Without making any other comment, I just want to mention that the concept of communists talking all the time about the "greater good" is an invention, a tiny myth propagated by anti-communists and the ignorant. You're obviously the first, and you make yourself sound like the later.
I think Slashdotters may be a bit too eager to see everything technology-related the Chinese government does as a bad thing. What's scary about this? It's not like they will be forcing people to enter these clinics. They're providing a service that will be valuable or even life-saving (so to speak) for some. Hint: thats a GOOD thing.
Reminds me of old anti-Soviet propaganda where the country was criticized for attacking the institution of marriage and the family (in favor of loyalty to the state, or so the propaganda went) by providing free child care.
But thats all missing the point. The point is that you confuse economic value with human value. How does having a skill that is more economically valuable make that human deserve a better life?
Ah, you really cut right to it, don't you? I commend you for your clear-sightedness. You demonstrate exactly whats wrong with capitalist society, and every other form of class society. Somehow, the notion that some people are better than other people must prevail for a class system to work. It's not exactly nice to say but you, sir, are doing a service to all who listen.
Some people intrinsicly deserve more than others, because they are better or have a more useful or rare skill. Your clearness of thought ends at one point, though. WHY does that person deserve a better life?
Using material newly obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Fred Jerome weaves information from Albert Einstein's almost two-thousand-page FBI file with the history of the period to create a spy-story-like narrative that also explores Einstein's political dimension.
From the moment Albert Einstein arrived in the United States in 1933, the year of the Nazis' ascent to power in Germany, until his death in 1955, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, assisted by several other federal agencies, began feverishly collecting "derogatory information" in an effort to undermine the renowned physicist's influence and destroy his reputation. For the first time, Fred Jerome tells the in depth of that anti-Einstein campaign, explains why and how the campaign originated, and provides the first detailed picture of Einstein's little-known political activism.
Unlike the popular image of Einstein as an absentminded, head-in-the-clouds genius, he was in fact intensely interested in the larger society and felt it was his duty to use his worldwide fame to help advance the cause of social justice. Einstein was a fervent pacifist, socialist, internationalist, and an outspoken critic of racism (he considered racism America's "worst disease"), as well as a friend of celebrated African Americans Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois. Einstein dared to use his immense prestige to denounce Joseph McCarthy at the height of the feared senator's power, and publicly urged witnesses to refuse to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
The story that emerges not only reveals a little-known aspect of Einstein's considerable social and humanitarian concerns, but underscores the dangers that can arise to the American republic and the rule of law in times of obsession with national security.
Jesus, man. Read the fucking post. Four of those quotes said that Japan was ready to surrender. When we ignored them, Japan was talking to the Russians asking them to get the message to us that they wanted to surrender.
Further, our loss in Vietnam had nothing to do with fighting it "half assed." It was due to the fact that you simply can't occupy a country in which which the people are against you and they have nothing to lose and a long history of colonialism they'll sacrifice anything to shake off. It's similar to why we'll never win in Iraq, no matter how many insurgents we kill. Even if we used the atomic bomb it's impossible to win in either case.
"Personally, while I consume my fair share, I'm still only primarily interested in them from an academic perspective, as resources of human sociability in online space"
I hate that I only got around to replying to late, but I had to respond.
Speaking as a "real communist," I can tell you that you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. I have not seen a Marxist group, a mailing list, an anything where you don't have a sizable number of people who are hardcore free-as-in-speech fans.
In the last number of years, Linux has been a favorite topic among communists. The Free software movement is very interesting in it's dialectical (read: contradictory) nature as both an example of post-capitalist production, and the commonly petty bourgeois ideology if its ideologs. There are alot of paralells between classical anarchism (that is, socialist anarchism along the lines of Bakunin) and Free software utopianism. One big difference is that many of the Free software utopianists are consciously petty bourgeois (the is, pro-capitalist but anti-big business) whereas Bakunin angrily denied it.
Forgive me for trolling and not adding anything to the conversation, but I think I love you. That's about the most intelligent thing I've ever read on Slashdot, especially when compared to the usual sentiments on the matter.
Personally, I think the problem is the 80s attitude somewhat dominant among geeks still.
Like all these other people said, it's probably just about the spying done on him while he was alive, but I distinctly remember hearing somewhere that one of John Lennon's sons, Shaun, is convinced some branch of the government was responsible for his death.
You want to be a part of the programming team of the engine, developing and improving it? I am very sorry, it sounds a little bit egoistic, but until version 1.0 of the Engine I have not planned to involve more developers in the project than one, me. This is because I think the engine will be modified a lot until this version. I have a some experience working in development teams with projects wich change their specification during development, and hence, to be able to be very flexible and to minimize bugs in the engine, I do not want to let anybody else make changes to the internal engine until version 1.0.
But here is what you could do:
* Implement additions to the engine. You could write new scene nodes as described in the tutorials. For example a terrain scene node would be cool. If your scene node is useful has a clean implementation and is well documentated, just send it to me, and I will make it available on this page, if you want. Other possible extension would be more mesh and texture file format loaders.
* Use the engine, find bugs, and report them or make a solution proposal.
* If you have ideas how to improve the design/interface of the engine, post them into the forum or send them to me, per email.
* If you want a new feature implemented, post your request into the forum so we can discuss it.
"And your problem is that you're missing your own use of the word "obvious." It's a sign of bias, a belief that the outcome has already been determined."
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by my "missing my own use of the term "obvious," but I don't think we disagree too much. Yes, atheism is a _belief_ that there aren't any gods. Yes, to an atheist, that belief is self-explanitory. I can't imagine how anybody could do it, but if one could come up with a logical argument for the existance of dieties, they probably wouldn't call themselves an atheist. None of this is contrary to what I was saying.
And, to clarify myself, my belief is very different from agnosticism. An agnostic is one who thinks that there may realistically be a god. An atheist is one who says there obviously isn't, but would be happy to be proven wrong.
I don't think he's trying to reform atheism and I think his definition is very apt.
Atheism isn't so much a rejection of god(s) as it is a rejection of/religion/. I'm fond of saying that I reject religion on principal, but it God popped up and shook my hand, I'd obviously have to believe that God is real. However, I'd STILL consider myself an atheist, beccause I'd still reject all religion. My belief in god would be materialist.
Define this "threat" from north Korea. Have they EVER done anything but try to defend themselves (from the US)? No. Is there any more reason to believe horror stories of north Korea selling chemical weapons to "terrorists" than to have believed the WMD stories of Iraq? Certainly not. And how the hell did it become a given fact that the country's leader is a "psychopath," etc.? What is the basis for all this anti-north sentiment? Why is it bought up so readily?
"Haven't you people heard of the Non-proliferation Treaty?"
Oh, lots of people have HEARD of it. Tell me, when is the "pre-emptive" military invasion and regime change to rid of weapons that gross-violating-of-the -treaty terrorist state, the United States of America?
It seems almost absurd that this ever needs to be pointed out, but WHICH country is the only one to use nuclear weapons, and on non-military civilian target in the full knowledge that the enemy was trying to surrender? I don't quite remember who it was, but it seems that they should be the FIRST nation in the world to be disarmed.
Am I the only single person on Slashdot who would be happy to hear that north Korea demonstrated a nuclear weapon? It could be a turning point in the ongoing "cold" Korean War. It might make the US finally give up invading the sovereign half of Korea.
I mean... all you that hate socialist Korea so much... Have you ever asked yourselves WHY you fear a nuclear-defended north? What reason have they ever given us to fear them? Unless you're naive enough to buy the line that they sell weapons to "terrorists," I say your opposition is baseless.
As I said in a post above, that is NOT what Marx wrote. Only later did Lenin make the clear distinction between "communist society" and "socialist society." Marx used the terms much more vaguely. To use the modern terms that you just described, Marx generally spoke as if communism was the ultimate goal, and what we know call "socialism" was just an incomplete form of the transition to communism.
I'm really tired of people trying to correct others on Marx when they don't know Marx themselves. Here's a rule of thumb: anything you learned about Communism from anyone other than the Communists themselves has a 60% chance of being wrong.
You're partly right. Marx and Engels used the word "Communism" as interchangable with "socialism." The distinction, even in the 19th century, was rather confused. Only Communists knew that the ultimate goal was communism, while sharing a principal agreement on the medium-term goals with other socialists.
It really wasn't until Lenin layed out the first real-world "blueprint" for a socialist society that the difference between a "socialist society" and a "communist society" became more clearly defined as they are today. Incidentally, Lenin was also the one responsible with renaming the Marxists as "Communists" again, by creating the first Communist Party (which the Bolsheviks eventually named themselves). This ironically might have something to do with the modern-day confusion about the terms in common speach in the West, using such incorrect terms as "Communist countries" to describe the USSR, Cuba, etc..
Slashdot Mirror
Without making any other comment, I just want to mention that the concept of communists talking all the time about the "greater good" is an invention, a tiny myth propagated by anti-communists and the ignorant. You're obviously the first, and you make yourself sound like the later.
"And most love the tabbed interface for multiple conversations in one window."
i find it very funny to read that, since I've asked myself many times "why is this feature on by default? who the holy hell would want it?" weird.
I think Slashdotters may be a bit too eager to see everything technology-related the Chinese government does as a bad thing. What's scary about this? It's not like they will be forcing people to enter these clinics. They're providing a service that will be valuable or even life-saving (so to speak) for some. Hint: thats a GOOD thing.
Reminds me of old anti-Soviet propaganda where the country was criticized for attacking the institution of marriage and the family (in favor of loyalty to the state, or so the propaganda went) by providing free child care.
But thats all missing the point. The point is that you confuse economic value with human value. How does having a skill that is more economically valuable make that human deserve a better life?
Ah, you really cut right to it, don't you? I commend you for your clear-sightedness. You demonstrate exactly whats wrong with capitalist society, and every other form of class society. Somehow, the notion that some people are better than other people must prevail for a class system to work. It's not exactly nice to say but you, sir, are doing a service to all who listen.
Some people intrinsicly deserve more than others, because they are better or have a more useful or rare skill. Your clearness of thought ends at one point, though. WHY does that person deserve a better life?
Allow me to quote the summary from a relevant book, on Einstein's large FBI file:n line-store/scstore/p-bsmp2002ef.html?E+scstore
http://www.leftbooks.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/o
Using material newly obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Fred Jerome weaves information from Albert Einstein's almost two-thousand-page FBI file with the history of the period to create a spy-story-like narrative that also explores Einstein's political dimension.
From the moment Albert Einstein arrived in the United States in 1933, the year of the Nazis' ascent to power in Germany, until his death in 1955, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, assisted by several other federal agencies, began feverishly collecting "derogatory information" in an effort to undermine the renowned physicist's influence and destroy his reputation. For the first time, Fred Jerome tells the in depth of that anti-Einstein campaign, explains why and how the campaign originated, and provides the first detailed picture of Einstein's little-known political activism.
Unlike the popular image of Einstein as an absentminded, head-in-the-clouds genius, he was in fact intensely interested in the larger society and felt it was his duty to use his worldwide fame to help advance the cause of social justice. Einstein was a fervent pacifist, socialist, internationalist, and an outspoken critic of racism (he considered racism America's "worst disease"), as well as a friend of celebrated African Americans Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois. Einstein dared to use his immense prestige to denounce Joseph McCarthy at the height of the feared senator's power, and publicly urged witnesses to refuse to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
The story that emerges not only reveals a little-known aspect of Einstein's considerable social and humanitarian concerns, but underscores the dangers that can arise to the American republic and the rule of law in times of obsession with national security.
Jesus, man. Read the fucking post. Four of those quotes said that Japan was ready to surrender. When we ignored them, Japan was talking to the Russians asking them to get the message to us that they wanted to surrender.
Further, our loss in Vietnam had nothing to do with fighting it "half assed." It was due to the fact that you simply can't occupy a country in which which the people are against you and they have nothing to lose and a long history of colonialism they'll sacrifice anything to shake off. It's similar to why we'll never win in Iraq, no matter how many insurgents we kill. Even if we used the atomic bomb it's impossible to win in either case.
"Personally, while I consume my fair share, I'm still only primarily interested in them from an academic perspective, as resources of human sociability in online space"
Uh... Yea. Me too.
-Baxtor the Almighty
I hate that I only got around to replying to late, but I had to respond.
Speaking as a "real communist," I can tell you that you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. I have not seen a Marxist group, a mailing list, an anything where you don't have a sizable number of people who are hardcore free-as-in-speech fans.
In the last number of years, Linux has been a favorite topic among communists. The Free software movement is very interesting in it's dialectical (read: contradictory) nature as both an example of post-capitalist production, and the commonly petty bourgeois ideology if its ideologs. There are alot of paralells between classical anarchism (that is, socialist anarchism along the lines of Bakunin) and Free software utopianism. One big difference is that many of the Free software utopianists are consciously petty bourgeois (the is, pro-capitalist but anti-big business) whereas Bakunin angrily denied it.
Also, have a look here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxism-penguinism/
Forgive me for trolling and not adding anything to the conversation, but I think I love you. That's about the most intelligent thing I've ever read on Slashdot, especially when compared to the usual sentiments on the matter.
Personally, I think the problem is the 80s attitude somewhat dominant among geeks still.
Dyslexic /typing/... that's something I haven't seen before.
This is great news for me, since I've seriously been typing in "maps.google.com" in the address bar for years.
Like all these other people said, it's probably just about the spying done on him while he was alive, but I distinctly remember hearing somewhere that one of John Lennon's sons, Shaun, is convinced some branch of the government was responsible for his death.
Do you commonly make statements bigging with "are" or was that a question? ;)
Not knowing where the good new music is is one of the best signs that you're growing old. I'm so sorry.
From the FAQ:
Can I help you with the engine?
You want to be a part of the programming team of the engine, developing and improving it? I am very sorry, it sounds a little bit egoistic, but until version 1.0 of the Engine I have not planned to involve more developers in the project than one, me. This is because I think the engine will be modified a lot until this version. I have a some experience working in development teams with projects wich change their specification during development, and hence, to be able to be very flexible and to minimize bugs in the engine, I do not want to let anybody else make changes to the internal engine until version 1.0.
But here is what you could do:
* Implement additions to the engine. You could write new scene nodes as described in the tutorials. For example a terrain scene node would be cool. If your scene node is useful has a clean implementation and is well documentated, just send it to me, and I will make it available on this page, if you want. Other possible extension would be more mesh and texture file format loaders.
* Use the engine, find bugs, and report them or make a solution proposal.
* If you have ideas how to improve the design/interface of the engine, post them into the forum or send them to me, per email.
* If you want a new feature implemented, post your request into the forum so we can discuss it.
"And your problem is that you're missing your own use of the word "obvious." It's a sign of bias, a belief that the outcome has already been determined."
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by my "missing my own use of the term "obvious," but I don't think we disagree too much. Yes, atheism is a _belief_ that there aren't any gods. Yes, to an atheist, that belief is self-explanitory. I can't imagine how anybody could do it, but if one could come up with a logical argument for the existance of dieties, they probably wouldn't call themselves an atheist. None of this is contrary to what I was saying.
And, to clarify myself, my belief is very different from agnosticism. An agnostic is one who thinks that there may realistically be a god. An atheist is one who says there obviously isn't, but would be happy to be proven wrong.
"Quit trying to reform atheism."
/religion/. I'm fond of saying that I reject religion on principal, but it God popped up and shook my hand, I'd obviously have to believe that God is real. However, I'd STILL consider myself an atheist, beccause I'd still reject all religion. My belief in god would be materialist.
I don't think he's trying to reform atheism and I think his definition is very apt.
Atheism isn't so much a rejection of god(s) as it is a rejection of
"one a real threat, one a fake threat"
Define this "threat" from north Korea. Have they EVER done anything but try to defend themselves (from the US)? No. Is there any more reason to believe horror stories of north Korea selling chemical weapons to "terrorists" than to have believed the WMD stories of Iraq? Certainly not. And how the hell did it become a given fact that the country's leader is a "psychopath," etc.? What is the basis for all this anti-north sentiment? Why is it bought up so readily?
"Haven't you people heard of the Non-proliferation Treaty?"
Oh, lots of people have HEARD of it. Tell me, when is the "pre-emptive" military invasion and regime change to rid of weapons that gross-violating-of-the -treaty terrorist state, the United States of America?
It seems almost absurd that this ever needs to be pointed out, but WHICH country is the only one to use nuclear weapons, and on non-military civilian target in the full knowledge that the enemy was trying to surrender? I don't quite remember who it was, but it seems that they should be the FIRST nation in the world to be disarmed.
Am I the only single person on Slashdot who would be happy to hear that north Korea demonstrated a nuclear weapon? It could be a turning point in the ongoing "cold" Korean War. It might make the US finally give up invading the sovereign half of Korea.
I mean... all you that hate socialist Korea so much... Have you ever asked yourselves WHY you fear a nuclear-defended north? What reason have they ever given us to fear them? Unless you're naive enough to buy the line that they sell weapons to "terrorists," I say your opposition is baseless.
As I said in a post above, that is NOT what Marx wrote. Only later did Lenin make the clear distinction between "communist society" and "socialist society." Marx used the terms much more vaguely. To use the modern terms that you just described, Marx generally spoke as if communism was the ultimate goal, and what we know call "socialism" was just an incomplete form of the transition to communism.
I'm really tired of people trying to correct others on Marx when they don't know Marx themselves. Here's a rule of thumb: anything you learned about Communism from anyone other than the Communists themselves has a 60% chance of being wrong.
You're partly right. Marx and Engels used the word "Communism" as interchangable with "socialism." The distinction, even in the 19th century, was rather confused. Only Communists knew that the ultimate goal was communism, while sharing a principal agreement on the medium-term goals with other socialists.
It really wasn't until Lenin layed out the first real-world "blueprint" for a socialist society that the difference between a "socialist society" and a "communist society" became more clearly defined as they are today. Incidentally, Lenin was also the one responsible with renaming the Marxists as "Communists" again, by creating the first Communist Party (which the Bolsheviks eventually named themselves). This ironically might have something to do with the modern-day confusion about the terms in common speach in the West, using such incorrect terms as "Communist countries" to describe the USSR, Cuba, etc..
they're protesting against the war at a convention where the delegates are over 90% anti-war.
.....I am in a state of total shock. I don't know how to possibly respond to that. *Shakes head*