Well. I dont think its making US, stupid. I think its making YOU stupid.
There is this great essay by the celebrated Sartori called "Homo Videns" written somewhere arround the 80s. In it he makes the pretty good case that when politics and, in general, most of the information we receive moves to mass media and, particularly, video, men stop excercising their capacity to abstract, translate and analyze symbolic representations of reality (letters, at their most basic and atomic representation) and thus abandon what makes us Sapiens: the ability to apply abstraction to extract information from reality and analyze it through symbolic manipulation.
He argues that images are the most concrete form of information. If you read in your red-note paper about that huge car crash, you need to imagine it. Information missing from the blurb are oportunities for abstraction and extrapolation (was the car red? how do you imagine it? was it new... was it a sports car? was the dead woman a blonde?). An image, in contrast, does not invite you to think: it invites you to accept the precise and concrete information you see in two seconds of evening news: brains splatered on sidewalk with blonde, long hairs sticking out from it, all in HDTV, 1080 resolution.
So, back to my original idea. I think whomever chooses to abandon "Sapiency", is wellcome to do so. Its not like humanity will loose anything: we are mostly ignorant assholes, only ever the elites get mildly educated and its supperb and almost very rare that people get to this state of openess and continuous learning that i like to call intelectuallity. Then again, compared with the TV, the Internet ROCKS. At least it gives you the CHANCE to keep being sapient, to keep reading and writing long thoughtful blurbs if you want. It lets you get in touch with like-minded individuals. The intenet is full of potential for this, whereas the world we come from is just the fucking TV.
So i think we were already idiots, dont go blaming my internet of that.
Well... I think killing 60k civilians in a war can very well stand in for "pissing people off". Also, stealing their oil, which is their national property, may also "piss them off". Also, going arround the world preaching freedom and democracy while supporting a regime like the saudi that publicly slaughters homosexuals, while with the other hand you critizize Iran for exactly the same thing can very well stand in for "pissing people off".
So, who do you think has more of a right to be pissed off: you, who lost a couple of big buildings and about (lets be lenient) 5000 hard working people, or the rest of the world that suffers US external policy skitzophrenia and cluster bombs for no other reason than you guys needing (lots of) oil.
I admire the US a lot. I like the whole idea. I think she has the wood to lead occident in the cultural war that is about to come. But not with GWB and the like at her head. Not with traitors like that at the wheel.
But doesnt it get you a tad nervous that we are making this "anti-*" stuff here on earth and shooting it up to see which way it falls?
How does anti-hydrogen work on life thingies? Does it have the potential for a destructive chain reaction? Are the cientists not part of the global-universal conspiracy against america?
Okay. Here is what I propose in order to save "life [kind of] as we know it", before WE destroy it here first.
Lets cultivate this little bug, put in on a nice british-silver-martini ice container, and start sprouting it throughout the solar system and beyond.
By the time they reach Alpha Centauri, we probably will have nuked each other asses and made this rock too hot for anything living.
This way, at least, we know we let some of our "evolutive" life er... "style", out there in the universe for the Flying Spaghetti Monster to save it and put it in a nicer planet where it will evolve into er... something with a DNA.
They make an impossibly expensive OS (900+ for vista ult), that needs an incredible ammount of resources to accomplish, precisely, the hypernecessary and indispensable transparency effect on a menu.
Weird thing saying that console piracy is somewhat harder.
Here in the third world, you go to any flea market and you can get anything but the very bleeding edge already cracked and ready to play cracked games.
Piracy works in favor of publishers, not against them. Or rather, in favor of brand-name recognition that, if played well, could mean more bussiness, not less.
I say for example, WoW probably does not need, at all, to sell the game. They could give it away and they wouldnt loose anything: you play on their servers and pay for access, not for the game.
And thats the way things are going to go now. Im not saying i like it, im just saying thats the way to make money nowadays and it circunvents whatever evil can be done to you through piracy (which wasnt much to begin with)
The way I see it, the powers that be read all of huntington and recon that the new era is an era not unlike the cold war.
Its Asia Vs. Occident all over again, but with lots of nukes lying around and the muslim crowd stuck in the middle.
The powers that be in occident, the way I see it, have already decided to copy china's totalitarian success. You see it in the neocons stance about the war, especially when you confront that stance with the way they admire China and their new system.
It is a future where only fascism (occidental classic fascism or oriental commie-painted fascism) will prevail. After that, its a full blown corporatocracy that will be proposed as the natural evolution of men.
Well... America's answer to eastern totalitarianism is occidental totalitarianism, unilateral warmongering and a continuous erosion of the international legal system.
Its not that the US is "to blame" for anything. Its that the contry leading occident should start seeing itself as one, and accepting responsibility for what she does or does'nt do when confronting her actions with her leadership status.
Most of occident would follow the US if the US was accountable for her actions in the international system.
Whilst there was naught to see beyond the mist of his bedroom, he knew the computer was there, watching.
"Up you go", he said to himself. Into the shower, into his polo shirt, into his fucking docker kakhis. Out the door, neighbors in their own fucking kakis. Neighbor wives into their own fucking kakis.
A fucking brown golden retreiver got him to think about the color kaki and to wonder about why does it contrive such peacefullness to him. He disregards that thought. He moves on.
He gets in the brown bus, heading to the brown office of Brown-Red Hat food division. He does not stop for lunch: its waiting for him in the cafeteria the exact momento his meal time comes up.
"Just in time, is how the japs did it, just in time is how i like it", its eleven o'clock, he finishes lunch. He goes back to the office. He gets no calls. He only codes two lines, and hits the green button, then the machine tells him what to do next. If he does not hit the green button every exactly one minute, a big red buzzer comes up, and that lady from up there will come and look down on him, she will tell him how he is endangering the possibilities of their kids, he is telling him about the new legal provissions that provides for the automatic inheritance of both credit and work records to his children.
She will drop a final line about the war, about how the red-chinks are going to "get us" because we do not know how to work for a common goal, as a team, and they can. Theyve learned to sacrifice for the lot. Theyve learned to trust their leaders.
Theyve learned that the gene-fight the cultural-fight is for the long run, and while we, a young occident, were fighting about whats the right ammount of freedom, they were building the mega-machine-economic-behemot covering from Moscow to Tokio, from Siberia to Malasya. And we are loosing this war because of selfish people that do not understand the importance of the green button. It allows us to plan on the long run, to calculate mistakes, to get ahead of them, to be more productive.
"You should feel fortunate", she would say, turning on her heels and moving away, gesturing as if she were crying, just like the Corporate Human Resources IT Coach Management Manual says she should gesture.
Thats kinda harsh. I consider polsci a science. As much as a social science can be considered "science" anyway.
I myself wouldve studied polsci if the powers that be wouldve let me become one. Alas... my parents thought it was "unproductive" (and one of them IS a polsci master) and managed to convince me of it.
Now that im in the field of IT, with very good results, i might add, consider that is just about as productive as any other work that does not include surfing in the pacific ocean at day, and smoking diverse herbal products at night.
From that standpoint, i hold a violent grudge against any social science graduates: fsking lazy bunch, you should be suffering just like the rest of us!
Slashdot Mirror
Well. I dont think its making US, stupid. I think its making YOU stupid.
There is this great essay by the celebrated Sartori called "Homo Videns" written somewhere arround the 80s. In it he makes the pretty good case that when politics and, in general, most of the information we receive moves to mass media and, particularly, video, men stop excercising their capacity to abstract, translate and analyze symbolic representations of reality (letters, at their most basic and atomic representation) and thus abandon what makes us Sapiens: the ability to apply abstraction to extract information from reality and analyze it through symbolic manipulation.
He argues that images are the most concrete form of information. If you read in your red-note paper about that huge car crash, you need to imagine it. Information missing from the blurb are oportunities for abstraction and extrapolation (was the car red? how do you imagine it? was it new... was it a sports car? was the dead woman a blonde?). An image, in contrast, does not invite you to think: it invites you to accept the precise and concrete information you see in two seconds of evening news: brains splatered on sidewalk with blonde, long hairs sticking out from it, all in HDTV, 1080 resolution.
So, back to my original idea. I think whomever chooses to abandon "Sapiency", is wellcome to do so. Its not like humanity will loose anything: we are mostly ignorant assholes, only ever the elites get mildly educated and its supperb and almost very rare that people get to this state of openess and continuous learning that i like to call intelectuallity. Then again, compared with the TV, the Internet ROCKS. At least it gives you the CHANCE to keep being sapient, to keep reading and writing long thoughtful blurbs if you want. It lets you get in touch with like-minded individuals. The intenet is full of potential for this, whereas the world we come from is just the fucking TV.
So i think we were already idiots, dont go blaming my internet of that.
It does, and very well.
"I know how to get by on Windows out of sheer necessity."
And one of the solutions is: go buy the next version of w2k server?
Weve had this console thingie for a while in Linux. Why did windows wait until now?
We can all especulate on that.
You really hold your country at much less than what it could be.
America is occident at its highest. It could be the rock in which occident survives china.
It wont.
Because of people who think like you.
HUH?
Well... I think killing 60k civilians in a war can very well stand in for "pissing people off". Also, stealing their oil, which is their national property, may also "piss them off". Also, going arround the world preaching freedom and democracy while supporting a regime like the saudi that publicly slaughters homosexuals, while with the other hand you critizize Iran for exactly the same thing can very well stand in for "pissing people off".
So, who do you think has more of a right to be pissed off: you, who lost a couple of big buildings and about (lets be lenient) 5000 hard working people, or the rest of the world that suffers US external policy skitzophrenia and cluster bombs for no other reason than you guys needing (lots of) oil.
I admire the US a lot. I like the whole idea. I think she has the wood to lead occident in the cultural war that is about to come. But not with GWB and the like at her head. Not with traitors like that at the wheel.
But doesnt it get you a tad nervous that we are making this "anti-*" stuff here on earth and shooting it up to see which way it falls?
How does anti-hydrogen work on life thingies? Does it have the potential for a destructive chain reaction? Are the cientists not part of the global-universal conspiracy against america?
Ah... microsoft's mentality, you gotta love it. When he says "we havent thought about that size before", he wants to convey "we, humanity".
Doesnt that kind of show what kind of reality distortion field this guy lives in?
Amazon thought about it, Google thought about it. Ah, they are not "we, humanity"... i see.
I strongly disagree: we need to save THE MARTINI as well!
Okay. Here is what I propose in order to save "life [kind of] as we know it", before WE destroy it here first.
Lets cultivate this little bug, put in on a nice british-silver-martini ice container, and start sprouting it throughout the solar system and beyond.
By the time they reach Alpha Centauri, we probably will have nuked each other asses and made this rock too hot for anything living.
This way, at least, we know we let some of our "evolutive" life er... "style", out there in the universe for the Flying Spaghetti Monster to save it and put it in a nicer planet where it will evolve into er... something with a DNA.
They make an impossibly expensive OS (900+ for vista ult), that needs an incredible ammount of resources to accomplish, precisely, the hypernecessary and indispensable transparency effect on a menu.
The Microsoft Way. You gotta love the guys.
On this topic, the thing here is that the web is there to address this problem.
If the execs were forced to go to the website to do anything, then they can do whatever the hell they want with their phone.
Ive tested it and i can say it now: pure beauty.
I need this as a bash-completion plugin. I need it NOW, NOW, NOW.
Weird thing saying that console piracy is somewhat harder.
Here in the third world, you go to any flea market and you can get anything but the very bleeding edge already cracked and ready to play cracked games.
Piracy works in favor of publishers, not against them. Or rather, in favor of brand-name recognition that, if played well, could mean more bussiness, not less.
I say for example, WoW probably does not need, at all, to sell the game. They could give it away and they wouldnt loose anything: you play on their servers and pay for access, not for the game.
And thats the way things are going to go now. Im not saying i like it, im just saying thats the way to make money nowadays and it circunvents whatever evil can be done to you through piracy (which wasnt much to begin with)
Its princess Amidala's ring, you insensitive clod!
Here is the scary part.
The way I see it, the powers that be read all of huntington and recon that the new era is an era not unlike the cold war.
Its Asia Vs. Occident all over again, but with lots of nukes lying around and the muslim crowd stuck in the middle.
The powers that be in occident, the way I see it, have already decided to copy china's totalitarian success. You see it in the neocons stance about the war, especially when you confront that stance with the way they admire China and their new system.
It is a future where only fascism (occidental classic fascism or oriental commie-painted fascism) will prevail. After that, its a full blown corporatocracy that will be proposed as the natural evolution of men.
SnowCrash is finaly here.
Well... America's answer to eastern totalitarianism is occidental totalitarianism, unilateral warmongering and a continuous erosion of the international legal system.
Its not that the US is "to blame" for anything. Its that the contry leading occident should start seeing itself as one, and accepting responsibility for what she does or does'nt do when confronting her actions with her leadership status.
Most of occident would follow the US if the US was accountable for her actions in the international system.
Whilst there was naught to see beyond the mist of his bedroom, he knew the computer was there, watching.
"Up you go", he said to himself. Into the shower, into his polo shirt, into his fucking docker kakhis. Out the door, neighbors in their own fucking kakis. Neighbor wives into their own fucking kakis.
A fucking brown golden retreiver got him to think about the color kaki and to wonder about why does it contrive such peacefullness to him. He disregards that thought. He moves on.
He gets in the brown bus, heading to the brown office of Brown-Red Hat food division. He does not stop for lunch: its waiting for him in the cafeteria the exact momento his meal time comes up.
"Just in time, is how the japs did it, just in time is how i like it", its eleven o'clock, he finishes lunch. He goes back to the office. He gets no calls. He only codes two lines, and hits the green button, then the machine tells him what to do next. If he does not hit the green button every exactly one minute, a big red buzzer comes up, and that lady from up there will come and look down on him, she will tell him how he is endangering the possibilities of their kids, he is telling him about the new legal provissions that provides for the automatic inheritance of both credit and work records to his children.
She will drop a final line about the war, about how the red-chinks are going to "get us" because we do not know how to work for a common goal, as a team, and they can. Theyve learned to sacrifice for the lot. Theyve learned to trust their leaders.
Theyve learned that the gene-fight the cultural-fight is for the long run, and while we, a young occident, were fighting about whats the right ammount of freedom, they were building the mega-machine-economic-behemot covering from Moscow to Tokio, from Siberia to Malasya. And we are loosing this war because of selfish people that do not understand the importance of the green button. It allows us to plan on the long run, to calculate mistakes, to get ahead of them, to be more productive.
"You should feel fortunate", she would say, turning on her heels and moving away, gesturing as if she were crying, just like the Corporate Human Resources IT Coach Management Manual says she should gesture.
Well if we didnt do it, who would?
Dont you think MS should be forced to play fair? They dont have any other incentive to do so!
Thats kinda harsh. I consider polsci a science. As much as a social science can be considered "science" anyway.
I myself wouldve studied polsci if the powers that be wouldve let me become one. Alas... my parents thought it was "unproductive" (and one of them IS a polsci master) and managed to convince me of it.
Now that im in the field of IT, with very good results, i might add, consider that is just about as productive as any other work that does not include surfing in the pacific ocean at day, and smoking diverse herbal products at night.
From that standpoint, i hold a violent grudge against any social science graduates: fsking lazy bunch, you should be suffering just like the rest of us!
Finally. A step in the right direction, Microsoft. I congratulate thee and hope youll pay for what youve done to web standards.
Lets level: you created this hell, you are now crawling your way out of it. You have enough money to survive it and that is GOOD(tm).
Lets hope that youll continue to do this kind of thing for every standard youve steped on.
Being a PolSci graduate does not make you a politician.
It makes you, very probably, a pothead, a great guy to converse with.... and a somewhat disturbing character since youre posting on slashdot.
Now "saying blatant things about science without knowing anything you talk about", THAT makes you a politician.
Why dont they put some granades on those robots so we can beat the shit out of those red-commie-martians?
Hell, I bet they are ay-rabs as well with all that sand arround and all.
Perhaps they have WMD's as well!
And also, if a big hit as the landing "uncovered" ice, well the granades could be of certain scientific use....
Yeah, totally true.
I got the mod points though!
Why thank you!
On the other note: I have and completely agree...
Just to chitchat and get this ubermoderating gods ball rolling...
How about those Lakers huh?