied that general consensus is one of three necessary requisites for a proper appeal to expert authority.
Even though Alan Cox himself said foo does X, it still might not. That's why you test it. Every single human being is fallible. Thus, knowing nothing more about your skills as a programmer, or about Alan Cox's, or about how much time you have to make a decision, to purely rely on an appeal to authority for your information is simply a false argument, also known as a fallacy.
Certainly experts can make mistakes, and the consensus of experts cannot alter reality. Nevertheless appeal to expert authority is an acceptable argument form. The implication is that experts are less likely to make errors than the population in general when they discourse upon their area of expertise, and the consensus of experts serves to bolster the reliability of their conclusions. In your example, and assuming that Alan Cox is an expert in foo, it is likely that Alan will make correct pronouncements on foo. You didn't mention in your argument that most other foo experts also agreed with Alan regarding foo. Given those details and the fact that you tested foo and found it to fail, I would think that you misapplied foo, or misinterpreted your test results, or have foo0.81, or any of a number of other failings.
In an, perhaps vain, attempt to remain topical, in the present discussion it is not the case that people should accept teachers' or authors' pronouncements unquestioningly, therefore Alan Cox is wise to remove himself and allow new people to program.
Appeal to athority is one of the oldest fallicies in the book
I really don't want to get into the topic of the oldest fallacy, which I think is actually getting into a land war in asia, or possibly never bet with a Sicilian when life is on the line, but rather into appeal to authority. Appeal to authority is not a fallacy; appeal to inexpert authority is. Appeal to authority is entirely proper if (1) the authority is actually an authority, (2) the authority is an authority on the topic in question, and (3) there is general agreement amongst relevant authorities. Alternatively to (3) the appeal is cogent if the topic is a new area of expertise and the particular authority under discussion has a record of correct predictions.
In spite of all this what Mr. gorillasoft has done is not an appeal to authority or inexpert authority, but rather a counterexample. He offered as resolution, "one should follow one's antecedants without question," and showed how such a premise would lead to an undesirable conclusion, "quantum mechanics would have never been developed." An appeal to inexpert authority would be something like, "Albert Einstein says always use Alan Cox kernels," which didn't occur in this discussion.
Are we remembering the same game? I love Darklands. There's a web site; I think it's at http://www.darklands.net, but I'm not sure. If you go there you will find out how to get on the mailing list which is going strongly right now. You played one to four adventurers trying to gain fame while battling the various denizens and myths of fifteenth century Germany. There were over a dozen different songs played at appropriate times in the game. The instruments weren't great, but the music was compelling. I would love to have a copy of them all in some useful format.
I have seen five more-or-less objective studies on freedom. Two of them concentrated on political freedom, and the others concentrated on economic freedom. Not to worry. Countries ranking high on one study correlated well with countries ranking high on the others. One slightly anomolous country was Singapore. Singapore rated significantly higher on the economic freedom studies than it did on politiacal freedom studies.
Unfortunately, I could not find all five studies. I was able to find this one.
They can't be. If they were, then there exist integers p and q such that pi = p/q, and pi is rational. However, pi has been proven not to be rational, so not all the rest of the numbers are 0.
Patents grant an exclusive right to exploit an invention, in exchange for the publication of the way it works.
Not quite. Patents grant the right to exclude others. Suppose I have a patent on fuzzies, and you have a patent on green fuzzies. You can exclude me from making green fuzzies, but I can exclude you from making green fuzzies and all other fuzzies. You have no right granted to make green fuzzies arising out of your patent.
i just don't like it when the government steps in and tries to regulate things too much
What has happened is that government regulates stuff, and that breaks things. Then the broken stuff provides an excuse for more government regulations. Or, more specifically... The government provides copyright protection to the record companies, or the artists, ostensibly to foster greater innovation and artistry. Copyright simply means that anyone else making a copy for sell is smacked with fines and possibly jail terms. It's this protection (read: government regulation) that allows the companies to fix prices. Otherwise, people would just buy from someone else who made a copy. Finally (I wish) the government steps in to stop them from taking "unfair" advantage of the monopoly position that the government granted.
Well, personally, I'm into Security through Fragility. It seems that my Windows 98 box has been deleting files at random--I think because the disk defragmenter program has been locking up. Anyway, on May 4th I contracted the kak worm which sends copies of itself to anyone you e-mail though the mechanism of the.sig file. It seems that the disk defragger deleted one of the files that the kak worm needed to operate and disinfected my box. I figure in another couple months my box will become so unstable that I'm invulnerable.
So, knowing there are a lot more involved libertarians out there, what is the answer in cases like these - where the government stands between us and toysmart
Adam Smith gives three legitimate purposes of government. I'm paraphrasing here, so please forgive me any lapses.
1. To protect the people from invasion by foreign armies.
2. To protect the people from each other, or, failing that, to administer a system of justice.
3. To undertake those projects which benefit the whole people, but which will not profit any lesser group to undertake.
Milton Friedman adds a fourth, and a precautionary warning.
4. To care for those who are unable to care for themselves.
The caution is: all of these should be interpreted narrowly.
Microsoft's tactics are the most staunch argument against capitalism I can think of.
That's strange...I look at Microsoft's tactics and see a staunch argument against socialism. Now, admittedly the United States is the fourth- or fifth-freest country in the world according to the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, but that's not to say that the US is completely capitalist.
Perhaps now is a good time for me to define my terms. By "capitalism" I mean a method of organising an economy in which individuals control the means of production, and by "socialism" I mean a method of organising an economy in which the government controls the means of production. Now, considering these definitions, what are we to make of the United States where forty-three percent of the annual income goes to local, state, and federal government in the form of taxes? It's not entirely capitalist, nor yet is it entirely socialist. It's a sort of mixture of the two.
In the case at hand, Microsoft controls their means to make Windows 98(TM), among other things. Shouldn't we consider this to be a capitalist activity?
Almost all monopolies are government-enforced monopolies. At least that's what Milton Friedman says, and he ought to know. He won a Nobel Prise in Economics for his work in price theory. So, does Microsoft's production of Windows 98(TM) represent capitalist activity, since the government doesn't tell Microsoft how many to produce? This misses the point. The control of the means of production means both that someone can control how many of something is produced as well as how few. At the same time that the government leaves to Microsoft free to decide how many copies of Windows 98(TM) to produce, they are enjoining some two-hundred sixty million of you against producing any copies whatsoever. We cannot know that Microsoft is a monopoly from its being on some ninety percent of desktops. We know that Microsoft is a monopoly because I cannot produce a copy of Windows 98(TM) and sell it for any price down to and including zero dollars.
"But that's insane, Loyal," you may be tempted to say to me. "They invented it. Wouldn't it be stealing if you were to make a copy of it? Isn't it a 'natural law' that whoever makes something owns it?"
I note that this question only makes sense because this is so-called "intellectual property." If it were a chair, or a hat, or some other physical property, it would be obvious were I stealing it or not. So-called look-and-feel is also an intellectual property, so that the question of whether I am stealing the look-and-feel of your chair reverts to the same question.
Section I Article 8 of the Constitution of the United States says, in relevant part, "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;" If intellectual property were a natural law, there would be no need to grant the congress power to secure to authors the exclusive right to their respective writings. It's only because every person owns all intellectual property that the people, together, can grant congress this power. Otherwise it wouldn't be yours to grant. A semblance of this can be seen in the inability of discoverers to patent equations and similar discoveries.
One way to break up the Microsoft monopoly is to deny them their present legally-created right to exclude others from copying Windows 98(TM), among others. This may be the best way to break up almost all monopolies...at least all those that should be broken up. The trouble with the Justice Department's solution is power. The monopoly grants power both to the federal government and to Microsoft. Splitting Microsoft up into non-competing companies removes power from Microsoft and gives it to the federal government.
The federal government does not operate patent, copyright, and trade secret law primarily to promote science and useful art. If it did the terms would be much shorter than fourteen years, fifty years, and unlimited years. In the case of Windows 98(TM) I would suggest two years.
Slashdot Mirror
-Loyal
A little bit of background: I have a value of x somewhere between 0 and pi.
Hmmm...since all values of x in the range (0,pi) are positive, I can authoritatively state your x is going to be positive.
On the off chance that you meant to ask, "Is my value of sin(x) going to be positive?" I can authoritatively state your value of sin(x) is going to be positive.
-Loyal
No. It's "i."
No. Imaginary numbers were so named in contrast to the known numbers. If these numbers weren't "real," then they must be...
...that the number 1 exists, but I can't prove it.
-Loyal
Certainly I misused 'fallacy' for the purpose of humor. I believe it was misused in the same way in The Princess Bride, but it's been some time since I've seen it and I might be misremembering.
In the discipline of rhetoric, a fallacy is, to speak generally, a false argument.
Just for the record let me state that I believe a fallacious argument to be an argument rendered defective by an error in reasoning.
No. Appeal to authority is NEVER a good argument, it is always a bad argument,
On the contrary. One well known counterexample is the use of expert witnesses in a court of law.
assuming we know nothing else about the knowledge of the listener,
Why should we assume any such thing? An argument is cogent or not regardless of the knowledge or lack thereof of the listener. The salient point is that if the premises are obvious or can be checked and the reasoning lacks error, then the conclusion is true (or in the case of inductive logic--can be relied upon to the stated degree.)
or need to make a quick decision.
Why so? I would think that if a quick decision were necessary, an appeal to expert authority would be more desirable.
You are also wrong to imply that general acceptance of an idea makes it true.
Certainly correct. However, at most I implied that general consensus is one of three necessary requisites for a proper appeal to expert authority.
Even though Alan Cox himself said foo does X, it still might not. That's why you test it. Every single human being is fallible. Thus, knowing nothing more about your skills as a programmer, or about Alan Cox's, or about how much time you have to make a decision, to purely rely on an appeal to authority for your information is simply a false argument, also known as a fallacy.
Certainly experts can make mistakes, and the consensus of experts cannot alter reality. Nevertheless appeal to expert authority is an acceptable argument form. The implication is that experts are less likely to make errors than the population in general when they discourse upon their area of expertise, and the consensus of experts serves to bolster the reliability of their conclusions. In your example, and assuming that Alan Cox is an expert in foo, it is likely that Alan will make correct pronouncements on foo. You didn't mention in your argument that most other foo experts also agreed with Alan regarding foo. Given those details and the fact that you tested foo and found it to fail, I would think that you misapplied foo, or misinterpreted your test results, or have foo0.81, or any of a number of other failings.
In an, perhaps vain, attempt to remain topical, in the present discussion it is not the case that people should accept teachers' or authors' pronouncements unquestioningly, therefore Alan Cox is wise to remove himself and allow new people to program.
-Loyal
I really don't want to get into the topic of the oldest fallacy, which I think is actually getting into a land war in asia, or possibly never bet with a Sicilian when life is on the line, but rather into appeal to authority. Appeal to authority is not a fallacy; appeal to inexpert authority is. Appeal to authority is entirely proper if (1) the authority is actually an authority, (2) the authority is an authority on the topic in question, and (3) there is general agreement amongst relevant authorities. Alternatively to (3) the appeal is cogent if the topic is a new area of expertise and the particular authority under discussion has a record of correct predictions.
In spite of all this what Mr. gorillasoft has done is not an appeal to authority or inexpert authority, but rather a counterexample. He offered as resolution, "one should follow one's antecedants without question," and showed how such a premise would lead to an undesirable conclusion, "quantum mechanics would have never been developed." An appeal to inexpert authority would be something like, "Albert Einstein says always use Alan Cox kernels," which didn't occur in this discussion.
-Loyal
-Loyal
Unfortunately, I could not find all five studies. I was able to find this one.
--Loyal
They can't be. If they were, then there exist integers p and q such that pi = p/q, and pi is rational. However, pi has been proven not to be rational, so not all the rest of the numbers are 0.
355/113
Not quite. Patents grant the right to exclude others. Suppose I have a patent on fuzzies, and you have a patent on green fuzzies. You can exclude me from making green fuzzies, but I can exclude you from making green fuzzies and all other fuzzies. You have no right granted to make green fuzzies arising out of your patent.
What has happened is that government regulates stuff, and that breaks things. Then the broken stuff provides an excuse for more government regulations. Or, more specifically... The government provides copyright protection to the record companies, or the artists, ostensibly to foster greater innovation and artistry. Copyright simply means that anyone else making a copy for sell is smacked with fines and possibly jail terms. It's this protection (read: government regulation) that allows the companies to fix prices. Otherwise, people would just buy from someone else who made a copy. Finally (I wish) the government steps in to stop them from taking "unfair" advantage of the monopoly position that the government granted.
Loyal
So, knowing there are a lot more involved libertarians out there, what is the answer in cases like these - where the government stands between us and toysmart
Adam Smith gives three legitimate purposes of government. I'm paraphrasing here, so please forgive me any lapses.
1. To protect the people from invasion by foreign armies.
2. To protect the people from each other, or, failing that, to administer a system of justice.
3. To undertake those projects which benefit the whole people, but which will not profit any lesser group to undertake.
Milton Friedman adds a fourth, and a precautionary warning.
4. To care for those who are unable to care for themselves.
The caution is: all of these should be interpreted narrowly.
L. Opposition
That's strange...I look at Microsoft's tactics and see a staunch argument against socialism. Now, admittedly the United States is the fourth- or fifth-freest country in the world according to the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, but that's not to say that the US is completely capitalist.
Perhaps now is a good time for me to define my terms. By "capitalism" I mean a method of organising an economy in which individuals control the means of production, and by "socialism" I mean a method of organising an economy in which the government controls the means of production. Now, considering these definitions, what are we to make of the United States where forty-three percent of the annual income goes to local, state, and federal government in the form of taxes? It's not entirely capitalist, nor yet is it entirely socialist. It's a sort of mixture of the two.
In the case at hand, Microsoft controls their means to make Windows 98(TM), among other things. Shouldn't we consider this to be a capitalist activity?
Almost all monopolies are government-enforced monopolies. At least that's what Milton Friedman says, and he ought to know. He won a Nobel Prise in Economics for his work in price theory. So, does Microsoft's production of Windows 98(TM) represent capitalist activity, since the government doesn't tell Microsoft how many to produce? This misses the point. The control of the means of production means both that someone can control how many of something is produced as well as how few. At the same time that the government leaves to Microsoft free to decide how many copies of Windows 98(TM) to produce, they are enjoining some two-hundred sixty million of you against producing any copies whatsoever. We cannot know that Microsoft is a monopoly from its being on some ninety percent of desktops. We know that Microsoft is a monopoly because I cannot produce a copy of Windows 98(TM) and sell it for any price down to and including zero dollars.
"But that's insane, Loyal," you may be tempted to say to me. "They invented it. Wouldn't it be stealing if you were to make a copy of it? Isn't it a 'natural law' that whoever makes something owns it?"
I note that this question only makes sense because this is so-called "intellectual property." If it were a chair, or a hat, or some other physical property, it would be obvious were I stealing it or not. So-called look-and-feel is also an intellectual property, so that the question of whether I am stealing the look-and-feel of your chair reverts to the same question.
Section I Article 8 of the Constitution of the United States says, in relevant part, "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;" If intellectual property were a natural law, there would be no need to grant the congress power to secure to authors the exclusive right to their respective writings. It's only because every person owns all intellectual property that the people, together, can grant congress this power. Otherwise it wouldn't be yours to grant. A semblance of this can be seen in the inability of discoverers to patent equations and similar discoveries.
One way to break up the Microsoft monopoly is to deny them their present legally-created right to exclude others from copying Windows 98(TM), among others. This may be the best way to break up almost all monopolies...at least all those that should be broken up. The trouble with the Justice Department's solution is power. The monopoly grants power both to the federal government and to Microsoft. Splitting Microsoft up into non-competing companies removes power from Microsoft and gives it to the federal government.
The federal government does not operate patent, copyright, and trade secret law primarily to promote science and useful art. If it did the terms would be much shorter than fourteen years, fifty years, and unlimited years. In the case of Windows 98(TM) I would suggest two years.
*Windows 98 is a trade mark of Microsoft.