Unfortunately it also enhances the Chruch's power by concentrating the wealth left behind by the clergy, thus encouraging more people to join.
Celibacy was always a myth, it was just a nice way to make sure that legally the money stayed with the church. The penniless bastard children would be left for the rest of society to deal with. Wash rinse repeat.
You don't need to go that far back. The Spanish civil war was very much rooted in a reassertion of feudal Catholicism. 10 years of war followed by 30 years of dictatorship in spain and portugal.
Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin, both professed atheists, can account for far more death, misery, wars, and famine than almost all religious leaders or even religiously inclined political leaders in the entire history of humanity combined
This is such an awful argument, but it keeps getting used in the "debate" over relative genocidal tendencies of the faithful. Mao and Stalin certainly killed plenty of people. Mao/Stalin's definition of atheism was defined as a rejection of organized religion, supplanting the church/temple with the state. Their movements murdered millions because of too much faith (in the state/figure head, see DPRK for contemporary example) not too little.
They are great examples of what happens when the faithful run amok in society and fit in nicely with the examples set by every other major religion.
Now Christianity/Judaism/Islam are particularly dangerous as genocide isn't some incidental side effect but is in fact a core tennet. Members of these religions that espouse peace and tolerance are simply bad practitioners experiencing a crisis of faith. They will either leave entirely and join secular society often celebrating christmas but avoiding church, or they will return to the mainline. The mainline believers will naturally move towards violence as we have undeniably witnessed throughout history.
The violence doesn't have to take the form of armies. It can be the pretext for slavery, segregation, apartheid, totalitarianism, etc.
You are absolutely right that the U.S. won the cold war against the Soviets using a long term strategy of arms buildups and indirect competition.
Its hard to argue that the Vietnam war was really even a skirmish in that given the relative absence of the Soviet's compared to the U.S.. If this was a battle in the Cold War, then the U.S. lost. If it wasn't, but was rather a war against North Vietnam, then the U.S. lost.
The constant attempts to re-frame the Vietnam war as anything other then a loss for the U.S. reeks of jingoism. One should understand the war for what it was and the mistakes that were made so that they can be avoided. This is true weather one is a peace loving hippy or realpolitik master mind.
The Vietnam war was, strategically, about stretching it out to siphon Soviet assets How many Soviet combat troops were there in Vietnam again? Oh right, zero. The soviets provided limited support, but Hannoi wasn't such a fan of the Soviets, so it was very limited. The U.S.'s grand strategic vision was to commit half its fighting force and political capital to a theater with almost no Soviet involvement? How does this not qualify as a loss? At best it would be an egregious miscalculation...
The military defeat didn't happen until after the US and allied forces withdrew and Congress reneged on promised support to South Vietnam "allied forces withdrew", yes, this is what happens when you are loosing a war and decide to stop fighting it. The fact that there was a political element changes nothing. People like to say the U.S. didn't loose military. Who the hell cares? This isn't college football, there is ostensibly a reason/objective for waging war, achieving it is winning. Failing to achieve the objective (or never having one) means you lost.
"war is the continuation of politics by other means." This isn't some hippy revisionist history theory. Its Von Claus, the grand daddy of western military theory and the Prussian says we lost.
From wikipedia: "In another example, a memo from the Defense Department under the Johnson Administration listed the reasons for American persistence:
* 70% - To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.
* 20% - To keep [South Vietnam] (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
* 10% - To permit the people [of South Vietnam] to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
* ALSO - To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used.
* NOT - To 'help a friend'[3][9]"
- If the leadership of one of the world's two super powers is continuing a war with no end it sight, simply to avoid humiliation, its pretty easy to get the impression that they are loosing.
- If after 4 years of war military leadership says that it will take 2x-3x current troop levels to win, one could conclude that there isn't much optimism for the current strategies chances.
These are perfectly reasonable interpretations of the the book. You should read it.
Of course the fact that leadership decided to quit the field after determining the war was un-winnable given the available resources should be enough to persuade anyone.
You can choose not to work with them, but its more convenient or profitable for you to throw the rest of us under the bus and contribute to the success of thugs intent on undermining civil society, stealing and bullying.
Sorry, but you are not an "innocent bystander", you are a willing collaborator. It should be our goal to make sure the sociopaths such as yourself suffer enough that you stop working with them.
I am all for property rights, real and intellectual. The Doctrine of Reciprocal Abuse is not a defense of stealing, its about causing as much economic hard to the RIAA/MPAA/* and their allies (you) as possible in order to persuade them to change their behavior.
Piracy of RIAA/MPAA/* member material is an ethical imperative.
Any material that is published by members of these organizations is a legitimate target for application of The Doctrine of Reciprocal Abuse. Any work that is tainted by affiliation with publishers/authors/composers/labels/etc/companies that are members of the RIAA/MPAA/* should be stolen and distributed as widely as possible. Of course any work that remains free of the taint of the RIAA/MPAA/* should be paid for.
Until the the copyright term extension act is repealed and the hundreds of billions of dollars they stole from the commons is repaid, it should be a goal for each of us: cost them and their members as much money as possible. Bankrupt them.
These are cartels of thugs in suits that buy legislation, blackmail and extort the weakest and then stand on pulpits and claim to be victims. They are turning the administrators of our colleges into gestapo informants. The fact that our political system happens to be so corrupt that they can legally buy legislation that protects this activity does nothing to change the ethics of the situation, if anything it highlights the importance of acting against those organizations that would exploit our system of governments weaknesses.
Work with them and any consequences suffered are your own fault.
*Or other company that spent $ lobbying for copyright term extension act, dmca, so possibly authors guild, Im still not clear on them.
Considering that about one third of Pennsylvania citizens were native German speakers, it is unlikely that the constitution would have been ratified there had there been an english requirement in the constitution. I don't think they would have been alone.
This is hardly because of modern progressives. States have always had the right to determine eligibility for local elections.
For example the Wisconsin constitution gave foreign residents who intended to become citizens the right to vote in 1846. Different states gave the vote to African American's and Native Americans at different times before and during the civil war.
Determining local voting eligibility has always been a state right.
They never have, and I don't think they ever will. True collaboration with google/android is therefore not possible.
Look at the PS3. Could one imagine a sorrier excuse for an online store or game community? They never took online gaming seriously. Whereas msft built in standardized online/community functionality, Sony left it to each developer. Integration with the online store is an after thought and is truly crude.
With their phones and android they trashed most of what was inherent to the os and replaced it with a crudely implemented custom UI/skin.
Memory sticks, proprietary, etc.
Community driven, collaboration, open, Sony doesn't do that.
Hardly written out of history. As I recall he got a whole chapter in "The Code Book" . I would bet that most people familiar with RSA or Diffie Helman have read that.
"people who just wanted their constitution back". As someone who was in the tea party since the beginning, could you please clarify WTF this means?
Tea-party members have this near universal implied reverence for Jeffersonian agrarianism/state rights and always seem to forget that this wasn't exactly a one sided argument. In fact by the time of the Farewell Address Washington seemed to be favoring Hamilton/Federalism and a national bank. We had a series of "founding fathers" that repeatedly favored the expansion of the federal government's powers and all sorts of programs of federal spending under the "Necessary and Proper" clause.
"Internal Improvements", a standing army/navy, the power to go to war without an act of congress, a centralized bank, these issues were all debated by the "founding fathers" and federalism won. How can one then argue that the New Deal/National Health Care is so clearly unconstitutional when the original authors were perpetually uncertain of what was in or out of bounds?
We can argue that the policies may be unsound, but many people will reasonably be offended by the implication that only members of one side of the discussion can be "true patriots".
The game is a pretty huge disappointment. City states are great. The hexagon tile system is great. One unit per tile is also great.
However in their quest for mass appeal they really dumbed the game down elsewhere and the result is a boring game.
(1) No religion (2) Civic management is basically a leveling system, with minor consequences on your civ (3) No ability to change tax or research rates directly (4) No pollution from production (5) Happiness is nation wide, one doesn't manage individual cities (6) The AI is REALLY REALLY BAD AT WAR. After a single play through, one can confidently go to war at anytime with any other civilization on the "harder" difficulty settings. After 3 games I have yet to see an AI civ use naval units (7) Naval transport units have been eliminated, any unity can move through water. How dumb is that?
Take all of these changes together without any substantial additions, and you have a boring easy game that takes forever to play.
On an i7 with a geforce 330m, all graphics turned to minimum, a single turn on a standard size map takes 20-30 seconds at the end of the game.
Magento's not unfriendly, its just undocumented. Everything is by configuration/convention. This makes for a very modular and logical system that is entirely unfathomable without documentation. Its a java spring application in a php applications body.
Its going to mean bad things for copyright holders. The more they lock us down the less we respect the laws surrounding copyright.
Can anyone make an ethical argument against software piracy in cases where the purveyor attempts to subvert end user rights through opaque licenses and purchased laws?
To hell with the doctrine of first sale. Lets see how they feel about the Doctrine of Reciprocal Abuse.
A position about any group based on the actions of a single crazy individual is absurd.
Basing an opinion of a political or religious organization off of a series of statements and actions made by the leadership of said organization, is totally reasonable.
No. If I am cornered by someone, and that person is clearly threatening to me harm, I have every-right to strike first.
Amongst nations, its little different. If a neighbor is massing tanks and artillery and planes at a nations boarder and starts issuing demands and threads, then a preemptive strike is valid.
"Then you prepare a response and let him know that you've got about ten million tons of reasonably accurate weaponry that you're going to drop if and only if he does carry out an attack.
Not to nitpick, but I don't see why it is necessary to wait. If I have a reasonable belief that some jackass bully is considering attacking me, then it seems perfectly reasonable to attack first.
Meh. Its only on the militant fringes, and only in contemporary examples that one finds any meaningful distinction between Christianity, Islam or Judaism. If I had to bet, I would bet that this is true for the rest of the world's "great" religions, however I don't know much about them.
Sorry but comparing our society to the Taliban's in this manner is absurd.
In each of your examples, it is pretty clear that the individual actions are in violation of our founding principles and that our society as a whole tries to keep evil in check. Cops go to jail for civil rights violations, Matt Shephard's killers are in jail today, etc. Where there are humans, some acts of evil should be expected as a given. However the core principles of the U.S. form an outline of a societies attempt to be virtuous . For the Taliban evil is a central tenet, their stated policy.
Your sort of moral relativism is as bad as the worst blind nationalism.
Morality, ethics, social good (and by an extension issues of copyrights) aren't universal absolutes. They are values and systems of rules that we as a society agree upon. The act of debating such ideas is a means by which we arrive at consensus and define the rules by which society is governed. Thus the truth of copyright law can very much be altered by debate.
The cloud space is certainly buzz heavy, however it does represent some major new concepts.
The ability to provision/consume infrastructure on-demand via an API is pretty new. Certainly there was never a comprehensive set of services like S3/EC2/ELB/EBS/SMS exposed under a simple common API until amazon web services. This does radically alter the way small/medium business can develop applications and provision resources.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately it also enhances the Chruch's power by concentrating the wealth left behind by the clergy, thus encouraging more people to join.
Celibacy was always a myth, it was just a nice way to make sure that legally the money stayed with the church. The penniless bastard children would be left for the rest of society to deal with. Wash rinse repeat.
You don't need to go that far back. The Spanish civil war was very much rooted in a reassertion of feudal Catholicism. 10 years of war followed by 30 years of dictatorship in spain and portugal.
Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin, both professed atheists, can account for far more death, misery, wars, and famine than almost all religious leaders or even religiously inclined political leaders in the entire history of humanity combined
This is such an awful argument, but it keeps getting used in the "debate" over relative genocidal tendencies of the faithful. Mao and Stalin certainly killed plenty of people. Mao/Stalin's definition of atheism was defined as a rejection of organized religion, supplanting the church/temple with the state. Their movements murdered millions because of too much faith (in the state/figure head, see DPRK for contemporary example) not too little.
They are great examples of what happens when the faithful run amok in society and fit in nicely with the examples set by every other major religion.
Now Christianity/Judaism/Islam are particularly dangerous as genocide isn't some incidental side effect but is in fact a core tennet. Members of these religions that espouse peace and tolerance are simply bad practitioners experiencing a crisis of faith. They will either leave entirely and join secular society often celebrating christmas but avoiding church, or they will return to the mainline. The mainline believers will naturally move towards violence as we have undeniably witnessed throughout history.
The violence doesn't have to take the form of armies. It can be the pretext for slavery, segregation, apartheid, totalitarianism, etc.
Except that none of us are buying Sony products anymore remember?
We shouldn't even pay attention to Sony related PR. Pretend they don't exist.
"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't
think of at least two ways to spell any word."
You are absolutely right that the U.S. won the cold war against the Soviets using a long term strategy of arms buildups and indirect competition.
Its hard to argue that the Vietnam war was really even a skirmish in that given the relative absence of the Soviet's compared to the U.S.. If this was a battle in the Cold War, then the U.S. lost. If it wasn't, but was rather a war against North Vietnam, then the U.S. lost.
The constant attempts to re-frame the Vietnam war as anything other then a loss for the U.S. reeks of jingoism. One should understand the war for what it was and the mistakes that were made so that they can be avoided. This is true weather one is a peace loving hippy or realpolitik master mind.
The Vietnam war was, strategically, about stretching it out to siphon Soviet assets
How many Soviet combat troops were there in Vietnam again? Oh right, zero. The soviets provided limited support, but Hannoi wasn't such a fan of the Soviets, so it was very limited. The U.S.'s grand strategic vision was to commit half its fighting force and political capital to a theater with almost no Soviet involvement? How does this not qualify as a loss? At best it would be an egregious miscalculation...
The military defeat didn't happen until after the US and allied forces withdrew and Congress reneged on promised support to South Vietnam
"allied forces withdrew", yes, this is what happens when you are loosing a war and decide to stop fighting it. The fact that there was a political element changes nothing. People like to say the U.S. didn't loose military. Who the hell cares? This isn't college football, there is ostensibly a reason/objective for waging war, achieving it is winning. Failing to achieve the objective (or never having one) means you lost.
"war is the continuation of politics by other means." This isn't some hippy revisionist history theory. Its Von Claus, the grand daddy of western military theory and the Prussian says we lost.
From wikipedia:
"In another example, a memo from the Defense Department under the Johnson Administration listed the reasons for American persistence:
* 70% - To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.
* 20% - To keep [South Vietnam] (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
* 10% - To permit the people [of South Vietnam] to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
* ALSO - To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used.
* NOT - To 'help a friend'[3][9]"
- If the leadership of one of the world's two super powers is continuing a war with no end it sight, simply to avoid humiliation, its pretty easy to get the impression that they are loosing.
- If after 4 years of war military leadership says that it will take 2x-3x current troop levels to win, one could conclude that there isn't much optimism for the current strategies chances.
These are perfectly reasonable interpretations of the the book. You should read it.
Of course the fact that leadership decided to quit the field after determining the war was un-winnable given the available resources should be enough to persuade anyone.
I did read your post.
You can choose not to work with them, but its more convenient or profitable for you to throw the rest of us under the bus and contribute to the success of thugs intent on undermining civil society, stealing and bullying.
Sorry, but you are not an "innocent bystander", you are a willing collaborator. It should be our goal to make sure the sociopaths such as yourself suffer enough that you stop working with them.
I am all for property rights, real and intellectual. The Doctrine of Reciprocal Abuse is not a defense of stealing, its about causing as much economic hard to the RIAA/MPAA/* and their allies (you) as possible in order to persuade them to change their behavior.
See the latest link on slashdot?
http://www.slyck.com/story2129_MPAA_Dismisses_COICA_Free_Speech_Concerns
Go fuck yourself. I hope you go bankrupt.
Piracy of RIAA/MPAA/* member material is an ethical imperative.
Any material that is published by members of these organizations is a legitimate target for application of The Doctrine of Reciprocal Abuse. Any work that is tainted by affiliation with publishers/authors/composers/labels/etc/companies that are members of the RIAA/MPAA/* should be stolen and distributed as widely as possible. Of course any work that remains free of the taint of the RIAA/MPAA/* should be paid for.
Until the the copyright term extension act is repealed and the hundreds of billions of dollars they stole from the commons is repaid, it should be a goal for each of us: cost them and their members as much money as possible. Bankrupt them.
These are cartels of thugs in suits that buy legislation, blackmail and extort the weakest and then stand on pulpits and claim to be victims. They are turning the administrators of our colleges into gestapo informants. The fact that our political system happens to be so corrupt that they can legally buy legislation that protects this activity does nothing to change the ethics of the situation, if anything it highlights the importance of acting against those organizations that would exploit our system of governments weaknesses.
Work with them and any consequences suffered are your own fault.
*Or other company that spent $ lobbying for copyright term extension act, dmca, so possibly authors guild, Im still not clear on them.
Considering that about one third of Pennsylvania citizens were native German speakers, it is unlikely that the constitution would have been ratified there had there been an english requirement in the constitution. I don't think they would have been alone.
This is hardly because of modern progressives. States have always had the right to determine eligibility for local elections.
For example the Wisconsin constitution gave foreign residents who intended to become citizens the right to vote in 1846. Different states gave the vote to African American's and Native Americans at different times before and during the civil war.
Determining local voting eligibility has always been a state right.
They never have, and I don't think they ever will. True collaboration with google/android is therefore not possible.
Look at the PS3. Could one imagine a sorrier excuse for an online store or game community? They never took online gaming seriously. Whereas msft built in standardized online/community functionality, Sony left it to each developer. Integration with the online store is an after thought and is truly crude.
With their phones and android they trashed most of what was inherent to the os and replaced it with a crudely implemented custom UI/skin.
Memory sticks, proprietary, etc.
Community driven, collaboration, open, Sony doesn't do that.
Hardly written out of history. As I recall he got a whole chapter in "The Code Book" . I would bet that most people familiar with RSA or Diffie Helman have read that.
"people who just wanted their constitution back". As someone who was in the tea party since the beginning, could you please clarify WTF this means?
Tea-party members have this near universal implied reverence for Jeffersonian agrarianism/state rights and always seem to forget that this wasn't exactly a one sided argument. In fact by the time of the Farewell Address Washington seemed to be favoring Hamilton/Federalism and a national bank. We had a series of "founding fathers" that repeatedly favored the expansion of the federal government's powers and all sorts of programs of federal spending under the "Necessary and Proper" clause.
"Internal Improvements", a standing army/navy, the power to go to war without an act of congress, a centralized bank, these issues were all debated by the "founding fathers" and federalism won. How can one then argue that the New Deal/National Health Care is so clearly unconstitutional when the original authors were perpetually uncertain of what was in or out of bounds?
We can argue that the policies may be unsound, but many people will reasonably be offended by the implication that only members of one side of the discussion can be "true patriots".
The game is a pretty huge disappointment. City states are great. The hexagon tile system is great. One unit per tile is also great.
However in their quest for mass appeal they really dumbed the game down elsewhere and the result is a boring game.
(1) No religion
(2) Civic management is basically a leveling system, with minor consequences on your civ
(3) No ability to change tax or research rates directly
(4) No pollution from production
(5) Happiness is nation wide, one doesn't manage individual cities
(6) The AI is REALLY REALLY BAD AT WAR. After a single play through, one can confidently go to war at anytime with any other civilization on the "harder" difficulty settings. After 3 games I have yet to see an AI civ use naval units
(7) Naval transport units have been eliminated, any unity can move through water. How dumb is that?
Take all of these changes together without any substantial additions, and you have a boring easy game that takes forever to play.
On an i7 with a geforce 330m, all graphics turned to minimum, a single turn on a standard size map takes 20-30 seconds at the end of the game.
Magento's not unfriendly, its just undocumented. Everything is by configuration/convention. This makes for a very modular and logical system that is entirely unfathomable without documentation. Its a java spring application in a php applications body.
Its going to mean bad things for copyright holders. The more they lock us down the less we respect the laws surrounding copyright.
Can anyone make an ethical argument against software piracy in cases where the purveyor attempts to subvert end user rights through opaque licenses and purchased laws?
To hell with the doctrine of first sale. Lets see how they feel about the Doctrine of Reciprocal Abuse.
A position about any group based on the actions of a single crazy individual is absurd.
Basing an opinion of a political or religious organization off of a series of statements and actions made by the leadership of said organization, is totally reasonable.
No. If I am cornered by someone, and that person is clearly threatening to me harm, I have every-right to strike first.
Amongst nations, its little different. If a neighbor is massing tanks and artillery and planes at a nations boarder and starts issuing demands and threads, then a preemptive strike is valid.
"Then you prepare a response and let him know that you've got about ten million tons of reasonably accurate weaponry that you're going to drop if and only if he does carry out an attack.
Not to nitpick, but I don't see why it is necessary to wait. If I have a reasonable belief that some jackass bully is considering attacking me, then it seems perfectly reasonable to attack first.
Meh. Its only on the militant fringes, and only in contemporary examples that one finds any meaningful distinction between Christianity, Islam or Judaism. If I had to bet, I would bet that this is true for the rest of the world's "great" religions, however I don't know much about them.
Reason won't be any safer if Christianity "wins".
Sorry but comparing our society to the Taliban's in this manner is absurd.
In each of your examples, it is pretty clear that the individual actions are in violation of our founding principles and that our society as a whole tries to keep evil in check. Cops go to jail for civil rights violations, Matt Shephard's killers are in jail today, etc. Where there are humans, some acts of evil should be expected as a given. However the core principles of the U.S. form an outline of a societies attempt to be virtuous . For the Taliban evil is a central tenet, their stated policy.
Your sort of moral relativism is as bad as the worst blind nationalism.
Debates can absolutely change/define the truth.
Morality, ethics, social good (and by an extension issues of copyrights) aren't universal absolutes. They are values and systems of rules that we as a society agree upon. The act of debating such ideas is a means by which we arrive at consensus and define the rules by which society is governed. Thus the truth of copyright law can very much be altered by debate.
The cloud space is certainly buzz heavy, however it does represent some major new concepts.
The ability to provision/consume infrastructure on-demand via an API is pretty new. Certainly there was never a comprehensive set of services like S3/EC2/ELB/EBS/SMS exposed under a simple common API until amazon web services. This does radically alter the way small/medium business can develop applications and provision resources.