Thank you for making this point. For me, space is the utmost consideration. My wife and I live in a one-bedroom apartment with not even so much as a dedicated garage space to our name. If I want to do even a little bit of woodworking, like building a bird house, I'm laying down sheet plastic, cutting hardboard with a dremel, and possibly vacuuming sawdust out of the carpet. (Not to mention, all of this probably violates my lease.) Forget about working with pieces of wood large enough to build a small bookcase.
If I had space, the question would then be whether or not I wanted to invest in tools. A power drill? Sure. A table saw? Maybe not.
I'm crafty enough that if I have access to space and tools, I'm a reasonably handy guy. Maybe not "build my own beautiful bookcase" handy but certainly "build my own functional bookcase" handy. Now, fortunately, I have a buddy who has a garage and plenty of woodworking tools. If/when I move closer to him, borrowing becomes an option.
Ultimately, while I sympathize with the tenor of this article, it seems to me that there are a lot of hidden costs to craftsmanship. Should everybody have a workshop in the garage or at least enough that everybody's one degree of separation from a workshop? And what other expertise would we have to give up to maintain that level of craftsmanship? The article discusses some of its advantages but it also seems to downplay other areas of expertise. What exactly is wrong with a shift toward skilled services like cooking, laundry, tailoring, etc.? Isn't a diversity of specialists supposed to be good for an industrial/post-industrial economy?
Speciation is kind of a tricky idea to pin down. I took some supplemental biology classes a few years back and finally had it explained to me in a sensible way. I'd always heard species defined as those animals that, when bred, could not produce sterile offspring. It always troubled me, though, WHEN does that happen? When one mutation finally pushes an animal over that threshold and it can't breed with the rest of the animals, how would that line continue to develop?
What I learned is that speciation happens by degrees, beginning, typically with populations of animals that can't breed together they are separated. As the animals evolve different structures or behaviours, they WON'T breed together if introduced, even if genetically compatible. And then finally, after many generations, the two populations become so genetically distinct that their mating couldn't produce fertile offspring. Dogs and wolves are probably still the same species and could/would mate if allowed to - but some dog breeds may be too small or have behaviours too different from wild wolves for them to mate. In-vitro fertilization would probably produce fertile offspring even in those cases. Who knows how long it will take for them to genetically diverge altogether.
Yeah, you kind of have me there. Alton Brown is certainly the TV chef whom I would most like to emulate. Still, I think his target audience is more adult than mine would be. It would need to be a little bit more *ahem* bite-sized and I'd particularly like to focus on some fundamentals. Where do various foods come from and how to do they feature in a healthful diet? I'd probably still include recipes but maybe not integral to the program. More like, "If you want to make using , you can find a recipe at our web site." It would be less of a cooking show and more of an educational program focused on the topics of food awareness and nutrition with elements of cooking and home-ec included.
Maybe a lot has changed in the last 15 years but when I was in middle school and high school, cooking dinner a couple of nights every week was one of my chores. In fact, I can look back and cite that as the spark that ignited my passion for cooking and nutrition. It's a chore that a middle-school student can handle and will provide them with the foundation of the very skills that some posters are lamenting that many adults don't have.
I did, in fact, get burned once. It wasn't a hot pot or pan but the toaster of all things. It had jammed and because I had left it unsupervised, it had caught fire. I panicked and touched it to get it out from underneath the cabinets. I called 911 and they walked me through safely extinguishing the toaster fire. There was a follow-up call about 15 minutes later to make sure everything was okay. But was there any action from CPS? As far as I know, not a whisper.
One of my long-term goals is to become the Fred Rogers or the Bill Nye of food television. As with many things, I think that one of the keys to introducing good nutrition and an enthusiasm for preparing one's own food is to begin at an early age.
It would be pointless to forbid Warhammer figures. Some players are more or less serious about supporting the games companies and therefore more or less serious about proxying. I'm sure you'd find, however, that any generic toy soldier models could be printed in quantity. Communities will evolve that use entire proxy sets and just agree, by convention, which generic models correspond to which Warhammer models. Of course, you could do this with ordinary, plastic toy soldiers now but that's not quite as satisfying. If you can replace your copyrighted Dwarven Axe Berserkers with creative commons Dwarfish Adze Maniacs, you retain most of the flavour that makes the original models so fun.
For the same reason why they went to a great deal of trouble to secure a Blackberry for President Obama to use. Professionals of all stripes have become attached to one piece of equipment or another that they depend on to be productive (or more productive.) It's not about "toys" as much as it's about the professional employee trying to retain the tools that help him or her to do the job most effectively. The employer's standard tools might be adequate but if the employee is capable of providing 10% more on familiar equipment, why force the employee to switch? Liability, lawsuits, NDA's, espionage, blah, blah, blah. All of that is a lot of FEAR. I'll admit, my first reaction when I heard about employees bringing their own equipment to work was to think, "stupid employees." But the more I've thought about it, the more that I think that it's about the employee and the employer asking the question, "How can we do the most for our customers?" instead of asking "How can we cover our cowardly asses?"
If I had to do a lot of calculations everyday, I'd probably provide my own calculator. If I were working in a kitchen, I'd probably provide my own knife. If somebody's job requires a lot of communication, why should it seem so strange that they want to provide their own smart phone?
You raise an important point. There are two perspectives here and unfortunately, both of them are correct. Stallman's perspective is that computers are so critical that it's unacceptable that users should be prevented from managing their hardware and software 100%. As you note, however, few users are capable of managing their *ware 100%. It follows, however, that unless the user is 100% responsible for managing their *ware, there's no assurance that the responsibility they've delegated isn't being abused.
One can make the same argument about a number of things. My area of interest is food security. Unless one farms and cooks all of one's own food, one must delegate some of one's food security to others - either in the form of grocery stores, restaurants, or a personal chef, to name a few. How many people could really take 100% responsibility of their own food security? Very few, if you ask me. This is the nature of an interdependent society. Specialists develop expertise in narrow fields and then trade services. It's a cornerstone principle of industrialization and technological advancement. Perhaps Stallman IS correct but here is the tradeoff that must be considered then: If we must retain greater responsibility of our computers - possibly up to 100% control - what expertise or efficiency should we sacrifice instead so that everybody can have that level of responsibility?
For the sake of full disclosure, I could also be misremembering the news report. It was a couple of years ago. The actual figure could have been $2.00 and she might have been comparing to some other vegetable. The essence of the report and my impression at the time stuck with me but the details are hazy.
That's a pretty tall order. I'm actually hoping to spin that very notion into a master's thesis - strategies for analyzing a grocery budget and maximizing nutritional value while minimizing cost. (And if possible, factoring in how appetizing the food is.) I can share a few general tips, though, that will apply for a variety of kinds of diets.
1. Use less salt; use more herbs and spices. While reducing sodium intake is probably beneficial for most westerners, that's actually just a side benefit of this advice. The reason for doing this is to broaden one's idea of what constitutes "flavourful" food. If you're accustomed to using cumin, cinnamon, paprika, black pepper, and ginger then you'll be comfortable with these flavours when you use them to enhance blander foods.
2. Eat less meat; eat more plants. A diet that mixes cereals with legumes can an adequate intake of all essential amino acids without consuming any meat. If your budget, your doctor, or your conscience demands that you eat less/no meat, you can still get sufficient protein. Using seasonings, as recommended above, will allow a relatively small number of plant ingredients take on a large number of flavour profiles. Rice or pasta with cinnamon and ginger is distinct from rice or pasta with cinnamon and cumin. For example, I've been tinkering a lot with various substitutions for the spices and the chickpeas in Moroccan Spaghetti.
3. Cook foods properly. Another poster mentioned how, while growing up, "vegetables" meant the contents of a tin can warmed up on the stovetop. That will do in a pinch but it isn't very appetizing. Frozen is better than canned. Steamed is better than boiled. When in doubt, it's better to under-cook than over-cook (vegetables only; please don't eat undercooked chicken.) The food will be more appetizing and more nutritious. It's a little bit more expensive but the value of the resulting food is much higher. I know that time is at a premium but spending some of it practicing good cooking technique will often result in more nutritious, more satisfying meals.
The problem is as much one of time and education as of finances. I am studying nutrition and know a lot of recipes that allow me to both to stretch my grocery budget and eat healthful foods. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have time to cook good food nor do they really understand how plentiful their options are. That ignorance leads people into the "fast food trap," I think. At least it tastes pretty good. Better than eating beans and rice all the time, right? Except with the right seasonings - which you can stretch out for months - beans and rice are pretty darned tasty.
I watched a news report on the affordability of healthful foods and the woman was complaining that she could get two cheeseburgers for $1.50 or buy a bunch of broccoli for $1.50. The news report didn't elaborate though and nobody explained to the poor woman that the two cheeseburgers are one poor meal while the broccoli could be stretched for several meals and mixed with other foods that would make for more nutritious eating for about the same amount of money per meal.
Or similarly, there's a charity called Feed My Starving Children that buys (admittedly in bulk) dehydrated vegetables, rice, chicken-flavoured nutrient powder, and soy protein then blends them together for essentially complete nutrition for 24 cents per serving. I'm not suggesting that anybody eat nothing but reconstituted rations but if it's possible to do that for 24 cents, certainly there must be ways for people in industrialized countries to prepare nutritious foods for $1.00 or $2.00 per serving.
Recall that the effect on the rotation of galaxies is not the only observation ever made that supports the dark matter theory. There was an article on Slashdot a while ago - I couldn't find it here but I found another summary of the same findings. Astronomers observed a region where two galaxies had collided and found gravitational lensing occurring in a region of space where the visible matter was not located.
He is pleased because of one doing it out of joy. Consider 2 Corinthians 9: 7,8 "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." It says not only that "God loves a cheerful giver" but goes on to remind the reader that our generosity is really just stewardship of the things that God has first given into our care. A few people have commented on the way that I worded my original explanation. Rather than saying that we do good works to please God, it would be more accurate to say that we know that good works are pleasing to God and should also be pleasing to us. Our good works are like a celebration WITH God in thanks for his providence.
God created us with free will that allows us to choose sin. The alternative was creating us as will-less automatons. That freedom is necessary for our choices to matter. It is better for humans to exist with the ability to make meaningful choices and to form meaningful relationships than it would be for us to not exist at all or for us to exist but not be able to make meaningful choices or form meaningful relationships.
You don't have to apologize for your questions. I'm happy to share my perspective with you.
As I said, good deeds and bad deeds are outward manifestations of an internal condition - expressions of godly character and sinful character respectively. By God's perfect standard, there is no such thing as a "good person." We all fail to live up to God's extraordinarily high expectations. God's grace refers to the sacrifice that God made in the person of Jesus to reconcile the broken human condition with God's perfect standard. The correction of human imperfection is, as I said, begun on Earth and perfected in Heaven. But as long as the sinful condition remains (as it will on Earth), humans will both be drawn toward God's goodness and tempted away from it.
As far as the reason/cause for being good, marriage provides a good analogy. Does a man hold the door for his wife or bring her flowers because he is obligated to or feels that it is his duty? I doubt it. When I bring flowers to my wife, it is because I am grateful for the goodness of the relationship that I share with her. It brings me joy and I express my joy by doing things that I know she likes. It's not appeasement. I'm not buying her affection nor is she giving me affection to buy flowers. It's a mutual expression of appreciation for one another's companionship.
Concerning being "made in God's image," I interpret that statement philosophically. Insomuch as we can create things and make decisions and experience joyful relationships with one another, I believe that we are like God. I don't think that it has anything to do with fleshy bodies.
Christian faith is a little bit more nuanced than that. It is not that we are never capable of performing good deeds or thinking good thoughts without believing in God. We believe, after all, that humans are formed in God's image - certainly, the ability to think and do good things is included in that package. What we observe, however, is that everybody, at some point or another, uses their free will to do or think something unkind or hurtful toward others. That aspect of the human condition is what we refer to as sin and when we refer to being slaves to sin, we're referring to our inability to escape that pattern of behaviour. When we discuss God's grace providing freedom from sin, we're not referring to an immediate transformation that allows us never to sin but rather an acknowledgment of this failing and accepting that only God's perfect goodness can correct it.
Furthermore, we don't claim that the good deeds and thoughts are the ultimate goal of God's grace. Rather, just as misdeeds are symptoms of a broken human condition, good deeds are a symptom of a mended/on-the-mend human condition. We don't act out good deeds "just because" they're objectively good nor because we feel an obligation (which I would call legalism and duty, respectively.) We act out good deeds as an expression of joy because we believe it is pleasing to God when we do so and we are profoundly grateful that he has provided the means by to mend the broken human condition - a process that we believe is begun on Earth and perfected in Heaven.
The premises of a logical argument are sometimes the conclusions of previous arguments but are sometimes axioms/postulates. In those instances, the premises, at least, are taken on faith. Often, that faith is based on excellent rationale (what I would call the difference between a good assumption and a bad assumption.)
In those terms, you're suggesting that the universe "just being" is a good assumption and that the universe having been created by an entity who "just is" is a bad assumption. I'm a Christian but I can appreciate the perspective that leads to that conclusion. In the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever, your premises are somewhat more plausible than mine. (I would not go so far as to say they're "much more plausible.")
I will admit freely and without reservation that what I hold as evidence of God's existence is not scientifically rigorous. Nonetheless, I accept the recorded testimony of early Hebrews/Jews and Christians (again, acknowledging the age of the subject matter, occasional lack of corresponding verification from other historical sources, etc.) as adequate evidence to make the premise of God's existence plausible. I understand why this is considered a questionable stance for a reasonable person to take but "questionable" is not "mentally ill" or "irrational." I can abide disagreements but it makes me cross when disagreements lead to judgments of one's character or soundness of mind.
It most certainly should not be done. Maybe some of them are lazy but some of them are industrious and want a job but there's nothing suitable to be found. What incentive will companies have to create REAL jobs if they know they can get indentured servants assigned to them? If they have the choice between an employee that they have to pay a competitive wage, who can leave if he's unhappy or an indentured servant who they can pay practically nothing, who isn't legally permitted to leave, who do you think they're going to choose?
Miscibility and solubility are distinct concepts. Alcohol and gases DISSOLVE in water. They are not miscible in water. Oils are not soluble in water but that doesn't mean that the two couldn't exist in mixed phase with the more dense water suspending droplets of oil (emulsification). The three independent factors of insolubility, imiscibility, and different densities explain why you get two distinct liquid phases with oil floating on top. No one of those three factors explains the other two, though.
I don't think it's a good idea to permanently subsidize the unproductive. What I object to, however, is the definition of work or productivity as something that the market will pay for. I see several holes in that definition of productivity. One, the market must recognize the value before it will pay for it. That disincentives exploration of new ideas. Two, the market is much better at rewarding enterprises that capitalize on scarcities than it is at rewarding enterprises that capitalize on abundance. (Just because it doesn't cost anything doesn't mean that it's valueless.) Three, that model caters to a subsistence mentality - survive first, contribute second.
Maybe I'm exhibiting excessive optimism but at least for myself, I have ideas that, if I had time or energy to develop them fully, I'd give them away just for the joy of enriching other people. Now maybe MY ideas aren't all that valuable (or maybe they are) but I expect there across all of the people struggling just to pay the bills, if you could relieve them of the struggle to survive, you'd free up their capacity to create new ideas (and probably implementations of those ideas) that could enrich everybody.
Not everyone can be at the top of the pyramid at the same time - there is simply no room. But being at the top is easy. And not everyone at the bottom sucks, a lot of them are simply not at the right place at the right time to move up the pyramid.
Next time you are near a street musician or some street theater, or are listening to some unknown band in a bar/club, stop a while and pay attention to the talent. Yeah maybe the singer is a little off but the guitarist is really good, etc. There is talent everywhere.
I think that more frequent recognition of this fact is critical to driving innovation and cultural evolution. Right now, I feel like we're saddled with the myth of the market. The American narrative states that anybody with talent and drive will make it to the top if only they work hard enough. I agree with what you've said, however; that narrative is untrue. Yes, hard work is required but it's observation bias to assume that just because most people who made it to the top worked hard that it was the cause of their success.
In both the arts and the sciences, I think that the cost to society of this mentality is huge. Yes, the rise of amateurs in the creative fields has been a blow to professionals. That's at least in part because traditional barriers to entry have been torn down. Unfortunately, as this article highlights, while the barriers to entry may be gone, the barriers to success, as traditionally defined in a capitalist market economy, are higher than ever. In my opinion, this is a huge failure of the market. Innovation and culture are extremely valuable but the market can't always put a price on them. If we demand of our innovators and artists that they either 1) create something that the market will buy, 2) have a day job that cuts into their creative time and energy, or 3) suffer poverty for the sake of creating innovations or art that will enrich everybody else, we are doing a disservice to those innovators and artists and making ourselves, as a society, poorer as a result.
To put it a different way, innovation and creativity shouldn't be a lottery. We can't really know what "the next big thing" will be and it seems disingenuous to punish the 9 cultural experimenters who didn't hit the right combination before going bankrupt or burning out and then reward the 1 who came along after them, studied what they did, and devised the right combination from their failures. There was valuable work done by those 9 people but only the 10th was able to create a marketable invention or service. I think that holding out the hope of being that 10th person as the incentive for innovators and artists to keep doing their thing is a TERRIBLE way to say that we value the contributions they make.
One thing that you hint at but don't explicitly say is that this has to be a societal/cultural commitment. There need to be avenues by which people can take moderate risks to innovate without risking permanent and irrevocable harm to their wellbeing. I see this changing but right now, our cultural narrative about The American Dream is that the wealthy are bold and industrious and the poor are meek and lazy. If somebody tries to innovate and fails, they could suffer a temporary loss but we tend to stigmatize failure in a way that prevents a would-be innovator from recovering to innovate again. We need to recapture FDR's attitude toward failure: try something and if it doesn't work, admit failure, discard it, and try something else.
The reason we need to protect people from getting "ripped off" is because creating ideas can be a full-time job but it's cheap and easy to replicate an idea, so it has no economic value unless protected. Ironically, innovation and an abundance of ideas can lead to massive growth in prosperity - an explosion of abundant material wealth for everybody. Foster an environment in which nobody's afraid that they're going to starve and people with good ideas will feel so rich, they'll be eager to give them away.
Openness works because ideas can be made abundant at practically no cost. The economy of ideas right now is illustrative of the characteristics of a system in which artificial scarcity is applied to abundant resources. This is important because so many of the big things that we could be building would serve to eliminate or at least reduce scarcity even with regard to material resources. A quote that I read earlier regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement touches upon the same idea: "They mean to show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture." More generally, I am interested in any philosophy that endorses the pursuit of shareable abundance over profitable scarcity.
I see. You're asking me to prove the existence of God before I can cite him as a moral authority? I may as well ask you to prove that human life is valuable. You can't. It's axiomatic. I don't disagree with you but we're taking the value of human life as a fundamental truth. It's USEFUL to postulate the value of human life but utility and morality are not even close to identical.
You might try to argue that if I can't appreciate or understand the intrinsic value of human life, then I'm no better off than I deserve. How would that be different from me arguing that if you can't appreciate or understand the goodness of God, then you're no better off than you deserve?
A reasoned argument proceeds from its premises. My observation is that few people disagree upon the logic that translates premises into moral conclusions. The disagreements occur when selecting premises. Your post suggests that it is axiomatic to you that the promotion of Human Life is the foundation upon which morality should be built. Why is the promotion of Human Life your axiom, though? Somebody else used the term enlightened self interest. May I assume that's approximately the case for you as well?
To this Christian's mind, that is a moral code based upon outcomes. The reason, therefore, why I reject Human Life as a moral axiom is because its principles are subjugated to its goals. While we happen to agree that Human Life is valuable, another person whose goals are different from yours or mine might not draw the same conclusion. By what basis, other than, "I disagree with you" could you argue the immorality of that person's behaviour or principles? I choose, instead, to subscribe to a moral model that begins with principles of morality, such as "God is good" and allow my behaviours to proceed from there. This can lead to questionable behaviour, such as Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. We observe that behaviour and have trouble reconciling it with a moral man or a good God. I believe (and I feel comfortable saying that most other Christians do as well) that promoting Human Life IS, in fact, a high moral principle. We also believe, however, that it is not the HIGHEST moral principle.
By analogy, I wouldn't ever arbitrarily hurt somebody or damage or steal their property. If, however, by doing so, I could save somebody's life, then I would. I would subjugate the lower principle to the higher principle. You might disagree with Abraham's choice of principles or priorities, you might say that it's irresponsible or evil to allow an authority figure to hold a position of such esteem. Nonetheless, Christians believe that Abraham was rightly acting out the higher principle, "God is good" even though it conflicted with a very-high principle, "Human Life is valuable." That God commanded Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac at the last moment appears, in my mind, to confirm BOTH principles (While God does want us to recognize his goodness as a highest principle, he is neither arbitrary nor cruel.)
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for making this point. For me, space is the utmost consideration. My wife and I live in a one-bedroom apartment with not even so much as a dedicated garage space to our name. If I want to do even a little bit of woodworking, like building a bird house, I'm laying down sheet plastic, cutting hardboard with a dremel, and possibly vacuuming sawdust out of the carpet. (Not to mention, all of this probably violates my lease.) Forget about working with pieces of wood large enough to build a small bookcase.
If I had space, the question would then be whether or not I wanted to invest in tools. A power drill? Sure. A table saw? Maybe not.
I'm crafty enough that if I have access to space and tools, I'm a reasonably handy guy. Maybe not "build my own beautiful bookcase" handy but certainly "build my own functional bookcase" handy. Now, fortunately, I have a buddy who has a garage and plenty of woodworking tools. If/when I move closer to him, borrowing becomes an option.
Ultimately, while I sympathize with the tenor of this article, it seems to me that there are a lot of hidden costs to craftsmanship. Should everybody have a workshop in the garage or at least enough that everybody's one degree of separation from a workshop? And what other expertise would we have to give up to maintain that level of craftsmanship? The article discusses some of its advantages but it also seems to downplay other areas of expertise. What exactly is wrong with a shift toward skilled services like cooking, laundry, tailoring, etc.? Isn't a diversity of specialists supposed to be good for an industrial/post-industrial economy?
Speciation is kind of a tricky idea to pin down. I took some supplemental biology classes a few years back and finally had it explained to me in a sensible way. I'd always heard species defined as those animals that, when bred, could not produce sterile offspring. It always troubled me, though, WHEN does that happen? When one mutation finally pushes an animal over that threshold and it can't breed with the rest of the animals, how would that line continue to develop?
What I learned is that speciation happens by degrees, beginning, typically with populations of animals that can't breed together they are separated. As the animals evolve different structures or behaviours, they WON'T breed together if introduced, even if genetically compatible. And then finally, after many generations, the two populations become so genetically distinct that their mating couldn't produce fertile offspring. Dogs and wolves are probably still the same species and could/would mate if allowed to - but some dog breeds may be too small or have behaviours too different from wild wolves for them to mate. In-vitro fertilization would probably produce fertile offspring even in those cases. Who knows how long it will take for them to genetically diverge altogether.
Yeah, you kind of have me there. Alton Brown is certainly the TV chef whom I would most like to emulate. Still, I think his target audience is more adult than mine would be. It would need to be a little bit more *ahem* bite-sized and I'd particularly like to focus on some fundamentals. Where do various foods come from and how to do they feature in a healthful diet? I'd probably still include recipes but maybe not integral to the program. More like, "If you want to make using , you can find a recipe at our web site." It would be less of a cooking show and more of an educational program focused on the topics of food awareness and nutrition with elements of cooking and home-ec included.
Maybe a lot has changed in the last 15 years but when I was in middle school and high school, cooking dinner a couple of nights every week was one of my chores. In fact, I can look back and cite that as the spark that ignited my passion for cooking and nutrition. It's a chore that a middle-school student can handle and will provide them with the foundation of the very skills that some posters are lamenting that many adults don't have.
I did, in fact, get burned once. It wasn't a hot pot or pan but the toaster of all things. It had jammed and because I had left it unsupervised, it had caught fire. I panicked and touched it to get it out from underneath the cabinets. I called 911 and they walked me through safely extinguishing the toaster fire. There was a follow-up call about 15 minutes later to make sure everything was okay. But was there any action from CPS? As far as I know, not a whisper.
One of my long-term goals is to become the Fred Rogers or the Bill Nye of food television. As with many things, I think that one of the keys to introducing good nutrition and an enthusiasm for preparing one's own food is to begin at an early age.
It would be pointless to forbid Warhammer figures. Some players are more or less serious about supporting the games companies and therefore more or less serious about proxying. I'm sure you'd find, however, that any generic toy soldier models could be printed in quantity. Communities will evolve that use entire proxy sets and just agree, by convention, which generic models correspond to which Warhammer models. Of course, you could do this with ordinary, plastic toy soldiers now but that's not quite as satisfying. If you can replace your copyrighted Dwarven Axe Berserkers with creative commons Dwarfish Adze Maniacs, you retain most of the flavour that makes the original models so fun.
For the same reason why they went to a great deal of trouble to secure a Blackberry for President Obama to use. Professionals of all stripes have become attached to one piece of equipment or another that they depend on to be productive (or more productive.) It's not about "toys" as much as it's about the professional employee trying to retain the tools that help him or her to do the job most effectively. The employer's standard tools might be adequate but if the employee is capable of providing 10% more on familiar equipment, why force the employee to switch? Liability, lawsuits, NDA's, espionage, blah, blah, blah. All of that is a lot of FEAR. I'll admit, my first reaction when I heard about employees bringing their own equipment to work was to think, "stupid employees." But the more I've thought about it, the more that I think that it's about the employee and the employer asking the question, "How can we do the most for our customers?" instead of asking "How can we cover our cowardly asses?"
If I had to do a lot of calculations everyday, I'd probably provide my own calculator. If I were working in a kitchen, I'd probably provide my own knife. If somebody's job requires a lot of communication, why should it seem so strange that they want to provide their own smart phone?
You raise an important point. There are two perspectives here and unfortunately, both of them are correct. Stallman's perspective is that computers are so critical that it's unacceptable that users should be prevented from managing their hardware and software 100%. As you note, however, few users are capable of managing their *ware 100%. It follows, however, that unless the user is 100% responsible for managing their *ware, there's no assurance that the responsibility they've delegated isn't being abused.
One can make the same argument about a number of things. My area of interest is food security. Unless one farms and cooks all of one's own food, one must delegate some of one's food security to others - either in the form of grocery stores, restaurants, or a personal chef, to name a few. How many people could really take 100% responsibility of their own food security? Very few, if you ask me. This is the nature of an interdependent society. Specialists develop expertise in narrow fields and then trade services. It's a cornerstone principle of industrialization and technological advancement. Perhaps Stallman IS correct but here is the tradeoff that must be considered then: If we must retain greater responsibility of our computers - possibly up to 100% control - what expertise or efficiency should we sacrifice instead so that everybody can have that level of responsibility?
For the sake of full disclosure, I could also be misremembering the news report. It was a couple of years ago. The actual figure could have been $2.00 and she might have been comparing to some other vegetable. The essence of the report and my impression at the time stuck with me but the details are hazy.
That's a pretty tall order. I'm actually hoping to spin that very notion into a master's thesis - strategies for analyzing a grocery budget and maximizing nutritional value while minimizing cost. (And if possible, factoring in how appetizing the food is.) I can share a few general tips, though, that will apply for a variety of kinds of diets.
1. Use less salt; use more herbs and spices. While reducing sodium intake is probably beneficial for most westerners, that's actually just a side benefit of this advice. The reason for doing this is to broaden one's idea of what constitutes "flavourful" food. If you're accustomed to using cumin, cinnamon, paprika, black pepper, and ginger then you'll be comfortable with these flavours when you use them to enhance blander foods.
2. Eat less meat; eat more plants. A diet that mixes cereals with legumes can an adequate intake of all essential amino acids without consuming any meat. If your budget, your doctor, or your conscience demands that you eat less/no meat, you can still get sufficient protein. Using seasonings, as recommended above, will allow a relatively small number of plant ingredients take on a large number of flavour profiles. Rice or pasta with cinnamon and ginger is distinct from rice or pasta with cinnamon and cumin.
For example, I've been tinkering a lot with various substitutions for the spices and the chickpeas in Moroccan Spaghetti.
3. Cook foods properly. Another poster mentioned how, while growing up, "vegetables" meant the contents of a tin can warmed up on the stovetop. That will do in a pinch but it isn't very appetizing. Frozen is better than canned. Steamed is better than boiled. When in doubt, it's better to under-cook than over-cook (vegetables only; please don't eat undercooked chicken.) The food will be more appetizing and more nutritious. It's a little bit more expensive but the value of the resulting food is much higher. I know that time is at a premium but spending some of it practicing good cooking technique will often result in more nutritious, more satisfying meals.
The problem is as much one of time and education as of finances. I am studying nutrition and know a lot of recipes that allow me to both to stretch my grocery budget and eat healthful foods. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have time to cook good food nor do they really understand how plentiful their options are. That ignorance leads people into the "fast food trap," I think. At least it tastes pretty good. Better than eating beans and rice all the time, right? Except with the right seasonings - which you can stretch out for months - beans and rice are pretty darned tasty.
I watched a news report on the affordability of healthful foods and the woman was complaining that she could get two cheeseburgers for $1.50 or buy a bunch of broccoli for $1.50. The news report didn't elaborate though and nobody explained to the poor woman that the two cheeseburgers are one poor meal while the broccoli could be stretched for several meals and mixed with other foods that would make for more nutritious eating for about the same amount of money per meal.
Or similarly, there's a charity called Feed My Starving Children that buys (admittedly in bulk) dehydrated vegetables, rice, chicken-flavoured nutrient powder, and soy protein then blends them together for essentially complete nutrition for 24 cents per serving. I'm not suggesting that anybody eat nothing but reconstituted rations but if it's possible to do that for 24 cents, certainly there must be ways for people in industrialized countries to prepare nutritious foods for $1.00 or $2.00 per serving.
Recall that the effect on the rotation of galaxies is not the only observation ever made that supports the dark matter theory. There was an article on Slashdot a while ago - I couldn't find it here but I found another summary of the same findings. Astronomers observed a region where two galaxies had collided and found gravitational lensing occurring in a region of space where the visible matter was not located.
He is pleased because of one doing it out of joy. Consider 2 Corinthians 9: 7,8
"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work."
It says not only that "God loves a cheerful giver" but goes on to remind the reader that our generosity is really just stewardship of the things that God has first given into our care. A few people have commented on the way that I worded my original explanation. Rather than saying that we do good works to please God, it would be more accurate to say that we know that good works are pleasing to God and should also be pleasing to us. Our good works are like a celebration WITH God in thanks for his providence.
God created us with free will that allows us to choose sin. The alternative was creating us as will-less automatons. That freedom is necessary for our choices to matter. It is better for humans to exist with the ability to make meaningful choices and to form meaningful relationships than it would be for us to not exist at all or for us to exist but not be able to make meaningful choices or form meaningful relationships.
You don't have to apologize for your questions. I'm happy to share my perspective with you.
As I said, good deeds and bad deeds are outward manifestations of an internal condition - expressions of godly character and sinful character respectively. By God's perfect standard, there is no such thing as a "good person." We all fail to live up to God's extraordinarily high expectations. God's grace refers to the sacrifice that God made in the person of Jesus to reconcile the broken human condition with God's perfect standard. The correction of human imperfection is, as I said, begun on Earth and perfected in Heaven. But as long as the sinful condition remains (as it will on Earth), humans will both be drawn toward God's goodness and tempted away from it.
As far as the reason/cause for being good, marriage provides a good analogy. Does a man hold the door for his wife or bring her flowers because he is obligated to or feels that it is his duty? I doubt it. When I bring flowers to my wife, it is because I am grateful for the goodness of the relationship that I share with her. It brings me joy and I express my joy by doing things that I know she likes. It's not appeasement. I'm not buying her affection nor is she giving me affection to buy flowers. It's a mutual expression of appreciation for one another's companionship.
Concerning being "made in God's image," I interpret that statement philosophically. Insomuch as we can create things and make decisions and experience joyful relationships with one another, I believe that we are like God. I don't think that it has anything to do with fleshy bodies.
Christian faith is a little bit more nuanced than that. It is not that we are never capable of performing good deeds or thinking good thoughts without believing in God. We believe, after all, that humans are formed in God's image - certainly, the ability to think and do good things is included in that package. What we observe, however, is that everybody, at some point or another, uses their free will to do or think something unkind or hurtful toward others. That aspect of the human condition is what we refer to as sin and when we refer to being slaves to sin, we're referring to our inability to escape that pattern of behaviour. When we discuss God's grace providing freedom from sin, we're not referring to an immediate transformation that allows us never to sin but rather an acknowledgment of this failing and accepting that only God's perfect goodness can correct it.
Furthermore, we don't claim that the good deeds and thoughts are the ultimate goal of God's grace. Rather, just as misdeeds are symptoms of a broken human condition, good deeds are a symptom of a mended/on-the-mend human condition. We don't act out good deeds "just because" they're objectively good nor because we feel an obligation (which I would call legalism and duty, respectively.) We act out good deeds as an expression of joy because we believe it is pleasing to God when we do so and we are profoundly grateful that he has provided the means by to mend the broken human condition - a process that we believe is begun on Earth and perfected in Heaven.
The premises of a logical argument are sometimes the conclusions of previous arguments but are sometimes axioms/postulates. In those instances, the premises, at least, are taken on faith. Often, that faith is based on excellent rationale (what I would call the difference between a good assumption and a bad assumption.)
In those terms, you're suggesting that the universe "just being" is a good assumption and that the universe having been created by an entity who "just is" is a bad assumption. I'm a Christian but I can appreciate the perspective that leads to that conclusion. In the complete absence of any evidence whatsoever, your premises are somewhat more plausible than mine. (I would not go so far as to say they're "much more plausible.")
I will admit freely and without reservation that what I hold as evidence of God's existence is not scientifically rigorous. Nonetheless, I accept the recorded testimony of early Hebrews/Jews and Christians (again, acknowledging the age of the subject matter, occasional lack of corresponding verification from other historical sources, etc.) as adequate evidence to make the premise of God's existence plausible. I understand why this is considered a questionable stance for a reasonable person to take but "questionable" is not "mentally ill" or "irrational." I can abide disagreements but it makes me cross when disagreements lead to judgments of one's character or soundness of mind.
It most certainly should not be done. Maybe some of them are lazy but some of them are industrious and want a job but there's nothing suitable to be found. What incentive will companies have to create REAL jobs if they know they can get indentured servants assigned to them? If they have the choice between an employee that they have to pay a competitive wage, who can leave if he's unhappy or an indentured servant who they can pay practically nothing, who isn't legally permitted to leave, who do you think they're going to choose?
Miscibility and solubility are distinct concepts. Alcohol and gases DISSOLVE in water. They are not miscible in water. Oils are not soluble in water but that doesn't mean that the two couldn't exist in mixed phase with the more dense water suspending droplets of oil (emulsification). The three independent factors of insolubility, imiscibility, and different densities explain why you get two distinct liquid phases with oil floating on top. No one of those three factors explains the other two, though.
I don't think it's a good idea to permanently subsidize the unproductive. What I object to, however, is the definition of work or productivity as something that the market will pay for. I see several holes in that definition of productivity. One, the market must recognize the value before it will pay for it. That disincentives exploration of new ideas. Two, the market is much better at rewarding enterprises that capitalize on scarcities than it is at rewarding enterprises that capitalize on abundance. (Just because it doesn't cost anything doesn't mean that it's valueless.) Three, that model caters to a subsistence mentality - survive first, contribute second.
Maybe I'm exhibiting excessive optimism but at least for myself, I have ideas that, if I had time or energy to develop them fully, I'd give them away just for the joy of enriching other people. Now maybe MY ideas aren't all that valuable (or maybe they are) but I expect there across all of the people struggling just to pay the bills, if you could relieve them of the struggle to survive, you'd free up their capacity to create new ideas (and probably implementations of those ideas) that could enrich everybody.
Not everyone can be at the top of the pyramid at the same time - there is simply no room. But being at the top is easy. And not everyone at the bottom sucks, a lot of them are simply not at the right place at the right time to move up the pyramid.
Next time you are near a street musician or some street theater, or are listening to some unknown band in a bar/club, stop a while and pay attention to the talent. Yeah maybe the singer is a little off but the guitarist is really good, etc. There is talent everywhere.
I think that more frequent recognition of this fact is critical to driving innovation and cultural evolution. Right now, I feel like we're saddled with the myth of the market. The American narrative states that anybody with talent and drive will make it to the top if only they work hard enough. I agree with what you've said, however; that narrative is untrue. Yes, hard work is required but it's observation bias to assume that just because most people who made it to the top worked hard that it was the cause of their success.
In both the arts and the sciences, I think that the cost to society of this mentality is huge. Yes, the rise of amateurs in the creative fields has been a blow to professionals. That's at least in part because traditional barriers to entry have been torn down. Unfortunately, as this article highlights, while the barriers to entry may be gone, the barriers to success, as traditionally defined in a capitalist market economy, are higher than ever. In my opinion, this is a huge failure of the market. Innovation and culture are extremely valuable but the market can't always put a price on them. If we demand of our innovators and artists that they either 1) create something that the market will buy, 2) have a day job that cuts into their creative time and energy, or 3) suffer poverty for the sake of creating innovations or art that will enrich everybody else, we are doing a disservice to those innovators and artists and making ourselves, as a society, poorer as a result.
To put it a different way, innovation and creativity shouldn't be a lottery. We can't really know what "the next big thing" will be and it seems disingenuous to punish the 9 cultural experimenters who didn't hit the right combination before going bankrupt or burning out and then reward the 1 who came along after them, studied what they did, and devised the right combination from their failures. There was valuable work done by those 9 people but only the 10th was able to create a marketable invention or service. I think that holding out the hope of being that 10th person as the incentive for innovators and artists to keep doing their thing is a TERRIBLE way to say that we value the contributions they make.
One thing that you hint at but don't explicitly say is that this has to be a societal/cultural commitment. There need to be avenues by which people can take moderate risks to innovate without risking permanent and irrevocable harm to their wellbeing. I see this changing but right now, our cultural narrative about The American Dream is that the wealthy are bold and industrious and the poor are meek and lazy. If somebody tries to innovate and fails, they could suffer a temporary loss but we tend to stigmatize failure in a way that prevents a would-be innovator from recovering to innovate again. We need to recapture FDR's attitude toward failure: try something and if it doesn't work, admit failure, discard it, and try something else.
The reason we need to protect people from getting "ripped off" is because creating ideas can be a full-time job but it's cheap and easy to replicate an idea, so it has no economic value unless protected. Ironically, innovation and an abundance of ideas can lead to massive growth in prosperity - an explosion of abundant material wealth for everybody. Foster an environment in which nobody's afraid that they're going to starve and people with good ideas will feel so rich, they'll be eager to give them away.
Openness works because ideas can be made abundant at practically no cost. The economy of ideas right now is illustrative of the characteristics of a system in which artificial scarcity is applied to abundant resources. This is important because so many of the big things that we could be building would serve to eliminate or at least reduce scarcity even with regard to material resources. A quote that I read earlier regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement touches upon the same idea: "They mean to show that there is an inappropriate and correctable disconnect between the abundance America produces and the scarcity its markets manufacture." More generally, I am interested in any philosophy that endorses the pursuit of shareable abundance over profitable scarcity.
I see. You're asking me to prove the existence of God before I can cite him as a moral authority? I may as well ask you to prove that human life is valuable. You can't. It's axiomatic. I don't disagree with you but we're taking the value of human life as a fundamental truth. It's USEFUL to postulate the value of human life but utility and morality are not even close to identical.
You might try to argue that if I can't appreciate or understand the intrinsic value of human life, then I'm no better off than I deserve. How would that be different from me arguing that if you can't appreciate or understand the goodness of God, then you're no better off than you deserve?
A reasoned argument proceeds from its premises. My observation is that few people disagree upon the logic that translates premises into moral conclusions. The disagreements occur when selecting premises. Your post suggests that it is axiomatic to you that the promotion of Human Life is the foundation upon which morality should be built. Why is the promotion of Human Life your axiom, though? Somebody else used the term enlightened self interest. May I assume that's approximately the case for you as well?
To this Christian's mind, that is a moral code based upon outcomes. The reason, therefore, why I reject Human Life as a moral axiom is because its principles are subjugated to its goals. While we happen to agree that Human Life is valuable, another person whose goals are different from yours or mine might not draw the same conclusion. By what basis, other than, "I disagree with you" could you argue the immorality of that person's behaviour or principles? I choose, instead, to subscribe to a moral model that begins with principles of morality, such as "God is good" and allow my behaviours to proceed from there. This can lead to questionable behaviour, such as Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. We observe that behaviour and have trouble reconciling it with a moral man or a good God. I believe (and I feel comfortable saying that most other Christians do as well) that promoting Human Life IS, in fact, a high moral principle. We also believe, however, that it is not the HIGHEST moral principle.
By analogy, I wouldn't ever arbitrarily hurt somebody or damage or steal their property. If, however, by doing so, I could save somebody's life, then I would. I would subjugate the lower principle to the higher principle. You might disagree with Abraham's choice of principles or priorities, you might say that it's irresponsible or evil to allow an authority figure to hold a position of such esteem. Nonetheless, Christians believe that Abraham was rightly acting out the higher principle, "God is good" even though it conflicted with a very-high principle, "Human Life is valuable." That God commanded Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac at the last moment appears, in my mind, to confirm BOTH principles (While God does want us to recognize his goodness as a highest principle, he is neither arbitrary nor cruel.)