Is this really a good thing? Do we want to turn space into the same junkyard that we've turned Earth into?
Earth-orbital space is already a junkyard, with over ten thousand known objects and fragments of objects in various orbits.
Just recently, parts of a Delta II booster landed in South Africa. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it does make one wonder what else is up there and what kind of orbits those things are in.
For that matter, one also wonders what the bits that are up there can do. Who knows what sorts of sinister devices are up there, waiting to be brought down or activated at the touch of a button? I mean, really, how hard is it to rig an expended booster with thrusters that would allow it to deorbit on command? Sure, accuracy would probably be poor, but it might be enough for scare purposes.
I knew you had a scoop but I didn't dream of this. I'm incredibly angry. Microsoft are turning into Big Brother...
That's a bit extreme, don't you think? "I don't like what you said here. Would you please remove it?" is a far cry from announcing people who don't toe the party line to be unpersons.
Oh, wait. This is Slashdot. Extremism runs rampant here. Mea culpa.
Whereas bonobos, our nearest genetic relatives, don't do this kind of thing. In fact, various forms of sex acts seem to take the place of violence we see in chimp communities.
Not generally, so far as we know. Bonobos in small numbers and in adequate environments are peaceful and get along reasonably well. Overcrowd them, though, and you have a repeat of the Monkey Hill mess of the 1920s/1930s (I forget exactly when it was, and whether bonobos were the apes involved).
Does our intelligence give us the tools to rise above the Holocausts, the Lockerbies, the Kosovos and the Columbines?
Yes. At the same time, it gives us the tools to perpetrate those acts. Intelligence is and always will be a two-edged sword: use it well, and everyone benefits. Use it poorly, and...well, we have only to look at history to see the results.
[...]and that our technological society is based on the urge to kill.
Most inventions came about from three drives: 1. Necessity. 2. Laziness. 3. The desire to kill.
Okay, so the last is a bit of a dummy. I can kill someone with my bare hands, a rock, or the latest and greatest sniper rifle. It's just that for most circumstances, the rifle makes it easier. Hence, the last is a more specific instance of laziness.
This seems pretty reasonable to me, except that in my view intelligence and self-awareness adds a potential new dimension to violence: depravity.
I agree wholeheartedly. Animals kill because they have to. People kill for a number of reasons, but few of them have to do with survival.
In Ender's Game, Ender kills Stilson and Bonzo to survive, but in Stilson's case, he kills (albeit unintentionally) with great violence because he thinks it's the only way to make sure that none of Stilson's comrades will do the same to him. In Bonzo's case, he kills (again unintentionally, but realizing right away what he did) because it was the only answer to a there-and-now problem.
The difference between the two is not the degree of violence employed (as they were roughly equal incidents). The difference is the motivation. Ender killed Stilson to ensure his future safety more so than his present safety. After all, Stilson would probably never have killed him; at most, he would have beaten him up, probably badly. Ender killed Bonzo in pure there-and-then self-defense.
On the other hand, as we have seen countless times in human history, people can and do kill purely because they want to. In that case, killing becomes a crime of power, a way to demonstrate that the killer is more powerful than his victim. It is also the ultimate violation of anything that might be considered a human right. By killing another, you have robbed that person of anything that they would have enjoyed for the rest of their natural lives.
I don't think any other species does that with the sort of abandon that humans do. Even chimps, when they kill out of rage or out of a desire to preserve or rise within a hierarchy, don't kill so liberally.
For every one such author, there are countless others that write stuff not worth the paper its printed on.
So what should we do instead? If the payoffs are as big as some of the ideas mentioned in SF, then I say it's worth it digging through trash to find the gems.
On the other hand, if the payoffs aren't that high, then maybe we should find something else to do with our time.
Maybe the potential for things like grouchiness, dissatisfaction and paranoia are somehow linked to intelligence itsef.
Maybe.
Animals seem to exhibit some of these traits in varying degrees, perhaps in proportion with intelligence. A spider isn't very paranoid and doesn't seem to be grouchy or dissatisfied (not that we can tell, anyway). Cats often seem grouchy and dissatisfied. Monkeys are on occasion all three.
But....
Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke asked a similar question in 2001 -- is intelligence somewhow linked to violence.
IMO, no. Any organism smart enough to survive more than a few seconds has the potential for violence. Certain species of ants live almost solely by conquering and enslaving other species; primates (chimpanzees, for instance) can and do murder and rape each other.
Nature is not all tranquil pastoral settings. Behind the scenes and around the bend often lurks incredible violence. Intelligence has nothing to do with it (although it can lead to more refined forms of violence). Violence is a part of life.
Using SF ideas to drive basic science research is a silly idea, as most SF has no basis in reality.
Oh.
I guess Verne was high on something serious when he came up with that _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ nonsense about ships that could travel underwater. That business with a moon shot in _From the Earth to the Moon_ is pretty silly, too. Absolutely no foundation in reality there, no indeedy.
This is, I think, best for translating paper to electronic archives. Who really wants to carry around a translator (or, worse yet, install a device on one's PC) just so you can see some hyperlinks related to an article?
It's a poor idea. People who want to see hyperlinks with their articles will use the electronic version; the paper version has no need for hyperlinks since it's intended to be used without a computer.
The other new consequence of corporatism..as it dominates the economy and politics..is it just puts pressure on individuals and individualism.
This is not a new consequence. This is a part of human social interaction.
As humans, we are social creatures. As social creatures, we also feel urged to conform to our fellow members of society. Those who deviate too far from the accepted norms are rejected.
The pressure to conform has really worsened.
Relative to what? There have been societies throughout history that were much more demanding of conformity than the late 20th century United States. Witness the Essenes of the first century, seventeenth century Puritans, or feudal Japan.
The situation could be much worse than it is, Jon. The reason why you think things are getting worse is because you're used to living in a society where people don't get beheaded for failing to conform.
[...]but I think that distracts people from the fact that in schools, businesses and politics, everybody is under pressure to be inoffensive, tepid and quiet.
And this is different from other points in human history in what way? The 1960s and 70s, with all of their iconoclasm, were relative anomalies. Throughout history and in many (I daresay most) human societies, people have been under pressure to conform. In the United States, that takes the form of inoffensiveness, tepidity, and silence. Elsewhere and elsewhen, the standards are/were different. But the point remains: People have always been pressured to conform.
Re:Now before I run to the shed and get my gun...
on
The Corporate Republic
·
· Score: 1
Second, maybe someone out there who is a history buff can confirm this, but wasn't the American Revolution spurred by economics?
To a large degree. It happened more or less this way:
1. The British wanted more money out of the colonies.
2. Bills were passed in Parliament that levied more taxes and required colonial ships to deliver raw goods to Great Britain instead of other colonial cities. This way, the British could refine the raw materials and sell the finished products at a profit in the colonies.
3. The colonials objected to this, some moreso than others.
4. Visible unrest in the colonies and customs-evasion caused the British to station more troops in the colonies.
5. Some people didn't care for this, and said so. One such incident was the soi-disant Boston Massacre (which was instigated by the mob, not by the soldiers who fired on them).
6. The British, alarmed by what they saw as a growing rebellious sentiment, dispatched troops to seize arms from colonial arsenals. The rest is history.
It has been estimated that at the outset of hostilities, about a third of the colonials were for rebellion, a third against, and a third neutral. After the conclusion of the rebellion, economic interests still ruled the roost, with politics being roughly divided between aristocratic landowners and democratic farmers. This is a pattern that would continue throughout United States history and is visible to some extent even today.
Indeed, it can be argued that the present form of U.S. government (federal republic) is a direct result of the power clashes between aristocrats (generally Federalists) and farmers (generally anti-Federalists). The early days of the United States were marked by a weak central government that was eventually replaced (more or less without anybody wanting a replacement) with a stronger central government.
I could go on at some length about this, but the long and short of it is that the rebellion, and most of the subsequent political events in the ex-colonies, were motivated largely by economic concerns. The bit about inalienable human rights certainly had a place, but was not nearly so important as people think it is.
Free Software is an exclusive thing. It's exclusive similar to the way that much of the art world is exclusive.
Oh. The art world is exclusive because artists are a bunch of elitists?
They are excluded from understanding/appreciating the piece (or the movement), ie THEY WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND OR APPRECIATE IT.
Why would they understand it when an honest question gets one honest response and fifty more that say "RTFM!"?
Maybe what you really mean to say is that "they" won't understand or appreciate it because the people central to "the movement" won't let them. Or are personally offensive. Or are snobs. Or are basically the same kind of people that promote and produce closed-source software, just with less money.
[...]but these people just aren't worth expending our energy trying to bring into the fold.
What an amazingly thoughtful and open-minded position to have. Quick, let me rush out and tell all of my friends that they too can be ignored by open-source bigots!
And people wonder why open-source companies and advocates have to work so hard to convince potential customers to use their products.
It seems to me that sometimes, it's probably just better to let the FUD bury itself, and not even give it the honor of being discussed.
"The way to beat a bad idea is with a better idea." --Carl Sagan (para.)
Ignoring the problem will not make it go away. Certainly, informative, well-considered responses to blatant flaming (dare I say trolling?) are much more helpful than mindless flaming in response. That way madness lies.
The point of Taschek's (sp?) article seems to have been to incite vitriol in response. Give him politeness and facts, and no one will be able to say that the open-source community is a bunch of rowdy yahoos.
Of course, there are plenty in the community who are rowdy yahoos. At least, they act that way.
Companies need to realize that the dominant business model for the future will be geared towards the need and wants of the consumer.
Companies have realized this for decades. Why else do you think we have marketing? Marketing serves two purposes: 1. To advertise the existence of product X. 2. To make people want to buy product X.
Businesses know that they depend on customer revenues. They know that they have to give the customer what they want, or a facimile (reasonable or not) thereof. Therefore, they try to influence what consumers want. This can be everything from ads on TV and in netspace to peer pressure.
Slashdot Mirror
Earth-orbital space is already a junkyard, with over ten thousand known objects and fragments of objects in various orbits.
Just recently, parts of a Delta II booster landed in South Africa. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it does make one wonder what else is up there and what kind of orbits those things are in.
For that matter, one also wonders what the bits that are up there can do. Who knows what sorts of sinister devices are up there, waiting to be brought down or activated at the touch of a button? I mean, really, how hard is it to rig an expended booster with thrusters that would allow it to deorbit on command? Sure, accuracy would probably be poor, but it might be enough for scare purposes.
That's a bit extreme, don't you think? "I don't like what you said here. Would you please remove it?" is a far cry from announcing people who don't toe the party line to be unpersons.
Oh, wait. This is Slashdot. Extremism runs rampant here. Mea culpa.
Not generally, so far as we know. Bonobos in small numbers and in adequate environments are peaceful and get along reasonably well. Overcrowd them, though, and you have a repeat of the Monkey Hill mess of the 1920s/1930s (I forget exactly when it was, and whether bonobos were the apes involved).
Does our intelligence give us the tools to rise above the Holocausts, the Lockerbies, the Kosovos and the Columbines?
Yes. At the same time, it gives us the tools to perpetrate those acts. Intelligence is and always will be a two-edged sword: use it well, and everyone benefits. Use it poorly, and...well, we have only to look at history to see the results.
[...]and that our technological society is based on the urge to kill.
Most inventions came about from three drives:
1. Necessity.
2. Laziness.
3. The desire to kill.
Okay, so the last is a bit of a dummy. I can kill someone with my bare hands, a rock, or the latest and greatest sniper rifle. It's just that for most circumstances, the rifle makes it easier. Hence, the last is a more specific instance of laziness.
This seems pretty reasonable to me, except that in my view intelligence and self-awareness adds a potential new dimension to violence: depravity.
I agree wholeheartedly. Animals kill because they have to. People kill for a number of reasons, but few of them have to do with survival.
In Ender's Game, Ender kills Stilson and Bonzo to survive, but in Stilson's case, he kills (albeit unintentionally) with great violence because he thinks it's the only way to make sure that none of Stilson's comrades will do the same to him. In Bonzo's case, he kills (again unintentionally, but realizing right away what he did) because it was the only answer to a there-and-now problem.
The difference between the two is not the degree of violence employed (as they were roughly equal incidents). The difference is the motivation. Ender killed Stilson to ensure his future safety more so than his present safety. After all, Stilson would probably never have killed him; at most, he would have beaten him up, probably badly. Ender killed Bonzo in pure there-and-then self-defense.
On the other hand, as we have seen countless times in human history, people can and do kill purely because they want to. In that case, killing becomes a crime of power, a way to demonstrate that the killer is more powerful than his victim. It is also the ultimate violation of anything that might be considered a human right. By killing another, you have robbed that person of anything that they would have enjoyed for the rest of their natural lives.
I don't think any other species does that with the sort of abandon that humans do. Even chimps, when they kill out of rage or out of a desire to preserve or rise within a hierarchy, don't kill so liberally.
So what should we do instead? If the payoffs are as big as some of the ideas mentioned in SF, then I say it's worth it digging through trash to find the gems.
On the other hand, if the payoffs aren't that high, then maybe we should find something else to do with our time.
Maybe.
Animals seem to exhibit some of these traits in varying degrees, perhaps in proportion with intelligence. A spider isn't very paranoid and doesn't seem to be grouchy or dissatisfied (not that we can tell, anyway). Cats often seem grouchy and dissatisfied. Monkeys are on occasion all three.
But....
Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke asked a similar question in 2001 -- is intelligence somewhow linked to violence.
IMO, no. Any organism smart enough to survive more than a few seconds has the potential for violence. Certain species of ants live almost solely by conquering and enslaving other species; primates (chimpanzees, for instance) can and do murder and rape each other.
Nature is not all tranquil pastoral settings. Behind the scenes and around the bend often lurks incredible violence. Intelligence has nothing to do with it (although it can lead to more refined forms of violence). Violence is a part of life.
Oh.
I guess Verne was high on something serious when he came up with that _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ nonsense about ships that could travel underwater. That business with a moon shot in _From the Earth to the Moon_ is pretty silly, too. Absolutely no foundation in reality there, no indeedy.
Whose agenda are you trying to protect?
It's a poor idea. People who want to see hyperlinks with their articles will use the electronic version; the paper version has no need for hyperlinks since it's intended to be used without a computer.
This is not a new consequence. This is a part of human social interaction.
As humans, we are social creatures. As social creatures, we also feel urged to conform to our fellow members of society. Those who deviate too far from the accepted norms are rejected.
The pressure to conform has really worsened.
Relative to what? There have been societies throughout history that were much more demanding of conformity than the late 20th century United States. Witness the Essenes of the first century, seventeenth century Puritans, or feudal Japan.
The situation could be much worse than it is, Jon. The reason why you think things are getting worse is because you're used to living in a society where people don't get beheaded for failing to conform.
[...]but I think that distracts people from the fact that in schools, businesses and politics, everybody is under pressure to be inoffensive, tepid and quiet.
And this is different from other points in human history in what way? The 1960s and 70s, with all of their iconoclasm, were relative anomalies. Throughout history and in many (I daresay most) human societies, people have been under pressure to conform. In the United States, that takes the form of inoffensiveness, tepidity, and silence. Elsewhere and elsewhen, the standards are/were different. But the point remains: People have always been pressured to conform.
To a large degree. It happened more or less this way:
1. The British wanted more money out of the colonies.
2. Bills were passed in Parliament that levied more taxes and required colonial ships to deliver raw goods to Great Britain instead of other colonial cities. This way, the British could refine the raw materials and sell the finished products at a profit in the colonies.
3. The colonials objected to this, some moreso than others.
4. Visible unrest in the colonies and customs-evasion caused the British to station more troops in the colonies.
5. Some people didn't care for this, and said so. One such incident was the soi-disant Boston Massacre (which was instigated by the mob, not by the soldiers who fired on them).
6. The British, alarmed by what they saw as a growing rebellious sentiment, dispatched troops to seize arms from colonial arsenals. The rest is history.
It has been estimated that at the outset of hostilities, about a third of the colonials were for rebellion, a third against, and a third neutral. After the conclusion of the rebellion, economic interests still ruled the roost, with politics being roughly divided between aristocratic landowners and democratic farmers. This is a pattern that would continue throughout United States history and is visible to some extent even today.
Indeed, it can be argued that the present form of U.S. government (federal republic) is a direct result of the power clashes between aristocrats (generally Federalists) and farmers (generally anti-Federalists). The early days of the United States were marked by a weak central government that was eventually replaced (more or less without anybody wanting a replacement) with a stronger central government.
I could go on at some length about this, but the long and short of it is that the rebellion, and most of the subsequent political events in the ex-colonies, were motivated largely by economic concerns. The bit about inalienable human rights certainly had a place, but was not nearly so important as people think it is.
True. But Slashdot is more like a collection of writings on a bathroom wall--posted for all to see.
I didn't ask your permission to quote you above, but I did. Am I now going to be hit with an IP lawsuit?
Oh. The art world is exclusive because artists are a bunch of elitists?
They are excluded from understanding/appreciating the piece (or the movement), ie THEY WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND OR APPRECIATE IT.
Why would they understand it when an honest question gets one honest response and fifty more that say "RTFM!"?
Maybe what you really mean to say is that "they" won't understand or appreciate it because the people central to "the movement" won't let them. Or are personally offensive. Or are snobs. Or are basically the same kind of people that promote and produce closed-source software, just with less money.
[...]but these people just aren't worth expending our energy trying to bring into the fold.
What an amazingly thoughtful and open-minded position to have. Quick, let me rush out and tell all of my friends that they too can be ignored by open-source bigots!
And people wonder why open-source companies and advocates have to work so hard to convince potential customers to use their products.
"The way to beat a bad idea is with a better idea." --Carl Sagan (para.)
Ignoring the problem will not make it go away. Certainly, informative, well-considered responses to blatant flaming (dare I say trolling?) are much more helpful than mindless flaming in response. That way madness lies.
The point of Taschek's (sp?) article seems to have been to incite vitriol in response. Give him politeness and facts, and no one will be able to say that the open-source community is a bunch of rowdy yahoos.
Of course, there are plenty in the community who are rowdy yahoos. At least, they act that way.
Companies have realized this for decades. Why else do you think we have marketing? Marketing serves two purposes:
1. To advertise the existence of product X.
2. To make people want to buy product X.
Businesses know that they depend on customer revenues. They know that they have to give the customer what they want, or a facimile (reasonable or not) thereof. Therefore, they try to influence what consumers want. This can be everything from ads on TV and in netspace to peer pressure.