I just had a smile cross my face as I envisioned a great Seagate ad campaign based on this, and then I suddenly realized that would probably be in very bad taste.
If anything, I think Real Nonfiction Authors could do with a bit of the discipline that the better parts of Wikipedia enforce, when it comes to citing their sources and acknowledging and neutrally summarizing competing views.
For the record, I intend to make this a serious part of the education of my children when they get older. At the moment, my best plan is to conduct case studies on Wikipedia, unless something even better emerges between now and then.
Wikipedia taught me to question every single authority I ever trusted and deeply investigate the phenomenon of trust. I learned more about questioning sources and credibility than I could've learned in any other setting I'd previously been in.
Whenever I hear someone say things like this, they always turn out to be an authority that wants to be trusted without question.
In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the US Treasury
I don't consider that a good thing. It won't cause the US government to take less of anybody's money, and it will make it easier for the US government to take actions which I consider wrong.
Somebody isn't quite rational. You equate taxation with theft?
Yes, and so do many, many other people. Rational people. You should go out and study what they have to say before responding further, if this is new to you.
Do you realize that publicly-funded research projects are typically of such a nature that the benefits outweigh the costs for society as a whole, but not for any single company?
I disagree, although I do believe our current system often skews profit motives way up or way down, so if it looks like that in today's world, that doesn't mean it'd look like that in the economy I'm proposing.
Regardless, the ends do not justify the means. Even if you do think these projects would never happen without taking the money, that still doesn't make it right to take the money. It's still stealing, even if for noble purposes, and even if you personally believe that all of society comes out with a net benefit.
1. I'd like to contract with a competing service provider or have the right to establish my own. Competition makes everything better. Bonus: people won't be able to afford to go to war unless people believe in it enough to support it with their own money.
2. It's easy: you don't teach my kids, and I won't teach yours. Why in the world do we think we should vote on a common curriculum for all of them?
Taxation is theft. Keeping your own money is not stealing from taxpayers.
I'm not trying to remove anything from anybody's science classes. I could care less what other people do with their time and do for education, entertainment, or whatever.
When discussing evolution, natural selection, abiogenesis, cosmology, climatology etc. just don't be jerks.
This will only work if you acknowledge that, no matter how polite you are, you are still a jerk if you:
Try to fund your own pet causes (scientific research) by taking money that doesn't belong to you (stealing, or as it is commonly called, taxation), or
Try to forcibly make me or my children believe something you want us to believe
I've already taken the step of repudiating doing these two things, and if "scientists" would do the same it would make the discourse much more polite, or else reveal that a lot less of that discourse is necessary than we think.
Exactly. Science doesn't "need" to convince me of anything. Unfortunately, science is wanting to use the government to force certain things to happen, including funding certain science research projects by theft (taxation), which I will never agree with no matter what I believe about science, and including educating children communally, which again I will never agree with no matter what I believe about science. The only reason science has this "need" at all to cope with our "polarized" environment is because of our communal system of forcing everyone to live the way we do and support one set of aims jointly as a giant monolithic mass, rather than as free individuals. I'll never agree with that, ever.
Scientists and religious fundamentalists would care a lot less about the existence of each other if the two groups didn't have the right to force each other to do certain things if in any given political cycle they randomly happen to get a majority of whatever slim minority of the public happens to show up to vote.
Part of your problem is that apparently you went out and spent way, way, way too much for an education. I got my education for something like £6000 (although it was paid in American dollars, in Texas).
Nothing has to be deleted. Just make it easy for users to sort through.
It's already easy to sort through. Go to the article on the subject you wish to read about, and don't click on links to articles that don't interest you. Pokemon character articles do not jump out and grab you and make you read them when you are trying to research high energy particle physics. And vice versa, if Pokemon is what floats your boat.
On top of that, there's a very useful category system.
Watching how things like this play out is interesting to me because I want to believe that the internet will require everyone to be more responsible or lose. But the real question for me is at what point does total marketplace dominance trump that.
If ebay doesn't shape up, won't their total marketplace dominance end? What obstacles are there to starting a competitor to ebay? Is it illegal or something? Will noone use it? Don't these disgruntled sellers constitute a perfect marketplace for such a competitor?
First time in a long time I read one of your posts and didn't realize it was you (missed the anti-voting paragraph as I skimmed). I was all excited; thought there was another one of us floating around!:)
I follow the rule of taking my foot of the accelerator at a "yellow light condition" and hitting the brakes at a "red light condition." A yellow light is obviously a yellow light condition (unless for some other reason of safety I need to start hitting the brake), but several other things are "yellow light conditions" to my brain and this actually makes my driving real smooth: if the brake lights of the car two cars in front of me come on, that's a yellow light condition. If the turn signal of the car in front of me comes on, that's a yellow light condition. And if I'm in a situation where I want to get over a lane or the lane near me is ending, cars in that lane that are further ahead of me are also considered to be the car in front of me/two cars in front of me as appropriate. (A sort of logical OR occurs in my brain considering the cars in my lane + the other lane in question.) The brake lights of the car in front of me coming on is a "red light condition."
The practical upshot is I don't have to hit my brake as often, and when I do I've usually already slowed down to a much safer and smoother speed for braking.
I already do this. I've had my watch and my computer clocks set to UTC since fall, 2005, just before DST ended that year. I think in UTC now, for the most part. I monitor the sunrise and sunset time each day which keeps my brain synched up to what times "mean."
Then twice a year the government kicks me in the head by changing the offset that I have to add or subtract to UTC time to get the time the rest of you people are using. And sadly, the number of weeks of DST is increasing but I prefer the offset I use the rest of the time.
Failing that, I definitely recommend to the original poster that he become familiar with all of Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter materials. It's a book, website, excellent weekly newsletter, and blog. Start reading everything Nick has to say. It's invaluable.
I don't wear suits often, but I really do like ties, with and without coats. For the most part, I'm a geek just like you. But I always expected to wear a tie when I grew up. So I wear ties for fun. I like to make Monday "tie day."
I think if I showed up at your office you might think something negative of me for like one week because of the tie, then you'd discover I'm really about the same as you and not trying to impress anyone. (You might discover the "not trying to impress anyone" thing the next day when I showed up in a ratty purple turtleneck. I'm wearing it right now, and I promise it doesn't impress anyone. Gets a lot of comments, though.)
Uptight? Great social skills? Noone ever accused me of either of those.:)
Actually when I typed it I didn't realize it was confirmation, and I assumed it was Catholic because of the priest. For the record, I'm Protestant.
Afterward I realized you said confirmation, so I went all over the Wikipedia article on the subject. The only promises I saw mentioned were "baptismal vows," and I looked those up and they had to do with renouncing Satan.
Maybe there is a line in there about "promise to believe," but the quote you posted and bolded doesn't inspire my confidence in your comprehension, since affirming beliefs just means saying, "Yeah, I believe this," and I don't think there should be anything shocking about that at all (other than the basic fact that you're shocked anyone would believe in Jesus in the first place:) ). Yes, they give you a paper to read and tell you what to say, but presumably at that point you already agree with all that, or you'll pitch the paper and say, "No, never mind."
Again, I don't know for sure if they say a line like "promise to believe" or not. I'm not sure exactly what the Catholic take might be on that line if it even exists. In particular, "I promise to accept Him as my Lord" doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to my basically Protestant ears, since in most dialects of Protestantese that would translate to "I promise to become a Christian" which wouldn't make a lot of sense in that particular ceremony because it's something that's already happened. Then again, my Catholicese is non-native, so I may not be understanding it.:) But as I said, I have no confidence here that I'm not just seeing your memory being a bit rusty since you probably understood it even less than I would have.
Could they have possibly said "I promise to have faith in Jesus" or something like that, and you translated "faith" to "belief"? Because the technical religious definition of "faith" is more akin to "trust" than what people call "blind faith."
I've watched friends become church-goers; kneel before a priest and promise to believe in biblical claims.
Exactly which Catholic ceremony was this? Can you provide a link to it in Wikipedia to prove it exists?
Maybe you have no idea what was being said or what was going on. Maybe what you saw was not "promising to believe," but "declaring that they had concluded the evidence warranted this belief," which would make just about everything you say afterward a strawman.
Slashdot Mirror
I just had a smile cross my face as I envisioned a great Seagate ad campaign based on this, and then I suddenly realized that would probably be in very bad taste.
When you have to wait in line and show ID to get Sudafed at the pharmacy, the law that causes that is the Patriot Act.
I've been upset about this for awhile now.
For the record, I intend to make this a serious part of the education of my children when they get older. At the moment, my best plan is to conduct case studies on Wikipedia, unless something even better emerges between now and then.
Wikipedia taught me to question every single authority I ever trusted and deeply investigate the phenomenon of trust. I learned more about questioning sources and credibility than I could've learned in any other setting I'd previously been in.
Whenever I hear someone say things like this, they always turn out to be an authority that wants to be trusted without question.
Yeah, I was just hoping to find an original news article or something. I'd be interested in reading more about what happened.
I'd love to have a source for that story. I found this, which matches you word for word, but they don't give a source.
I don't consider that a good thing. It won't cause the US government to take less of anybody's money, and it will make it easier for the US government to take actions which I consider wrong.
Yes, and so do many, many other people. Rational people. You should go out and study what they have to say before responding further, if this is new to you.
Do you realize that publicly-funded research projects are typically of such a nature that the benefits outweigh the costs for society as a whole, but not for any single company?I disagree, although I do believe our current system often skews profit motives way up or way down, so if it looks like that in today's world, that doesn't mean it'd look like that in the economy I'm proposing.
Regardless, the ends do not justify the means. Even if you do think these projects would never happen without taking the money, that still doesn't make it right to take the money. It's still stealing, even if for noble purposes, and even if you personally believe that all of society comes out with a net benefit.
1. I'd like to contract with a competing service provider or have the right to establish my own. Competition makes everything better. Bonus: people won't be able to afford to go to war unless people believe in it enough to support it with their own money.
2. It's easy: you don't teach my kids, and I won't teach yours. Why in the world do we think we should vote on a common curriculum for all of them?
This will only work if you acknowledge that, no matter how polite you are, you are still a jerk if you:
I've already taken the step of repudiating doing these two things, and if "scientists" would do the same it would make the discourse much more polite, or else reveal that a lot less of that discourse is necessary than we think.
Exactly. Science doesn't "need" to convince me of anything. Unfortunately, science is wanting to use the government to force certain things to happen, including funding certain science research projects by theft (taxation), which I will never agree with no matter what I believe about science, and including educating children communally, which again I will never agree with no matter what I believe about science. The only reason science has this "need" at all to cope with our "polarized" environment is because of our communal system of forcing everyone to live the way we do and support one set of aims jointly as a giant monolithic mass, rather than as free individuals. I'll never agree with that, ever.
Scientists and religious fundamentalists would care a lot less about the existence of each other if the two groups didn't have the right to force each other to do certain things if in any given political cycle they randomly happen to get a majority of whatever slim minority of the public happens to show up to vote.
Part of your problem is that apparently you went out and spent way, way, way too much for an education. I got my education for something like £6000 (although it was paid in American dollars, in Texas).
It's already easy to sort through. Go to the article on the subject you wish to read about, and don't click on links to articles that don't interest you. Pokemon character articles do not jump out and grab you and make you read them when you are trying to research high energy particle physics. And vice versa, if Pokemon is what floats your boat.
On top of that, there's a very useful category system.
I am in awe. Your Google link already lists this slashdot article as the third result, noting that it was posted "three hours ago."
I'm not sure if I'm in awe of your Google-bombing skills, or of Google's spidering skills. Either way, I'm in awe.
With proper advertising, won't buyers follow pretty much anything?
If ebay doesn't shape up, won't their total marketplace dominance end? What obstacles are there to starting a competitor to ebay? Is it illegal or something? Will noone use it? Don't these disgruntled sellers constitute a perfect marketplace for such a competitor?
First time in a long time I read one of your posts and didn't realize it was you (missed the anti-voting paragraph as I skimmed). I was all excited; thought there was another one of us floating around! :)
I follow the rule of taking my foot of the accelerator at a "yellow light condition" and hitting the brakes at a "red light condition." A yellow light is obviously a yellow light condition (unless for some other reason of safety I need to start hitting the brake), but several other things are "yellow light conditions" to my brain and this actually makes my driving real smooth: if the brake lights of the car two cars in front of me come on, that's a yellow light condition. If the turn signal of the car in front of me comes on, that's a yellow light condition. And if I'm in a situation where I want to get over a lane or the lane near me is ending, cars in that lane that are further ahead of me are also considered to be the car in front of me/two cars in front of me as appropriate. (A sort of logical OR occurs in my brain considering the cars in my lane + the other lane in question.) The brake lights of the car in front of me coming on is a "red light condition."
The practical upshot is I don't have to hit my brake as often, and when I do I've usually already slowed down to a much safer and smoother speed for braking.
I already do this. I've had my watch and my computer clocks set to UTC since fall, 2005, just before DST ended that year. I think in UTC now, for the most part. I monitor the sunrise and sunset time each day which keeps my brain synched up to what times "mean."
Then twice a year the government kicks me in the head by changing the offset that I have to add or subtract to UTC time to get the time the rest of you people are using. And sadly, the number of weeks of DST is increasing but I prefer the offset I use the rest of the time.
Failing that, I definitely recommend to the original poster that he become familiar with all of Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter materials. It's a book, website, excellent weekly newsletter, and blog. Start reading everything Nick has to say. It's invaluable.
I don't wear suits often, but I really do like ties, with and without coats. For the most part, I'm a geek just like you. But I always expected to wear a tie when I grew up. So I wear ties for fun. I like to make Monday "tie day."
I think if I showed up at your office you might think something negative of me for like one week because of the tie, then you'd discover I'm really about the same as you and not trying to impress anyone. (You might discover the "not trying to impress anyone" thing the next day when I showed up in a ratty purple turtleneck. I'm wearing it right now, and I promise it doesn't impress anyone. Gets a lot of comments, though.)
Uptight? Great social skills? Noone ever accused me of either of those. :)
Actually when I typed it I didn't realize it was confirmation, and I assumed it was Catholic because of the priest. For the record, I'm Protestant.
Afterward I realized you said confirmation, so I went all over the Wikipedia article on the subject. The only promises I saw mentioned were "baptismal vows," and I looked those up and they had to do with renouncing Satan.
Maybe there is a line in there about "promise to believe," but the quote you posted and bolded doesn't inspire my confidence in your comprehension, since affirming beliefs just means saying, "Yeah, I believe this," and I don't think there should be anything shocking about that at all (other than the basic fact that you're shocked anyone would believe in Jesus in the first place :) ). Yes, they give you a paper to read and tell you what to say, but presumably at that point you already agree with all that, or you'll pitch the paper and say, "No, never mind."
Again, I don't know for sure if they say a line like "promise to believe" or not. I'm not sure exactly what the Catholic take might be on that line if it even exists. In particular, "I promise to accept Him as my Lord" doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to my basically Protestant ears, since in most dialects of Protestantese that would translate to "I promise to become a Christian" which wouldn't make a lot of sense in that particular ceremony because it's something that's already happened. Then again, my Catholicese is non-native, so I may not be understanding it. :) But as I said, I have no confidence here that I'm not just seeing your memory being a bit rusty since you probably understood it even less than I would have.
Could they have possibly said "I promise to have faith in Jesus" or something like that, and you translated "faith" to "belief"? Because the technical religious definition of "faith" is more akin to "trust" than what people call "blind faith."
The proper form of that expression is "You've got another think coming, jerk."
You'll look a lot more literate if you get it right.
Now why don't we both make like a tree, and get outta here! :D
Exactly which Catholic ceremony was this? Can you provide a link to it in Wikipedia to prove it exists?
Maybe you have no idea what was being said or what was going on. Maybe what you saw was not "promising to believe," but "declaring that they had concluded the evidence warranted this belief," which would make just about everything you say afterward a strawman.
Maybe you've got no clue what was going on.