Er, no, since pretty soon there won't be new Irix releases - only Linux. I suppose that might not be the case if SGI has waffled again and gone away from it's very public commitment to Linux going forward.
Yep, looks like the new Itanium stuff is Linux-only. (BTW I'm pretty sure Linux was a better decision than Itanic...heh.) And please, SGI, change the color scheme on those things!
Total cost (with "custom" installation) was near $100,000.
So, if these machines last two years, like last time, you got 25 workstations for the cost of one teacher ($50,000/yr includes benefits, overhead and so on...it is called "burdened labor).
Personally, I'd say the 25 computers are a much better deal. Granted you need suitable software...
Yeah, while the enemies bio-attack wipes out 80% of your population. Robotic soliders are as outdated as the conflicts which they will fight.
A large-scale attack against a civilian population is only one type of war, among many.
Those robotic soldiers would sure be handy in Iraq about now...;-)
It should also be pointed out that such a bio-attack might affect your human soldiers, but not your robotic ones. Same for virtually all chem weapons. Plus, training time is much less for a new robotic troops, as is the time to replace one if it becomes a casualty (a few days vs. 18 years;).
I'm sure we'll see who's right over the next couple of decades...;-)
Probably for the same reason that two 15 year olds shoot up a school and folk appear on slashdot within a nanosecond explaining how gun control would not possibly have prevented the event.
Gun control might or might not have stopped some particular crime, but it certainly would have prevented the folk who stopped the Columbine shooting from doing so.
If someone wants to hurt people on pretty much any scale, there are readily available methods for doing so that work better than guns. The same doesn't apply to self-defense.
It should also be pointed out that in most places where guns are plentiful among the citizenry, there is much less crime. Now there's a scientifically testable fact for you to ponder...;-)
Having now made my escape from the People's Republic of California:-), I was pleased to walk into the local gunshop yesterday and see a big rack of AK-47s...one even had large capacity clips taped together back to back. Gee, I hear of crimes being committed with those every day...not. And I'm pretty sure criminals around here think long and hard before breaking into houses that might contain a really nasty weapon and someone that won't hesitate to use it if need be. (BTW I'm not advocating AK-47s for home defense, too much overpenetration..223/5.56mm hollowpoint is much better.:)
The main key to low crime is having neighbors that are good citizens...meaning among other things that they have good judgement as to when the shooting should start, and who to shoot once it does.;-)
1) Letting them know they can't win.
2) Showing them there is a better way.
3) Convincing them that people with a different viewpoint have a right to live and find happiness.
You know, all the things we know here in the States.:-)
I think 2 seconds is too much. If you have ever played at an indoor paintball field that had a close range "give or hurt" rule you would understand. If you run up on someone, and are within 3-5 feet, you must yell give or hurt. If they give up, you let them go, if they do anything else then they are fair game.
The first point I would make is that we're risking robot life, not human life. If those challenged don't respond, and after two seconds(!) don't respond by at least being non-aggressive, then I'd say they should be liable for return fire.
One thing that may not have been clear from my (possibly patented by now;) algorithm is that if say, muzzle flash is observed from the vicinity of the subjects, they can count on a fast track to the afterlife. Muzzle flash is a very detectable thing for EO sensors.
Bear in mind that under current rules of engagement Allied soldiers likely have to observe hostile fire before engaging anyhow...
And sadly even trying to report 12 year olds as civilian casualties is a bit difficult do the fact that I can not begin to count the number of times video of children packing ak-47's has been blasted at me in the tv. Perhaps somehow they think a child with a weapon can not be shot at?
There was a story on the news yesterday of a 7 year old child getting shot (in the foot, fortunately for him) after he pointed an AK-47 at U.S. troops.
Sad, but unavoidable.
It would be nice if the military had "phasers on stun" but so far no suitable tech has emerged.
How do you explain to a robot the difference between an enemy and a civilian........ In the middle east a shepard has a beard, a turban and a kalashnikov. Enemy troops has a beard, a turban and a kalashnikov. This seems to me to be another pentagon wanking fantasy. (Now for the offtopic rant part....)Then again this has never troubled the US forces. (see. Panama, Sudan, Afganistan, Iraq, Korea, Vietnam). If only they were to spend as much money and effort on peace. With this you even create new customers for you products.
ROFL. Let's put it another way, how do you tell a human soldier the difference between an enemy and a civilian, when neither wears a uniform and either might be armed? At night, using night vision equipment? (For a robot, our soldiers are a relatively easy problem, it will involve IFF procedures and probably be more foolproof than with human troops/error.)
Here's the algorithm:
1) Robot detects a non-US-soldier in it's field of regard (possibly 360 degrees).
2) Robot blasts out, in the local vernacular at 120 db "ON THE GROUND NOW OR YOU DIE!"
3) If the intruders do anything besides start laying down on the ground within two seconds, a hypervelocity 5 mm. round strikes "upside the head". (No overpenetration and collateral damage with this type of round.)
4) Humans are called in to evaluate the situation.
In situations involving groups of people, the robot can break out the heavy weapons, designate laser guided artillery or bombs, or just call in satellite guided air support. BTW, any of these activities could involve a "human in the loop" if there are sufficient humans and good communications.
At any rate, I find this a highly plausible scenario that will likely happen within 20 years on the ground. (It will take a while due to power source constraints.) It is already happening today, in the air, with a "human in the loop". See Predator.
The main key is keeping the robots stupid enough that they don't develop true initiative.;-)
Re:The english language is not static
on
20 Years of Virii
·
· Score: 1
Laser is an example of a made up word which is now part of the language.
[pedantic mode on] Actually "laser" is an example of an acronym (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) that became a word. [pedantic mode off]
Radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging, IIRC) is a much older example of the same thing.
Business is about nothing if not profit, and as far as I am aware, no one is forced to buy anything. There is no exploitation, nor extortion (another popular term used by the leftwing element of slashdot) in business in any negative sense, unless you want to use the lexicon of communism.
/me searches for cluebat...
OK, where to start. I guess with my political leanings. I've essentially decided to go with my own particular flavor of Libertarianism. Now, before you freak out and start calling me a "liberal" because of the first part of that word, in almost every area that affects the citizenry at large, Libertarians are quite a bit right of Bush. My brand of Libertarianism differs from "standard" Libertarianism in the sense that I feel that the world is not ready for minimal military forces, so I advocate a strong military within an otherwise Libertarian society. There's a nice dynamic tension there anyhow.;-)
The "Libert(y)" part in Libertarianism comes from the idea that people should be free to pursue happiness in an unrestricted way unless their actions clearly infringe on another person's happiness. Thus all sex and drug laws go out the window, per se. If this were to be done, America would be much closer to a truly "free" country than it is now, with less Gulag-like imprisonment of otherwise productive citizens, and a commensurately lower tax burden. There would also be an enormous savings in law enforcement expenses.
Libertarians also argue for free markets, and I agree with that in general. There are examples, though, where it's hard to see how government intervention can be avoided *cough* Microsoft *cough*. (Actually, if consumers actually educated themselves, and/or we get 25% or so of the population doing software engineering, the free market would likely solve the problem).
I am also vehemently pro-gun (as you might guess from my handle;) and pro-personal-responsibility. Those two go hand in hand.
BTW, on the subject of business "exploitation", that happens regularly. It can either be legitimate exploitation (exploiting newly discovered oil reserves) or illegitimate exploitation (Nike paying 10 year old kids 7 dollars for a 12 hour factory day [this is an example, I'm not sure of any of these numbers]). So, don't get fooled again.;-)
Now that we've established my right-wing bona fides, you must be thinking that I hate the evil "socialist" Linux.
But no. In fact, I'm using it right now. I no more hate the authors of Linux than I hate church volunteers. Do you label church volunteers "socialists"? The Linux developers have voluntarily done a tremendous amount of work for the common good, with very little or no economic incentive. They should be commended for their efforts! It is telling that Linux is the only free market force that's seriously affecting Microsoft's illegal dominance of a critical industry.
The post this responds to shows in utter clarity how eaten up with socialist thought slashdot and its moderators are.
Oh and by the way, despite openly being a hawk and very much "right of center" (though I think the left/right labels are counterproductive) my karma maxxed out a long time ago, and has never really wavered since. Go figure.
They're not fixes, but there are some fairly easy workarounds:
Workarounds
There are a variety of avenues to avoiding this vulnerability...
1. Disable any network authorization services from obtaining settings from DHCP:
* in Directory Access, select LDAPv3 in the Services tab, click "Configure...", uncheck "Use DHCP-supplied LDAP Server"
* in Directory Access, select NetInfo in the Services tab, click "Configure...", uncheck "Attempt to connect using broadcast protocol" and "Attempt to connect using DHCP protocol"
* in Directory Access, uncheck LDAPv3 and NetInfo in the Services tab, if you don't intend to use them
2. Turning off DHCP on all interfaces on your affected Mac OS X machine can also keep you from being affected.
For added security, be sure to disable any unused network ports:
* turn the AirPort card off or remove it, if it is not being used.
Uh, you do realize that many of us vegetarians have non-leather shoes, belts, purses, jackets, etcetera? Indeed that there are companies (like this, this, and this) that specialize in the production of high-quality synthetic leather goods? That one can get synthetic leather Doc Martens, Birkenstocks, Nikes, and other well-known brands of footwear?
Uh, sure. What does that have to do with my comment?
I wasn't saying that all vegetarians do such things - but I can tell you that more than once I've been talking to someone, and the proud pronouncement is made - "I'm a vegetarian, I just can't stand the thought of eating those poor animals.". In each case, the person admitted that one or more articles of their clothing was leather.
Critical thinking is simply just not stressed enough in our society.
I simply thought that was the likely outcome of the story, based on experience. Crime, or not?
By the way, good job on being a gun-toting vegetarian - that's a combination you don't see every day.;-)
and Google could just "accidentally" link all SCO investor sites to certain websites specializing in goat mating signals.
ROFL.
Anyhow, speaking of "investors", I wanted to point out that if you're willing to gamble a little, now would be a wonderful time to short SCO stock.
If, as pretty much everyone with a clue thinks, SCO fails in it's attempt to hijack Linux, the GPL, and U.S. copyright law, you stand to make a cool $17 profit or so per share you short.
So, to summarize:
1) SCO's upper management has a crack party and settles on it's current strategy.
2) Lots of (stupid) investors buy the strategy and run the stock price up.
3) You (the clueful investor) short the heck out of SCOX. . . .
Profit!
Good luck...I know where some of my investment dollars are going...;-)
Nice story. I thought the punchline was going to be the usual observations about leather shoes, belt, purse, jacket etc.
I always liked the original peta.org website (the one that was hijacked eventually by the actual PETA organization - another nasty display of political correctness and disregard for the 1st Amendment). People Eating Tasty Animals - I can get behind that concept!;-)
Epson in the past has seemed to be the best in terms of opening up specifications to write drivers for scanners and printers. I bought an epson scanner for that reason, and it works great under USB. I wish the other's would be as open as Epson seems to be.
I had understood that Kodak fully documents the API for it's cameras. Has that changed recently?
I'm planning to patent "communication methods involving air, vibration or electrons". I don't consider it overbroad or prior art, hell, I'm sure there's no other patent phrased the same way!
Now, all of you please send money...you're in violation!;-)
If a shuttle carrying this stuff exploded, it would be catastrophic. If all of NASA's engineers can't reliably get a few people safely off the ground, what makes you think they can do it with tons of high level waste?
Oh my gosh! You're right, if that happened it would be like exploding hundreds of nuclear weapons above ground! Actually, not really... Besides, that already happened...and we're all breathing the aftermath...
One hopes that sufficient safety factors would be observed this time.
Ah, thank you for this! (Disclaimer: I've *really* only downloaded two MP3 songs...and I owned both on CD before that...but I'll have fun with this idea!)
There's a lot to be said for consumer action... =)
The only problem people have is if the subduction zone somehow breaks open the containers or whatnot, rather than just acting as a shuttle.
Um, if the containers (in this case referring to the graphite containment spheres) break open even 10 meters below the surface there will be no measurable radioactivity or other effects even at the floor of the ocean several thousand meters below the surface,
Piece of cake! (At least compared with most of the alternatives, like global warming which I didn't even mention in my original post).
I know that the US has given us the impression that nuclear waste needs to be carefully stored, but really that care is only warranted if there are people around. Once you've got it off the planet, it's best to keep the waste away from places of interest like the moon. Instead, just push it out into the black.
Great and thought provoking post. It's true that disposing of nuke waste on the moon is only marginally more efficient than trying to toss it out of the solar system. My thought had been that it would be more secure on the Moon. However, it would be pretty freaking secure if waste were shot off at [solar] escape velocity in any particular direction....although the purist in me always visualizes some hapless interstellar vessel just plowing into whatever random garbage humanity has thrown out there...;-)
yes, the idea of engineered virii is a worrying one, but bear in mind that the only people with the resources to make these sort of things are national governments (and not too many of those).
You are completely incorrect about this. It is true of nuclear technology in general, but not chem or bio.
That was one of the only things that Bill Joy got right in his anti-technology diatribe a couple of years ago.
Finally. Someone around here who has the balls to speak the truth. Thanks for nothing, Clinton.
Exactly. I've been pissed about the H1-B visa bill ever since 1998 when it was passed. What a bunch of crap. Then the bloody idiots were too stupid to repeal the bill after the bottom fell out of the high-tech economy in 2000.
GWB inherited a whole lot of economic problems, and then 9/11 happened. Blaming the current economy on him is total intellectual dishonesty.
In fact, it sure looks like the current administration's economic policies are starting to turn things around in a big way.
If you make (or intend to make) over $50,000 a year, the Dems are not your friend. To them, you are the "wealthy", and as much of your money as possible must go into the goverment coffers so they can "help people". Never try to tell them that the "gummint" is the least efficent way possible to spend money, or that a lot of people would be happier without their "help".
Slashdot Mirror
Er, no, since pretty soon there won't be new Irix releases - only Linux. I suppose that might not be the case if SGI has waffled again and gone away from it's very public commitment to Linux going forward.
Yep, looks like the new Itanium stuff is Linux-only. (BTW I'm pretty sure Linux was a better decision than Itanic...heh.) And please, SGI, change the color scheme on those things!
So, if these machines last two years, like last time, you got 25 workstations for the cost of one teacher ($50,000/yr includes benefits, overhead and so on...it is called "burdened labor).
Personally, I'd say the 25 computers are a much better deal. Granted you need suitable software...
A large-scale attack against a civilian population is only one type of war, among many.
Those robotic soldiers would sure be handy in Iraq about now... ;-)
It should also be pointed out that such a bio-attack might affect your human soldiers, but not your robotic ones. Same for virtually all chem weapons. Plus, training time is much less for a new robotic troops, as is the time to replace one if it becomes a casualty (a few days vs. 18 years;).
I'm sure we'll see who's right over the next couple of decades... ;-)
Gun control might or might not have stopped some particular crime, but it certainly would have prevented the folk who stopped the Columbine shooting from doing so.
If someone wants to hurt people on pretty much any scale, there are readily available methods for doing so that work better than guns. The same doesn't apply to self-defense.
It should also be pointed out that in most places where guns are plentiful among the citizenry, there is much less crime. Now there's a scientifically testable fact for you to ponder... ;-)
Having now made my escape from the People's Republic of California :-), I was pleased to walk into the local gunshop yesterday and see a big rack of AK-47s...one even had large capacity clips taped together back to back. Gee, I hear of crimes being committed with those every day...not. And I'm pretty sure criminals around here think long and hard before breaking into houses that might contain a really nasty weapon and someone that won't hesitate to use it if need be. (BTW I'm not advocating AK-47s for home defense, too much overpenetration. .223/5.56mm hollowpoint is much better.:)
The main key to low crime is having neighbors that are good citizens...meaning among other things that they have good judgement as to when the shooting should start, and who to shoot once it does. ;-)
Have a nice day! =)
Still waiting... :-P
Didn't a lot of people call it the "Internet revolution"? I wonder why they'd do that?
No, the answer IMNSHO is:
1) Letting them know they can't win.
2) Showing them there is a better way.
3) Convincing them that people with a different viewpoint have a right to live and find happiness.
You know, all the things we know here in the States. :-)
Game over.
The first point I would make is that we're risking robot life, not human life. If those challenged don't respond, and after two seconds(!) don't respond by at least being non-aggressive, then I'd say they should be liable for return fire.
One thing that may not have been clear from my (possibly patented by now;) algorithm is that if say, muzzle flash is observed from the vicinity of the subjects, they can count on a fast track to the afterlife. Muzzle flash is a very detectable thing for EO sensors.
Bear in mind that under current rules of engagement Allied soldiers likely have to observe hostile fire before engaging anyhow...
I hope that clears things up. :-)
Er, not it's not...but what "friendly fire" incidents are you referring to specifically? As soon as you respond, I will as well...
TIA!
There was a story on the news yesterday of a 7 year old child getting shot (in the foot, fortunately for him) after he pointed an AK-47 at U.S. troops.
Sad, but unavoidable.
It would be nice if the military had "phasers on stun" but so far no suitable tech has emerged.
ROFL. Let's put it another way, how do you tell a human soldier the difference between an enemy and a civilian, when neither wears a uniform and either might be armed? At night, using night vision equipment? (For a robot, our soldiers are a relatively easy problem, it will involve IFF procedures and probably be more foolproof than with human troops/error.)
Here's the algorithm:
1) Robot detects a non-US-soldier in it's field of regard (possibly 360 degrees).
2) Robot blasts out, in the local vernacular at 120 db "ON THE GROUND NOW OR YOU DIE!"
3) If the intruders do anything besides start laying down on the ground within two seconds, a hypervelocity 5 mm. round strikes "upside the head". (No overpenetration and collateral damage with this type of round.)
4) Humans are called in to evaluate the situation.
In situations involving groups of people, the robot can break out the heavy weapons, designate laser guided artillery or bombs, or just call in satellite guided air support. BTW, any of these activities could involve a "human in the loop" if there are sufficient humans and good communications.
At any rate, I find this a highly plausible scenario that will likely happen within 20 years on the ground. (It will take a while due to power source constraints.) It is already happening today, in the air, with a "human in the loop". See Predator.
The main key is keeping the robots stupid enough that they don't develop true initiative. ;-)
[pedantic mode on] Actually "laser" is an example of an acronym (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) that became a word. [pedantic mode off]
Radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging, IIRC) is a much older example of the same thing.
OK, where to start. I guess with my political leanings. I've essentially decided to go with my own particular flavor of Libertarianism. Now, before you freak out and start calling me a "liberal" because of the first part of that word, in almost every area that affects the citizenry at large, Libertarians are quite a bit right of Bush. My brand of Libertarianism differs from "standard" Libertarianism in the sense that I feel that the world is not ready for minimal military forces, so I advocate a strong military within an otherwise Libertarian society. There's a nice dynamic tension there anyhow. ;-)
The "Libert(y)" part in Libertarianism comes from the idea that people should be free to pursue happiness in an unrestricted way unless their actions clearly infringe on another person's happiness. Thus all sex and drug laws go out the window, per se. If this were to be done, America would be much closer to a truly "free" country than it is now, with less Gulag-like imprisonment of otherwise productive citizens, and a commensurately lower tax burden. There would also be an enormous savings in law enforcement expenses.
Libertarians also argue for free markets, and I agree with that in general. There are examples, though, where it's hard to see how government intervention can be avoided *cough* Microsoft *cough*. (Actually, if consumers actually educated themselves, and/or we get 25% or so of the population doing software engineering, the free market would likely solve the problem).
I am also vehemently pro-gun (as you might guess from my handle;) and pro-personal-responsibility. Those two go hand in hand.
BTW, on the subject of business "exploitation", that happens regularly. It can either be legitimate exploitation (exploiting newly discovered oil reserves) or illegitimate exploitation (Nike paying 10 year old kids 7 dollars for a 12 hour factory day [this is an example, I'm not sure of any of these numbers]). So, don't get fooled again. ;-)
Now that we've established my right-wing bona fides, you must be thinking that I hate the evil "socialist" Linux.
But no. In fact, I'm using it right now. I no more hate the authors of Linux than I hate church volunteers. Do you label church volunteers "socialists"? The Linux developers have voluntarily done a tremendous amount of work for the common good, with very little or no economic incentive. They should be commended for their efforts! It is telling that Linux is the only free market force that's seriously affecting Microsoft's illegal dominance of a critical industry.
The post this responds to shows in utter clarity how eaten up with socialist thought slashdot and its moderators are.
Oh and by the way, despite openly being a hawk and very much "right of center" (though I think the left/right labels are counterproductive) my karma maxxed out a long time ago, and has never really wavered since. Go figure.
Workarounds
There are a variety of avenues to avoiding this vulnerability...
1. Disable any network authorization services from obtaining settings from DHCP:
* in Directory Access, select LDAPv3 in the Services tab, click "Configure...", uncheck "Use DHCP-supplied LDAP Server"
* in Directory Access, select NetInfo in the Services tab, click "Configure...", uncheck "Attempt to connect using broadcast protocol" and "Attempt to connect using DHCP protocol"
* in Directory Access, uncheck LDAPv3 and NetInfo in the Services tab, if you don't intend to use them
2. Turning off DHCP on all interfaces on your affected Mac OS X machine can also keep you from being affected.
For added security, be sure to disable any unused network ports:
* turn the AirPort card off or remove it, if it is not being used.
Uh, sure. What does that have to do with my comment?
I wasn't saying that all vegetarians do such things - but I can tell you that more than once I've been talking to someone, and the proud pronouncement is made - "I'm a vegetarian, I just can't stand the thought of eating those poor animals.". In each case, the person admitted that one or more articles of their clothing was leather.
Critical thinking is simply just not stressed enough in our society.
I simply thought that was the likely outcome of the story, based on experience. Crime, or not?
By the way, good job on being a gun-toting vegetarian - that's a combination you don't see every day. ;-)
ROFL.
Anyhow, speaking of "investors", I wanted to point out that if you're willing to gamble a little, now would be a wonderful time to short SCO stock.
If, as pretty much everyone with a clue thinks, SCO fails in it's attempt to hijack Linux, the GPL, and U.S. copyright law, you stand to make a cool $17 profit or so per share you short.
So, to summarize:
.
.
.
1) SCO's upper management has a crack party and settles on it's current strategy.
2) Lots of (stupid) investors buy the strategy and run the stock price up.
3) You (the clueful investor) short the heck out of SCOX.
Profit!
Good luck...I know where some of my investment dollars are going... ;-)
Nice story. I thought the punchline was going to be the usual observations about leather shoes, belt, purse, jacket etc.
I always liked the original peta.org website (the one that was hijacked eventually by the actual PETA organization - another nasty display of political correctness and disregard for the 1st Amendment). People Eating Tasty Animals - I can get behind that concept! ;-)
I had understood that Kodak fully documents the API for it's cameras. Has that changed recently?
Now, all of you please send money...you're in violation! ;-)
Oh my gosh! You're right, if that happened it would be like exploding hundreds of nuclear weapons above ground! Actually, not really... Besides, that already happened...and we're all breathing the aftermath...
One hopes that sufficient safety factors would be observed this time.
Ah, thank you for this! (Disclaimer: I've *really* only downloaded two MP3 songs...and I owned both on CD before that...but I'll have fun with this idea!)
There's a lot to be said for consumer action... =)
Um, if the containers (in this case referring to the graphite containment spheres) break open even 10 meters below the surface there will be no measurable radioactivity or other effects even at the floor of the ocean several thousand meters below the surface ,
Piece of cake! (At least compared with most of the alternatives, like global warming which I didn't even mention in my original post).
Great and thought provoking post. It's true that disposing of nuke waste on the moon is only marginally more efficient than trying to toss it out of the solar system. My thought had been that it would be more secure on the Moon. However, it would be pretty freaking secure if waste were shot off at [solar] escape velocity in any particular direction....although the purist in me always visualizes some hapless interstellar vessel just plowing into whatever random garbage humanity has thrown out there... ;-)
Thank you, and please don't let the (virtual) door hit you in the...
You are completely incorrect about this. It is true of nuclear technology in general, but not chem or bio.
That was one of the only things that Bill Joy got right in his anti-technology diatribe a couple of years ago.
Exactly. I've been pissed about the H1-B visa bill ever since 1998 when it was passed. What a bunch of crap. Then the bloody idiots were too stupid to repeal the bill after the bottom fell out of the high-tech economy in 2000.
GWB inherited a whole lot of economic problems, and then 9/11 happened. Blaming the current economy on him is total intellectual dishonesty.
In fact, it sure looks like the current administration's economic policies are starting to turn things around in a big way.
If you make (or intend to make) over $50,000 a year, the Dems are not your friend. To them, you are the "wealthy", and as much of your money as possible must go into the goverment coffers so they can "help people". Never try to tell them that the "gummint" is the least efficent way possible to spend money, or that a lot of people would be happier without their "help".