Summarily, only someone who is (1) a complete idiot, (2) completely incompetent regarding issues of standard, (3) extremely iased, or (4) paid-off, could possibly say crap like, "OOXML is a great standard", or recommend it for approval.
Christ, the "thingness of the thing". That's a bunch of hermeneutic incomprehensible philo-babble. Try speaking English. Just because Gadamer's mental processes were obviously confused, leading to confused and convoluted writing, doesn't give everyone else an excuse to talk that way. Your first "sentence" isn't even a sentence, and is just unclear incomprehensible babble. Apparently, most people who pursue an interest in philosophy somehow miraculously lose their ability to communicate in clear English (or German, or whatever language it is).
Your argument about perception is indeed a fallacy; the argument you are trying to make is a non-sequitar, so I'm not interested in following it any further. It is true that there are subtle differences in perception from one person to the next, yet there is clear and overwhelming evidence for, by and large, a similarity of image perception from one person to the next. I've explained the evidence for this. In any event, I've already shown that your argument is a non-sequitar; all you are doing is making assertions, rather than addressing that issue. From the fact that you and I might perceive the colors in the Mona Lisa a little bit differently, it does not at all follow that the rationalist-realist position is false.
I've also shown there to be a number of a priori true statements, such as "man acts" or "I exist", which cannot be denied without performative contradiction, and thus are true. You very well may say such babble as 1 + 1 = 3, and you'll be in the same deluded mindset as the fictional hero of Orwell's 1984: 2 + 2 can equal 4, but it can also equal 5, if Big Brother wants it to. The decimal numbers have an understood meaning between all who use them, and given that meaning, 1 + 1 = 2, and not 3 or 4. It is possible that if we perished, and someone else discovered our Arabic numeric system, they might consider 2 to be what we consider 1 to be...that doesn't alter the fundamental truth behind the statement that 1 + 1 = 2. We can change the symbols we use to describe things or concepts, but that does not change the meaning behind it (Roderick T. Long has written much on this and Wittgenstein).
First off, my comment about the internal contradictions of relativism applies to my initial comments, and not just to your response. And pomo thought is closely linked in with that, although not the same; it is, like hermeneutics, marked by a decided lack of clarity and bewildering multiplication of specialized terms (philo-babble). I would argue that it is part of a "group" of thinking in the modern era that is anti-intellectual and destructive to Western civilization: relativism of all kinds, hermeneutics, feminism, polylogicism, and postmodernism.
I am very well aware of subtle, and sometimes more drastic, differences amongst people in perception, which would include such things as the optical illusions exploited by MC Escher in his brilliant wood-carvings. That can hardly be taken as some justification for an assault on the notion of objective reality. For the most part, the vast majority of people tend to think that red and green go together well, and are not at "odds" with one another. Perceptions of what is beautiful tend to be relatively uniform (you don't hear too many people saying the Mona Lisa is hideous).
Your argument is simply some logical fallacy. You delve into the depths of minutia regarding human perception of images, which is largely uncontroversial, and then mean that to somehow prove or argue for the relativist position; it doesn't.
And John can say such non-sense as "Jane is outside my circle of moral expectations," but that doesn't make it true. It is still none-the-less reasonable to expect her to respond favorably to respectful treatment of her, and unfavorably to disrespectful treatment of her. What he's really saying is that he isn't going to act morally with regards to Jane; he isn't going to treat her as a moral entity. He can do that, but he isn't justified in doing that, and it isn't rational. He can in fact communicate with Jane, if only by reciprocity, and is thus capable of having an ethic between him and her. The challenge is not for John to say he's going to treat Jane immorally, or not regard her, for anyone can do that. The challenge is for him to justify it. And to justify something means it has to be universalizeable to anyone reading or listening to the argument, which presents problems for him re Jane. You see, if he tries to justify it, he is using a peaceful conflict-free method of dispute resolution (debate), and not bashing someone over the head for disagreeing with him about treating Jane that way; but then to argue that he can treat Jane in such manner violates the presuppositions of the argumentation he's engaging in.
To further dismantle relativist positions, I can put forth several axiomatically a-priori true statements, of which the denial would be performative contradiction (and thus false); e.g., "man acts". To deny that is performative contradiction, as the denial would itself be an action, hence showing the truthfulness of the statement the denier is trying to dispute.
I really don't see the problem with that approach. To be sure, there is no legitimacy in saying, "I beat the crap out of you and took it, now it's mine".
Things do get more difficult when we deal with innocent 2nd-comers adding to the value of the stolen land by their purchase of it from the aggressor, and subsequent improvement upon it. To be sure, the person it was originally stolen from way-back when doesn't have title to the improvements.
But the first thing is, we assume possession is 9/10ths of the law, unless we know otherwise, or know that the current possessor is a crook (as would be the case with politicians controlling property). Someone claiming otherwise -- that they should've inherited -- has to prove otherwise (they'll also have to prove that they would've inherited it).
The ultimate goal is not to punish innocent 2nd-comers for the wrongs of those who they bought property from, but is to punish actual criminal aggressors, and make them do restitution. Of course, when someone buying property does so knowingly in collaboration from those who stole it, they don't get any beneficial treatment, and are simply co-conspirators. But if they are innocent, them being robbed of all the improvements they'd made to property would constitute a new aggression against them. So again, the ultimate aim is to find the real aggressors and make them pay the penalty of restitution. But if that can't be done, then both sides will have to eat a loss b/c of the aggressor.
You seem to be trying to say that my position is absurd. It certainly would seem absurd from the pov of someone who bought property in New Mexico that now their property is going to be given back to original owners it was stolen from many years ago (see below for details on alleviating this). But it wouldn't seem so absurd to those people. Then again, being the great-descendants of them, they might not care, so there really wouldn't be an issue anyways). There is no need to go chasing after difficult legal situations; until someone comes with a claim, we needn't deal with it.
But if someone does come with a claim that they can prove, how can we deal with it? Well, we could deal with it the same way we deal with the inheritance of houses...if one person in the family wants to live in that house, they have to buy the rest out of their share of it. We could do the same with these kinds of disputes. Most likely, the original owner of some piece of land 300 years ago wouldn't get much, as most of the value was added after the initial theft. Or alternatively, they could buy out the current owner of his share of the value of that plot of land as a whole, including any buildings on it. In a propertarian society where this kind of dispute-resolution happens, most likely there would be a market for title-insurance to property.
The fundamental problem here -- which is a problem for any system of law, not just the libertarian propertarian one I'm proposing -- is that aggressors can do far more harm than they can do good. It is quit easy for a crook to steal from one person, sell to someone else ignorant of such, drop-dead from drug-overdose, and then leave those two people in a difficult situation at odds with each other. I think that title-insurance, and insurance against theft, can help alleviate this.
The ultimate way to deal with this is to stop advocating and engaging in systematic aggression, such as is war of all kinds.
First, you start off with what I think is irrelevant minutia regarding the color green. There may be a gap between wavelength and "greenness" -- and indeed, it is quite conceivable that some hypothetical beings could perceive green in entirely different ways than we do -- but that isn't relevant. Grouping two things together because they are green is not some non-sense that we conjure up from our imagination, that has no bearing on reality. It is a reasonable -- although not always best -- criteria for grouping things. Likewise, our concept of say "maple tree" is a non-precisive abstraction (Aristotlean abstraction) from all instances of things we call "maple trees", not some Platonic ideal form floating around. It has an objective basis in reality (namely, not just the similar appearance, but more importantly, the common ancestry).
What do you mean by: "Your appeal to the categorical imperative only works for moral agents that believe that there is symmetry between themselves and the object of their activities. In practice, that symmetry doesn't even exist among agents who claim it does, much less in those who don't.".
Symmetry between themselves and the object of their activities? I presume what you're talking about is that John wants to have sex with Jane, and views her as an inferior, thus sees no problem in raping her. Yet, Jane can object to that, and it is the fact that we can communicate with one-another that makes norms amongst us possible. Then, John has to justify his actions, and he doesn't have a universalizeable criteria, so isn't going to be able to convince anyone. Jane can just assert the opposite of his superiority-proposition and shoot him dead. He'd be estopped from objecting, as well, based on his own actions.
Nothing you have said addresses the issue's I've brought up regarding ethics being chosen values of acting men, and that they cannot consistently argue for norms that violate the presuppositions of argumentation (ya know, how beating someone over the head doesn't demonstrate that you have the correct position). Nor have you addressed the fundamental internal contradictions of such statements as, "we cannot know anything to be absolutely true", or various other relativist and post-modernist dogma. And hence is the root of my "antipathy" toward post-modernism and relativism, that it is self-contradictory non-sense, that it seeks to undermine everything Western civilization has accomplished, etc.
No, not really, because who would you be returning the property to? The government? Which just fiat'ed their ownship by decree, and not actual homesteading and working of the land? I can do a lot of "declaring that I own shit" too, on a piece of paper. The real owners of property are those who homestead it from an unowned state, or voluntarily acquire it from someone who did (or someone who acquired it from the original homesteader, etc). The real owners of property aren't some douchebags in Washington DC reaping the rewards of the Founding Father's massive power-grab.
Nothing worth thinking about, you've just described facts of nature, in the wild. If you want to go live with wild animals, go ahead. In no way does that address the "pros and cons" of rape here in the world of people. So perhaps you should argue why it is good that Chinese women were gang-raped hundreds of times by Japanese soldiers during WWII...
Epistemological: That we group trees together isn't just some imaginary fiction of our mind. It is based off of objective reality, something similar in their properties, and their "ancestry" (two different maple trees share a recent common ancestor). Even things that are all "green", of which we say, "emeralds and trees are green", that isn't some imaginary non-sense, but based off of the reality of wavelengths in nm.
Regarding things that are conceptual, it is very well true that there is no Platonic ideal "right" or "good" out there floating around in some alternate dimension of ideal forms. Just like there is no "2 + 2 = 4" floating around there. That doesn't mean that these things aren't either true or false (depending on the statement).
Moral: Your conception of moral relativism seems vastly different from the reality of moral relativism in the real world, which says crap like, "rape isn't necessarily wrong", or more aptly put, there is no right and wrong. To say that morality is an "invention" is essentially to say there is no such thing as morality (which is a guide to one's conduct, how one ought to act; e.g., is it ok to rape an innocent person, or to nuke 80,000 Japanese people off the face of the Earth). None-the-less, one can argue for normative morality, in which morality is a set of accepted norms; that does not mean there can be no truth, as some moral norms -- such as I can bash you over the head -- violate the norms that are presupposed whenever one engages in argumentation, and thus are performative contradictions to argue for (this is called the "argumentation ethics" justification of the non-aggression axiom). It is also quite clear that, by arguments of estoppel, we don't really need to deal with anyone who claims it is morally fine to murder, rape, and pillage, as they would be estopped from objecting to that kind of treatment themselves (and if they did object, it undermines their argument for such).
Discursive: Statements about truth do not have a "bias"; they are either true or false. We can judge by looking at the logical reasoning from first principles, if they are a priori arguments, or by looking at the empirical evidence (if they are arguments about empirical truths, not conceptual truth). It may well be true that scientists, philosophers, etc have bias; this is not enough to refute an argument put forth. It is a good reason for looking further into things, regarding trust of their statements, or for perhaps explaining why they may have arrived at incorrect conclusions.
Summarily, espistemological, moral, and discursive relativism, along with "post-modernism", is a bunch of crap, anti-intellectual and anti-Western drivel. The belief by many in these doctrines undermines the roots of Western civilization and the civilizing process as well.
I never claimed abortion was a straightforward case. I am saying that conception is one objective point, where we start talking about murder; or we can use the heart-beat, or maybe even brainwaves. Letting the mother have an abortion 2 minutes before birth seems quite clearly obscene and criminal. I did however point out that quite clearly, except in the case of rape, and where the mother's health is in danger, the woman did consent to it, and knew the risks (the mother's health in danger being relevant because if the mother dies, so does the z/e/f).
Your example regarding theft appears to be confusingly worded, so I won't deal with it. I will, however, say that if I steal something and give it to my kids, it doesn't somehow magically become theirs. Since it wasn't mine to give in the first place, I couldn't possibly have transferred title of ownership to them. That doesn't mean any guilt on their part, just that if the original owner comes along, he can rightfully take it from them.
"Even if we can't agree on something, that doesn't mean moral relativism is correct. That just means we haven't made good enough logical arguments, or don't have enough evidence. Maybe 500 years ago, we can't agree on why we don't fall off the face of the Earth. That doesn't mean there is no correct and true reason for why we don't. It just means we don't know, yet.
There's a difference between saying we don't always know the truth about everything, and saying there is no truth (which is philosophical relativism). Btw, the relativist position has an internal contradiction, for if one says there is no absolute truth, what should we consider that statement? If we consider it truth, then it's contradictory non-sense; if we don't, then it's just some meaningless babble."
To state there are gray areas, or areas we don't yet fully understand, is different from arguing the moral relativist position. Moral relativism says there isn't necessarily anything wrong with, say for example, the Japanese gang-rape of Chinese women during WWII. It just depends on who's pov you take: from the soldier's pov, it was fine; not from the women's pov. That's pure worthless bullshit.
I have analysis on each of the issues you brought up*, but that really is irrelevant to the point. Even if we can't agree on something, that doesn't mean moral relativism is correct. That just means we haven't made good enough logical arguments, or don't have enough evidence. Maybe 500 years ago, we can't agree on why we don't fall off the face of the Earth. That doesn't mean there is no correct and true reason for why we don't. It just means we don't know, yet.
There's a difference between saying we don't always know the truth about everything, and saying there is no truth (which is philosophical relativism). Btw, the relativist position has an internal contradiction, for if one says there is no absolute truth, what should we consider that statement? If we consider it truth, then it's contradictory non-sense; if we don't, then it's just some meaningless babble.
* Neither the Palistineans nor the Isrealis are justified in murdering innocent civilians, which they frequently do, and by that I mean the terrorists and government. I consider abortion as murder, unless it's for the health of the mother or because of rape; because in other cases, the woman consented to have a "passenger onboard" so to speak, and you don't get to invite someone on your private plane, then kick them out at 40,000 feet. Drinking and sex, well if both were drunk, there's no argument for rape even by that argument; but I tend to argue that unless the guy got her drunk or drugged without her knowledge, she made her own decision in that regard, and why should guys have to be judge of that? Put it the other way around: if it were a drunk guy, and a sober woman, no-one would buy that BS argument that he was "raped", they would say, "that lucky sob"; and the drunk guy's wife certainly wouldn't buy that BS. Regarding the age of consent: (1) Certainly, two ppl below whatever it is, neither of them should be accused of statutory (currently, the underaged guy officially raped the underaged girl, because he "did the inserting"; (2) Look at it as an issue of demonstrated maturity, if some1 demonstrates they're mature, then they're of age; that would mean, for example, supporting one's self; (3) Wait until the girl is of age, then let her decide whether or not she was taken advantage of...if we had that reasonable standard, Mary Kay Lauterno wouldn't be in jail, as her "victim", now of age, if I remember right, wants to marry her.
That's a load of crap, spawned by today's Statist society. Instead of doing this BS weighing of sides, what you could do is look at it in detail, and isolate specific groups (e.g., government and terrorists on each side, which are both wrong in killing innocent civilians). It is never right to just murder some innocent civilian. That's why, for example, both the terrorists responsible for 9/11 and the US government -- rather, numerous individuals in it -- are wrong (the US government in it's response, which has resulted in the murder of thousands of innocents).
The article starts off fine enough, with notations of the fanaticism of *some* Apple fans. I myself like Apple; if I was buying a pre-made computer, it'd probably be a Mac. Imo, very nice build-construction and quality (aside from their keyboards and mice, which are no-where near as good as MS keyboards or mice). But even more-so than Apple, I'm a big big fan of Lian-Li cases. Yet, I have some complaints: the usb-panels on the V1200 and V2000 are at the bottom of the case, instead of up top, or on-top of it, which is more accessible for big cases (which will likely be placed on the floor); and their new V-series have fixed that, but also reduced greatly the ventilation holes on the front. I doubt there'd be many Lian-Li fanatics bashing me for that.
Some Apple fans do really annoy. E.g., the tendency for claiming that Mac invented everything. They accused Lian-Li of copying the G5's holed case-design; yet, servers used ventilation holes for a long time, and my year-2000 Gateway had them on the front. They also acted like the wire-less hard-drive replacement on the new G5's is some new invention of Apple's: it's juts hot-swap, which has been around forever (and Apple's implementation isn't that great, as you have to open the case to do it).
In any event, those kinds of comments are perfectly fine. They're regarding largely matters of personal opinion. And the issue isn't so much that Apple fans disagree, but the way it's done; provide evidence, don't accuse writers of "ball-licking".
But then the article digresses into the pits of moral relativism with talk about the Israel-Palistine conflict, or the abortion issue. These are issues of right and wrong. There isn't a real middle ground. Either something is right, or it isn't. There is no "plusses and minuses". How about we talk about the pro's and cons of rape, too?
Homework in college is idiotic. Actually, all homework is idiotic. Homework should be just suggested problems. Although 2 or 3 projects a semester are ok. The rest should be determined by tests.
Homework is bullshit babying crap from high-school, treating people like idiots. Adults shouldn't fucking have to do homework. Either they have motivation to study and practice outside of class or they don't.
At the very least, homework in college should be in "adult format", which means like a mini-project, or a case-study. That's how it was in business school. Makes it pretty impractical to cheat anyways.
If you use software, you agree to the license under which it's sold. You have a legal AND moral obligation to abide by contracts that you agree to. No-one forced you to agree to those contracts. That's true of both GPL'ed software and of "EULA'ed" software.
If you use GPL'ed code in your application, you have a legal and moral obligation to license your app under the GPL. End of discussion. If you don't like it, don't use GPL'ed software. Maybe the only reason the software's there is because the owners wanted derivatives to be GPL'ed, and wouldn't have made it if not for that. If you don't like that, base your application on software that isn't GPL'ed; use BSD-licensed software.
PS: Your Obama / Ron Paul analogy is despicable and uncalled for. Ron Paul is the only candidate, along with Kucinich to some extent, who has any kind of integrity. He has principles, which include abiding by the constitution, freedom, free trade, free markets, and a non-interventionist foreign policy; and he supports the only monetary standard that provides some check against unlimited government spending, the gold standard (and that also prevents business cycles caused by monetary inflation).
motherboards for AMD CPUs better and cheaper
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Is AMD Dead Yet?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
For most people, is the performance difference really that important? Maybe for uber-power users and gamers, but not the majority of people, even geeks.
Meanwhile, the motherboards that support AMD Phenom's are superior to and cheaper than motherboards for Intel Quad-cores. Gigabit motherboards offer up to 16GB of RAM; it also offers 2 x16 PCI-e slots and 3 x1 PCI-e slots, as well as 2 PCI slots; the Gigabit GA-790FX-DQ6 is around $200 for that. This motherboard has around a 4- to 5-star rating from numerous reviewers.
Some of the MSI motherboards offer 8GB and 4 x16 or x8 PCI-e slots, along with 1 x1 PCI-e slot, and 2 older PCI slots: that's 7 total. This one's for around $160. This board has a 5-star rating from numerous reviewers (on NegEgg). It also has an award for best motherboard in terms of quality.
Meanwhile, the only Intel motherboards for their non-server Quad-cores that go up to 16GB are by A-bit, a poor brand, and those motherboards have comparably poor reviews from NewEgg.com.
You ought to at least understand something before criticizing it. Libertarianism is merely consistent in it's definition of theft and robbery, by which consistency you have to include taxation as robbery (and inflation as theft). If you want to be intellectually dishonest and without integrity, you're welcome to bend over backwards trying to say that the State is something that it isn't. If there are 10 people, and 9 "vote" to deprive the last 1 of his property, that is still robbery. At least have the courage to admit that in supporting the State, you support mass robbery, thievery, rape, and murder. Maybe you think this is necessary, but be honest.
By the way, there are many examples of broadly libertarian societies (that is, Stateless), which existed for quite some time. Ancient Iceland and Ancient Ireland for 300 and 1000 years, respectively. The West in the US for 10 years, before the Federal government trampled over private justice. There are various other examples, as well. And there have been numerous successful minarchies as well. Before making an ignorant claim and saying "there exists no working example of a libertarian economy in all of human history," you ought to have some idea as to what you're talking about. As it stands, you're just an idiot talking out of his arse, with no understanding of history.
That is the neoclassical definition of a market, or of "perfect competition", but it is a nirvana fallacy (compare the market as it exists to some unattainable, impossible "ideal", then note how short it comes up). In many cases, especially with entirely new products, there is only one seller. And of every product in its particularity, there is only one seller. It is thus an arbitrary definition. The free market need not refer to a state of the complexity of the economic system. There can be a primitive free market between two people on an island, provided neither coerces the other in exchanges. Nor need there necessarily be multiple buyers; companies often want some specialized service or program or technology, and will solicit competing offers from various producers.
As for freedom, all that freedom requires is that people be allowed to homestead and own property (1st user rule), and that there is not the initiation of aggression. To the extent that these two principles are abrogated, so too is freedom. Of course, even absent a State -- which is most responsible for theft, robbery, assault, rape, and murder -- there will always be crime. But that can be dealt with as a problem needing solutions by the market like any other. The State is the source of systematic and constant crime on a grand scale.
If the lying constitutes fraud, then it's a tort. If I say I'll give you a box of apples for $10, you give me $10, and then I give you a box of sand, I've defrauded you, and you're entitled to your $10 back (or a box of apples from me). Of course, local expectations and reason dictate what "a box of apples" is (e.g., what condition do they have to be in, how big, etc). That's something for courts to figure out. Buyer and seller beware.
Furthermore, regarding asymmetric information problems, consumers have an obligation to do their research. Asymmetric information is a problem that the market can deal with, absent government interference. There are consumer advocate groups, and review organizations, etc. Regarding barriers to entry, the most significant barriers to entry in any field are created by the State. And there is nothing wrong with natural capital barriers to entry in particular areas; that's just the nature of things. Individuals may need to leverage existing wealth into those areas. Regarding natural monopoly, that entire theory is a fraud; all historical real monopolies -- where competition is prevented -- occur because of the government. DiLorenzo and Armentano have done a lot of research on this, and shown that (for example), there were private roads, there were competing utility companies before state takeover. As for other "textbook cases" of monopoly -- meaning that the company has earned a large share of the market by excellence -- there is Standard Oil, which was increasing production and lowering prices; hardly harming the consumers, although I can see why prospective competitors would want to lobby the government to cripple it. See Armentano, The Case Against Anti-Trust: mises.org/books/antitrust.pdf
Finally, all of the problems you mention which don't exist in the unhampered free market, or can be adequately dealt with, exist in spades with the State. Asymmetric information is the insurmountable norm, and individuals trying to find out things can be dealt with in any manner the State pleases. The State provides a central organization for businesses to lobby to get special privileges, prevent competition, increase regulations (which increases the burden on smaller companies relative to large ones), etc. There are enormous externalization problems, as those in the State can easily externalize the costs of their actions to a large extent. The war in Iraq costs GWB nothing, but US citizens trillions, and foreigners their lives. It was the State -- specifically Truman -- not any private corporation, that decided it would be great to nuke tens of thousands of Japanese people off the face of the Earth.
Finally, none of your arguments in any way justify you or anyone else by "vote" or whatever means pointing a gun to my head and forcing me to pay taxes (which is ultimately what is done to anyone who resists). Rather than attempting to justify the robbery, theft, rape, and murder that the State necessitates due to it's existence, you divert the issue.
PS: Adam Smith was not some great proponent of the free market. This is a myth, which only those ignorant of the history of economic thought buy into. In some ways, he opposed intervention in the market, but in many more, he was a mercantalist and protectionist. Furthermore, he was also a plagiarist, and a poor one at that: there was very little that was original with Adam Smith, and what was was economic fallacy; he also diluted down and muddled those views he plagiarized (from people like Turgot, Cantillon, etc).
Wrong. All that the free market requires to work is that the State not create artificial barriers to entry, or prevent competition in various ways (e.g., mandate cartelization, regulate, allow patents, etc). All that the free market requires is the lack of initiation of aggression. To the extent that there is aggression, the free market is hindered. This is the correct concept of the free market, as elaborated by the Austrian school of economics.
What you refer to is not the classical concept of the free market at all, but the modern unrealistic neoclassical conception, which is a nirvana fallacy.
Libertarianism: the opposition to any initiation of aggression; e.g., opposition to robbery, theft, murder, rape under any and all conditions. But apparently, you don't believe in silly things like that, and think it's fine to use the threat of violence to steal from people for things that you think are important.
You have freedom, you don't have to buy products if you don't want to. GPUs are a luxury, not a necessity. Stop being a spoiled brat. If someone wants to manufacture something, sell it to people, but not give people the detailed specifications for it, that is their right. I wonder why it is that producer freedom is never mentioned. If I make something, and sell it to you, I have absolutely 0 obligation to tell you how I made it.
Btw, if capitalism really couldn't service those "niche" markets, then AMD wouldn't be doing what they're doing right now. The free market is working. What the free market means is basically all voluntary interactions, where no coercive force is used.
But I guess you would rather go the road of barbaric violence and use State-violence and the threat of it to force companies to do what you want them to do.
If something is really important to you, you should use your own resources and non-coercive persuasion (to get others to join you) to accomplish that goal. That would be the mature way to go about achieving something. Instead, you want to stamp your feet, and try to convince the government to force others to do what you want them to do, whether they agree with you about the importance of your goal or not.
PS: Btw, there is an organization developing a completely open graphics card.
"Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate from the University of Texas, Austin, described himself in an e-mail message as "pretty Platonist," saying he thinks the laws of nature are as real as "the rocks in the field."
The laws of mathematics don't exist "out there" somewhere, floating around like asteroids. This kind of Platonic abstraction is nonsense. The correct way to look at the laws of mathematics and laws of physics is more like Arististotlean abstractions. Rather than specifying the absence of something, to make a "platonic horse" -- as neoclassical economists do with perfect competition models -- we simply don't specify something (e.g., don't account for friction with simple equations of how long it will take for something to fall; but we don't say that friction doesn't exist).
Furthermore, it is true that some things we have to presuppose. Statements like "all things we consider true must be empirically verified", are self-contradictory; either statement isn't accepted as necessarily true -- in which case, why hold to it dogmatically -- or you hold that it is necessarily true, in which case it contradicts itself.
Moreover, the scientific method must presuppose causality; otherwise, no observations could suggest the falsification of a hypothesis. Without causality, all events are just unrelated entities. We cannot empirically test for causality; it is just something that every acting man understands and presupposes must exist (otherwise, why act if it isn't causally connected to some goal?).
Slashdot Mirror
Summarily, only someone who is (1) a complete idiot, (2) completely incompetent regarding issues of standard, (3) extremely iased, or (4) paid-off, could possibly say crap like, "OOXML is a great standard", or recommend it for approval.
It is quite clear that my context was relating to human beings and other persons (if there is non-human intelligent life out there).
Christ, the "thingness of the thing". That's a bunch of hermeneutic incomprehensible philo-babble. Try speaking English. Just because Gadamer's mental processes were obviously confused, leading to confused and convoluted writing, doesn't give everyone else an excuse to talk that way. Your first "sentence" isn't even a sentence, and is just unclear incomprehensible babble. Apparently, most people who pursue an interest in philosophy somehow miraculously lose their ability to communicate in clear English (or German, or whatever language it is).
Your argument about perception is indeed a fallacy; the argument you are trying to make is a non-sequitar, so I'm not interested in following it any further. It is true that there are subtle differences in perception from one person to the next, yet there is clear and overwhelming evidence for, by and large, a similarity of image perception from one person to the next. I've explained the evidence for this. In any event, I've already shown that your argument is a non-sequitar; all you are doing is making assertions, rather than addressing that issue. From the fact that you and I might perceive the colors in the Mona Lisa a little bit differently, it does not at all follow that the rationalist-realist position is false.
I've also shown there to be a number of a priori true statements, such as "man acts" or "I exist", which cannot be denied without performative contradiction, and thus are true. You very well may say such babble as 1 + 1 = 3, and you'll be in the same deluded mindset as the fictional hero of Orwell's 1984: 2 + 2 can equal 4, but it can also equal 5, if Big Brother wants it to. The decimal numbers have an understood meaning between all who use them, and given that meaning, 1 + 1 = 2, and not 3 or 4. It is possible that if we perished, and someone else discovered our Arabic numeric system, they might consider 2 to be what we consider 1 to be...that doesn't alter the fundamental truth behind the statement that 1 + 1 = 2. We can change the symbols we use to describe things or concepts, but that does not change the meaning behind it (Roderick T. Long has written much on this and Wittgenstein).
First off, my comment about the internal contradictions of relativism applies to my initial comments, and not just to your response. And pomo thought is closely linked in with that, although not the same; it is, like hermeneutics, marked by a decided lack of clarity and bewildering multiplication of specialized terms (philo-babble). I would argue that it is part of a "group" of thinking in the modern era that is anti-intellectual and destructive to Western civilization: relativism of all kinds, hermeneutics, feminism, polylogicism, and postmodernism.
I am very well aware of subtle, and sometimes more drastic, differences amongst people in perception, which would include such things as the optical illusions exploited by MC Escher in his brilliant wood-carvings. That can hardly be taken as some justification for an assault on the notion of objective reality. For the most part, the vast majority of people tend to think that red and green go together well, and are not at "odds" with one another. Perceptions of what is beautiful tend to be relatively uniform (you don't hear too many people saying the Mona Lisa is hideous).
Your argument is simply some logical fallacy. You delve into the depths of minutia regarding human perception of images, which is largely uncontroversial, and then mean that to somehow prove or argue for the relativist position; it doesn't.
And John can say such non-sense as "Jane is outside my circle of moral expectations," but that doesn't make it true. It is still none-the-less reasonable to expect her to respond favorably to respectful treatment of her, and unfavorably to disrespectful treatment of her. What he's really saying is that he isn't going to act morally with regards to Jane; he isn't going to treat her as a moral entity. He can do that, but he isn't justified in doing that, and it isn't rational. He can in fact communicate with Jane, if only by reciprocity, and is thus capable of having an ethic between him and her. The challenge is not for John to say he's going to treat Jane immorally, or not regard her, for anyone can do that. The challenge is for him to justify it. And to justify something means it has to be universalizeable to anyone reading or listening to the argument, which presents problems for him re Jane. You see, if he tries to justify it, he is using a peaceful conflict-free method of dispute resolution (debate), and not bashing someone over the head for disagreeing with him about treating Jane that way; but then to argue that he can treat Jane in such manner violates the presuppositions of the argumentation he's engaging in.
To further dismantle relativist positions, I can put forth several axiomatically a-priori true statements, of which the denial would be performative contradiction (and thus false); e.g., "man acts". To deny that is performative contradiction, as the denial would itself be an action, hence showing the truthfulness of the statement the denier is trying to dispute.
I really don't see the problem with that approach. To be sure, there is no legitimacy in saying, "I beat the crap out of you and took it, now it's mine".
Things do get more difficult when we deal with innocent 2nd-comers adding to the value of the stolen land by their purchase of it from the aggressor, and subsequent improvement upon it. To be sure, the person it was originally stolen from way-back when doesn't have title to the improvements.
But the first thing is, we assume possession is 9/10ths of the law, unless we know otherwise, or know that the current possessor is a crook (as would be the case with politicians controlling property). Someone claiming otherwise -- that they should've inherited -- has to prove otherwise (they'll also have to prove that they would've inherited it).
The ultimate goal is not to punish innocent 2nd-comers for the wrongs of those who they bought property from, but is to punish actual criminal aggressors, and make them do restitution. Of course, when someone buying property does so knowingly in collaboration from those who stole it, they don't get any beneficial treatment, and are simply co-conspirators. But if they are innocent, them being robbed of all the improvements they'd made to property would constitute a new aggression against them. So again, the ultimate aim is to find the real aggressors and make them pay the penalty of restitution. But if that can't be done, then both sides will have to eat a loss b/c of the aggressor.
You seem to be trying to say that my position is absurd. It certainly would seem absurd from the pov of someone who bought property in New Mexico that now their property is going to be given back to original owners it was stolen from many years ago (see below for details on alleviating this). But it wouldn't seem so absurd to those people. Then again, being the great-descendants of them, they might not care, so there really wouldn't be an issue anyways). There is no need to go chasing after difficult legal situations; until someone comes with a claim, we needn't deal with it.
But if someone does come with a claim that they can prove, how can we deal with it? Well, we could deal with it the same way we deal with the inheritance of houses...if one person in the family wants to live in that house, they have to buy the rest out of their share of it. We could do the same with these kinds of disputes. Most likely, the original owner of some piece of land 300 years ago wouldn't get much, as most of the value was added after the initial theft. Or alternatively, they could buy out the current owner of his share of the value of that plot of land as a whole, including any buildings on it. In a propertarian society where this kind of dispute-resolution happens, most likely there would be a market for title-insurance to property.
The fundamental problem here -- which is a problem for any system of law, not just the libertarian propertarian one I'm proposing -- is that aggressors can do far more harm than they can do good. It is quit easy for a crook to steal from one person, sell to someone else ignorant of such, drop-dead from drug-overdose, and then leave those two people in a difficult situation at odds with each other. I think that title-insurance, and insurance against theft, can help alleviate this.
The ultimate way to deal with this is to stop advocating and engaging in systematic aggression, such as is war of all kinds.
First, you start off with what I think is irrelevant minutia regarding the color green. There may be a gap between wavelength and "greenness" -- and indeed, it is quite conceivable that some hypothetical beings could perceive green in entirely different ways than we do -- but that isn't relevant. Grouping two things together because they are green is not some non-sense that we conjure up from our imagination, that has no bearing on reality. It is a reasonable -- although not always best -- criteria for grouping things. Likewise, our concept of say "maple tree" is a non-precisive abstraction (Aristotlean abstraction) from all instances of things we call "maple trees", not some Platonic ideal form floating around. It has an objective basis in reality (namely, not just the similar appearance, but more importantly, the common ancestry).
What do you mean by: "Your appeal to the categorical imperative only works for moral agents that believe that there is symmetry between themselves and the object of their activities. In practice, that symmetry doesn't even exist among agents who claim it does, much less in those who don't.".
Symmetry between themselves and the object of their activities? I presume what you're talking about is that John wants to have sex with Jane, and views her as an inferior, thus sees no problem in raping her. Yet, Jane can object to that, and it is the fact that we can communicate with one-another that makes norms amongst us possible. Then, John has to justify his actions, and he doesn't have a universalizeable criteria, so isn't going to be able to convince anyone. Jane can just assert the opposite of his superiority-proposition and shoot him dead. He'd be estopped from objecting, as well, based on his own actions.
Nothing you have said addresses the issue's I've brought up regarding ethics being chosen values of acting men, and that they cannot consistently argue for norms that violate the presuppositions of argumentation (ya know, how beating someone over the head doesn't demonstrate that you have the correct position). Nor have you addressed the fundamental internal contradictions of such statements as, "we cannot know anything to be absolutely true", or various other relativist and post-modernist dogma. And hence is the root of my "antipathy" toward post-modernism and relativism, that it is self-contradictory non-sense, that it seeks to undermine everything Western civilization has accomplished, etc.
No, not really, because who would you be returning the property to? The government? Which just fiat'ed their ownship by decree, and not actual homesteading and working of the land? I can do a lot of "declaring that I own shit" too, on a piece of paper. The real owners of property are those who homestead it from an unowned state, or voluntarily acquire it from someone who did (or someone who acquired it from the original homesteader, etc). The real owners of property aren't some douchebags in Washington DC reaping the rewards of the Founding Father's massive power-grab.
Nothing worth thinking about, you've just described facts of nature, in the wild. If you want to go live with wild animals, go ahead. In no way does that address the "pros and cons" of rape here in the world of people. So perhaps you should argue why it is good that Chinese women were gang-raped hundreds of times by Japanese soldiers during WWII...
Epistemological: That we group trees together isn't just some imaginary fiction of our mind. It is based off of objective reality, something similar in their properties, and their "ancestry" (two different maple trees share a recent common ancestor). Even things that are all "green", of which we say, "emeralds and trees are green", that isn't some imaginary non-sense, but based off of the reality of wavelengths in nm.
Regarding things that are conceptual, it is very well true that there is no Platonic ideal "right" or "good" out there floating around in some alternate dimension of ideal forms. Just like there is no "2 + 2 = 4" floating around there. That doesn't mean that these things aren't either true or false (depending on the statement).
Moral: Your conception of moral relativism seems vastly different from the reality of moral relativism in the real world, which says crap like, "rape isn't necessarily wrong", or more aptly put, there is no right and wrong. To say that morality is an "invention" is essentially to say there is no such thing as morality (which is a guide to one's conduct, how one ought to act; e.g., is it ok to rape an innocent person, or to nuke 80,000 Japanese people off the face of the Earth). None-the-less, one can argue for normative morality, in which morality is a set of accepted norms; that does not mean there can be no truth, as some moral norms -- such as I can bash you over the head -- violate the norms that are presupposed whenever one engages in argumentation, and thus are performative contradictions to argue for (this is called the "argumentation ethics" justification of the non-aggression axiom). It is also quite clear that, by arguments of estoppel, we don't really need to deal with anyone who claims it is morally fine to murder, rape, and pillage, as they would be estopped from objecting to that kind of treatment themselves (and if they did object, it undermines their argument for such).
Discursive: Statements about truth do not have a "bias"; they are either true or false. We can judge by looking at the logical reasoning from first principles, if they are a priori arguments, or by looking at the empirical evidence (if they are arguments about empirical truths, not conceptual truth). It may well be true that scientists, philosophers, etc have bias; this is not enough to refute an argument put forth. It is a good reason for looking further into things, regarding trust of their statements, or for perhaps explaining why they may have arrived at incorrect conclusions.
Summarily, espistemological, moral, and discursive relativism, along with "post-modernism", is a bunch of crap, anti-intellectual and anti-Western drivel. The belief by many in these doctrines undermines the roots of Western civilization and the civilizing process as well.
I never claimed abortion was a straightforward case. I am saying that conception is one objective point, where we start talking about murder; or we can use the heart-beat, or maybe even brainwaves. Letting the mother have an abortion 2 minutes before birth seems quite clearly obscene and criminal. I did however point out that quite clearly, except in the case of rape, and where the mother's health is in danger, the woman did consent to it, and knew the risks (the mother's health in danger being relevant because if the mother dies, so does the z/e/f).
Your example regarding theft appears to be confusingly worded, so I won't deal with it. I will, however, say that if I steal something and give it to my kids, it doesn't somehow magically become theirs. Since it wasn't mine to give in the first place, I couldn't possibly have transferred title of ownership to them. That doesn't mean any guilt on their part, just that if the original owner comes along, he can rightfully take it from them.
also, as I said above...
"Even if we can't agree on something, that doesn't mean moral relativism is correct. That just means we haven't made good enough logical arguments, or don't have enough evidence. Maybe 500 years ago, we can't agree on why we don't fall off the face of the Earth. That doesn't mean there is no correct and true reason for why we don't. It just means we don't know, yet.
There's a difference between saying we don't always know the truth about everything, and saying there is no truth (which is philosophical relativism). Btw, the relativist position has an internal contradiction, for if one says there is no absolute truth, what should we consider that statement? If we consider it truth, then it's contradictory non-sense; if we don't, then it's just some meaningless babble."
To state there are gray areas, or areas we don't yet fully understand, is different from arguing the moral relativist position. Moral relativism says there isn't necessarily anything wrong with, say for example, the Japanese gang-rape of Chinese women during WWII. It just depends on who's pov you take: from the soldier's pov, it was fine; not from the women's pov. That's pure worthless bullshit.
I have analysis on each of the issues you brought up*, but that really is irrelevant to the point. Even if we can't agree on something, that doesn't mean moral relativism is correct. That just means we haven't made good enough logical arguments, or don't have enough evidence. Maybe 500 years ago, we can't agree on why we don't fall off the face of the Earth. That doesn't mean there is no correct and true reason for why we don't. It just means we don't know, yet.
There's a difference between saying we don't always know the truth about everything, and saying there is no truth (which is philosophical relativism). Btw, the relativist position has an internal contradiction, for if one says there is no absolute truth, what should we consider that statement? If we consider it truth, then it's contradictory non-sense; if we don't, then it's just some meaningless babble.
* Neither the Palistineans nor the Isrealis are justified in murdering innocent civilians, which they frequently do, and by that I mean the terrorists and government. I consider abortion as murder, unless it's for the health of the mother or because of rape; because in other cases, the woman consented to have a "passenger onboard" so to speak, and you don't get to invite someone on your private plane, then kick them out at 40,000 feet. Drinking and sex, well if both were drunk, there's no argument for rape even by that argument; but I tend to argue that unless the guy got her drunk or drugged without her knowledge, she made her own decision in that regard, and why should guys have to be judge of that? Put it the other way around: if it were a drunk guy, and a sober woman, no-one would buy that BS argument that he was "raped", they would say, "that lucky sob"; and the drunk guy's wife certainly wouldn't buy that BS. Regarding the age of consent: (1) Certainly, two ppl below whatever it is, neither of them should be accused of statutory (currently, the underaged guy officially raped the underaged girl, because he "did the inserting"; (2) Look at it as an issue of demonstrated maturity, if some1 demonstrates they're mature, then they're of age; that would mean, for example, supporting one's self; (3) Wait until the girl is of age, then let her decide whether or not she was taken advantage of...if we had that reasonable standard, Mary Kay Lauterno wouldn't be in jail, as her "victim", now of age, if I remember right, wants to marry her.
That's a load of crap, spawned by today's Statist society. Instead of doing this BS weighing of sides, what you could do is look at it in detail, and isolate specific groups (e.g., government and terrorists on each side, which are both wrong in killing innocent civilians). It is never right to just murder some innocent civilian. That's why, for example, both the terrorists responsible for 9/11 and the US government -- rather, numerous individuals in it -- are wrong (the US government in it's response, which has resulted in the murder of thousands of innocents).
The article starts off fine enough, with notations of the fanaticism of *some* Apple fans. I myself like Apple; if I was buying a pre-made computer, it'd probably be a Mac. Imo, very nice build-construction and quality (aside from their keyboards and mice, which are no-where near as good as MS keyboards or mice). But even more-so than Apple, I'm a big big fan of Lian-Li cases. Yet, I have some complaints: the usb-panels on the V1200 and V2000 are at the bottom of the case, instead of up top, or on-top of it, which is more accessible for big cases (which will likely be placed on the floor); and their new V-series have fixed that, but also reduced greatly the ventilation holes on the front. I doubt there'd be many Lian-Li fanatics bashing me for that.
Some Apple fans do really annoy. E.g., the tendency for claiming that Mac invented everything. They accused Lian-Li of copying the G5's holed case-design; yet, servers used ventilation holes for a long time, and my year-2000 Gateway had them on the front. They also acted like the wire-less hard-drive replacement on the new G5's is some new invention of Apple's: it's juts hot-swap, which has been around forever (and Apple's implementation isn't that great, as you have to open the case to do it).
In any event, those kinds of comments are perfectly fine. They're regarding largely matters of personal opinion. And the issue isn't so much that Apple fans disagree, but the way it's done; provide evidence, don't accuse writers of "ball-licking".
But then the article digresses into the pits of moral relativism with talk about the Israel-Palistine conflict, or the abortion issue. These are issues of right and wrong. There isn't a real middle ground. Either something is right, or it isn't. There is no "plusses and minuses". How about we talk about the pro's and cons of rape, too?
Homework in college is idiotic. Actually, all homework is idiotic. Homework should be just suggested problems. Although 2 or 3 projects a semester are ok. The rest should be determined by tests.
Homework is bullshit babying crap from high-school, treating people like idiots. Adults shouldn't fucking have to do homework. Either they have motivation to study and practice outside of class or they don't.
At the very least, homework in college should be in "adult format", which means like a mini-project, or a case-study. That's how it was in business school. Makes it pretty impractical to cheat anyways.
If you use software, you agree to the license under which it's sold. You have a legal AND moral obligation to abide by contracts that you agree to. No-one forced you to agree to those contracts. That's true of both GPL'ed software and of "EULA'ed" software.
If you use GPL'ed code in your application, you have a legal and moral obligation to license your app under the GPL. End of discussion. If you don't like it, don't use GPL'ed software. Maybe the only reason the software's there is because the owners wanted derivatives to be GPL'ed, and wouldn't have made it if not for that. If you don't like that, base your application on software that isn't GPL'ed; use BSD-licensed software.
PS: Your Obama / Ron Paul analogy is despicable and uncalled for. Ron Paul is the only candidate, along with Kucinich to some extent, who has any kind of integrity. He has principles, which include abiding by the constitution, freedom, free trade, free markets, and a non-interventionist foreign policy; and he supports the only monetary standard that provides some check against unlimited government spending, the gold standard (and that also prevents business cycles caused by monetary inflation).
For most people, is the performance difference really that important? Maybe for uber-power users and gamers, but not the majority of people, even geeks.
Meanwhile, the motherboards that support AMD Phenom's are superior to and cheaper than motherboards for Intel Quad-cores. Gigabit motherboards offer up to 16GB of RAM; it also offers 2 x16 PCI-e slots and 3 x1 PCI-e slots, as well as 2 PCI slots; the Gigabit GA-790FX-DQ6 is around $200 for that. This motherboard has around a 4- to 5-star rating from numerous reviewers.
Some of the MSI motherboards offer 8GB and 4 x16 or x8 PCI-e slots, along with 1 x1 PCI-e slot, and 2 older PCI slots: that's 7 total. This one's for around $160. This board has a 5-star rating from numerous reviewers (on NegEgg). It also has an award for best motherboard in terms of quality.
Meanwhile, the only Intel motherboards for their non-server Quad-cores that go up to 16GB are by A-bit, a poor brand, and those motherboards have comparably poor reviews from NewEgg.com.
(1) Debate from ignorance; (2) Fallacy of appeal to popularity; (3) Fallacy of might makes right.
Nice job, troll.
You ought to at least understand something before criticizing it. Libertarianism is merely consistent in it's definition of theft and robbery, by which consistency you have to include taxation as robbery (and inflation as theft). If you want to be intellectually dishonest and without integrity, you're welcome to bend over backwards trying to say that the State is something that it isn't. If there are 10 people, and 9 "vote" to deprive the last 1 of his property, that is still robbery. At least have the courage to admit that in supporting the State, you support mass robbery, thievery, rape, and murder. Maybe you think this is necessary, but be honest.
By the way, there are many examples of broadly libertarian societies (that is, Stateless), which existed for quite some time. Ancient Iceland and Ancient Ireland for 300 and 1000 years, respectively. The West in the US for 10 years, before the Federal government trampled over private justice. There are various other examples, as well. And there have been numerous successful minarchies as well. Before making an ignorant claim and saying "there exists no working example of a libertarian economy in all of human history," you ought to have some idea as to what you're talking about. As it stands, you're just an idiot talking out of his arse, with no understanding of history.
That is the neoclassical definition of a market, or of "perfect competition", but it is a nirvana fallacy (compare the market as it exists to some unattainable, impossible "ideal", then note how short it comes up). In many cases, especially with entirely new products, there is only one seller. And of every product in its particularity, there is only one seller. It is thus an arbitrary definition. The free market need not refer to a state of the complexity of the economic system. There can be a primitive free market between two people on an island, provided neither coerces the other in exchanges. Nor need there necessarily be multiple buyers; companies often want some specialized service or program or technology, and will solicit competing offers from various producers.
As for freedom, all that freedom requires is that people be allowed to homestead and own property (1st user rule), and that there is not the initiation of aggression. To the extent that these two principles are abrogated, so too is freedom. Of course, even absent a State -- which is most responsible for theft, robbery, assault, rape, and murder -- there will always be crime. But that can be dealt with as a problem needing solutions by the market like any other. The State is the source of systematic and constant crime on a grand scale.
If the lying constitutes fraud, then it's a tort. If I say I'll give you a box of apples for $10, you give me $10, and then I give you a box of sand, I've defrauded you, and you're entitled to your $10 back (or a box of apples from me). Of course, local expectations and reason dictate what "a box of apples" is (e.g., what condition do they have to be in, how big, etc). That's something for courts to figure out. Buyer and seller beware.
Furthermore, regarding asymmetric information problems, consumers have an obligation to do their research. Asymmetric information is a problem that the market can deal with, absent government interference. There are consumer advocate groups, and review organizations, etc. Regarding barriers to entry, the most significant barriers to entry in any field are created by the State. And there is nothing wrong with natural capital barriers to entry in particular areas; that's just the nature of things. Individuals may need to leverage existing wealth into those areas. Regarding natural monopoly, that entire theory is a fraud; all historical real monopolies -- where competition is prevented -- occur because of the government. DiLorenzo and Armentano have done a lot of research on this, and shown that (for example), there were private roads, there were competing utility companies before state takeover. As for other "textbook cases" of monopoly -- meaning that the company has earned a large share of the market by excellence -- there is Standard Oil, which was increasing production and lowering prices; hardly harming the consumers, although I can see why prospective competitors would want to lobby the government to cripple it. See Armentano, The Case Against Anti-Trust: mises.org/books/antitrust.pdf
Finally, all of the problems you mention which don't exist in the unhampered free market, or can be adequately dealt with, exist in spades with the State. Asymmetric information is the insurmountable norm, and individuals trying to find out things can be dealt with in any manner the State pleases. The State provides a central organization for businesses to lobby to get special privileges, prevent competition, increase regulations (which increases the burden on smaller companies relative to large ones), etc. There are enormous externalization problems, as those in the State can easily externalize the costs of their actions to a large extent. The war in Iraq costs GWB nothing, but US citizens trillions, and foreigners their lives. It was the State -- specifically Truman -- not any private corporation, that decided it would be great to nuke tens of thousands of Japanese people off the face of the Earth.
Finally, none of your arguments in any way justify you or anyone else by "vote" or whatever means pointing a gun to my head and forcing me to pay taxes (which is ultimately what is done to anyone who resists). Rather than attempting to justify the robbery, theft, rape, and murder that the State necessitates due to it's existence, you divert the issue.
PS: Adam Smith was not some great proponent of the free market. This is a myth, which only those ignorant of the history of economic thought buy into. In some ways, he opposed intervention in the market, but in many more, he was a mercantalist and protectionist. Furthermore, he was also a plagiarist, and a poor one at that: there was very little that was original with Adam Smith, and what was was economic fallacy; he also diluted down and muddled those views he plagiarized (from people like Turgot, Cantillon, etc).
Wrong. All that the free market requires to work is that the State not create artificial barriers to entry, or prevent competition in various ways (e.g., mandate cartelization, regulate, allow patents, etc). All that the free market requires is the lack of initiation of aggression. To the extent that there is aggression, the free market is hindered. This is the correct concept of the free market, as elaborated by the Austrian school of economics.
What you refer to is not the classical concept of the free market at all, but the modern unrealistic neoclassical conception, which is a nirvana fallacy.
Libertarianism: the opposition to any initiation of aggression; e.g., opposition to robbery, theft, murder, rape under any and all conditions. But apparently, you don't believe in silly things like that, and think it's fine to use the threat of violence to steal from people for things that you think are important.
You have freedom, you don't have to buy products if you don't want to. GPUs are a luxury, not a necessity. Stop being a spoiled brat. If someone wants to manufacture something, sell it to people, but not give people the detailed specifications for it, that is their right. I wonder why it is that producer freedom is never mentioned. If I make something, and sell it to you, I have absolutely 0 obligation to tell you how I made it.
Btw, if capitalism really couldn't service those "niche" markets, then AMD wouldn't be doing what they're doing right now. The free market is working. What the free market means is basically all voluntary interactions, where no coercive force is used.
But I guess you would rather go the road of barbaric violence and use State-violence and the threat of it to force companies to do what you want them to do.
If something is really important to you, you should use your own resources and non-coercive persuasion (to get others to join you) to accomplish that goal. That would be the mature way to go about achieving something. Instead, you want to stamp your feet, and try to convince the government to force others to do what you want them to do, whether they agree with you about the importance of your goal or not.
PS: Btw, there is an organization developing a completely open graphics card.
"Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate from the University of Texas, Austin, described himself in an e-mail message as "pretty Platonist," saying he thinks the laws of nature are as real as "the rocks in the field."
The laws of mathematics don't exist "out there" somewhere, floating around like asteroids. This kind of Platonic abstraction is nonsense. The correct way to look at the laws of mathematics and laws of physics is more like Arististotlean abstractions. Rather than specifying the absence of something, to make a "platonic horse" -- as neoclassical economists do with perfect competition models -- we simply don't specify something (e.g., don't account for friction with simple equations of how long it will take for something to fall; but we don't say that friction doesn't exist).
Furthermore, it is true that some things we have to presuppose. Statements like "all things we consider true must be empirically verified", are self-contradictory; either statement isn't accepted as necessarily true -- in which case, why hold to it dogmatically -- or you hold that it is necessarily true, in which case it contradicts itself.
Moreover, the scientific method must presuppose causality; otherwise, no observations could suggest the falsification of a hypothesis. Without causality, all events are just unrelated entities. We cannot empirically test for causality; it is just something that every acting man understands and presupposes must exist (otherwise, why act if it isn't causally connected to some goal?).