It's critical that no one person in a company ever appears to be above a code of ethics.
IMO, the key word is "appears", so to put emphasis:
"It's critical that no one person in a company ever appears to be above a code of ethics."
If anybody reads that carefully, it should be plain that being above that particular code of ethics is OK as long as thouse bounded by it do not appear to be above it (i.e. they carefully hide acts which are against the code or use some other "PR" tactics).
As the saying goes: Some call them terrorists, others call them freedom fighters.
So this war on terrorism (or against pedophiles or whatever) just boils down to: we do not like them, we are going to kill them.
In other words, plain old set of survival instincts, prejudice, lies and warfare.
That being said, it would be nice to just avoid politicaly correct talking and say it as it is. But than again, there are also those plain old tactics, intrigues, treachery,...:|
I do not know if I remember correctly but in Orvell's 1984 there has been (and again: IIRC) "thought crime".
But it is not important how it is called. Important is the principle and whether and how it is applied in a society.
That being said, pedophile or not, if someone do something bad to my doughter I will either kill him or hurt him badly.
And here I am, maybe now I've became criminal by having a doughter and expressing my willingness to protect (and avenge, if necessary) her.
While on the one end, such draconian measures may scare some pedophiles (or terrorists), on the other hand they transform a lot of ordinary people (a lot of them parents) into suspects (or worse: criminals right away) without actualy eradicating all (or at least majority) of realy bad people. So, I hope that a lot of people, because they are patents, will at the end realize that and cease chasing ghosts (in the form of "preventing crime done by potential criminals" ala Minority Report) and concentrate on technique proven by time: to catch people who actualy realy did something bad and kick the hell out of them (proportionaly to the seriousness of what they did) so that:
they will have strong incentive not to do it again and
others too will be given example and incentive to not do it.
That being said, I should also emphasize that know, non-anonymous, concrete victims (or their relatives and friends) should be catching culprits (with the help of all the neighbours who want to help and also set the examle; and in coordinantion with elected officials). Not some electorate which is far too removed from the "ordinary" people and if it is not outright servings its our interests, at least it looks like it is from the point of view of "ordinary" people.
I'm not proposing anarchy and self-justice - I do believe in cooperation. But for me such laws (too vaugue, too draconian, too complex, too full of unspoken assumptions,...) are indication, that those who wrote them are far too removed (either willingly or by some mistake) from those whom they should serve.
Consistency requires logic. Logic is quite often in case of a lot of people repulsive with belief/religion.
You can believe in something you do not understand. But you can not understand something you do not believe.
Thus, you can logicaly understand something and believe in it thus also exercising consistency (as long as your information is correct). But if you just believe in something without understanding it, the amount of your inconsistencies rise with the complexity of your beliefs.
And I believe our world (let alone universe) is quite complex so the probability of inconsistencies is quite high. But also this statement may be inconsistent.:)
Of course all the above statements are valid only if I believe that I do exist and that other people do exist too.:)
But back to what you said: I believe that in the event of bird-flu killing humans there will be very low number of causalties between those who reject evolution. Becuase I think they believe for example that God loves them and wants them to spread such belief so they will choose "lesser evil", take the vaccine and survive.
So I think, bird flu will not reduce the number of people who reject evolution.
So I advice supporters of evolution to cease to be too optimistic, instead become more pesimistic and not expect their opposition to magicaly vanish (because of... say.. bird-flu).
Final note to this "pesimistic" thing: Such evolutional pressure may result in people more resistant to stress. But, of course, only if this "evolution" is real.
What do necrophilian pedophiles and beer-lovers have in common?
They both love "chilled 12".
(I hope my translation to English will be able to be understood.
Plus: 12(deg) marks a beer made from certain amount of malt, thus with certain amount of alcohol, at least in some parts of Europe.)
IIRC (and if army is not completely crazy) army does not plan to use TCP as a way to give RIAA and MPAA control of army PCs.
If that assumption is correct, army will be supplying encryption keys into TCP, not PC manufacturer, not RIAA, not MPAA, not Sony, etc.
It also means, that TCP, as deployed in army, will be able to be "owned" (meaning "0wn3d", controlled, etc.) by the owner of the PC (in this case army), not media cartels.
And that finaly means, that even I or you may be able to found such TCP usefull, usefull for us.
On the other hand, those more paranoid may object, that army will get different TCP in their PCs than "common consumers". The only difference may be just that little thing: who supplies encryption keys - meaning: "not common consumer".
IMO there's nothing wrong with that as long as boths sides are forth-comming, in this case ISP do even "non ISP" tasks and customer does not fight every cent on the bill.
Since the war on drugs has made drugs cheap, pure and ubiquitous...
One correction: pretended war on drugs... thanks to what the saying "what does not kill you makes you stronger" kicks-in.
I think that real war of people agains politics will kill politics quite effectively in very short time. Same as real war on drugs would have killed drugs and real war on terror would kill terrorists.
Because we can't consider war on drugs being serious when for example even some US soldiers deployed to fight drugs are smugling drugs themselves. Or when some politicians get bribed by narco-mafia (because why would they bribe them if drugs were legal or nobody wanted those drugs?).
Of course real fight against drugs or terror is most probably not fought with guns and bombs but then, politicians braging about fightng this or that without guns would look... well... boring, less entertaining,...:|
It looks like to me a lot of people just want fun (majority also with drugs) with a little bit of suffering (terror) mixed in. So the politicians (as any good vendor) just deliver to the peole what they want while trying to profit from that as much as bearable (bearable to those fun+terror loving customers).
Maybe it happened. But then FBI agents showed up and... "accidentaly"... a lot of FBI machines stopped working so the agents we're not sure what they are doing at MS headquarters so they backed up.:)
Do you have problems with such "nobodies" (as YouHaveSnail put it, or as you put it: "large number of people")?
I assume you know the ussage patterns so your company plan for it? If so, how?
As I am all for peacefull coexistence of all the people (and... well... all and everything) in the universe I learned so far that one thing is what the law says, another thing is what is enforced and also another thing is what people actualy do.
Supreme Court may ruled as you wrote but as long as you're using that lamp you're leaking signals which others are able to detect so if you're not blocking those signals (so that interception is impossible) you're taking risk because it may not be police who'll observe you using the lamp. Or there may be some "big event(TM)" after which Supreme Court will rule otherwise...
So in other words: You may act like gravity is always pointing downwards no matter what Supreme Court says, because that's physics not some "bill of rights".
But you should not run naked through the streets no matter how many laws there are to protect you from humilating yourself (if you are ugly) or financial harm (if you are beautifull and you just lost a lot of possible income because now a lot of people saw you naked for free and wont be that much interested in you anymore:).
If you want your privacy that much, you have to remodel our universe - or better yet, make your own (with physics which does not leek that much info about you) and let others keep current one.:)
Well, I like my privacy too. But I still have to disagree with you because of your argument about privacy winning over interception of signals passing through space controled by interceptor.
Why? In general, because of physics (and human individualistic nature).
For example, one argument can be that if "your" signals are truly yours (or at least that notion is enforced by society) than when your signals are passing my property I can sue you. Because, if you say those signals are yours than I say "fine, but get them out of my property" - I respect your signals, you respect my garden, my house, my body,...
In such scenario it'll be essentialy impossible to use radio (and other menas of communication) because all sorts of people will not allow to pass it through their property. Or society should say "signals are more than physical property" but it'll be... well... very very confusing for a lot of people and hard to enforce without a lot of people feeling badly about it.
So that much about "your" or "mine" signals - if I do not want you to know what I'm doing, either I do not pass my signals through your space or I take a risk and do.
Question left over for some other exercises is: what about my ability to block signals going through my property (i.e. not letting them pass)? Would it be OK for me to block them? (IMO yes, but than I have to expect and accept that others will do the same so in order to have the communication, we muttualy agree not to sheald signals, at least as long as they are considered harmless to our health and environment).
And now back to privacy: So if essentaly we agree that I can see (analyze, receive,...) whatever is passing through me and my property then we essentialy agree that anybody can spy on anybody as long as he is just passive observer (i.e. not stalker actively seeking and intimidating "prey" etc.).
How do we protect our privacy then?
One way is to block the signals going out or not sending them at all. In case of your example, your neighbour, if he/she values his/her privacy, should not undress near the window etc.
Other way, in the broader sense, is "enact" that while everybody can spy, that everybody have the right to spy. So everybody will know that and will take that into account. And as long as there is no big discrimination (like "police can spy on you but you can't spy police", "white guys can spy on black guys", etc. - artificial scenario not based on physics, same with so called IP rights as enforced by *AA, and beware, I am for IP rights while I'm programmer, but not as artificaly broadened and out of real physical world as requested by some), I think that it may also be better than now, because it will eliminate at least those "bad things" which are done when a guy thinks nobody sees him (and I mean both small hooligan and big politician - all should be watched closely:).
The only problem the founding fathers (maybe) did not envision is that this argument is hard to follow by members of so called "general public" thus has been in the years following the creation of this "lease program" misunderstood to the point where it is not used to achieve its original goals (essentialy its doing quite opposite - see the note at the bottom) and "general public" does not care (that it is screwed).
So we are back at the problem: how to educate "general public". Well, IMO only "one man at a time" because "one man" is generaly far more inteligent than "group of people" (see for example Freud's works).
So thank you again that you're doing it and I hope it works.
Note: Why I thing "general public" is curretnly screwed by copyrights thanks to some entities: All ideas are based on previous ideas (Cinderella is based on some earlier "folk stories", Einstein's Theory of Relativity is based on works of previous physicists - he would not be IMO able to come up with it withour Aristotele, Newton,... etc.)
By granting "temporary" (it is still being extender further and further, so in practice so far it is not "temporary") monopoly on whole new idea government is essentialy locking partialy also previous ideas on which this new/"new" one is based.
So at the end without that "temporary" kicking-in this so called Public Domain is step by step being locked down into "Intelectual Property of Somebody" with "general public" ending with less of common and free knowledge as time goes on - the opposide of what was the intention.
So without corrective actions and after sufficient amount of time (one-two generations?) "general public" will maybe end up paying even for basing ideas abount life, i.e. for the existence of a sentient individual itself.
Well, if I understand both those biology and computer monoculture things correctly, than you do not have to have completely different "implementations". As with everything, we're not going to do X amount of work which will result in 100% of the problem solved - it will be more like "we do this Y and we mitigate the risk by say 60%, we do Z and we lower the risk by another 20%, etc.".
Lets elaborate. I start by limiting following ideas into a) PCs and b) people (homo sapiens). Then I follow by making analogy between human and PC.
So we have here all the people on Earth - some of them black, some of them white, some of them tall, some of them short, etc. All are homo sapiens and all are (from the DNA point of view) almost identical.
Then we have here those PCs, of which about 90% are Windows based PCs.
In the light of the analogy I mentioned above that 90% of PCs can be compared to say some limited amount of individuals from one village being mass-cloned and distributed around the world in a way that at the end they amount to 90% of population.
Such a 90% scenario in human population would be IMO more dangerous than current status because it reperesent far lower genetical variability in human population (thus greater risk of destruction by single pleague).
So to bring those PCs more in line with humans (in regards to the monoculture problem) we do not need completely different PCs with different HW and SW. It would be like requiring human population to consists of also some non-homo sapiens beings, like neandethlas, etc.
So IMO it would be sufficient to introduce some minor variations with basic building blocks being shared (for the sake of interoperability and lower TCO).
Example: Linux. There is only one Linux (Linus' kernel) but there are many realizations: Red Hat, Debian, Slackware,... They all share common building blocks but they differ in compilation options, precise versions being used, some functions has more than one implementation so each distro sometimes chooses other implemntation (or user can choose it while more that one is available in the distro). Etc.
So one approach to that PC monoculture problem may be to migrate to Linux (or Macs, which are very close to Linux, IMO closer that to Windows if we're talking "DNA").
Of course that may be unrealistics and essentialy requires MS to abandon Windows (or esers abandoning MS).
Other approach may be to modularize Windows so that it is not this big all-integrated block of code it is today. But to achieve that, MS have to stop using their ussual lock-in tactics because to achieve same level of integration of more modularized Windows boxes we need standardized (and public) protocols/APIs between components with proper market competitions than ensuring distribution of even non-MS components if there is sufficient demand for more than one implementation and if those other implementations are found to be better than those MS ones. And of course some other stuff too, but I'm not going to make this post too big, but at the end it still boils down to MS being less in control in favor of users themselves.
it is what you get. from your computer/router to the nearest company equipment...
I checked what my ISP is offering and (in rough slovak to english translation): "broadband internet access at speeds up to XXXX/YYY".
So at least I'm not buying connectivity to their network (which I do not want) but connectivity to the Internet (which I do want).
On the other hand, while for now I do not know what is the stance of my ISP on that "tiered thing", they at least do not promise exactly the maximum speeds so essentialy I can get even say 1 bps. As long as it's not fault of my ISP I can handle that (e.g. target server is down or its connection is overloaded or does not match mine in terms of speed).
But the monent I start to experience "underperformance" of my connection and I will be able to reasonably attribute that to "bad" ISP's network/interconnection (e.g. I know the parameters of target server to be fully able to saturate my connection but it did not) I'm going to look for another ISP or for another means of getting connected to the Internet (local networks connecting bunch of private citizens with much better bargaining position with ISPs, etc.).
Or, put another way, if the intelligent design crowd just went away and died we'd all be happy...?
Maybe. Some of nonID folks still with have something to bother them and make them unhappy.
But in case of the ID theory being right and in case of your scenario (ID crowd dying) I'm quite sure those ID folks would be (partialy) happy (partialy = those who make it to the heaven).:)
Lets ignore that you are partialy putting words into my mouth.
You wrote: Selling children is OK in some places so businesses should have no qualms about bringing together buyers and sellers.
Important addition: "... bringing together buyers and sellers there." - companies in such a place may do that and it'll be logical for them to do that if it makes them money.
But another logical addition: What's your (or mine) relationship with such companies? What is the relationship with such places?
That relationship is what is (also) in our control and where our morale, intentions, whatever can take place.
So I may safely assume that at least both of us would boycot such places and such companies doing such business. The rest depends... I for one rarely engage into say war with something which is not specific (specific place/country, specific company, specific people,...).
I would also paraphrase elucido's subject: "Nature decides" - views more closely following rules of basic physics (and nature) will IMO prevail (along with carriers of those views). It may be you, it may be me, it may be those "others".
We'll see. In the mean time, we should IMO mind our own business (family, city, country,...) firts.
Well, maybe now I see the meaning of that "killjoe" in your nick name.
And also I assume that for this comment I get marked as pedophile.:)
You wrote that "... but it's not ethical.". And I would add "for you" (and "for me"). But there are other people. And that's the point AC (IMO) raised and you missed.
So that's the situation. And your original question remains: It's legal to have sex with underage children at various places in the world. Should Google facilitate the finding of underage boys and girls for rich businessmen? I mean it's legal right?
Well, it depends primarily on Google and then on what they do with it, where and how. Becasuse if they do/not do something about it, somewhere, somehow, they're going to be "hit" by someone for it.
But as long as there are many different countries in the world with many different comunities with many different people there will be no single answer to your question.
It's much easier to train a bunch of uninterested students in facts and figures,...
Sounds like you think people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into science and/or engineering.
Some people say that "knowledge is power". I think some of them mean "political", "military" or other such power but IMO most of them by "power" mean "being able to do" (maybe even "to do good").
Now why someone do not want do be knowledgeable? Why we have to try to force him to be knowledgeable?
Meybe it has something to do with how the schools (prinary, secondary,...) are working? Maybe it has something to do with teachers? Maybe it has even something to do with how the life is going (when not the "right" and "educated" people rule but some bunch of "greedy politicians", "unethical businessmen",...)?
IMO it correlates with freedom. Few years or centuries ago most peole were not free nor had education. Some realized that is a big disadvantage and fighted for freedom and knowledge. After some time in some places they succeeded.
But later, their descendands took the fruits of their fight and thanks to that they have full bellies. And with full bellies they do not care about learning something nor do they care about their freedom being taken away.
So I thing we're heading "backwards" into some "new medieval ages". Good thing? IMO after that comes new reneasance and democracy. But of course after some big fights and loses.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's something mayby slightly off-topic byt still usefull to answer your request:
Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.: The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
IMO, the key word is "appears", so to put emphasis:
"It's critical that no one person in a company ever appears to be above a code of ethics."
If anybody reads that carefully, it should be plain that being above that particular code of ethics is OK as long as thouse bounded by it do not appear to be above it (i.e. they carefully hide acts which are against the code or use some other "PR" tactics).
I see a need for negative numbers when giving scores to politics and piliticians. Zero is ussualy too good score fot it/them.
As the saying goes: Some call them terrorists, others call them freedom fighters.
So this war on terrorism (or against pedophiles or whatever) just boils down to: we do not like them, we are going to kill them.
In other words, plain old set of survival instincts, prejudice, lies and warfare.
That being said, it would be nice to just avoid politicaly correct talking and say it as it is. But than again, there are also those plain old tactics, intrigues, treachery, ... :|
I do not know if I remember correctly but in Orvell's 1984 there has been (and again: IIRC) "thought crime".
But it is not important how it is called. Important is the principle and whether and how it is applied in a society.
That being said, pedophile or not, if someone do something bad to my doughter I will either kill him or hurt him badly.
And here I am, maybe now I've became criminal by having a doughter and expressing my willingness to protect (and avenge, if necessary) her.
While on the one end, such draconian measures may scare some pedophiles (or terrorists), on the other hand they transform a lot of ordinary people (a lot of them parents) into suspects (or worse: criminals right away) without actualy eradicating all (or at least majority) of realy bad people. So, I hope that a lot of people, because they are patents, will at the end realize that and cease chasing ghosts (in the form of "preventing crime done by potential criminals" ala Minority Report) and concentrate on technique proven by time: to catch people who actualy realy did something bad and kick the hell out of them (proportionaly to the seriousness of what they did) so that:
That being said, I should also emphasize that know, non-anonymous, concrete victims (or their relatives and friends) should be catching culprits (with the help of all the neighbours who want to help and also set the examle; and in coordinantion with elected officials). Not some electorate which is far too removed from the "ordinary" people and if it is not outright servings its our interests, at least it looks like it is from the point of view of "ordinary" people.
I'm not proposing anarchy and self-justice - I do believe in cooperation. But for me such laws (too vaugue, too draconian, too complex, too full of unspoken assumptions, ...) are indication, that those who wrote them are far too removed (either willingly or by some mistake) from those whom they should serve.
Consistency requires logic. Logic is quite often in case of a lot of people repulsive with belief/religion.
You can believe in something you do not understand. But you can not understand something you do not believe.
Thus, you can logicaly understand something and believe in it thus also exercising consistency (as long as your information is correct). But if you just believe in something without understanding it, the amount of your inconsistencies rise with the complexity of your beliefs.
And I believe our world (let alone universe) is quite complex so the probability of inconsistencies is quite high. But also this statement may be inconsistent. :)
Of course all the above statements are valid only if I believe that I do exist and that other people do exist too. :)
But back to what you said: I believe that in the event of bird-flu killing humans there will be very low number of causalties between those who reject evolution. Becuase I think they believe for example that God loves them and wants them to spread such belief so they will choose "lesser evil", take the vaccine and survive.
So I think, bird flu will not reduce the number of people who reject evolution.
So I advice supporters of evolution to cease to be too optimistic, instead become more pesimistic and not expect their opposition to magicaly vanish (because of ... say .. bird-flu).
Final note to this "pesimistic" thing: Such evolutional pressure may result in people more resistant to stress. But, of course, only if this "evolution" is real.
The joke:
What do necrophilian pedophiles and beer-lovers have in common?
They both love "chilled 12".
(I hope my translation to English will be able to be understood.
Plus: 12(deg) marks a beer made from certain amount of malt, thus with certain amount of alcohol, at least in some parts of Europe.)
You mean Massachusetts?
IIRC (and if army is not completely crazy) army does not plan to use TCP as a way to give RIAA and MPAA control of army PCs.
If that assumption is correct, army will be supplying encryption keys into TCP, not PC manufacturer, not RIAA, not MPAA, not Sony, etc.
It also means, that TCP, as deployed in army, will be able to be "owned" (meaning "0wn3d", controlled, etc.) by the owner of the PC (in this case army), not media cartels.
And that finaly means, that even I or you may be able to found such TCP usefull, usefull for us.
On the other hand, those more paranoid may object, that army will get different TCP in their PCs than "common consumers". The only difference may be just that little thing: who supplies encryption keys - meaning: "not common consumer".
Question: What does it take to "vote wisely" if all the candidates you can choose from are "bad"?
That's business in small scale. :)
IMO there's nothing wrong with that as long as boths sides are forth-comming, in this case ISP do even "non ISP" tasks and customer does not fight every cent on the bill.
Since the war on drugs has made drugs cheap, pure and ubiquitous ...
One correction: pretended war on drugs ... thanks to what the saying "what does not kill you makes you stronger" kicks-in.
I think that real war of people agains politics will kill politics quite effectively in very short time. Same as real war on drugs would have killed drugs and real war on terror would kill terrorists.
Because we can't consider war on drugs being serious when for example even some US soldiers deployed to fight drugs are smugling drugs themselves. Or when some politicians get bribed by narco-mafia (because why would they bribe them if drugs were legal or nobody wanted those drugs?).
Of course real fight against drugs or terror is most probably not fought with guns and bombs but then, politicians braging about fightng this or that without guns would look ... well ... boring, less entertaining, ... :|
It looks like to me a lot of people just want fun (majority also with drugs) with a little bit of suffering (terror) mixed in. So the politicians (as any good vendor) just deliver to the peole what they want while trying to profit from that as much as bearable (bearable to those fun+terror loving customers).
What a nice world we're living in. :)
Maybe it happened. But then FBI agents showed up and ... "accidentaly" ... a lot of FBI machines stopped working so the agents we're not sure what they are doing at MS headquarters so they backed up. :)
Thank you for the information.
Now, the question is: what's wrong with that?
Do you have problems with such "nobodies" (as YouHaveSnail put it, or as you put it: "large number of people")?
I assume you know the ussage patterns so your company plan for it? If so, how?
Thank you in advance for reply.
As I am all for peacefull coexistence of all the people (and ... well ... all and everything) in the universe I learned so far that one thing is what the law says, another thing is what is enforced and also another thing is what people actualy do.
Supreme Court may ruled as you wrote but as long as you're using that lamp you're leaking signals which others are able to detect so if you're not blocking those signals (so that interception is impossible) you're taking risk because it may not be police who'll observe you using the lamp. Or there may be some "big event(TM)" after which Supreme Court will rule otherwise ...
So in other words: You may act like gravity is always pointing downwards no matter what Supreme Court says, because that's physics not some "bill of rights". :) .
But you should not run naked through the streets no matter how many laws there are to protect you from humilating yourself (if you are ugly) or financial harm (if you are beautifull and you just lost a lot of possible income because now a lot of people saw you naked for free and wont be that much interested in you anymore
If you want your privacy that much, you have to remodel our universe - or better yet, make your own (with physics which does not leek that much info about you) and let others keep current one. :)
Well, I like my privacy too. But I still have to disagree with you because of your argument about privacy winning over interception of signals passing through space controled by interceptor.
Why? In general, because of physics (and human individualistic nature).
For example, one argument can be that if "your" signals are truly yours (or at least that notion is enforced by society) than when your signals are passing my property I can sue you. Because, if you say those signals are yours than I say "fine, but get them out of my property" - I respect your signals, you respect my garden, my house, my body, ...
In such scenario it'll be essentialy impossible to use radio (and other menas of communication) because all sorts of people will not allow to pass it through their property. Or society should say "signals are more than physical property" but it'll be ... well ... very very confusing for a lot of people and hard to enforce without a lot of people feeling badly about it.
So that much about "your" or "mine" signals - if I do not want you to know what I'm doing, either I do not pass my signals through your space or I take a risk and do.
Question left over for some other exercises is: what about my ability to block signals going through my property (i.e. not letting them pass)? Would it be OK for me to block them? (IMO yes, but than I have to expect and accept that others will do the same so in order to have the communication, we muttualy agree not to sheald signals, at least as long as they are considered harmless to our health and environment).
And now back to privacy: So if essentaly we agree that I can see (analyze, receive, ...) whatever is passing through me and my property then we essentialy agree that anybody can spy on anybody as long as he is just passive observer (i.e. not stalker actively seeking and intimidating "prey" etc.).
How do we protect our privacy then?
One way is to block the signals going out or not sending them at all. In case of your example, your neighbour, if he/she values his/her privacy, should not undress near the window etc.
Other way, in the broader sense, is "enact" that while everybody can spy, that everybody have the right to spy. So everybody will know that and will take that into account. And as long as there is no big discrimination (like "police can spy on you but you can't spy police", "white guys can spy on black guys", etc. - artificial scenario not based on physics, same with so called IP rights as enforced by *AA, and beware, I am for IP rights while I'm programmer, but not as artificaly broadened and out of real physical world as requested by some), I think that it may also be better than now, because it will eliminate at least those "bad things" which are done when a guy thinks nobody sees him (and I mean both small hooligan and big politician - all should be watched closely :) .
Very nice, thank you.
The only problem the founding fathers (maybe) did not envision is that this argument is hard to follow by members of so called "general public" thus has been in the years following the creation of this "lease program" misunderstood to the point where it is not used to achieve its original goals (essentialy its doing quite opposite - see the note at the bottom) and "general public" does not care (that it is screwed).
So we are back at the problem: how to educate "general public". Well, IMO only "one man at a time" because "one man" is generaly far more inteligent than "group of people" (see for example Freud's works).
So thank you again that you're doing it and I hope it works.
Note: Why I thing "general public" is curretnly screwed by copyrights thanks to some entities: ... etc.)
All ideas are based on previous ideas (Cinderella is based on some earlier "folk stories", Einstein's Theory of Relativity is based on works of previous physicists - he would not be IMO able to come up with it withour Aristotele, Newton,
By granting "temporary" (it is still being extender further and further, so in practice so far it is not "temporary") monopoly on whole new idea government is essentialy locking partialy also previous ideas on which this new/"new" one is based.
So at the end without that "temporary" kicking-in this so called Public Domain is step by step being locked down into "Intelectual Property of Somebody" with "general public" ending with less of common and free knowledge as time goes on - the opposide of what was the intention.
So without corrective actions and after sufficient amount of time (one-two generations?) "general public" will maybe end up paying even for basing ideas abount life, i.e. for the existence of a sentient individual itself.
Well, if I understand both those biology and computer monoculture things correctly, than you do not have to have completely different "implementations". As with everything, we're not going to do X amount of work which will result in 100% of the problem solved - it will be more like "we do this Y and we mitigate the risk by say 60%, we do Z and we lower the risk by another 20%, etc.".
Lets elaborate. I start by limiting following ideas into a) PCs and b) people (homo sapiens). Then I follow by making analogy between human and PC.
So we have here all the people on Earth - some of them black, some of them white, some of them tall, some of them short, etc. All are homo sapiens and all are (from the DNA point of view) almost identical.
Then we have here those PCs, of which about 90% are Windows based PCs.
In the light of the analogy I mentioned above that 90% of PCs can be compared to say some limited amount of individuals from one village being mass-cloned and distributed around the world in a way that at the end they amount to 90% of population.
Such a 90% scenario in human population would be IMO more dangerous than current status because it reperesent far lower genetical variability in human population (thus greater risk of destruction by single pleague).
So to bring those PCs more in line with humans (in regards to the monoculture problem) we do not need completely different PCs with different HW and SW. It would be like requiring human population to consists of also some non-homo sapiens beings, like neandethlas, etc.
So IMO it would be sufficient to introduce some minor variations with basic building blocks being shared (for the sake of interoperability and lower TCO).
Example: Linux. There is only one Linux (Linus' kernel) but there are many realizations: Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, ... They all share common building blocks but they differ in compilation options, precise versions being used, some functions has more than one implementation so each distro sometimes chooses other implemntation (or user can choose it while more that one is available in the distro). Etc.
So one approach to that PC monoculture problem may be to migrate to Linux (or Macs, which are very close to Linux, IMO closer that to Windows if we're talking "DNA").
Of course that may be unrealistics and essentialy requires MS to abandon Windows (or esers abandoning MS).
Other approach may be to modularize Windows so that it is not this big all-integrated block of code it is today. But to achieve that, MS have to stop using their ussual lock-in tactics because to achieve same level of integration of more modularized Windows boxes we need standardized (and public) protocols/APIs between components with proper market competitions than ensuring distribution of even non-MS components if there is sufficient demand for more than one implementation and if those other implementations are found to be better than those MS ones. And of course some other stuff too, but I'm not going to make this post too big, but at the end it still boils down to MS being less in control in favor of users themselves.
See reply from agent dero: link
In such case, offers like the one mentioned by gmezero are clearly some form of scum, aren't they?
it is what you get. from your computer/router to the nearest company equipment...
I checked what my ISP is offering and (in rough slovak to english translation): "broadband internet access at speeds up to XXXX/YYY".
So at least I'm not buying connectivity to their network (which I do not want) but connectivity to the Internet (which I do want).
On the other hand, while for now I do not know what is the stance of my ISP on that "tiered thing", they at least do not promise exactly the maximum speeds so essentialy I can get even say 1 bps. As long as it's not fault of my ISP I can handle that (e.g. target server is down or its connection is overloaded or does not match mine in terms of speed).
But the monent I start to experience "underperformance" of my connection and I will be able to reasonably attribute that to "bad" ISP's network/interconnection (e.g. I know the parameters of target server to be fully able to saturate my connection but it did not) I'm going to look for another ISP or for another means of getting connected to the Internet (local networks connecting bunch of private citizens with much better bargaining position with ISPs, etc.).
Or, put another way, if the intelligent design crowd just went away and died we'd all be happy...?
Maybe. Some of nonID folks still with have something to bother them and make them unhappy.
But in case of the ID theory being right and in case of your scenario (ID crowd dying) I'm quite sure those ID folks would be (partialy) happy (partialy = those who make it to the heaven). :)
Lets ignore that you are partialy putting words into my mouth.
You wrote: Selling children is OK in some places so businesses should have no qualms about bringing together buyers and sellers.
Important addition: "... bringing together buyers and sellers there." - companies in such a place may do that and it'll be logical for them to do that if it makes them money.
But another logical addition: What's your (or mine) relationship with such companies? What is the relationship with such places?
That relationship is what is (also) in our control and where our morale, intentions, whatever can take place.
So I may safely assume that at least both of us would boycot such places and such companies doing such business. The rest depends ... I for one rarely engage into say war with something which is not specific (specific place/country, specific company, specific people, ...).
I would also paraphrase elucido's subject: "Nature decides" - views more closely following rules of basic physics (and nature) will IMO prevail (along with carriers of those views). It may be you, it may be me, it may be those "others".
We'll see. In the mean time, we should IMO mind our own business (family, city, country, ...) firts.
Well, maybe now I see the meaning of that " killjoe" in your nick name.
And also I assume that for this comment I get marked as pedophile. :)
You wrote that "... but it's not ethical.". And I would add "for you" (and "for me"). But there are other people. And that's the point AC (IMO) raised and you missed.
So that's the situation. And your original question remains: It's legal to have sex with underage children at various places in the world. Should Google facilitate the finding of underage boys and girls for rich businessmen? I mean it's legal right?
Well, it depends primarily on Google and then on what they do with it, where and how. Becasuse if they do/not do something about it, somewhere, somehow, they're going to be "hit" by someone for it.
But as long as there are many different countries in the world with many different comunities with many different people there will be no single answer to your question.
It's much easier to train a bunch of uninterested students in facts and figures, ...
Sounds like you think people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into science and/or engineering.
Some people say that "knowledge is power". I think some of them mean "political", "military" or other such power but IMO most of them by "power" mean "being able to do" (maybe even "to do good").
Now why someone do not want do be knowledgeable? Why we have to try to force him to be knowledgeable?
Meybe it has something to do with how the schools (prinary, secondary, ...) are working? Maybe it has something to do with teachers? Maybe it has even something to do with how the life is going (when not the "right" and "educated" people rule but some bunch of "greedy politicians", "unethical businessmen", ...)?
IMO it correlates with freedom. Few years or centuries ago most peole were not free nor had education. Some realized that is a big disadvantage and fighted for freedom and knowledge. After some time in some places they succeeded.
But later, their descendands took the fruits of their fight and thanks to that they have full bellies. And with full bellies they do not care about learning something nor do they care about their freedom being taken away.
So I thing we're heading "backwards" into some "new medieval ages". Good thing? IMO after that comes new reneasance and democracy. But of course after some big fights and loses.