You are completely delusional about yourself. In the end, it's always you who is the ultimate arbiter. You are the one who judge everything. The only difference is the mental process you use to judge things. In your case, you base your judgement on authority.
Following an authority to judge is basically the mental process of a kid. His mental abilities are too low to have an understanding of himself and the world around him, things doesn't make sense for him, so he acts mostly by imitation.
At first he imitates everyone. This means his understanding of good and evil will be a direct result of what people around him do. If someone else do it, if his imitation is successful, then it means, for him, his action was good.
A few years after, he begins to realize not everybody is equal and most importantly his hierarchical instinct begins to kick in. The result is he begins to seek an authority to imitate instead of everyone. He begins to discriminate. His view of good and evil is still based on his success to imitate others, but he begins to add his personal touch by deciding who to imitate.
The first authority a kid begins to imitate is obviously his parents, but when he understand a bit more about society, he realize his parents are not a true authority for everything, so he begins to follow different authorities based on their perceived places in society.
When the kid becomes a teenager, he begins to understand abstract ideas like "contracts" and "justice". More importantly, he begins to understand people hidden motives and that everyone is flawed. Because of that, he begins to realize there is no true authority. That's when his mental process to judge change from simply seeing if his imitation was successful to something more complex and a lot more personal. He begins to judge based on his own understanding of human relationship and how society works. His moral system is not only about deciding who should be imitated and who should not, but it begins to be about creating a set of value which satisfies his instinctive sense of good.
For a few people, it will go even farther than human relationship and the society they live in. They will begin to consider very abstract ideas about the universe in general.
Of course, the evolution I described is not black and white. We do not go from one mental process to completely another. Even the most advanced person will still be influence by authorities for his day to day judgement. Thinking about complex abstract ideas is a difficult mental process, so it's something we rarely do. We never completely cease to imitate, but we becomes able to reject our first judgement based on imitation when we think about it. We do understand that imitation and following an authority is not a valid basis for a moral judgement.
In your case, you never pass the point of imitation. You still seek an authority to follow. You became adult, but you never really grew up. You realized you can't follow the authority of your parents anymore, you also realized no one in society is a true authority, you realized everyone has flaws, but instead of beginning to construct your own set of values based on abstract ideas, you tried to seek another authority. That's why you want to believe in a god. Your god is nothing more than a personal tool in order for you to be able to judge.
There are people who do not like me because of my opinions, the same way I don't like some people because of theirs. I certainly did suffer indirect punishment because of who I am, the same way I never hesitated to "punish" someone for being who he is (mostly stopping any kind of relationship with that person).
Can a vigilante harm me? Where I live (Montreal) the risk is insignificant. Can I lose a job because of an overzealous boss who do not like my opinions? Certainly, but I'll just find another one (BTW I'm self-employed).
As for the law, again in the context of where I live, actions can be punished, but we can't be jailed for ideas (I'm open to examples showing the contrary). There are rules which limit what we can say, but in my mind they are reasonable as most of the time they only limit the form of the expression, not the expression of the idea by itself.
Overall, I certainly do not feel I have to hide, even though my views on a lot of things are significantly different compared to the majority (like my views on this subject).
Having said that, I agree anonymity and privacy are useful. Yes, corruption need to be exposed and, yes, knowledge is power. On the other hand, their usefulness if pretty much a consequence of themselves in the first place. Without anonymity and privacy, you couldn't have corruption and if your "enemy" has as much knowledge of you as you do of him, then your knowledge doesn't give you artificial power.
For me, fighting for anonymity and privacy is like an arms race. What if we stopped arming ourselves instead?
Anyway, you have already my name and if you take a bit of time to do a little search on the Internet you'll find my address and even my phone number. Yep, it's in there and I don't care. Maybe it's because Canada (Montreal) is mostly a free country with a low crime rate, thanks to gun control, so I don't live in a state of paranoia.
So nice try, but your argument just falls flat.
As far as I'm concerned, the only real problem I face in my day to day life, both personal and professional, is not political oppression, it is people who are lying or at least hiding who they really are to get an advantage. So for me, the complete end of anonymity would be a good thing.
Why a lack of anonymity is a nightmare to you? Is it because you don't live in a free country and the only way you can express your ideas without going to jail afterward is with anonymity? Is it because you want to be able to lie to people around you in order to look better than you really are? Is it for another reason?
I don't recall Genesis talking about an explosion and I don't recall the Big Bang theory saying there was nothing before the Big Bang. I also don't follow how you can conclude water on a moon of Saturn is a proof of the great flood. Anyway, even at the time the Bible was created, I think several people already knew of this thing we call "water". There is really no need for proof for the existence of this "water".
We now know Genesis is ridiculously wrong. I even suspect some people were able to say it was ridiculously wrong at the time it was invented. Those who wrote it had absolutely no clue. It's not even pseudoscience, it's plain illogical fantasy. I mean, plants were created before the Sun? Even at the time, they could have thought of it and at the very least put the creation of the Sun before plants. Of course in a fantasy world anything is possible and those details are irrelevant, but still...
I don't really blame all the people who wrote the Bible, at least no more than I blame J.K. Rowling for writing Harry Potter, but I certainly blame you for not being able of basic thinking.
When the person you replied to talked about "magic" bracelet, he didn't mean he believes the bracelet is magical. The three words "Magic Magnet Bracelet" is the known name of a product.
We are now so used to the concept of "intellectual property" that when we see something we might find interesting without someone trying to use it as a source of free income, we immediately think it's an April fools' day joke.
No, memory is not just storage. You don't have memories, you are your memories. You don't have a part of your brain to store data and another to think.
Said in an extremely simplified way, a new memory is a new wiring configuration and that wiring configuration is what will create what you call thinking.
To use a computer analogy, memory is not just some data in RAM, it is the code. When we execute this code the result is what we call thinking, but that code (your memory) is really what creates the thinking.
No, there is no evidence which strongly suggest a non-deterministic universe. There are different interpretations of data, some imply quantum mechanics is non-deterministic, some imply it is deterministic and some doesn't imply anything. None seems better than the other. Up to now, we have no way to know if quantum mechanics is deterministic or not. Popular belief is that it is non-deterministic, but popular beliefs are not "science".
About free will, it seems obvious to me I don't have free will. When I think about something, I don't know why I decide to think about it. I just do. I may of course choose to think about something, but in the end I don't know why I made this choice. I just did. Some of my actions can be the result of a long reflection, but I have no control over why I began that reflection and why I chose some conclusions over others. I just did. I may try to understand myself, but it's just turtles all the way down. After the last turtles, I must admit have no control over what I do. I just do. Where is free will in that?
We've never seen or measured anything which might be qualified as a "soul", so the idea that it exists is just that, an idea. It is a concept we invented out of nothing to try to explain some of our perceptions. The idea of a "soul" is something we imagined. So yes, souls are clearly imaginary. It doesn't mean they don't exist, after all I could imagine horses with wings without any kind of evidence and then realize after that they really do exist, but it doesn't change that until I have some kind of physical proof horses with wings exist, they are only imaginary.
As for quantum mechanics, when did they prove it was intrinsically non-deterministic? It has the appearance of being non-deterministic, but this is if our basics assumptions, like locality, are correct. And that's a very big if. Also, quantum mechanics is not only in our brain, it's everywhere. Does that mean that a grain of sand has a soul?
Trying to use quantum mechanics to give some validity to the idea of "souls" has absolutely no logical basis whatsoever. It's basically : here's something you don't fully understand, so let me use it as a vessel for my own imaginary ideas, that way you won't be able to disprove them.
I'm someone who wants change. For example, I think Linux is dated and I would ditch it for Hurd if that thing could ever work reasonably well one day.
I tried Unity, I tried to adapt to it, but it is, for me, a step in the wrong direction. Maybe it's because I'm using three monitors (one 27" and two 22"), maybe it's because I'm using too many programs, working on too many files and doing too many tasks, but Unity doesn't work well for me.
But the thing is I think Linux fragmentation is bad. I think Linux needs a strong leader. That's why I think going with the most popular distribution makes sense and that's why I chose to switch to Ubuntu a few years ago. I guess I should now move to Mint, but I also think Canonical is in a better position to help Linux gain market share. So saying "use something else" is not a good solution for me. For me, the best solution would be for Canonical to offer more options with the UI in order to satisfy more people instead of forcing one design choice to everyone.
Making sure people don't hurt or cheat one another? Very few people want that. We value our "freedom" a lot more than whatever the consequences of our actions may have upon others. If our freedom means we will hurt others and if it means we must lie to others, so be it! Sure, we will agree to limit a bit our freedom to avoid falling into anarchy, but we all acknowledge that hurting some people in order to be "free" is perfectly acceptable.
Personally, because I'm a bit asocial and don't see the need to lie, I'm in favor of a society where there is no privacy. That's why I post under my real name and that's why I don't fear cameras and things like Google Glass. But how many people are like me?
"Apple were only making higher end models with faster processors"
Mac Classic, from 1990 to 1992 : 8 Mhz 68000. A3000, also from 1990 to 1992 : 16 or 25 Mhz 68030.
Commodore should have released the A3000 sooner to compete with the Macintosh II. I remember seeing ads for the A3000 long before it came out. When it finally came out in 1990, I remember magazine articles saying that it was too late and Commodore's future didn't look good.
Even then, before the A3000 came out, it was possible to buy an A2000 with a 68030 accelerator board and a SCSI hard disk for a lot less than the price of the Macintosh II. So saying Apple machines were higher end is not entirely true. Unfortunately, adding an accelerator board is something hobbyists do, not something businesses do.
"the lowest end mac had a 25mhz 68030, 4mb ram, scsi hdd and came with a proper monitor"
When the A1200 came out, the Mac Classic II had a 16 Mhz processor (not 25 Mhz) and 2 MB RAM (not 4 MB). Also it came with a 9" black and white monitor, which was clearly inferior to anything else. The Mac II Classic was 1900$ while the A1200 was 600$. I do not remember the price for the A1200 with the hard drive, but in 1991, you could buy a 14" color monitor for 279$, a SCSI controller for 125$ (for an A500, for an A2000 you could get one for 85$) and a 49 MB hard disk for 215$. Again in 1991 (I'm looking at an ad from an old magazine), you could get a 25 Mhz 68030, a 68882 and a 4 MB RAM expansion kit for 1499$ or 2159$ for a 50 Mhz 68030.
Macs were not higher end than Amigas and MacOS was clearly inferior to AmigaOS. Of course, Apple's prices were higher than Commodore.
Are there really that many people playing Skyrim and Crysis? Particularly playing those games with low graphic settings in order to not be GPU limited? A lot of my clients still have Core 2 duo or Phenom II and don't need more power. Even worst, a lot of their employees still have P4 at home and see no reason to upgrade. Also, considering the Xbox One and the PS4 both have an AMD processor (and not a fast one), it's kind of obvious there is very little use of a Core i7 for most people, even for gaming.
Personally, I think it's a shame we can't buy something like a 70$ Athlon II X3 anymore, because with its ECC memory support, it was is the perfect desktop machine for regular people. I did buy a Xeon e3-1230 for myself, but it's a waste of money for most people. I'd say it was even a waste of money for myself.
The only place where I clearly recommend Intel is for laptops, where heat and power consumption is important.
How old are your "really expensive" CRT? The last ones I saw were more than 10 years old (I tried to buy a high end CRT around 2001 and there was none available). Don't you think this might explain the blurriness and the dimness? In the past, I did work on a high end 22" Mitsubishi CRT and although it was not as sharp or bright as an LCD (native resolution only, otherwise the CRT was sharper), it was not "blurry" or dim at all.
Anyway, although I can tolerate the low contrast and the lack of black, motion blur (I'm not talking about ghosting) is what I hate with LCD. For working it obviously doesn't matter, but for watching a movie or playing games it's really bad.
Not ghosting, motion blur. A text scrolling fast on an LCD is unreadable while it's perfectly clear on a CRT. (BTW, I have a new Dell 2209WA, a two years old Samsung 226BW, a 10 years old cheap CRT and I did compared them in clone mode)
Except it won't be a global village kind of thing because only the elite will know what the rest of us is doing. The day I can completely monitor politicians, the police and other government institutions, that day I may accept everyone being watched. But let's be realistic, people in power will never accept being watched.
As for a nickname being like clothes, even if I see a person wearing clothes, I'll still be able to know who he is (and if he wears a ski mask during a hot day, you can be sure I will become highly suspicious). But when I see a nickname, I have no idea who is the person using it. Anonymity is sometimes a good thing, although most of the time it is abused, but your analogy is just wrong.
Could you post the journal of all the things you did in public places today? I'm interest to know. Begin by telling me all the address of all the houses and buildings you entered. I mean... you can't expect privacy as soon as you leave your door, right? So I'm sure you won't mind if I know, right?
BTW, Slashdot is certainly a public place and so hiding behind a nickname should not be expected. Could you give us your real name please?
I also find it funny that so many people in the rest of Canada and the US care about this. It's almost as if they felt insecure with the idea that some people might not be using English.
Slashdot Mirror
You are completely delusional about yourself. In the end, it's always you who is the ultimate arbiter. You are the one who judge everything. The only difference is the mental process you use to judge things. In your case, you base your judgement on authority.
Following an authority to judge is basically the mental process of a kid. His mental abilities are too low to have an understanding of himself and the world around him, things doesn't make sense for him, so he acts mostly by imitation.
At first he imitates everyone. This means his understanding of good and evil will be a direct result of what people around him do. If someone else do it, if his imitation is successful, then it means, for him, his action was good.
A few years after, he begins to realize not everybody is equal and most importantly his hierarchical instinct begins to kick in. The result is he begins to seek an authority to imitate instead of everyone. He begins to discriminate. His view of good and evil is still based on his success to imitate others, but he begins to add his personal touch by deciding who to imitate.
The first authority a kid begins to imitate is obviously his parents, but when he understand a bit more about society, he realize his parents are not a true authority for everything, so he begins to follow different authorities based on their perceived places in society.
When the kid becomes a teenager, he begins to understand abstract ideas like "contracts" and "justice". More importantly, he begins to understand people hidden motives and that everyone is flawed. Because of that, he begins to realize there is no true authority. That's when his mental process to judge change from simply seeing if his imitation was successful to something more complex and a lot more personal. He begins to judge based on his own understanding of human relationship and how society works. His moral system is not only about deciding who should be imitated and who should not, but it begins to be about creating a set of value which satisfies his instinctive sense of good.
For a few people, it will go even farther than human relationship and the society they live in. They will begin to consider very abstract ideas about the universe in general.
Of course, the evolution I described is not black and white. We do not go from one mental process to completely another. Even the most advanced person will still be influence by authorities for his day to day judgement. Thinking about complex abstract ideas is a difficult mental process, so it's something we rarely do. We never completely cease to imitate, but we becomes able to reject our first judgement based on imitation when we think about it. We do understand that imitation and following an authority is not a valid basis for a moral judgement.
In your case, you never pass the point of imitation. You still seek an authority to follow. You became adult, but you never really grew up. You realized you can't follow the authority of your parents anymore, you also realized no one in society is a true authority, you realized everyone has flaws, but instead of beginning to construct your own set of values based on abstract ideas, you tried to seek another authority. That's why you want to believe in a god. Your god is nothing more than a personal tool in order for you to be able to judge.
Do you notice it?
There are people who do not like me because of my opinions, the same way I don't like some people because of theirs. I certainly did suffer indirect punishment because of who I am, the same way I never hesitated to "punish" someone for being who he is (mostly stopping any kind of relationship with that person).
Can a vigilante harm me? Where I live (Montreal) the risk is insignificant. Can I lose a job because of an overzealous boss who do not like my opinions? Certainly, but I'll just find another one (BTW I'm self-employed).
As for the law, again in the context of where I live, actions can be punished, but we can't be jailed for ideas (I'm open to examples showing the contrary). There are rules which limit what we can say, but in my mind they are reasonable as most of the time they only limit the form of the expression, not the expression of the idea by itself.
Overall, I certainly do not feel I have to hide, even though my views on a lot of things are significantly different compared to the majority (like my views on this subject).
Having said that, I agree anonymity and privacy are useful. Yes, corruption need to be exposed and, yes, knowledge is power. On the other hand, their usefulness if pretty much a consequence of themselves in the first place. Without anonymity and privacy, you couldn't have corruption and if your "enemy" has as much knowledge of you as you do of him, then your knowledge doesn't give you artificial power.
For me, fighting for anonymity and privacy is like an arms race. What if we stopped arming ourselves instead?
I'll show you mine... if you show me yours.
Anyway, you have already my name and if you take a bit of time to do a little search on the Internet you'll find my address and even my phone number. Yep, it's in there and I don't care. Maybe it's because Canada (Montreal) is mostly a free country with a low crime rate, thanks to gun control, so I don't live in a state of paranoia.
So nice try, but your argument just falls flat.
As far as I'm concerned, the only real problem I face in my day to day life, both personal and professional, is not political oppression, it is people who are lying or at least hiding who they really are to get an advantage. So for me, the complete end of anonymity would be a good thing.
Why a lack of anonymity is a nightmare to you? Is it because you don't live in a free country and the only way you can express your ideas without going to jail afterward is with anonymity? Is it because you want to be able to lie to people around you in order to look better than you really are? Is it for another reason?
I don't recall Genesis talking about an explosion and I don't recall the Big Bang theory saying there was nothing before the Big Bang. I also don't follow how you can conclude water on a moon of Saturn is a proof of the great flood. Anyway, even at the time the Bible was created, I think several people already knew of this thing we call "water". There is really no need for proof for the existence of this "water".
We now know Genesis is ridiculously wrong. I even suspect some people were able to say it was ridiculously wrong at the time it was invented. Those who wrote it had absolutely no clue. It's not even pseudoscience, it's plain illogical fantasy. I mean, plants were created before the Sun? Even at the time, they could have thought of it and at the very least put the creation of the Sun before plants. Of course in a fantasy world anything is possible and those details are irrelevant, but still...
I don't really blame all the people who wrote the Bible, at least no more than I blame J.K. Rowling for writing Harry Potter, but I certainly blame you for not being able of basic thinking.
When the person you replied to talked about "magic" bracelet, he didn't mean he believes the bracelet is magical. The three words "Magic Magnet Bracelet" is the known name of a product.
It's not because they bend to peer pressure, it's because they are competing.
We are now so used to the concept of "intellectual property" that when we see something we might find interesting without someone trying to use it as a source of free income, we immediately think it's an April fools' day joke.
Our world is very, very sad.
No, memory is not just storage. You don't have memories, you are your memories. You don't have a part of your brain to store data and another to think.
Said in an extremely simplified way, a new memory is a new wiring configuration and that wiring configuration is what will create what you call thinking.
To use a computer analogy, memory is not just some data in RAM, it is the code. When we execute this code the result is what we call thinking, but that code (your memory) is really what creates the thinking.
No, there is no evidence which strongly suggest a non-deterministic universe. There are different interpretations of data, some imply quantum mechanics is non-deterministic, some imply it is deterministic and some doesn't imply anything. None seems better than the other. Up to now, we have no way to know if quantum mechanics is deterministic or not. Popular belief is that it is non-deterministic, but popular beliefs are not "science".
About free will, it seems obvious to me I don't have free will. When I think about something, I don't know why I decide to think about it. I just do. I may of course choose to think about something, but in the end I don't know why I made this choice. I just did. Some of my actions can be the result of a long reflection, but I have no control over why I began that reflection and why I chose some conclusions over others. I just did. I may try to understand myself, but it's just turtles all the way down. After the last turtles, I must admit have no control over what I do. I just do. Where is free will in that?
We've never seen or measured anything which might be qualified as a "soul", so the idea that it exists is just that, an idea. It is a concept we invented out of nothing to try to explain some of our perceptions. The idea of a "soul" is something we imagined. So yes, souls are clearly imaginary. It doesn't mean they don't exist, after all I could imagine horses with wings without any kind of evidence and then realize after that they really do exist, but it doesn't change that until I have some kind of physical proof horses with wings exist, they are only imaginary.
As for quantum mechanics, when did they prove it was intrinsically non-deterministic? It has the appearance of being non-deterministic, but this is if our basics assumptions, like locality, are correct. And that's a very big if. Also, quantum mechanics is not only in our brain, it's everywhere. Does that mean that a grain of sand has a soul?
Trying to use quantum mechanics to give some validity to the idea of "souls" has absolutely no logical basis whatsoever. It's basically : here's something you don't fully understand, so let me use it as a vessel for my own imaginary ideas, that way you won't be able to disprove them.
I'm someone who wants change. For example, I think Linux is dated and I would ditch it for Hurd if that thing could ever work reasonably well one day.
I tried Unity, I tried to adapt to it, but it is, for me, a step in the wrong direction. Maybe it's because I'm using three monitors (one 27" and two 22"), maybe it's because I'm using too many programs, working on too many files and doing too many tasks, but Unity doesn't work well for me.
But the thing is I think Linux fragmentation is bad. I think Linux needs a strong leader. That's why I think going with the most popular distribution makes sense and that's why I chose to switch to Ubuntu a few years ago. I guess I should now move to Mint, but I also think Canonical is in a better position to help Linux gain market share. So saying "use something else" is not a good solution for me. For me, the best solution would be for Canonical to offer more options with the UI in order to satisfy more people instead of forcing one design choice to everyone.
I don't have any control over what happens inside my brain and, in fact, I'm not even aware of it.
So not only I don't have free will, but I'm not even conscious of myself.
Making sure people don't hurt or cheat one another? Very few people want that. We value our "freedom" a lot more than whatever the consequences of our actions may have upon others. If our freedom means we will hurt others and if it means we must lie to others, so be it! Sure, we will agree to limit a bit our freedom to avoid falling into anarchy, but we all acknowledge that hurting some people in order to be "free" is perfectly acceptable.
Personally, because I'm a bit asocial and don't see the need to lie, I'm in favor of a society where there is no privacy. That's why I post under my real name and that's why I don't fear cameras and things like Google Glass. But how many people are like me?
Haha, look at all the AC posts. You guys are fricken cowards
Look at my user name. Now look at yours.
I don't think you're in a position to criticize anyone about being a "coward".
"Apple were only making higher end models with faster processors"
Mac Classic, from 1990 to 1992 : 8 Mhz 68000.
A3000, also from 1990 to 1992 : 16 or 25 Mhz 68030.
Commodore should have released the A3000 sooner to compete with the Macintosh II. I remember seeing ads for the A3000 long before it came out. When it finally came out in 1990, I remember magazine articles saying that it was too late and Commodore's future didn't look good.
Even then, before the A3000 came out, it was possible to buy an A2000 with a 68030 accelerator board and a SCSI hard disk for a lot less than the price of the Macintosh II. So saying Apple machines were higher end is not entirely true. Unfortunately, adding an accelerator board is something hobbyists do, not something businesses do.
"the lowest end mac had a 25mhz 68030, 4mb ram, scsi hdd and came with a proper monitor"
When the A1200 came out, the Mac Classic II had a 16 Mhz processor (not 25 Mhz) and 2 MB RAM (not 4 MB). Also it came with a 9" black and white monitor, which was clearly inferior to anything else. The Mac II Classic was 1900$ while the A1200 was 600$. I do not remember the price for the A1200 with the hard drive, but in 1991, you could buy a 14" color monitor for 279$, a SCSI controller for 125$ (for an A500, for an A2000 you could get one for 85$) and a 49 MB hard disk for 215$. Again in 1991 (I'm looking at an ad from an old magazine), you could get a 25 Mhz 68030, a 68882 and a 4 MB RAM expansion kit for 1499$ or 2159$ for a 50 Mhz 68030.
Macs were not higher end than Amigas and MacOS was clearly inferior to AmigaOS. Of course, Apple's prices were higher than Commodore.
Are there really that many people playing Skyrim and Crysis? Particularly playing those games with low graphic settings in order to not be GPU limited? A lot of my clients still have Core 2 duo or Phenom II and don't need more power. Even worst, a lot of their employees still have P4 at home and see no reason to upgrade. Also, considering the Xbox One and the PS4 both have an AMD processor (and not a fast one), it's kind of obvious there is very little use of a Core i7 for most people, even for gaming.
Personally, I think it's a shame we can't buy something like a 70$ Athlon II X3 anymore, because with its ECC memory support, it was is the perfect desktop machine for regular people. I did buy a Xeon e3-1230 for myself, but it's a waste of money for most people. I'd say it was even a waste of money for myself.
The only place where I clearly recommend Intel is for laptops, where heat and power consumption is important.
Alanis is cosmic irony which, ironically, doesn't appear in your list of definitions.
How old are your "really expensive" CRT? The last ones I saw were more than 10 years old (I tried to buy a high end CRT around 2001 and there was none available). Don't you think this might explain the blurriness and the dimness? In the past, I did work on a high end 22" Mitsubishi CRT and although it was not as sharp or bright as an LCD (native resolution only, otherwise the CRT was sharper), it was not "blurry" or dim at all.
Anyway, although I can tolerate the low contrast and the lack of black, motion blur (I'm not talking about ghosting) is what I hate with LCD. For working it obviously doesn't matter, but for watching a movie or playing games it's really bad.
Not ghosting, motion blur. A text scrolling fast on an LCD is unreadable while it's perfectly clear on a CRT. (BTW, I have a new Dell 2209WA, a two years old Samsung 226BW, a 10 years old cheap CRT and I did compared them in clone mode)
Except it won't be a global village kind of thing because only the elite will know what the rest of us is doing. The day I can completely monitor politicians, the police and other government institutions, that day I may accept everyone being watched. But let's be realistic, people in power will never accept being watched.
As for a nickname being like clothes, even if I see a person wearing clothes, I'll still be able to know who he is (and if he wears a ski mask during a hot day, you can be sure I will become highly suspicious). But when I see a nickname, I have no idea who is the person using it. Anonymity is sometimes a good thing, although most of the time it is abused, but your analogy is just wrong.
Could you post the journal of all the things you did in public places today? I'm interest to know. Begin by telling me all the address of all the houses and buildings you entered. I mean... you can't expect privacy as soon as you leave your door, right? So I'm sure you won't mind if I know, right?
BTW, Slashdot is certainly a public place and so hiding behind a nickname should not be expected. Could you give us your real name please?
I also find it funny that so many people in the rest of Canada and the US care about this. It's almost as if they felt insecure with the idea that some people might not be using English.
No, this is not a problem because all languages are in the same box.
Most of the time, the difference in quality is obvious. There is no need to play through the whole game.