I was suddenly sure that Bombadil was Eru/Illuvatar himself.
Illuvatar?!? How did you get that?
FotR, Chapter 8, ``Fog on the Barrow Downs'', Bombadil speaking: ``Out east my knowledge fials. Tom is not master of Riders from the Black Land far beyond his country.''
So you're telling me Sauron, a mere Maiyar, is capable of defeating the knowledge of Illuvatar? Exactly what in the Silmarillion makes you believe that? Or was Bombadil/Illuvatar just lying, trying to throw the Hobbits on their own resources?
Something about this statement just doesn't seem to fly. Are you saying that as long as the person killed is not a citizen of your country then it is not murder?
Sorry, yet another inexact wording. I was thinking of some sort of nebulous natural law ``world citizenship''. So, s/citizen/natural law citizen/. Then, define ``natural law citizen'' as:
a citizen, not duly convicted of a capital crime, of a country with one or more legitimate governments (to allow for anarcho-capitalism, if it ever happens), or
an inhabitant of a country with no legitimate government (Iran, Afganistan, North Korea, etc.) who, if he were a citizen of a country with a legitimate government, would qualify as a natural law citizen.
Actually, I started this as a contest over semantics.
but I would quibble your definition of murder.
No contest on your quibbles.
The 'unprovoked' is too weak - far better to spell out the self-defence or, perhaps, immediate protection of others.
Definitely, it would be better to spell out allowed provocations. I think you've gotten a good start on clarifying this, but I would like to go a step further. I consider two sets of actions ``provocation'' in the specific sense:
Self-defense against attempted murder, rape, or other serious crime, or reasonable expectation of same
Defense of associates, with ``associate'' becoming broader as the threat grows--i.e., if you see someone shooting at someone else, and you know he's not acting in self-defense, you can shoot him, but, at the other extrem, if you see someone stalking someone else, the someone else had better be your wife/girlfriend/SO/lesbian lover/whatever (to ensure exact knowledge that it is stalking, although it may just be my Conservative background leaking through).
If you have an idea for a better phrase than ``provocation'' (self-defense is inexact and ``self-defence or... immediate protection of others'' is a bit unweildy) please suggest it.
Malice is also incomplete - there are other inpermissable guiding factors
Actually, I think ``with malice'' should probably be scratched--I intended it more or less to duplicate ``intentional unprovoked'' (with ``provoked'' defined as above). In fact, if we define the government's ``associates'' as all citizens (or take advantage of the outlawry clause for murderers) I can't think of an intentional, unprovoke killing that still qualifies as manslaughter.
Finally, I think we're getting off topic. Perhaps it would be better to continue this in private email, or not at all?
You can't say that Sklyarov was being harbored by Russia, becuase they probably didn't know he had commited a crime.
Skylarov didn't commit a crime--He ticked Adobe off, and managed to break an unconsitutional law in the process. So, Adobe got the right to jump on him.
I would have thought that the Dark Ages began quite a bit earlier, with the fall of Rome
The Fall of Rome was ~ 500 AD, IIRC, which is about 9,700 years after 9,200 BC. So, my point on your dates still stands.
and ended with the flowering of the Renaissance, which I think you'll find was quite a bit before 1800, and which began the Middle Ages.
The Renaissance is generally agreed to have begun with the recovery from the Black Plague. That places it ~ 1450 AD. So, 1450 AD - 500 AD = 950 years = barely a thousand years. So, the ``dark ages'' barely add up to a tenth of your 10,00 year figure.
However, you might want to be aware that the Middle Ages are generally held to have ended with the Renaissance. The Dark Ages, in turn, are, I believe, considered to be the first half of the Middle Ages, up through ~ 1000 AD. Of course, many people consider all of the Middle Ages `dark', but that's neither accurate nor useful.
In any case, you'll sitll find that Roman Catholic theology in, say, 1300 (after Aquinas) was far different from Roman Catholic theology in 1000, which was different from Roman Catholic theology in 500, which was different from the theology of Constantine in 313. So, your original point (that the majority, elite opinion is inherently stagnant) is still faulty.
Incidentally, the Renaissance was largely the result of the assimilation of Arabic culture by Europe
You mean of course ``European assimilation of the Arabic preservation and extension of Greek comentary on Egyptian...'' OK, so it's a little over-done, but still: all cultures are very interdependent. That very seldom helps the militarily weaker culture, though. It's a shame, really.
Or maybe not--conquest seems to have been a major factor here. The Arabs conquered Greek territory around the Mediteranean, and absorbed Greek learning; the Europeans conquered Palestine from the Arabs and consequently absorbed Arabic culture; etc. Maybe the (at least momentarily stronger) power has to conquer the weaker to take xenophobia out of the equation? (Unfortunately, it's never taken far enough out for humankind to learn from our mistakes).
which is just one of the many things casting a curious light on those who call for a general offensive on the Arabic world today.
Indeed. However, as noted, it may be better for humanity for the Arabs to be conquered (not just blown to pieces), just in case we haven't absorbed Arabic culture completely yet. I guess it's a classic interest of society/interests of the individual thing.
The Dark Ages in Europe are testimony to that. >10,000 years of nearly constant and rigidly imposed religious orthodoxy.
>10,000 yrs? Say the Dark Ages came to an end in ~ 1800 AD. So, they must have begun ~ 9,200 BC. There hardly was a Europe back then, and it's religion certainly wasn't the Roman Catholicism of, say, the 13th Century. For God's sake, Christianity didn't begin until nearly 9300 years into your 10,000 year ``Dark Ages''.
Fact is, you'd be hard put to come up with 100 years of truly constant religion, let alone 10,00 years. Even the elite changes, and more than a little.
True. However, absolute morals can exist across religions, and do exist across religions (murder is wrong, adultery is wrong, stealing is wrong).
Murder is wrong, except when a cop shoots a lawbreaker, or you execute a criminal, etc. Slavery is wrong, except when you put prisoners to work. And it's not different just because they're criminals. Absolute in this sense means 100%, no exceptions. If there are exceptions, it's not absolute.
Murder != Killing. Murder means, aproximately, ``Unprovoked intentional killing of a human citizen with malice''. So, if someone points a gun at you, and you shoot him, by definition that's not murder, so it's not wrong. If you accidentally kill someone, it's not murder. If you kill an animal, it's not murder. It may be wrong (if it's not your property), but it's not murder. Proven murderers surrender their citizenship, so killing them is not murder.
So, if you want to define Murder as Killing, you can, but you're using a different definition than society. So, when society condemns Murder, you can't judge the condemnation on your definition of Murder, you have to use society's.
In fact, the Pope even tried to call Crusades against the Greek Orthodox, and Constantinople was sacked by the Catholics at one point, I believe.
The Albigenses (sp.?) (in France) also got a crusade launched against them at one point. The point is, Catholicism at that time was extreme. It was an extreme majority, but it was still pretty extreme. That, of course says nothing about the views of all those other Christians the Catholics persecuted.
You missed a gotcha: MIME types. Executables should have MIME type application/x-executable; anything else should not be executed!
Furthermore, any MUA should post a HUGE warning ``This file is a program; if you are not expecting a program from this person, you should not run this attachment, as it is probably a virus''. Outlook's habit of running executable attachments automatically is the cause of 90% of email viruses.
Please let your elected representatives, and your unelected president, know that you don't want your civil liberties to become the terrorists' next victim.
I forget the technical term the English majors use, but he's going for a parallel structure. Since he says (and quite rightly) ``your'' representatitves, he says ``your'' president. Otherwise, it would sound odd. And the ``unelected'' bit is, I suspect, a sick Socialist joke. Unfortunately, he left off the smilely. Only suits and code grinders are unimaginative to flame rather than supply it:)
The question is, was the Electoral College that elected him legally constituted? I, personally, think it was, but nothing compels RMS to agree with me or you.
The United States is one nation which has halfway broken this rule. Yes, our freedom is restricted, but, in most cases, it is to protect the freedom of others.
This is correct; the Declaration of Independence (among other documents) states (from memory, so please correct me if I get this wrong):
``[T]hat to secure these rights [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] governments are established; that if any form of government becomes destructive of these rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it''
So, Jefferson's concept of the purpose of government is exactly what you state; furthermore, he states any government that restricts liberty without a net aggregate increase in liberty is illegitimate.
Fighting words those, then and now.
Re:What can be done about terrorism?
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May it be said by all after our response that justice was served.
Impossible.
Want a proof?
Bin Laden's (sp.?) supporters will never regard our hunting him down and executing him as ``justice''. Most people in the US will not regard anything less as ``justice''.
So, after our response, ``all'' cannot include any of Bin Laden's supporters, nor most of the US. So, we'll have to destroy them.
Bingo, justice has not been served. See any other way to do it?
According to
http://www.cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/overview.html
, ``The Cygwin tools are ports of the popular GNU development tools and utilities for Windows NT and 9x. They function through the use of the Cygwin library which provides the UNIX system calls and environment that these programs require.'' (They've also added a number of other useful Unix utilities).
So, it depends on whether he uses the GNU tools, (like Bash, less, etc.) and whether he thinks they're worth supporting, or just flaming/.-style.
Slashdot Mirror
I was suddenly sure that Bombadil was Eru/Illuvatar himself.
Illuvatar?!? How did you get that?
FotR, Chapter 8, ``Fog on the Barrow Downs'', Bombadil speaking: ``Out east my knowledge fials. Tom is not master of Riders from the Black Land far beyond his country.''
So you're telling me Sauron, a mere Maiyar, is capable of defeating the knowledge of Illuvatar? Exactly what in the Silmarillion makes you believe that? Or was Bombadil/Illuvatar just lying, trying to throw the Hobbits on their own resources?
On the whole, I pretty much agree with what you said here - particularly about getting off topic. Perhaps it might be better to let the matter lie
:)
Indeed.
and leave exact definitions to the courts.
Alright. Especially about leaving definitions to the courts--I don't really trust legislatures.
It probably doesn't help that I suspect we're from different countries (I'm from the UK; statistically, you're most likely to be from the US)
Actually, I consider myself from the Confederacy
Now that was off-topic!
with different legal systems which would v. likely contain subtly different definitions of murder and other classes of killing.
Quite likely. However, IIRC they are both based on the Common Law, and that's what I would be aiming for here for most purposes.
It's been a pleasure discussing this with you.
Likewise.
Sorry, yet another inexact wording. I was thinking of some sort of nebulous natural law ``world citizenship''. So, s/citizen/natural law citizen/. Then, define ``natural law citizen'' as:
Actually, I started this as a contest over semantics.
but I would quibble your definition of murder.
No contest on your quibbles.
The 'unprovoked' is too weak - far better to spell out the self-defence or, perhaps, immediate protection of others.
Definitely, it would be better to spell out allowed provocations. I think you've gotten a good start on clarifying this, but I would like to go a step further. I consider two sets of actions ``provocation'' in the specific sense:
If you have an idea for a better phrase than ``provocation'' (self-defense is inexact and ``self-defence or
Malice is also incomplete - there are other inpermissable guiding factors
Actually, I think ``with malice'' should probably be scratched--I intended it more or less to duplicate ``intentional unprovoked'' (with ``provoked'' defined as above). In fact, if we define the government's ``associates'' as all citizens (or take advantage of the outlawry clause for murderers) I can't think of an intentional, unprovoke killing that still qualifies as manslaughter.
Finally, I think we're getting off topic. Perhaps it would be better to continue this in private email, or not at all?
You can't say that Sklyarov was being harbored by Russia, becuase they probably didn't know he had commited a crime.
Skylarov didn't commit a crime--He ticked Adobe off, and managed to break an unconsitutional law in the process. So, Adobe got the right to jump on him.
I would have thought that the Dark Ages began quite a bit earlier, with the fall of Rome
The Fall of Rome was ~ 500 AD, IIRC, which is about 9,700 years after 9,200 BC. So, my point on your dates still stands.
and ended with the flowering of the Renaissance, which I think you'll find was quite a bit before 1800, and which began the Middle Ages.
The Renaissance is generally agreed to have begun with the recovery from the Black Plague. That places it ~ 1450 AD. So, 1450 AD - 500 AD = 950 years = barely a thousand years. So, the ``dark ages'' barely add up to a tenth of your 10,00 year figure.
However, you might want to be aware that the Middle Ages are generally held to have ended with the Renaissance. The Dark Ages, in turn, are, I believe, considered to be the first half of the Middle Ages, up through ~ 1000 AD. Of course, many people consider all of the Middle Ages `dark', but that's neither accurate nor useful.
In any case, you'll sitll find that Roman Catholic theology in, say, 1300 (after Aquinas) was far different from Roman Catholic theology in 1000, which was different from Roman Catholic theology in 500, which was different from the theology of Constantine in 313. So, your original point (that the majority, elite opinion is inherently stagnant) is still faulty.
Incidentally, the Renaissance was largely the result of the assimilation of Arabic culture by Europe
You mean of course ``European assimilation of the Arabic preservation and extension of Greek comentary on Egyptian...'' OK, so it's a little over-done, but still: all cultures are very interdependent. That very seldom helps the militarily weaker culture, though. It's a shame, really.
Or maybe not--conquest seems to have been a major factor here. The Arabs conquered Greek territory around the Mediteranean, and absorbed Greek learning; the Europeans conquered Palestine from the Arabs and consequently absorbed Arabic culture; etc. Maybe the (at least momentarily stronger) power has to conquer the weaker to take xenophobia out of the equation? (Unfortunately, it's never taken far enough out for humankind to learn from our mistakes).
which is just one of the many things casting a curious light on those who call for a general offensive on the Arabic world today.
Indeed. However, as noted, it may be better for humanity for the Arabs to be conquered (not just blown to pieces), just in case we haven't absorbed Arabic culture completely yet. I guess it's a classic interest of society/interests of the individual thing.
The Dark Ages in Europe are testimony to that. >10,000 years of nearly constant and rigidly imposed religious orthodoxy.
>10,000 yrs? Say the Dark Ages came to an end in ~ 1800 AD. So, they must have begun ~ 9,200 BC. There hardly was a Europe back then, and it's religion certainly wasn't the Roman Catholicism of, say, the 13th Century. For God's sake, Christianity didn't begin until nearly 9300 years into your 10,000 year ``Dark Ages''.
Fact is, you'd be hard put to come up with 100 years of truly constant religion, let alone 10,00 years. Even the elite changes, and more than a little.
Absolute morals can NOT exist without religion.
True. However, absolute morals can exist across religions, and do exist across religions (murder is wrong, adultery is wrong, stealing is wrong).
Murder is wrong, except when a cop shoots a lawbreaker, or you execute a criminal, etc. Slavery is wrong, except when you put prisoners to work. And it's not different just because they're criminals. Absolute in this sense means 100%, no exceptions. If there are exceptions, it's not absolute.
Murder != Killing. Murder means, aproximately, ``Unprovoked intentional killing of a human citizen with malice''. So, if someone points a gun at you, and you shoot him, by definition that's not murder, so it's not wrong. If you accidentally kill someone, it's not murder. If you kill an animal, it's not murder. It may be wrong (if it's not your property), but it's not murder. Proven murderers surrender their citizenship, so killing them is not murder.
So, if you want to define Murder as Killing, you can, but you're using a different definition than society. So, when society condemns Murder, you can't judge the condemnation on your definition of Murder, you have to use society's.
I support legislation that agrees with my feelings.
What I have been saying is the notion of slavery (and any other moral choice) are personal.
So you support legislation to impose your feelings on me?
In fact, the Pope even tried to call Crusades against the Greek Orthodox, and Constantinople was sacked by the Catholics at one point, I believe.
The Albigenses (sp.?) (in France) also got a crusade launched against them at one point. The point is, Catholicism at that time was extreme. It was an extreme majority, but it was still pretty extreme. That, of course says nothing about the views of all those other Christians the Catholics persecuted.
Actually, I think it'll shock the Windows zealots even more--they're the ones saying Windows is so much easier to use than GNU/Linux.
If the ``baseline'' for Windows is that high, why can't these people figure out GNU/Linux?
Ultimately, what you're saying is that Windows is not more idiot^Wuser-friendly than GNU/Linux. Or am I missing something major?
You missed a gotcha: MIME types. Executables should have MIME type application/x-executable; anything else should not be executed!
Furthermore, any MUA should post a HUGE warning ``This file is a program; if you are not expecting a program from this person, you should not run this attachment, as it is probably a virus''. Outlook's habit of running executable attachments automatically is the cause of 90% of email viruses.
Yep, it's anti-competitive--it gives an unfair advantage to M$'s competitors: ``Use our HTML editor/search engine/whatever, and you can bash M$!''
M$ is probably planning to use this in the Anti-Trust trial: ``See, we help our competitors!''
Please let your elected representatives, and your unelected president, know that you don't want your civil liberties to become the terrorists' next victim.
:)
I forget the technical term the English majors use, but he's going for a parallel structure. Since he says (and quite rightly) ``your'' representatitves, he says ``your'' president. Otherwise, it would sound odd. And the ``unelected'' bit is, I suspect, a sick Socialist joke. Unfortunately, he left off the smilely. Only suits and code grinders are unimaginative to flame rather than supply it
Thank your lucky stars for fair use, bastard.
Or don't you know what ``verbatim'' means?
The question is, was the Electoral College that elected him legally constituted? I, personally, think it was, but nothing compels RMS to agree with me or you.
The United States is one nation which has halfway broken this rule. Yes, our freedom is restricted, but, in most cases, it is to protect the freedom of others.
This is correct; the Declaration of Independence (among other documents) states (from memory, so please correct me if I get this wrong):
``[T]hat to secure these rights [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] governments are established; that if any form of government becomes destructive of these rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it''
So, Jefferson's concept of the purpose of government is exactly what you state; furthermore, he states any government that restricts liberty without a net aggregate increase in liberty is illegitimate.
Fighting words those, then and now.
May it be said by all after our response that justice was served.
Impossible.
Want a proof?
Bin Laden's (sp.?) supporters will never regard our hunting him down and executing him as ``justice''. Most people in the US will not regard anything less as ``justice''.
So, after our response, ``all'' cannot include any of Bin Laden's supporters, nor most of the US. So, we'll have to destroy them.
Bingo, justice has not been served. See any other way to do it?
I can't qoute stats (and under the circumstances I don't want to quote stats) but it occurs to me that you're an idiot.
You sounding reasonable... nope, that's a scary idea. Try Again.
I'm not bothered by the pilot; I'm bothered by the guy handing out his paycheck.
Airline security = More freedom (due to less fear)
Government security = Less freedom (fear transferred to different set of thugs)
Agreed. Now, how do you propose ``mak[ing] it impossible to get into the cockpits''? Seems to me that's impossible.
If you can't draw a conclusion from that, wait until you get into college before replying.
Note: The US is over here. Middle Eastern dictatorships are over there. Gues which one is doing more to take away their freedom?
OK, ``just for the record'':
If I write a piece of software and distribute it under a proprietary license,
1. Do you think I'm acting unethically?
2. Do you think my license should be ruled unenforceable?
3. If not, why is it unacceptable to require someone to make certain contracts, but acceptable to require him not to make certain contracts?
Amen, Brother!
(Plus, Lisp S-Expressions have a much smaller standard representation.)
ObMusic:
I don't think music is the same thing as code, so a GPL-style license isn't appropriate for music.
Reason 1: The majority of people who listen to music do so for aesthetic purposes. The majority of people who use code do so for practical purposes.
Reason 2: Music conveys something of the heart & soul of the artist, in a much stronger way than software does.
So, you can't just take the GPL (or any other software license) and assume it applies to Music. You have to decide what's morally right for Music
According to http://www.cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/overview.html , ``The Cygwin tools are ports of the popular GNU development tools and utilities for Windows NT and 9x. They function through the use of the Cygwin library which provides the UNIX system calls and environment that these programs require.'' (They've also added a number of other useful Unix utilities).
So, it depends on whether he uses the GNU tools, (like Bash, less, etc.) and whether he thinks they're worth supporting, or just flaming /.-style.