How about if it works, say, the way NT works??? It doesn't seem to have this problem.
But if Intel knew a year ago what changes would need to be made to the cpuid list, and didn't tell kernel developers well in advance of product release, it's their own fault.
Kernel developers didn't know that Intel was going to use a different CPUID for a new processor? Come on.
It seems to me that the Linux shouldn't just fail if it doesn't understand a CPUID. Is there some reason it can't fall back to a "compatibility mode" (like, 486 or Pentium mode or something) so that it at least works? Maybe it won't run optimally, but a little warning message is better than a full-blown barf.
I attended the 2nd Real-Time Linux Workshop this year on November 27-28, 2000 in Orlando, FL...
Wait, you're telling me that RMS attended an event with Linux in the name rather than GNU/Linux, and he didn't a) boycott the event, or b) demand they change the name before he would appear?
Clearly this was NOT the real RMS, and was an alien imposter.
I don't mean to imply that all of country was of in that category, only a lot of it.
Is Bob Dylan crap, too? 'cuz guess where lots of his influences lie?
Actually, as a matter of fact, yes, I do believe Bob Dylan is complete crap.:) In fact, I would go so far as to say he is the archetype of the "vastly overrated artist that happened to hit a chord of his time which future generations are utterly incapable of understanding why."
I should say that, being 36, I am a half-generation removed from Dylan, so he looks like to me a bad singer mumbling and whining about shallow, obvious concepts.
Contrast him with, say, some of the Beatles music, like "A Day in the Life" or "Eleanor Rigby". We'll still be listening to the Beatles in 100 years. Will we will still be listening to Dylan in 100 years? Hell no. In fact, you hardly hear him on the classic rock stations anymore, with the exception of a few Dylan staples that had popular appeal. Even then, it's the tune that keeps it popular, not any philosophical basis.
Probably Pink Floyd has some of the most insightful lyrics I've seen (See Dark Side of the Moon).
The problem with most thrash metal is the same problem with country music (ironically), take an unbelievably obvious concept, throw some music around it, and call it "deep". They're both of the "[xyz] is keeping me down" genre (which might be a woman, The Man, alcohol, society, etc).
Not to say that you can't find some talented lyricists among thrash, but clearly a LOT of these bands just try to be loud, rather than good. The problem isn't with Thrash, but that's just the place that is currently a lucrative place for the "I'm just doing this for the money" bands to gravitate to.
Just out of curiosity, what did you set the reserve price to? If it were me, I'd probably want at least $100K (and maybe more). That's a great domain name.
What if the institutions are required by law to run blocking software and the staff isn't legally authorized to unblock sites?
What if the government gets taken over by Nazis and they suspend the constitution?
You can construct silly "what if" scenerios all day, but the fact of the matter is that libraries WILL unlock the software if you have a legitimate purpose, which does not include teenage boys leaving pictures of women having sex with animals on a public Internet terminal as a "joke".
If you find libraries that refuse to unlock Internet terminals for adults as a policy, then fight on that front. But it's silly and stupid to say that because there might be 1 librarian who refuses to unlock an Internet terminal, then all filtering is automatically bad.
--
See the video -- it's pretty good
on
Longitude
·
· Score: 3
A&E did a big production of the book that was pretty good. You can order VHS or DVD direct from A&E's web site.
It showed a lot of the old mechanisms that were very cool. The early models were huge, which big ol' stabilization systems. You don't realize how hard the problem was until you see him go through all the early trials of trying to keep a clock accurate on a ship that is bobbing up and down and weaving all over the place.
A filter is just a tool, like any other. I don't expect my hammer to drive nails absolutely perfectly every time, because you have to use the tool properly.
My kid comes to me, and says "Dad, I want to get on gcsextreme.com, so I can order a part I'm looking for.". I say, "OK, let me unlock it for you."
What's the problem? I wish the Slashdot crew would get it through their thick skulls that filters don't have to be perfect to be useful. They're supposed to be too restrictive! Too restrictive is better than not restrictive enough because the parent can always override a block!
Unfortunately, this is too simple and logical when teenagers are being oppressed. Oh no!
The idea behind conservation is not to impede technological progress but to eliminate waste.
Well, there are two things to say about that. First, I think a lot of the "conservationists" have very expansive ideas of what constitutes "waste". Look at the original poster: She thinks that having a roomful of computers in a house is wasteful. Others are attacking the whole idea of Christmas lights! The point is that the drumbeat of conservation never ends. Even if we did everything they wanted, they would start all over again. To them, ANY energy use beyond the bare minimum of survival is unacceptable.
The second point is this: What's wrong with waste? Why is it intrinsically bad to leave all the lights of my house on whenever I want to. Notice that this question is different from the question of pollution or landfills. That is a clean versus dirty environment problem; the question of "waste" is a different question. And that's where a lot of environmentalists go wrong. Instead of focusing on the real problem, which is cleaning up messes, they choose to focus on limiting technology, progress and convenience.
Environmentalists should focus on clean production of energy, not reducing the production of energy.
Corn chips??? Do you know how much energy it takes to make a corn chip? Think about all the machinery to pick the corn, grind it up, bake it, bag it, and ship it to your greedy mouth.
Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?
Clearly all you care about is your hedonistic pleasure, and to hell with the earth.
I'm going to go back to my raw, organic, home-grown carrot. Nothing like a good carrot for lunch. Mmmmmm mmm!
We need to draw the line on our pandering to children and simpletons at some point.
Yeah, God forbid we have beauty in the world.
I've got an idea... you'll like this. Why don't we only build efficient houses made out of unpainted concrete. Think of the efficiency! We could just have a single, standardized slab size that could be placed and stacked into nice, efficient cubes. Cut a door and you're done!
I have no respect for Larry or anyone else who can't realize what's good for the earth.
The solution to whatever environmental problems come up is not to return to the caves, the solution is produce more power more efficiently and cleanly. Techological progress IS NOT intrinsicially bad for the earth.
In other words, the solution to technology's downsides is more technology.
I wish people would just deal with the fact that we are not going to stop using energy. We are not going to stop being mobile. And these needs will be ever-increasing. "Conservation" is ALWAYS going to be a losing strategy, and it deserves to lose.
Once people deal with this fact of life, then we can get on to identifying whatever problems exist, and simply construct solutions for them. That's how it's always been, and how it will always be.
All right, I'll even accept that there are isolated cases of innovation in the OSS community.
But aren't these really exceptions that prove the rule? What struck me about your original statement was that you seem to really believe that OSS is a fountain of innovation. I'm wondering if you really believe that, when it's (let's say) 90% imitation and 10% innovation (and I think I'm being pretty generous there).
Now, this is not to say imitation does not provide useful tools. I use Linux everyday as a low-cost Unix development platform. But from where I sit at least, everything I use that is innovative came to me commercially.
but you'd get good enough and knowing you folks, you could improve on the state of the art.
I find this statement interesting. I'm trying to think of something that the "folks" you refer to (meaning, I assume, the Open Source community) has improved the state of the art. I simply can't think of anything. Just about everything in the OSS community is imitative of commercial software.
Do you have a particular example in mind? I suppose TeX, but that's really the work of one unique genius, and leaves a LOT to be desired in the user friendliness dept, which is why it has only influenced the industry, but does not lead it. Significant, but you can hardly call it state of the art compared to what is commercially available (although I'm sure there are some particular bells/whistles that somebody could name).
The Citizen->PresidentialCandidate->GeorgeWBush class passed as input the return value from the State->Justice->SupremeCourt->Florida object to the Federal->Justice->SupremeCourt object. The Federal->Justice->SupremeCourt has thrown an InsufficientLawPrecedentException. The detail fields of that Exception has been repassed to the State->Justice->SupremeCourt->Florida object, along with the original parameters. We are waiting for the return value.
they can't realistically defend themselves against the implications that they are Nazi suporters even in cases like this where the arguement is clearly separated from the Nazis.
I disagree. Now, I do agree that "Nazi" has its own built-in emotional charge, but I think you just have make the case how your argument is unlike the Nazis. Take your example...
like saying multiple inheritance is bad because of how C++ did it.
This is a great example, because it is valid to knock multiple inheritence because of the lessons learned from C++. That doesn't stop you from making a counter-argument that it's C++'s implementation of it that was bad, and this why, blah blah. The point is that C++, like the Nazis, provides a useful historical base to draw from.
Now, clearly Stroustrup might disagree ("In no way is my language like the Nazis!"), and maybe that is your point that any comparison to Nazis in any way invites a breakdown of discussion. But my point is that the fault lies with people who invest the emotion into the Nazis, not with the people using them as an object lesson.
Can I rant for second? Godwin's law (paraphrase: "if you bring up the Nazis, you've lost the argument") is utterly ludicrous. If the usage of the Nazis in an argument makes a case for something, then it makes the case. It's as if to some people Hitler and the Nazis are just a fictional novel with no historical or educational value at all.
To all those who cower in fear of using a Nazi example because of the Godwin Law idiocy, please, be my guest and use it to your heart's desire. The only people who follow The Law are people who can't defend themselves against a powerful argument.
You seem to be implying that if you are able to survive than you must not be poor.
That's so far away from what I actually said that I simply don't know how to respond. I think you have a proclivity for seeing what you want to see, rather than how things actually are. You see people in the streets in the US, and just assume the cause is a non-caring government (or non-caring citizens such as me).
First of all, I should say that this is not a bad book. In fact, from an "interesting concept" point of view, I rate this book quite highly. It is very imaginative, and quite a good read.
However, those that look at this book as some sort of blueprint for life need to seriously seek psychological help. It is chock full of 60s style hippy philosophy that has mercifully died nowadays (at least for most sane people). Most of the social commentary is incredibly childish. One area in particular--and I think a lot of its appeal for men comes for this-- is its playing to the adolescent man's fantasy for "strong" women that are really subservient (sexually and otherwise) to the men. I hate to sound like a feminist, but it really is bad.
In short, read this novel, don't miss it. It has a lot of great science fiction ideas, and if you read it for that, you will be glad you did. But if you find yourself nodding in agreement with the social nonsense, then it may be time to see the shrink.:)
I agree with you that there is more to this that meets the "eye", especially when it comes to anticipating terrain (pun intended). Trying to walk with your eyes closed tells you how much of a visual component there is that you don't realize.
See this message for some thoughts I just had about the balance sensor problem...
But that means you have to understand the inner ear (and what the brain does with that data) first, and we're not there yet.
Hmmm. You know, standing on one foot here and thinking about it, it makes me wonder if the inner ear is more of an accelerometer rather than a gravity sensor (which is what I've always assumed). It's a *much* more complicated problem to take into account head alignment and figure if you're tipping than to just figure out which way your head is moving back and forth.
Actually, I think it might be both. If I get grossly out of alignment and am about to fall, it feels "different" than when I'm making only fine balance corrections. I bet gravity is used to get us close to upright, and then acceleration is used to keep us there.
I bet it will take a combination of both approaches. There are laser-based acceleratomers that are extremely accurate. I wonder if anyone has tried using both?
According to the government (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture) 10.2% of US households are "food insecure", meaning that they don't have access to enough food to meet basic needs.
I hope you don't think that that number does not contain a pretty good sized ladle of politics. There are people in government that want as high a rate of poverty as possible, because that's how budgets are allocated.
While it is true that we don't have high levels of starvation here, it is ludicrous to say there is no poverty.
The rub is in the definition of "poverty". As I said, by the standards of the world the US has a poverty rate of zero. Go to Somalia, or heck, even Mexico if you want to see real poverty.
Do some people in the US have a harder life than others? Of course. But you claim that this poverty level is based on calculations of basic needs of survival. If that were true, then anyone below that level would not be able to survive (by definition). Yet clearly people survive below the poverty level. Not easily, but you can clearly survive.
If you think that capitalism cures hunger, OPEN YOUR EYES! Why do so many in the US live below the poverty line?
The "poverty line" is an arbitrary line compared to the average, it is not a "starvation line". By the standards of the world, the poverty rate in the US is zero.
When was the last time you heard about someone starving to death in the US? It never happens. In fact, take a look around the average poor neighborhood in the US. There are an amazing number of fat people.
By the way, just to be clear, I am NOT a Libertarian.
--
Re:So much rhetoric, so little reality
on
On Asteroid Mining
·
· Score: 1
By increasing female literacy, you help people economically and you help them decide their own birth control strategy.
I agree with this, and if this is the point the original poster was trying to make, I agree with that, too. However, I interpreted his statement as "we need to educate people about the damage they do to the world by choosing to reproduce, etc, whine, etc".
BS. Sure, and do you know how many miles of farming you need to support each of those people at a USA level of consumption.
The point of the stat is not the the entire world could function in an area that size, but to point out that the world is mostly empty space. The earth can sustain FAR more people than many think.
Slashdot Mirror
Depends on how you propose to fix the problem. ...
How about if it works, say, the way NT works??? It doesn't seem to have this problem.
But if Intel knew a year ago what changes would need to be made to the cpuid list, and didn't tell kernel developers well in advance of product release, it's their own fault.
Kernel developers didn't know that Intel was going to use a different CPUID for a new processor? Come on.
The Kernel should just plain not be this brittle.
--
It seems to me that the Linux shouldn't just fail if it doesn't understand a CPUID. Is there some reason it can't fall back to a "compatibility mode" (like, 486 or Pentium mode or something) so that it at least works? Maybe it won't run optimally, but a little warning message is better than a full-blown barf.
--
I attended the 2nd Real-Time Linux Workshop this year on November 27-28, 2000 in Orlando, FL...
Wait, you're telling me that RMS attended an event with Linux in the name rather than GNU/Linux, and he didn't a) boycott the event, or b) demand they change the name before he would appear?
Clearly this was NOT the real RMS, and was an alien imposter.
--
I don't mean to imply that all of country was of in that category, only a lot of it.
Is Bob Dylan crap, too? 'cuz guess where lots of his influences lie?
Actually, as a matter of fact, yes, I do believe Bob Dylan is complete crap. :) In fact, I would go so far as to say he is the archetype of the "vastly overrated artist that happened to hit a chord of his time which future generations are utterly incapable of understanding why."
I should say that, being 36, I am a half-generation removed from Dylan, so he looks like to me a bad singer mumbling and whining about shallow, obvious concepts.
Contrast him with, say, some of the Beatles music, like "A Day in the Life" or "Eleanor Rigby". We'll still be listening to the Beatles in 100 years. Will we will still be listening to Dylan in 100 years? Hell no. In fact, you hardly hear him on the classic rock stations anymore, with the exception of a few Dylan staples that had popular appeal. Even then, it's the tune that keeps it popular, not any philosophical basis.
--
Probably Pink Floyd has some of the most insightful lyrics I've seen (See Dark Side of the Moon).
The problem with most thrash metal is the same problem with country music (ironically), take an unbelievably obvious concept, throw some music around it, and call it "deep". They're both of the "[xyz] is keeping me down" genre (which might be a woman, The Man, alcohol, society, etc).
Not to say that you can't find some talented lyricists among thrash, but clearly a LOT of these bands just try to be loud, rather than good. The problem isn't with Thrash, but that's just the place that is currently a lucrative place for the "I'm just doing this for the money" bands to gravitate to.
--
Hey DDT,
Just out of curiosity, what did you set the reserve price to? If it were me, I'd probably want at least $100K (and maybe more). That's a great domain name.
--
What if the institutions are required by law to run blocking software and the staff isn't legally authorized to unblock sites?
What if the government gets taken over by Nazis and they suspend the constitution?
You can construct silly "what if" scenerios all day, but the fact of the matter is that libraries WILL unlock the software if you have a legitimate purpose, which does not include teenage boys leaving pictures of women having sex with animals on a public Internet terminal as a "joke".
If you find libraries that refuse to unlock Internet terminals for adults as a policy, then fight on that front. But it's silly and stupid to say that because there might be 1 librarian who refuses to unlock an Internet terminal, then all filtering is automatically bad.
--
A&E did a big production of the book that was pretty good. You can order VHS or DVD direct from A&E's web site.
It showed a lot of the old mechanisms that were very cool. The early models were huge, which big ol' stabilization systems. You don't realize how hard the problem was until you see him go through all the early trials of trying to keep a clock accurate on a ship that is bobbing up and down and weaving all over the place.
--
A filter is just a tool, like any other. I don't expect my hammer to drive nails absolutely perfectly every time, because you have to use the tool properly.
My kid comes to me, and says "Dad, I want to get on gcsextreme.com, so I can order a part I'm looking for.". I say, "OK, let me unlock it for you."
What's the problem? I wish the Slashdot crew would get it through their thick skulls that filters don't have to be perfect to be useful. They're supposed to be too restrictive! Too restrictive is better than not restrictive enough because the parent can always override a block!
Unfortunately, this is too simple and logical when teenagers are being oppressed. Oh no!
--
The idea behind conservation is not to impede technological progress but to eliminate waste.
Well, there are two things to say about that. First, I think a lot of the "conservationists" have very expansive ideas of what constitutes "waste". Look at the original poster: She thinks that having a roomful of computers in a house is wasteful. Others are attacking the whole idea of Christmas lights! The point is that the drumbeat of conservation never ends. Even if we did everything they wanted, they would start all over again. To them, ANY energy use beyond the bare minimum of survival is unacceptable.
The second point is this: What's wrong with waste? Why is it intrinsically bad to leave all the lights of my house on whenever I want to. Notice that this question is different from the question of pollution or landfills. That is a clean versus dirty environment problem; the question of "waste" is a different question. And that's where a lot of environmentalists go wrong. Instead of focusing on the real problem, which is cleaning up messes, they choose to focus on limiting technology, progress and convenience.
Environmentalists should focus on clean production of energy, not reducing the production of energy.
--
Corn chips??? Do you know how much energy it takes to make a corn chip? Think about all the machinery to pick the corn, grind it up, bake it, bag it, and ship it to your greedy mouth.
Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?
Clearly all you care about is your hedonistic pleasure, and to hell with the earth.
I'm going to go back to my raw, organic, home-grown carrot. Nothing like a good carrot for lunch. Mmmmmm mmm!
--
We need to draw the line on our pandering to children and simpletons at some point.
Yeah, God forbid we have beauty in the world.
I've got an idea... you'll like this. Why don't we only build efficient houses made out of unpainted concrete. Think of the efficiency! We could just have a single, standardized slab size that could be placed and stacked into nice, efficient cubes. Cut a door and you're done!
--
I have no respect for Larry or anyone else who can't realize what's good for the earth.
The solution to whatever environmental problems come up is not to return to the caves, the solution is produce more power more efficiently and cleanly. Techological progress IS NOT intrinsicially bad for the earth.
In other words, the solution to technology's downsides is more technology.
I wish people would just deal with the fact that we are not going to stop using energy. We are not going to stop being mobile. And these needs will be ever-increasing. "Conservation" is ALWAYS going to be a losing strategy, and it deserves to lose.
Once people deal with this fact of life, then we can get on to identifying whatever problems exist, and simply construct solutions for them. That's how it's always been, and how it will always be.
--
All right, I'll even accept that there are isolated cases of innovation in the OSS community.
But aren't these really exceptions that prove the rule? What struck me about your original statement was that you seem to really believe that OSS is a fountain of innovation. I'm wondering if you really believe that, when it's (let's say) 90% imitation and 10% innovation (and I think I'm being pretty generous there).
Now, this is not to say imitation does not provide useful tools. I use Linux everyday as a low-cost Unix development platform. But from where I sit at least, everything I use that is innovative came to me commercially.
--
but you'd get good enough and knowing you folks, you could improve on the state of the art.
I find this statement interesting. I'm trying to think of something that the "folks" you refer to (meaning, I assume, the Open Source community) has improved the state of the art. I simply can't think of anything. Just about everything in the OSS community is imitative of commercial software.
Do you have a particular example in mind? I suppose TeX, but that's really the work of one unique genius, and leaves a LOT to be desired in the user friendliness dept, which is why it has only influenced the industry, but does not lead it. Significant, but you can hardly call it state of the art compared to what is commercially available (although I'm sure there are some particular bells/whistles that somebody could name).
--
... all you programmers (Java-style).
The Citizen->PresidentialCandidate->GeorgeWBush class passed as input the return value from the State->Justice->SupremeCourt->Florida object to the Federal->Justice->SupremeCourt object. The Federal->Justice->SupremeCourt has thrown an InsufficientLawPrecedentException. The detail fields of that Exception has been repassed to the State->Justice->SupremeCourt->Florida object, along with the original parameters. We are waiting for the return value.
--
they can't realistically defend themselves against the implications that they are Nazi suporters even in cases like this where the arguement is clearly separated from the Nazis.
I disagree. Now, I do agree that "Nazi" has its own built-in emotional charge, but I think you just have make the case how your argument is unlike the Nazis. Take your example...
like saying multiple inheritance is bad because of how C++ did it.
This is a great example, because it is valid to knock multiple inheritence because of the lessons learned from C++. That doesn't stop you from making a counter-argument that it's C++'s implementation of it that was bad, and this why, blah blah. The point is that C++, like the Nazis, provides a useful historical base to draw from.
Now, clearly Stroustrup might disagree ("In no way is my language like the Nazis!"), and maybe that is your point that any comparison to Nazis in any way invites a breakdown of discussion. But my point is that the fault lies with people who invest the emotion into the Nazis, not with the people using them as an object lesson.
--
Can I rant for second? Godwin's law (paraphrase: "if you bring up the Nazis, you've lost the argument") is utterly ludicrous. If the usage of the Nazis in an argument makes a case for something, then it makes the case. It's as if to some people Hitler and the Nazis are just a fictional novel with no historical or educational value at all.
To all those who cower in fear of using a Nazi example because of the Godwin Law idiocy, please, be my guest and use it to your heart's desire. The only people who follow The Law are people who can't defend themselves against a powerful argument.
--
You seem to be implying that if you are able to survive than you must not be poor.
That's so far away from what I actually said that I simply don't know how to respond. I think you have a proclivity for seeing what you want to see, rather than how things actually are. You see people in the streets in the US, and just assume the cause is a non-caring government (or non-caring citizens such as me).
--
First of all, I should say that this is not a bad book. In fact, from an "interesting concept" point of view, I rate this book quite highly. It is very imaginative, and quite a good read.
However, those that look at this book as some sort of blueprint for life need to seriously seek psychological help. It is chock full of 60s style hippy philosophy that has mercifully died nowadays (at least for most sane people). Most of the social commentary is incredibly childish. One area in particular--and I think a lot of its appeal for men comes for this-- is its playing to the adolescent man's fantasy for "strong" women that are really subservient (sexually and otherwise) to the men. I hate to sound like a feminist, but it really is bad.
In short, read this novel, don't miss it. It has a lot of great science fiction ideas, and if you read it for that, you will be glad you did. But if you find yourself nodding in agreement with the social nonsense, then it may be time to see the shrink. :)
--
I agree with you that there is more to this that meets the "eye", especially when it comes to anticipating terrain (pun intended). Trying to walk with your eyes closed tells you how much of a visual component there is that you don't realize.
See this message for some thoughts I just had about the balance sensor problem...
--
But that means you have to understand the inner ear (and what the brain does with that data) first, and we're not there yet.
Hmmm. You know, standing on one foot here and thinking about it, it makes me wonder if the inner ear is more of an accelerometer rather than a gravity sensor (which is what I've always assumed). It's a *much* more complicated problem to take into account head alignment and figure if you're tipping than to just figure out which way your head is moving back and forth.
Actually, I think it might be both. If I get grossly out of alignment and am about to fall, it feels "different" than when I'm making only fine balance corrections. I bet gravity is used to get us close to upright, and then acceleration is used to keep us there.
I bet it will take a combination of both approaches. There are laser-based acceleratomers that are extremely accurate. I wonder if anyone has tried using both?
--
According to the government (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture) 10.2% of US households are "food insecure", meaning that they don't have access to enough food to meet basic needs.
I hope you don't think that that number does not contain a pretty good sized ladle of politics. There are people in government that want as high a rate of poverty as possible, because that's how budgets are allocated.
While it is true that we don't have high levels of starvation here, it is ludicrous to say there is no poverty.
The rub is in the definition of "poverty". As I said, by the standards of the world the US has a poverty rate of zero. Go to Somalia, or heck, even Mexico if you want to see real poverty.
Do some people in the US have a harder life than others? Of course. But you claim that this poverty level is based on calculations of basic needs of survival. If that were true, then anyone below that level would not be able to survive (by definition). Yet clearly people survive below the poverty level. Not easily, but you can clearly survive.
--
If you think that capitalism cures hunger, OPEN YOUR EYES! Why do so many in the US live below the poverty line?
The "poverty line" is an arbitrary line compared to the average, it is not a "starvation line". By the standards of the world, the poverty rate in the US is zero.
When was the last time you heard about someone starving to death in the US? It never happens. In fact, take a look around the average poor neighborhood in the US. There are an amazing number of fat people.
By the way, just to be clear, I am NOT a Libertarian.
--
By increasing female literacy, you help people economically and you help them decide their own birth control strategy.
I agree with this, and if this is the point the original poster was trying to make, I agree with that, too. However, I interpreted his statement as "we need to educate people about the damage they do to the world by choosing to reproduce, etc, whine, etc".
BS. Sure, and do you know how many miles of farming you need to support each of those people at a USA level of consumption.
The point of the stat is not the the entire world could function in an area that size, but to point out that the world is mostly empty space. The earth can sustain FAR more people than many think.
--