That's just common problem with humans as we are. No matter how would you name political or economical system, someone somewhere would always find some ways to game it. It's the problem with all utopias, from Plato's "State" to Ayn Rand's "Atlas" - they all require different species to work, not humans. In real world stupidity, negligence, corruption and outright malice will always find its way. That's why every successful system had some sort of checks and balances from the start... and that's why all of them failed eventually. We just have to understand that this cycle is natural, and do what we can to help these systems evolve and not come down crashing, as long as we can.
Ah, but it's so delightful to warm your hands over the cozy fires of a good old flamewar. Pity no one mentioned that "Linux stole most of its working technologies from Microsoft", and that "BSD is superior to them both" yet. Plus there's always some room for a good FS discussion (ntfs/btrfs/ext4 anyone?).
Ahem, they already did. The question is "what could be possibly done about it", and "done" not meaning "we said to them that they can't do it and they promised us that they won't, so there".
There will be more people suffering if you'll ban the abortion. First - she may always opt for the illegal abortion, which is dangerous to health and, God forbid, may deprive the State of its taxes. Oh, wait, taxes are evil, my bad. Anyway it is a path to greater suffering, for sure.
Even if she keeps her baby, there are several options - she loses her chance to get better education and better job - suffering. Plus she will always project her frustration on the baby itself, and the child would likely to be raised with the great sense of guilt, which will only create problems for him/her later in life - suffering. Young mother brings great drama and pain to the lives of her parents, her partner and his parents (of course, if he ever admits that responsibility, but rumors would float nonetheless) - suffering. Imagine he would like to, say, nominate in Congress or even run for the President later in his life - opposing party would gladly sniff out this fact about him - normal political process.
But no, of course, let's help several people destroy their lives, while we all happily sing "Every sperm is sacred" by Monty Python. Jolly good.
At least Assad likely had no intentions of going at war with USA and Western World in general. Support anti-Israel groups - maybe, but AQ are no fans of Israel either. So in terms of stability and security it would only be logical to concentrate fire on said "rebels" - they are clearly more dangerous.
Indeed. Couple of years ago any news about Microsoft, Linux, Apple, Gnome, KDE, or even GPL/BSD would start a truly epic flamewar in the comments. Nowadays it's all "Insightful" and "Informative" with the rare cases of "Funny". Even religions and politics are not as... enkindling as they were. Looks like soon I'll need to by a house with a big nice lawn, dammit.
Please, chill - experiencing rage and frustration over a long period of time raises your blood pressure and may lead to stroke. My point merely was that from the Wright brothers, to Howard Hughes to Elon Musk there were always entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, experimentators and so on, who contributed to aviation and space industry enough to change it completely. Yes, there were great risks, there were spectacular failures, but without private capital and personal initiative aviation and space industry (or any other industry, all of IT for example) wouldn't achieve so much today. Trying to reduce their value and to simplify everything down to "profit" and "riches" is drinking kool-aid to, just flavor is different.
Oh, it must be really hard living in a state of permanent frustration. BTW, your example is incorrect. If you'd say that there was a nuclear explosion in LA, I just have to find any mention of LA in today's news, even weather forecast, to acquire "proof of absence" of said explosion. It's pretty logical to assume that, say, traffic report from LA would be replaced by the news of "Terrorists attacked USA again!!!". If, on the other hand, I'd notice that there were absolutely no news from LA for some time (minutes to half-an-hour), then that would be "absence of proof" and I'd give your version some credit until I'd find some real proof of said explosion or (hopefully) of absence of any catastrophic events. So...
That's not even mentioning that you haven't got my crude and untasteful joke in the upper comment correctly. Better luck next time!
Ahem... weighing the argument and still not agreeing with it for your own reasons is what's called smug these days? Being called a politician (that's low, BTW) just for taking the other side in the discussion? Well, that's strange, unless... are you a government contractor yourself, by any chance?
Theoretical scientist telling his own point of view on business and engineering problems to successful businessman and engineer? Surely Musk must repent and change his wrongful ways this instant.
I'm not saying he is wrong, or that his words mean nothing. I'm just saying that in this dialogue I'd listen to Musk and his arguments with much greater interest.
Oh yes, the famous Smithsonian Institute spent hundreds of thousand of taxpayers dollars over the several years to create the marvel of heavier-than-air unmanned flying machine. It's not that some small bicycle company then took that ideas and made a first controllable manned airplane. Ridiculous notion, truly.
"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all along."
"The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible."
And my personal favorite:
"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
With all the respect to Neil, my bets are on Musk and his likes in this one.
Hmm, with all that symbols (red stars and everything like that), rituals (Ever seen initiation to the Pioneers? Which, BTW, was mandatory for every schoolchild) and classical church hierarchy (Party and Komsomol), with scriptures (whole set of works of Lenin), that had to be heavily cited even it technical doctorate works (I kid you not), with portraits of Marx, Engels and of course Lenin (and maybe Stalin somewhere) in every home and on every workplace, even with the friggin Mausoleum of the dead Great Prophet Lenin on the Red Square - it surely had much more traits of the religion than even some religions do. And yes, blind faith in the Marksism-Leninism always trumped real facts, just look at the Soviet economy.
I do not consider atheism being a religion, of course, but considering Soviet communism it was as close as it could have been.
Well, there is a tiny hope for the next generation (or even one after that) - I think that people will somehow adapt and eventually will find a way to bring major changes into society again. We, humans, are pretty resourceful creatures. Plus broken systems can't run too long - someday it's going to stop or even crash spectacularly.
But for me and my friends (30+ y.o.) it's now just a game of finding a "zone of least discomfort". BTW, your sig sounds really great with your post.
It's all just an attempt from NSA and CIA to create more news, driving attention from Snowden's leaks, plus to show the whole world that USA is still more free and open country than Russia and China.
It's like being shocked after learning that a hit man that killed dozens of Russians for the Italians had killed a police office for the Italian. Suddenly its an outrage and something has to be done.
He killed them for Matilda, not for the Italian, but yes, it caused quite a reaction from the police force. And first strong imprint of Natalie Portman in all geeks' brains, although it was just a collateral damage.
Slashdot Mirror
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". Maybe Google just sucks at being evil?
Obligatory SMBC.
That's just common problem with humans as we are. No matter how would you name political or economical system, someone somewhere would always find some ways to game it. It's the problem with all utopias, from Plato's "State" to Ayn Rand's "Atlas" - they all require different species to work, not humans. In real world stupidity, negligence, corruption and outright malice will always find its way. That's why every successful system had some sort of checks and balances from the start... and that's why all of them failed eventually. We just have to understand that this cycle is natural, and do what we can to help these systems evolve and not come down crashing, as long as we can.
Hmm, that reminds me of something... can't quite put my finger on it though. Something with the names of the companies starting with "R" and "D".
Ah, but it's so delightful to warm your hands over the cozy fires of a good old flamewar. Pity no one mentioned that "Linux stole most of its working technologies from Microsoft", and that "BSD is superior to them both" yet. Plus there's always some room for a good FS discussion (ntfs/btrfs/ext4 anyone?).
Ahem... Only in theory for now.
Ahem, they already did. The question is "what could be possibly done about it", and "done" not meaning "we said to them that they can't do it and they promised us that they won't, so there".
There will be more people suffering if you'll ban the abortion. First - she may always opt for the illegal abortion, which is dangerous to health and, God forbid, may deprive the State of its taxes. Oh, wait, taxes are evil, my bad. Anyway it is a path to greater suffering, for sure.
Even if she keeps her baby, there are several options - she loses her chance to get better education and better job - suffering. Plus she will always project her frustration on the baby itself, and the child would likely to be raised with the great sense of guilt, which will only create problems for him/her later in life - suffering. Young mother brings great drama and pain to the lives of her parents, her partner and his parents (of course, if he ever admits that responsibility, but rumors would float nonetheless) - suffering. Imagine he would like to, say, nominate in Congress or even run for the President later in his life - opposing party would gladly sniff out this fact about him - normal political process.
But no, of course, let's help several people destroy their lives, while we all happily sing "Every sperm is sacred" by Monty Python. Jolly good.
At least Assad likely had no intentions of going at war with USA and Western World in general. Support anti-Israel groups - maybe, but AQ are no fans of Israel either. So in terms of stability and security it would only be logical to concentrate fire on said "rebels" - they are clearly more dangerous.
Indeed. Couple of years ago any news about Microsoft, Linux, Apple, Gnome, KDE, or even GPL/BSD would start a truly epic flamewar in the comments. Nowadays it's all "Insightful" and "Informative" with the rare cases of "Funny". Even religions and politics are not as... enkindling as they were. Looks like soon I'll need to by a house with a big nice lawn, dammit.
You, sir, just made my day!
For eight years (1953-1961) Stalin was too.
Just don't forget to use lubricant and apply anesthetic in case of severe discomfort.
Please, chill - experiencing rage and frustration over a long period of time raises your blood pressure and may lead to stroke. My point merely was that from the Wright brothers, to Howard Hughes to Elon Musk there were always entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, experimentators and so on, who contributed to aviation and space industry enough to change it completely. Yes, there were great risks, there were spectacular failures, but without private capital and personal initiative aviation and space industry (or any other industry, all of IT for example) wouldn't achieve so much today. Trying to reduce their value and to simplify everything down to "profit" and "riches" is drinking kool-aid to, just flavor is different.
Oh, it must be really hard living in a state of permanent frustration. BTW, your example is incorrect. If you'd say that there was a nuclear explosion in LA, I just have to find any mention of LA in today's news, even weather forecast, to acquire "proof of absence" of said explosion. It's pretty logical to assume that, say, traffic report from LA would be replaced by the news of "Terrorists attacked USA again!!!". If, on the other hand, I'd notice that there were absolutely no news from LA for some time (minutes to half-an-hour), then that would be "absence of proof" and I'd give your version some credit until I'd find some real proof of said explosion or (hopefully) of absence of any catastrophic events. So...
That's not even mentioning that you haven't got my crude and untasteful joke in the upper comment correctly. Better luck next time!
Ahem... weighing the argument and still not agreeing with it for your own reasons is what's called smug these days? Being called a politician (that's low, BTW) just for taking the other side in the discussion? Well, that's strange, unless... are you a government contractor yourself, by any chance?
Doubtful, and I'm not an astrophysicist, but interesting point of view anyway, thanks.
Theoretical scientist telling his own point of view on business and engineering problems to successful businessman and engineer? Surely Musk must repent and change his wrongful ways this instant.
I'm not saying he is wrong, or that his words mean nothing. I'm just saying that in this dialogue I'd listen to Musk and his arguments with much greater interest.
The same goes for heaver-than-air flight.
Oh yes, the famous Smithsonian Institute spent hundreds of thousand of taxpayers dollars over the several years to create the marvel of heavier-than-air unmanned flying machine. It's not that some small bicycle company then took that ideas and made a first controllable manned airplane. Ridiculous notion, truly.
"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all along."
"The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible."
And my personal favorite:
"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
With all the respect to Neil, my bets are on Musk and his likes in this one.
Thank you, that was really insightful. That's something really close to my own position, although I don't think I've could put it in words so clear.
Hmm, with all that symbols (red stars and everything like that), rituals (Ever seen initiation to the Pioneers? Which, BTW, was mandatory for every schoolchild) and classical church hierarchy (Party and Komsomol), with scriptures (whole set of works of Lenin), that had to be heavily cited even it technical doctorate works (I kid you not), with portraits of Marx, Engels and of course Lenin (and maybe Stalin somewhere) in every home and on every workplace, even with the friggin Mausoleum of the dead Great Prophet Lenin on the Red Square - it surely had much more traits of the religion than even some religions do. And yes, blind faith in the Marksism-Leninism always trumped real facts, just look at the Soviet economy.
I do not consider atheism being a religion, of course, but considering Soviet communism it was as close as it could have been.
Well, there is a tiny hope for the next generation (or even one after that) - I think that people will somehow adapt and eventually will find a way to bring major changes into society again. We, humans, are pretty resourceful creatures. Plus broken systems can't run too long - someday it's going to stop or even crash spectacularly.
But for me and my friends (30+ y.o.) it's now just a game of finding a "zone of least discomfort". BTW, your sig sounds really great with your post.
It's all just an attempt from NSA and CIA to create more news, driving attention from Snowden's leaks, plus to show the whole world that USA is still more free and open country than Russia and China.
What would you say on that, cold fjord, eh?
It's like being shocked after learning that a hit man that killed dozens of Russians for the Italians had killed a police office for the Italian. Suddenly its an outrage and something has to be done.
He killed them for Matilda, not for the Italian, but yes, it caused quite a reaction from the police force. And first strong imprint of Natalie Portman in all geeks' brains, although it was just a collateral damage.