I have never watched Babylon 5, for the sole reason that I would like to watch it from start to finish in the correct order, which is virtually impossible now that I missed its heyday (no one runs it any more... Uhhh..SciFi channel runs it 5 nights a week, dude.
And they run it in order, you just have to wait for it to cycle around.
Free people who make free contracts don't need a gov't to enforce that contract, that's what arbitrators, agreed upon by both parties are for.
But listen to yourself; you are describing a primitive form of government! No, I'm describing free contracts between free people, arbitrated by free people.
Oh, sorry, some clever person who knows how to dress up nonsense in impenetrable swathes of dense text said it in book. Ah. Must be right then, I don't say that everything in every book is right, maybe you've heard of critical reading?
I never said that anarchy is utopia, there is no such thing ( the word itself means no place), I'm saying that anarchy is better than gov't.
Maybe you don't need a lobotomy to fit into your utopian scheme but what about everybody else on the planet you doesn't want to go along with you? If everyone was an automaton, they could all be programmed to behave nicely in your government-free setup. But they are not. Some are greedy. Some are just plain sick, or evil. Some are opportunists who like to take advantage. Mankind is not highly evolved enough to do without some form of central control. 'An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what's right.' Most people can fit into that category. You seem to think that the world is an awful, awful place, with everyone against everyone else. That's too bad, because most people could live their lives without hurting anyone else if left to their own devices, without gov't interference. People can and do cooperate every single day. Kropotkin believed that governments usurp people's power to cooperate, by making them think that the gov't is the pervayor of morals, instead of the people themselves, it lets people delegate personal responsibility to a "higher power". Anarchy is about taking responsibility for yourself. An automaton wouldn't do well in an anarchy, anarchy isn't about programming, it's about deprogramming. Anarchy is about freedom, government is about coercion. You don't seem to get that.
Nothing that I say will get to you, I'm sure, because you don't understand what freedom really is. Freedom isn't about safety, freedom isn't about security, freedom isn't having everything you need or want. Freedom is being able live your own life on your own terms, without being coerced by anyone else.
That includes anyone who would make the GPL mandatory. Which I think brings us to the start of this thread, and which is where I'll end this post.
"We live in an anarchy" sounds like 'Freedom is Slavery'. We don't live in an anarchy because anarchy means absence of government.
Free people who make free contracts don't need a gov't to enforce that contract, that's what arbitrators, agreed upon by both parties are for.
Hierarchies are not 'an evolutionary response to threats to survival' and humans are not apes or ants.
I don't need a frontal lobotomy (or a bottle in fronta me) to stop me from initiating force against other people. I also don't need a gov't to take care of any fool who initiates force against me--I can take care of fools myself.
I can't cover every point in depth (books have been written), but anarchy as a philosophy, and a way of life, is not as simple, or simplistic, as most people think it is.
I do agree with you about copyright, but many people don't, and to force them to, basically, give up their right to something that they made is wrong, whether it's the RIAA, MPAA, or GPL. I'm not saying that Stallman etal are doing this, I'm just saying that it would be wrong if they did.
Alternatively you could consider that we already live in an anarchy. That is so far from real life that one has to think that you're trolling. With the introduction of the Office of Homeland Security in Sept we took the next step in the opposite direction.
Grown-ups create heirarchies because they were taught to as children--from preschool on up. Getting to anarchism is going to take a fundamental change in the way people think, because it has been so instilled into us that our rights come from the gov't, rather than the other way around, which is what the founding fathers of the USA had in mind when they wrote the bill of rights.
The Constitution of the US is/was an experiment, and it is a nice try, but it never went far enough.
I think a good book/essay to start with if you are interested in this is Lysander Spooner's "No Treason: The Constitution of no authority". This is a book by an individualist anarchist, most of the stuff that you see on the web today is by the collectivist anarchists and are only one side of the picture.
For those who think that throwing rocks is a terrible thing, don't forget that the police are doing more than throwing rocks, and most anarchists really do oppose using violence. That includes bombing, because violence is using force against others, which is a fundamental no-no for anarchists (some of us will defend ourselves though).
To get back on topic though, basically Stallman etal seem to want everyone to use the GPL (which I think is a great idea), but the problem is that they don't think that programmers should have a choice in whether or not they use the GPL, which means that they are trying to use power against other people, which they, supposedly, are against.
Sounds hypocritical to me.
Why pay for something you can get for free? Because if it's free it can't be good. You get what you pay for. This is the attitude of upper management and many, many non technical people.
Sheep will always be sheep--they can't help it>
Neal Stephenson--consistantly great my new favorite author after Heinlein.(Heinlein would be on this, but you only want live ones.)He's more consistant than Bruce Sterling, who has a couple of good novels, one great one, and some bad ones.
J Neil Schulman--If you haven't read him, you should.
L Neil Smith--The Louis Lamour of SF--people will read him forever.
Robert Anton Wilson (he's still alive as far as I know) Without him we wouldn't know what a fnord was, and we'd still be in the dark about the greatest conspiracy ever;)
James Geick--He mad me fall in love with fractals. One of the best science writers ever (after that dead one-Asimov).
1. Why are you using Word anyways?
2. There are plenty of *gasp* paper thesaurus's out there--what's wrong with those?
3. How about using an online thesaurus?
Here's a good one:
Yes corporations have rights,but,
they are not treated as individuals
under the law. They have no individual
accountability. Therefore--morals/ethics
don't apply.
...and you can't get into hotmail if you have it set as msie5.0. I was having trouble getting in a few weeks ago--maybe they were testing it? Guess it's time to change free email services. Anybody have any ideas on good ones, besides yahoo!?
If I had a real alternative to Photoshop, or Illustrator, or Flash that was open source, I would never use windows again. Gimp is good but it isn't anywhere near as powerful as Photoshop, Killustrator (or whatever they're going to call it now) is for amateurs, and forget about Flash, or any other animation on Linux. For graphic designers and serious artists Macromedia and Adobe are it, because they are the best out there. I don't like paying USD 200 or more for upgrades( and I don't--I'm using PS 5.5 and Illustrator 8 right now.)which are basically not much more than bells and whistles. The two companies are both assholes, but in the real world that's what we have to deal with. I'll experiment with open source graphics programs,but until they become more robust(I'd even pay for them) I'll continue to use Adobe and Macromedia stuff.
Re:site down or already slashdotted !
on
Magnetic Fluids
·
· Score: 1
Guess I should have wrote "One hour later..."
That actually would have given it more drama, and, not been so time centric.
Yadayadayada...
Re:site down or already slashdotted !
on
Magnetic Fluids
·
· Score: 2, Funny
8:15 Still slashdotted...Poor Dan the nerd's nerd doesn't have the server's server.
Level the playing field? Too bad that most people who might benefit from this can't afford it. Don't forget that Maine is one of the poorest states, and, one of the highest taxed. Most people who live here can't afford $50.00 a month, or an $800.00 set up fee. For a level playing field we need cheap internet access, and I don't see that happening very soon.
Just another namby, pamby dotcom asshole who wants to be on the gov't dole. Corporate welfare takes up more money than any other form, and helps fewer people. Sun and Oracle can't make it against Microsoft on their own, so they whine to the gov't for a handout. People talk about this being a free country--look around you and see how many of your rights are being slowly and methodically taken away. People are so worried about "safety" that they don't care about freedom. You can be safe or you can be free, not both. We have far too many id cards as it is, next Bill Gates will want to put a chip in our head to track you. I say, bite me, to all of them.
I'm not flaming, or, trolling, just stating my opinion.
College is what YOU make of it. Here, here! I majored in fine arts in college, and graduated with a BFA. But, I took courses in computer science, psychology, physics, whatever, and I came out ahead of the game, in some ways. Not financially, though. The thing is, if I wanted to make more money, I could have taken engineering(the school that I went to has a terrific engineering department.) and be making 40-50K (or whatever) a year. But money isn't what it's all about. For those of you who think that it is, I really feel sorry for you, because, that kind of thinking really limits your possibilities. Later in your life, you'll probably be saying, "Gee, I wish I'd taken this or that course when I was in school". It's easy to get caught up in the money thing, but I would think that the people who use Slashdot would be more willing to learn different things, just because it is fun. While you're getting that CS degree take an art course. If you don't want to take french art history, find something else that interests you. Broaden your horizons a little bit, you'll never regret it.
Slashdot Mirror
I have never watched Babylon 5, for the sole reason that I would like to watch it from start to finish in the correct order, which is virtually impossible now that I missed its heyday (no one runs it any more...
Uhhh..SciFi channel runs it 5 nights a week, dude.
And they run it in order, you just have to wait for it to cycle around.
Bite me.
That piece of shit response got moderated to a fucking 2. Give me a break.
I forgot myself and tried to talk reasonably to a sheep.
But listen to yourself; you are describing a primitive form of government!
No, I'm describing free contracts between free people, arbitrated by free people.
Oh, sorry, some clever person who knows how to dress up nonsense in impenetrable swathes of dense text said it in book. Ah. Must be right then,
I don't say that everything in every book is right, maybe you've heard of critical reading?
I never said that anarchy is utopia, there is no such thing ( the word itself means no place), I'm saying that anarchy is better than gov't.
Maybe you don't need a lobotomy to fit into your utopian scheme but what about everybody else on the planet you doesn't want to go along with you?
If everyone was an automaton, they could all be programmed to behave nicely in your government-free setup. But they are not. Some are greedy. Some are just plain sick, or evil. Some are opportunists who like to take advantage. Mankind is not highly evolved enough to do without some form of central control.
'An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what's right.' Most people can fit into that category. You seem to think that the world is an awful, awful place, with everyone against everyone else. That's too bad, because most people could live their lives without hurting anyone else if left to their own devices, without gov't interference. People can and do cooperate every single day. Kropotkin believed that governments usurp people's power to cooperate, by making them think that the gov't is the pervayor of morals, instead of the people themselves, it lets people delegate personal responsibility to a "higher power". Anarchy is about taking responsibility for yourself. An automaton wouldn't do well in an anarchy, anarchy isn't about programming, it's about deprogramming. Anarchy is about freedom, government is about coercion. You don't seem to get that.
Nothing that I say will get to you, I'm sure, because you don't understand what freedom really is. Freedom isn't about safety, freedom isn't about security, freedom isn't having everything you need or want. Freedom is being able live your own life on your own terms, without being coerced by anyone else.
That includes anyone who would make the GPL mandatory. Which I think brings us to the start of this thread, and which is where I'll end this post.
Yes, the commuity radio station that I volunteer at uses it on one computer for their satellite downloads.
"We live in an anarchy" sounds like 'Freedom is Slavery'. We don't live in an anarchy because anarchy means absence of government.
Free people who make free contracts don't need a gov't to enforce that contract, that's what arbitrators, agreed upon by both parties are for.
Hierarchies are not 'an evolutionary response to threats to survival' and humans are not apes or ants.
I don't need a frontal lobotomy (or a bottle in fronta me) to stop me from initiating force against other people. I also don't need a gov't to take care of any fool who initiates force against me--I can take care of fools myself.
I can't cover every point in depth (books have been written), but anarchy as a philosophy, and a way of life, is not as simple, or simplistic, as most people think it is.
I do agree with you about copyright, but many people don't, and to force them to, basically, give up their right to something that they made is wrong, whether it's the RIAA, MPAA, or GPL. I'm not saying that Stallman etal are doing this, I'm just saying that it would be wrong if they did.
Alternatively you could consider that we already live in an anarchy.
That is so far from real life that one has to think that you're trolling. With the introduction of the Office of Homeland Security in Sept we took the next step in the opposite direction.
Grown-ups create heirarchies because they were taught to as children--from preschool on up. Getting to anarchism is going to take a fundamental change in the way people think, because it has been so instilled into us that our rights come from the gov't, rather than the other way around, which is what the founding fathers of the USA had in mind when they wrote the bill of rights.
The Constitution of the US is/was an experiment, and it is a nice try, but it never went far enough.
I think a good book/essay to start with if you are interested in this is Lysander Spooner's "No Treason: The Constitution of no authority". This is a book by an individualist anarchist, most of the stuff that you see on the web today is by the collectivist anarchists and are only one side of the picture.
For those who think that throwing rocks is a terrible thing, don't forget that the police are doing more than throwing rocks, and most anarchists really do oppose using violence. That includes bombing, because violence is using force against others, which is a fundamental no-no for anarchists (some of us will defend ourselves though).
To get back on topic though, basically Stallman etal seem to want everyone to use the GPL (which I think is a great idea), but the problem is that they don't think that programmers should have a choice in whether or not they use the GPL, which means that they are trying to use power against other people, which they, supposedly, are against.
Sounds hypocritical to me.
Why pay for something you can get for free?
Because if it's free it can't be good. You get what you pay for. This is the attitude of upper management and many, many non technical people.
Sheep will always be sheep--they can't help it>
This was on boingboing Monday. You all seem to be slow with the news lately. What's up with that?
reported this yesterday. Where have you guys been?
Neal Stephenson--consistantly great my new favorite author after Heinlein.(Heinlein would be on this, but you only want live ones.)He's more consistant than Bruce Sterling, who has a couple of good novels, one great one, and some bad ones.
;)
J Neil Schulman--If you haven't read him, you should.
L Neil Smith--The Louis Lamour of SF--people will read him forever.
Robert Anton Wilson (he's still alive as far as I know) Without him we wouldn't know what a fnord was, and we'd still be in the dark about the greatest conspiracy ever
James Geick--He mad me fall in love with fractals. One of the best science writers ever (after that dead one-Asimov).
But where are the fnords?
Two weekends in a row?
2. There are plenty of *gasp* paper thesaurus's out there--what's wrong with those?
3. How about using an online thesaurus?
Here's a good one:
Mirriam-Webster's Thesuarus and Dictionary.
Here are it's synonyms for idiot:
Entry Word: idiot
Function: noun
Text: 1
Synonyms FOOL 1, ass, *damfool, donkey, imbecile, jackass, jerk, nincompoop, ninny, tomfool
2
Synonyms FOOL 2, jester, motley
3
Synonyms FOOL 4, ament, cretin, ||feeb, half-wit, imbecile, moron, natural, simpleton, zany
4
Synonyms DUNCE, dullard, dullhead, dumbbell, ||dummkopf, dummy, ignoramus, moron, simpleton, stupid
Even Microsoft can't redefine the english language all by itself.
It's not that I don't like Yahoo--I just want to know what other options there are
they are not treated as individuals
under the law. They have no individual
accountability. Therefore--morals/ethics
don't apply.
That actually would have given it more drama, and, not been so time centric.
Yadayadayada...
8:15 Still slashdotted...Poor Dan the nerd's nerd doesn't have the server's server.
uh...well...actually, I do.
I'm not flaming, or, trolling, just stating my opinion.
"Fear nothing. Live free." John Perry Barlow
Here, here! I majored in fine arts in college, and graduated with a BFA. But, I took courses in computer science, psychology, physics, whatever, and I came out ahead of the game, in some ways. Not financially, though. The thing is, if I wanted to make more money, I could have taken engineering(the school that I went to has a terrific engineering department.) and be making 40-50K (or whatever) a year. But money isn't what it's all about. For those of you who think that it is, I really feel sorry for you, because, that kind of thinking really limits your possibilities. Later in your life, you'll probably be saying, "Gee, I wish I'd taken this or that course when I was in school". It's easy to get caught up in the money thing, but I would think that the people who use Slashdot would be more willing to learn different things, just because it is fun. While you're getting that CS degree take an art course. If you don't want to take french art history, find something else that interests you. Broaden your horizons a little bit, you'll never regret it.
Oh, I thought that was obvious.