After all the money spent on the moon shot and the stealth fighters why not throw a dollars at the 500,000,000 people living in extreme poverty in your country?
Sure, it's great to feel national pride at technological advances.
What makes you think that the space program won't have the same tremendous technological and economic benefits for India that it had for the United States? People said the same thing in this country in the '60s and '70s, and still do today, but the space program may have been the single best investment the U.S. government ever made, except maybe the Louisiana Purchase and the (various precursors to the) Internet.
Democracy means the people have a voice... how that voice is used in decision making is what deliniates teh types.
But in a democratic republic, that public voice has limits. One such limit is what we call "rights" - in the United States, "inalienable rights", i.e. beyond the power of simple majority rule to take away.
Now, coming to your view, you have considered only scientists and artists. The point, I guess, being that the world is the way it is now only due to scientific achievements. I disagree on that. Politics and military has played a far far bigger role in shaping the world as we see it now.
And what is that makes military and political advancements possible, if not science and technology?
Yet the whole world, except for some tiny but very delusionally arrogant group, spell it "Aluminium".
5% of the world's population is "tiny"?
And, if we're delusionally arrogant, we learned from the absolute masters of delusional arrogance. We may try to control the planet, but hey, we didn't try to physically conquer the whole damn thing, like some people.
Any sufficiently authoritarian government acting in the name of socialism is indistinguishable from an equally authoritarian government acting in the name of capitalism. Trying to eliminate individualism and personal liberty is the mark of authoritarianism, not socialism.
Socialism is a form of authoritarianism, isn't it? Socialism is the ownership/control of capital by the state, isn't it? How can that not entail increased authority on the part of the government?
But for me, just the thought of spending more than one night a week playing games makes my skin crawl with the thought of all the chores that wouldn't be getting done.
Don't worry; that feeling goes away after a few weeks of WoW.
By making it difficult you pay with nuisance and wasted time rather than cash, which is a less regressive form of taxation.
Right, 'cause what any big American city needs is more nuisances and more annoyed, pissed-off people. Just charge me the extra buck or whatever and let me go on my way. And it's not really regressive, 'cause the rich folks pay more to park in garages anyway.
I make fun of Americans for believing those $800 devices cost $800.
The manufacturing cost is probably $130, plus another $50 for licensing stuff, and then you have some transport costs. The rest is profit.
Of course it is. Um... that's how business works. You make a product at cost X, and you sell it at price Y, where Y is determined by the confluence of the supply and demand curves. If Y X), then you stop doing business. If Apple didn't make a profit on the iPhone, why would they bother to make/sell it?
Now you might not think the price is reasonable, which is fine - you don't have to buy it. That's an economic choice that each person is free to make, and which defines the demand curve. If enough people are willing to say that they won't pay Y for the product, then the demand curve shifts to the left, and the equilibrium price goes down. The price is determined by the market, not just what you happen to think the price should be.
Pheh. If you have to reinstall all your apps, who cares about the other stuff? And I hope MS realizes that this gives a lot of XP upgraders a golden opportunity to try out Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.
Are you suggesting that the economy can always grow? This sounds like a terrible idea. I don't want to spend my entire career job-hunting.
And no one said you had to. In a full-employment scenario, I'd imagine your employer would be happy to keep you if you were willing to stay on. But it also means that there are tastier, higher-paying opportunities available for those willing to pursue them. What could be wrong with that?
Even a moderate load of smarts is enough to figure that it's cheaper to let someone else do the R&D the build a copy. Just look at pretty much all aircraft they've built and compare with ours.
Uh... yeah. How did that turn out, again? I forget...
The SR-71 blackbird was arguably the finest airplane ever built. Nothing before or since has ever matched it.
Nonsense. The SR-71 was really good at doing one thing - flying very high and very fast, in a straight line. How many Gs could it pull? Could it do a Cobra, or a J-turn? In terms of overall aerodynamic maneuvering, the F-15 or -16 or -22, or Su-27 or -35, are vastly superior to the SR-71. (Not that it isn't a massively cool plane, mind you, but "the finest plane ever built" carries with it lots of questions about criteria and standards.)
What brilliant ideas did Microsoft or Apple have? Microsoft was more lucky than anything else, and used mostly someone else's code to succeed. Apple didn't do anything there weren't dozens of other people trying to do. They just did it better. It was execution and implementation, not brilliant ideas.
I keep reading about how "it's not the ideas, but rather the execution and the implementation". I guess most of the folks around here aren't engineers; otherwise you'd know that execution and implementation involve good ideas, too. Ideas about how to make stuff work are still ideas, and (as pointed out here) often more important than the original concept, in that they lead to ways to make other stuff work (or work better), too.
Agnosticism can mean either "I don't know whether there's a god or not" or "I believe it's unknowable whether there's a god or not".
I guess you're right, but not knowing whether or not there's a god doesn't necessarily make you agnostic. Nobody knows whether there is a god. Or many. Personally, I'm an atheist and am perfectly willing to admit that I don't know whether or not there's a god. I believe that there are no gods because I see no evidence of them and I see no useful reason to assume that there are any. It does no benefit to me, others, or my understanding of the universe to believe that they're there, so I assume that they're not.
Why isn't it sufficient to simply assume the nonexistence of gods, in the absence of evidence? Why do you feel the need to cross that line into belief? In doing so, you are committing the same error as the god-fearing folks.
Aren't we all deterministic automotons governed by the laws of physics? How can free will exist? I think many religious followers are the first to try to claim that free will caused humanity's fall and the subsequent assholishness of people. As a neuroscientist, I don't believe in free will, but that doesn't negate the concepts of responsibility.
Of course it does. If people don't have will over their actions, if they're predetermined, then how can we be held responsible for what we do? Moral responsibility for one's actions absolutely requires free will. (Free will does not, on the other hand, require moral responsibility, but it does in my opinion, at least.)
"The" base purpose? What do you mean, like, carved into the DNA of the universe? This person, or that person, or group. might have a purpose, many different such purposes, but there is no "one" purpose for everyone. It's all those purposes, interacting in proximity, that make up a society.
Slashdot Mirror
After all the money spent on the moon shot and the stealth fighters why not throw a dollars at the 500,000,000 people living in extreme poverty in your country?
Sure, it's great to feel national pride at technological advances.
What makes you think that the space program won't have the same tremendous technological and economic benefits for India that it had for the United States? People said the same thing in this country in the '60s and '70s, and still do today, but the space program may have been the single best investment the U.S. government ever made, except maybe the Louisiana Purchase and the (various precursors to the) Internet.
That, or he fears pain more than death. Most people fear pain, a lot.
From a certain perspective, that is cowardice.
From a certain perspective, that is stupidity.
I don't think we can really judge one way or the other, though.
Sure sounds like you just did.
Just out of curiosity, what did she think were the 51st and 52nd states?
Canada and Mexico? Or Iraq and Afghanistan?
Democratic Republics.
People still have a voice.
Democracy means the people have a voice... how that voice is used in decision making is what deliniates teh types.
But in a democratic republic, that public voice has limits. One such limit is what we call "rights" - in the United States, "inalienable rights", i.e. beyond the power of simple majority rule to take away.
Now, coming to your view, you have considered only scientists and artists. The point, I guess, being that the world is the way it is now only due to scientific achievements. I disagree on that. Politics and military has played a far far bigger role in shaping the world as we see it now.
And what is that makes military and political advancements possible, if not science and technology?
Yet the whole world, except for some tiny but very delusionally arrogant group, spell it "Aluminium".
5% of the world's population is "tiny"?
And, if we're delusionally arrogant, we learned from the absolute masters of delusional arrogance. We may try to control the planet, but hey, we didn't try to physically conquer the whole damn thing, like some people.
Any sufficiently authoritarian government acting in the name of socialism is indistinguishable from an equally authoritarian government acting in the name of capitalism. Trying to eliminate individualism and personal liberty is the mark of authoritarianism, not socialism.
Socialism is a form of authoritarianism, isn't it? Socialism is the ownership/control of capital by the state, isn't it? How can that not entail increased authority on the part of the government?
But for me, just the thought of spending more than one night a week playing games makes my skin crawl with the thought of all the chores that wouldn't be getting done.
Don't worry; that feeling goes away after a few weeks of WoW.
I don't understand the modern viewpoint that cars are evil, and their usage should be discouraged.
It's because, unlike horses, cars don't run on oats. You dig?
No, I don't dig. Cars could run on oats (or other cellulosic matter) if we really wanted them to.
By making it difficult you pay with nuisance and wasted time rather than cash, which is a less regressive form of taxation.
Right, 'cause what any big American city needs is more nuisances and more annoyed, pissed-off people. Just charge me the extra buck or whatever and let me go on my way. And it's not really regressive, 'cause the rich folks pay more to park in garages anyway.
I make fun of Americans for believing those $800 devices cost $800.
The manufacturing cost is probably $130, plus another $50 for licensing stuff, and then you have some transport costs. The rest is profit.
Of course it is. Um... that's how business works. You make a product at cost X, and you sell it at price Y, where Y is determined by the confluence of the supply and demand curves. If Y X), then you stop doing business. If Apple didn't make a profit on the iPhone, why would they bother to make/sell it?
Now you might not think the price is reasonable, which is fine - you don't have to buy it. That's an economic choice that each person is free to make, and which defines the demand curve. If enough people are willing to say that they won't pay Y for the product, then the demand curve shifts to the left, and the equilibrium price goes down. The price is determined by the market, not just what you happen to think the price should be.
How many XP upgraders are there really going to be?
Well, none, 'cause you can't upgrade. But I certainly would, if MS allowed it.
Pheh. If you have to reinstall all your apps, who cares about the other stuff? And I hope MS realizes that this gives a lot of XP upgraders a golden opportunity to try out Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.
...try the Liberace Museum in Vegas. You'll wish your brother George was there.
Are you suggesting that the economy can always grow?
This sounds like a terrible idea. I don't want to spend my entire career job-hunting.
And no one said you had to. In a full-employment scenario, I'd imagine your employer would be happy to keep you if you were willing to stay on. But it also means that there are tastier, higher-paying opportunities available for those willing to pursue them. What could be wrong with that?
-Think of tanks powered by this energy, think of submarines, think of planes.
-No... You must think big like the Americans, think of BOMBS!
Oh, wait.
Right. 'Cause the US is the only country in the world with nuclear weapons.
... yeah, right.
Even a moderate load of smarts is enough to figure that it's cheaper to let someone else do the R&D the build a copy. Just look at pretty much all aircraft they've built and compare with ours.
Uh... yeah. How did that turn out, again? I forget...
1 800-inch penis > 100 8-inch penises.
Not if you've got 100 women to pork in a limited amount of time, whose vaginas are only 8 inches deep.
The SR-71 blackbird was arguably the finest airplane ever built. Nothing before or since has ever matched it.
Nonsense. The SR-71 was really good at doing one thing - flying very high and very fast, in a straight line. How many Gs could it pull? Could it do a Cobra, or a J-turn? In terms of overall aerodynamic maneuvering, the F-15 or -16 or -22, or Su-27 or -35, are vastly superior to the SR-71. (Not that it isn't a massively cool plane, mind you, but "the finest plane ever built" carries with it lots of questions about criteria and standards.)
Hey now, some Stoners have been pretty inventive...
What brilliant ideas did Microsoft or Apple have? Microsoft was more lucky than anything else, and used mostly someone else's code to succeed. Apple didn't do anything there weren't dozens of other people trying to do. They just did it better. It was execution and implementation, not brilliant ideas.
I keep reading about how "it's not the ideas, but rather the execution and the implementation". I guess most of the folks around here aren't engineers; otherwise you'd know that execution and implementation involve good ideas, too. Ideas about how to make stuff work are still ideas, and (as pointed out here) often more important than the original concept, in that they lead to ways to make other stuff work (or work better), too.
Agnosticism can mean either "I don't know whether there's a god or not" or "I believe it's unknowable whether there's a god or not".
I guess you're right, but not knowing whether or not there's a god doesn't necessarily make you agnostic. Nobody knows whether there is a god. Or many. Personally, I'm an atheist and am perfectly willing to admit that I don't know whether or not there's a god. I believe that there are no gods because I see no evidence of them and I see no useful reason to assume that there are any. It does no benefit to me, others, or my understanding of the universe to believe that they're there, so I assume that they're not.
Why isn't it sufficient to simply assume the nonexistence of gods, in the absence of evidence? Why do you feel the need to cross that line into belief? In doing so, you are committing the same error as the god-fearing folks.
Aren't we all deterministic automotons governed by the laws of physics? How can free will exist? I think many religious followers are the first to try to claim that free will caused humanity's fall and the subsequent assholishness of people. As a neuroscientist, I don't believe in free will, but that doesn't negate the concepts of responsibility.
Of course it does. If people don't have will over their actions, if they're predetermined, then how can we be held responsible for what we do? Moral responsibility for one's actions absolutely requires free will. (Free will does not, on the other hand, require moral responsibility, but it does in my opinion, at least.)
Why?
What is the base purpose?
"The" base purpose? What do you mean, like, carved into the DNA of the universe? This person, or that person, or group. might have a purpose, many different such purposes, but there is no "one" purpose for everyone. It's all those purposes, interacting in proximity, that make up a society.
1.1.1 -> 2.0.0 - major release
What happens if you're going from 1.8.1 to 1.9.3, then 1.9.3 to 2.0.0? How do you tell which is a major update?
The next minor version after 1.9 isn't 2.0, it's 1.10. Similarly, the next bugfix after 1.2.9 isn't 1.3.0, it's 1.2.10.