Plus, the government is in bed with the tinfoil manufacturers. Who actually believes they'd give people the power to protect themselves? Hah!
They laser-drill microscopic holes in the foil, just enough to let through the ultra-high frequency waves they use for mind-control.
The way to protect yourself is to buy tinfoil from two or more companies (despite their bets efforts, they can't seem to produce the exact same pattern of holes) and Put every second layer at about a 15 degree offset to the one below it. This minimizes the chance that two holes overlap and let in the radiation. Use enough layers and the chance is near enough to zero.
Also, if possible, move to a colder climate. Unfortunately there's less moisture in the air which helps the efficiency of the mind-control beams, but you won't look conspicuous wearing a large cap with ear muffs. This is essential because a tinfoil cap that doesn't cover your temples and the back of your neck isn't effective.
The first time I saw this in XP I thought it would be sweet. But it ended up crashing the explorer and then it restarted application bar and lost all my system tray icons.
XP has been fairly stable, but that wasn't very impressive.
I'd rather they just shipped a freeware ZIP application then build something buggy into the OS.
Depends what they're doing, and what the expected failure modes are. If you've already got a cluster of webservers, it might make perfect sense to throw a 2.6 machine into the pool. If it fails it'll only be one hit in every so many, and it's easy to pull out once this happens. Perhaps you could do something like run your ad server on a new machine. Even if it fails, customers don't think the site is down.
And from this, and from running tests on it, you know if 2.6 is going to offer you anything.
There are many applications where a production machine could go down and not cause more than a few seconds of service outage. No lost data, no long downtimes, etc. As long as you understand that this is a test and prepare an immediate failover machine.
I agree. The point of copyright is mainly to encourage the production of commercial works, to enrich the public domain. It was never intended to force a work to remain out of print.
We need to change copyright law so that it doesn't prevent saving of lost works, and so that it can't be used to force a work to moulder away because it's in someone's best interest that it not be for sale. (For instance, old movies that studios don't want cutting into new movie revenue.)
I'd like to see a short total-rights-reserved copyright, ten years or so maybe, and a longer commercial-rights copyright. I really see little reason why Warner Brothers, for instance, should be able to use Mickey Mouse in their cartoons, but fanfic, kids pictures, and other such uses should be allowed. It's part of our culture and to deny us the right to participate is rude, and short-sighted.
Few of today's creators grew up isolated and started creating original works immediately. Instead, they built on the culture they saw around them as they grew up. Children today won't have this ability. We're raising the bar, requiring them to create something that's safe from even an over-zealous lawyer and look-and-feel cases, as their first works.
Tolkein would never have gotten started in our current legal climate. He intentionally built on previous stories and myths, something that wouldn't be legal to do now. Hell, for a while, TSR was trying to sue people who used their monster names in fantasy works, even where their names were derived from Tolkein.
Copyright law does allow quite a bit of leeway in moving data from one media to another. If the owner of the document makes and sends a copy to you (their webserver) and you choose to print it instead of displaying it on the monitor, it seems like it's your choice.
Why should we have to? It's as if companies had parked huge speaker trucks on the road outside our homes and were blasting lewd and deceptive ("This is your mother, let me in! ", "This is the police, we're evacuating the area, please listen... haha, penis spam!") ads around the clock.
But then some helpful guy on Slashdot says that by buying the right kind of insulating foam and covering your house with it (the inside - if it's on the outside the spammers will tear it off while you sleep) you can avoid most of the noise. Of course, not all of it, and you'll miss some legitimate visitors and noises, but that's okay...
Fuck that mentality. They're the problem, the solution involves getting rid of them. I'm not going to go shoot them, but if there was a paypal account to buy ammo for a sniper who did, I might contribute anonymously.
For personal email, having your own domain with spam traps, and having a bunch of filters (the ISP runs a filter, plus is on a blackhole list, and we run SA locally), it's mostly fine. However, try running a business this way with ads in the yellow pages, etc. You get random people emailing you, there's no way to whitelist them, they won't jump through reply-to-be-verified hoops, and they don't send consistent subject lines. Hell, many of them make typos, which triggers spam filters these days.
So you need an unfiltered address and you need to open about 10% of the spam, the stuff that has deceptive subjects "Re: Your Mail", "Invoice", etc.
To continue the analogy from above, it's like having a public business where you needed unbaffled windows to let people know you were in business, but that meant you had to sit through painfully loud advertisements all day in order to handle the customers who came by. But, of course, less customers would come by because of the noise.
The people who prey on others like this are scum. They know that nobody wants their email, they even know that everyone is trying to avoid it, but instead of stopping they start lying, hacking mail servers, trojaning PCs, etc. Exactly why can't we kill these people? What slight bit of good are these people doing for society? And even if you could find some, does it outweigh the pain they intentionally put people through all the time?
The only mistake the guy in this article made was threatening them instead of demonstrating his intentions a bit more... forcefully.
Though you go to elaborate lengths to avoid it, this entire statement of yours is from start to finish a statement of faith. I'm not sure why you wish so much to avoid just admitting it, but it's really not a bad thing.
In the first place, you have faith in your eyes (that they function properly) and other faculties, that they are reliable. In the second place, you have faith in your ability to determine whether something can be faked. In the third place, you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.
But it's not. There's a difference that I'm trying to describe.
I don't know the sun will rise, but I have to better guess, and I'm powerless to control it, so I might as well act as if it will.
To me, faith in the sun rising would be the belief that it *would* rise. Instead, I realize that there are things which could keep this from happening, however unlikely, and that I'll never *know* what will happen. Like I'll never *know* with absolute certainty that I'm not a brain in a jar being fed simulated inputs.
You *know* there's a god. I don't *know* there isn't, but it seems so unplausible that I'm going to act as if there isn't.
Please describe for me a way that a man living in the first century, with no available technology, is able to suddenly appear in the middle of a closed room - twice, and how he is able to to ascend into the sky, and how he is able to arrange for angels to immediately appear and talk to his followers.
Describe how Uri Geller, with no technology beyond that of Jesus, is able to bend a spoon by lightly rubbing his fingers on it. (Hint: He cheats.)
Describe the closed room. Was the door locked? Was it brightly lit (doubtful)? was it large? Was it empty, or full of furniture?
Describe the ascension. Did he rocket upwards on a pillar of fire, or slowly float up? Did he vanish slowly into a haze of smoke?
I ask because these are all things that influence how these miracles could be performed by a stage magician. I don't know that this is what happened, but I know a friend who can pull oranges out of people's ears, who can "throw" his voice, and other tricks. No gadgets needed.
Furthermore, I can say similar things: when a man believes that God doesn't exist, it makes it easier to fool him.
Well, I'll give you that one. Whenever someone expects a certain result they're more likely to find it, god or not-god.
Why not my religion?;-) But seriously: I'll give you the same kind of answer that you gave me when I challenged you for making reason the ultimate authority: what else is there? Blind faith in reason?
Why not your religion? Because there are hundreds, including divisions in the major ones, and to me they all seem about as likely.
And I think you misintepret my use of reason. I think that there's nothing that can't be logically and scientifically examined. It could be that we don't have the tools to tell anything (and may never), but you can still devise tests and perform them. I've never seen a single flaw in the method.
Do I have a blind faith? Well, I'd say that a blind faith in reason would be saying that reason could be me the answers to everything. I think some things don't have useful answers (The meaning of life, can god create a rock so big he can't lift it, etc), and I think that some thing are unknowable, like how the universe was created.
But, I don't think there are any problems with the idea of reasoning everything out. You yourself said that you think the bible withstands intense scrutiny, if you read the original, etc, etc. Does this not imply that reason could be used to pick a god?
And I don't think that belief in god helps here though. Where did god come from? If he always existed, why couldn't the universe just always have existed?
My point is that you can control your actions even while thinking something. Thoughts don't always lead to actions, and if the thoughts aren't harmful, there's no reason not to think them.
You're in the minority thinking that lustful thoughts ("Wow, she's hot!") are damaging and need to be avoided. Most people are perfectly happy with their partner thinking these things even.
If you couldn't control your actions, as some people can't, then you'd need to work on controlling your thoughts to avoid those situations. Like your controlling your anger example.
This will solve itself. You still see the odd windows app, even written today, where they do their own interface. Things like Virus Scanners seem to the the worst these days. Eventually standard looking applications win out as people find that the two function identically except that one is easy to use and the other is like a lame flash site.
And this is precisely why the previous sentence of yours is nonsense. As I said earlier in this thread (possibly not to you): unless you personally verify literally every statement made by anyone prior to accepting it, you are acting on faith: you are trusting that a given source is reputable and reliable, and that as a consequence you do not feel obligated to verify literally everything that they say.
To be sure of something, sure I have to see it myself and believe it can't be faked. But while I don't know the sun will rise (pardon the inaccurate stating) tomorrow, I act as if it will because it fits the evidence from the rest of my life, specifically that the sun "rises" every morning. I know I could be living in a very elaborate Truman Show, but there's no reason to believe I am, it's not the simplest solution.
You believe that in the 1770s a bunch of guys got together in Philadelphia and signed the Declaration of Independence. Why do you believe in something that you can't see?;-)
This is out of order, but it's the same topic.
I believe there is a declaration of independence, unless my whole world has been faked, because I've seen much proof of it. But I don't know it's "real". I've seen examples of how believable records of history can be faked. I think it's likely that it's real because I don't see a reason to fake it. Fake certain details, name a few more signers who weren't really there to give it weight back then, but outright faked? Too much work.
Conspiracies, especially ones like that, would require huge ammount of effort, between hundreds of people who would all have to perfectly keep a secret? That's not an easier answer.
It's false because a) it doesn't address the facts that [...]
And people swear that they see Uri Geller bend spoons. When people want to belive they make it easier to fool them. Fooling a few people who are expecting a miracle is easier than if Jesus rose to life from the cross, and if there were independent records of his miracles.
I've seen proof of psychics predicting a bunch of things and claiming victory for one or two, while brushing the rest under the carpet. Even people who I think believe they have a gift just don't understand coincidences.
Frankly, the vast bulk of human history is on my side (at least with respect to marriage); you as the innovator (and as the one who hasn't explained himself - yet) seem to me to be the one who owes the rest of us a justification of his views.
And the world is becoming more secular, especially the modern countries. People are becoming open to things which were forbidden before. Seems like the whole modern world is innovating this.
] I basically believe people should treat other people well (compassion) and fairly. Why?
Because nobody has offered anything better. I'm happier when I act this was and people aroung me are happier.
Why should I choose your arbitrary rules instead of my arbitrary, though successful, rules?
And even if I want religion, why don't I go pick up a Koran and go with it? Why is your bible and your religion the right one?
This is pretty much the question right here. Why religion, and why yours? Other people find other incompatible holy books provide them with the answers. I find none of them that provide answers do so properly. What was it that convinced you that you needed religion and that this specific one was the right one?
No, I'm not. I'm saying that in a world where the Bible is useless such as you suppose we live in, why should I believe that anyone has anything worthwhile to say at all?
Act as if people have nothing worthwhile to say, they'll give you a reason to change, unless you wish to live alone.
We either interpret it correctly, or incorrectly. In the past, one evolutionist whacko found a tooth and invented a hominid from which it supposedly came, hailing it as the latest "evidence
If you want to buy something, a house for instance to save for the future, and you can't because of finances so you put it on hold for a few years, do you not want the house during that time, or do you want the house but not buy it because of self control?
If you diet, you control your eating, but it doesn't mean you don't want food, it means you don't eat.
In fact, doing something to yourself so you didn't want food would be dangerous because a diet, by definition, is eating less than you need, so that you burn fat. If you didn't feel hungry, you'd be starving and not know it.
Do you ever exercise patience? If so, then you have...controlled yourself (gasp!)
If you patiently wait, despite wanting something, you still want it, you just don't act on those desires.
you (and everyone) are evil by nature. People aren't generally good. People are generally evil. They need to stop being evil
Wow, you are so depressed. Go to a shrink and work on those feelings of guilt and inadequacy.
It means that when there are things that you don't understand, it's not a crisis. It means that when there are things that no human being can ever understand, it's not a crisis. Because God understands it, and you can rely upon the facts that he presents even when you don't understand them.
It's not a crisis now when I don't understand something. As I said earlier, I'm fine with the idea that I may not know something. I don't have to invent an answer (god) to feel happy.
You said that you expected the entire thing to be "word for word".
Obviously, in context. I'd want the facts presented in the bible to be accurate, and the poetry to be allegorical, not the other way around.
No: eyes-open faith in the Bible. Like I've said: acknowledging the authority of the Bible doesn't mean that you shut off your brain. It means admitting the fact that there are limits upon yourself and upon all men: that there are things that are true about creation that we will never understand, but which we know nevertheless to be true.
There's no such thing as "eyes-open" faith. It might sound nice, but if you accept what someone tells you, without making some attempt to verify it, it's faith. If you accept ultimate answers from someone who can't know ultimate answers, it's faith. You're accepting "god exists" from people who can't know that.
Ah. I'm sorry I misunderstood you. But I'm afraid that this doesn't really help matters. Not only did they witness him claim to be the Son of God - but they witnessed him perform miracles. They witnessed the fact that he was dead - a fact confirmed by the Romans. They witnessed the fact that he rose from the dead. I think that this is more than sufficient corroborating evidence to support the claim.
There are examples from Victorian England where people were thought to be dead and even burried, because their heartbeats were too weak to be felt.
That's a much simpler explanation and it would make sense to only advance to the "it must be a miracle" explanations when you knew it wasn't something simpler.
I'm incredulous. I'm going to be pedantic here so I can make certain you really mean what you seem to be saying. Do you mean to say (contrary to what I have affirmed) that it is not even reasonable to consider the possibility that breaking one's marital vows is an immoral act? That a man or woman can take a solemn oath of fidelity to another person, and then disregard that oath entirely as though it never existed? Or are you saying that the whole idea of marriage is not "viable"?
The latter, more. Why is "in wedlock" special. Why is lust good at one time and not at another? Why is my wedlock wrong and your wedlock right?
Ditto with theft. Why is theft by some people allowed, and theft by me not? If theft is bad, nobody should do it.
I basically believe people should treat other people well (compassion) and fairly. If you tell your female partner you'll only sleep with her I think you should follow that, but not because of special rules about what makes a wife, or rules on how to treat them specifically.
My rules are open for interpretation. What is fair in some case, and how do you treat someone well when they are at odds with you, but these are the same questions that lead to us defining some theft as tax, and some killing as murder, while the other is self-defense. I just recognize the potential for this and don't try to make the rules specific.
As such though, I reject any set of specific rules, especially a small number that doesn't try to allow for contingencies.
] ] Why should we listen to you? Why should we listen to them? ] Because I have something to say. Because they have something to say. That doesn't follow at all. All that tells me is that you want to be heard; it doesn't explain why I should bother to listen.
But it does. How do you know the worth of what they have to say until you listen? If they
Rather, I said that for the rationalist, etc (and presumably you), reason is the highest authority.
Well duh. What else is reasonable? (There's that word again.)
If I just accept what I'm told, how do I choose what is right? Which religion do I accept? Christians tell me their religion is the right one, muslims say theirs is.
I mean, why does it have to be "word-for-word"? For starters, the Bible is not scientific literature. It consists of other forms of literature: poetry, and letters, and law, and history, and so forth. Wouldn't you agree that it's pretty silly to suggest that we apply the rigors of "word-for-word" interpretation to a poem?
Surely the whole bible isn't poetry and allegory. Surely when Jesus walked on water it's supposed to mean that he walked, on water, and didn't sink. Is that too much to expect? Can't I expect part of an account of the acts of the son of god to include any literal passages?
You said this to defend your unwillingness to pursue further advanced research into the Bible. It appears to me, however, that because of your false preconceived notions about the nature of divine revelation and the Bible, your "simple test" in this case is giving you faulty results. Perhaps you should reconsider;-)
You haven't shown me that my tests are flawed, you just make vague statements about how reason isn't appropriate for judging it. To me it doesn't sound like *I* am the one who is wrong.
They tell you, in other words, to make reason the measure of all things.
And what else would you suggest? Blind faith in the bible. But that keeps coming back to "Which bible?!?". Even if I found blind faith to be acceptable, I wouldn't have any reason to pick your particular brand of blind faith.
So they can be eyewitnesses (first-hand) to deeds, but not eyewitnesses (first-hand) to words?
My point is that the apostles didn't witness Jesus being the son of god, they witnessed him *claim* to be the son of god. They aren't eyewitnesses, they're second-hand story tellers.
Sure, if they saw him do something and they wrote it down, then they are eye witnesses, but they can't witness the validity of his claims.
Perhaps I was unclear. Let me rephrase. I do not ask whether you accept it yourself. I ask whether or not you agree that it is a valid option in the spectrum of ideas. Even if you don't, most people surely do: ask those who have been the victims of adultery.
No, I don't recognize it as a valid option. It presupposes too much.
Does the bible recognize the option of having two wives? If not, it doesn't properly cope with the situation where sex outside of it's narrow definition of marriage is prefectly acceptable to all parties involved. I'd have to accept biblical marriage as the best or only choice before I'd accept rules telling me how to behave in that context.
And this is my point. The bible isn't relevant anymore. I can live a perfectly happy life "married" in a secular sense, so I don't need its rules. I only need the bibles rules if I was to believe that they are the only thing keeping me out of hell. But, I don't believe in hell, so it's moot.
The bible doesn't have any purpose anymore. People can avoid pork because of disease, without being scared by the boogeyman of impure food. Kosher is now replaced by health guidelines, without the religion. It's now available for reasonable (there again) examination. No longer do I have to simply accept what authority tells me. Unless hell is trichinosis larvae, we've discovered the real reason behind that prohibition.
Normally by secular I suppose I mean "atheistic" as in "presupposing that there is no God".
So what would you call my dinner tonight, where I didn't pray over the food? Is that secular, because I must go out of my way to suppose there is no god, or is it simply not religious?
Anyways, as I use it, secular means not encumbered b
The rationalist or empiricist or atheist assumes from the outset that man is the measure of all things. This assumption is never questioned or challenged by them: its authority is simply assumed. Human reason is the highest authority for them, and its authority is supreme to them. I (and all consistent Christians) dispute that. The highest authority is not human reason. It is the Bible.
How do you get from the idea that man is not the perfect end product of the universe, to the idea that the bible must be?
You are presuming something here about my beliefs. I do not believe I, or man, are the ultimate being. I have no need for an answer so I don't fabricate one in absence of proof. It's like the source of the universe. I don't know, but I'm not going to latch onto any old idea just to feel secure.
Wait a minute. You don't consider yourself a Christian, but you're going to tell me what my standards should be?
If you expect the book to provide firm answers to important questions and be above reproach, then yes, I expect that the book should be interpreted word-for-word (the original if not mistaken translations). If you're reading a book of loose suggestions by someone widely held to be wise, but not divine, this restriction of course wouldn't apply because you're not being asked to accept something without question.
Sounds like an a priori that's quite out of keeping with the scientific method;-)
Not at all. If someone tells me a theory and I prove it is at odds with the facts in a simple test I don't need to go to greater lengths to prove that the theory is incorrect.
For instance, if you state that there are no even prime numbers, I only need point out that 2 is both even and prime, I do not need to examine all prime numbers to judge your statement as incorrect.
You're asking (suggesting, whatever) that I believe in the divinity of the christian god, based on a book produced by those with a vested interest in one answer. For many simple reasons, such as extrordinary claims requiring extrordinary proof, I decide that there isn't enough evidence in favour of this premise to warrant treating it as provisionally true.
It's as if you state that you, with power of mind alone, could fly. I'm not going to believe you because it goes against everything I've ever witnessed, and all stories by reliable witnesses, etc. I don't have to prove that you can't fly, I just ignore you until you present proof of your flights, at which time I weigh the evidence.
What evidence is there for your god, other than a book written by a guy claiming to be your god? Why is believing, without proof, a logical thing? Would you believe I have a bridge to sell you?
You don't think that the "secular" school, with an a priori predisposition against the orthodox Christian position, is itself biased? Of course it is. There is no such thing as "objective", particularly when it comes to these sorts of issues.
Yes actually. I've never had a teacher tell me that there isn't a god. It's not necessary. They don't tell me that dogs don't fly, or anything else painfully obvious. They tell me to question what I'm told, even by them. They tell me to examine evidence and test what I can. They tell me to be wary of untestable claims. I've never gone to athiest school.
I'm using secular to mean not religious. As in, this can of Pepsi is secular, in that it is not overtly religious. Is this not the way you'd use the word "secular"?
I think you mistake "athiesm" for the belief that there isn't a god. It isn't, it's simply the state of not being a theist, or not believing that there is a god. As I have read and examined the word, I have come to the belief that there is no god, but when I started god was on an equal level (and still is) with invisible pink unicorns.
This fact has nothing to do with whether the principles in it are true, of course.
Okay, she didn't actually say "You Aren't", but that doesn't change my point. She doesn't come out and actually say "You are the one!". Her ass is covered if nothing comes of it, and she can still say "I said what you needed to hear" if he does become the one.
I just googled for details. There's a broken windows *theory* which is what you're thinking of, and a fallacy by the same name which is what I was talking about.
And yeah, the theory is that if you let a building look run down, and don't repair the broken windows, people will feel free to break more, etc. If you keep it up, repairing damage, people will be less likely to vandalize it. And yes, the evidence does seem to support this.
The fallacy that I was talking about is "But doesn't it help the economy if I go around breaking windows, because it employs the people who replace them?". The question can also be asked "Are wars good for the economy?" The fallacy here is that new windows don't actually help anyone. You're no better off than before and as such, have to raise your prices to cover your extra costs.
Funny that there are two similarly named things, and that they're so different.
Two reasons. Oracle has never been the default monopoly, installed on every computer. They've had to fight, quality and marketing, for where they are. This probably means they've got a higher quality product than Windows.
Second, everyone needs an OS. IBM needs it to sell computers, Oracle needs it to run their DB, id Software needs it to play their games, Yahoo needs it to run their web services on, etc. Everyone wants an OS that just works, but it's not their business so they'd rather just fix up whatever is holding them back and hand it off to someone else to maintain. There aren't as many fields that need a true enterprise quality DB with those last few features that PostgreSQL doesn't have. Not as many people have a motive to help develop a free super-high-end DB.
Not that Oracle won't fall eventually, as everyone who doesn't really need their product switches to Postgres, but it won't happen as quickly as with the OS.
Ahhh, I'd just finished reading a discussion with a guy who basically believed in the broken windows fallacy. You know, as long as people are being paid, the economy must be efficient.
Your post seemed to be a serious continuation of that instead of a sarcastic comeback.
That's not a circular argument! A circular argument is more like: "The Bible is the Word of God because it says that it's the Word of God." To say "Lust is bad because Jesus says it is" is an argument from authority.
But your authority is only an authority because a book they wrote says so.
An argument from authority is that I say "Stephen Hawking (a recognized authority in physics) says..."
A circular argument is where I say "Quarks are blue, and I'm the expert, which is obvious because only I know that Quarks are blue."
So yes, you were arguing from authority, but your authority has no provable authority outside of their claims. To me the circular was a bigger problem because an authority can be checked. A circular authority, by definition, can't be.
Have you ever studied Hebrew? How about Greek? I have. Trust me on this: it's not mistranslated. I did quote the KJV because that's what I have at hand, but a number of modern translations say essentially the same thing...because the KJV doesn't have the sense of it wrong.
If you're using the bible as a basis for your belief, and not just philosophical musings such as the teachings of Buddha or something, you should expect perfection. Modern church embrace translations such the KJV which says "Unicorn". As in, if you follow the letter of KJV you must accept that there were unicorns.
Further, people with a lot more authority than some nut on Slashdot (either or both of us, depending on your view) have said that the early translators of the bible mistook the Hebrew word for "Young Woman" for "Virgin". In other words, one of the key miracles of christianity was a typo. (And of course, the entire basis of the catholic church - but they're even loopier than most.)
And that this means it certainly was written during Matthew's lifetime
Some parts were, some weren't. Once again, I've read opinions both ways, but the people who seemed most careful and accurate were the ones arguing that the NT is a collection of works, some of which weren't completed for at least a hundred years.
You accuse me of having a very narrow education in this regard, and it's definately true. I'm not going to put in a few years taking university level courses to be able to read original documents of something that I feel doesn't survive even a cursory examination. However, unless you were educated at a secular school in a field that required knowledge of Hebrew and ancient Greek for other reasons, and later applied it on your own to religious studies, you yourself might have been exposed to a very biased interpretation.
Of course I'm extrapolating!
But don't you see how far? Thousands of years since a book was written based on, at best, the second-hand reporting of what someone said in an attempt to explain some rules of behaviour that would help his followers in the present, not lay down a collection of rules that would survive in a useful way into the future.
Furthermore, I absolutely affirm that the Bible has answers for life in 2003. One good example is the subject we're discussing here. So far you have failed to demonstrate that the answer I've given based on the Bible - "Pornography is evil because it is intended to stir up lust in its viewers, and lust is sinful" - is invalid. I think that this answer is entirely relevant today. The fact that you disagree with it, or don't like it, has no bearing on whether or not it is relevant.
You make statements like "I absolutely affirm", yet there's no way to test this. You're asking people to consider your book as an authority. It seems to me that the burden of proof falls upon you.
Well, for one, the Linux kernel would have a thousand different restrictions placed on its use. Some conflicting.
I'm with you in spirit. People like SCO should lose all the benefits they seek to deny others. Everyone still working for SCO should, in a just world, be forbidden from ever taking advantage of GPL or BSDL software.
But, I don't see a good way to word the license that gets the point across, yet still lets people sue someone when there is a valid case, etc.
At this point we'd need to just say "If you've ever been employed by SCO, or any subsidiary or derivative companies, past the date of Jan 1, 2002, or employed by them in a contractual position, or worked at a law firm supporting SCO after this date,..." And how do you distinguish between incidental stuff, like some local legal firm they contract to draft up some reply to a city zoning ordinance or something reasonable, and someone whose work is insturmental in the SCO vs IBM, or SCO vs RedHat, or SCO vs TheHonestAndJustPeopleInTheWorld cases?
I'd be easier if someone just shot McBride and the CEOs of the companies that invested in SCO. More humane too.
What helps the economy? Someone using a computer to run a lathe and create a real product, or someone using a CAD program to design something, or these people paying for software that merely lets them work?
Microsoft Windows (and Linux) are just middleware. You don't use an OS, you use programs that require an OS. The OS is just there because you can't run Photoshop directly.
Middleware, and middlemen services like shipping, advertising, retailers, are inefficiencies. If they didn't exist and creators could deal directly with customers, the economy would be more efficient. Less work would be done to create the same number of goods.
Linux lets a business create software and not worry about the OS, and not require a $500 server OS for their customers to run their software. It lets businesses take ignore yet another middleman.
Just like the internet is letting people buy music directly without retail store, and soon, without iTunes, straight from the artist. That means the people who make the music happen will get more money and businesses that thrive by restricting access to prime retail spots in physical stores will go away.
Linux, and other things that lower barriers, are the best thing that real productive businesses could hope for.
In the ideal capitalism, according to Smith and other economist/philosophers, there are inefficiencies. Those transactions which don't increase the ammount of real goods. It's also assumed, in the same way that physicists assume spherical sheep, that consumers have perfect knowledge. In other words, if one product is better than another (for whatever measure), the consumers know.
In this ideal economy, advertising is an inefficiency in two ways. First, it's just a cost that is paid to do business. It's like shipping, or warehouse space, it's not the creation cost, or profit, so it's something to try to optimize out. Second, it's inefficient in the sense that most advertising isn't "we exist and our specs are x, y, and z.", it's "We're the #1 product on 'Real Sounding, Yet Useless Scale of Measurement'! Our TCO is 1/10th that of product Foo, and we brighten your teeth while you sleep!" That sort of marketing doesn't help consumers find the best product, it tricks them into buying a substandard product for more than it's worth.
Assuming we could give people a way to actually judge products based on real specs, we could do away with the need for marketing. We'd pay less and probably get better products.
And this is what sites like FatWallet provide. A way of knowing the lowest price for a given product, and usually, links to independent reviews so I know the worth of the products. Best Buy is an inefficiency. They exist just as a middle-man, no value added. And they try to trick me into shopping with them... Guess which one helps the economy more?
"While this isn't technically a violation, maybe it should be because it could cost [Big Business X] some money."
That's a pretty fucking lame excuse. How about they get the same protection under the law as everyone else and if they want to keep a secret, they just don't fucking tell anyone?
Slashdot Mirror
When I actually want to deal with a business regarding my search terms, google's paid ads are usually spot on.
Plus, the government is in bed with the tinfoil manufacturers. Who actually believes they'd give people the power to protect themselves? Hah!
They laser-drill microscopic holes in the foil, just enough to let through the ultra-high frequency waves they use for mind-control.
The way to protect yourself is to buy tinfoil from two or more companies (despite their bets efforts, they can't seem to produce the exact same pattern of holes) and Put every second layer at about a 15 degree offset to the one below it. This minimizes the chance that two holes overlap and let in the radiation. Use enough layers and the chance is near enough to zero.
Also, if possible, move to a colder climate. Unfortunately there's less moisture in the air which helps the efficiency of the mind-control beams, but you won't look conspicuous wearing a large cap with ear muffs. This is essential because a tinfoil cap that doesn't cover your temples and the back of your neck isn't effective.
Pass the word, we've got to stay safe!
The first time I saw this in XP I thought it would be sweet. But it ended up crashing the explorer and then it restarted application bar and lost all my system tray icons.
XP has been fairly stable, but that wasn't very impressive.
I'd rather they just shipped a freeware ZIP application then build something buggy into the OS.
Depends what they're doing, and what the expected failure modes are. If you've already got a cluster of webservers, it might make perfect sense to throw a 2.6 machine into the pool. If it fails it'll only be one hit in every so many, and it's easy to pull out once this happens. Perhaps you could do something like run your ad server on a new machine. Even if it fails, customers don't think the site is down.
And from this, and from running tests on it, you know if 2.6 is going to offer you anything.
There are many applications where a production machine could go down and not cause more than a few seconds of service outage. No lost data, no long downtimes, etc. As long as you understand that this is a test and prepare an immediate failover machine.
I agree. The point of copyright is mainly to encourage the production of commercial works, to enrich the public domain. It was never intended to force a work to remain out of print.
We need to change copyright law so that it doesn't prevent saving of lost works, and so that it can't be used to force a work to moulder away because it's in someone's best interest that it not be for sale. (For instance, old movies that studios don't want cutting into new movie revenue.)
I'd like to see a short total-rights-reserved copyright, ten years or so maybe, and a longer commercial-rights copyright. I really see little reason why Warner Brothers, for instance, should be able to use Mickey Mouse in their cartoons, but fanfic, kids pictures, and other such uses should be allowed. It's part of our culture and to deny us the right to participate is rude, and short-sighted.
Few of today's creators grew up isolated and started creating original works immediately. Instead, they built on the culture they saw around them as they grew up. Children today won't have this ability. We're raising the bar, requiring them to create something that's safe from even an over-zealous lawyer and look-and-feel cases, as their first works.
Tolkein would never have gotten started in our current legal climate. He intentionally built on previous stories and myths, something that wouldn't be legal to do now. Hell, for a while, TSR was trying to sue people who used their monster names in fantasy works, even where their names were derived from Tolkein.
Only by some interpretations.
Copyright law does allow quite a bit of leeway in moving data from one media to another. If the owner of the document makes and sends a copy to you (their webserver) and you choose to print it instead of displaying it on the monitor, it seems like it's your choice.
Why should we have to? It's as if companies had parked huge speaker trucks on the road outside our homes and were blasting lewd and deceptive ("This is your mother, let me in! ", "This is the police, we're evacuating the area, please listen ... haha, penis spam!") ads around the clock.
But then some helpful guy on Slashdot says that by buying the right kind of insulating foam and covering your house with it (the inside - if it's on the outside the spammers will tear it off while you sleep) you can avoid most of the noise. Of course, not all of it, and you'll miss some legitimate visitors and noises, but that's okay...
Fuck that mentality. They're the problem, the solution involves getting rid of them. I'm not going to go shoot them, but if there was a paypal account to buy ammo for a sniper who did, I might contribute anonymously.
For personal email, having your own domain with spam traps, and having a bunch of filters (the ISP runs a filter, plus is on a blackhole list, and we run SA locally), it's mostly fine. However, try running a business this way with ads in the yellow pages, etc. You get random people emailing you, there's no way to whitelist them, they won't jump through reply-to-be-verified hoops, and they don't send consistent subject lines. Hell, many of them make typos, which triggers spam filters these days.
So you need an unfiltered address and you need to open about 10% of the spam, the stuff that has deceptive subjects "Re: Your Mail", "Invoice", etc.
To continue the analogy from above, it's like having a public business where you needed unbaffled windows to let people know you were in business, but that meant you had to sit through painfully loud advertisements all day in order to handle the customers who came by. But, of course, less customers would come by because of the noise.
The people who prey on others like this are scum. They know that nobody wants their email, they even know that everyone is trying to avoid it, but instead of stopping they start lying, hacking mail servers, trojaning PCs, etc. Exactly why can't we kill these people? What slight bit of good are these people doing for society? And even if you could find some, does it outweigh the pain they intentionally put people through all the time?
The only mistake the guy in this article made was threatening them instead of demonstrating his intentions a bit more... forcefully.
Though you go to elaborate lengths to avoid it, this entire statement of yours is from start to finish a statement of faith. I'm not sure why you wish so much to avoid just admitting it, but it's really not a bad thing.
;-) But seriously: I'll give you the same kind of answer that you gave me when I challenged you for making reason the ultimate authority: what else is there? Blind faith in reason?
In the first place, you have faith in your eyes (that they function properly) and other faculties, that they are reliable. In the second place, you have faith in your ability to determine whether something can be faked. In the third place, you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow.
But it's not. There's a difference that I'm trying to describe.
I don't know the sun will rise, but I have to better guess, and I'm powerless to control it, so I might as well act as if it will.
To me, faith in the sun rising would be the belief that it *would* rise. Instead, I realize that there are things which could keep this from happening, however unlikely, and that I'll never *know* what will happen. Like I'll never *know* with absolute certainty that I'm not a brain in a jar being fed simulated inputs.
You *know* there's a god. I don't *know* there isn't, but it seems so unplausible that I'm going to act as if there isn't.
Please describe for me a way that a man living in the first century, with no available technology, is able to suddenly appear in the middle of a closed room - twice, and how he is able to to ascend into the sky, and how he is able to arrange for angels to immediately appear and talk to his followers.
Describe how Uri Geller, with no technology beyond that of Jesus, is able to bend a spoon by lightly rubbing his fingers on it. (Hint: He cheats.)
Describe the closed room. Was the door locked? Was it brightly lit (doubtful)? was it large? Was it empty, or full of furniture?
Describe the ascension. Did he rocket upwards on a pillar of fire, or slowly float up? Did he vanish slowly into a haze of smoke?
I ask because these are all things that influence how these miracles could be performed by a stage magician. I don't know that this is what happened, but I know a friend who can pull oranges out of people's ears, who can "throw" his voice, and other tricks. No gadgets needed.
Furthermore, I can say similar things: when a man believes that God doesn't exist, it makes it easier to fool him.
Well, I'll give you that one. Whenever someone expects a certain result they're more likely to find it, god or not-god.
Why not my religion?
Why not your religion? Because there are hundreds, including divisions in the major ones, and to me they all seem about as likely.
There's also the Invisible Pink Unicorn, which I've seen just as much evidence for.
And I think you misintepret my use of reason. I think that there's nothing that can't be logically and scientifically examined. It could be that we don't have the tools to tell anything (and may never), but you can still devise tests and perform them. I've never seen a single flaw in the method.
Do I have a blind faith? Well, I'd say that a blind faith in reason would be saying that reason could be me the answers to everything. I think some things don't have useful answers (The meaning of life, can god create a rock so big he can't lift it, etc), and I think that some thing are unknowable, like how the universe was created.
But, I don't think there are any problems with the idea of reasoning everything out. You yourself said that you think the bible withstands intense scrutiny, if you read the original, etc, etc. Does this not imply that reason could be used to pick a god?
And I don't think that belief in god helps here though. Where did god come from? If he always existed, why couldn't the universe just always have existed?
My point is that you can control your actions even while thinking something. Thoughts don't always lead to actions, and if the thoughts aren't harmful, there's no reason not to think them.
You're in the minority thinking that lustful thoughts ("Wow, she's hot!") are damaging and need to be avoided. Most people are perfectly happy with their partner thinking these things even.
If you couldn't control your actions, as some people can't, then you'd need to work on controlling your thoughts to avoid those situations. Like your controlling your anger example.
This will solve itself. You still see the odd windows app, even written today, where they do their own interface. Things like Virus Scanners seem to the the worst these days. Eventually standard looking applications win out as people find that the two function identically except that one is easy to use and the other is like a lame flash site.
And this is precisely why the previous sentence of yours is nonsense. As I said earlier in this thread (possibly not to you): unless you personally verify literally every statement made by anyone prior to accepting it, you are acting on faith: you are trusting that a given source is reputable and reliable, and that as a consequence you do not feel obligated to verify literally everything that they say.
;-)
To be sure of something, sure I have to see it myself and believe it can't be faked. But while I don't know the sun will rise (pardon the inaccurate stating) tomorrow, I act as if it will because it fits the evidence from the rest of my life, specifically that the sun "rises" every morning. I know I could be living in a very elaborate Truman Show, but there's no reason to believe I am, it's not the simplest solution.
You believe that in the 1770s a bunch of guys got together in Philadelphia and signed the Declaration of Independence. Why do you believe in something that you can't see?
This is out of order, but it's the same topic.
I believe there is a declaration of independence, unless my whole world has been faked, because I've seen much proof of it. But I don't know it's "real". I've seen examples of how believable records of history can be faked. I think it's likely that it's real because I don't see a reason to fake it. Fake certain details, name a few more signers who weren't really there to give it weight back then, but outright faked? Too much work.
Conspiracies, especially ones like that, would require huge ammount of effort, between hundreds of people who would all have to perfectly keep a secret? That's not an easier answer.
It's false because a) it doesn't address the facts that [...]
And people swear that they see Uri Geller bend spoons. When people want to belive they make it easier to fool them. Fooling a few people who are expecting a miracle is easier than if Jesus rose to life from the cross, and if there were independent records of his miracles.
I've seen proof of psychics predicting a bunch of things and claiming victory for one or two, while brushing the rest under the carpet. Even people who I think believe they have a gift just don't understand coincidences.
Frankly, the vast bulk of human history is on my side (at least with respect to marriage); you as the innovator (and as the one who hasn't explained himself - yet) seem to me to be the one who owes the rest of us a justification of his views.
And the world is becoming more secular, especially the modern countries. People are becoming open to things which were forbidden before. Seems like the whole modern world is innovating this.
] I basically believe people should treat other people well (compassion) and fairly.
Why?
Because nobody has offered anything better. I'm happier when I act this was and people aroung me are happier.
Why should I choose your arbitrary rules instead of my arbitrary, though successful, rules?
And even if I want religion, why don't I go pick up a Koran and go with it? Why is your bible and your religion the right one?
This is pretty much the question right here. Why religion, and why yours? Other people find other incompatible holy books provide them with the answers. I find none of them that provide answers do so properly. What was it that convinced you that you needed religion and that this specific one was the right one?
No, I'm not. I'm saying that in a world where the Bible is useless such as you suppose we live in, why should I believe that anyone has anything worthwhile to say at all?
Act as if people have nothing worthwhile to say, they'll give you a reason to change, unless you wish to live alone.
We either interpret it correctly, or incorrectly. In the past, one evolutionist whacko found a tooth and invented a hominid from which it supposedly came, hailing it as the latest "evidence
If you want to buy something, a house for instance to save for the future, and you can't because of finances so you put it on hold for a few years, do you not want the house during that time, or do you want the house but not buy it because of self control?
You didn't treat his comments fairly at all.
If you diet, you control your eating, but it doesn't mean you don't want food, it means you don't eat.
In fact, doing something to yourself so you didn't want food would be dangerous because a diet, by definition, is eating less than you need, so that you burn fat. If you didn't feel hungry, you'd be starving and not know it.
Do you ever exercise patience? If so, then you have...controlled yourself (gasp!)
If you patiently wait, despite wanting something, you still want it, you just don't act on those desires.
you (and everyone) are evil by nature. People aren't generally good. People are generally evil. They need to stop being evil
Wow, you are so depressed. Go to a shrink and work on those feelings of guilt and inadequacy.
It means that when there are things that you don't understand, it's not a crisis. It means that when there are things that no human being can ever understand, it's not a crisis. Because God understands it, and you can rely upon the facts that he presents even when you don't understand them.
It's not a crisis now when I don't understand something. As I said earlier, I'm fine with the idea that I may not know something. I don't have to invent an answer (god) to feel happy.
You said that you expected the entire thing to be "word for word".
Obviously, in context. I'd want the facts presented in the bible to be accurate, and the poetry to be allegorical, not the other way around.
No: eyes-open faith in the Bible. Like I've said: acknowledging the authority of the Bible doesn't mean that you shut off your brain. It means admitting the fact that there are limits upon yourself and upon all men: that there are things that are true about creation that we will never understand, but which we know nevertheless to be true.
There's no such thing as "eyes-open" faith. It might sound nice, but if you accept what someone tells you, without making some attempt to verify it, it's faith. If you accept ultimate answers from someone who can't know ultimate answers, it's faith. You're accepting "god exists" from people who can't know that.
Ah. I'm sorry I misunderstood you. But I'm afraid that this doesn't really help matters. Not only did they witness him claim to be the Son of God - but they witnessed him perform miracles. They witnessed the fact that he was dead - a fact confirmed by the Romans. They witnessed the fact that he rose from the dead. I think that this is more than sufficient corroborating evidence to support the claim.
There are examples from Victorian England where people were thought to be dead and even burried, because their heartbeats were too weak to be felt.
That's a much simpler explanation and it would make sense to only advance to the "it must be a miracle" explanations when you knew it wasn't something simpler.
I'm incredulous. I'm going to be pedantic here so I can make certain you really mean what you seem to be saying. Do you mean to say (contrary to what I have affirmed) that it is not even reasonable to consider the possibility that breaking one's marital vows is an immoral act? That a man or woman can take a solemn oath of fidelity to another person, and then disregard that oath entirely as though it never existed? Or are you saying that the whole idea of marriage is not "viable"?
The latter, more. Why is "in wedlock" special. Why is lust good at one time and not at another? Why is my wedlock wrong and your wedlock right?
Ditto with theft. Why is theft by some people allowed, and theft by me not? If theft is bad, nobody should do it.
I basically believe people should treat other people well (compassion) and fairly. If you tell your female partner you'll only sleep with her I think you should follow that, but not because of special rules about what makes a wife, or rules on how to treat them specifically.
My rules are open for interpretation. What is fair in some case, and how do you treat someone well when they are at odds with you, but these are the same questions that lead to us defining some theft as tax, and some killing as murder, while the other is self-defense. I just recognize the potential for this and don't try to make the rules specific.
As such though, I reject any set of specific rules, especially a small number that doesn't try to allow for contingencies.
] ] Why should we listen to you? Why should we listen to them?
] Because I have something to say. Because they have something to say.
That doesn't follow at all. All that tells me is that you want to be heard; it doesn't explain why I should bother to listen.
But it does. How do you know the worth of what they have to say until you listen? If they
Rather, I said that for the rationalist, etc (and presumably you), reason is the highest authority.
;-)
Well duh. What else is reasonable? (There's that word again.)
If I just accept what I'm told, how do I choose what is right? Which religion do I accept? Christians tell me their religion is the right one, muslims say theirs is.
I mean, why does it have to be "word-for-word"? For starters, the Bible is not scientific literature. It consists of other forms of literature: poetry, and letters, and law, and history, and so forth. Wouldn't you agree that it's pretty silly to suggest that we apply the rigors of "word-for-word" interpretation to a poem?
Surely the whole bible isn't poetry and allegory. Surely when Jesus walked on water it's supposed to mean that he walked, on water, and didn't sink. Is that too much to expect? Can't I expect part of an account of the acts of the son of god to include any literal passages?
You said this to defend your unwillingness to pursue further advanced research into the Bible. It appears to me, however, that because of your false preconceived notions about the nature of divine revelation and the Bible, your "simple test" in this case is giving you faulty results. Perhaps you should reconsider
You haven't shown me that my tests are flawed, you just make vague statements about how reason isn't appropriate for judging it. To me it doesn't sound like *I* am the one who is wrong.
They tell you, in other words, to make reason the measure of all things.
And what else would you suggest? Blind faith in the bible. But that keeps coming back to "Which bible?!?". Even if I found blind faith to be acceptable, I wouldn't have any reason to pick your particular brand of blind faith.
So they can be eyewitnesses (first-hand) to deeds, but not eyewitnesses (first-hand) to words?
My point is that the apostles didn't witness Jesus being the son of god, they witnessed him *claim* to be the son of god. They aren't eyewitnesses, they're second-hand story tellers.
Sure, if they saw him do something and they wrote it down, then they are eye witnesses, but they can't witness the validity of his claims.
Perhaps I was unclear. Let me rephrase. I do not ask whether you accept it yourself. I ask whether or not you agree that it is a valid option in the spectrum of ideas. Even if you don't, most people surely do: ask those who have been the victims of adultery.
No, I don't recognize it as a valid option. It presupposes too much.
Does the bible recognize the option of having two wives? If not, it doesn't properly cope with the situation where sex outside of it's narrow definition of marriage is prefectly acceptable to all parties involved. I'd have to accept biblical marriage as the best or only choice before I'd accept rules telling me how to behave in that context.
And this is my point. The bible isn't relevant anymore. I can live a perfectly happy life "married" in a secular sense, so I don't need its rules. I only need the bibles rules if I was to believe that they are the only thing keeping me out of hell. But, I don't believe in hell, so it's moot.
The bible doesn't have any purpose anymore. People can avoid pork because of disease, without being scared by the boogeyman of impure food. Kosher is now replaced by health guidelines, without the religion. It's now available for reasonable (there again) examination. No longer do I have to simply accept what authority tells me. Unless hell is trichinosis larvae, we've discovered the real reason behind that prohibition.
Normally by secular I suppose I mean "atheistic" as in "presupposing that there is no God".
So what would you call my dinner tonight, where I didn't pray over the food? Is that secular, because I must go out of my way to suppose there is no god, or is it simply not religious?
Anyways, as I use it, secular means not encumbered b
The rationalist or empiricist or atheist assumes from the outset that man is the measure of all things. This assumption is never questioned or challenged by them: its authority is simply assumed. Human reason is the highest authority for them, and its authority is supreme to them. I (and all consistent Christians) dispute that. The highest authority is not human reason. It is the Bible.
;-)
How do you get from the idea that man is not the perfect end product of the universe, to the idea that the bible must be?
You are presuming something here about my beliefs. I do not believe I, or man, are the ultimate being. I have no need for an answer so I don't fabricate one in absence of proof. It's like the source of the universe. I don't know, but I'm not going to latch onto any old idea just to feel secure.
Wait a minute. You don't consider yourself a Christian, but you're going to tell me what my standards should be?
If you expect the book to provide firm answers to important questions and be above reproach, then yes, I expect that the book should be interpreted word-for-word (the original if not mistaken translations). If you're reading a book of loose suggestions by someone widely held to be wise, but not divine, this restriction of course wouldn't apply because you're not being asked to accept something without question.
Sounds like an a priori that's quite out of keeping with the scientific method
Not at all. If someone tells me a theory and I prove it is at odds with the facts in a simple test I don't need to go to greater lengths to prove that the theory is incorrect.
For instance, if you state that there are no even prime numbers, I only need point out that 2 is both even and prime, I do not need to examine all prime numbers to judge your statement as incorrect.
You're asking (suggesting, whatever) that I believe in the divinity of the christian god, based on a book produced by those with a vested interest in one answer. For many simple reasons, such as extrordinary claims requiring extrordinary proof, I decide that there isn't enough evidence in favour of this premise to warrant treating it as provisionally true.
It's as if you state that you, with power of mind alone, could fly. I'm not going to believe you because it goes against everything I've ever witnessed, and all stories by reliable witnesses, etc. I don't have to prove that you can't fly, I just ignore you until you present proof of your flights, at which time I weigh the evidence.
What evidence is there for your god, other than a book written by a guy claiming to be your god? Why is believing, without proof, a logical thing? Would you believe I have a bridge to sell you?
You don't think that the "secular" school, with an a priori predisposition against the orthodox Christian position, is itself biased? Of course it is. There is no such thing as "objective", particularly when it comes to these sorts of issues.
Yes actually. I've never had a teacher tell me that there isn't a god. It's not necessary. They don't tell me that dogs don't fly, or anything else painfully obvious. They tell me to question what I'm told, even by them. They tell me to examine evidence and test what I can. They tell me to be wary of untestable claims. I've never gone to athiest school.
I'm using secular to mean not religious. As in, this can of Pepsi is secular, in that it is not overtly religious. Is this not the way you'd use the word "secular"?
I think you mistake "athiesm" for the belief that there isn't a god. It isn't, it's simply the state of not being a theist, or not believing that there is a god. As I have read and examined the word, I have come to the belief that there is no god, but when I started god was on an equal level (and still is) with invisible pink unicorns.
This fact has nothing to do with whether the principles in it are true, of course.
But is has much to do with the relevance
Okay, she didn't actually say "You Aren't", but that doesn't change my point. She doesn't come out and actually say "You are the one!". Her ass is covered if nothing comes of it, and she can still say "I said what you needed to hear" if he does become the one.
I just googled for details. There's a broken windows *theory* which is what you're thinking of, and a fallacy by the same name which is what I was talking about.
And yeah, the theory is that if you let a building look run down, and don't repair the broken windows, people will feel free to break more, etc. If you keep it up, repairing damage, people will be less likely to vandalize it. And yes, the evidence does seem to support this.
The fallacy that I was talking about is "But doesn't it help the economy if I go around breaking windows, because it employs the people who replace them?". The question can also be asked "Are wars good for the economy?" The fallacy here is that new windows don't actually help anyone. You're no better off than before and as such, have to raise your prices to cover your extra costs.
Funny that there are two similarly named things, and that they're so different.
Two reasons. Oracle has never been the default monopoly, installed on every computer. They've had to fight, quality and marketing, for where they are. This probably means they've got a higher quality product than Windows.
Second, everyone needs an OS. IBM needs it to sell computers, Oracle needs it to run their DB, id Software needs it to play their games, Yahoo needs it to run their web services on, etc. Everyone wants an OS that just works, but it's not their business so they'd rather just fix up whatever is holding them back and hand it off to someone else to maintain. There aren't as many fields that need a true enterprise quality DB with those last few features that PostgreSQL doesn't have. Not as many people have a motive to help develop a free super-high-end DB.
Not that Oracle won't fall eventually, as everyone who doesn't really need their product switches to Postgres, but it won't happen as quickly as with the OS.
Ahhh, I'd just finished reading a discussion with a guy who basically believed in the broken windows fallacy. You know, as long as people are being paid, the economy must be efficient.
Your post seemed to be a serious continuation of that instead of a sarcastic comeback.
That's not a circular argument! A circular argument is more like: "The Bible is the Word of God because it says that it's the Word of God." To say "Lust is bad because Jesus says it is" is an argument from authority.
..."
But your authority is only an authority because a book they wrote says so.
An argument from authority is that I say "Stephen Hawking (a recognized authority in physics) says
A circular argument is where I say "Quarks are blue, and I'm the expert, which is obvious because only I know that Quarks are blue."
So yes, you were arguing from authority, but your authority has no provable authority outside of their claims. To me the circular was a bigger problem because an authority can be checked. A circular authority, by definition, can't be.
Have you ever studied Hebrew? How about Greek? I have. Trust me on this: it's not mistranslated. I did quote the KJV because that's what I have at hand, but a number of modern translations say essentially the same thing...because the KJV doesn't have the sense of it wrong.
If you're using the bible as a basis for your belief, and not just philosophical musings such as the teachings of Buddha or something, you should expect perfection. Modern church embrace translations such the KJV which says "Unicorn". As in, if you follow the letter of KJV you must accept that there were unicorns.
Further, people with a lot more authority than some nut on Slashdot (either or both of us, depending on your view) have said that the early translators of the bible mistook the Hebrew word for "Young Woman" for "Virgin". In other words, one of the key miracles of christianity was a typo. (And of course, the entire basis of the catholic church - but they're even loopier than most.)
And that this means it certainly was written during Matthew's lifetime
Some parts were, some weren't. Once again, I've read opinions both ways, but the people who seemed most careful and accurate were the ones arguing that the NT is a collection of works, some of which weren't completed for at least a hundred years.
You accuse me of having a very narrow education in this regard, and it's definately true. I'm not going to put in a few years taking university level courses to be able to read original documents of something that I feel doesn't survive even a cursory examination. However, unless you were educated at a secular school in a field that required knowledge of Hebrew and ancient Greek for other reasons, and later applied it on your own to religious studies, you yourself might have been exposed to a very biased interpretation.
Of course I'm extrapolating!
But don't you see how far? Thousands of years since a book was written based on, at best, the second-hand reporting of what someone said in an attempt to explain some rules of behaviour that would help his followers in the present, not lay down a collection of rules that would survive in a useful way into the future.
Furthermore, I absolutely affirm that the Bible has answers for life in 2003. One good example is the subject we're discussing here. So far you have failed to demonstrate that the answer I've given based on the Bible - "Pornography is evil because it is intended to stir up lust in its viewers, and lust is sinful" - is invalid. I think that this answer is entirely relevant today. The fact that you disagree with it, or don't like it, has no bearing on whether or not it is relevant.
You make statements like "I absolutely affirm", yet there's no way to test this. You're asking people to consider your book as an authority. It seems to me that the burden of proof falls upon you.
Well, for one, the Linux kernel would have a thousand different restrictions placed on its use. Some conflicting.
..." And how do you distinguish between incidental stuff, like some local legal firm they contract to draft up some reply to a city zoning ordinance or something reasonable, and someone whose work is insturmental in the SCO vs IBM, or SCO vs RedHat, or SCO vs TheHonestAndJustPeopleInTheWorld cases?
I'm with you in spirit. People like SCO should lose all the benefits they seek to deny others. Everyone still working for SCO should, in a just world, be forbidden from ever taking advantage of GPL or BSDL software.
But, I don't see a good way to word the license that gets the point across, yet still lets people sue someone when there is a valid case, etc.
At this point we'd need to just say "If you've ever been employed by SCO, or any subsidiary or derivative companies, past the date of Jan 1, 2002, or employed by them in a contractual position, or worked at a law firm supporting SCO after this date,
I'd be easier if someone just shot McBride and the CEOs of the companies that invested in SCO. More humane too.
What helps the economy? Someone using a computer to run a lathe and create a real product, or someone using a CAD program to design something, or these people paying for software that merely lets them work?
Microsoft Windows (and Linux) are just middleware. You don't use an OS, you use programs that require an OS. The OS is just there because you can't run Photoshop directly.
Middleware, and middlemen services like shipping, advertising, retailers, are inefficiencies. If they didn't exist and creators could deal directly with customers, the economy would be more efficient. Less work would be done to create the same number of goods.
Linux lets a business create software and not worry about the OS, and not require a $500 server OS for their customers to run their software. It lets businesses take ignore yet another middleman.
Just like the internet is letting people buy music directly without retail store, and soon, without iTunes, straight from the artist. That means the people who make the music happen will get more money and businesses that thrive by restricting access to prime retail spots in physical stores will go away.
Linux, and other things that lower barriers, are the best thing that real productive businesses could hope for.
In the ideal capitalism, according to Smith and other economist/philosophers, there are inefficiencies. Those transactions which don't increase the ammount of real goods. It's also assumed, in the same way that physicists assume spherical sheep, that consumers have perfect knowledge. In other words, if one product is better than another (for whatever measure), the consumers know.
In this ideal economy, advertising is an inefficiency in two ways. First, it's just a cost that is paid to do business. It's like shipping, or warehouse space, it's not the creation cost, or profit, so it's something to try to optimize out. Second, it's inefficient in the sense that most advertising isn't "we exist and our specs are x, y, and z.", it's "We're the #1 product on 'Real Sounding, Yet Useless Scale of Measurement'! Our TCO is 1/10th that of product Foo, and we brighten your teeth while you sleep!" That sort of marketing doesn't help consumers find the best product, it tricks them into buying a substandard product for more than it's worth.
Assuming we could give people a way to actually judge products based on real specs, we could do away with the need for marketing. We'd pay less and probably get better products.
And this is what sites like FatWallet provide. A way of knowing the lowest price for a given product, and usually, links to independent reviews so I know the worth of the products. Best Buy is an inefficiency. They exist just as a middle-man, no value added. And they try to trick me into shopping with them... Guess which one helps the economy more?
That's all we ever hear these days...
"While this isn't technically a violation, maybe it should be because it could cost [Big Business X] some money."
That's a pretty fucking lame excuse. How about they get the same protection under the law as everyone else and if they want to keep a secret, they just don't fucking tell anyone?