RMS is just too busy with more important things like software freedom in general and needs to delegate. BTW, it's not as if RMS has always been the _maintainer_ of Emacs--from the acknowlegements:
"Gerd Moellmann was the Emacs maintainer from the beginning of Emacs 21 development until the release of 21.1."
Yet RMS has had a decades-long involvement with Emacs. It seems he will continue to be involved, so what's the big deal? More generally, GNU has always been about freedom first, development second.
Who cares? People who need Torvalds to think for them. One problem is the first name convention which has the effect of elevating him to somebody special. Impartial people should only use "Linus" by itself only when it would be appropriate for anyone else. Another problem are the contradictions in his widely publicized opinions. E.g., on the one hand, on other occasions he likes to hold up kernel development as akin to science. OTOH, he and his fanboys tout his blunt style as sometimes encouraging strong rebuttals, as if progress requires a blunt style. That's not at all borne out in the history of science and engineering.
Another problem with his blunt style is how what he considers good is synonymous with what he considers good for the kernel: e.g., git is good for the kernel, therefore, Torvalds concludes, git is the best. It is very likely that at this point, other considerations make other RCS's better than git for the vast majority of projects. Another example is how the GPLv3 prevents something that Torvalds supports--Tivoization. Therefore, he claims, GPLv3 is worse than GPLv2 for the kernel, and thus, he falsely concludes, GPLv3 is worse than GPLv2 in general. GPLv3 may very well be worse than GPLv2, but the only people for whom he has observed it to be true, are those who believe that Tivoization of the Linux kernel should be allowed. But Torvalds always tries to elevate that group to somehow matter more than others.
Formally, yes, incompatibility with GPLv2 is something that both cases share. However, you are suggesting that it matters for GCC as it did for XFree86. Already several reasons have been given as to why this is false. Another reason is that for that most dominant license, the most dominant way that it is used is either with the "or later" language or without the "only" language. So in practice, compatibility with GPLv3 exists in most cases here. The XFree86 case was completely incompatible with any GPL, and the community responded accordingly.
Ironically, GPLv3 is compatible with more licenses than GPLv2. Since they are copyleft licenses, incompatibility between the two is completely natural and logical.
How is that example any good? I recall major existing rifts within XFree86, and the new license breaking GPL compatibility led to an _immediate_, _widespread_ decline in the distribution of XFree86. GCC is not at all comparable to that.
>Well, that's not unfair. The thing that bothers me about Stallman is that he's so unhealthy!
Indeed, and it's very hard to imagine who could replace him. Eben Moglen is also brilliant and a better speaker, but Stallman is the visionary. Someone needs to kick his ass and get him to eat right and work out. In any case we will need to look hard for future visionaries, but maybe with lowered expectations.
>Linux is free as in Freedom and this irks Stallman: he wants it to be free as in beer.
How do you explain the following from Linux maintainer Linus Torvalds:
"GPLv2 is about a "quid pro quo": If I give you my open-source software, you're free to use it but must give the world back any changes you make, Torvalds said. "The reason for the GPL as far as the FSF is concerned was never 'fairness.' It was all about a higher calling, and about something that the FSF thinks is much bigger--'freedom,'" [1]
More generally, your post is moot. The GPLv3 is the current expression of Stallman's ideas which counts the most, and nothing you have written challenges it.
>Ah yes, "you don't understand" and "you are stupid." again.
OK, I stated a whole counterargument, with one piece of advice mixed in: "Please use your brain."
I am sorry if that hurts your feelings. However, my counterargument otherwise remains unchallenged by your appeal to pity, just like the other challenges you have received.
>The GPL is not about freedom, it's a arrangement to get stuff back.
On the contrary, the GPL is what its creator says it is. Why should anyone care about your arbitrary characterization--particular without any justification whatsoever? Consider the definition of "letter" and "spirit" and note my emphasis:
The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis. When one obeys the letter of the law but not the spirit, he is obeying the literal interpretation of the words (the "letter") of the law, but not the intent of those who wrote the law. Conversely, when one obeys the spirit of the law but not the letter, he is doing what the authors of the law intended, though not adhering to the literal wording.
"Law" originally referred to legislative statute, but in the idiom may refer to any kind of rule. Intentionally following the letter of the law but not the spirit may be accomplished through exploiting technicalities, loopholes, and ambiguous language. Following the letter of the law but not the spirit is also a tactic used against an oppressive government. [1]
>If you think otherwise, perhaps you should empathically try to imagine how true victims of a lack of freedom (see Amnesty's site) would feel about someone who redefined it for software programming and a mis-conception about black box morality, and someone who can only apply that kind of luxury live philophosy, because he was born on a very rich, capitalist country.
The same kind of argument is used against those who fight for democracy in China. Moreover, your claim of "redefinition" is ridiculous, as if people advocating software freedom automatically discount any other kind of freedom. You have tried to set up a false dilemma fallacy: freedom is either defined by Amnesty International or by someone else. In reality freedom will always be an incompletely specified notion, as long as changes such as technology occur in the world. Advocates for software freedom have never pretended that it encompasses all possible freedom. Please use your brain.
One of the things you failed to acknowledge is that issues of freedom around software will continue to be far, far more important simply because of the always increasing dependence of society upon software.
>My point is that simply selling compiled source code cannot possibly be interpreted as an act of coercion, and therefore the act is entirely moral and just...
Stallman is correct, though, because those sales do not exist in some vacuum but depend upon the law. If the law did not exist, the non-free software business model would never have happened, and RMS would not have started GNU. Do you deny this?
Your definition of "crazy" seems to be: believing in unpopular opinions and making funny phrases such as "holding wedding memories hostage"; I suggest to you that "crazy" is a bit more involved--many great people in history fit your definition of "crazy".
Many people accuse RMS of being against programmers, and the classic example is the claim that his GPL favors users over programmers. There is, however, another interpretation, namely that RMS has such high respect for programmers that he expects them to set an example for others. You dismiss RMS too quickly.
He himself as a programmer indeed sets an example for others. He worked hard and long enough in his life so as to win millions of dollars in awards for his contributions to society. He has earned money in various other ways. However, none of this involved programming non-free software. He figured out how to do that when the opportunities were fewer, and it not unreasonable for him to expect others to do the same today. They have to figure it out, so do not expect him to always hold their hand.
However, that is only "half" of the story. Indeed, the fraction might be smaller. The other part is the "live cheaply" part. That part is what people are in denial about: their materialism is sacred. Yes, he relied on cheap shelter from friends at MIT. So what? People often could have cheaper shelter but fail to exploit it.
Your wedding photographs example reminds me of the flagrant excesses of the western world. Partly to save money, my wife and I were married in front of a judge and received photographs from friends at that time. Seventeen years later, despite missing out on an expensive wedding, we are still very much in love, and that's the only thing that counts.
If more programmers learned to be thrify, they would change their tune and wonder why RMS repeats the obvious. But thriftiness is foreign to western society. We are ridiculous hypocrites when we advise the Chinese and Indians on how to live with fewer emissions.
>When I am saying that something is morally right, I am appealing to a standard that I believe applies to all people at all times.
The one system that I mentioned that is based on two assumptions involving minimal suffering could just as easily be a morality that someone believes should apply to all people at all times. Some people may appeal to this standard and the authority of the assumptions and reasoning. Such an appeal needs no religion at all. Some people believe in the standard of the Golden Rule, and they too may believe that it applies to all people at all times. No religion required.
I am not a moral relativist because I think it conflicts with the notion of civilization. Thus, I believe, with every bit as much justification as any religious person, that there is an ideal system of morality. What is it? I'm not sure, but that is what the ethicists like Singer are for: to help people learn how to think about these issues. Just because you or I believe he is wrong about some issues does not imply that the process of deliberation that he uses is incapable of finding the ideal system. It could be that some of his assumptions are incorrect. An ethicist may be, unlike Singer, a religious believer and still may help us toward the ideal system. But none of this is to say that religion is required. You are implicitly asserting that any such process of deliberation is doomed to failure without a religion. Such an assertion must come from blind faith.
Moreover, how can your standard apply to those who lived before the invention of whatever religion you have in mind? How do you even know what the earliest religious developments were? More generally, how do you account for ignorant people?
The same criticism might be leveled at me; that is, our best guess of an ideal morality today comes with the benefit of hindsight and thought that previous generations did not enjoy. However, I see it as a moot point. Ethics ultimately is an approximation to an ideal that should be applied by living people, the dead generally had worse approximations, and ignorance among the living can and should be corrected.
>In your moral system you have defined how to judge if something is "right", but you have not defined what "right" means.
Yes I have (implicitly): "right" is the general consensus of people in a society on criteria by which to decide how to act. The consensus is only a high enough percentage of the society's members so as to provide minimal legislation to maintain some semblance of civilization. People will diverge on details of morality beyond those which the law embodies because of reasoning errors and different weights that they assign to their guiding assumptions. I suppose my definition is in line with social contract theory, but within this theory I tend to lean toward utilitarian considerations.
You have shown some of your disagreement with Singer, but Singer is not circular either: he clearly lays out his assumptions, and I suspect that you disagree with those somehow. While Singer has plenty of critics, don't you think that after all of these decades a basic error in _circular reasoning_ would have already been brought to light?
Again, you will have to retract your original claim that morality needs religion. Accepting your claim is tantamount to accepting a religion, i.e., of accepting something on blind faith.
Another simple example of a morality without a religion: "right" is whatever is legal. This morality's authority is the law. While it is not my morality, it is an important one and is independent of religion.
>If morality is not based on religion, where does its authority come from?
While one can claim that there is no absolute morality, need that imply that everyone adopt moral relativism?
IMHO, the biggest single factor that complicates that implication is that people tend to cluster in social groups--families, kinship groups, nations, etc. In this context, moral relativism will give way to a general consensus on any of several systems of morality, of which only some happen to be religious. I refuse to argue for the point that civilization tends to happen. You must either accept it, or we will have to agree to disagree.
A system of morals requires no religion but only a few assumptions. E.g., assume that the best criterion for the rightness of an act is how little overall suffering (human or nonhuman) it causes. Assume that the degree of suffering is proportional to the sentience of the beings affected.
Thus, I have defined a system of morals that begins with two assumptions and is implemented by an application of reason to whatever issues come up. If you are looking for an "authority", I can claim it is those assumptions and ordinary reasoning. While you are free to reject my system, you will have to admit that it is a non-religious system of morals and that you should retract your claim that morality requires religion.
Indeed, I only needed to appeal to moral relativism; it vacuously shows that morality does not need religion. However, for any society, the simple-minded system that I defined is more useful than moral relativism.
I suggest that you read a book on ethics such as something by the contemporary philosopher Peter Singer and that you then help disabuse other people of faulty notions, such as morality requiring religion.
>Define right and wrong. What makes an action right? What makes an action wrong? Who are you to say so? What source do you go to to determine the answers?
You clearly cannot be bothered to consult even the most elementary discussions of these points. If you are so sure of yourself, why not just "correct" the Wikipedia entry? It will be amusing to see how your attempt fares on the Discussion page. Even more troubling than your own sloppy thinking are the fools that modded your comment insightful.
>Yes, and we all know that wikipedia is the be all and end all of knowledge.
Alright, pick whatever source you want for a definition, and see the error of your ways. Already others are busy ripping you a new one over your show of ignorance. Good thing for you that you posted as an AC.
You have a lot of learning to do--morality does not need religion. From the Wikipedia entry:
Morality (from Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behaviour") refers to the concept of human action which pertains to matters of right and wrong--also referred to as "good and evil"--used within three contexts: individual distinction; systems of valued principles--sometimes called conduct morality--shared within a cultural, religious, secular or philosophical community.
While Torvalds is undisputably a great engineer, on some non-technical matters he tends to rely on his engineering reputation to substitute for sound arguments.
The FSF believes that such an act is an exercise of power, not of freedom. Thus, just as the FSF can and does exercise power to upgrade the license of GNU software to GPL3, so too would the FSF agree that Torvalds can and does exercise the power to keep the Linux kernel under GPL2.
In order to be hypocritical here, the FSF would have to claim the ability or justification of their choice but deny Torvalds' his. However, they did not do that; they simply see any such choice as an exercise of power and not of freedom. Torvalds' argument relies on people somehow believing that the FSF has claimed something special that he cannot.
Too often, Torvalds just throws out claims, hoping that they will stick. He appears to be decreasingly trustworthy on some non-technical matters.
Just substitute "Bill Gates" for "Linus Torvalds", and a similar argument can be made for the opinions of ordinary computer users, who would favor Gates over some relative unknown. Moreover, you are buying into some kind of myth about Torvalds. In fact, he is well known for saying more than needs to be said, and often it is insulting, self-serving material (e.g., Bitkeeper mess; ugly insults against CVS and Subversion; regular, unprovoked insults against FSF, etc.).
Leading up to the release of the GPL3 license, an innovative theory about how developers want licenses that are less like the GPL3 and more like a competing license, the Apache License, is being pimped by Greg Stein, chairman of the Apache Software Foundation. In other news, sunrise scheduled for tomorrow.
How about he or you identify even ONE Microsoft-paid shill at OSNews.com? (I choose OSNews because it has a smaller number of posters than the other sites; it should be easy to identify a paid MS shill, with proof of such payment). If you can't identify such a shill with prove that he was paid, then STFU.
What prevents me from STFU is a post I saw a few days ago with this pattern:
"GPL3 is evil, so evil that I'm fed up.
This has pushed me over the edge to seriously looking at the BSD license. At work we're on the verge of moving to Macs."
The only problem here is that this poster has been pushing the BSD license for many years, so the "Oh, my!" fakery is disgusting. Couple this kind of "inspiring" fakery with the obviously high motivation that Microsoft has right now for undermining the free software community, and I believe the media is in for even more crap from Redmond and its partners than it has ever seen.
>Why should the AC be "modded up"? He provides zero evidence for his claims.
Hey, why not "Interesting" instead of "Informative" or "Insightful"? Yes, the claims did not come with evidence, but they are good leads which might help in digging up some evidence or noticing suspect patterns. Moreover, I and probably many others had totally forgotten about the whole MVP thing. I could easily imagine a "grey zone" where MVPs have non-monetary incentives to conduct misinformation.
Moreover, some of what the AC said has some high credibility, such as the SCO crap against Groklaw. Comments containing points of varying credibility are often modded up.
>It certainly has been doing so. MS paid people post on OSNews, Zdnet, Digg (and here) all the time; sometimes they're MVPs.
Please mod AC parent up. What you say updates the claims made on the shilling site I listed, and it indicates more of a current company initiative than the more individual initiative that I described. I had forgotten about the importance of MVPs in general. Another thought I had was that the buzzword "evangelism" takes on a more visible role in IT today, and I can easily see that word as a way to more easily rationalize shilling and turfing to oneself. Thanks.
Please note three things, especially the second and third:
1. Of course, an essential quality of the dirty dealmaking is a snowballing pattern. Note that Microsoft might use this, among previously stated things, to strengthen both claims of cooperation with the EU and its frantic attempts to hurt ODF adoption. --------- 2. For a primer on Microsoft astroturfing and shilling, see http://www.inlumineconsulting.com:8080/website/msf t.shilling.html
One does not need to believe in any kind of conspiracy to see that the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented attack in the media on the free software community. Again, it's the conditions: various problems at Microsoft, an important license revision coming this month, etc. Scattered individuals of sufficiently warped ethics are highly motivated right now to make noise right now.
I am afraid most slashdotters and other forum participants really have no idea about the level of sophistication of Microsoft manipulative strategy and tactics. Consider it from merely an economic point of view. The pressure is higher than ever at Microsoft--growing threats in the server space and feeling the pinch of so much talent by the likes of Google. Of course, Microsoft has a ton of talented people, but many are quite likely the more "ethically flexible" types that are more comfortable with Microsoft's reputation and would not only have no problem harming the free software community but probably would treat it as an enjoyable game.
Consider, for example, the recent spate of Microsoft turfing and shilling that has been inflicted upon Slashdot. These fakes might take on the identity of any of several traditional mindsets that, say, oppose the GPL and the FSF. Whereas in the past, a fake might have indulged in apologist ravings over Microsoft that are easily dismissed, now it would not at be surprising for them to start faking more sympathetic attitudes, using all manner of reverse psychology, straw men, red herrings, etc. These fakes from the "Microsoft ecosystem" would include far more convincing versions of, say, these trivial caricatures:
"Going with the GPL3 is playing right into Microsoft's hands. MS is hoping for a divide and conquer, with forks everywhere..."
"Opposing the GPL does not imply love for Microsoft. I hate Microsoft, but I also hate people choosing a license just because it's popular."
"Bill Gates and Richard Stallman are both megalomaniacs. Therefore, I choose BSD."
"The GPL3 is punishing a company that has done more than anyone else for desktop Linux: Novell. As for Tivo, let the market decide. Let the GPL3 rot."
"I used to donate every year to the FSF, but they have gone insane with the GPL3. It's against everything they claimed they stood for over so many years."
What makes these particularly insidious is that they exploit people who have sincere concerns--on both sides. ---------- 3. A natural objection to #2 as a concern is that it it does not matter. If a faker presents a good argument, then how can anyone lose? After all, it's just an opportunity to test one's own convictions and justifications.
I see two problems. First, it's just a given that Microsoft aims for the lowest common denominator, in this case people who simply are not that critically-minded. Second, it's like a "war of words of attrition." Money is speech, and "justice" sometimes goes to the highest bidder.
Forums are, on a casual level, the manufacture of a mild, tentative consensus about news items. However, a company of unprecedented power and strategic prowess has, in effect, very likely been intruding, indirectly via individuals, and driving up the cost (in time [=money]) of debunking nonsense that harms its opponents.
Slashdot Mirror
See a reminder of the role of free software in education. You can focus your donation on a particular concern, too.
RMS is just too busy with more important things like software freedom in general and needs to delegate. BTW, it's not as if RMS has always been the _maintainer_ of Emacs--from the acknowlegements:
"Gerd Moellmann was the Emacs maintainer from the beginning of Emacs 21 development until the release of 21.1."
Yet RMS has had a decades-long involvement with Emacs. It seems he will continue to be involved, so what's the big deal? More generally, GNU has always been about freedom first, development second.
Who cares? People who need Torvalds to think for them. One problem is the first name convention which has the effect of elevating him to somebody special. Impartial people should only use "Linus" by itself only when it would be appropriate for anyone else. Another problem are the contradictions in his widely publicized opinions. E.g., on the one hand, on other occasions he likes to hold up kernel development as akin to science. OTOH, he and his fanboys tout his blunt style as sometimes encouraging strong rebuttals, as if progress requires a blunt style. That's not at all borne out in the history of science and engineering.
Another problem with his blunt style is how what he considers good is synonymous with what he considers good for the kernel: e.g., git is good for the kernel, therefore, Torvalds concludes, git is the best. It is very likely that at this point, other considerations make other RCS's better than git for the vast majority of projects. Another example is how the GPLv3 prevents something that Torvalds supports--Tivoization. Therefore, he claims, GPLv3 is worse than GPLv2 for the kernel, and thus, he falsely concludes, GPLv3 is worse than GPLv2 in general. GPLv3 may very well be worse than GPLv2, but the only people for whom he has observed it to be true, are those who believe that Tivoization of the Linux kernel should be allowed. But Torvalds always tries to elevate that group to somehow matter more than others.
Formally, yes, incompatibility with GPLv2 is something that both cases share. However, you are suggesting that it matters for GCC as it did for XFree86. Already several reasons have been given as to why this is false. Another reason is that for that most dominant license, the most dominant way that it is used is either with the "or later" language or without the "only" language. So in practice, compatibility with GPLv3 exists in most cases here. The XFree86 case was completely incompatible with any GPL, and the community responded accordingly.
Ironically, GPLv3 is compatible with more licenses than GPLv2. Since they are copyleft licenses, incompatibility between the two is completely natural and logical.
How is that example any good? I recall major existing rifts within XFree86, and the new license breaking GPL compatibility led to an _immediate_, _widespread_ decline in the distribution of XFree86. GCC is not at all comparable to that.
>Well, that's not unfair. The thing that bothers me about Stallman is that he's so unhealthy!
Indeed, and it's very hard to imagine who could replace him. Eben Moglen is also brilliant and a better speaker, but Stallman is the visionary. Someone needs to kick his ass and get him to eat right and work out. In any case we will need to look hard for future visionaries, but maybe with lowered expectations.
Grow up and use your own brain for once, instead of mirroring the thoughts of another person like a lemming and acting like a simple fanboy.
And you are a hypocrite here, saying precisely what you advise others not to say to you. Indeed, it's worse: "use your own brain for once."
>Linux is free as in Freedom and this irks Stallman: he wants it to be free as in beer.
How do you explain the following from Linux maintainer Linus Torvalds:
"GPLv2 is about a "quid pro quo": If I give you my open-source software, you're free to use it but must give the world back any changes you make, Torvalds said. "The reason for the GPL as far as the FSF is concerned was never 'fairness.' It was all about a higher calling, and about something that the FSF thinks is much bigger--'freedom,'" [1]
More generally, your post is moot. The GPLv3 is the current expression of Stallman's ideas which counts the most, and nothing you have written challenges it.
[1]: http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-6099985.html
>Ah yes, "you don't understand" and "you are stupid." again.
OK, I stated a whole counterargument, with one piece of advice mixed in: "Please use your brain."
I am sorry if that hurts your feelings. However, my counterargument otherwise remains unchallenged by your appeal to pity, just like the other challenges you have received.
>The GPL is not about freedom, it's a arrangement to get stuff back.
On the contrary, the GPL is what its creator says it is. Why should anyone care about your arbitrary characterization--particular without any justification whatsoever? Consider the definition of "letter" and "spirit" and note my emphasis:
The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis. When one obeys the letter of the law but not the spirit, he is obeying the literal interpretation of the words (the "letter") of the law, but not the intent of those who wrote the law. Conversely, when one obeys the spirit of the law but not the letter, he is doing what the authors of the law intended, though not adhering to the literal wording.
"Law" originally referred to legislative statute, but in the idiom may refer to any kind of rule. Intentionally following the letter of the law but not the spirit may be accomplished through exploiting technicalities, loopholes, and ambiguous language. Following the letter of the law but not the spirit is also a tactic used against an oppressive government. [1]
>If you think otherwise, perhaps you should empathically try to imagine how true victims of a lack of freedom (see Amnesty's site) would feel about someone who redefined it for software programming and a mis-conception about black box morality, and someone who can only apply that kind of luxury live philophosy, because he was born on a very rich, capitalist country.
The same kind of argument is used against those who fight for democracy in China. Moreover, your claim of "redefinition" is ridiculous, as if people advocating software freedom automatically discount any other kind of freedom. You have tried to set up a false dilemma fallacy: freedom is either defined by Amnesty International or by someone else. In reality freedom will always be an incompletely specified notion, as long as changes such as technology occur in the world. Advocates for software freedom have never pretended that it encompasses all possible freedom. Please use your brain.
One of the things you failed to acknowledge is that issues of freedom around software will continue to be far, far more important simply because of the always increasing dependence of society upon software.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_the_law
>My point is that simply selling compiled source code cannot possibly be interpreted as an act of coercion, and therefore the act is entirely moral and just...
Stallman is correct, though, because those sales do not exist in some vacuum but depend upon the law. If the law did not exist, the non-free software business model would never have happened, and RMS would not have started GNU. Do you deny this?
Your definition of "crazy" seems to be: believing in unpopular opinions and making funny phrases such as "holding wedding memories hostage"; I suggest to you that "crazy" is a bit more involved--many great people in history fit your definition of "crazy".
Many people accuse RMS of being against programmers, and the classic example is the claim that his GPL favors users over programmers. There is, however, another interpretation, namely that RMS has such high respect for programmers that he expects them to set an example for others. You dismiss RMS too quickly.
He himself as a programmer indeed sets an example for others. He worked hard and long enough in his life so as to win millions of dollars in awards for his contributions to society. He has earned money in various other ways. However, none of this involved programming non-free software. He figured out how to do that when the opportunities were fewer, and it not unreasonable for him to expect others to do the same today. They have to figure it out, so do not expect him to always hold their hand.
However, that is only "half" of the story. Indeed, the fraction might be smaller. The other part is the "live cheaply" part. That part is what people are in denial about: their materialism is sacred. Yes, he relied on cheap shelter from friends at MIT. So what? People often could have cheaper shelter but fail to exploit it.
Your wedding photographs example reminds me of the flagrant excesses of the western world. Partly to save money, my wife and I were married in front of a judge and received photographs from friends at that time. Seventeen years later, despite missing out on an expensive wedding, we are still very much in love, and that's the only thing that counts.
If more programmers learned to be thrify, they would change their tune and wonder why RMS repeats the obvious. But thriftiness is foreign to western society. We are ridiculous hypocrites when we advise the Chinese and Indians on how to live with fewer emissions.
>When I am saying that something is morally right, I am appealing to a standard that I believe applies to all people at all times.
The one system that I mentioned that is based on two assumptions involving minimal suffering could just as easily be a morality that someone believes should apply to all people at all times. Some people may appeal to this standard and the authority of the assumptions and reasoning. Such an appeal needs no religion at all. Some people believe in the standard of the Golden Rule, and they too may believe that it applies to all people at all times. No religion required.
I am not a moral relativist because I think it conflicts with the notion of civilization. Thus, I believe, with every bit as much justification as any religious person, that there is an ideal system of morality. What is it? I'm not sure, but that is what the ethicists like Singer are for: to help people learn how to think about these issues. Just because you or I believe he is wrong about some issues does not imply that the process of deliberation that he uses is incapable of finding the ideal system. It could be that some of his assumptions are incorrect. An ethicist may be, unlike Singer, a religious believer and still may help us toward the ideal system. But none of this is to say that religion is required. You are implicitly asserting that any such process of deliberation is doomed to failure without a religion. Such an assertion must come from blind faith.
Moreover, how can your standard apply to those who lived before the invention of whatever religion you have in mind? How do you even know what the earliest religious developments were? More generally, how do you account for ignorant people?
The same criticism might be leveled at me; that is, our best guess of an ideal morality today comes with the benefit of hindsight and thought that previous generations did not enjoy. However, I see it as a moot point. Ethics ultimately is an approximation to an ideal that should be applied by living people, the dead generally had worse approximations, and ignorance among the living can and should be corrected.
>In your moral system you have defined how to judge if something is "right", but you have not defined what "right" means.
Yes I have (implicitly): "right" is the general consensus of people in a society on criteria by which to decide how to act. The consensus is only a high enough percentage of the society's members so as to provide minimal legislation to maintain some semblance of civilization. People will diverge on details of morality beyond those which the law embodies because of reasoning errors and different weights that they assign to their guiding assumptions. I suppose my definition is in line with social contract theory, but within this theory I tend to lean toward utilitarian considerations.
You have shown some of your disagreement with Singer, but Singer is not circular either: he clearly lays out his assumptions, and I suspect that you disagree with those somehow. While Singer has plenty of critics, don't you think that after all of these decades a basic error in _circular reasoning_ would have already been brought to light?
Again, you will have to retract your original claim that morality needs religion. Accepting your claim is tantamount to accepting a religion, i.e., of accepting something on blind faith.
Another simple example of a morality without a religion: "right" is whatever is legal. This morality's authority is the law. While it is not my morality, it is an important one and is independent of religion.
>If morality is not based on religion, where does its authority come from?
While one can claim that there is no absolute morality, need that imply that everyone adopt moral relativism?
IMHO, the biggest single factor that complicates that implication is that people tend to cluster in social groups--families, kinship groups, nations, etc. In this context, moral relativism will give way to a general consensus on any of several systems of morality, of which only some happen to be religious. I refuse to argue for the point that civilization tends to happen. You must either accept it, or we will have to agree to disagree.
A system of morals requires no religion but only a few assumptions. E.g., assume that the best criterion for the rightness of an act is how little overall suffering (human or nonhuman) it causes. Assume that the degree of suffering is proportional to the sentience of the beings affected.
Thus, I have defined a system of morals that begins with two assumptions and is implemented by an application of reason to whatever issues come up. If you are looking for an "authority", I can claim it is those assumptions and ordinary reasoning. While you are free to reject my system, you will have to admit that it is a non-religious system of morals and that you should retract your claim that morality requires religion.
Indeed, I only needed to appeal to moral relativism; it vacuously shows that morality does not need religion. However, for any society, the simple-minded system that I defined is more useful than moral relativism.
I suggest that you read a book on ethics such as something by the contemporary philosopher Peter Singer and that you then help disabuse other people of faulty notions, such as morality requiring religion.
>Define right and wrong. What makes an action right? What makes an action wrong? Who are you to say so? What source do you go to to determine the answers?
You clearly cannot be bothered to consult even the most elementary discussions of these points. If you are so sure of yourself, why not just "correct" the Wikipedia entry? It will be amusing to see how your attempt fares on the Discussion page. Even more troubling than your own sloppy thinking are the fools that modded your comment insightful.
>Yes, and we all know that wikipedia is the be all and end all of knowledge.
Alright, pick whatever source you want for a definition, and see the error of your ways. Already others are busy ripping you a new one over your show of ignorance. Good thing for you that you posted as an AC.
>I dunno. !religion == nihilism, near I can tell.
You have a lot of learning to do--morality does not need religion. From the Wikipedia entry:
Morality (from Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behaviour") refers to the concept of human action which pertains to matters of right and wrong--also referred to as "good and evil"--used within three contexts: individual distinction; systems of valued principles--sometimes called conduct morality--shared within a cultural, religious, secular or philosophical community.
While Torvalds is undisputably a great engineer, on some non-technical matters he tends to rely on his engineering reputation to substitute for sound arguments.
One error that Torvalds makes is that he falsely characterizes what the FSF has said in the past about the act of choosing a license.
The FSF believes that such an act is an exercise of power, not of freedom. Thus, just as the FSF can and does exercise power to upgrade the license of GNU software to GPL3, so too would the FSF agree that Torvalds can and does exercise the power to keep the Linux kernel under GPL2.
In order to be hypocritical here, the FSF would have to claim the ability or justification of their choice but deny Torvalds' his. However, they did not do that; they simply see any such choice as an exercise of power and not of freedom. Torvalds' argument relies on people somehow believing that the FSF has claimed something special that he cannot.
Too often, Torvalds just throws out claims, hoping that they will stick. He appears to be decreasingly trustworthy on some non-technical matters.
Just substitute "Bill Gates" for "Linus Torvalds", and a similar argument can be made for the opinions of ordinary computer users, who would favor Gates over some relative unknown. Moreover, you are buying into some kind of myth about Torvalds. In fact, he is well known for saying more than needs to be said, and often it is insulting, self-serving material (e.g., Bitkeeper mess; ugly insults against CVS and Subversion; regular, unprovoked insults against FSF, etc.).
Leading up to the release of the GPL3 license, an innovative theory about how developers want licenses that are less like the GPL3 and more like a competing license, the Apache License, is being pimped by Greg Stein, chairman of the Apache Software Foundation. In other news, sunrise scheduled for tomorrow.
How about he or you identify even ONE Microsoft-paid shill at OSNews.com? (I choose OSNews because it has a smaller number of posters than the other sites; it should be easy to identify a paid MS shill, with proof of such payment). If you can't identify such a shill with prove that he was paid, then STFU.
What prevents me from STFU is a post I saw a few days ago with this pattern:
"GPL3 is evil, so evil that I'm fed up.
This has pushed me over the edge to seriously looking at the BSD license. At work we're on the verge of moving to Macs."
The only problem here is that this poster has been pushing the BSD license for many years, so the "Oh, my!" fakery is disgusting. Couple this kind of "inspiring" fakery with the obviously high motivation that Microsoft has right now for undermining the free software community, and I believe the media is in for even more crap from Redmond and its partners than it has ever seen.
>Why should the AC be "modded up"? He provides zero evidence for his claims.
Hey, why not "Interesting" instead of "Informative" or "Insightful"? Yes, the claims did not come with evidence, but they are good leads which might help in digging up some evidence or noticing suspect patterns. Moreover, I and probably many others had totally forgotten about the whole MVP thing. I could easily imagine a "grey zone" where MVPs have non-monetary incentives to conduct misinformation.
Moreover, some of what the AC said has some high credibility, such as the SCO crap against Groklaw. Comments containing points of varying credibility are often modded up.
>It certainly has been doing so. MS paid people post on OSNews, Zdnet, Digg (and here) all the time; sometimes they're MVPs.
Please mod AC parent up. What you say updates the claims made on the shilling site I listed, and it indicates more of a current company initiative than the more individual initiative that I described. I had forgotten about the importance of MVPs in general. Another thought I had was that the buzzword "evangelism" takes on a more visible role in IT today, and I can easily see that word as a way to more easily rationalize shilling and turfing to oneself. Thanks.
Please note three things, especially the second and third:
f t.shilling.html
1. Of course, an essential quality of the dirty dealmaking is a snowballing pattern. Note that Microsoft might use this, among previously stated things, to strengthen both claims of cooperation with the EU and its frantic attempts to hurt ODF adoption.
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2. For a primer on Microsoft astroturfing and shilling, see
http://www.inlumineconsulting.com:8080/website/ms
One does not need to believe in any kind of conspiracy to see that the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented attack in the media on the free software community. Again, it's the conditions: various problems at Microsoft, an important license revision coming this month, etc. Scattered individuals of sufficiently warped ethics are highly motivated right now to make noise right now.
I am afraid most slashdotters and other forum participants really have no idea about the level of sophistication of Microsoft manipulative strategy and tactics. Consider it from merely an economic point of view. The pressure is higher than ever at Microsoft--growing threats in the server space and feeling the pinch of so much talent by the likes of Google. Of course, Microsoft has a ton of talented people, but many are quite likely the more "ethically flexible" types that are more comfortable with Microsoft's reputation and would not only have no problem harming the free software community but probably would treat it as an enjoyable game.
Consider, for example, the recent spate of Microsoft turfing and shilling that has been inflicted upon Slashdot. These fakes might take on the identity of any of several traditional mindsets that, say, oppose the GPL and the FSF. Whereas in the past, a fake might have indulged in apologist ravings over Microsoft that are easily dismissed, now it would not at be surprising for them to start faking more sympathetic attitudes, using all manner of reverse psychology, straw men, red herrings, etc. These fakes from the "Microsoft ecosystem" would include far more convincing versions of, say, these trivial caricatures:
"Going with the GPL3 is playing right into Microsoft's hands. MS is hoping for a divide and conquer, with forks everywhere..."
"Opposing the GPL does not imply love for Microsoft. I hate Microsoft, but I also hate people choosing a license just because it's popular."
"Bill Gates and Richard Stallman are both megalomaniacs. Therefore, I choose BSD."
"The GPL3 is punishing a company that has done more than anyone else for desktop Linux: Novell. As for Tivo, let the market decide. Let the GPL3 rot."
"I used to donate every year to the FSF, but they have gone insane with the GPL3. It's against everything they claimed they stood for over so many years."
What makes these particularly insidious is that they exploit people who have sincere concerns--on both sides.
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3. A natural objection to #2 as a concern is that it it does not matter. If a faker presents a good argument, then how can anyone lose? After all, it's just an opportunity to test one's own convictions and justifications.
I see two problems. First, it's just a given that Microsoft aims for the lowest common denominator, in this case people who simply are not that critically-minded. Second, it's like a "war of words of attrition." Money is speech, and "justice" sometimes goes to the highest bidder.
Forums are, on a casual level, the manufacture of a mild, tentative consensus about news items. However, a company of unprecedented power and strategic prowess has, in effect, very likely been intruding, indirectly via individuals, and driving up the cost (in time [=money]) of debunking nonsense that harms its opponents.