The whole idea of doublethink and the ability to hold 2 contradictory ideas at once as truth is a powerful tool of control.
This is what is scary about post-modernism. People under the influence of post-modernism see nothing wrong with holding 2 contradictory ideas as true. This opens them up for control. Doublethink is growing stronger everyday because of post-modern thinking. Some country or corporation can use this to control the people under its sway.
It seems to me that atheism is as much of a religion as Christianity or Islam. The only difference is the lack of believing in a supreme being(s). I define religion as one's worldview. It does not have to have belief in a "god". To have the phrase "under God", shows where the majority of Americans are in their beliefs. To always avoid any phrase with (g/G)od in it is to promote atheism. I do feel that these lawsuits are tactics by atheists to promote atheism in an indirect way.
It is really not surprising. The Islamic faith has a definite political component. Muslims would like to live in a society where is Islamic Law is the law of the land. This is part of the political process. Egypt needs to comply with the WTO's TRIPS agreements (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). This is just one way to help the government out. It is really a moral statement that is taking place in a political context. (Note that the Christian faith is much less connected to politics than Islam.)
... that is only part of the problem. A bigger problem is the lack of stable governments that look after their people as opposed to oppressing them for the greed of a few. Hatred, greed, desire for power and factional fighting are the primary reasons we have impoverished nations.
It will happen first on company LANs where a department make use of it. Companies will expand it to all machines at one location and then they will tunnel to other locations. It will be a while before web services, grid computing, etc. reach out to the common man except in small ways.
Technology like the Internet is a neutral. Like a knife it can be used for good (surgery) or for evil (murder). The Internet allows information both true and false be spread fast and widely. This is good because we find out about others and their needs and emphathize with them and help them. Unfortunatately it also spreads falsehoods just as rapidly which bring division.
The alternative is to censor the Internet so that a few will give us only what they want us to hear. They may do it with good motives but information is lost and only their view is given. And if done for selfish totalitarian motives people are controled. There will always be people who use the internet for evil purposes. Reality is people are not naturally good. Free spread of information (true and false) is best.
Why did Microsoft shoot its self in the foot? It is because they realize they are a monopoly. They need to boost profits some so they decide to audit the schools. The schools have to pay up since they are the only real business in town (monopoly thinking!).
They were suprised to find out that the schools were willing to consider other alternatives.
(They also would like a big long contract to lock in the schools for a long time, but because of monopoly thinking they went about it the wrong way.)
From the article:
It addresses, for example, the nagging question of what might have triggered or come "before" the beginning of time.
I too wonder if there is some wishful thinking in there. It does not make the theory any less valid but many scientists don't like the lack of closure with the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory has some philosophical implications of a creator (or creating process) that does not fit nicely in the philosophical belief of Naturalism. This theory fits better with that Naturalistic belief. I suspect that many scientists will adopt this theory because of its Naturalistic implications, and that it the concern over the old Big Bang proponents squashing it will be misplaced. There will be 2 strong competing theories in the future.
This is 2002, Humans should evolve to my level, or else why should I consider them human? I can consider them animals.
Is only an enlightened/evolved person truely human? Can you treat an unenlightened person as part of the "one"? Are they equal in value to an enlightened person? Are you going to love them too as you love yourself?
Are we more "civilized" today than 5000 years ago? I am not certain we are evolving morally. I would say we are not, or if we are evolving morally the rapid technological advances has given us power to destroy ourselves before we are ready. People today seem to think we are evolving in some biological moral way to something better. This is a philosophical (religious) belief that many today hold. I believe it is wishful thinking.
I should share that I believe there is hope. While "Christians" have caused more than enough violence and war, I believe that there is a God who through Jesus Christ changes human nature. It has not always been seen in "Christians", but if you look at some of the great Christians through the centuries it can be seen. They have also influenced nonchristians, like Gandhi. It was Jesus Christ who said "turn the other cheek".
War and violence is unfortunately a part of human life. Over the centuries various groups of people have tried to create peaceful utopian societies and they have failed. The problem is human nature. Our motivations are very self-centered, without regard or consideration for the other person or country. We want our fair share and a little bit more. That is the way we humans are.
I had a job in the early 80's for a copper smelter. Chile decided to pay its national debt in copper. Copper prices plummeted. The company laid off a quarter of the blue collar workers and cut the remainer's salaries by a quarter. Mean while the white collar workers still got raises. When I left they were laying off the low end of the white collar jobs. Management was looking after themselves and refused to make the tough decisions that would affect them and their friends.
I like the idea of moving "adult" sites to a new domain, but who decides what is "adult" and is not the Internet international? It is another case of stupid bill which assumes that the US government is in charge of the Internet. (It may only be stupid political grandstanding, but it is stupid.)
Microsoft must provide a secure OS. And it has to be more than words. Businesses and government agencies are recognizing the cost of an insecure OS. Right now I wonder if Microsoft truely realizes that they are in a precarious place. They need to spend big bucks to make their OS secure. Talking the talk will not do it. Adding on security to their OS will not do it. They need a major rewrite of the OS to fix it. That will cost, but Microsoft has the money. Do they have the will to do it?
Sifting through publicly available information to find important trends, threats, etc is a wonderful no-brainer type of idea. He says it is not being done. Why and are there examples of where publicly available information could have been helpful but was not used? (Maybe it is not that helpful as it seems it would be.)
Amen! The current state of climate models makes any predictions by the models as suspect, but it is worth considering what happens if these predictions are true. Is it good to be adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere? The results of added CO2 may not be known for certain, but it is not purdent to avoid the possible dire consequences. Let us not sweep it under the rug, rather let us recognize our selfish motives of not wanting to be inconvenienced. We should think about future generations.
Remember a year ago when this
revealation about Juno's privacy policy. Juno was/is ready to use the accounts that it has to do some distributive computing. Having the ISP using its accounts to process data, is the way this will happen if it does.
Think "Blade Runner" and "1984". This is the first step to creating humans to work and fight for the rest. This can be abused very easily. Think 50 years from now when a dictator raises an army of genetically engineered clones. They still have to raise the kids up to be adults but they can create a large army and/or workforce in 15 years time.
Human nature is such that this is a distinct possibility. The moral implications of the abuse of artifical births scares me.
I have seen at a lot of "folk science" being used in the comments and a little in the article. Folk science is using science as a proof to support their view of the world, ie their belief system. Note it is not science, and is being used by both sides.
The discovery is an amazing one and does have direct application to the theory of evolution. It strengthens the theory. It does not put a nail in the coffin of young earth creationism, and it does not prove that "Naturalism" is correct. Those arguments are in the realm of "folk science".
One needs to be aware of the blinders we put on ourselves. We need to continue to test our beliefs to see if they are reasonable with the evidence at hand. Science is a wonderful tool to help determine truth in this world, and it should be used. However, science is required to make assumptions (IMHO usually very reasonable) about the world we see, so one must be careful in how one uses science to determine truth.
The problem that any number of underdog OS's have these days is overcoming consumer inertia. What I mean by that
statement is this: once a set of products has hit a certain point and gains consumer acceptance, it is very hard to change the
direction that that market is going.
That is exactly the problem. It is hard to get people to change from what they know, and it is hard to convince companies to move into a small uncertain market or to install an unknown product. I will take a lot of time to take the desktop even with superior applications.
You have to find new markets and niches to sell your product. This is what RedHat is doing.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what is scary about post-modernism. People under the influence of post-modernism see nothing wrong with holding 2 contradictory ideas as true. This opens them up for control. Doublethink is growing stronger everyday because of post-modern thinking. Some country or corporation can use this to control the people under its sway.
The abreviation similarities and now the bad report for ISS makes me wonder if ISS is like IIS. Lets hope not.
It seems to me that atheism is as much of a religion as Christianity or Islam. The only difference is the lack of believing in a supreme being(s). I define religion as one's worldview. It does not have to have belief in a "god". To have the phrase "under God", shows where the majority of Americans are in their beliefs. To always avoid any phrase with (g/G)od in it is to promote atheism. I do feel that these lawsuits are tactics by atheists to promote atheism in an indirect way.
then everything looks like a nail.
If the universe is a computer then everything must be a calculation. Funny I thought I was more than that.
It is really not surprising. The Islamic faith has a definite political component. Muslims would like to live in a society where is Islamic Law is the law of the land. This is part of the political process. Egypt needs to comply with the WTO's TRIPS agreements (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). This is just one way to help the government out. It is really a moral statement that is taking place in a political context. (Note that the Christian faith is much less connected to politics than Islam.)
... that is only part of the problem. A bigger problem is the lack of stable governments that look after their people as opposed to oppressing them for the greed of a few. Hatred, greed, desire for power and factional fighting are the primary reasons we have impoverished nations.
It will happen first on company LANs where a department make use of it. Companies will expand it to all machines at one location and then they will tunnel to other locations. It will be a while before web services, grid computing, etc. reach out to the common man except in small ways.
Technology like the Internet is a neutral. Like a knife it can be used for good (surgery) or for evil (murder). The Internet allows information both true and false be spread fast and widely. This is good because we find out about others and their needs and emphathize with them and help them. Unfortunatately it also spreads falsehoods just as rapidly which bring division.
The alternative is to censor the Internet so that a few will give us only what they want us to hear. They may do it with good motives but information is lost and only their view is given. And if done for selfish totalitarian motives people are controled. There will always be people who use the internet for evil purposes. Reality is people are not naturally good. Free spread of information (true and false) is best.
Why did Microsoft shoot its self in the foot? It is because they realize they are a monopoly. They need to boost profits some so they decide to audit the schools. The schools have to pay up since they are the only real business in town (monopoly thinking!).
They were suprised to find out that the schools were willing to consider other alternatives.
(They also would like a big long contract to lock in the schools for a long time, but because of monopoly thinking they went about it the wrong way.)
It addresses, for example, the nagging question of what might have triggered or come "before" the beginning of time.
I too wonder if there is some wishful thinking in there. It does not make the theory any less valid but many scientists don't like the lack of closure with the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory has some philosophical implications of a creator (or creating process) that does not fit nicely in the philosophical belief of Naturalism. This theory fits better with that Naturalistic belief. I suspect that many scientists will adopt this theory because of its Naturalistic implications, and that it the concern over the old Big Bang proponents squashing it will be misplaced. There will be 2 strong competing theories in the future.
Is only an enlightened/evolved person truely human? Can you treat an unenlightened person as part of the "one"? Are they equal in value to an enlightened person? Are you going to love them too as you love yourself?
Be careful! A lot of people have used similar reasoning to justify violence and killing.
Are we more "civilized" today than 5000 years ago? I am not certain we are evolving morally. I would say we are not, or if we are evolving morally the rapid technological advances has given us power to destroy ourselves before we are ready. People today seem to think we are evolving in some biological moral way to something better. This is a philosophical (religious) belief that many today hold. I believe it is wishful thinking.
I should share that I believe there is hope. While "Christians" have caused more than enough violence and war, I believe that there is a God who through Jesus Christ changes human nature. It has not always been seen in "Christians", but if you look at some of the great Christians through the centuries it can be seen. They have also influenced nonchristians, like Gandhi. It was Jesus Christ who said "turn the other cheek".
War and violence is unfortunately a part of human life. Over the centuries various groups of people have tried to create peaceful utopian societies and they have failed. The problem is human nature. Our motivations are very self-centered, without regard or consideration for the other person or country. We want our fair share and a little bit more. That is the way we humans are.
I had a job in the early 80's for a copper smelter. Chile decided to pay its national debt in copper. Copper prices plummeted. The company laid off a quarter of the blue collar workers and cut the remainer's salaries by a quarter. Mean while the white collar workers still got raises. When I left they were laying off the low end of the white collar jobs. Management was looking after themselves and refused to make the tough decisions that would affect them and their friends.
I like the idea of moving "adult" sites to a new domain, but who decides what is "adult" and is not the Internet international? It is another case of stupid bill which assumes that the US government is in charge of the Internet. (It may only be stupid political grandstanding, but it is stupid.)
found at http://www.openswf.org
Microsoft must provide a secure OS. And it has to be more than words. Businesses and government agencies are recognizing the cost of an insecure OS. Right now I wonder if Microsoft truely realizes that they are in a precarious place. They need to spend big bucks to make their OS secure. Talking the talk will not do it. Adding on security to their OS will not do it. They need a major rewrite of the OS to fix it. That will cost, but Microsoft has the money. Do they have the will to do it?
Sifting through publicly available information to find important trends, threats, etc is a wonderful no-brainer type of idea. He says it is not being done. Why and are there examples of where publicly available information could have been helpful but was not used? (Maybe it is not that helpful as it seems it would be.)
Amen! The current state of climate models makes any predictions by the models as suspect, but it is worth considering what happens if these predictions are true. Is it good to be adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere? The results of added CO2 may not be known for certain, but it is not purdent to avoid the possible dire consequences. Let us not sweep it under the rug, rather let us recognize our selfish motives of not wanting to be inconvenienced. We should think about future generations.
Remember a year ago when this revealation about Juno's privacy policy. Juno was/is ready to use the accounts that it has to do some distributive computing. Having the ISP using its accounts to process data, is the way this will happen if it does.
Think "Blade Runner" and "1984". This is the first step to creating humans to work and fight for the rest. This can be abused very easily. Think 50 years from now when a dictator raises an army of genetically engineered clones. They still have to raise the kids up to be adults but they can create a large army and/or workforce in 15 years time.
Human nature is such that this is a distinct possibility. The moral implications of the abuse of artifical births scares me.
I have seen at a lot of "folk science" being used in the comments and a little in the article. Folk science is using science as a proof to support their view of the world, ie their belief system. Note it is not science, and is being used by both sides.
The discovery is an amazing one and does have direct application to the theory of evolution. It strengthens the theory. It does not put a nail in the coffin of young earth creationism, and it does not prove that "Naturalism" is correct. Those arguments are in the realm of "folk science".
One needs to be aware of the blinders we put on ourselves. We need to continue to test our beliefs to see if they are reasonable with the evidence at hand. Science is a wonderful tool to help determine truth in this world, and it should be used. However, science is required to make assumptions (IMHO usually very reasonable) about the world we see, so one must be careful in how one uses science to determine truth.
That is exactly the problem. It is hard to get people to change from what they know, and it is hard to convince companies to move into a small uncertain market or to install an unknown product. I will take a lot of time to take the desktop even with superior applications.
You have to find new markets and niches to sell your product. This is what RedHat is doing.