I have two objections to what you say. One - I don't think poverty causes religion, and I don't see how you can that into my words. And two: I didn't religion "has nothing to do with it", I said, religion is not why some people are evil.
Religion may be part of what you are, but good and evil is about the choices you make. You can choose to do good even if you worship Cthulhu, and you can choose to do evil even if you folow a religion based on universal love. Religion is only the varnish you use to gloss over your choices. You beat up your girlfriend? The Bible tells you that it is OK. you rape a girl and she is the one that is executed for it? I can find the justification for that right there, in the Bible too.
Holy scriptures were written by people according to what kind of people the authors were, and more importantly, they are used by religious people now according to their needs or whims. Religion doesn't make you do anything, it only serves as a justification after the deed, and your deeds come from your own, personal choices. And if there really is a judgement day, then you will be judged accordingly; that should make you think, if you really do believe in you God.
... sociopaths. But a banker? Why not? If it makes them better bankers, then more power to them
The point being - it doesn't make them better bankers. Look, a sociopath is somebody who would steal the morphine from his dying mother and sell it for a couple of quid on the street corner; and then, when he was caught and punished, he would genuinely not understand what the fuss is about. Is this the right sort of person to trust with money and power? Would you hand over your money to him on trust alone? Because that is what you do in the bank: you give them your money and then you trust them to look after it.
It is strange and sad that people still in this day and age don't understand that companies - especially large companies - have social responsibilities, which override their responsibility to make a return to their investors. They are part of society, and that is just one of the reasons why they should not have sociopaths in charge. The other reason being that sociopaths tend to act as a poison and make life hell on earth for their colleagues.
... Bronze Age morality that the world's mainstream religions have saddled us with
Stop slandering the Bronze Age - ancient Greece, where democracy was invented, was a Bronze Age society. Oppressing and enslaving people for "moral" reasons is an invention of a more advanced civilisation; the Greeks had slaves, but their slaves could win their freedom, unlike in the modern versions.
It is worth remembering also, that religion is constructed by people, and religious people wrote the stories in the holy books. It is wrong to say that religion makes people do things, whether they are good or bad. Good people do good things and bad people do bad things; and if they happen to be religious, then they will blame both on their religion, but it doesn't mean that it is true.
There was a time when the Muslim civilisation was the greatest on the planet, a beacon of knowledge and tolerance, while the Christian world was in the deepest darkness; now it is the other way round. This is not because of religion, race or any of the other stupid non-explanations - it is simply because of wealth and power. Freedom, democracy, tolerance and so on tend to seem like luxury items when you can barely find enough food or water each day. Perhaps it would be helpful if we stopped going on about what people in developing ought to do in terms of freedom, and instead concentrated on making it possible, by fighting poverty and corruption.
I wonder how much of this is genuine and how much is distortion of the news, sponsored by corporations with a vested interest in not having this legislation passed?
I don't think one can fault the intentions behind this legislation: A citizen should have the final say concerning any personal data. This is important when it comes to things like credit card information and other personal information, and it is perfectly feasible for a company to delete a person's information from their systems, when that data is held in a suitable format, like a database.
It is, of course not as easy if the data is part of a huge, unformatted stream of data - what they now call "Big Data"; but I wouldn't say it is impossible. After all, there are several technologies that target exactly personal information held in huge, unformatted datasets; if they can find it, they can also delete it - or blank it out.
It is idiotic to talk about "having to change history and going through backup tapes...". Even an EU bureaucrat wouldn't demand that; this is just typical FUD, and the purpose is easy for everyone to see: people's personal information is worth money.
Where does that leave the rest of the 1st world countries?
It is not as simple as "some countries will become worse off, some will be better" - that is only where it starts. The rich countries - or those that will have better conditions in a warmer world - will have to deal with potentially billions of immigrants one way or the other. We let them in and try to sort out the problems that will bring, or we try to keep them out and end up fighting a war against desperate people, who will think something like "I can stay here and die of starvation, or I can go and die as a hero, killing as many rich bastards as possible". Not an appealing prospect, to my mind.
Or we can try to start working together now and perhaps make lessen the impact.
Everyone knows content is king. Many of us use Windows or OSX at home instead of Linux because the games we love just are not available on Linux
You got the wrong way round, I think - lack of games isn't keeping gamers off Linux, it is keeping Linux users away from playing the popular games, which isn't quite the same thing. If your interest is playing games, by all means buy Windows/Mac/PS3 or whatever.
As you say, content is king; Linux has the kind of content that matters to Linux users: perfect facilities for a server, or for software development. It's a tool, not a toy.
Is Linux going to take over the desktop this year? Who cares - I think it will, eventually. Just think back: 5 years ago I was the only one using OpenOffice, that I knew; but now there are signs that it will be MS Office that tries to catch up in future: the newest versions of MS Office has reluctantly become able handle open document format. We are winning, slowly.
As I understand it (from 'reading' the article very quickly), they are inching closer to knowing (scientifically, that is) *what* it is with unpleasant sounds that is unpleasant, not really why that is the case.
My best guess so far, having done several seconds of research into the matter, is that these sounds are commonly associated with 'alarm sounds' - things breaking, distress calls etc. Things that should make you afraid and run away from danger.
Harmonious sounds normally require things like voice control - they require a more relaxed environment, thus they are learned to be soothing.
That's not "strictly speaking" at all, because when linguists use the term "language", it refers to human language
I suppose it depends on your idea of "strictly", then:-)
I'm sure I buy the idea that linguists have a patent on the definition of what language is. Perhaps because I am a mathematician by education, I tend to seek out the 'roomiest, meaningful abstraction', and to me a language is simply a means of communication.
And strictly speaking (I do like that expression), we don't really know whether non-human animals are capable of the level of abstraction needed for Chomsky's example, although it seems likely. As I did say in the beginning of my post, I think we ought to broaden our minds about what language is, in order to understand where it comes from; it certainly wasn't created suddenly out of nothing. As Mr Deutscher says: "Language is mankindâ(TM)s greatest invention â" except of course, that it was never invented";-)
Is it really necessary to prove it's possible to ruin a James Bond movie by taking all of the fun out of it?
On the other hand, this is the first Bond movie I have actually enjoyed all the way through. None of the shallow crap from the previous movies about gambling and drinking heavily being 'suave' whatever the hell that means, or a completely unbelieveable storyline. And the actors seem to be genuinely able to act as well.
This wouldn't be tactfull, would it? To quote the original post:
I'm wondering how the situation could be approached tactfully so maybe Bob will see how much easier a new system could be for everyone, including him
If being considerate to Bob as a valued member of the group is important, perhaps a better way would be to try to persuade him to teach his skills to others? Maybe his way really is good, and it would be valuable to learn, or it is crap and it could turn into a way of addressing the problems in some way. Also, putting him in a teacher position gives him the feeling of higher status, which probably makes him more open to letting go of the old system.
I think we have to learn to think of language and communication in a broader sense. Strictly speaking, communication is just the transfer of information, and language is whichever means of communication you are capable of using. Hence 'body language' - cats, dogs and if you go wild, even plants, communicate and use language; that's why we can make sense of them.
OK, so I'm stretching the concept just to be provocative, but I think it is probably wrong to assume that modern, abstract language suddenly appeared X years ago along with a big brain. Language was there long before big brains.
Older workers want more pay, don't want to work all nighters every other thursday, don't want mandatory 90 hour weeks, don't want to mess with all these new fangled thingies that will be obsolete or irrelevant in 1.7 years, etc etc
I think what you mean to say is that older workers are experienced, basically. But I think it is a mistake to think that young developers are the ones to work long hours or mess around with new technology. Teenagers might hang around all night, playing games, but a young professional, who has a family or even just a social life, will want to leave his office early.
From my personal experience, when I had dependent children, I wanted to get home and see them; now that I am getting uncomfortably close to the expected retirement age, I find that I work far longer hours and have time to enjoy all the new, bleeding edge stuff. The thing is, when you are old (I'm not old, of course, only 55), you have long since learned how to avoid wasting your time messing about, and you also have the insight that enables you to see the wider perspective - such as how to use the latest thingy to solve a problem that nobody else had thought of.
And software development tends to be quite easy once you have got past the confusion over all the programming languages and OSes, and you are able to concentrate on good program design instead.
And as for retiring - hey, I haven't even got started yet. I'll think of retiring when I hear the sound of soil on a wooden surface just above my face.
Wow, you're such a shining wit. So, all it takes to be modded "insightful" on/. is to parade the same, old, ignorant nonsense without even trying to articulate a genuine opinion. Sometimes I do wonder why the hell we spend money on computers, internet - or learning to read, for that matter - when this is all that comes out of it. I don't mind people having another opinion than me, but I really hate it when they can't be asked to think or learn.
There are many good arguments for placing the governance of these things under the control of a supra-national institution, and so far, what I have heard against had only been FUD about 'UN is bad', 'UN will introduce censorship and stifle trade' and so on. This is classic FUD: fear of the unknown - one wonders what happened to the good old 'To boldly go...'. Have Americans become a bunch of hand wringing old grannies, afraid of stepping outside your front door in case you are ravished by all these foreigners?
I would have though America is plenty strong enough to take on the rest of the world, even if the cards are stacked in your favour.
This is very much the way things work in real life. If I see somebody doing something that I think I would like to do, of course I'll learn from it and, in your words "steal their idea".
And, at the same time, it looks like a lot of people on this list find it obviously right to make a 'backup copy' - or 10 or 100 - of any music or data CD, more or less. File sharing is commonly seen as acceptable; but if the Chinese, the devils, do something similar, then it is THEFT and deeply immoral. Right.
Like it or not, the Chinese have as much right to take what others have made and build on it as the US had for most of the last century. Remember, modern rocket technology was invented in Germany and the computer was invented in UK; and a lot of other things Americans think were their own inventions came from elsewhere.
I have actually read the Bible several times, which is why I say this. The Bible and any other holy book are only books - they are made by humans, and already for that reason flawed. However, a person's religion is not what is written in any book, but what that person implements in their life. As far as I'm concerned, you can be a devoted Satanist, and a very good person at the same time; it's what you make of it that counts.
Personally, I don't give a toss - to me God is, for all practical purposes, irrelevant. I will take him seriously the day he shows up with reliable, testable evidence.
... a belief that every word of the Koran is literally true, and there's a kind of closemindedness...
I have an enourmous respect for professor Dawkins, but he is human, like everybody else; and he sometimes seems to closed-minded himself. He sees Islam as 'one of the great evils in the world' - yet, the Islamic world was at one time the most open-minded; this was, in fact, at a time when the Christian culture was at its darkest.
I don't think any religion is inherently good or bad - it is as good or bad as its followers.
Without knowing more about the vessel, if that is not too rich a word, I'd say that this is a perfect demonstration of why designers are not meant to be engineers. It's like some of these buildings that went up after the 60s, which won awards for their 'bold architecture' and 'innovative design', but which turned out to be instant slum, because they were not really made to be lived in.
I don't know about mathematical fiction - I read Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's 'Long Earth' book recently and found it very intelligent and scientifically intriguing. I think the trick of a good story is to present your ideas credibly, rather than being scientifically rigorous; but in my view they manage to do both. A very good book.
But my favourite of all times is still Paul Halmos' seductively simple 'Naive Set Theory'. A very good read, and in places very deep.
nelsonal, I appreciate your thoughtful response, even if I don't agree entirely with your viewpoint. If people like you were more vocal in the debate, I'm sure a lot of these problems in the world would be less prominent.
You are concerned that I pick on Westerners because they are more matureand want to proctect Muslims because they aren't. I don't really see us in the West as more mature - but the intelligent thing to do in most conflicts is to try to bridge the gap and calm the waters, and to be pragmatic about what it takes to achieve that. Is it fair to tell an artist to get a bloody education and learn to think before he starts stirring up the shit, when I don't tell the radical Muslims to do the same? Not really; but one has to tread the path where it can be found - it seems quite likely to me that an artist could find a better way to get his point across, and certainly a lot easier than telling x million Muslims in the Middle East to do the same. Also, note that I am not saying that the artist can't express his opinion, only that he ought to be able to do better.
At the end of the day, what we need is a solution that everybody can live with long term. This will require us to make compromises, and compromises are always going to feel like sacrifices; the other side will have to sacrifice some of their cherished principles too, obviously. The point is that we can't predict what the compromises will be; we simply have to approach the whole thing with an open mind and a willingness to reach out.
Finally - about the doctors. I think it is a fair point - and I think they know that when they choose to do these things, they are exposing themselves to protests, threats and even murder. I believe the law already to some extent takes that into account - certainly in many countries the punishment for violent crimes depends somewhat on whether you were legitimately provoked.
It's encumbent on the government to protect the excercise those rights, even in cases where most of the population doesn't agree with the expression.
True - but I think the overriding duty of any government is to maintain public order, even if that means curtailing 'inalienable rights' at times.
Let's use the example of Piss Christ as an expression that is offensive to Christian groups
It is a borderline case, IMO. Personally, I am not offended although I think it is rather tasteless (beautiful colour play, actually). But when the artist produced this, he knew that the people he offended were not likely to react with extreme violence; in the West we are used to making a display of offending authorities and using provocation as expression, and even those offended have learned to live with this fact. In many other parts of the world, this is not the case, and when some idiot make a publicity stunt that involves insulting Muslims, he/she knows perfectly well how badly it will be received and what the likely consequences are. This is like when the schoolyard bully keeps picking on the child that is different - when you bully, you do it exactly because you want to see that reaction. Should we not act to stamp out bullying?
I hold an intense dislike a view that expression should be regulated based on the potential violence of the group that an expression offends,
So do I - trying to decide what should be censored is difficult even at best. What I am talking about is what happens after the fact - when you have caused widespread damage and loss of life, should you then be celebrated as some sort of hero? Should you be allowed to get off the hook by referring to "Freedom of Expression"? Or, to stretch the point, if I drive a my car through a group of children on the road, it is a valid defence to say "I don't care - I had the right to drive there and they shouldn't be so careless"?
So, no to censorship, but yes to freedom with responsibility - and consequences.
So, if a deranged lunatic reads your comment and goes on a killing spree because of it, you should be made to pay for it, right?
Ah, the good ol' "arguing by distortion" proof. It's not as black and white as that; in fact, black and white is more the domain of the extremists, AFAIK.
It is already widely accepted in society that there are situations where you should be held responsible for the effect your words are having - like in the classic example of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre and causing panic. It is also quite common that you are held responsible if you cause accidental damage - ie, even if you didn't intend any harm.
Your example would imply that John Lennon was responsible for the Charles Manson murders, or Jesus was responsible for the atrocities committed in his name; which is evidently nonsense.
But when an idiot "Christian" preacher in Texas wants to burn the Qur'an as a publicity stunt, knowing full well that it will cause widespread rioting - should he not be held responsible in some way? I think so. Or when a Danish cartoonist makes an unflattering cartoon of the Prophet, thereby causing bloodshed and substantial loss of property and business - should he be celebrated as a hero of "Freedom"? The point here is that you are supposed to apply at least a minimum foresight and intelligence.
You know, one can actually speak out against things without being extremely insulting. I can easily speak out against Christianity, if I want to, without insisting on displaying "Jesus Bukkake" in Trafalgar Square and hiding behind "Freedom of Speech". If you are serious about protecting your freedoms, don't use them to piss on others, because every time you do, you contribute to pushing the public mood towards restrictions.
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I have two objections to what you say. One - I don't think poverty causes religion, and I don't see how you can that into my words. And two: I didn't religion "has nothing to do with it", I said, religion is not why some people are evil.
Religion may be part of what you are, but good and evil is about the choices you make. You can choose to do good even if you worship Cthulhu, and you can choose to do evil even if you folow a religion based on universal love. Religion is only the varnish you use to gloss over your choices. You beat up your girlfriend? The Bible tells you that it is OK. you rape a girl and she is the one that is executed for it? I can find the justification for that right there, in the Bible too.
Holy scriptures were written by people according to what kind of people the authors were, and more importantly, they are used by religious people now according to their needs or whims. Religion doesn't make you do anything, it only serves as a justification after the deed, and your deeds come from your own, personal choices. And if there really is a judgement day, then you will be judged accordingly; that should make you think, if you really do believe in you God.
So, since genes come in pairs, this is about a pair of genes? As I always suspected, the real difference is in the trouser department, then.
... sociopaths. But a banker? Why not? If it makes them better bankers, then more power to them
The point being - it doesn't make them better bankers. Look, a sociopath is somebody who would steal the morphine from his dying mother and sell it for a couple of quid on the street corner; and then, when he was caught and punished, he would genuinely not understand what the fuss is about. Is this the right sort of person to trust with money and power? Would you hand over your money to him on trust alone? Because that is what you do in the bank: you give them your money and then you trust them to look after it.
It is strange and sad that people still in this day and age don't understand that companies - especially large companies - have social responsibilities, which override their responsibility to make a return to their investors. They are part of society, and that is just one of the reasons why they should not have sociopaths in charge. The other reason being that sociopaths tend to act as a poison and make life hell on earth for their colleagues.
... Bronze Age morality that the world's mainstream religions have saddled us with
Stop slandering the Bronze Age - ancient Greece, where democracy was invented, was a Bronze Age society. Oppressing and enslaving people for "moral" reasons is an invention of a more advanced civilisation; the Greeks had slaves, but their slaves could win their freedom, unlike in the modern versions.
It is worth remembering also, that religion is constructed by people, and religious people wrote the stories in the holy books. It is wrong to say that religion makes people do things, whether they are good or bad. Good people do good things and bad people do bad things; and if they happen to be religious, then they will blame both on their religion, but it doesn't mean that it is true.
There was a time when the Muslim civilisation was the greatest on the planet, a beacon of knowledge and tolerance, while the Christian world was in the deepest darkness; now it is the other way round. This is not because of religion, race or any of the other stupid non-explanations - it is simply because of wealth and power. Freedom, democracy, tolerance and so on tend to seem like luxury items when you can barely find enough food or water each day. Perhaps it would be helpful if we stopped going on about what people in developing ought to do in terms of freedom, and instead concentrated on making it possible, by fighting poverty and corruption.
I wonder how much of this is genuine and how much is distortion of the news, sponsored by corporations with a vested interest in not having this legislation passed?
I don't think one can fault the intentions behind this legislation: A citizen should have the final say concerning any personal data. This is important when it comes to things like credit card information and other personal information, and it is perfectly feasible for a company to delete a person's information from their systems, when that data is held in a suitable format, like a database.
It is, of course not as easy if the data is part of a huge, unformatted stream of data - what they now call "Big Data"; but I wouldn't say it is impossible. After all, there are several technologies that target exactly personal information held in huge, unformatted datasets; if they can find it, they can also delete it - or blank it out.
It is idiotic to talk about "having to change history and going through backup tapes ...". Even an EU bureaucrat wouldn't demand that; this is just typical FUD, and the purpose is easy for everyone to see: people's personal information is worth money.
... a Beowulf cluster ...
Where does that leave the rest of the 1st world countries?
It is not as simple as "some countries will become worse off, some will be better" - that is only where it starts. The rich countries - or those that will have better conditions in a warmer world - will have to deal with potentially billions of immigrants one way or the other. We let them in and try to sort out the problems that will bring, or we try to keep them out and end up fighting a war against desperate people, who will think something like "I can stay here and die of starvation, or I can go and die as a hero, killing as many rich bastards as possible". Not an appealing prospect, to my mind.
Or we can try to start working together now and perhaps make lessen the impact.
Everyone knows content is king. Many of us use Windows or OSX at home instead of Linux because the games we love just are not available on Linux
You got the wrong way round, I think - lack of games isn't keeping gamers off Linux, it is keeping Linux users away from playing the popular games, which isn't quite the same thing. If your interest is playing games, by all means buy Windows/Mac/PS3 or whatever.
As you say, content is king; Linux has the kind of content that matters to Linux users: perfect facilities for a server, or for software development. It's a tool, not a toy.
Is Linux going to take over the desktop this year? Who cares - I think it will, eventually. Just think back: 5 years ago I was the only one using OpenOffice, that I knew; but now there are signs that it will be MS Office that tries to catch up in future: the newest versions of MS Office has reluctantly become able handle open document format. We are winning, slowly.
As I understand it (from 'reading' the article very quickly), they are inching closer to knowing (scientifically, that is) *what* it is with unpleasant sounds that is unpleasant, not really why that is the case.
My best guess so far, having done several seconds of research into the matter, is that these sounds are commonly associated with 'alarm sounds' - things breaking, distress calls etc. Things that should make you afraid and run away from danger.
Harmonious sounds normally require things like voice control - they require a more relaxed environment, thus they are learned to be soothing.
That's not "strictly speaking" at all, because when linguists use the term "language", it refers to human language
I suppose it depends on your idea of "strictly", then :-)
I'm sure I buy the idea that linguists have a patent on the definition of what language is. Perhaps because I am a mathematician by education, I tend to seek out the 'roomiest, meaningful abstraction', and to me a language is simply a means of communication.
And strictly speaking (I do like that expression), we don't really know whether non-human animals are capable of the level of abstraction needed for Chomsky's example, although it seems likely. As I did say in the beginning of my post, I think we ought to broaden our minds about what language is, in order to understand where it comes from; it certainly wasn't created suddenly out of nothing. As Mr Deutscher says: "Language is mankindâ(TM)s greatest invention â" except of course, that it was never invented" ;-)
Is it really necessary to prove it's possible to ruin a James Bond movie by taking all of the fun out of it?
On the other hand, this is the first Bond movie I have actually enjoyed all the way through. None of the shallow crap from the previous movies about gambling and drinking heavily being 'suave' whatever the hell that means, or a completely unbelieveable storyline. And the actors seem to be genuinely able to act as well.
This wouldn't be tactfull, would it? To quote the original post:
I'm wondering how the situation could be approached tactfully so maybe Bob will see how much easier a new system could be for everyone, including him
If being considerate to Bob as a valued member of the group is important, perhaps a better way would be to try to persuade him to teach his skills to others? Maybe his way really is good, and it would be valuable to learn, or it is crap and it could turn into a way of addressing the problems in some way. Also, putting him in a teacher position gives him the feeling of higher status, which probably makes him more open to letting go of the old system.
I think we have to learn to think of language and communication in a broader sense. Strictly speaking, communication is just the transfer of information, and language is whichever means of communication you are capable of using. Hence 'body language' - cats, dogs and if you go wild, even plants, communicate and use language; that's why we can make sense of them.
OK, so I'm stretching the concept just to be provocative, but I think it is probably wrong to assume that modern, abstract language suddenly appeared X years ago along with a big brain. Language was there long before big brains.
Older workers want more pay, don't want to work all nighters every other thursday, don't want mandatory 90 hour weeks, don't want to mess with all these new fangled thingies that will be obsolete or irrelevant in 1.7 years, etc etc
I think what you mean to say is that older workers are experienced, basically. But I think it is a mistake to think that young developers are the ones to work long hours or mess around with new technology. Teenagers might hang around all night, playing games, but a young professional, who has a family or even just a social life, will want to leave his office early.
From my personal experience, when I had dependent children, I wanted to get home and see them; now that I am getting uncomfortably close to the expected retirement age, I find that I work far longer hours and have time to enjoy all the new, bleeding edge stuff. The thing is, when you are old (I'm not old, of course, only 55), you have long since learned how to avoid wasting your time messing about, and you also have the insight that enables you to see the wider perspective - such as how to use the latest thingy to solve a problem that nobody else had thought of.
And software development tends to be quite easy once you have got past the confusion over all the programming languages and OSes, and you are able to concentrate on good program design instead.
And as for retiring - hey, I haven't even got started yet. I'll think of retiring when I hear the sound of soil on a wooden surface just above my face.
Wow, you're such a shining wit. So, all it takes to be modded "insightful" on /. is to parade the same, old, ignorant nonsense without even trying to articulate a genuine opinion. Sometimes I do wonder why the hell we spend money on computers, internet - or learning to read, for that matter - when this is all that comes out of it. I don't mind people having another opinion than me, but I really hate it when they can't be asked to think or learn.
There are many good arguments for placing the governance of these things under the control of a supra-national institution, and so far, what I have heard against had only been FUD about 'UN is bad', 'UN will introduce censorship and stifle trade' and so on. This is classic FUD: fear of the unknown - one wonders what happened to the good old 'To boldly go ...'. Have Americans become a bunch of hand wringing old grannies, afraid of stepping outside your front door in case you are ravished by all these foreigners?
I would have though America is plenty strong enough to take on the rest of the world, even if the cards are stacked in your favour.
Oh, give it a rest, will you?
This is very much the way things work in real life. If I see somebody doing something that I think I would like to do, of course I'll learn from it and, in your words "steal their idea".
And, at the same time, it looks like a lot of people on this list find it obviously right to make a 'backup copy' - or 10 or 100 - of any music or data CD, more or less. File sharing is commonly seen as acceptable; but if the Chinese, the devils, do something similar, then it is THEFT and deeply immoral. Right.
Like it or not, the Chinese have as much right to take what others have made and build on it as the US had for most of the last century. Remember, modern rocket technology was invented in Germany and the computer was invented in UK; and a lot of other things Americans think were their own inventions came from elsewhere.
If you read the bible or the koran ...
I have actually read the Bible several times, which is why I say this. The Bible and any other holy book are only books - they are made by humans, and already for that reason flawed. However, a person's religion is not what is written in any book, but what that person implements in their life. As far as I'm concerned, you can be a devoted Satanist, and a very good person at the same time; it's what you make of it that counts.
Personally, I don't give a toss - to me God is, for all practical purposes, irrelevant. I will take him seriously the day he shows up with reliable, testable evidence.
... a belief that every word of the Koran is literally true, and there's a kind of closemindedness ...
I have an enourmous respect for professor Dawkins, but he is human, like everybody else; and he sometimes seems to closed-minded himself. He sees Islam as 'one of the great evils in the world' - yet, the Islamic world was at one time the most open-minded; this was, in fact, at a time when the Christian culture was at its darkest.
I don't think any religion is inherently good or bad - it is as good or bad as its followers.
Without knowing more about the vessel, if that is not too rich a word, I'd say that this is a perfect demonstration of why designers are not meant to be engineers. It's like some of these buildings that went up after the 60s, which won awards for their 'bold architecture' and 'innovative design', but which turned out to be instant slum, because they were not really made to be lived in.
I don't know about mathematical fiction - I read Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's 'Long Earth' book recently and found it very intelligent and scientifically intriguing. I think the trick of a good story is to present your ideas credibly, rather than being scientifically rigorous; but in my view they manage to do both. A very good book.
But my favourite of all times is still Paul Halmos' seductively simple 'Naive Set Theory'. A very good read, and in places very deep.
We don't have to exercise ourselves that much to know, actually - just check the headlines at the time. The Guardian puts it most succintly:
Earth hit by huge asteroid, creates moon
And from The Sun:
Rooney injured by space rock
nelsonal, I appreciate your thoughtful response, even if I don't agree entirely with your viewpoint. If people like you were more vocal in the debate, I'm sure a lot of these problems in the world would be less prominent.
You are concerned that I pick on Westerners because they are more matureand want to proctect Muslims because they aren't. I don't really see us in the West as more mature - but the intelligent thing to do in most conflicts is to try to bridge the gap and calm the waters, and to be pragmatic about what it takes to achieve that. Is it fair to tell an artist to get a bloody education and learn to think before he starts stirring up the shit, when I don't tell the radical Muslims to do the same? Not really; but one has to tread the path where it can be found - it seems quite likely to me that an artist could find a better way to get his point across, and certainly a lot easier than telling x million Muslims in the Middle East to do the same. Also, note that I am not saying that the artist can't express his opinion, only that he ought to be able to do better.
At the end of the day, what we need is a solution that everybody can live with long term. This will require us to make compromises, and compromises are always going to feel like sacrifices; the other side will have to sacrifice some of their cherished principles too, obviously. The point is that we can't predict what the compromises will be; we simply have to approach the whole thing with an open mind and a willingness to reach out.
Finally - about the doctors. I think it is a fair point - and I think they know that when they choose to do these things, they are exposing themselves to protests, threats and even murder. I believe the law already to some extent takes that into account - certainly in many countries the punishment for violent crimes depends somewhat on whether you were legitimately provoked.
It's encumbent on the government to protect the excercise those rights, even in cases where most of the population doesn't agree with the expression.
True - but I think the overriding duty of any government is to maintain public order, even if that means curtailing 'inalienable rights' at times.
Let's use the example of Piss Christ as an expression that is offensive to Christian groups
It is a borderline case, IMO. Personally, I am not offended although I think it is rather tasteless (beautiful colour play, actually). But when the artist produced this, he knew that the people he offended were not likely to react with extreme violence; in the West we are used to making a display of offending authorities and using provocation as expression, and even those offended have learned to live with this fact. In many other parts of the world, this is not the case, and when some idiot make a publicity stunt that involves insulting Muslims, he/she knows perfectly well how badly it will be received and what the likely consequences are. This is like when the schoolyard bully keeps picking on the child that is different - when you bully, you do it exactly because you want to see that reaction. Should we not act to stamp out bullying?
I hold an intense dislike a view that expression should be regulated based on the potential violence of the group that an expression offends,
So do I - trying to decide what should be censored is difficult even at best. What I am talking about is what happens after the fact - when you have caused widespread damage and loss of life, should you then be celebrated as some sort of hero? Should you be allowed to get off the hook by referring to "Freedom of Expression"? Or, to stretch the point, if I drive a my car through a group of children on the road, it is a valid defence to say "I don't care - I had the right to drive there and they shouldn't be so careless"?
So, no to censorship, but yes to freedom with responsibility - and consequences.
So, if a deranged lunatic reads your comment and goes on a killing spree because of it, you should be made to pay for it, right?
Ah, the good ol' "arguing by distortion" proof. It's not as black and white as that; in fact, black and white is more the domain of the extremists, AFAIK.
It is already widely accepted in society that there are situations where you should be held responsible for the effect your words are having - like in the classic example of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre and causing panic. It is also quite common that you are held responsible if you cause accidental damage - ie, even if you didn't intend any harm.
Your example would imply that John Lennon was responsible for the Charles Manson murders, or Jesus was responsible for the atrocities committed in his name; which is evidently nonsense.
But when an idiot "Christian" preacher in Texas wants to burn the Qur'an as a publicity stunt, knowing full well that it will cause widespread rioting - should he not be held responsible in some way? I think so. Or when a Danish cartoonist makes an unflattering cartoon of the Prophet, thereby causing bloodshed and substantial loss of property and business - should he be celebrated as a hero of "Freedom"? The point here is that you are supposed to apply at least a minimum foresight and intelligence.
You know, one can actually speak out against things without being extremely insulting. I can easily speak out against Christianity, if I want to, without insisting on displaying "Jesus Bukkake" in Trafalgar Square and hiding behind "Freedom of Speech". If you are serious about protecting your freedoms, don't use them to piss on others, because every time you do, you contribute to pushing the public mood towards restrictions.