The only reason "US companies" (as if there were any such thing in this age of MNCs) reign supreme is that they are backed (or buying the favor of) the US military.
Don't kid yourself: without the gun the US points at the world's collective head, US business would be a guaranteed failure. Indeed, it already *is*, and that is why this country has been constantly invading or meddling in the affairs of other nations since the earliest days of the republic.
The most dominant social system of our time is, by definition, psychotic. It is hardly surprising that individuals "become psychotic" as they work for these organizations. Indeed, if they did not, their jobs would quickly end: if sanity were to prevail when weighing social responsibility against profit, the decision--by corporate by-law a bad one--would damage shareholder value, and be grounds for immediate dismissal. The system guarantees that the inmates will run the asylum (and be praised all the way to the bank for doing so.)
All that is exceptional about Enron and Worldcomm is their excesses were exposed, not that their excesses occured.
What's ethically wrong in this particular case is the monkeys are not given a choice to participate in these experiments.
Let's ask the question a different way: "Why CANT we do research on human enhancement using human subjects? What's ethically wrong with looking for ways to make humans "Better...stronger...faster...smarter" by scientifically experimenting on them?"
Does that clear up the ethics thing for you?
Factor this in there somewhere: changing/enhancing the species is effectively evolving it. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, one should consider--and confirm--exactly what the end product of conscious evolution might be, particularly given the obvious flaws of the raw material (humanity) that you're starting with.
From everything I've read, I'd say Linus is anything but casual about freedom. What he is *not* is an idealist. That's what we have RMS for. He's a pragmatist, exactly the kind of person you want in charge of an engineering project. Perhaps not the person you want at the head of a movement, but that's not what he is. He's first and foremost an engineer.
As much as I admire the strength of RMS's conviction, Linus' pragmatism makes more sense because technology--at least, in the context about which we are talking, that of electronics, computers, etc.--is conducive to freedom at all.
When we talk about "freedom", we're generally refering to a limited spectrum of "entropy" within a social system. Computers and communications technology, by their very nature, increase information availability, the very antithesis of entropic progression. High-falutin' words to merely restate: if it can be turned off, freedom doesn't factor into it.
The interview of a person who's self-stated goal is to "to draw attention to proactive, responsible development" (i.e. media flack functionary) appears in Businessweek, a magazine with a natural pro-business "bias", and you call it "a good, balanced read"? So I imagine you decide (affirmatively) that Fox news is fair and balanced, as well.
Is it any wonder that the average American is a moron? Critical thinking doesn't live here anymore.
As to the actual merits of the article, I found it to be a puff piece, with lots of whining about the failure of industry marketing to overcome resistance to wonderful technologies like GMOs (the frightened herd avoids the blame, and, to her credit, she avoided the word luddite.)
The Military. The US has more guns, bombs, etc. and spends more on them than any country in the world. In short, the US can simply threaten and se force for any issue it likes, conduct illegal wars whenever it likes, without fear of reprisal.
Education, which is underfunded in this country (only the rich can afford decent educations along the lines seen in Europe and elsewhere), is a secondary concern, a socialization tool that ultimately keeps the citizenry in line (ignorant). Those that *do* go to college, if they're lucky, become part of the manager class that makes the Machine run. The rest are siphoned off into the corpocracy where their well-learned consumer skills make them perfect wage slaves that scramble over each other as they fashion their "careers" and acquire their toys. They don't question the power structure; like Cliff Robertson said in _Three Days of the Condor_, they just want them (the power structure) to get it for them.
This is obviously an unsustainable model, but the neocons running the show think they can achieve the thousand-year Reich.
By the way, get a clue: The whole point of my post was to focus on the irony of it. I stated right in the damn title that I was "praying" for nano to arrive, even though I'm a stated atheist. It's good to see you figured it out.
Hmm, seems like we missed on this.
I *did* figure out the "irony", I just didn't find it amusing, or even ironic: your "open armed" fervor for "any and all technology that humankind can produce" seems out-right religious to me. You've simply replaced one god with another was my point, but I suppose I wasn't clear enough. But you go right on thumping your Wired there, Preacher. You've definitely chosen the right church in which to spread the gospel.
Oh, and just so you don't think I'm a total smart-asshole, try a little of this to gain a bit of perspective on where I come from. I don't swallow it whole cloth, of course, but I find it more interesting--and intellectually challenging--than cheering on the latest flavor of the week.
_The Diamond Age_ was hardly a panacea, with the inequitable power structure largely intact, human abuse unabated and cocksure scientists altering the course of all of civilization just because it feels good. In other words, it was just like today, with more sophisticated toys (which is just the latest manifestation of trends that started with the Industrial Revolution: the illusion of progress measured by how far technology has advanced.)
Regarding the article, the following quote summed up the whole issue for me:
"They're very concerned about public perceptions," said one recipient, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But a lot of it's about, 'How can we make sure people are not afraid so we can go ahead with this?' " Still, nano advocates express confidence that the industry will be straight with the public. "The big companies get it," said Kristen Kulinowski of Rice University.
As long as profit is the driving motive for our collective advancement, and as long as the intellectual class parrots the marketing-speak of industry (or anonymously, ineffectually wonders if funding will be with-held if they speak the "truth"), there will be distrust of *any* technology, particularly one as potentially potent as nano. The reality is that Business has a demonstrably poor record for any concern other than profit, resulting in Silent Springs and Love Canals. Why should I trust Business, or its shill, Government, given their penchant for collusion on what is best for me without my consultation?
It's interesting how you have no faith in God, but genuflect before Science/Technology. From here, your atheism looks more like 21st century monotheism.
You're probably too young to remember this, but Patrick Stewart was a prominent player in I, Claudius, and that is when *I* first heard of him.
Perhaps you should limit your challenge to Americans, who are generally so self-involved that they can't be troubled to remember anything of their own culture/history, let alone that of others.
They literally contributed very, very little to humanity while the West was changing the world every 50 years or so. This is not racism, or me being and egotistical white male American, this is solid fact.
No, it is not a "solid" fact. You have taken for granted that the West has improved human civilization (as opposed to its own subnet of it), which is *certainly* in dispute. With the exception of a *few* individuals, the West has had nothing to offer "the rest of humanity".
What is the world becoming? A West-based tyranny through corporate globalization. You're a fool to believe you're any different from the average "Asian".
No, you're more than a fool--you're an ignorant racist.
But here's something to chew on: did it ever give you pause that books like these seem to be published and gain interest at times of Western expansionism? Perhaps these texts--which are self-referential, self-serving justifications for the Western intellectual elite--are little Mein Kampfs to make those with their boots on the throat of humanity to feel better about themselves?
Any illusions about democracy and freedom were crushed during the 20th century. If you're under the impression they still exist, you need some de-programming. Try a little Chomsky in your diet, like Year 501. It may not taste good, but it'll certainly be better for you than the McJunk Murray and his fellow hacks peddle.
Yes, I agree, too, but as recent events have shown, the exact opposite is happening, to the point where it's practically a one-way mirror. Worse, most people now seem convinced that being ignorant about what the State does on their behalf is a *good* thing.
I'm halfway through this book now, and Po struggled with the class issues a little himself. He wondered if the whole question isn't a little bourgeois. He discovered that that isn't the case - lower and middle class people struggle with the same questions.
Maybe a person with more money has more options, but more options does not necessarily make a decision easier, either.
This is one of the wisest observations I've seen on this subject. It explains decadence and mob rage, without resorting to classifying people.
Economics is what classifies us today, with the legacy of racial xenophobia as its foundation. Strip away those wisps of maya, and the Human is laid bare: a semi-conscious being desparately struggling to understand its own existence. We can call this sylopsism "intelligence", but I don't see the haunted look in my eyes reflected back to me in my dog's eyes, and she is certainly not lacking in intelligence.
We all have the same problem, regardless of financial status. Sadly, only some--as this book attests--are given the opportunity to explore this problem, while the remainder struggle for simple sustenance. I can't help but believe that we would *all* be better if everyone was afforded the opportunity of grappling with this problem before beginning their preparations for their transition.
In Europe, a lot of societies which have historically cherished the idea of retirement at age 65 with a generous pension are starting to re-think this concept, primarily because the pension funds simply won't be able to keep up with the glut of baby boomers retiring soon, but also because peoples' attitude towards work is changing.
Says who? My wife's parents live there, I go there at least every couple of years, and I've seen NONE of that.
People's attitude towards work remains the same: it sucks. And IT work sucks just as much as any other job--that's why all these grey cubes around me are festooned with Dilbert cartoons.
You may want to work all your life, but there's far more to existance than digging ditches, whether they're literal or metaphorical Slammer troughs. Have some vision.....
The real answer to the job security problem is to find new ways to add value, above and beyond custom development skills (which in many C level executives eyes has become a commodity). Had the steel, audio/video, and textile industries taken a different tact than hiding behind a union to avoid the "constant upgrading of skills" that the author of the articles derides, perhaps they would still be industries that employ millions of Americans.
On the one hand, you talk about unions driving work offshore, while acknowledging that work is *already* being driven offshore without them, and that working people here have to beg, er, "upgrade" themselves every couple of years just to tread water. Not exactly logically consistent, but then again, what *is* about corporate merchantilism (state capitalism)?
How can YOU compete with a Chinese "migrant" working 16 hours a day for 30 cents an hour to put together circuit boards? Or Linux-MS-certified professionals in Penang that work for $14000 a year at what are $50k+ jobs here? The answer is simple: you can't, union or not. Unless, of course, you're willing to live in a cardboard box without your Playstation. Somehow, I rather doubt that you are.
All the talk about value of labor is meaningless if the same work is not compensated the same everywhere. As long as someone in Bangalore can (and is willing to) sweat out code for a third of what it costs here, jobs will go offshore. Dogging on unions is one thing, but don't hand out the platitudes about "upgrading skills" as a counterpoint to unionism because the two overlap only in the minds of the true-believer neo-liberal free-marketers.
If you're *really* concerned about the American worker--and honestly, who is? We're all out for ourselves, anyway; that's the American way, right?--then take a good long look at the systematic exploitation of the working class (and yes, that includes all the Reaganite computer jockeys who prattle their free market mantra even as their credit cards are maxed to the limit) by those who are all too happy to exploit the next starving programmer in line.
The money train is leaving for the "emerging economies". For job-securing skill-set upgrading, the languages you need are Hindi and Mandarin, not C# or Java.
Would that be the criminals with multi-billion dollar research AND development laboratories? Right. This is exactly the view shared by the non-tech world, and it shows a lack of understanding of what nanotech IS (no offense). I can't just go to the garage, make some nanotech, and kill someone with it.
No, but scientists--allegedly in the name of Science--CAN, and since they are generally doing so in laboratories controlled by people who want PROFIT from their investments, the claim about "honest" science (research for the betterment of us all) is specious.
This extends far beyond nanotech. The appeal to authority--which is a fundamental fallacy in argumentation, by the way--inherent in claims of "scientific endeavor" has allowed any number of horrors to be visited on humanity. Since almost every modern technology emerges out of militarism--whether as an advance of it or in response to it, and since we might be able to agree that killing entities other than ourselves for dubious reasons determined by the upper class is less than optimal, the jump from nanotech being a scientific endeavor to an evil pursuit is not that great of a leap. Indeed, that is why people who think of morality/ethics before profit and "patriotism" often make this connection.
You can argue all you want about the "benefits" any technology has, and that resistance to the "advances" it has brought are Luddite. That doesn't change the fact that there are more poor, starving, diseased people on this planet RIGHT NOW than there ever have been at any one point in history. "Science" has had nearly three hundred years to show how it can benefit the bulk of humanity, and yet most people--outside of those who would ever read this forum, sadly, still live lives of quiet desperation, with little or no voice in the direction that "science" is taking them and the rest of us.
Nanotech research, in my opinion, should go forward, but it needs to be absolutely open, WITHOUT a market-driven force propelling it (the same applies to genetic engineering, as well.) I realize that is a pie-in-the-sky requirement, and has no relationship to what those who want to do good for me (while lining their own pockets) will ultimately do. Given that, what is wrong with resisting an agenda that runs counter to my beliefs? What is wrong with using the loaded word of evil in describing those who do what they want without consulting me when I am directly affected by what they do? (Certainly our President has tossed the word around at least as "carelessly" as I.)
Re:The proof that physic isn't full of fraud...
on
Ununoctium Wrapup
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm a bit surprised this was modded up, considering the muddy thinking it voices (championed by myopic pocket-protector types, mayhap?)
The title of the message, as mispelled as it is, refers to physics, a discipline that is inherently resistent to fakery. But the poster doesn't stop there; he then includes *all* of science:
So fraud are rarer and rarer. Comapre the number of fraud in science, with (haha) economical fraud, political fraud (corruption), religious fraud (sect, breaking your own vow like abusing children and so forth).
This is clearly an error in reasoning, an over-inclusive generalization (the exact fallacy type I leave to the forensic amongst you.) Physics is a *branch* of science, not Science Itself, which, incidentally, appears here to take on a quasi-religious reverence.
And that is the whole point. Science with a capital S is little more than religion with a little r these days: it is a hierarchal functioning body where the folks with the ideas that sell best define the environment where their ideas are "accepted" by their peers. In this particular case, some guys needed to justify their funding, and they got caught. However, as only nominal research into any "science" where dollars are at stake will show (think AIDS research, tabacco "science", or even the bet-the-farm ideologies of the nuclear power industry), it's the money that often decides who speaks first and loudest. I'm sure there *are* legitimate scientists out there, but to unequivocally state that your fellow humans are incapable of being human--and therefore are "better"--just because they wear a lab coat is silly. Further, to equate all scientists with physicists is, as noted, simply a fallacious grouping.
Which leads me to my final point: if you're talking about REAL physics, then you might have to consider the Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress and whether or not Shroedinger's Cat has eigenstate(s), and place that at the base of your reasoning. In that context, how much of science (or any faculty, for that matter) is anything more than the imaginings of hairless primates attempting to understand the hologram they find themselves trapped in?
Does the public have a RIGHT to know the government's network infrastructure? Does the public have a RIGHT to know what data is on every civil servant's hard drive?
I realize this is a rhetorical question, but, using the justification of those monitoring *my* communications at work, I would say the answer is a most definite yes, particularly to the first question.
The arguments of "state secrecy" are only defensible if a) we don't care what our government does or b) we don't want to know what our government does. As I spend the first five months of every year supporting an organization that allegedly functions in my interest, I feel I have every right to know--at every depth, well beyond FOIA--what that organization is doing.
Now, you talk about the cost to the taxpayer, but when you're spending billions on things that blow up (where's the ROI in *that*?), that argument is shaky at best. I think the infrastructure could be refitted at the expense of a few less missles, while eliminating the secondary (Microsoft/Oracle/IBM) tax of proprietary software.
O'reilly called Peru "great theatre", which makes you wonder just how commited to openness he is--they expect accountability out of their government down there. By taking this stand, he seems to imply that doin' bidness should take precedence over the REAL openness of a people demanding that their government not take corporate payoffs in software contracts, etc.
But I want to take this question one step further: why should I be proud that a fellow human, regardless on origin, makes it anywhere? Why has this achievement become the measuring stick of Man?
I've seen a number of posts about the seemingly intractible failings of humanity, and that these feats seem to justify our collective existence. To me, this line of thinking is defeatist, because it basically says humans are so wretched that we need these moments to validate us, instead of expecting the maturity and responsibility of creatures of reason trying to improve on who they are and what they are. If free will exists, surely the improvement of each individual would do far more good than some empty gesture such as colonizing another world (which, you'd think, would have a different face on it after the horrors of colonization we've witnessed *here* the past five hundred years.)
I'll be the first to admit that my view of humanity is highly negative, but I hardly feel that going to the moon or mars makes for an improvement in the human condition.
As someone once noted, one world is enough for all of us, provided we become better planetary caretakers, and focus on improving ourselves.
Sure, and people nearby when a bomb hits might be blinded (or worse) by shrapnel. I think this is much ado about nothing, to tell the truth. Battlefields are dangerous places. No amount of tech is going to change that.
This is a wonderfully humanitarian vision, most likely spoken by someone who has never been near a "battlefield" such as Beirut or Kosovo or Baghdad or anywhere else Big Daddy Warbucks has spent his excess ordinance. Be thankful that the current "battlefield" is not on your doorstep, as it is for so many peoples of the world (but that's why this is much ado about nothing for you, right?)
There *is* no "battlefield", other than perhaps the human consciousness. The real "war" is between your perception of reality and that of the self-justifying State. And if your point comes down to staying away from places where state violence is being perpetrated, then it's pretty obvious just how close the State has come to winning the war.
The article's premise that Orwell was a "futurist" is flawed.
Even a cursory examination of 1984 reveals it to be not a prediction of the future of technology, or any, future, for that matter. It is a heavy-handed condemnation of totalitarian states, whether they be "communist" or "capitalist". One could also view it as the "dark" Animal Farm, but that would be glossing over targets: AF *was* about communism; 1984 was about statism in general.
Excluding the lugubrious prose, 1984 is still a pretty effective argument against the total state, and its message is all the more germaine in this day of Homeland Security and PATRIOT acts. Remember that Winston Smith was an English bloke, one of the "good guys", but he still wound up eye-to-eye with ravenous rats.....
Instead of posting the same vague tid bits about Palladium over and over, and letting the/. conspiricy theorists go hog wild, why don't we wait until we know what we are talking about? Because I can guarantee to you that Palladium isn't the evil system that 90% of the/. users seem to think it is.
These two sentences are directly contradictory. In the first, you ask for patience and more information. In the second, you guarantee a result, based on your current information level.
And somewhere in this skein of threads someone said it was not 1984....
Doublethink is a third neuro-circuit bugaboo/ghost, and not representative of higher neuro-circuit manifestation. But then, this whole Pallidium topic is grounded in the second neuro-circuit (territory/hierarchy), so who's counting, anyway?
Even though this posting is not news and it seems to matter only to arrested adolescent fanboys, I'll throw this comment into the ring:
How can anything be called "the best" when there is nothing of note anywhere on the horizon? I suppose in a world where Buffy flies star-fighters or Dark Angel wields a light-sabre, but since these cosmic convergences/market-driven plotlines have yet to be realized, one has to look at the present lot, and strongly qualify what one means by best. Indeed, one should refrain from using the word at all when discussing current televised speculative fiction.
A Friday afternoon on/. is becoming more and more like hanging out at Cheers with Norm and Cliff.
Slashdot Mirror
Dubya winning a "real" first term (after, uh, "liberating" the true first term.)
And he did it with only a C average......
Like a previous poster said, if we weren't meant to eat animals they wouldn't be made out of meat. Should be simple enough to grasp.
You know, this is a perfect justification for eating human flesh, too. Do you want some Soylent Green with your steak, sir?
As Mr. Smith said, humans are a disease. Perhaps if we eat each other the contagion can be contained.....
The only reason "US companies" (as if there were any such thing in this age of MNCs) reign supreme is that they are backed (or buying the favor of) the US military.
Don't kid yourself: without the gun the US points at the world's collective head, US business would be a guaranteed failure. Indeed, it already *is*, and that is why this country has been constantly invading or meddling in the affairs of other nations since the earliest days of the republic.
Read The Corporation and a different view might emerge.
The most dominant social system of our time is, by definition, psychotic. It is hardly surprising that individuals "become psychotic" as they work for these organizations. Indeed, if they did not, their jobs would quickly end: if sanity were to prevail when weighing social responsibility against profit, the decision--by corporate by-law a bad one--would damage shareholder value, and be grounds for immediate dismissal. The system guarantees that the inmates will run the asylum (and be praised all the way to the bank for doing so.)
All that is exceptional about Enron and Worldcomm is their excesses were exposed, not that their excesses occured.
Yet another wonderful idea from the 1970s gets recycled.....Yes, you, too, can have your own little asteroid to care for.
What's ethically wrong in this particular case is the monkeys are not given a choice to participate in these experiments.
Let's ask the question a different way: "Why CANT we do research on human enhancement using human subjects? What's ethically wrong with looking for ways to make humans "Better...stronger...faster...smarter" by scientifically experimenting on them?"
Does that clear up the ethics thing for you?
Factor this in there somewhere: changing/enhancing the species is effectively evolving it. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, one should consider--and confirm--exactly what the end product of conscious evolution might be, particularly given the obvious flaws of the raw material (humanity) that you're starting with.
From everything I've read, I'd say Linus is anything but casual about freedom. What he is *not* is an idealist. That's what we have RMS for. He's a pragmatist, exactly the kind of person you want in charge of an engineering project. Perhaps not the person you want at the head of a movement, but that's not what he is. He's first and foremost an engineer.
As much as I admire the strength of RMS's conviction, Linus' pragmatism makes more sense because technology--at least, in the context about which we are talking, that of electronics, computers, etc.--is conducive to freedom at all.
When we talk about "freedom", we're generally refering to a limited spectrum of "entropy" within a social system. Computers and communications technology, by their very nature, increase information availability, the very antithesis of entropic progression. High-falutin' words to merely restate: if it can be turned off, freedom doesn't factor into it.
The interview of a person who's self-stated goal is to "to draw attention to proactive, responsible development" (i.e. media flack functionary) appears in Businessweek, a magazine with a natural pro-business "bias", and you call it "a good, balanced read"? So I imagine you decide (affirmatively) that Fox news is fair and balanced, as well.
Is it any wonder that the average American is a moron? Critical thinking doesn't live here anymore.
As to the actual merits of the article, I found it to be a puff piece, with lots of whining about the failure of industry marketing to overcome resistance to wonderful technologies like GMOs (the frightened herd avoids the blame, and, to her credit, she avoided the word luddite.)
Where's Scientific American when you need it?
what is keeping America afloat?
The Military. The US has more guns, bombs, etc. and spends more on them than any country in the world. In short, the US can simply threaten and se force for any issue it likes, conduct illegal wars whenever it likes, without fear of reprisal.
Education, which is underfunded in this country (only the rich can afford decent educations along the lines seen in Europe and elsewhere), is a secondary concern, a socialization tool that ultimately keeps the citizenry in line (ignorant). Those that *do* go to college, if they're lucky, become part of the manager class that makes the Machine run. The rest are siphoned off into the corpocracy where their well-learned consumer skills make them perfect wage slaves that scramble over each other as they fashion their "careers" and acquire their toys. They don't question the power structure; like Cliff Robertson said in _Three Days of the Condor_, they just want them (the power structure) to get it for them.
This is obviously an unsustainable model, but the neocons running the show think they can achieve the thousand-year Reich.
By the way, get a clue: The whole point of my post was to focus on the irony of it. I stated right in the damn title that I was "praying" for nano to arrive, even though I'm a stated atheist. It's good to see you figured it out.
Hmm, seems like we missed on this.
I *did* figure out the "irony", I just didn't find it amusing, or even ironic: your "open armed" fervor for "any and all technology that humankind can produce" seems out-right religious to me. You've simply replaced one god with another was my point, but I suppose I wasn't clear enough. But you go right on thumping your Wired there, Preacher. You've definitely chosen the right church in which to spread the gospel.
Oh, and just so you don't think I'm a total smart-asshole, try a little of this to gain a bit of perspective on where I come from. I don't swallow it whole cloth, of course, but I find it more interesting--and intellectually challenging--than cheering on the latest flavor of the week.
I don't.
_The Diamond Age_ was hardly a panacea, with the inequitable power structure largely intact, human abuse unabated and cocksure scientists altering the course of all of civilization just because it feels good. In other words, it was just like today, with more sophisticated toys (which is just the latest manifestation of trends that started with the Industrial Revolution: the illusion of progress measured by how far technology has advanced.)
Regarding the article, the following quote summed up the whole issue for me:
"They're very concerned about public perceptions," said one recipient, speaking on condition of anonymity. "But a lot of it's about, 'How can we make sure people are not afraid so we can go ahead with this?' " Still, nano advocates express confidence that the industry will be straight with the public. "The big companies get it," said Kristen Kulinowski of Rice University.
As long as profit is the driving motive for our collective advancement, and as long as the intellectual class parrots the marketing-speak of industry (or anonymously, ineffectually wonders if funding will be with-held if they speak the "truth"), there will be distrust of *any* technology, particularly one as potentially potent as nano. The reality is that Business has a demonstrably poor record for any concern other than profit, resulting in Silent Springs and Love Canals. Why should I trust Business, or its shill, Government, given their penchant for collusion on what is best for me without my consultation?
It's interesting how you have no faith in God, but genuflect before Science/Technology. From here, your atheism looks more like 21st century monotheism.
You're probably too young to remember this, but Patrick Stewart was a prominent player in I, Claudius, and that is when *I* first heard of him.
Perhaps you should limit your challenge to Americans, who are generally so self-involved that they can't be troubled to remember anything of their own culture/history, let alone that of others.
They literally contributed very, very little to humanity while the West was changing the world every 50 years or so. This is not racism, or me being and egotistical white male American, this is solid fact.
No, it is not a "solid" fact. You have taken for granted that the West has improved human civilization (as opposed to its own subnet of it), which is *certainly* in dispute. With the exception of a *few* individuals, the West has had nothing to offer "the rest of humanity".
What is the world becoming? A West-based tyranny through corporate globalization. You're a fool to believe you're any different from the average "Asian".
No, you're more than a fool--you're an ignorant racist.
But here's something to chew on: did it ever give you pause that books like these seem to be published and gain interest at times of Western expansionism? Perhaps these texts--which are self-referential, self-serving justifications for the Western intellectual elite--are little Mein Kampfs to make those with their boots on the throat of humanity to feel better about themselves?
Any illusions about democracy and freedom were crushed during the 20th century. If you're under the impression they still exist, you need some de-programming. Try a little Chomsky in your diet, like Year 501. It may not taste good, but it'll certainly be better for you than the McJunk Murray and his fellow hacks peddle.
Yes, I agree, too, but as recent events have shown, the exact opposite is happening, to the point where it's practically a one-way mirror. Worse, most people now seem convinced that being ignorant about what the State does on their behalf is a *good* thing.
National security means *no* individual security.
I'm halfway through this book now, and Po struggled with the class issues a little himself. He wondered if the whole question isn't a little bourgeois. He discovered that that isn't the case - lower and middle class people struggle with the same questions.
Maybe a person with more money has more options, but more options does not necessarily make a decision easier, either.
This is one of the wisest observations I've seen on this subject. It explains decadence and mob rage, without resorting to classifying people.
Economics is what classifies us today, with the legacy of racial xenophobia as its foundation. Strip away those wisps of maya, and the Human is laid bare: a semi-conscious being desparately struggling to understand its own existence. We can call this sylopsism "intelligence", but I don't see the haunted look in my eyes reflected back to me in my dog's eyes, and she is certainly not lacking in intelligence.
We all have the same problem, regardless of financial status. Sadly, only some--as this book attests--are given the opportunity to explore this problem, while the remainder struggle for simple sustenance. I can't help but believe that we would *all* be better if everyone was afforded the opportunity of grappling with this problem before beginning their preparations for their transition.
Yes, that's a call to revolution......
In Europe, a lot of societies which have historically cherished the idea of retirement at age 65 with a generous pension are starting to re-think this concept, primarily because the pension funds simply won't be able to keep up with the glut of baby boomers retiring soon, but also because peoples' attitude towards work is changing.
Says who? My wife's parents live there, I go there at least every couple of years, and I've seen NONE of that.
People's attitude towards work remains the same: it sucks. And IT work sucks just as much as any other job--that's why all these grey cubes around me are festooned with Dilbert cartoons.
You may want to work all your life, but there's far more to existance than digging ditches, whether they're literal or metaphorical Slammer troughs. Have some vision.....
The real answer to the job security problem is to find new ways to add value, above and beyond custom development skills (which in many C level executives eyes has become a commodity). Had the steel, audio/video, and textile industries taken a different tact than hiding behind a union to avoid the "constant upgrading of skills" that the author of the articles derides, perhaps they would still be industries that employ millions of Americans.
On the one hand, you talk about unions driving work offshore, while acknowledging that work is *already* being driven offshore without them, and that working people here have to beg, er, "upgrade" themselves every couple of years just to tread water. Not exactly logically consistent, but then again, what *is* about corporate merchantilism (state capitalism)?
How can YOU compete with a Chinese "migrant" working 16 hours a day for 30 cents an hour to put together circuit boards? Or Linux-MS-certified professionals in Penang that work for $14000 a year at what are $50k+ jobs here? The answer is simple: you can't, union or not. Unless, of course, you're willing to live in a cardboard box without your Playstation. Somehow, I rather doubt that you are.
All the talk about value of labor is meaningless if the same work is not compensated the same everywhere. As long as someone in Bangalore can (and is willing to) sweat out code for a third of what it costs here, jobs will go offshore. Dogging on unions is one thing, but don't hand out the platitudes about "upgrading skills" as a counterpoint to unionism because the two overlap only in the minds of the true-believer neo-liberal free-marketers.
If you're *really* concerned about the American worker--and honestly, who is? We're all out for ourselves, anyway; that's the American way, right?--then take a good long look at the systematic exploitation of the working class (and yes, that includes all the Reaganite computer jockeys who prattle their free market mantra even as their credit cards are maxed to the limit) by those who are all too happy to exploit the next starving programmer in line.
The money train is leaving for the "emerging economies". For job-securing skill-set upgrading, the languages you need are Hindi and Mandarin, not C# or Java.
Would that be the criminals with multi-billion dollar research AND development laboratories? Right. This is exactly the view shared by the non-tech world, and it shows a lack of understanding of what nanotech IS (no offense). I can't just go to the garage, make some nanotech, and kill someone with it.
No, but scientists--allegedly in the name of Science--CAN, and since they are generally doing so in laboratories controlled by people who want PROFIT from their investments, the claim about "honest" science (research for the betterment of us all) is specious.
This extends far beyond nanotech. The appeal to authority--which is a fundamental fallacy in argumentation, by the way--inherent in claims of "scientific endeavor" has allowed any number of horrors to be visited on humanity. Since almost every modern technology emerges out of militarism--whether as an advance of it or in response to it, and since we might be able to agree that killing entities other than ourselves for dubious reasons determined by the upper class is less than optimal, the jump from nanotech being a scientific endeavor to an evil pursuit is not that great of a leap. Indeed, that is why people who think of morality/ethics before profit and "patriotism" often make this connection.
You can argue all you want about the "benefits" any technology has, and that resistance to the "advances" it has brought are Luddite. That doesn't change the fact that there are more poor, starving, diseased people on this planet RIGHT NOW than there ever have been at any one point in history. "Science" has had nearly three hundred years to show how it can benefit the bulk of humanity, and yet most people--outside of those who would ever read this forum, sadly, still live lives of quiet desperation, with little or no voice in the direction that "science" is taking them and the rest of us.
Nanotech research, in my opinion, should go forward, but it needs to be absolutely open, WITHOUT a market-driven force propelling it (the same applies to genetic engineering, as well.) I realize that is a pie-in-the-sky requirement, and has no relationship to what those who want to do good for me (while lining their own pockets) will ultimately do. Given that, what is wrong with resisting an agenda that runs counter to my beliefs? What is wrong with using the loaded word of evil in describing those who do what they want without consulting me when I am directly affected by what they do? (Certainly our President has tossed the word around at least as "carelessly" as I.)
I'm a bit surprised this was modded up, considering the muddy thinking it voices (championed by myopic pocket-protector types, mayhap?)
The title of the message, as mispelled as it is, refers to physics, a discipline that is inherently resistent to fakery. But the poster doesn't stop there; he then includes *all* of science:
So fraud are rarer and rarer. Comapre the number of fraud in science, with (haha) economical fraud, political fraud (corruption), religious fraud (sect, breaking your own vow like abusing children and so forth).
This is clearly an error in reasoning, an over-inclusive generalization (the exact fallacy type I leave to the forensic amongst you.) Physics is a *branch* of science, not Science Itself, which, incidentally, appears here to take on a quasi-religious reverence.
And that is the whole point. Science with a capital S is little more than religion with a little r these days: it is a hierarchal functioning body where the folks with the ideas that sell best define the environment where their ideas are "accepted" by their peers. In this particular case, some guys needed to justify their funding, and they got caught. However, as only nominal research into any "science" where dollars are at stake will show (think AIDS research, tabacco "science", or even the bet-the-farm ideologies of the nuclear power industry), it's the money that often decides who speaks first and loudest. I'm sure there *are* legitimate scientists out there, but to unequivocally state that your fellow humans are incapable of being human--and therefore are "better"--just because they wear a lab coat is silly. Further, to equate all scientists with physicists is, as noted, simply a fallacious grouping.
Which leads me to my final point: if you're talking about REAL physics, then you might have to consider the Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress and whether or not Shroedinger's Cat has eigenstate(s), and place that at the base of your reasoning. In that context, how much of science (or any faculty, for that matter) is anything more than the imaginings of hairless primates attempting to understand the hologram they find themselves trapped in?
Does the public have a RIGHT to know the government's network infrastructure? Does the public have a RIGHT to know what data is on every civil servant's hard drive?
I realize this is a rhetorical question, but, using the justification of those monitoring *my* communications at work, I would say the answer is a most definite yes, particularly to the first question.
The arguments of "state secrecy" are only defensible if a) we don't care what our government does or b) we don't want to know what our government does. As I spend the first five months of every year supporting an organization that allegedly functions in my interest, I feel I have every right to know--at every depth, well beyond FOIA--what that organization is doing.
Now, you talk about the cost to the taxpayer, but when you're spending billions on things that blow up (where's the ROI in *that*?), that argument is shaky at best. I think the infrastructure could be refitted at the expense of a few less missles, while eliminating the secondary (Microsoft/Oracle/IBM) tax of proprietary software.
O'reilly called Peru "great theatre", which makes you wonder just how commited to openness he is--they expect accountability out of their government down there. By taking this stand, he seems to imply that doin' bidness should take precedence over the REAL openness of a people demanding that their government not take corporate payoffs in software contracts, etc.
Agreed.
But I want to take this question one step further: why should I be proud that a fellow human, regardless on origin, makes it anywhere? Why has this achievement become the measuring stick of Man?
I've seen a number of posts about the seemingly intractible failings of humanity, and that these feats seem to justify our collective existence. To me, this line of thinking is defeatist, because it basically says humans are so wretched that we need these moments to validate us, instead of expecting the maturity and responsibility of creatures of reason trying to improve on who they are and what they are. If free will exists, surely the improvement of each individual would do far more good than some empty gesture such as colonizing another world (which, you'd think, would have a different face on it after the horrors of colonization we've witnessed *here* the past five hundred years.)
I'll be the first to admit that my view of humanity is highly negative, but I hardly feel that going to the moon or mars makes for an improvement in the human condition.
As someone once noted, one world is enough for all of us, provided we become better planetary caretakers, and focus on improving ourselves.
Sure, and people nearby when a bomb hits might be blinded (or worse) by shrapnel. I think this is much ado about nothing, to tell the truth. Battlefields are dangerous places. No amount of tech is going to change that.
This is a wonderfully humanitarian vision, most likely spoken by someone who has never been near a "battlefield" such as Beirut or Kosovo or Baghdad or anywhere else Big Daddy Warbucks has spent his excess ordinance. Be thankful that the current "battlefield" is not on your doorstep, as it is for so many peoples of the world (but that's why this is much ado about nothing for you, right?)
There *is* no "battlefield", other than perhaps the human consciousness. The real "war" is between your perception of reality and that of the self-justifying State. And if your point comes down to staying away from places where state violence is being perpetrated, then it's pretty obvious just how close the State has come to winning the war.
The article's premise that Orwell was a "futurist" is flawed.
Even a cursory examination of 1984 reveals it to be not a prediction of the future of technology, or any, future, for that matter. It is a heavy-handed condemnation of totalitarian states, whether they be "communist" or "capitalist". One could also view it as the "dark" Animal Farm, but that would be glossing over targets: AF *was* about communism; 1984 was about statism in general.
Excluding the lugubrious prose, 1984 is still a pretty effective argument against the total state, and its message is all the more germaine in this day of Homeland Security and PATRIOT acts. Remember that Winston Smith was an English bloke, one of the "good guys", but he still wound up eye-to-eye with ravenous rats.....
Instead of posting the same vague tid bits about Palladium over and over, and letting the /. conspiricy theorists go hog wild, why don't we wait until we know what we are talking about? Because I can guarantee to you that Palladium isn't the evil system that 90% of the /. users seem to think it is.
These two sentences are directly contradictory. In the first, you ask for patience and more information. In the second, you guarantee a result, based on your current information level.
And somewhere in this skein of threads someone said it was not 1984....
Doublethink is a third neuro-circuit bugaboo/ghost, and not representative of higher neuro-circuit manifestation. But then, this whole Pallidium topic is grounded in the second neuro-circuit (territory/hierarchy), so who's counting, anyway?
Even though this posting is not news and it seems to matter only to arrested adolescent fanboys, I'll throw this comment into the ring:
/. is becoming more and more like hanging out at Cheers with Norm and Cliff.
How can anything be called "the best" when there is nothing of note anywhere on the horizon? I suppose in a world where Buffy flies star-fighters or Dark Angel wields a light-sabre, but since these cosmic convergences/market-driven plotlines have yet to be realized, one has to look at the present lot, and strongly qualify what one means by best. Indeed, one should refrain from using the word at all when discussing current televised speculative fiction.
A Friday afternoon on