Most people provide a large amount of information about themselves by the way that they write - word choice, grammar usage, etc. that goes well beyond what your online handle indicates. If anyone, this gentleman you are hosting included, spent enough time online with you they would begin to notice aspects of your personality coming through in the discourse. As social beings, we are attuned to ferreting out information about a person we are talking with. It is more difficult online, to be sure, but many people online can tell sex of a person, their age and much of their likes and dislikes after chatting with them for an extended period.
Rest assured, then, that anyone who was willing to spend the time found out a lot about who you really are; a handle really isn't all that much in terms of protection.
I have installed Windows 95, 98, and 2000 straight to a formatted HD several times in my position at work. I have also installed different Linux distributions four or five times. In every case, the Linux install went better than Windows. It took less time, had less headaches with drivers, and had some assurances that the software included in the distribution worked behaved well with each other.
With Windows, I had several cases where one program fscked up the whole OS and the install had to be redone. Unheard of with Linux.
In the beginning, it was because Macs were too expensive and because more hardware worked with Windows. (Early 80's)
Later, it was because there was nothing else competing - and it still worked with almost all hardware. (Late 80's to early 90's)
Even later, it was because Microsoft had locked up most of the vendors, actively collaborated with industry leaders to tie their software together, and moved proactively to keep anything innovative from coming down the pipe to challenge Windows. It still worked with most hardware, but now almost all the software was written for Windows, too. (mid 90's to, say, 2000).
Now, it is because Windows is easier than its competitors (mostly because it is familiar), comes in their computer, works with most software and hardware, is the most functional (find a contact manager on Linux, let alone one that links with fax software, word processing and e-mail programs) for business, is what they use in the office, and is the brand name they hear the most.
Note, none of this implies Windows is better. Nevertheless, I partially agree with you. From a perspective of the least headaches, it is leap years better than Linux - no installation, works with everything, everyone else is using it, tons of software to choose from, simple to operate and easy to upgrade. For the average user, the game is probably over unless Linux gets user friendly.
From a personal perspective, I am waiting for Macintosh's new OS for my leap into the *nix world. If anyone can make *nix simple to use, it would be Apple. To top it off, I get to use way cool computers.
I have a question for you: does evolution always end up with something "better"? Does it move "forward"?
You imply in your post that evolution must exist for something (Unix in this case) to "improve". Improve relative to what? If what someone needs for survival is a better roof and you give them the best possible riding lawnmower, then evolution may have indeed worked to improve the lawnmower - as a lawnmower, but it did nothing for its abilities as a roof.
I hope you get my drift. The point is that there is no such thing as "better", "improve" or "worse" without the context surrounding it. Evolution changes things around, some of them are a better fit for their surroundings and those organisms survive. Nevertheless, the previous mutation that brought success might be the very mutation that causes failure in an unforseeable future context.
This is why I am not so gung-ho as some others I know concerning cybernetics, imbedded computers, etc.. Sure, they would give those with the additions great advantages in our present context, but if our context changed, they could be the first to die off.
Basing something on a book is technically copyright violation. You did ask for permission, didn't you?
Not copywrite violation, I'm afraid. Copywrite protects the actual text, not the idea, processes, and concepts contained within. If the law were otherwise, public discussion of a book would be verboten.
Read your copywrite law more carefully.
Nevertheless, there is some danger with processes, however simple and commonsensical in that they are currently patentable. I could discuss them to my heart's content, but if they were patented and I used them to earn money, I would be in big shit.
In North America, the minute you put pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboard, you own the copywrite on the material you create. There are cases where you can sell or sign away your copywrite (to a publisher or to an employer for a fixed term) but Usenet certainly does not qualify under either of these situations. The postings were not sold to Deja, are not owned by Deja merely by virtue of their owning the discussion forum on which they appear, and were not signed away at the start of the discussion forum by a carte blanche legal agreement.
Therefore, none of the people who participate in these discussions signed away or sold their copywrite. With this established, it appears Deja is manipulating copywrited material for their own benefit and for the questionable benefit of the readers, without permission or possibly the knowledge of the author. That they allow postings with the tags to be removed after their appearance is moot (once the work appears the "first appearance" rights are lost forever) and is also illegal in most States as "negative billing", i.e. adding a service and requiring someone who does not desire the service to sign off after the fact.
I understand your argument: who cares? Well, I do, for one. I am an author and my work is mine to alter - no one else's. You justify Deja's actions by saying: there could even be people who find this feature useful, and I really don't see how you can justify taking this away from them. True, some people may find this feature useful, but your logical defense applies to the author of the work too; there could even be people who find this feature [an infringement on their copywrite], and I really don't see how you can justify [forcing them to include the links against their will.]
In the end, your right to have these "useful" links included against the author's will cannot possibly supersede the right of the author to have them removed if he or she finds them offensive. Legal statutes in this case are firmly on the side of the author, I am afraid.
As to the question in your header: "Once again, why so worked up?", the answer is simple. It is a small matter, to be sure, but it is also a matter of principle. If Deja wants to sell products or services using their own texts, no one will ever stop them. When they start using my words to sell their products against my will, I will fight to the death to defend the principle involved. You obviously don't care, so go ahead and sell you and your words on the cheap with these little invasions. You won't be alone in this culture where everyone has his or her price.
I am reminded of an anecdote I once heard: W.C. Fields is discussing ethics with a Hollywood starlet and asks what her response would be if he asked her to sleep with him for $20. Well, she would slap his face. For $1000? She would decline. For $10 000. She would consider. Then, Mr. Fields says, you don't object to the act of making love for money in principle, you only disagree on the price.
Stress has little to do with the number of hours you work, but is much more dependent upon the type of work one does. Psychologists have found that the events most of us consider highly stressful are either:
massive changes to our life (marriage, moving, new job)
unpredictable events (lay off, firing)
Both (death of a spouse or parent)
Many latter day studies are showing that the largest predictor of stress is how much control one feels and how constantly one is stimulated. Our most stressful jobs (air traffic controllers, retail salesperson) show the two sides. An air traffic controller is bombarded with only slightly predictable stimuli that never end. Retail Salespeople have no control: they beg all day long to customers for sales and then to their bosses for pay; they have zero job security, low pay, part-time and flexible shifts, and sell products that no one needs. Their financial existence is determined by a long chain of tenuous strength.
Most modern citizens have little or no control over their future, and they know it. Their boss controls their job and their income, they rely on someone else to produce the necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter), they are inundated on all sides by unpredictable events (instant deadlines, constant change, constant communication), and their daily visual field is cluttered with things designed from the bottom up to capture attention. Even our mindless entertainment (TV) comes with hooks every 8 minutes or so to ensure that we don't lapse into the coma we almost need to get away from the millions of stressors that make up our lives.
We could escape much of this stress if we had a greater tie to tradition. Then, change would come at a manageable pace for most people and our society would evolve slowly rather than the massive rush we have seen from 1950 on.
So, exalt our lifestyle over that of your great-grandparents, but farming offers a lifestyle that is very predictable (cyclical seasons, never-changing work), bound to tradition, and which offers farmers much control over their destiny. At the very least, the necessities are covered with the labour of their own hands, or at least it was back then when mothers sewed all the clothes, fathers built the houses, and both grew the food. Besides, they had all winter to contemplate existence, to debate politics, to discuss current issues. I assure you that they were better citizens as a result.
In short, we work shorter hours in very stressful work, mostly out of our control, in order to earn money to live, while they worked long hours with little or no stress in order to provide a living directly.
Having been both an air traffic controller and a retail salesperson, I assure you that farming sounds terrific. A recent magazine article I read illustrated how only five acres can feed a family of four, in perpetuity, using the space available for greenhouses, poultry sheds, a cow, etc. Being vegetarian, my wife and I would have extra space. It sounded so good we are looking to buy a plot, build a solar powered house, and farm our lives away feeding our family. I could even run a little dotcom if I wanted, right from my house.
Have you ever heard of the School of the Americas? It is a school for South American governments run by the US government. It teaches courses in how to keep unions from forming, anti-rebel techniques, torture techniques, etc. It is probably the darkest side of American politics and activists have been working for ten years to get this school shut down.
You say that a small elite in Third World countries will end up in power because they have access to technology, and that this is the reason petty dictatorships control the country, but it is schools like this, run by good 'ole Americans, that put them in power and give them the skills and military supplies to keep it. Suharto was trained there, as were most current leaders in Central and South America. Most are rather proud of passing the courses - as if it taught them real leadership.
Technology just gives existing leaders another tool to use in keeping the populace down - it certainly doesn't put them in power in the first place.
Computers and technology have reduced our overall workload, enough so that the technically adept have been given all the work while the expendable remainder were laid off and consigned to low-wage, part-time, contract, temp positions making and selling products that really don't matter. Our knowledge purchased high pay, job security and esteem; we were temporary winners in the capitalism survival of the fittest.
So, the blame rests not on technology, which is neutral at any rate, but in the decisions of business owners to use this benefit to shift work from one group to another rather than to reduce the workload for everyone equally.
That the insecure low-wage jobs bring with them stresses of a different sort is just icing on the cake for employers. Not only do they ladle the skilled work onto an overworked minority, but the unskilled work is done by workers so hungry for a decent living that they are willing to work a zillion hours a week in order to compete better with the thousands of other unskilled labourers in the job market.
Obviously, this stress measure ran on a scale: highly stressed, moderately stressed, slightly stressed or no stress. That 30% of younger people are not in the highest stress group does not automatically put them in the no stress group, but more likely in the intermediate groupings.
Your questions are salient and need investigating further, but I think that there is a point to be made in opposition:
What is worse, a patient initiating a relationship with his or her psychologist, or the psychologist initiating a relationship with his or her patient? Most of us would agree that the latter is reprehensible and, in most jurisdictions, this type of action would cost a psychologist his or her accreditation. The sole difference in this case is the differential in power. The psychologist has the power, the patient does not, or at very least the patient has less.
This same situation arises in modern business. Large corporations have money, access to media, massive human resources and connections. Individuals have, likely, none of those advantages, putting corporate entities firmly in the position of greater power.
With equal resources, this company's service would be a godsend to all involved. Corporations or individuals could investigate critics with an eye on preventing libel. Unwarranted criticism would likely be stopped dead after a few years of expensive lawsuits and critics would be far more sure of their facts before opening their mouths. Nonetheless, there is in no way equal access to resources.
Corporate entities have already used their power advantage to sway the court process in favour of their deep pockets, thus creating a situation where individuals have a much greater time criticizing corporate actions than the reverse. Only those critics with time and money to spare, or with generous and idealistic friends willing to help out, can effectively counter the corporate legal machine. Is it a stretch for the readers of/., with a jaundiced eye on corporate abuse of power in the past, to see this service being potentially abused? I don't think so; historically, corporate abuse of power is almost a given.
The company evidently considers corporations its prime customers, and the price alone would put most individuals out of the running for this service. That alone means that a probably worthy service will become the tool of those who can afford it. A tool unequally applied to the populace and yet another power discrepancy between those with capital and those without.
Yep, I noticed that too. All media have strengths and weaknesses, paper and pen or computers. He makes the logical flaw in his last sentence that you do in your post - that any one media is "better" than another fundamentally for learning.
Still, he didn't call you a Luddite or mock your tiny little life surrounded by your technology drug...;-)
Rates of growth, once stated, will continue in a direct positive relationship from the point of measurement. Growth rates of the Internet in the US and Canada have already slowed some and look to be slowing even more all the time as the "product" reaches maturity. This trend has already debunked many of the wild predictions of Internet growth made based on the numbers of the wild first few years.
That infrastructure is the only barrier to access. I can personally think of a dozen more off the top of my head: non-benevolent dictatorships in most countries that don't want an educated populace, tradition, lack of English, lack of literacy, lack of capital, lack of electricity, general antipathy vs. the USA, lack of teachers, unavailability of cutting edge equipment, increasing competition as everyone starts programming as a matter of course, etc.
Still, its nice to see that worldwide communication that cannot be controlled is making its way around the globe, even if only a small portion of the world will ever be in a position to use it.
Does someone dare to criticize the Holy Grail of silicon? He's a Luddite. Does he intelligently assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Internet? He's a Luddite. Does he write an article about how not everyone is one of the converted? He's a Luddite.
Science has dismissed its critics as Luddites with a lazy wave of the hand for years, completely ignoring the fact that new technologies have always brought negatives with their positives. Antibiotics bred superbugs. Radio enabled facism. TV enabled consumerism. The Internet is firmly dividing the world along a technological fault line - technologically savvy and comfortable West on one hand and utterly impoverished and technologically inept Third World on the other.
Holy cow, so computers and the Internet aren't the be all and end all for education. They can do almost everything better than traditional media, but some researchers dared to point out where there is still room for improvement in the media, or where computers will never be able to help. So what? No media is perfect. To the knee-jerk reactionaries, though, detractors are not concerned parents and impartial researchers out for the best bang for their educational dollar, they are damned Luddites out to tear the whole thing down. How dare they point out weakness. We only accept blind faith in this technocracy.
Down with healthy skepticism! Down with pragmatism! Out with logic and rationality! Newer is better. Faster is better. More is better.
Don't ever doubt it, sonny. You might see the Emperor has no clothes.
After reading most of the discussion, I can see why there is so much antipathy towards Jon's article.
In the first case, he is lambasting the ability of the US to properly make use of this new genetic potential - a bad thing to do when most of his readers are card-carryin' US citizens with the prerequisite dose of American arrogance/pride. Jon's point, if I may be so bold, was to point out that no current country has the wisdom to use this to its greatest benefit. None. Nada. We are like babies with a gun - none of us can be trusted with it.
Secondly, I think Jon may be preaching in the enemy's camp, so to speak. The main message of his article is that we should adopt a healthy skepticism concerning technology because the changes it brings are sometimes horrible and irreversible. That this message is being broadcast to the most technologically adept of a highly technological society means that his cautionary tale will fall on deaf ears, mostly. Most/. readers have too much invested in technology to even consider rethinking its place in their life.
Thirdly, I think we have to make a large distinction between knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Most of you learned how to use a computer at a young age. In other words, you have knowledge concerning computers. Many of you put this knowledge to work and are currently earning your living in computing, demonstrating intelligence, or the ability to manipulate knowledge effectively. How many of you, though, asked yourselves at the outset of your computing lives whether you should be using computers at all? Whether computers were good for our society as a whole? What could potentially go wrong with a computer-based society? How they could be misused?
This would demonstrate wisdom, and I am willing to bet that hardly anyone out in/. land exercised any, at least concerning computers. Computers were so cool at the time that we didn't even think about the greater repercussions of their use. Forty years later, we couldn't go back even if we wanted to.
Considering the possible scope of effect with the HGP, shouldn't we all be using a little wisdom when we decide how it shall be used, or whether it should even be used at all?
Who gave you the right...
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Napster Wars
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Products are not ideas, information or concepts; they are applications of ideas, services applied to information and creations based on concepts. Where opponents of copywrite go way too far is when they fail to differentiate between the insubstantial, un-owneable basis for a product and the product itself.
Examples include "universal protocol for computer networks" vs. IP, "the novel" vs. The Pelican Brief, "software for the creation and manipulation of business data" vs. Microsoft Office, "music" vs. Metallica's ouvre, "statistics on government spending" vs. a non-fiction book organizing the data into a cohesive argument, "encryption" vs. PGP.
For our society and our citizens to be truly free, each of us must be open to to make use of the former in each pair: to create based on concepts; to conceive of, use and spread ideas; to analyze and share information with no interference from the powers that be - business, governement or the consumer mob.
For our society to be fair and just, however, the people whose efforts brings into existence the latter half of each pair must be allowed to charge for their services rendered or for the products created. On the flip side of this argument, those who wish to create these products or render these services for free must also be allowed to do so. The rights of any one group of citizens must not override those of another; consumers must be free to choose what products to use - free or otherwise - and producers must be free to choose whether to charge (and what to charge) for their products and services.
I understand the anger, the frustration and the poverty driving this movement. I can't afford to buy CD's at $12 CAD a pop, nor can I afford $850 CAD for Adobe Photoshop. Similarly, monopolies piss me off and companies patenting or copywriting ideas, concepts and information gall me. Is using a logical and warranted fight against the latter issues as justification for stealing the former the right answer? No. There are other legal options, including living without. No amount of desire for a product or anger against market forces can justify taking something against someone's will - especially when none of the products are necessities.
Perhaps we should examine what needs to be fixed before we start swinging the hammer. Companies should necessarily be restricted from "owning" ideas, concepts and information - all of which should rightly be free. Amend copywrite and patent law to reflect this.
Otherwise, stop tearing someone else down and start building yourself up! Believe art should be free? Make it and give it away. Believe in free software? Write it and put it on the Web. You have the legally defensible right to do either.
You do not, however, have the right to force others to live by your philosophy, whether the Internet makes it easy to do so or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people provide a large amount of information about themselves by the way that they write - word choice, grammar usage, etc. that goes well beyond what your online handle indicates. If anyone, this gentleman you are hosting included, spent enough time online with you they would begin to notice aspects of your personality coming through in the discourse. As social beings, we are attuned to ferreting out information about a person we are talking with. It is more difficult online, to be sure, but many people online can tell sex of a person, their age and much of their likes and dislikes after chatting with them for an extended period.
Rest assured, then, that anyone who was willing to spend the time found out a lot about who you really are; a handle really isn't all that much in terms of protection.
NT isn't *nix. NT is secure (!?) Windows. NT may models itself on *nix but it doesn't quite get there, does it?
Amen to this.
I have installed Windows 95, 98, and 2000 straight to a formatted HD several times in my position at work. I have also installed different Linux distributions four or five times. In every case, the Linux install went better than Windows. It took less time, had less headaches with drivers, and had some assurances that the software included in the distribution worked behaved well with each other.
With Windows, I had several cases where one program fscked up the whole OS and the install had to be redone. Unheard of with Linux.
Well...
In the beginning, it was because Macs were too expensive and because more hardware worked with Windows. (Early 80's)
Later, it was because there was nothing else competing - and it still worked with almost all hardware. (Late 80's to early 90's)
Even later, it was because Microsoft had locked up most of the vendors, actively collaborated with industry leaders to tie their software together, and moved proactively to keep anything innovative from coming down the pipe to challenge Windows. It still worked with most hardware, but now almost all the software was written for Windows, too. (mid 90's to, say, 2000).
Now, it is because Windows is easier than its competitors (mostly because it is familiar), comes in their computer, works with most software and hardware, is the most functional (find a contact manager on Linux, let alone one that links with fax software, word processing and e-mail programs) for business, is what they use in the office, and is the brand name they hear the most.
Note, none of this implies Windows is better. Nevertheless, I partially agree with you. From a perspective of the least headaches, it is leap years better than Linux - no installation, works with everything, everyone else is using it, tons of software to choose from, simple to operate and easy to upgrade. For the average user, the game is probably over unless Linux gets user friendly.
From a personal perspective, I am waiting for Macintosh's new OS for my leap into the *nix world. If anyone can make *nix simple to use, it would be Apple. To top it off, I get to use way cool computers.
I have a question for you: does evolution always end up with something "better"? Does it move "forward"?
You imply in your post that evolution must exist for something (Unix in this case) to "improve". Improve relative to what? If what someone needs for survival is a better roof and you give them the best possible riding lawnmower, then evolution may have indeed worked to improve the lawnmower - as a lawnmower, but it did nothing for its abilities as a roof.
I hope you get my drift. The point is that there is no such thing as "better", "improve" or "worse" without the context surrounding it. Evolution changes things around, some of them are a better fit for their surroundings and those organisms survive. Nevertheless, the previous mutation that brought success might be the very mutation that causes failure in an unforseeable future context.
This is why I am not so gung-ho as some others I know concerning cybernetics, imbedded computers, etc.. Sure, they would give those with the additions great advantages in our present context, but if our context changed, they could be the first to die off.
Basing something on a book is technically copyright violation. You did ask for permission, didn't you?
Not copywrite violation, I'm afraid. Copywrite protects the actual text, not the idea, processes, and concepts contained within. If the law were otherwise, public discussion of a book would be verboten.
Read your copywrite law more carefully.
Nevertheless, there is some danger with processes, however simple and commonsensical in that they are currently patentable. I could discuss them to my heart's content, but if they were patented and I used them to earn money, I would be in big shit.
In North America, the minute you put pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboard, you own the copywrite on the material you create. There are cases where you can sell or sign away your copywrite (to a publisher or to an employer for a fixed term) but Usenet certainly does not qualify under either of these situations. The postings were not sold to Deja, are not owned by Deja merely by virtue of their owning the discussion forum on which they appear, and were not signed away at the start of the discussion forum by a carte blanche legal agreement.
Therefore, none of the people who participate in these discussions signed away or sold their copywrite. With this established, it appears Deja is manipulating copywrited material for their own benefit and for the questionable benefit of the readers, without permission or possibly the knowledge of the author. That they allow postings with the tags to be removed after their appearance is moot (once the work appears the "first appearance" rights are lost forever) and is also illegal in most States as "negative billing", i.e. adding a service and requiring someone who does not desire the service to sign off after the fact.
I understand your argument: who cares? Well, I do, for one. I am an author and my work is mine to alter - no one else's. You justify Deja's actions by saying: there could even be people who find this feature useful, and I really don't see how you can justify taking this away from them. True, some people may find this feature useful, but your logical defense applies to the author of the work too; there could even be people who find this feature [an infringement on their copywrite], and I really don't see how you can justify [forcing them to include the links against their will.]
In the end, your right to have these "useful" links included against the author's will cannot possibly supersede the right of the author to have them removed if he or she finds them offensive. Legal statutes in this case are firmly on the side of the author, I am afraid.
As to the question in your header: "Once again, why so worked up?", the answer is simple. It is a small matter, to be sure, but it is also a matter of principle. If Deja wants to sell products or services using their own texts, no one will ever stop them. When they start using my words to sell their products against my will, I will fight to the death to defend the principle involved. You obviously don't care, so go ahead and sell you and your words on the cheap with these little invasions. You won't be alone in this culture where everyone has his or her price.
I am reminded of an anecdote I once heard: W.C. Fields is discussing ethics with a Hollywood starlet and asks what her response would be if he asked her to sleep with him for $20. Well, she would slap his face. For $1000? She would decline. For $10 000. She would consider. Then, Mr. Fields says, you don't object to the act of making love for money in principle, you only disagree on the price.
Stress has little to do with the number of hours you work, but is much more dependent upon the type of work one does. Psychologists have found that the events most of us consider highly stressful are either:
Many latter day studies are showing that the largest predictor of stress is how much control one feels and how constantly one is stimulated. Our most stressful jobs (air traffic controllers, retail salesperson) show the two sides. An air traffic controller is bombarded with only slightly predictable stimuli that never end. Retail Salespeople have no control: they beg all day long to customers for sales and then to their bosses for pay; they have zero job security, low pay, part-time and flexible shifts, and sell products that no one needs. Their financial existence is determined by a long chain of tenuous strength.
Most modern citizens have little or no control over their future, and they know it. Their boss controls their job and their income, they rely on someone else to produce the necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter), they are inundated on all sides by unpredictable events (instant deadlines, constant change, constant communication), and their daily visual field is cluttered with things designed from the bottom up to capture attention. Even our mindless entertainment (TV) comes with hooks every 8 minutes or so to ensure that we don't lapse into the coma we almost need to get away from the millions of stressors that make up our lives.
We could escape much of this stress if we had a greater tie to tradition. Then, change would come at a manageable pace for most people and our society would evolve slowly rather than the massive rush we have seen from 1950 on.
So, exalt our lifestyle over that of your great-grandparents, but farming offers a lifestyle that is very predictable (cyclical seasons, never-changing work), bound to tradition, and which offers farmers much control over their destiny. At the very least, the necessities are covered with the labour of their own hands, or at least it was back then when mothers sewed all the clothes, fathers built the houses, and both grew the food. Besides, they had all winter to contemplate existence, to debate politics, to discuss current issues. I assure you that they were better citizens as a result.
In short, we work shorter hours in very stressful work, mostly out of our control, in order to earn money to live, while they worked long hours with little or no stress in order to provide a living directly.
Having been both an air traffic controller and a retail salesperson, I assure you that farming sounds terrific. A recent magazine article I read illustrated how only five acres can feed a family of four, in perpetuity, using the space available for greenhouses, poultry sheds, a cow, etc. Being vegetarian, my wife and I would have extra space. It sounded so good we are looking to buy a plot, build a solar powered house, and farm our lives away feeding our family. I could even run a little dotcom if I wanted, right from my house.
Have you ever heard of the School of the Americas? It is a school for South American governments run by the US government. It teaches courses in how to keep unions from forming, anti-rebel techniques, torture techniques, etc. It is probably the darkest side of American politics and activists have been working for ten years to get this school shut down.
You say that a small elite in Third World countries will end up in power because they have access to technology, and that this is the reason petty dictatorships control the country, but it is schools like this, run by good 'ole Americans, that put them in power and give them the skills and military supplies to keep it. Suharto was trained there, as were most current leaders in Central and South America. Most are rather proud of passing the courses - as if it taught them real leadership.
Technology just gives existing leaders another tool to use in keeping the populace down - it certainly doesn't put them in power in the first place.
Jon misses the point, I think.
Computers and technology have reduced our overall workload, enough so that the technically adept have been given all the work while the expendable remainder were laid off and consigned to low-wage, part-time, contract, temp positions making and selling products that really don't matter. Our knowledge purchased high pay, job security and esteem; we were temporary winners in the capitalism survival of the fittest.
So, the blame rests not on technology, which is neutral at any rate, but in the decisions of business owners to use this benefit to shift work from one group to another rather than to reduce the workload for everyone equally.
That the insecure low-wage jobs bring with them stresses of a different sort is just icing on the cake for employers. Not only do they ladle the skilled work onto an overworked minority, but the unskilled work is done by workers so hungry for a decent living that they are willing to work a zillion hours a week in order to compete better with the thousands of other unskilled labourers in the job market.
North America is an employers dream.
Huh?
Obviously, this stress measure ran on a scale: highly stressed, moderately stressed, slightly stressed or no stress. That 30% of younger people are not in the highest stress group does not automatically put them in the no stress group, but more likely in the intermediate groupings.
Your questions are salient and need investigating further, but I think that there is a point to be made in opposition:
What is worse, a patient initiating a relationship with his or her psychologist, or the psychologist initiating a relationship with his or her patient? Most of us would agree that the latter is reprehensible and, in most jurisdictions, this type of action would cost a psychologist his or her accreditation. The sole difference in this case is the differential in power. The psychologist has the power, the patient does not, or at very least the patient has less.
This same situation arises in modern business. Large corporations have money, access to media, massive human resources and connections. Individuals have, likely, none of those advantages, putting corporate entities firmly in the position of greater power.
With equal resources, this company's service would be a godsend to all involved. Corporations or individuals could investigate critics with an eye on preventing libel. Unwarranted criticism would likely be stopped dead after a few years of expensive lawsuits and critics would be far more sure of their facts before opening their mouths. Nonetheless, there is in no way equal access to resources.
Corporate entities have already used their power advantage to sway the court process in favour of their deep pockets, thus creating a situation where individuals have a much greater time criticizing corporate actions than the reverse. Only those critics with time and money to spare, or with generous and idealistic friends willing to help out, can effectively counter the corporate legal machine. Is it a stretch for the readers of /., with a jaundiced eye on corporate abuse of power in the past, to see this service being potentially abused? I don't think so; historically, corporate abuse of power is almost a given.
The company evidently considers corporations its prime customers, and the price alone would put most individuals out of the running for this service. That alone means that a probably worthy service will become the tool of those who can afford it. A tool unequally applied to the populace and yet another power discrepancy between those with capital and those without.
Yep, I noticed that too. All media have strengths and weaknesses, paper and pen or computers. He makes the logical flaw in his last sentence that you do in your post - that any one media is "better" than another fundamentally for learning.
Still, he didn't call you a Luddite or mock your tiny little life surrounded by your technology drug...;-)
Two logical flaws are in the original article:
Still, its nice to see that worldwide communication that cannot be controlled is making its way around the globe, even if only a small portion of the world will ever be in a position to use it.
God, I am so sick of the label "Luddite".
Does someone dare to criticize the Holy Grail of silicon? He's a Luddite. Does he intelligently assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Internet? He's a Luddite. Does he write an article about how not everyone is one of the converted? He's a Luddite.
Science has dismissed its critics as Luddites with a lazy wave of the hand for years, completely ignoring the fact that new technologies have always brought negatives with their positives. Antibiotics bred superbugs. Radio enabled facism. TV enabled consumerism. The Internet is firmly dividing the world along a technological fault line - technologically savvy and comfortable West on one hand and utterly impoverished and technologically inept Third World on the other.
Holy cow, so computers and the Internet aren't the be all and end all for education. They can do almost everything better than traditional media, but some researchers dared to point out where there is still room for improvement in the media, or where computers will never be able to help. So what? No media is perfect. To the knee-jerk reactionaries, though, detractors are not concerned parents and impartial researchers out for the best bang for their educational dollar, they are damned Luddites out to tear the whole thing down. How dare they point out weakness. We only accept blind faith in this technocracy.
Down with healthy skepticism! Down with pragmatism! Out with logic and rationality! Newer is better. Faster is better. More is better.
Don't ever doubt it, sonny. You might see the Emperor has no clothes.
After reading most of the discussion, I can see why there is so much antipathy towards Jon's article.
In the first case, he is lambasting the ability of the US to properly make use of this new genetic potential - a bad thing to do when most of his readers are card-carryin' US citizens with the prerequisite dose of American arrogance/pride. Jon's point, if I may be so bold, was to point out that no current country has the wisdom to use this to its greatest benefit. None. Nada. We are like babies with a gun - none of us can be trusted with it.
Secondly, I think Jon may be preaching in the enemy's camp, so to speak. The main message of his article is that we should adopt a healthy skepticism concerning technology because the changes it brings are sometimes horrible and irreversible. That this message is being broadcast to the most technologically adept of a highly technological society means that his cautionary tale will fall on deaf ears, mostly. Most /. readers have too much invested in technology to even consider rethinking its place in their life.
Thirdly, I think we have to make a large distinction between knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Most of you learned how to use a computer at a young age. In other words, you have knowledge concerning computers. Many of you put this knowledge to work and are currently earning your living in computing, demonstrating intelligence, or the ability to manipulate knowledge effectively. How many of you, though, asked yourselves at the outset of your computing lives whether you should be using computers at all? Whether computers were good for our society as a whole? What could potentially go wrong with a computer-based society? How they could be misused?
This would demonstrate wisdom, and I am willing to bet that hardly anyone out in /. land exercised any, at least concerning computers. Computers were so cool at the time that we didn't even think about the greater repercussions of their use. Forty years later, we couldn't go back even if we wanted to.
Considering the possible scope of effect with the HGP, shouldn't we all be using a little wisdom when we decide how it shall be used, or whether it should even be used at all?
Products are not ideas, information or concepts; they are applications of ideas, services applied to information and creations based on concepts. Where opponents of copywrite go way too far is when they fail to differentiate between the insubstantial, un-owneable basis for a product and the product itself.
Examples include "universal protocol for computer networks" vs. IP, "the novel" vs. The Pelican Brief, "software for the creation and manipulation of business data" vs. Microsoft Office, "music" vs. Metallica's ouvre, "statistics on government spending" vs. a non-fiction book organizing the data into a cohesive argument, "encryption" vs. PGP.
For our society and our citizens to be truly free, each of us must be open to to make use of the former in each pair: to create based on concepts; to conceive of, use and spread ideas; to analyze and share information with no interference from the powers that be - business, governement or the consumer mob.
For our society to be fair and just, however, the people whose efforts brings into existence the latter half of each pair must be allowed to charge for their services rendered or for the products created. On the flip side of this argument, those who wish to create these products or render these services for free must also be allowed to do so. The rights of any one group of citizens must not override those of another; consumers must be free to choose what products to use - free or otherwise - and producers must be free to choose whether to charge (and what to charge) for their products and services.
I understand the anger, the frustration and the poverty driving this movement. I can't afford to buy CD's at $12 CAD a pop, nor can I afford $850 CAD for Adobe Photoshop. Similarly, monopolies piss me off and companies patenting or copywriting ideas, concepts and information gall me. Is using a logical and warranted fight against the latter issues as justification for stealing the former the right answer? No. There are other legal options, including living without. No amount of desire for a product or anger against market forces can justify taking something against someone's will - especially when none of the products are necessities.
Perhaps we should examine what needs to be fixed before we start swinging the hammer. Companies should necessarily be restricted from "owning" ideas, concepts and information - all of which should rightly be free. Amend copywrite and patent law to reflect this.
Otherwise, stop tearing someone else down and start building yourself up! Believe art should be free? Make it and give it away. Believe in free software? Write it and put it on the Web. You have the legally defensible right to do either.
You do not, however, have the right to force others to live by your philosophy, whether the Internet makes it easy to do so or not.