This is the result of rampant competitiveness; you end up with a country filled with a small handful of Winners and a ton of Slaves.
Nice. What a great way to live.
Or you could move to Canada where neighbors treat each other with a modicum of respect and compassion and you don't need to own a gun because you're not terrified of getting attacked.
Of course, Canada has been sliding, but at least it has a bit more of that bedrock of sanity upon which its brand of Snow Hobbit happens to breed.
Spam kings, civilian police departments and credit scam goons? (Like banks.) Perhaps. But any group with real technology will be able to see through you from the top down no matter what consumer grade electronic solution you employ.
From that perspective, I don't think people really care about their freedoms. Most of the time, I don't think people realize they are being measured, categorized and manipulated accordingly. It's a fairly convincing illusion we have of freedom, in that the ones we lose we are convinced we didn't need anyway.
I dropped out of high school largely because of that brain-damaging essay format. I rejected it from the subconscious all the way up, I think. I'd get furious without even fully understanding why. It certainly didn't help that half the time I patently disagreed with whatever point we'd been told to prove in a given paper. Being forced to argue some wrong stance using that monkey-brained essay format. . . Dante left that punishment out of his nine rings, probably because it was already installed in my high school.
One time I lost my temper and put my thoughts on the matter into one such essay, veering off topic half way through and blasting the system and the people who taught it. I remember the teachers were up in arms; it was being read around the teacher's lounge and when I found out that I'd really upset not just the asshat teachers, but also the ones I respected, I felt like dying. That was where I finally clicked to the notion that Teachers were also People. But while I learned that lesson in such a painful way, I also learned in the same stroke the raw power a piece of writing could have; a skinny little teen could humble and infuriate a host of adults just by scribbling on a piece of paper.
Of course, while I'd like to say that I fought the system with bravery and charm, being a kid meant that mostly I just thrashed around and embarrassed myself. I remember once even breaking down into tears at a pivotal moment after being dragged up before principals and vice principals and guidance counselors and various teachers, when what was called for was an inspired, lucid speech of ringing condemnation. But that didn't happen, and that's what it means to be a powerless kid. (I think I could have transformed into one of those old Kirby villains that afternoon, but luckily life moves on and there were no radioactive isotopes rolling about the corridors.)
Though, the result of such a disastrous high school experience was that I emerged from the excretion end with that most valuable of lessons: It wasn't just school that was a crock. ALL systems of population management contain the same elements and thus were similarly vile and demeaning. The system doesn't want people to learn and grow, but simply to fit into its infernal mechanism and shut up.
From that perspective, high school was enormously valuable; you could learn some of life's most heart-breaking lessons in an environment which was lacking the final knives and hard edges the world beyond contains.
+3 insightful for a bunch of assumptions that are...completely wrong. Well done. As for the grandfather assumptions, one grandfather was dead and the other one never left the house when I was that age.
Gimme a break. Of course I'm wrong! Even if I was right, I'm still wrong, because the other guy can always make stuff up. The point is that assumptions just don't work. That's why I don't use them. I made a deliberately over-the-top arrogant exception in your case to establish what I thought would be an obvious point. You had the option of nodding and saying, "Yeah, I see what you're saying", or you could have pounded on your chest like a damned primate. Either way, the point should be entirely obvious now. "Don't make dumb assumptions." Get it?
On a related side note, I ought to point out that your grandfathers being dead or invalid when you were 10 has nothing to do with what they were doing when THEY were 10 years old. If you can't understand that, then I think you may have failed to grasp the entire thrust of my original comment. Maybe a quick re-read is in order before throwing any more wild punches. . ?
Good job on completely removing what is apparently a terrible temptation from your life though. So how's the watercooler talk at work going?
Actually, my avoidance of TV media is just one aspect of an entire life style wherein numerous choices of a similar nature have led me into circles filled with worldly, bright and almost super-human people who have infinitely more fascinating things to discuss than, "Who Shot J.R." No water coolers or messed up office environments around here.
But please don't get me wrong; I love stories as well as anybody and I keep track of my favorites. Video rental places and computer DVD drives are great that way. I'm a sci-fi geek, same as anybody around here, but my life doesn't revolve around programming schedules and I've not had to endure an advert in more than a decade. And best of all, I am largely unexposed to propaganda, which I'm afraid, is the other word for "News and Educational Programming". (Nothing a person learns from TV News and History Channels etc. is going to fall outside the parameters of what corporations and the super-wealthy are willing to let you know and think. That much should be obvious to anybody. What should also be obvious is that they will also lie to viewers in order to affect population control measures. But television will never explain how that works to its viewers.)
-That and I haven't been exposed to that gawdawful 60 Htz flicker which casts the viewer into a trance state and thus facilitates the absorption of whatever message happens to be issuing from the screen and speakers. Interestingly, even Plasma Screen TV's flicker below 500 Htz, which creates the same effect. Will power and discipline are irrelevant when it comes to ocular hypnosis. But TV won't tell you much about that either.
Everybody I know who owns a TV clearly exists somewhere on the "sickly flake" scale and comes pre-installed with state-sanctioned belief systems of exactly zero value. Maybe you're the exception, but it certainly doesn't sound like it.
Hello. I'm over here. I didn't say anything about violence. I don't want to interrupt your shadow boxing match, but if I were to make any comments about violence, I'd offer two notes which are in fact related to my point about electronic media. . .
1. I don't know what metrics you are quoting or how you quantify 'violence' given the word implies a great deal, but from my personal observations, I would agree that basic thuggery among the general population seems to have decreased. Electronic anesthesia and more time plugged in versus being outdoors would logically have that effect. Even back in the days of Jack Parr, it was observed that crime would go down during the Tonight Show.
2. War violence is another story. I think everybody would agree there has been a dramatic increase in the amount and viscosity of violent media we have been exposed to over the last few decades. There's a big difference between Pac-Man and Grand Theft Auto, and I don't doubt for a second that people thirty years ago would have been up in arms were half the media we accept as normal today were dumped on the world back then. Desensitization isn't just a word; it's a measurable phenomenon, and I think it plays a role in how the public today responds to the kind of war violence taking place around the world, from Iraq to Guantanamo to Palestine. The new media provides us with unparalleled access to the facts of these events, but we seem to be sleepwalking through, (and more often around) those facts.
And sure, historically, people have always been accepting of enormous violence and cruelty. I'm not arguing that. What I am saying is that the media appears to be the mechanism through which our collective apathy has been turned up this time around. Personally, I choose to not be anesthetized, so knowing the vector from which that anesthesia happens to be coming from this century helps me avoid joining the ranks of the sleepwalkers.
food has gotten safer (food spoilage kills way more than whatever trace chemicals scare you this month),
You're using a very specific definition of 'safe' here which I think ignores a much larger issue. Deaths due to immediate food poisoning may indeed have gone down, but so what? The nature of our food supply has changed astronomically in the last fifty years, including the introduction of chemicals, drugs, genetics and vastly altered modes of production. . . The officially understood result of all this enormous change remains unresolved but 'Safe' is hardly a word which could be used to describe the situation. But again, this is a matter of definitions.
Your argument here is a bit foggy, so I'm not completely sure what point you are trying to make, (that things are just as bad as they always were? That things are better? That we're ignoring history?) Whatever the case, in regard to this particular point, the nature of our food supply is rapidly changing in ways which are completely new as compared to anything history has to offer. That's a bald fact. I don't really see how that supports any claim of 'historical myopia'.
watch tv and play video games: both can be used for your personal growth and enjoyment, and this makes us far smarter, happy, and wealthier than past, more brutal, dumber generations
Sure, they can have that effect. It's about the user's intent and level of discipline, which I think I already pointed out. But in general, that's not what is happening. My point is that media saturation appears to be having a rather a narcotic-like effect which can be easily observed. But to make that observation, one must step outdoors and talk with people of different ages in order to compare personal experiences in real life, (rather than quote scenes from fictional movies you've watched).
In dream, the lamb is able to seduce itself into believing that really, it is a lion. But that doesn't change what happens in the slaughterhouse.
I'll bet my life savings that you're over 40. Want those kids to get off your lawn, grandpa?
You lose. But unless you're part of something like 5% of the Western population, chances are you're either living with your parents or you are in debt up to your ears, so it hardly matters.
Unless you are over 40, the concept of "Life Savings" is a bit of myth.
Sorry a marked drivel count and high stupidity factor in your reply turned off the intelligent reply circuit. My bad.
Aaaaand, you're still name-calling.
Until you provide some actual content, I'm afraid ALL my observations stand while you are more than likely just living in some flavor of denial. ("La La La, I can't HEAR you!")?
You know, I strongly suspect that the more often you turn off your intelligence, the less of it you have to turn back on.
Why do you believe it has to be either/or? Just because there's a playstation in the house does not mean you can't go and get your teeth kicked in in a game of rugby.
You're in your thirties. Of course you had an active childhood! The alternative was somewhere between Pong, coin-op Space-Invaders and the fledgling Atari which you probably had to go over to a friend's house to play. There was no internet, no cell phones, and TV had a fraction of the influence it has today. And I bet both your grandfathers survived actual wars to your cub scouts. Essentially, you just made my point.
So what you're really saying is that you don't have the discipline to turn the tv off when it's there and hence your kids have to go without it as well? How about an alternative? Get in control of your own life before spawning offspring? Crazy idea, I know...but I think it's a lot better than the alternative. (Hint: look up what happens when kids that have been forcible deprived of "drugs" as you call them while their peers do have access move out of their parent's houses...)
I have enough discipline to not own a TV at all, I don't have kids and you doth protest too much. See? Assumptions work both ways. Except mine are probably right.
It's obvious that we're growing MUCH dumber people than we were fifty years ago. -Well, obvious to those who take the time to explore the issue, and by explore, I mean, compare stories.
If you are in your thirties, then talk to people who are twenty years older than you. Get them to tell you their stories about being a youth, then compare those stories to your own. Unless you stayed away from TV and electronic media in a big way, you'll be ashamed and distraught by how big a wuss you sound like by comparison to all the real-life Indiana Joneses out there. Sharp, educated, brave and bruised; people who experienced real adventures and lived to tell the story. And I'm just talking about basic rural living. There was a lot more heart to go around.
Then compare your own stories with the latest crop of plugged-in kids. Even you will sound like a superhero by contrast.
Like it or not, in broad strokes which cannot be easily summed up in statistical analysis of video game studies, THIS is the direction human evolution is going.
Interacting with the physical world and the people living in it teaches kids how to interact with the physical world and the people living in it. Nothing else does it better. -Whereas interacting with media teaches escapism.
I mean, sure, there are certainly pros and cons; the internet for instance can be used to waste time or it can be used to read and absorb real knowledge. The user's intent matters. But the fundamental truth is that when drugs are freely available, drugs usually win. Knowledge obtained through work, by contrast, is not addictive. Walking uphill is harder than rolling down a slope.
Amazingly, you can still raise brilliant, powerful kids. The human machine is fundamentally the same as it was before the advent of TV. Simply follow this protocol. . .
Don't have a TV in your house. Don't play video games. Don't be a computer addict. Eat non-toxic foods, read a lot and get outdoors to play a lot. Do all that as a parent and aside from loving your own life, your kids will follow suit. Oh, and hugs and love. Everybody needs love and hugs!
But it's not going to be an easy world to inherit. If there were any Huns, they'd be at the gate right now.
it's really simple and I don't get why you can't grasp this concept.
The reason you don't get it is that you are trying to reduce a very complex question into a black/white analysis with an easy on/off answer.
This is evidence of lazy thinking or perhaps a fear of dealing with complexity, ie, the real world. This leads to control issues; trying to shove the infinite into something safe and easily managed so that the person doing so doesn't feel threatened by it. It is no wonder that people who think this way are so hell bent on controlling information.
Heaven forbid anything unexpected happen, or that the answer not be reducible to an easily memorized, sound-bite form! People who puff up and strut around with all the answers are generally the most insecure people in the world with a ton of shielding in place to prevent their fragile egos from getting pulverized by the onslaught of reality.
The courageous surf the waves. Cowards denounce the ocean.
Muddy waters are a better way to control information than to remove the water altogether. You can't prevent leaks, so the best bet is to deliberately leak false info so that the average seeker can be controlled or disgusted into forgetting all about it.
The tactic is simple; Leak false but exciting/tantalizing info, (the Fake Moon Landing, for instance), let it brew and then categorically demonstrate how and why it is broken in public forum. This makes everybody feel stupid and turns popular opinion against not just the concept of a Fake Moon Landing, but against the entire idea of anti-establishment thinking, aka, "conspiracies". The Fake Moon Landing thing was promoted over television and denounced over television, clearly aiming the attack on Joe Average. A very effective campaign, by all indicators.
Here's another neat example. . .
The National Enquirer has been for many years, particularly during periods of high public interest in the UFO phenomenon, the only paper with national distribution which was willing to run reports from serious UFO researchers. It would, for a percentage of the time, run excellent and editorially exacting stories on UFOs, while the rest of the time press nonsense stories. While groups like APRO were wary of accepting support from the National Enquirer, the opportunity and sometimes significant research money offered by the Enquirer was hard to turn down, and there was always the argument that "Any publicity is good publicity." However, Richard Dolan observes. ..
"What makes this more interesting is that the Enquirer publisher, Gene Pope, had been a CIA agent during the early 1950's. What he did there remains classified, except that he was involved in the Agency's Psychological Warfare Unit. Hansen's research suggested that the CIA helped to fund the Enquirer when Pope took it over, most likely to provide sensationalistic coverage to certain stories as needed - a kind of 'inoculation,' just as a doctor gives a touch of disease to the patient to stimulate a reaction from the immune system. Even soberly researched UFO stories would be discredited within the confines of a tabloid dedicated to horoscopes and celebrity gossip."
While I know it would be counterproductive and instantly abused, some days I really do wish there was a "Stupid" mod among the available choices.
A US spy agency devises a plan to use social engineering to destroy wikileaks, and this plan is itself leaked? Why would that make the news roster on a site which has a long-standing interest all things Internet, Free-Speech and government policies/actions affecting them?
Eric? You're a fucking retard. Why don't you just go back to watching Star Wars and smoking reefer? It would save all of the rest of us a lot of anguish.
Oh, poor you. Your precious tribe is being polluted by non-conformist thinking? New ideas which don't fit your own?
He wasn't rude, (unlike you), he wasn't speaking from a thoughtless place, (unlike your knee-jerk), and he wasn't boring.
I may not agree with anything he said, but at least he's not you. Uniform thinkers who stay in line and never trouble the herd by walking out of sync are just that; herd animals. Take a note from Darwin and try evolving beyond your automatic behavior a little.
You are prejudiced that anyone that makes points that agree with Rush, must be some kind of idiot. After all he does not agree with you philosophically, no matter the domain is not politics but technology. Therefore, his opinion is worthless.
That sums it up neatly, I think.
If one can't measure reality correctly from a social standpoint, it means he is adept at lying to himself in order to foster his emotional truths. This system of reasoning is always applied to all levels of problem-solving. He must be right, therefore facts will come second to ego.
Nothing a man of this nature says can be taken at face value.
No, that's not what he is doing at all. The sad thing is you will never know what he was doing while at the same time congratulating yourself for keeping the purity of your worldview intact.
Um, yes, he is passing judgment on the internet. Perhaps we have different definitions for the word. . ? Further, in reading through his notes, (which I did, thank-you very much), it is clear that his ideas rest firmly in the realm of sociology and philosophy, which is inescapably connected to his political views; ie, the value of people and how they behave and by extension, how they should be managed.
He's blowing smoke which anybody can blow. He just happens to be doing it with a degree of marketable paunch and undeserving arrogance.
My daily bread isn't obtained by chasing after research grants.
Here, you sweepingly and arrogantly dismiss the only discipline that's elevated us above stone knives and bearskins.
Ah ah ah. . . You're reading through a filter again. If you were worth the attention you think you deserve, then you would realize that I was offering an example of why some scientists behave the way they do; writing pandering press-pieces to call attention to their efforts, bending over backwards to please critics. . , because if they do not, then their research funds dry up. But you are not a grant supplier, and you are not a peer. And as I am also doubtful that you are any brand of scientist, it seems that you are nothing more than a rude anonymous internet beastie playing at pretend.
Now, I am not disputing the value of science. I am disputing YOUR personal sense of entitlement. Real scientists make an effort to extract information from the universe; they work at experiments, they pay for expensive journals, they pay database subscription fees and they buy books. And they ask nicely.
Only by presenting evidence can anyone change the perception of his theory from "dubious" to "interesting" to "probably" to "well-established". You accuse us of wanting something for nothing, but in reality, you are the one who is overreaching: you want the due consideration and attention that a genuine scientific theory receives, but without having to do the things that make it science.
Once again, I offered you a book filled with evidence, easy to obtain, and you claim I am offering you no evidence at all. That's either insane, or it's a tantrum. Based on your level of denial and lack of reasoning, it would seem to me that it's a bit of both. If stubborn denial of the facts is not a form of insanity, then what is it?
I just want to make you work for any knowledge you might obtain, because you need to learn a lesson about etiquette and bullying and other fine social feats of grace. But primarily, you need to learn that you are worth nothing. Scientific processes notwithstanding, you don't deserve anything.
Those who did feel a tug of interest in what I offered were also given the same opportunities as you had. In fact, I've posted links before now, and with a bit of creative effort, anybody could find numerous items should they have been inspired to learn and grow. That's how I learned. I did the work and I followed the leads. But you clearly don't want to learn and grow. You want to hide from and bully those who present ideas upsetting to your personal belief paradigm. And you want to put in as little effort as humanly possible.
Think: would you have launched into such a vitriolic series of comments had the nugget I offered not rung with a certain logic? If it had been a truly faulty piece of thinking, you would have been able to ignore it with ease, but it did not and you couldn't. So you felt the need to attack it and me using petty arguments and petty demands and lots of eye-closed head shaking.
This is why offering easy links would be wasted upon you; you have already decided that opposing ideas are the enemy, and you wouldn't have wasted a moment to find imaginary faults with whatever I showed you so that you could bury your head in peace once more, (and play in contentment with your delightful cell phone?). This is why I want you to EARN the knowledge. If you spend money on a book, you will be inclined to open it up. If I insult your pride by saying you are too lazy to explore, you are more inclined to read the book out of spite rather than skim it and toss it aside.
You want to talk books? Let's talk books.
Read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
You have GOT to be kidding me.
Did you even read that book? If you did, then you clearly had those filters of yours firmly in place. I went to the (min
So, it seems that David Gelerter was blown up by the Unabomber, survived and wrote a book about the experience. In a cavalier attempt to "Take the Internet Seriously" I dredged up two reviews from Amazon's customer comments which show opposing valances of political opinion regarding the book's content. I thought it might help to explain the kind of filters Mr. Gelerter views the world through and thus help one decide whether his little treatise on the Internet is worth anything.
Review Number One. ..
"Drawing Life" is by David Gelernter, a computer science professor who survived one of Ted Kaczynski's mail bombs.
The book is about a well educated, intelligent man who has descended into a fear of the future and a hatred of the society that nurtured him, who dreams of a glorious American past that never really existed, who has written a venomous yet pedestrian political tract that would never have been printed without the author's notoriety, and who has come to the conclusion that sometimes people must be deliberately killed to remake society.
This book is also about the Unabomber.
Gelernter has endured an awful lot, and for this one is prepared to grant him slack. If he's cranky, he's certainly earned the right to be this way.
Yet, I've come away disappointed, not just with "Drawing Life," but with Gelernter himself. He is a profoundly bitter man who believes modern society has been ruined not just by the Unabomber but by the likes of unwed mothers, liberals, lawyers, feminists, intellectuals, working mothers, left-wing journalists, Hillary Clinton, and the usual gang of suspects straight from Rush Limbaugh's enemies list.
Tiresome and unoriginal. Not worth reading.
And David, enough with the kvetching already!
Review Number Two. ..
One of the most powerfully written and elegantly thought out books I have ever read. Should be mandatory reading for every American. I used to think only Vietnam veterans had this kind of sane view of the world after adversity. I was wrong. Buy it, read it, pass it along.
Right. So Gelernter is passing judgment on the great social commons known as the Internet, is he?
The Sun doesn't modulate its signal down into coherent patterns. It's static. By contrast, cells respond in odd ways when there are steady frequencies in the 10 to 500hz range present. Think "sympathetic vibrations". Everything has a resonant frequency.
Also, it's not really a cancer issue so much as a, "How does it affect cognition in the nervous system?" question.
You might ask why I didn't make a contract with this client in the first place. It's because I've found, over the years, that insisting on a contract before development starts will result either in a delayed start or even a project being shelved.
Not having a contract in place before you start does speed things up, but it's kind of like running a heavy industries company without insurance.
Why not have two general contracts drawn up in advance; one which points out that the client gets what is essentially first publishing rights, or whatever comes closest to emulating the copyright system, and another where you sell the code outright. Explain the difference up front and then pull out the pen. "Option A is cheap, but I can sell the same code to other clients and you can't change it, and Option B will cost you several orders of magnitude more, but it's all yours forever and you can do whatever you want with it. This is standard copyright practice. We can start work as soon as you sign!"
People like clear options and little check boxes, and this would avoid weeks of legal dickering. Yes, you may lose some work in the short term because people realize that you're not selling what they actually want for the price they can afford, but this way is more honest and your headaches will be fewer.
Try to read a little more critically. Believing everything somebody like that writes is almost as bad as believing everything the Discovery Institute writes.
I always read critically, thanks, but it certainly doesn't hurt to be reminded every now and again.
Your opinion, for instance, cannot be taken at face value for the same reason the author of that blog post cannot be taken at face value. The reader, (me in this case), must think on his feet and measure both items as best he can.
To start with, the author of that blog post does indeed sound a bit hysterical at points, and you tripped over the same aspects of her post that I did. (The secret coded system of looks and glances at the country club, being one such instance.) However, the I was able to forgive that extravagance, partly because I recognized it for what it was; an emblematic example designed to portray a very real social force. Unspoken rules of behavior are entirely real, as I am sure you are aware, and they do cause populations to make significant shifts between opposing poles when certain critical masses are achieved.
I've observed that force in action all through my life in every imaginable arena, from highschool to work places, to national debate, to simple things like fashion choices. It's called, "Culture", and the truth is that nearly all of our fundamental behavior is in fact NOT learned through direct verbal instruction. Her point about Hitler not actually having issued orders to carry out the darker elements of the Nazi reign is very valid. And while it is true that the dynamics of the unspoken rule-sets of humans can be deliberately manipulated. (Billions of dollars have been spent on advertising and public relations. Precise psychology and brain science has evolved to the point where entire populations can be very effectively managed with deliberate strokes.), I don't think that one necessarily needs the men near the top to even be aware that they are deliberately pushing a destruct button. Such people are running on automatic themselves. But that doesn't mean the system they are a part of doesn't exist or that it doesn't function in much the way she described.
Here's the difference I see between your opinion and hers. . . She was looking at objective reality and made a concerted effort to build a functioning model which would explain her observations. And while I realize that you were limited to a fifteen minute Slashdot response, you seemed instead to offer only critical objections rather than a alternative model to explain those same observations. You seemed to center your opinion around the example of one man, the owner of what sounds like a modestly-sized construction company. You'll have to forgive me for pointing out that I don't think such men are really the ones calling the kinds of shots which matter in the system Martha Rose Crow was describing. High level banking, infrastructure, food and drug regulation, education, social and military spending directives are where the patterns of a nation are determined. Guys like your construction CEO friend are just little men who have to function within the resulting system.
In any case, to base your argument for how reality works on such a single and somewhat irrelevant example isn't trust-inspiring. A wider sample is needed. For instance, while I also know some benign men of power, I've also had the opportunity to know others who are not benign. I've also known a number of journalists working in both television and newspaper media, and I've heard some private rants about how they are not allowed to tell the real news due to corruption in their organizations. Such examples tell a very different story than the one you are telling.
But moreover, and this is the part I find which leaves your opinion lacking, is that you seem to sum things up with the attitude that, sure society is messed up, but it's okay to blame the kids even though you point out that the system was responsible for their creation. This s
They will not have a job that pays taxes in their lives and they will probably die from something crime-, smoke- or alcohol-related. Sure, someone let them down along the way: their parents, the government, their infrastructure, whatever, but by the time that these boys start hanging out on street-corners, it's already way to late to do anything about it. They're a lost cause, and they know it, and the people who play classical music in order to get rid of them, know it.
All good scientists have extremely compelling reasons to publish their works on the web: to most widely disseminate their findings, and to have their findings carry the kind of weight that only accrues by being scrutinized and by withstanding that scrutiny. You do value your assertions being scrutinized, don't you?
I'm not a scientist. My daily bread isn't obtained by chasing after research grants. I'm something else. It's my job to inspire people to think in new ways and to explore the world. People don't grow when you give them everything upon demand. They grow when they have to reach. Right now you are playing at bargaining with me in the hopes of getting something for nothing. That simply isn't going to happen, I'm afraid.
I research and read voraciously, ESPECIALLY the things that may teach me what I don't already know. You throw up needless barriers to moving this along. I have never known a scientist who played dodging games like you. I've only seen the charlatans do that. If you are not a charlatan, what is your purpose in behaving like one?
See above. And get the book already. It's full of all the citations you could possibly ask for. Feel that burning in your brain? That's good for you. That's the metaphoric "alchemical fire". Heat burns away the dross and purifies the matter of the mind.
No, it's more clear than ever that giving you easy links would be the wrong move altogether.
Your initial post was sophomoric; your defense is infantile. With the time and space it took you to accuse your detractors of laziness, you could have made a cogent argument supporting your view. You didn't, and you didn't because you couldn't. You know that you have no rigorous support, so you resort to ad hominem attacks on our intellectual work ethic.
It would sure make things easier for you if any of that were true. "I didn't because I couldn't"? You can make a declaration like that and still call ME infantile? Wow. And I love the term, "intellectual work ethic". -Your work ethic dictates that you be rude, condescending and demanding rather than civil and questioning? Real scientists generally figure that one out early on in their careers.
There's a difference between an ad hom attack and calling a duck a duck. If you don't like what I've pointed out about what I see, then perhaps you should change your behavior.
You are the one making the extraordinary claim. It's your job to convince others that you are right, not to scream "you're lazy!" when others say "that's implausible".
Well now, I hardly think I can be characterized as, "screaming". -And others aren't merely saying in reasoned tones, "that's implausible." Is that honestly what you perceived while reading through these posts? Indeed, I'd actually go so far as to reverse those emotional valances, though to be fair, I don't really see anybody screaming. More just getting indignant and puffed up with self-importance. Keeping in mind that there are some genuinely mature and intelligent people commenting in this thread who disagree with me but who are worthy of respect.
But oh my goodness! My favorite part is that you believe it's my JOB to convince you. Oh dear! That implies I desire and value your approval. I really, really don't. Honest!
Look at it this way. . .
Let's say I was out in the backyard and I saw something amazing. Let's say I learned and benefited from my discovery. The chances are I might cry out and say, "Hey everybody, check this out!" -That would be me wanting to share with the tribe. After that, however, it is up to others whether or not they choose to follow where I am pointing and go look for themselves. My responsibility to the tribe at this point has ended. I have sounded an alert and pointed the way. I am under no obligation to drag people kicking and complaining to any kind of discovery. Why would I want to? It sounds like a miserable, thankless job.
But that's not how we've been trained as a culture. (The endless court room dramas we have been exposed to are one example). The way we are kept in the dark is that we have been taught to keep ourselves in the dark. -That it is right and proper to scowl and refuse to get out of the TV couch jury box, to insist that the discoverer bring forth studies and peer-reviewed papers proving that something amazing really has been witnessed and learned from. People have been brought up to believe that the proper reaction is to grow indignant and even angry when one tells them, "Nah. I don't feel like it. You're on your own."
"Then you didn't see anything! You owe us proof!"
"No I don't. I benefited and you didn't because you're lazy. Too bad for you. Of course, you could always get up and go look for yourself just over-"
"I will not! You must bring knowledge to me on a silver platter."
"Yeah, but I'm not going to do that. If you don't expend effort to look, then you don't deserve to know. In fact, I might actually tell people to not give you information. You get what you pay for and you actually deserve to be in the dark."
"Argh! Then you didn't see anything of value. You didn't benefit. You didn't! You have to prove it."
"Whatever. I'm going back outside to explore, learn and grow some more. Bye!"
(Isn't this interesting? Easily as fascinating as cell phones. The epistemology of the very process of learning itself!)
Also you seem to confuse extremely low frequency energy "1Hz to 500Hz range" with the much much higher frequency (800 to 1900MHz) that Cellular and PCS phones use.
I didn't want to confuse the issue with the idea of modulated frequencies, but it is clear you are entirely comfortable with that concept.
As it happens, many microwave communication systems do indeed modulate down into the ELF range through a number of different means and methods.
There may be certain effects from the very low field strengths emitted by mobile phones but it really is minute.
I hope you will pardon me for saying, but this sounds more like self-calming rationale than hard knowledge.
Finally. . , I didn't know that non-ionizing RF can burn. I'll have to educate myself a little more. Can you offer a nugget or two to send me in the right direction?
That is not a study. A book on how cancer might be caused by cellphone radiation proves nothing. You need a real, large-scale experiment to determine whether it is actually happening.
You are falsely assuming the content of a book you have not read.
Do you honestly wish me to lay out a few hundred pages of white paper study in order to back up my statements? Despite the fact that what the poster actually wants is not proof, but rather to invalidate my argument by demanding an impossible amount of paper work for a casual poster to supply, (the same tactic corporate lawyers use to defeat private individuals; they create legal demands which are so cripplingly expensive to meet that they win by default.)
I have countered this tactic by in fact offering exactly the work demanded, BUT in doing so the poster is required to meet me half-way by expending some of his own energy and time.
That book contains significant excerpts from a multitude of exactly the kind of studies demanded. It is authored by a well respected researcher who spent half is professional life collecting such studies from hundreds of scientists as well as performing his own. It is an excellent and easy to use portal to a wide world of verifiable research.
In fact, anybody who really wants to know the true state of affairs wrt this subject, is being handed a gift with such a book. But most of the people responding here are not seekers. They are hiding. They don't want to know. They are playing denial games, (as is evidenced by the amount of raw emotion in their posts), and as such no amount of proof would ever be satisfactory, because they have determined that they will remain in their bubble-realities no matter what.
Slashdot Mirror
Siege engines?
Boiling oil?
Invaders at the Gate?
This is the result of rampant competitiveness; you end up with a country filled with a small handful of Winners and a ton of Slaves.
Nice. What a great way to live.
Or you could move to Canada where neighbors treat each other with a modicum of respect and compassion and you don't need to own a gun because you're not terrified of getting attacked.
Of course, Canada has been sliding, but at least it has a bit more of that bedrock of sanity upon which its brand of Snow Hobbit happens to breed.
-FL
Freedom from who?
Spam kings, civilian police departments and credit scam goons? (Like banks.) Perhaps. But any group with real technology will be able to see through you from the top down no matter what consumer grade electronic solution you employ.
From that perspective, I don't think people really care about their freedoms. Most of the time, I don't think people realize they are being measured, categorized and manipulated accordingly. It's a fairly convincing illusion we have of freedom, in that the ones we lose we are convinced we didn't need anyway.
-FL
Jeezuz.
I dropped out of high school largely because of that brain-damaging essay format. I rejected it from the subconscious all the way up, I think. I'd get furious without even fully understanding why. It certainly didn't help that half the time I patently disagreed with whatever point we'd been told to prove in a given paper. Being forced to argue some wrong stance using that monkey-brained essay format. . . Dante left that punishment out of his nine rings, probably because it was already installed in my high school.
One time I lost my temper and put my thoughts on the matter into one such essay, veering off topic half way through and blasting the system and the people who taught it. I remember the teachers were up in arms; it was being read around the teacher's lounge and when I found out that I'd really upset not just the asshat teachers, but also the ones I respected, I felt like dying. That was where I finally clicked to the notion that Teachers were also People. But while I learned that lesson in such a painful way, I also learned in the same stroke the raw power a piece of writing could have; a skinny little teen could humble and infuriate a host of adults just by scribbling on a piece of paper.
Of course, while I'd like to say that I fought the system with bravery and charm, being a kid meant that mostly I just thrashed around and embarrassed myself. I remember once even breaking down into tears at a pivotal moment after being dragged up before principals and vice principals and guidance counselors and various teachers, when what was called for was an inspired, lucid speech of ringing condemnation. But that didn't happen, and that's what it means to be a powerless kid. (I think I could have transformed into one of those old Kirby villains that afternoon, but luckily life moves on and there were no radioactive isotopes rolling about the corridors.)
Though, the result of such a disastrous high school experience was that I emerged from the excretion end with that most valuable of lessons: It wasn't just school that was a crock. ALL systems of population management contain the same elements and thus were similarly vile and demeaning. The system doesn't want people to learn and grow, but simply to fit into its infernal mechanism and shut up.
From that perspective, high school was enormously valuable; you could learn some of life's most heart-breaking lessons in an environment which was lacking the final knives and hard edges the world beyond contains.
-FL
+3 insightful for a bunch of assumptions that are...completely wrong. Well done. As for the grandfather assumptions, one grandfather was dead and the other one never left the house when I was that age.
Gimme a break. Of course I'm wrong! Even if I was right, I'm still wrong, because the other guy can always make stuff up. The point is that assumptions just don't work. That's why I don't use them. I made a deliberately over-the-top arrogant exception in your case to establish what I thought would be an obvious point. You had the option of nodding and saying, "Yeah, I see what you're saying", or you could have pounded on your chest like a damned primate. Either way, the point should be entirely obvious now. "Don't make dumb assumptions." Get it?
On a related side note, I ought to point out that your grandfathers being dead or invalid when you were 10 has nothing to do with what they were doing when THEY were 10 years old. If you can't understand that, then I think you may have failed to grasp the entire thrust of my original comment. Maybe a quick re-read is in order before throwing any more wild punches. . ?
Good job on completely removing what is apparently a terrible temptation from your life though. So how's the watercooler talk at work going?
Actually, my avoidance of TV media is just one aspect of an entire life style wherein numerous choices of a similar nature have led me into circles filled with worldly, bright and almost super-human people who have infinitely more fascinating things to discuss than, "Who Shot J.R." No water coolers or messed up office environments around here.
But please don't get me wrong; I love stories as well as anybody and I keep track of my favorites. Video rental places and computer DVD drives are great that way. I'm a sci-fi geek, same as anybody around here, but my life doesn't revolve around programming schedules and I've not had to endure an advert in more than a decade. And best of all, I am largely unexposed to propaganda, which I'm afraid, is the other word for "News and Educational Programming". (Nothing a person learns from TV News and History Channels etc. is going to fall outside the parameters of what corporations and the super-wealthy are willing to let you know and think. That much should be obvious to anybody. What should also be obvious is that they will also lie to viewers in order to affect population control measures. But television will never explain how that works to its viewers.)
-That and I haven't been exposed to that gawdawful 60 Htz flicker which casts the viewer into a trance state and thus facilitates the absorption of whatever message happens to be issuing from the screen and speakers. Interestingly, even Plasma Screen TV's flicker below 500 Htz, which creates the same effect. Will power and discipline are irrelevant when it comes to ocular hypnosis. But TV won't tell you much about that either.
Everybody I know who owns a TV clearly exists somewhere on the "sickly flake" scale and comes pre-installed with state-sanctioned belief systems of exactly zero value. Maybe you're the exception, but it certainly doesn't sound like it.
-FL
"we're getting more violent, we're dumber, etc."
Hello. I'm over here. I didn't say anything about violence. I don't want to interrupt your shadow boxing match, but if I were to make any comments about violence, I'd offer two notes which are in fact related to my point about electronic media. . .
1. I don't know what metrics you are quoting or how you quantify 'violence' given the word implies a great deal, but from my personal observations, I would agree that basic thuggery among the general population seems to have decreased. Electronic anesthesia and more time plugged in versus being outdoors would logically have that effect. Even back in the days of Jack Parr, it was observed that crime would go down during the Tonight Show.
2. War violence is another story. I think everybody would agree there has been a dramatic increase in the amount and viscosity of violent media we have been exposed to over the last few decades. There's a big difference between Pac-Man and Grand Theft Auto, and I don't doubt for a second that people thirty years ago would have been up in arms were half the media we accept as normal today were dumped on the world back then. Desensitization isn't just a word; it's a measurable phenomenon, and I think it plays a role in how the public today responds to the kind of war violence taking place around the world, from Iraq to Guantanamo to Palestine. The new media provides us with unparalleled access to the facts of these events, but we seem to be sleepwalking through, (and more often around) those facts.
And sure, historically, people have always been accepting of enormous violence and cruelty. I'm not arguing that. What I am saying is that the media appears to be the mechanism through which our collective apathy has been turned up this time around. Personally, I choose to not be anesthetized, so knowing the vector from which that anesthesia happens to be coming from this century helps me avoid joining the ranks of the sleepwalkers.
food has gotten safer (food spoilage kills way more than whatever trace chemicals scare you this month),
You're using a very specific definition of 'safe' here which I think ignores a much larger issue. Deaths due to immediate food poisoning may indeed have gone down, but so what? The nature of our food supply has changed astronomically in the last fifty years, including the introduction of chemicals, drugs, genetics and vastly altered modes of production. . . The officially understood result of all this enormous change remains unresolved but 'Safe' is hardly a word which could be used to describe the situation. But again, this is a matter of definitions.
Your argument here is a bit foggy, so I'm not completely sure what point you are trying to make, (that things are just as bad as they always were? That things are better? That we're ignoring history?) Whatever the case, in regard to this particular point, the nature of our food supply is rapidly changing in ways which are completely new as compared to anything history has to offer. That's a bald fact. I don't really see how that supports any claim of 'historical myopia'.
watch tv and play video games: both can be used for your personal growth and enjoyment, and this makes us far smarter, happy, and wealthier than past, more brutal, dumber generations
Sure, they can have that effect. It's about the user's intent and level of discipline, which I think I already pointed out. But in general, that's not what is happening. My point is that media saturation appears to be having a rather a narcotic-like effect which can be easily observed. But to make that observation, one must step outdoors and talk with people of different ages in order to compare personal experiences in real life, (rather than quote scenes from fictional movies you've watched).
In dream, the lamb is able to seduce itself into believing that really, it is a lion. But that doesn't change what happens in the slaughterhouse.
-FL
I'll bet my life savings that you're over 40. Want those kids to get off your lawn, grandpa?
You lose. But unless you're part of something like 5% of the Western population, chances are you're either living with your parents or you are in debt up to your ears, so it hardly matters.
Unless you are over 40, the concept of "Life Savings" is a bit of myth.
-FL
Sorry a marked drivel count and high stupidity factor in your reply turned off the intelligent reply circuit. My bad.
Aaaaand, you're still name-calling.
Until you provide some actual content, I'm afraid ALL my observations stand while you are more than likely just living in some flavor of denial. ("La La La, I can't HEAR you!")?
You know, I strongly suspect that the more often you turn off your intelligence, the less of it you have to turn back on.
-FL
Why do you believe it has to be either/or? Just because there's a playstation in the house does not mean you can't go and get your teeth kicked in in a game of rugby.
You're in your thirties. Of course you had an active childhood! The alternative was somewhere between Pong, coin-op Space-Invaders and the fledgling Atari which you probably had to go over to a friend's house to play. There was no internet, no cell phones, and TV had a fraction of the influence it has today. And I bet both your grandfathers survived actual wars to your cub scouts. Essentially, you just made my point.
So what you're really saying is that you don't have the discipline to turn the tv off when it's there and hence your kids have to go without it as well? How about an alternative? Get in control of your own life before spawning offspring? Crazy idea, I know...but I think it's a lot better than the alternative. (Hint: look up what happens when kids that have been forcible deprived of "drugs" as you call them while their peers do have access move out of their parent's houses...)
I have enough discipline to not own a TV at all, I don't have kids and you doth protest too much. See? Assumptions work both ways. Except mine are probably right.
-FL
It's obvious that we're growing MUCH dumber people than we were fifty years ago. -Well, obvious to those who take the time to explore the issue, and by explore, I mean, compare stories.
If you are in your thirties, then talk to people who are twenty years older than you. Get them to tell you their stories about being a youth, then compare those stories to your own. Unless you stayed away from TV and electronic media in a big way, you'll be ashamed and distraught by how big a wuss you sound like by comparison to all the real-life Indiana Joneses out there. Sharp, educated, brave and bruised; people who experienced real adventures and lived to tell the story. And I'm just talking about basic rural living. There was a lot more heart to go around.
Then compare your own stories with the latest crop of plugged-in kids. Even you will sound like a superhero by contrast.
Like it or not, in broad strokes which cannot be easily summed up in statistical analysis of video game studies, THIS is the direction human evolution is going.
Interacting with the physical world and the people living in it teaches kids how to interact with the physical world and the people living in it. Nothing else does it better. -Whereas interacting with media teaches escapism.
I mean, sure, there are certainly pros and cons; the internet for instance can be used to waste time or it can be used to read and absorb real knowledge. The user's intent matters. But the fundamental truth is that when drugs are freely available, drugs usually win. Knowledge obtained through work, by contrast, is not addictive. Walking uphill is harder than rolling down a slope.
Amazingly, you can still raise brilliant, powerful kids. The human machine is fundamentally the same as it was before the advent of TV. Simply follow this protocol. . .
Don't have a TV in your house. Don't play video games. Don't be a computer addict. Eat non-toxic foods, read a lot and get outdoors to play a lot. Do all that as a parent and aside from loving your own life, your kids will follow suit. Oh, and hugs and love. Everybody needs love and hugs!
But it's not going to be an easy world to inherit. If there were any Huns, they'd be at the gate right now.
-FL
Um sorry bullshit!
Um, unsubstantiated knee-jerk.
I've met Turning machines with more intelligent responses. What are you? Five?
-FL
it's really simple and I don't get why you can't grasp this concept.
The reason you don't get it is that you are trying to reduce a very complex question into a black/white analysis with an easy on/off answer.
This is evidence of lazy thinking or perhaps a fear of dealing with complexity, ie, the real world. This leads to control issues; trying to shove the infinite into something safe and easily managed so that the person doing so doesn't feel threatened by it. It is no wonder that people who think this way are so hell bent on controlling information.
Heaven forbid anything unexpected happen, or that the answer not be reducible to an easily memorized, sound-bite form! People who puff up and strut around with all the answers are generally the most insecure people in the world with a ton of shielding in place to prevent their fragile egos from getting pulverized by the onslaught of reality.
The courageous surf the waves. Cowards denounce the ocean.
-FL
Muddy waters are a better way to control information than to remove the water altogether. You can't prevent leaks, so the best bet is to deliberately leak false info so that the average seeker can be controlled or disgusted into forgetting all about it.
The tactic is simple; Leak false but exciting/tantalizing info, (the Fake Moon Landing, for instance), let it brew and then categorically demonstrate how and why it is broken in public forum. This makes everybody feel stupid and turns popular opinion against not just the concept of a Fake Moon Landing, but against the entire idea of anti-establishment thinking, aka, "conspiracies". The Fake Moon Landing thing was promoted over television and denounced over television, clearly aiming the attack on Joe Average. A very effective campaign, by all indicators.
Here's another neat example. . .
The National Enquirer has been for many years, particularly during periods of high public interest in the UFO phenomenon, the only paper with national distribution which was willing to run reports from serious UFO researchers. It would, for a percentage of the time, run excellent and editorially exacting stories on UFOs, while the rest of the time press nonsense stories. While groups like APRO were wary of accepting support from the National Enquirer, the opportunity and sometimes significant research money offered by the Enquirer was hard to turn down, and there was always the argument that "Any publicity is good publicity." However, Richard Dolan observes. . .
"What makes this more interesting is that the Enquirer publisher, Gene Pope, had been a CIA agent during the early 1950's. What he did there remains classified, except that he was involved in the Agency's Psychological Warfare Unit. Hansen's research suggested that the CIA helped to fund the Enquirer when Pope took it over, most likely to provide sensationalistic coverage to certain stories as needed - a kind of 'inoculation,' just as a doctor gives a touch of disease to the patient to stimulate a reaction from the immune system. Even soberly researched UFO stories would be discredited within the confines of a tabloid dedicated to horoscopes and celebrity gossip."
-FL
Why was this even news?
While I know it would be counterproductive and instantly abused, some days I really do wish there was a "Stupid" mod among the available choices.
A US spy agency devises a plan to use social engineering to destroy wikileaks, and this plan is itself leaked? Why would that make the news roster on a site which has a long-standing interest all things Internet, Free-Speech and government policies/actions affecting them?
Use your brain, you snide little fart.
-FL
Eric? You're a fucking retard. Why don't you just go back to watching Star Wars and smoking reefer? It would save all of the rest of us a lot of anguish.
Oh, poor you. Your precious tribe is being polluted by non-conformist thinking? New ideas which don't fit your own?
He wasn't rude, (unlike you), he wasn't speaking from a thoughtless place, (unlike your knee-jerk), and he wasn't boring.
I may not agree with anything he said, but at least he's not you. Uniform thinkers who stay in line and never trouble the herd by walking out of sync are just that; herd animals. Take a note from Darwin and try evolving beyond your automatic behavior a little.
-FL
You are prejudiced that anyone that makes points that agree with Rush, must be some kind of idiot. After all he does not agree with you philosophically, no matter the domain is not politics but technology. Therefore, his opinion is worthless.
That sums it up neatly, I think.
If one can't measure reality correctly from a social standpoint, it means he is adept at lying to himself in order to foster his emotional truths. This system of reasoning is always applied to all levels of problem-solving. He must be right, therefore facts will come second to ego.
Nothing a man of this nature says can be taken at face value.
No, that's not what he is doing at all. The sad thing is you will never know what he was doing while at the same time congratulating yourself for keeping the purity of your worldview intact.
Um, yes, he is passing judgment on the internet. Perhaps we have different definitions for the word. . ? Further, in reading through his notes, (which I did, thank-you very much), it is clear that his ideas rest firmly in the realm of sociology and philosophy, which is inescapably connected to his political views; ie, the value of people and how they behave and by extension, how they should be managed.
He's blowing smoke which anybody can blow. He just happens to be doing it with a degree of marketable paunch and undeserving arrogance.
-FL
My daily bread isn't obtained by chasing after research grants.
Here, you sweepingly and arrogantly dismiss the only discipline that's elevated us above stone knives and bearskins.
Ah ah ah. . . You're reading through a filter again. If you were worth the attention you think you deserve, then you would realize that I was offering an example of why some scientists behave the way they do; writing pandering press-pieces to call attention to their efforts, bending over backwards to please critics. . , because if they do not, then their research funds dry up. But you are not a grant supplier, and you are not a peer. And as I am also doubtful that you are any brand of scientist, it seems that you are nothing more than a rude anonymous internet beastie playing at pretend.
Now, I am not disputing the value of science. I am disputing YOUR personal sense of entitlement. Real scientists make an effort to extract information from the universe; they work at experiments, they pay for expensive journals, they pay database subscription fees and they buy books. And they ask nicely.
Only by presenting evidence can anyone change the perception of his theory from "dubious" to "interesting" to "probably" to "well-established". You accuse us of wanting something for nothing, but in reality, you are the one who is overreaching: you want the due consideration and attention that a genuine scientific theory receives, but without having to do the things that make it science.
Once again, I offered you a book filled with evidence, easy to obtain, and you claim I am offering you no evidence at all. That's either insane, or it's a tantrum. Based on your level of denial and lack of reasoning, it would seem to me that it's a bit of both. If stubborn denial of the facts is not a form of insanity, then what is it?
I just want to make you work for any knowledge you might obtain, because you need to learn a lesson about etiquette and bullying and other fine social feats of grace. But primarily, you need to learn that you are worth nothing. Scientific processes notwithstanding, you don't deserve anything.
Those who did feel a tug of interest in what I offered were also given the same opportunities as you had. In fact, I've posted links before now, and with a bit of creative effort, anybody could find numerous items should they have been inspired to learn and grow. That's how I learned. I did the work and I followed the leads. But you clearly don't want to learn and grow. You want to hide from and bully those who present ideas upsetting to your personal belief paradigm. And you want to put in as little effort as humanly possible.
Think: would you have launched into such a vitriolic series of comments had the nugget I offered not rung with a certain logic? If it had been a truly faulty piece of thinking, you would have been able to ignore it with ease, but it did not and you couldn't. So you felt the need to attack it and me using petty arguments and petty demands and lots of eye-closed head shaking.
This is why offering easy links would be wasted upon you; you have already decided that opposing ideas are the enemy, and you wouldn't have wasted a moment to find imaginary faults with whatever I showed you so that you could bury your head in peace once more, (and play in contentment with your delightful cell phone?). This is why I want you to EARN the knowledge. If you spend money on a book, you will be inclined to open it up. If I insult your pride by saying you are too lazy to explore, you are more inclined to read the book out of spite rather than skim it and toss it aside.
You want to talk books? Let's talk books.
Read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
You have GOT to be kidding me.
Did you even read that book? If you did, then you clearly had those filters of yours firmly in place. I went to the (min
So, it seems that David Gelerter was blown up by the Unabomber, survived and wrote a book about the experience. In a cavalier attempt to "Take the Internet Seriously" I dredged up two reviews from Amazon's customer comments which show opposing valances of political opinion regarding the book's content. I thought it might help to explain the kind of filters Mr. Gelerter views the world through and thus help one decide whether his little treatise on the Internet is worth anything.
Review Number One. . .
"Drawing Life" is by David Gelernter, a computer science professor who survived one of Ted Kaczynski's mail bombs.
The book is about a well educated, intelligent man who has descended into a fear of the future and a hatred of the society that nurtured him, who dreams of a glorious American past that never really existed, who has written a venomous yet pedestrian political tract that would never have been printed without the author's notoriety, and who has come to the conclusion that sometimes people must be deliberately killed to remake society.
This book is also about the Unabomber.
Gelernter has endured an awful lot, and for this one is prepared to grant him slack. If he's cranky, he's certainly earned the right to be this way.
Yet, I've come away disappointed, not just with "Drawing Life," but with Gelernter himself. He is a profoundly bitter man who believes modern society has been ruined not just by the Unabomber but by the likes of unwed mothers, liberals, lawyers, feminists, intellectuals, working mothers, left-wing journalists, Hillary Clinton, and the usual gang of suspects straight from Rush Limbaugh's enemies list.
Tiresome and unoriginal. Not worth reading.
And David, enough with the kvetching already!
Review Number Two. . .
One of the most powerfully written and elegantly thought out books I have ever read. Should be mandatory reading for every American. I used to think only Vietnam veterans had this kind of sane view of the world after adversity. I was wrong. Buy it, read it, pass it along.
Right. So Gelernter is passing judgment on the great social commons known as the Internet, is he?
I'll pass, thanks.
-FL
The Sun doesn't modulate its signal down into coherent patterns. It's static. By contrast, cells respond in odd ways when there are steady frequencies in the 10 to 500hz range present. Think "sympathetic vibrations". Everything has a resonant frequency.
Also, it's not really a cancer issue so much as a, "How does it affect cognition in the nervous system?" question.
-FL
You might ask why I didn't make a contract with this client in the first place. It's because I've found, over the years, that insisting on a contract before development starts will result either in a delayed start or even a project being shelved.
Not having a contract in place before you start does speed things up, but it's kind of like running a heavy industries company without insurance.
Why not have two general contracts drawn up in advance; one which points out that the client gets what is essentially first publishing rights, or whatever comes closest to emulating the copyright system, and another where you sell the code outright. Explain the difference up front and then pull out the pen. "Option A is cheap, but I can sell the same code to other clients and you can't change it, and Option B will cost you several orders of magnitude more, but it's all yours forever and you can do whatever you want with it. This is standard copyright practice. We can start work as soon as you sign!"
People like clear options and little check boxes, and this would avoid weeks of legal dickering. Yes, you may lose some work in the short term because people realize that you're not selling what they actually want for the price they can afford, but this way is more honest and your headaches will be fewer.
Just my opinion.
-FL
Try to read a little more critically. Believing everything somebody like that writes is almost as bad as believing everything the Discovery Institute writes.
I always read critically, thanks, but it certainly doesn't hurt to be reminded every now and again.
Your opinion, for instance, cannot be taken at face value for the same reason the author of that blog post cannot be taken at face value. The reader, (me in this case), must think on his feet and measure both items as best he can.
To start with, the author of that blog post does indeed sound a bit hysterical at points, and you tripped over the same aspects of her post that I did. (The secret coded system of looks and glances at the country club, being one such instance.) However, the I was able to forgive that extravagance, partly because I recognized it for what it was; an emblematic example designed to portray a very real social force. Unspoken rules of behavior are entirely real, as I am sure you are aware, and they do cause populations to make significant shifts between opposing poles when certain critical masses are achieved.
I've observed that force in action all through my life in every imaginable arena, from highschool to work places, to national debate, to simple things like fashion choices. It's called, "Culture", and the truth is that nearly all of our fundamental behavior is in fact NOT learned through direct verbal instruction. Her point about Hitler not actually having issued orders to carry out the darker elements of the Nazi reign is very valid. And while it is true that the dynamics of the unspoken rule-sets of humans can be deliberately manipulated. (Billions of dollars have been spent on advertising and public relations. Precise psychology and brain science has evolved to the point where entire populations can be very effectively managed with deliberate strokes.), I don't think that one necessarily needs the men near the top to even be aware that they are deliberately pushing a destruct button. Such people are running on automatic themselves. But that doesn't mean the system they are a part of doesn't exist or that it doesn't function in much the way she described.
Here's the difference I see between your opinion and hers. . . She was looking at objective reality and made a concerted effort to build a functioning model which would explain her observations. And while I realize that you were limited to a fifteen minute Slashdot response, you seemed instead to offer only critical objections rather than a alternative model to explain those same observations. You seemed to center your opinion around the example of one man, the owner of what sounds like a modestly-sized construction company. You'll have to forgive me for pointing out that I don't think such men are really the ones calling the kinds of shots which matter in the system Martha Rose Crow was describing. High level banking, infrastructure, food and drug regulation, education, social and military spending directives are where the patterns of a nation are determined. Guys like your construction CEO friend are just little men who have to function within the resulting system.
In any case, to base your argument for how reality works on such a single and somewhat irrelevant example isn't trust-inspiring. A wider sample is needed. For instance, while I also know some benign men of power, I've also had the opportunity to know others who are not benign. I've also known a number of journalists working in both television and newspaper media, and I've heard some private rants about how they are not allowed to tell the real news due to corruption in their organizations. Such examples tell a very different story than the one you are telling.
But moreover, and this is the part I find which leaves your opinion lacking, is that you seem to sum things up with the attitude that, sure society is messed up, but it's okay to blame the kids even though you point out that the system was responsible for their creation. This s
They will not have a job that pays taxes in their lives and they will probably die from something crime-, smoke- or alcohol-related. Sure, someone let them down along the way: their parents, the government, their infrastructure, whatever, but by the time that these boys start hanging out on street-corners, it's already way to late to do anything about it. They're a lost cause, and they know it, and the people who play classical music in order to get rid of them, know it.
Yeah. It's the British version of autogenocide
And it's the reason the world sucks in this particular manner.
-FL
All good scientists have extremely compelling reasons to publish their works on the web: to most widely disseminate their findings, and to have their findings carry the kind of weight that only accrues by being scrutinized and by withstanding that scrutiny. You do value your assertions being scrutinized, don't you?
I'm not a scientist. My daily bread isn't obtained by chasing after research grants. I'm something else. It's my job to inspire people to think in new ways and to explore the world. People don't grow when you give them everything upon demand. They grow when they have to reach. Right now you are playing at bargaining with me in the hopes of getting something for nothing. That simply isn't going to happen, I'm afraid.
I research and read voraciously, ESPECIALLY the things that may teach me what I don't already know. You throw up needless barriers to moving this along. I have never known a scientist who played dodging games like you. I've only seen the charlatans do that. If you are not a charlatan, what is your purpose in behaving like one?
See above. And get the book already. It's full of all the citations you could possibly ask for. Feel that burning in your brain? That's good for you. That's the metaphoric "alchemical fire". Heat burns away the dross and purifies the matter of the mind.
No, it's more clear than ever that giving you easy links would be the wrong move altogether.
-FL
Your initial post was sophomoric; your defense is infantile. With the time and space it took you to accuse your detractors of laziness, you could have made a cogent argument supporting your view. You didn't, and you didn't because you couldn't. You know that you have no rigorous support, so you resort to ad hominem attacks on our intellectual work ethic.
It would sure make things easier for you if any of that were true. "I didn't because I couldn't"? You can make a declaration like that and still call ME infantile? Wow. And I love the term, "intellectual work ethic". -Your work ethic dictates that you be rude, condescending and demanding rather than civil and questioning? Real scientists generally figure that one out early on in their careers.
There's a difference between an ad hom attack and calling a duck a duck. If you don't like what I've pointed out about what I see, then perhaps you should change your behavior.
You are the one making the extraordinary claim. It's your job to convince others that you are right, not to scream "you're lazy!" when others say "that's implausible".
Well now, I hardly think I can be characterized as, "screaming". -And others aren't merely saying in reasoned tones, "that's implausible." Is that honestly what you perceived while reading through these posts? Indeed, I'd actually go so far as to reverse those emotional valances, though to be fair, I don't really see anybody screaming. More just getting indignant and puffed up with self-importance. Keeping in mind that there are some genuinely mature and intelligent people commenting in this thread who disagree with me but who are worthy of respect.
But oh my goodness! My favorite part is that you believe it's my JOB to convince you. Oh dear! That implies I desire and value your approval. I really, really don't. Honest!
Look at it this way. . .
Let's say I was out in the backyard and I saw something amazing. Let's say I learned and benefited from my discovery. The chances are I might cry out and say, "Hey everybody, check this out!" -That would be me wanting to share with the tribe. After that, however, it is up to others whether or not they choose to follow where I am pointing and go look for themselves. My responsibility to the tribe at this point has ended. I have sounded an alert and pointed the way. I am under no obligation to drag people kicking and complaining to any kind of discovery. Why would I want to? It sounds like a miserable, thankless job.
But that's not how we've been trained as a culture. (The endless court room dramas we have been exposed to are one example). The way we are kept in the dark is that we have been taught to keep ourselves in the dark. -That it is right and proper to scowl and refuse to get out of the TV couch jury box, to insist that the discoverer bring forth studies and peer-reviewed papers proving that something amazing really has been witnessed and learned from. People have been brought up to believe that the proper reaction is to grow indignant and even angry when one tells them, "Nah. I don't feel like it. You're on your own."
"Then you didn't see anything! You owe us proof!"
"No I don't. I benefited and you didn't because you're lazy. Too bad for you. Of course, you could always get up and go look for yourself just over-"
"I will not! You must bring knowledge to me on a silver platter."
"Yeah, but I'm not going to do that. If you don't expend effort to look, then you don't deserve to know. In fact, I might actually tell people to not give you information. You get what you pay for and you actually deserve to be in the dark."
"Argh! Then you didn't see anything of value. You didn't benefit. You didn't! You have to prove it."
"Whatever. I'm going back outside to explore, learn and grow some more. Bye!"
(Isn't this interesting? Easily as fascinating as cell phones. The epistemology of the very process of learning itself!)
-FL
Also you seem to confuse extremely low frequency energy "1Hz to 500Hz range" with the much much higher frequency (800 to 1900MHz) that Cellular and PCS phones use.
I didn't want to confuse the issue with the idea of modulated frequencies, but it is clear you are entirely comfortable with that concept.
As it happens, many microwave communication systems do indeed modulate down into the ELF range through a number of different means and methods.
There may be certain effects from the very low field strengths emitted by mobile phones but it really is minute.
I hope you will pardon me for saying, but this sounds more like self-calming rationale than hard knowledge.
Finally. . , I didn't know that non-ionizing RF can burn. I'll have to educate myself a little more. Can you offer a nugget or two to send me in the right direction?
Cheers.
-FL
That is not a study. A book on how cancer might be caused by cellphone radiation proves nothing. You need a real, large-scale experiment to determine whether it is actually happening.
You are falsely assuming the content of a book you have not read.
Do you honestly wish me to lay out a few hundred pages of white paper study in order to back up my statements? Despite the fact that what the poster actually wants is not proof, but rather to invalidate my argument by demanding an impossible amount of paper work for a casual poster to supply, (the same tactic corporate lawyers use to defeat private individuals; they create legal demands which are so cripplingly expensive to meet that they win by default.)
I have countered this tactic by in fact offering exactly the work demanded, BUT in doing so the poster is required to meet me half-way by expending some of his own energy and time.
That book contains significant excerpts from a multitude of exactly the kind of studies demanded. It is authored by a well respected researcher who spent half is professional life collecting such studies from hundreds of scientists as well as performing his own. It is an excellent and easy to use portal to a wide world of verifiable research.
In fact, anybody who really wants to know the true state of affairs wrt this subject, is being handed a gift with such a book. But most of the people responding here are not seekers. They are hiding. They don't want to know. They are playing denial games, (as is evidenced by the amount of raw emotion in their posts), and as such no amount of proof would ever be satisfactory, because they have determined that they will remain in their bubble-realities no matter what.
-FL