I'm glad that the rest of the psychology community is catching up. We've been doing this with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) for at least a decade. Just look up NLP and trauma.
That's a very tidy way of sorting them, except that in a communism there is no government. In fact there are no prices either (moneyless society and all). People get confused about this because the USSR was "communist", but it was only in ideology, not function. "Communism" was what they were trying to achieve, but never did. They described themselves functionally as being socialist, which Marx said was the road between capitalism and communism. Heck, it's even in the name USSR (one of the few countries to accurately describe themselves).
Actually, this sounds like me, as I usually took notes, but seldom had to refer to them afterwards (perhaps a little brush-up to test myself before a big exam). But I believe I know why this works for me, and why so many other people insist differently: because we're different! People learn better with some senses than others; some are visual, some auditory, etc. Myself, I am very weak in the auditory digital (hearing words), but strong in auditory tonal (sounds, like music), visual, and best of all kinesthetic. This means that reading works fairly well for me, but writing things down works best, but just listening to someone talk results in the least retention and comprehension for me. I wish I had known that earlier in my school life because I probably would have done a lot better.
I can't believe that no one's ever thought of this. The solution is simple: a national (or international even), publicly accessible database of all products and services. It would treat all products, services and companies the same, list all the relevant info, be sortable and searchable by product details (size, color, performance, etc.), contain pictures, reviews, even videos of it being used (like on ThinkGeek) instead of flashy ads that look like hollywood movies showing how cool the thing is with special effects, dramatic camera angles, catchy music, stupid jokes, repetitive slogans, and people looking oh-so-happy now that they have that product, or implications that said product will improve your love/sex life. You could easily compare any of them side by side, and when a company has a new product they want the public to know about, like in your example, they simply send the relevant details to whatever agency handles the database. It'd be accessible online, over the telephone, or you could have a catalogue of a certain category (say, mid-sized cars, or personal computers, or local pizza places) mailed to you for the cost of printing and mailing it, in case you really can't get to a internet capable computer (pretty rare these days), or somehow prefer hardcopy.
But of course economics makes the world go round, right? And it's far too late to stop this multi-billion dollar locomotive now. Too bad, because I'd love a service like this, and for my TV, radio, and Internet to be free of stupid ads once and for all.
I don't know about other people, but I use my HDMI port all the time. With 16 GB internal and a 32 GB sd card, I can carry entire seasons of tv shows and plenty of movies as well at normal resolutions and take them over to my friends' or family's place to watch on their TV. Even HD stuff I can carry enough to watch in one evening, and that not even getting into having more cards which are easy to carry. Much better than carting around DVD cases. My phone can also do Dolby 5.1 if the movie or show has that, so the port allows that as well. Plus it's useful for showing those beautiful HD movies I take with the camera on the phone on a nice big TV rather than just a computer monitor. And yes, high-res photos do look good on the TV as well. And all this on a poor little 680 MHz ARM 11, does just fine. So I find it much more useful than you are making it out to be. And I didn't have to buy the converter, it came with the phone.
This is the Nokia N8 I'm talking about, in case you're interested.
It's called Technocracy, where not only would you not have to worry about being paid, but everything would be open source anyway. What programmer wouldn't love that, the ability to code to your heart's content, on whatever project you want, whenever you want?
Pat: Well, what we need, Susan, is we need money to build an interstellar cruiser. Now, this space ship will be able to travel through a wormhole and deliver the message and glory of Jesus Christ to those godless aliens. Send your money now. Amen.
This is the same debate as the old question of whether or not I am more free if there is no law saying that I can't kill you or not. Sure, if there is no such restriction of that freedom, it is more "free" for me, the first iteration, but I am taking away the freedom of others. This makes it less "free" in the bigger picture. Same thing with GPL/BSD: one gives more freedom initially by allowing you to take away the freedom of others. So I think that debating whether which is more "free" is philosophical at best, semantics at worst. The real, pragmatic question is which benefits society better? Well for that answer, look at the laws of most societies: they seem to agree that taking away some freedoms to protect others is generally a good idea. How much is of course a huge matter of debate, but without this we'd be down to some darwinian survival-of-the-ones-who-screw-others-over-the-most.
Thank you for taking the time to post this. A lot of people don't see what the big deal is because they either can't see the long-term implications of things like this, or they get hung up on other issues (like their child seeing nipples). This helps clarify the issue a lot, and yes, strikes firmly at the core of free speech and hence democracy. Good job.
I've noticed the "ihateaprilfools" tag a couple of times now, and I hope that/. doesn't take that too seriously. I for one (yeah, yeah) like them, even if they do vary in quality (everything does). I'd hate to see this go away because of a few nofunniks that frankly if they didn't like it so much, they can just avoid the site for a day.
And the Ponies gag was pure gold, still my favorite! Especially since the site that inspired it (cute overlord) responded back by say how "cute" geeks were! LOL
It isn't hard, it just costs money (which apparently they're willing to throw at this problem anyway, so...), which most schools don't have enough of. On top of that, traditional thinking in education also keeps good ideas down. I've seen effective teaching methods used in various places, usually only by single teachers, or by specialty schools that cost more or aren't publicly funded. And these techniques are widely dispersed, since education is typically governed on the local level, so they see little propagation. If we could gather up these techniques, consolidate them, pay to put them into all schools and universities (for training teachers to use them), then you'd see a world of difference in how well kids did in school (and life). Intrinsic motivators can be fostered if done right, but our whole societal paradigm revolves around extrinsic rewards and punishments, so these ideas have a hard time propagating. I won't even get into the bad influence that most parents have on this effect, but that can be at least partly countered by proper education, which would only increase over generations.
And how about the curriculum itself? How many times have I seen on/. that many people here agree that teaching things like logic and philosophy would be beneficial? I'd add to that communication skills (how many problems in our society begin with misunderstandings and people not being clear, or not listening properly?), and emotional strategies like anger and stress management. There are good ideas out there that can help everyone, and should be part of everyone's "basic training" growing up, but they generally only get taught in specialty classes or by therapists long after problems develop.
You can also look at it like perfectly standard problem-solving: do you find the root of the problem, and solve it there, or simply apply band-aid solutions such as this one, fixing the symptoms only and leaving the core problem in place? This is like trying to cure the measles by covering up each individual spot as they appear.
This is exactly what Technocracy has been saying for over 80 years. They were the first to "treat the economy like a physics problem", the only difference is that they saw it coming and warned us way back when it was far easier to do something about it. Now, whether we can do something about it without too much pain is in question, but if we can then we have to do something about it now while we still can. Like one commenter said here earlier, "The only way out is a radical reform of the fundemental way our economy is _defined_". Technocracy has provided a logical answer to this too that is worth checking out. It needs a bit of updating since the movement is so small right now, but the underlying basis for it all is still quite sound. If you want a good scientific way of looking at our economy, and how it relates to our environment, then this is the place to start. I'm glad to see more modern research being done that confirms this.
I don't care if your stupidity only affects YOU. I start caring when it affects ME.
Which I think is part of the point the OP was making here:
They say they simply don't care that the data they share on social networks may be accessible by others, that some laws passed by governments today might be privacy-infringing and dangerous...
(emphasis mine)
I think that laws that get passed which hurt us all, that most people aren't tech-savvy (or simply ignorant/distracted) to notice or care do affect you. It certainly affects me, and is what I am primarily concerned about. I've been trying to figure out how to respond to the whole "If you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument, but I'm not a good debater. Any thoughts anyone?
Oh yeah, I also think that the OP is also concerned about the people he cares about (family, friends) not getting hurt, so I don't think that "screw 'em" is acceptable to him. Or me. But I guess that's not your problem.
Wow, that sounds a lot like how a Technocracy works; specifically the part about "within the confines of the project". In a Technocracy, there is the goal: "To provide citizens with the highest standard of living possible for the longest period possible", and all decisions must conform to that goal. This is oversimplifying obviously, but it's nice to see a real-world example that one can use to describe how this is different from traditional political government. Really it's Technocracy's differences like this that make it so hard to understand for so many people.
I know that your comment was intended to be funny, but I think that this already exists. It's called Neo-Paganism. In it, you can believe pretty much whatever you like and like OSS, you will only tend to get people working with you if your stuff makes some sort of sense. The more useful and internally consistent it is, the more people will use it/contribute to it. But if you don't mind being alone, do what you like with it. Of course, doing overly silly things will break it, like any program, so watch out for beliefs like "it's ok to play in the freeway at rush hour because God/Goddess will save me" type stuff. And you don't have to pay to get in either.
Sure you can. It's called Technocracy. The idea is that technological society is too complicated to be run by politics and that scientists should run, objectively, all scientific matters such as this one. It's not a "dictatorship of science" however, since it is the people themselves that decide how to run their lives. It's the responsibility of the technical administration to provide the public with all they want and need. I know, it sounds confusing, and it is, at least until you learn a more about it. Most science and technology can be hard to understand until you know a certain amount about it. I can't explain it all here. The gist is that there would be no more politics, like you describe, but people would still be free.
I knew it, a classic case of "red shift". Tends to happen in those large, cold countries and planets. I bet one day they'll take over Mars (already the red planet), and then build a giant wall inside the asteroid belt too, to keep out people from the "blue planet". How long again before Jupiter completes another revolution?
What you've just described is Technocracy, which was invented to allow people to enjoy life with machines doing all the unwanted work. In fact, it was even discovered to be necessary after you start relying on machines too much, and that we don't use it is the source of most of our social problems right now.
Actually, micro-bots aren't even needed for this. It's been possible in North America since the 1930's. I just thought you'd want to know.
Geeze, this is what Technocratshave been saying for years! It's time to embrace the only rational system based on facts. I mean really, virtually everyone hates politicians anyway, and suspects politics itself as being problematic. We only accept it because we don't know of anything else to use. Well, now there is: Technocracy!
TFA says there are 225,925 annual engineering graduates instead of the 70,000 figure typically quoted by the media.
Well, I hope this ISN'T true. My son is entering an engineering school next fall, and a glut of engineers can only make him less marketable. This basically says his chances of repaying his student loans just got 3 times worse!
You know I really don't want to sound like a troll, but I see a problem in this logic. For the reason "so (I/my son/daughter/whatever) can be more marketable (i.e. get more money)" there should be less engineers around. This doesn't really benefit everyone else though does it? The progress of technology requires people competent enough to perform, and the less we have, the more our technological infrastructure suffers, then everyone suffers. This isn't even getting into the standard competition arguments about improving quality either (because they don't always hold water, but in some cases they do).
I see this "less is more" idea all over the economy and I don't like it. I think we need to rethink this whole "scarcity" thing, to say nothing of considering the bigger picture.
I either must be really tired or else I've been hanging around here too much lately. For just a second I was thinking my subject line there because it looked like "Google's Smart Advertising Leads to More Chicks". So now Google Personels? Wouldn't be surprised.
That depends on the circumstances. In a society of abundance, such as a Technocracy, feel free to do so; there'd be no harm in it. Just don't expect any awards, or popularity, or recognition, or promotions. But if it's personally fulfilling, why not? Besides, then you get into a whole discussion about "need" verses "want", and "what is useful anyway?" For instance, something not very useful today may prove to be vital sometime down the road, or at least helpful. Take brainstorming for example. You come up with tons of "useless" ideas in the hopes that one or more of them ends up being a good one. It's all part of the creative process. Da Vinci produced plenty of things that were "useless" in his time, and many of them are integral to our society now. Also many artists may create stuff "no one" likes, but it serves a purpose to them at least.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad that the rest of the psychology community is catching up. We've been doing this with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) for at least a decade. Just look up NLP and trauma.
That's a very tidy way of sorting them, except that in a communism there is no government. In fact there are no prices either (moneyless society and all). People get confused about this because the USSR was "communist", but it was only in ideology, not function. "Communism" was what they were trying to achieve, but never did. They described themselves functionally as being socialist, which Marx said was the road between capitalism and communism. Heck, it's even in the name USSR (one of the few countries to accurately describe themselves).
Actually, this sounds like me, as I usually took notes, but seldom had to refer to them afterwards (perhaps a little brush-up to test myself before a big exam). But I believe I know why this works for me, and why so many other people insist differently: because we're different! People learn better with some senses than others; some are visual, some auditory, etc. Myself, I am very weak in the auditory digital (hearing words), but strong in auditory tonal (sounds, like music), visual, and best of all kinesthetic. This means that reading works fairly well for me, but writing things down works best, but just listening to someone talk results in the least retention and comprehension for me. I wish I had known that earlier in my school life because I probably would have done a lot better.
But of course economics makes the world go round, right? And it's far too late to stop this multi-billion dollar locomotive now. Too bad, because I'd love a service like this, and for my TV, radio, and Internet to be free of stupid ads once and for all.
This is the Nokia N8 I'm talking about, in case you're interested.
It's called Technocracy, where not only would you not have to worry about being paid, but everything would be open source anyway. What programmer wouldn't love that, the ability to code to your heart's content, on whatever project you want, whenever you want?
South Park 3:11
This is the same debate as the old question of whether or not I am more free if there is no law saying that I can't kill you or not. Sure, if there is no such restriction of that freedom, it is more "free" for me, the first iteration, but I am taking away the freedom of others. This makes it less "free" in the bigger picture. Same thing with GPL/BSD: one gives more freedom initially by allowing you to take away the freedom of others. So I think that debating whether which is more "free" is philosophical at best, semantics at worst. The real, pragmatic question is which benefits society better? Well for that answer, look at the laws of most societies: they seem to agree that taking away some freedoms to protect others is generally a good idea. How much is of course a huge matter of debate, but without this we'd be down to some darwinian survival-of-the-ones-who-screw-others-over-the-most.
Thank you for taking the time to post this. A lot of people don't see what the big deal is because they either can't see the long-term implications of things like this, or they get hung up on other issues (like their child seeing nipples). This helps clarify the issue a lot, and yes, strikes firmly at the core of free speech and hence democracy. Good job.
I've noticed the "ihateaprilfools" tag a couple of times now, and I hope that /. doesn't take that too seriously. I for one (yeah, yeah) like them, even if they do vary in quality (everything does). I'd hate to see this go away because of a few nofunniks that frankly if they didn't like it so much, they can just avoid the site for a day.
And the Ponies gag was pure gold, still my favorite! Especially since the site that inspired it (cute overlord) responded back by say how "cute" geeks were! LOL
It isn't hard, it just costs money (which apparently they're willing to throw at this problem anyway, so...), which most schools don't have enough of. On top of that, traditional thinking in education also keeps good ideas down. I've seen effective teaching methods used in various places, usually only by single teachers, or by specialty schools that cost more or aren't publicly funded. And these techniques are widely dispersed, since education is typically governed on the local level, so they see little propagation. If we could gather up these techniques, consolidate them, pay to put them into all schools and universities (for training teachers to use them), then you'd see a world of difference in how well kids did in school (and life). Intrinsic motivators can be fostered if done right, but our whole societal paradigm revolves around extrinsic rewards and punishments, so these ideas have a hard time propagating. I won't even get into the bad influence that most parents have on this effect, but that can be at least partly countered by proper education, which would only increase over generations.
And how about the curriculum itself? How many times have I seen on /. that many people here agree that teaching things like logic and philosophy would be beneficial? I'd add to that communication skills (how many problems in our society begin with misunderstandings and people not being clear, or not listening properly?), and emotional strategies like anger and stress management. There are good ideas out there that can help everyone, and should be part of everyone's "basic training" growing up, but they generally only get taught in specialty classes or by therapists long after problems develop.
You can also look at it like perfectly standard problem-solving: do you find the root of the problem, and solve it there, or simply apply band-aid solutions such as this one, fixing the symptoms only and leaving the core problem in place? This is like trying to cure the measles by covering up each individual spot as they appear.
This is exactly what Technocracy has been saying for over 80 years. They were the first to "treat the economy like a physics problem", the only difference is that they saw it coming and warned us way back when it was far easier to do something about it. Now, whether we can do something about it without too much pain is in question, but if we can then we have to do something about it now while we still can. Like one commenter said here earlier, "The only way out is a radical reform of the fundemental way our economy is _defined_". Technocracy has provided a logical answer to this too that is worth checking out. It needs a bit of updating since the movement is so small right now, but the underlying basis for it all is still quite sound. If you want a good scientific way of looking at our economy, and how it relates to our environment, then this is the place to start. I'm glad to see more modern research being done that confirms this.
Which I think is part of the point the OP was making here:
(emphasis mine)I think that laws that get passed which hurt us all, that most people aren't tech-savvy (or simply ignorant/distracted) to notice or care do affect you. It certainly affects me, and is what I am primarily concerned about. I've been trying to figure out how to respond to the whole "If you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument, but I'm not a good debater. Any thoughts anyone?
Oh yeah, I also think that the OP is also concerned about the people he cares about (family, friends) not getting hurt, so I don't think that "screw 'em" is acceptable to him. Or me. But I guess that's not your problem.
;)
Wow, that sounds a lot like how a Technocracy works; specifically the part about "within the confines of the project". In a Technocracy, there is the goal: "To provide citizens with the highest standard of living possible for the longest period possible", and all decisions must conform to that goal. This is oversimplifying obviously, but it's nice to see a real-world example that one can use to describe how this is different from traditional political government. Really it's Technocracy's differences like this that make it so hard to understand for so many people.
So yeah, OS religion. Have fun with it. :)
Sure you can. It's called Technocracy. The idea is that technological society is too complicated to be run by politics and that scientists should run, objectively, all scientific matters such as this one. It's not a "dictatorship of science" however, since it is the people themselves that decide how to run their lives. It's the responsibility of the technical administration to provide the public with all they want and need. I know, it sounds confusing, and it is, at least until you learn a more about it. Most science and technology can be hard to understand until you know a certain amount about it. I can't explain it all here. The gist is that there would be no more politics, like you describe, but people would still be free.
But not Xwindows.
(Oh, the irony!)
Perhaps that's just how low the bar is when it comes to critiquing IE.
"It doesn't suck!"
I knew it, a classic case of "red shift". Tends to happen in those large, cold countries and planets. I bet one day they'll take over Mars (already the red planet), and then build a giant wall inside the asteroid belt too, to keep out people from the "blue planet". How long again before Jupiter completes another revolution?
Actually, micro-bots aren't even needed for this. It's been possible in North America since the 1930's. I just thought you'd want to know.
Geeze, this is what Technocrats have been saying for years! It's time to embrace the only rational system based on facts. I mean really, virtually everyone hates politicians anyway, and suspects politics itself as being problematic. We only accept it because we don't know of anything else to use. Well, now there is: Technocracy!
You know I really don't want to sound like a troll, but I see a problem in this logic. For the reason "so (I/my son/daughter/whatever) can be more marketable (i.e. get more money)" there should be less engineers around. This doesn't really benefit everyone else though does it? The progress of technology requires people competent enough to perform, and the less we have, the more our technological infrastructure suffers, then everyone suffers. This isn't even getting into the standard competition arguments about improving quality either (because they don't always hold water, but in some cases they do).
I see this "less is more" idea all over the economy and I don't like it. I think we need to rethink this whole "scarcity" thing, to say nothing of considering the bigger picture.
Man, I need to get out more...
That depends on the circumstances. In a society of abundance, such as a Technocracy, feel free to do so; there'd be no harm in it. Just don't expect any awards, or popularity, or recognition, or promotions. But if it's personally fulfilling, why not? Besides, then you get into a whole discussion about "need" verses "want", and "what is useful anyway?" For instance, something not very useful today may prove to be vital sometime down the road, or at least helpful. Take brainstorming for example. You come up with tons of "useless" ideas in the hopes that one or more of them ends up being a good one. It's all part of the creative process. Da Vinci produced plenty of things that were "useless" in his time, and many of them are integral to our society now. Also many artists may create stuff "no one" likes, but it serves a purpose to them at least.