In my rather extensive college experience I've only had one class graded on the curve, and I was reviled in it (taking my capstone while slumming in a 101 class on the same topic for some silly missed requirement... "can I turn in my 150 page thesis for this assignment?")
Most of the classes I were in were graded by the "sloppy" method. The points and scores were there to make the administration and government happy, but the points were largely arbitrary. But then again I went to school for "fluffy" stuff like psychology and philosophy.
If Ayn Rand books were the ones being censored, then Slashdot would have nothing to say.
You have no basis for this statement. Slashdot would probably be one of the most vocal (for what its worth) opponents of Rand banning. Slashdot has a HUGE population of Randroids. One of the reasons I love it hear is that the strange extreme conservative Libertarians (who would be mad at censoring Rand because she is their messiah) are almost completely balanced by extreme liberal libertarians (who would be mad at censoring Rand because censorship is evil in itself, even if Rand was a nutter).
If our society really did get back to book-burning, then Rand would be an early choice.
I don't see this. A large portion of those in power have deified her, or at least her egotistical, self-serving, "philosophy". Again; you have no basis for this statement....but being aware of the Streisand effect, we must expect any book that is widely burned to also be widely read. So, it is clearly better to burn the books that are simply believed to be dangerous, rather than the books that actually are, which should be disposed of quietly.
This makes no sense. I think your reversing the effect of the so-called "Streisand effect" here. It would be more popular BECAUSE it is being burned, not being burned BECAUSE it is popular to be a proper case of the Streisand effect. I don't think Ayn Rand is terribly popular among the population, though perhaps more so than she actually deserves.
As to governments versus corporations, have some sense of proportion. Youre trying to create a moral equivalency between despotic governments and major corporations, which suggests you have no sense of the scale at which these very different organisations operate.
I'm not sure what your getting at here. The line between corporations and government has long been blurred. These days both are of a global scope, and some corporations are as ubiquitous in our daily lives as the government. Some corporations have operating budgets above that of many governments. Some corporations are basically standing militaries (Blackwater, or whatever they are called these days). Thanks to the modern American political climate, many corporations have far less oversight than the government. Many corporations are allowed to pass their own laws. We get all of our civic information from corporations (not governments), so they control the channels.
So who should I be more afraid of? I'm not really sure any more.
Thanks for the insightful answer. I can see exactly where you're coming from.
Sometimes though, I do think there is an undue amount of suffering in the world though, wanton suffering. Haiti can be drawn back to mostly human problems, but it wasn't the humans who lead to it being that bad who suffered, it was poor, mostly innocent, individuals. Not to put myself in Gods shoes, or try to even presume to understand a being such as that; but deep down in my gut I feel there has to be another way. A lot of people who suffer, or experience evil, did nothing wrong. Look at events such as the Holocaust, its enough to shake anyones faith (and it did, much of the philosophy and art of the second half of the 20th century is spent trying to rectify it's existence with anything we presumed before).
I'm not going to say I know the truth, or have any answers. I don't. It just seems the world is a very messy, dirty, and generally nasty place for much of the world's population.
How ever in response I would again argue that insted of arguing against what u believe you've created a divergent god to did believe in. you can't argue that I shouldn't believe in the god I believe in, based on your personal interpretation of a religion you don't believe in.
I'm not arguing that you shouldn't believe, and I'm sorry if I came across that way. I would never argue that, unlike some of the more radical atheists. You have every right to believe whatever you want as long as it doesn't harm or negatively effects me or anyone else.
My point wasn't to dissuade you from belief; it was simply to underline why I, and many others, don't. To highlight a couple conceptual problems. I also find this type of discussion fun and educational. While I don't have a faith, I find the idea fascinating and powerful. Religion has had such an impact on human affairs (arguably the largest effect), and seems very much an innate urge of our species. Even atheists often present quasi-religious symptoms (a belief in the primacy of science as a tool as contrasted to "Scientism" for example, as a smaller example, I still knock on wood when appropriate even though I know it is a meaningless gesture).
Discussing religion provides a remarkable insight into what it means to be human, and other intricacies of human nature.
More to the original point (and still grossly off-topic); the evil problem remains how ever you frame the Christian God. You have to rectify it somehow. You can't just say "well thats not my God", since the structure of whatever God would still be paradoxic with the existence of evil. How does your god get around it? He is all powerful, all knowing, and all seeing, correct? Is he also beneficent by nature? Then this problem applies.
For God to exist (logically) he cannot be omnipotent nor omniscient. He could influence the way things go to go his way because of his supernatural power but he could not possibly predict the outcome of a choice based out of free will although he could statistically get a most likely outcome and work around either choice for his will to be done.
I agree with your conclusion, but there is a problem. You just successfully de-goded God. God has been reduced from an omnipotent, omniscient, perfect idea into a mere Las Vegas gambler. While being an atheist, I find this version of God HARDER to believe in, or perhaps easier to believe in but much less relevant.
Another problem with that model; God created the universe and everything in it, but created it in such a way that he has very little control over it. This is hard to believe. And we still end up with the problem that God created the universe in such a way as to allow huge amounts of suffering and pain. So responsibility still falls on him.
You're probably best just going back to deism. God created the universe, wrote up all the laws of physics, and then sat back and watched it go.
In any case this God is very far from the modern idea of the "buddy God", who sits around and helps you wash dishes and chit chats with you pleasantly while sipping coffee and watching the evening news. It also goes a bit against what the Bible says about him ("something... something... sparrows").
God is going to be a logical problem no matter how you rewrite his role.
All this may or may not be true, but it ignores the most basic question: how can there be evil? Not all evil is caused by man, most evil is probably not man-made. And even if we decide that ALL evil is man-made (how is a flood, earthquake, or a hurricane man-made?) then we must accept that God allowed it, and allowed suffering upon people. God is omnipotent and present, he knew the end game, he knew every little bit of suffering before it happened, before he even set up the game, but allowed it to happen. God, being all powerful, could have avoided it, but decided not to.
Free will itself is a bit silly, since, again, God knows the end game, and knows every single point in time, every action, before it happens. How can you have free will when God already knows that I will eat this Twinkie instead of this bag of chips. This decision is pretty much predestined, since God already knows it will happen, and already knows everything that will result from this action, no matter how minor.
These are the most basic problems, and they have never really been solved (yes, a couple modern philosophers like Paul Tillich wrote about it, but weakly). The evil problem is probably what drives most people to atheism.
Unconditional love ISN'T what scares me. I find unconditional love a bit hard to swallow, since your God is perfectly willing to doom me, and BILLIONS of other people, to eternal torture for the mere act of doubting his existence, no matter how good they are as people. That really doesn't fit the definition of unconditional love, since last time I checked love doesn't mean eternal damnation, and unconditional doesn't mean "with conditions". Why would an all-powerful being need worship? Why the hell would he care if I believed in him of not? And why would a "loving" deity create billions of people just so they could be tortured for ETERNITY (he knows I will never believe in him, since he must have created me this way, and already knows that I won't since he knows everything).
We don't always Love others the way we should. Our society is sick, we don't love each other the way we should. And on occasion we end up producing someone like Dalhmer. And we have no one to blame, but ourselves.
Should we then love Dalhmer? Timothy McVeigh? Hitler? If we are to love them, can we still kill them? Also, our society is sick compared to WHAT? Has there ever been a "healthy" society?
Also, when did God become about "love"? Reading the Bible love is one of God's less featured attributes, most of the "personal God" schlick is really recent, and not really supported by the actual text of the Bible. God was basically the spiritual equivalent of Samuel L. Jackson for most of the Bible. He had nothing against rape, murder, and slavery, he actively CONDONED them more often than not. But then again; most Christians I know completely ignore huge swaths of the Bible, even the New Testament.
I could go on. Christianity (and pretty much all other religions) are contradictory messes.
My main reason for becoming an atheist, btw, wasn't "unconditional love", or the evil question, or anything else like that; but "why should I believe in THIS god? Why not be a Hindu, or a Zoroastrian, or a Buddhist (of whatever flavor), or Jewish, or... You get the point. They all make the same claim of "divine truth", and are all backed by the same "evidence", and all of their believers will swear up and down that it is the "one true faith". How the hell do you design a criteria for picking your subscribed "divine reality" when there is no way to actually pick any of them above any other. Any claim you make for supremacy of your religion will be made by the follower of another with equal conviction, and equally valid arguments... The conclusion I was forced to draw was, basically, I am a Christian (more specifically Catholic) because that is the culture I was raised in, if I was born in India I would be a Hindu with equal conviction.
I'm trying not to troll. I have no contempt for the average Christian, or follower of any other religion, as long as they don't try to force their views on me, or effect me in any other way. I respect, even if I disagree, your choice, and all I expect is the same from you towards me.
So, basically, what you said was irrelevant, and also completely misplaced since it's true for just about anything you can think of.
That wasn't the point of my original point, but if that is what you want to take home from it, fine.
My points were; (A) All browsers are pretty much qualitatively equal. B) Because of (a), choice in browsers is pretty much a matter of personal preference. (A) and (B) leads to (C); There is no real point to advocating a single browser as being objectively the best. With then leads to (E) People who evangelize about their pet browser are morons at best, and mere trolls at worst.
Shorter version: there is no valid reason for being a browser fan boy.
Also, why the hell are you even replying to me if what I said is irrelevant, don't you have anything better to do?
I spent some time in the community college system when I was younger and trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and a majority of my "formative" professors were there, as opposed to university. By formative I mean excellent to the point that they imbue with passion for whatever they are teaching. A lot of them were older people who used to teach in AA universities, who got sick of the size and politics. Some of them were old grizzled professionals in whatever field using teaching to supplement their retirement.* You get a better range of professors and life experience, and not just people who settled for the academic track. One professor there cemented my desire for a university education in psychology, only to have that dream crushed by mediocre professors once I got to university.
Not to say there wasn't bad ones too. It just seemed more diverse. You got more terrible ones, and more good ones than at a university.
*My favorite was a beginning level CS teacher who was basically involved in the invention of modern computing, both working with DARPA and at MIT, and later at IBM and making punch-card operated nuclear control systems. He was one of the worst teachers I've ever had, since it often seemed he didn't touch a computer since 1952, and thus had no clue whatsoever what was actually going on. It wasn't helped that he was very old, and hooked to an oxygen tank 90% of the time. I loved him, but hated the class he taught.
Or the cultural anthropologist who was basically a minor Indiana Jones, who was used to teaching at Oxford and Harvard, but was, in his own words "slumming it". Awesome class, he brought in authentic relics from digs he participated in, like actual sacrificial statues of Kali, and various Aztec sculptures ("if you look closely there, you can still see some staining from blood"). Sadly the community college ruined the course by retitled it from "Anth210: Intro to the Anthropology of Religion" to "Anth210: Magic, Witchcraft, and Healing", drawing in only "Wiccans", who argued with him every time he claimed such and such culture though witches were a malevolent force. Best final ever, though, he just wrote; "Mesoamerica?" on the board and said "you have two hours and 20 pieces of paper, fill them, front and back.". He hated the experience, and probably never walked next to community college again.
Funny how you have to justify your choices by attacking others. Especially since you desperately cling to open-source, which is well known for its zealous user base.
I didn't attack anyone. And no, the popularity of the fan base really has no bearing on my choices (unless I have to talk to them for support). Nor did I ever claim this was so. You misread me.
Go back and re-read what I said:
The main thing I have against Opera is that a small (probably vanishingly so) portion of their user base is absolute evangelical morons who have to run around to any forum where Opera is even slightly mentioned and post 7000 identical responses (anonymously) saying that Opera is the pinnacle of human technology. Everything has fan boys, but Opera's are even more annoying than most. Don't they realize that the hurt their pet browser, since people don't really want to be in the same goddamn club as them?
This basically says: "a small percentage of Opera's user base are complete morons". I'm sure this is true of most things. Sadly, though, they are the ones who are running around in this discussion being morons, so they currently effect me. This, obviously, doesn't reflect on Opera itself, and if my personal, subjective, opinion was that Opera was the best browser, I would still use it. Irregardless of idiotic Slashdot trolls.
The last sentence in that quote was basically saying: "Wow, these trolls are absolute morons, thinking they can convince people that their browser is somehow the second coming of the Christ by acting like idiotic teenagers!" You don't convince people of your point by trolling, you make people completely dismiss your point and leave your product tainted by association.
Hypothetical: You have two people in a room, one of which is trying to get you to use Browser A, the second Browser B. The fist logically lists off the points that make their browser better than Browser B; they use technical data, and historical data, but never outright attack B. The advocate for B runs around insulting the advocate for A for even thinking that there is another alternative. The advocate for A made their point by advocating A. The advocate for B made their point by insulting the Advocate for A, A, and all of A's users.
Question: Who was the most convincing?
Personally the next time I saw an ad (or story) about browser B, I would immediately remember that experience. Just like every time I see a story on Slashdot about Opera and immediatly think "Oh God, the damn trolls are going to be out in force..."
This ignores the fact that caring about what browser a person used is plain stupid. I don't care if Opera, Chrome, IE, or Firefox has more users, even if I use one, I'm not on their "team". Why the hell do you care that I prefer Chromium over Opera? How does this matter to you?
Who fucking cares?
I find people who side with stupid things such as operating systems or browsers to be remarkably silly.
The way you are bashing the user base of one browser, makes you one yourself. Congratulations. Hypocrisy rocks!
Please go back and read what I wrote. Very slowly. I never bashed any user base. I bashed "a small (probably vanishingly so) portion of their user base" (that was a quote). If the Firefox trolls, or IE trolls were out in force, I would bash them too.
And to be a fan boy I have to advocate a single brower (or operating system, or whatnot) as being the only choice, and somehow that choice makes me superior to everyone else. I didn't. I pretty much stated that my choice is arbitrary since I don't see any qualitative differences between modern browsers. I'm a fan boy of them all, I suppose, in a meaningless technical way.
I use what I use because it is my personal preference. Browser choice is like choice in ice cream. I like vanilla, you like chocolate, that is the end of the matter. No other judgement can be made. People who run around saying "people who like vanilla are stupid because chocolate is clearly superior" are idiots, plain and simple.
Though the level of validity of your post has forced me to reconsider my view points, and now my life is fulfilled, everything is clear and beautiful like the morning sun rising on the most splendiferous scenes of natural beauty. Clearly Opera is GOD's own browser, and was used to upload Jesus to this fine earth. I bow my head in shame, sir.
Further, the presentation smoothed the intake of your informative emissions like butter on a shit sandwich.
When all things are equal, I will pick open source over closed. When it comes to browsers, all things are pretty much equal. The rants against Opera here are pretty much proof that no browser is really much better or worse than any other browser in any real, meaningfully quantitative way. "
"I hate Opera because it isn't as pretty as Firefox or Chrome" "I hate Opera because it is.001ms slower in rendering than Firefox or Chrome" "I hate Opera because it uses over 1% of my RAM, as opposed to Firefox or Chromes.8%" "I hate Opera because it doesn't exactly mimic my Firefox or Chrome extensions!"
Why the hell don't people just pick whatever browser works for them, and stick with it? I don't understand the near-religious prosethizing of something as stupid as a web browser. Hell even the new versions of IE are pretty damn good. How the hell does it matter what browser someone uses? How the hell does your using Opera and my using Chromium really effect me one way or another? To be short and blunt: who the fuck cares?
I personally use Chromium. I used to use Firefox. I mainly stuck with Firefox out of habit since I was using it since it was called Phoenix. I've tried Opera several times (roughly every other major release), and appreciate how far it has come. I probably won't switch since there is nothing wrong with using Chromium instead. This doesn't mean Opera is bad, and Chromium is technically superior, it just means Chromium works for me so I see no reason to change.
The main thing I have against Opera is that a small (probably vanishingly so) portion of their user base is absolute evangelical morons who have to run around to any forum where Opera is even slightly mentioned and post 7000 identical responses (anonymously) saying that Opera is the pinnacle of human technology. Everything has fan boys, but Opera's are even more annoying than most. Don't they realize that the hurt their pet browser, since people don't really want to be in the same goddamn club as them?
That only happens to me with Slashdot... Same with the stupid copy and paste bug. Every other page works fine.
As for speed, I don't think it really matters anymore. I can't really tell the difference between Safari, Chrome/ium, and Firefox. I haven't used Opera lately, but I'm guessing it is more of the same. Browser choice has really become just that; an arbitrary choice based on preference.
I've been stuck with such a roomate, and it grows severely irritating that I just stopped staying at home or stayed in my room.
In college I was stuck with a rutting bull 19 year old body-building, footballing playing, hip-hop DJing heterosexual. It annoyed the living shit out of me too, especially when he slept with very young girls 3 feet away from me, and wooed them with idiotic conversations about high school football glory. He did it when I had friends over, he did I had female friends over, he did it when I was trying to write an 80 page capstone paper. I probably would have been just as annoyed if he was gay, and sleeping with guys, he was an uncouth moron, and last I checked anyone can fall into that category regardless of their sexual orientation.
On the other hand my old neighbor was a raging lesbian, and was absolutely awesome. She was very much overly sexual, but damn amusing about it, to the point of having a very large collection of scissors, and loudly complaining to me and my girlfriend, outside here open bedroom window, that who ever she was sleeping with my be severely developmentally disabled. She continually tried to get my and my girlfriend to go out with her to her favorite gay country bar... I'm still somewhat sad I never took her up on it, it would have been highly amusing.
As a proud and native Californian I'll tell you this right off the bat: Too many skilled and a much more disproportionately huge amount of unskilled douches from other states and countries with bartender and actress fantasies are watching too much MTV Spring Break specials and moving here and overcrowding us, driving up property costs of housing big and small while polluting our culture.
As a proud person living in a state bordering California, we have had the same opinion of Californians as you do with everyone else. Wander around in any small town anywhere close to California, and you'll hear the natives saying "damn Californians!".
I really doubt immigration is California's biggest problem. And I really don't see what the hell California's culture ever was. California should be two states, North and South, really, if we want to talk about culture. And this isn't even really that true, since there are (like everywhere else) millions of distinct "cultures" in California. Hell, it can be stated (with a fair bit of validity) that the main part of California's culture is people moving there. It seems to be the historical precedent of California. Read more history (or Steinbeck).
Don't move to California if you're not accepting a job from Google or Oracle.
You do realize that California is NOT Silicon Valley, right? Depsite the beleifs of the residents from there...
The studies did not conflate piracy with free software.
Never said they did. It just is a bit hard to believe since Linux is the only OS I've used where I can have a fully usable system without a single scrap of pay software.
Second, I've moved from cautious acceptence of these studies, to downright skepticism. Not over their conclusions, but over their existence. A bit of time spent on Google wielded no evidence for their existence. I tried my part in due diligence, so barring you providing links to these studies, I would say the whole issue is rather moot.
You're confusing accessibility with desirability.
Nope. The iPhone and various Android options are just as accessible. Last I checked I could get either. Yes, an iPhone would mean changing providers (not so much in the near future), but that really isn't a hurdle. I really can't think of people who really wanted an iPhone being barred from getting one.
The facts are, Linux has LOTS of pirates
Your misusing the term "fact", being that these surveys may or may not actually exist, and may or may not actually back that up if they do exist, and may or may not be valid.
Facts are, its widely believed those pirates largely interesect with the core Linux group.
Widely believed by whom (this is another claim you'll have to reference to properly use the term "fact") ? And who the hell is the "core Linux group"? Commercial IT departments? the fine folks at Novell, the Fedora Project, the Debian Project, and Canonical? Linus? RMS?
So, the discussion has moved to the "actual data or GTFO" phase. Currently we might as well be talking about the state of the economy in Wonderland.
I've read three studies over the last several years which more or less (slight variance in each study) which support the numbers given. Roughly, up to 50% piracy on Windows. Up to 80% piracy on Linux. And up to 20% piracy on OSX.
Not denying that you have, or that such studies exist, but you still really need to reference them. I'm not what these studies consider piracy, for example. It is completely possible to run a full-featured Linux box without ever touching pay software, so it probably isn't software piracy.
These numbers are somewhat amusing, too. If piracy is so harmful, yet so prevalent, why is any "content" industry still in business? An amusing aside.
So its easy to see why Linux has a reputation of being associated with socialistic, anti-capitalistic, freeloading, people.
I don't see this either. Looking around at my friends that are fan-boy-ish devotees to Linux; most of them are pretty die-hard Libertarians. Most of the people who fall towards the hard left, that I know, use Macs. Informal observation, but still I'm guessing there is some validity. How exactly are Linux users freeloading? People make free software (and are often paid for it), offer it up for free, and people download and use it. That is the majority of the Linux ecosystem in a nutshell. I don't see much cause for the term "freeloading". Perhaps anti-capitalist would fit, somewhat, but only in the fact that they aren't willing to pay for an OS. But then again every Linux user I know has several computers sitting around with several (paid for) operating systems installed on them. Very rare is the "pure" Linux user, most of us are computer enthusiasts in general.
I'm not saying that people don't see Linux users like that, I'm just saying the the claims are largely groundless.
For what its worth, Android (which is Linux based and attracts the same people largely because it is Linux), has once again vindicated these studies
Android is now, or will very soon be, the best selling smartphone platform, and it already beats Apple's iOS (or whatever its called) in adoption. This makes Linux nerds a much larger market force than ever believed. This should be news worthy. In fact, Android phones appeal to a larger market segment than Apple's offering. They are more popular, meaning there will be more piracy, and they appeal to a different type of user. People who buy iOS devices (and Apple stuff in general) are more likely to want an "easy" experience, where they accept what a central source wants to give them. This isn't an attack on Apple users, or fans, it just pretty much the definition of "just works". It is much harder to pirate on an iPhone (which has pretty much a single source for all software, which is policed pretty heavily), than on Android (you can get your software from anywhere you like in some cases). So it would attract more pirates. This has nothing to do with the Linux underpinnings of the phone, but more to do with how Google, and various providers, decided to set up their hardware. You could easily lock down a Android phone as much as an iPhone, and only allow a single, heavily regulated, market.
People could still root it, but people can still root iPhones.
Haven't watched it, but you just made it sound like the old Friday the 13th series.
Which wasn't terrible (todays episode is about an ancient Egyptian toaster possessed by the Demon of something-or-another, who turns unsuspecting house wives into cats!), mind you... But was a bit trite.
... even getting pirates to stop destroying the economy and ecosystem... Of course, this is the same reason pirates damage the economy in other sectors too.
I'm not advocating piracy, but I haven't actually seen any hard data backing up this assertion. In the music sector I've even seen evidence to the contrary (pirates buy more music). All of the sectors plagued with piracy are ticking along just fine, last I checked, and even showing some decent amount of growth. The premise that piracy is harming anyone really needs to be backed up.
How is Linux correlated with piracy? I don't see the connection. I own 5, fully bought and paid for, Windows disks, and around 3 OS X updates, also bought and paid for. This is counting the ones discarded for being old and out of date. I have a full 200 disk CD wallet full of games and commercial software, bought and paid for. I am typing this from OpenSuse 11.3, on the open source Chromium browser. I have a Windows box (not a shred of pirated software on it) sitting 3 feet to my left, playing a song from an independent artist, whose CD (in MP3 form) was gotten from Amazon two days ago (The RIAA didn't make money from me... oh dear). In my kitchen I have a fully purchased and paid for (+2 OS updates) Mac Mini being set up to serve music and recipes. I have six computers, 3 of which have Linux running on them (two sole installs, one dual boot). Where is my desire to pirate? Most Linux nerds I know are in my boat, running myriad computers with both free (OSS) software and paid software and OSs.
I really don't see the connection. I'm running Linux right now on this box because I like it BETTER than Windows, not because it is cheaper, or free (I have a paid Windows license that I could use towards this computer). On my HTPC, I'm running Linux because it is lighter than Windows. I own a registered version of Office, because it is better than OpenOffice. I own an old Photoshop license (granted purchased at a heavy student discount), because it is better than the Gimp.
If you simply attempt to deflect, ridicule, and dismiss outright the idea of actually reading and/or listening to, and checking presented facts, references, citations from, people who hold different opinions than your own and evaluating them with intellectual honesty, how will you ever know if you're mistaken about anything? Or are you willing to see only 3 lights if they tell you so?
I do agree with this paragraph, at least. (that was meant to sound jovial, not troll-y)
I agree with you, but there comes a certain point where one has to admit certain things as being wrong. I'm sick of the strange "every view is equal" theme of modern media. Watching Glenn Beck points me towards that point more often or not. I'm not saying he is completely wrong on every single thing he says, since that would be unfair and absurd, but many times he skirts the line between "information" and "sensationalism". I don't have much time for the latter, from any media source and not just those with a conservative bent. I also gave up watching MSNBC (I would switch between Fox and MSNBC just to get a normalized take on things), since my time is more important than having my biases pandered too.
I get most of my news from the Economist and whatever random sources Google News wants to throw at me now. I don't care what the right or left takes home from a certain event. I stopped really caring about my "political identity" some time ago. I hate and disagree with the Democrats and Republicans in equal measure, same with liberals and conservatives, or Libertarians and Marxists, or whatever fudged duality we want to turn the world into. They all may have good points, but often their view of reality is distorted by group-think and baseless idealism. The IDEA of x (insert Democrat, Replublican, or what-have-you) is much more important than the effects in the real world. They all build awesome fantastic utopias, but like all utopias they probably completely flawed.
I see the Libertarians, or Tea Partiers, or Christian Right, or Democrats, or extreme Progressives in the same light as communists, or any other extremist camp that is willing to enforce their view and philosophy on other against their will. There is no difference between Sarah Palin and Josef Stalin, where it matters to me. They both are convinced of their moral superiority, and supreme idealistic authority, over the rest of us poor deluded plebes who don't know whats best for us.
As a libertarian (lowercase "l"), this disgusts me.
When someone claims to know what is "right", I admit I stop listening. I don't find this as a fault, and think that if more people suddenly stopped listening the world would be a much better place.
I'm undoing mod points for someone who truly deserved them... I wanted to mark you as a troll, or such, but that would be abusive, since I doubt you really wanted to troll... So...
Progressives damning themselves in their own words on video completely changes their recorded images and words depending on who paid for the camera? Does Fox have secret reality-altering tech in their cameras?
Its called taking things out of context. All of the major cable news shows do it, Fox as well as MSNBC (using these together since they both amount to partisan masturbation amongst their viewers). They like to edit quotes to sound more threatening to their target demographic. They feed on outrage, real or imagined, since it causes people to come back. Imagine a news show saying "everything is pretty much fine, the sun will rise tomorrow, these politicians (all of them, dem or republican) are somewhat corrupt, but that isn't the end of the world!", who would continue watching that? It might be honest (our politicians are really no better than they ever were, read accounts of Jefferson or Adams), but it isn't compelling.
I think you suffer from the behavioral phenomenon of projecting upon others what you despise in yourself, which seems to be a common affliction among Progressives.
I think you suffer from the behavioral phenomenon of projecting upon others what you despise in yourself, which seems to be a common affliction among Conservatives.
See what I did there?
The more you think you know the TRUTH , the higher your chances of being completely, disastrously, wrong are. The more your views align with some capital letter party or ideology, the more likely your views are completely baseless. If you read or watch any news source and find yourself nodding your head at over 50% of the crap spouted, your not really reading the news, your just reading something to validate your already entrenched views.
Fox news is the Nation for Republicans...
The good news is this affliction is curable with education and an open mind. You can start with these;
Huh? I hope my mind can never open that far, my brains might fall out. The first basically claims that Jesus personally founded America, which is dubious since Jesus was dead for some time before we were founded. I doubt the divine providence of America. Its like saying God is on the side of your football team, while every other damn team thinks God is on their side instead.
How strange it is to think that an infinite being who created the entire damn universe, and every creature in it, who knows all of time and history and every other little tiny thing (that neutrino over there, God knows whats going on!) really cares about a small, recent, country. Why the hell would God give two shits about America (as opposed to Canada, or Brazil, or Angora, or Gibraltar)? We are not that special. Don't get me wrong, I am fond of this country, and think it has some promise, and some interesting first principles, but really in the grand scheme of things we are pretty much just another country.... We will someday fall, and be remembered only in the history books of tomorrow. The only reason we're special is because we were born here... If you were born in Argentina, you would feel the same way as you do about Argentina as you feel about America now.
Of course this all depends on my buying the existence of God... Which is something I can't do (I have tried). Sadly, also, my dreams of a better America involve LESS God, not more. To rephrase that better; less of a public, enforced God. I don't care what religion you subscribe to, as long as it doesn't effect my life (I will try my damnest to keep my atheism from effecting yours, in turn... damn social libertarianism!).
George Washington might have been Christian (probably was), but I fail to see the relevance? Should I go back in time and give him a big (non-homosexual) hug?
But yeah, logical positivist, is a pretty good model. I am not sure why wikipedia says "A 1929 pamphlet written by Neurath, Hahn, and Rudolf Carnap summarized the doctrines of the Vienna Circle at that time. The doctrines included the opposition to all metaphysics" as I don't see any contradiction between the two, as logical positivist is dam good starting point an unifying the masculine "Reasoning" and feminine "Gnosis."
Karl Popper had the best reason, falsifiability, it pretty much killed much of the Vienna Circle's bluster, and is still on of the best argument against all the "relative" truths you speak of.
Metaphysics runs into problems when not observationally grounded, which is pretty much why the field is completely dead now. There is a futility in speaking of things that can never be proven true or false. Statements such as these (Anthony Flew's bliks) pretty much amount to saying nothing at all, since they are completely unverifiable and unprovable.
Depending on how you define "everything". It would probably be labled a paradox. i.e. One truth does not negate another truth. The hard part is trying to figure out how the hell to have a super-set theory that can explain both, ala GUT (Grand Unification Theory) for GR (General Relatively) and QM (Quantum Mechanics).
Thats the fun part. Taken alone each theory would be complete, verifiable, and sound. But when both theories emerge they "magically" become contradictory, since neither can be complete anymore lacking an explanation of the other. Even if you developed a GUT to explain both of them away, you stuck in the game that there might be an alternative GUT. Its a fun academic exercise, but I'm not sure what the lesson to take home is.
As the other replier stated, if I was a logical postivist I wouldn't acknowledge that science, per se, is the highest form of truth, but that postulates that are either fully empirical or based on sound and valid deduction are true (with caveats depending on your favorite Vienna Cirlcer). Science may, as formulated, may be contained in it, but it is not wholly it.
The one problem they have is the fact that most of science isn't deductive, or strictly empirical. Science is a big mess in the real world, not a neat little deducto-empirical theory mill.
One reason of why these competing theories could be contradictory could be something raising from Godel's (the most abused philosopher/mathematician in history) incompleteness. There could also be some facts that are unobservable from the basic frameworks of knowledge held by either theory. Think of a chain of facts, each leading to another (Newton and Maxwell = Einstein, etc...), but if we have an "incomplete" (from some perfect outside perception) chain, but still wholly within the lines of verifiability, it would still be correct. Part of the fun was thinking of scenarios like this.
Also, perhaps, by nature both of these theories could be contradictory in that both offer fully complete explanations of phenomena, and have predictability, but neither work in the same way, or explain or predict events for the same reason. In a sense neither would be complete (lacking an explanation of the other), but still be complete...
Good, but useless fun! Which may be the definition of philosophy.
Slashdot Mirror
In my rather extensive college experience I've only had one class graded on the curve, and I was reviled in it (taking my capstone while slumming in a 101 class on the same topic for some silly missed requirement... "can I turn in my 150 page thesis for this assignment?")
Most of the classes I were in were graded by the "sloppy" method. The points and scores were there to make the administration and government happy, but the points were largely arbitrary. But then again I went to school for "fluffy" stuff like psychology and philosophy.
"censure" != "censor"
If Ayn Rand books were the ones being censored, then Slashdot would have nothing to say.
You have no basis for this statement. Slashdot would probably be one of the most vocal (for what its worth) opponents of Rand banning. Slashdot has a HUGE population of Randroids. One of the reasons I love it hear is that the strange extreme conservative Libertarians (who would be mad at censoring Rand because she is their messiah) are almost completely balanced by extreme liberal libertarians (who would be mad at censoring Rand because censorship is evil in itself, even if Rand was a nutter).
If our society really did get back to book-burning, then Rand would be an early choice.
I don't see this. A large portion of those in power have deified her, or at least her egotistical, self-serving, "philosophy". Again; you have no basis for this statement. ...but being aware of the Streisand effect, we must expect any book that is widely burned to also be widely read. So, it is clearly better to burn the books that are simply believed to be dangerous, rather than the books that actually are, which should be disposed of quietly.
This makes no sense. I think your reversing the effect of the so-called "Streisand effect" here. It would be more popular BECAUSE it is being burned, not being burned BECAUSE it is popular to be a proper case of the Streisand effect. I don't think Ayn Rand is terribly popular among the population, though perhaps more so than she actually deserves.
As to governments versus corporations, have some sense of proportion. Youre trying to create a moral equivalency between despotic governments and major corporations, which suggests you have no sense of the scale at which these very different organisations operate.
I'm not sure what your getting at here. The line between corporations and government has long been blurred. These days both are of a global scope, and some corporations are as ubiquitous in our daily lives as the government. Some corporations have operating budgets above that of many governments. Some corporations are basically standing militaries (Blackwater, or whatever they are called these days). Thanks to the modern American political climate, many corporations have far less oversight than the government. Many corporations are allowed to pass their own laws. We get all of our civic information from corporations (not governments), so they control the channels.
So who should I be more afraid of? I'm not really sure any more.
Thanks for the insightful answer. I can see exactly where you're coming from.
Sometimes though, I do think there is an undue amount of suffering in the world though, wanton suffering. Haiti can be drawn back to mostly human problems, but it wasn't the humans who lead to it being that bad who suffered, it was poor, mostly innocent, individuals. Not to put myself in Gods shoes, or try to even presume to understand a being such as that; but deep down in my gut I feel there has to be another way. A lot of people who suffer, or experience evil, did nothing wrong. Look at events such as the Holocaust, its enough to shake anyones faith (and it did, much of the philosophy and art of the second half of the 20th century is spent trying to rectify it's existence with anything we presumed before).
I'm not going to say I know the truth, or have any answers. I don't. It just seems the world is a very messy, dirty, and generally nasty place for much of the world's population.
How ever in response I would again argue that insted of arguing against what u believe you've created a divergent god to did believe in. you can't argue that I shouldn't believe in the god I believe in, based on your personal interpretation of a religion you don't believe in.
I'm not arguing that you shouldn't believe, and I'm sorry if I came across that way. I would never argue that, unlike some of the more radical atheists. You have every right to believe whatever you want as long as it doesn't harm or negatively effects me or anyone else.
My point wasn't to dissuade you from belief; it was simply to underline why I, and many others, don't. To highlight a couple conceptual problems. I also find this type of discussion fun and educational. While I don't have a faith, I find the idea fascinating and powerful. Religion has had such an impact on human affairs (arguably the largest effect), and seems very much an innate urge of our species. Even atheists often present quasi-religious symptoms (a belief in the primacy of science as a tool as contrasted to "Scientism" for example, as a smaller example, I still knock on wood when appropriate even though I know it is a meaningless gesture).
Discussing religion provides a remarkable insight into what it means to be human, and other intricacies of human nature.
More to the original point (and still grossly off-topic); the evil problem remains how ever you frame the Christian God. You have to rectify it somehow. You can't just say "well thats not my God", since the structure of whatever God would still be paradoxic with the existence of evil. How does your god get around it? He is all powerful, all knowing, and all seeing, correct? Is he also beneficent by nature? Then this problem applies.
For God to exist (logically) he cannot be omnipotent nor omniscient. He could influence the way things go to go his way because of his supernatural power but he could not possibly predict the outcome of a choice based out of free will although he could statistically get a most likely outcome and work around either choice for his will to be done.
I agree with your conclusion, but there is a problem. You just successfully de-goded God. God has been reduced from an omnipotent, omniscient, perfect idea into a mere Las Vegas gambler. While being an atheist, I find this version of God HARDER to believe in, or perhaps easier to believe in but much less relevant.
Another problem with that model; God created the universe and everything in it, but created it in such a way that he has very little control over it. This is hard to believe. And we still end up with the problem that God created the universe in such a way as to allow huge amounts of suffering and pain. So responsibility still falls on him.
You're probably best just going back to deism. God created the universe, wrote up all the laws of physics, and then sat back and watched it go.
In any case this God is very far from the modern idea of the "buddy God", who sits around and helps you wash dishes and chit chats with you pleasantly while sipping coffee and watching the evening news. It also goes a bit against what the Bible says about him ("something... something... sparrows").
God is going to be a logical problem no matter how you rewrite his role.
All this may or may not be true, but it ignores the most basic question: how can there be evil? Not all evil is caused by man, most evil is probably not man-made. And even if we decide that ALL evil is man-made (how is a flood, earthquake, or a hurricane man-made?) then we must accept that God allowed it, and allowed suffering upon people. God is omnipotent and present, he knew the end game, he knew every little bit of suffering before it happened, before he even set up the game, but allowed it to happen. God, being all powerful, could have avoided it, but decided not to.
Free will itself is a bit silly, since, again, God knows the end game, and knows every single point in time, every action, before it happens. How can you have free will when God already knows that I will eat this Twinkie instead of this bag of chips. This decision is pretty much predestined, since God already knows it will happen, and already knows everything that will result from this action, no matter how minor.
These are the most basic problems, and they have never really been solved (yes, a couple modern philosophers like Paul Tillich wrote about it, but weakly). The evil problem is probably what drives most people to atheism.
Unconditional love ISN'T what scares me. I find unconditional love a bit hard to swallow, since your God is perfectly willing to doom me, and BILLIONS of other people, to eternal torture for the mere act of doubting his existence, no matter how good they are as people. That really doesn't fit the definition of unconditional love, since last time I checked love doesn't mean eternal damnation, and unconditional doesn't mean "with conditions". Why would an all-powerful being need worship? Why the hell would he care if I believed in him of not? And why would a "loving" deity create billions of people just so they could be tortured for ETERNITY (he knows I will never believe in him, since he must have created me this way, and already knows that I won't since he knows everything).
We don't always Love others the way we should. Our society is sick, we don't love each other the way we should. And on occasion we end up producing someone like Dalhmer. And we have no one to blame, but ourselves.
Should we then love Dalhmer? Timothy McVeigh? Hitler? If we are to love them, can we still kill them? Also, our society is sick compared to WHAT? Has there ever been a "healthy" society?
Also, when did God become about "love"? Reading the Bible love is one of God's less featured attributes, most of the "personal God" schlick is really recent, and not really supported by the actual text of the Bible. God was basically the spiritual equivalent of Samuel L. Jackson for most of the Bible. He had nothing against rape, murder, and slavery, he actively CONDONED them more often than not. But then again; most Christians I know completely ignore huge swaths of the Bible, even the New Testament.
I could go on. Christianity (and pretty much all other religions) are contradictory messes.
My main reason for becoming an atheist, btw, wasn't "unconditional love", or the evil question, or anything else like that; but "why should I believe in THIS god? Why not be a Hindu, or a Zoroastrian, or a Buddhist (of whatever flavor), or Jewish, or... You get the point. They all make the same claim of "divine truth", and are all backed by the same "evidence", and all of their believers will swear up and down that it is the "one true faith". How the hell do you design a criteria for picking your subscribed "divine reality" when there is no way to actually pick any of them above any other. Any claim you make for supremacy of your religion will be made by the follower of another with equal conviction, and equally valid arguments... The conclusion I was forced to draw was, basically, I am a Christian (more specifically Catholic) because that is the culture I was raised in, if I was born in India I would be a Hindu with equal conviction.
I'm trying not to troll. I have no contempt for the average Christian, or follower of any other religion, as long as they don't try to force their views on me, or effect me in any other way. I respect, even if I disagree, your choice, and all I expect is the same from you towards me.
So, basically, what you said was irrelevant, and also completely misplaced since it's true for just about anything you can think of.
That wasn't the point of my original point, but if that is what you want to take home from it, fine.
My points were; (A) All browsers are pretty much qualitatively equal. B) Because of (a), choice in browsers is pretty much a matter of personal preference. (A) and (B) leads to (C); There is no real point to advocating a single browser as being objectively the best. With then leads to (E) People who evangelize about their pet browser are morons at best, and mere trolls at worst.
Shorter version: there is no valid reason for being a browser fan boy.
Also, why the hell are you even replying to me if what I said is irrelevant, don't you have anything better to do?
I spent some time in the community college system when I was younger and trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and a majority of my "formative" professors were there, as opposed to university. By formative I mean excellent to the point that they imbue with passion for whatever they are teaching. A lot of them were older people who used to teach in AA universities, who got sick of the size and politics. Some of them were old grizzled professionals in whatever field using teaching to supplement their retirement.* You get a better range of professors and life experience, and not just people who settled for the academic track. One professor there cemented my desire for a university education in psychology, only to have that dream crushed by mediocre professors once I got to university.
Not to say there wasn't bad ones too. It just seemed more diverse. You got more terrible ones, and more good ones than at a university.
*My favorite was a beginning level CS teacher who was basically involved in the invention of modern computing, both working with DARPA and at MIT, and later at IBM and making punch-card operated nuclear control systems. He was one of the worst teachers I've ever had, since it often seemed he didn't touch a computer since 1952, and thus had no clue whatsoever what was actually going on. It wasn't helped that he was very old, and hooked to an oxygen tank 90% of the time. I loved him, but hated the class he taught.
Or the cultural anthropologist who was basically a minor Indiana Jones, who was used to teaching at Oxford and Harvard, but was, in his own words "slumming it". Awesome class, he brought in authentic relics from digs he participated in, like actual sacrificial statues of Kali, and various Aztec sculptures ("if you look closely there, you can still see some staining from blood"). Sadly the community college ruined the course by retitled it from "Anth210: Intro to the Anthropology of Religion" to "Anth210: Magic, Witchcraft, and Healing", drawing in only "Wiccans", who argued with him every time he claimed such and such culture though witches were a malevolent force. Best final ever, though, he just wrote; "Mesoamerica?" on the board and said "you have two hours and 20 pieces of paper, fill them, front and back.". He hated the experience, and probably never walked next to community college again.
Funny how you have to justify your choices by attacking others. Especially since you desperately cling to open-source, which is well known for its zealous user base.
I didn't attack anyone. And no, the popularity of the fan base really has no bearing on my choices (unless I have to talk to them for support). Nor did I ever claim this was so. You misread me.
Go back and re-read what I said:
The main thing I have against Opera is that a small (probably vanishingly so) portion of their user base is absolute evangelical morons who have to run around to any forum where Opera is even slightly mentioned and post 7000 identical responses (anonymously) saying that Opera is the pinnacle of human technology. Everything has fan boys, but Opera's are even more annoying than most. Don't they realize that the hurt their pet browser, since people don't really want to be in the same goddamn club as them?
This basically says: "a small percentage of Opera's user base are complete morons". I'm sure this is true of most things. Sadly, though, they are the ones who are running around in this discussion being morons, so they currently effect me. This, obviously, doesn't reflect on Opera itself, and if my personal, subjective, opinion was that Opera was the best browser, I would still use it. Irregardless of idiotic Slashdot trolls.
The last sentence in that quote was basically saying: "Wow, these trolls are absolute morons, thinking they can convince people that their browser is somehow the second coming of the Christ by acting like idiotic teenagers!" You don't convince people of your point by trolling, you make people completely dismiss your point and leave your product tainted by association.
Hypothetical: You have two people in a room, one of which is trying to get you to use Browser A, the second Browser B. The fist logically lists off the points that make their browser better than Browser B; they use technical data, and historical data, but never outright attack B. The advocate for B runs around insulting the advocate for A for even thinking that there is another alternative. The advocate for A made their point by advocating A. The advocate for B made their point by insulting the Advocate for A, A, and all of A's users.
Question: Who was the most convincing?
Personally the next time I saw an ad (or story) about browser B, I would immediately remember that experience. Just like every time I see a story on Slashdot about Opera and immediatly think "Oh God, the damn trolls are going to be out in force..."
This ignores the fact that caring about what browser a person used is plain stupid. I don't care if Opera, Chrome, IE, or Firefox has more users, even if I use one, I'm not on their "team". Why the hell do you care that I prefer Chromium over Opera? How does this matter to you?
Who fucking cares?
I find people who side with stupid things such as operating systems or browsers to be remarkably silly.
The way you are bashing the user base of one browser, makes you one yourself. Congratulations. Hypocrisy rocks!
Please go back and read what I wrote. Very slowly. I never bashed any user base. I bashed "a small (probably vanishingly so) portion of their user base" (that was a quote). If the Firefox trolls, or IE trolls were out in force, I would bash them too.
And to be a fan boy I have to advocate a single brower (or operating system, or whatnot) as being the only choice, and somehow that choice makes me superior to everyone else. I didn't. I pretty much stated that my choice is arbitrary since I don't see any qualitative differences between modern browsers. I'm a fan boy of them all, I suppose, in a meaningless technical way.
I use what I use because it is my personal preference. Browser choice is like choice in ice cream. I like vanilla, you like chocolate, that is the end of the matter. No other judgement can be made. People who run around saying "people who like vanilla are stupid because chocolate is clearly superior" are idiots, plain and simple.
Sadly, yes.
Though the level of validity of your post has forced me to reconsider my view points, and now my life is fulfilled, everything is clear and beautiful like the morning sun rising on the most splendiferous scenes of natural beauty. Clearly Opera is GOD's own browser, and was used to upload Jesus to this fine earth. I bow my head in shame, sir.
Further, the presentation smoothed the intake of your informative emissions like butter on a shit sandwich.
I truly have many things to learn.
Talking about it. Duh! ...
When all things are equal, I will pick open source over closed. When it comes to browsers, all things are pretty much equal. The rants against Opera here are pretty much proof that no browser is really much better or worse than any other browser in any real, meaningfully quantitative way. "
"I hate Opera because it isn't as pretty as Firefox or Chrome" .001ms slower in rendering than Firefox or Chrome" .8%"
"I hate Opera because it is
"I hate Opera because it uses over 1% of my RAM, as opposed to Firefox or Chromes
"I hate Opera because it doesn't exactly mimic my Firefox or Chrome extensions!"
Why the hell don't people just pick whatever browser works for them, and stick with it? I don't understand the near-religious prosethizing of something as stupid as a web browser. Hell even the new versions of IE are pretty damn good. How the hell does it matter what browser someone uses? How the hell does your using Opera and my using Chromium really effect me one way or another? To be short and blunt: who the fuck cares?
I personally use Chromium. I used to use Firefox. I mainly stuck with Firefox out of habit since I was using it since it was called Phoenix. I've tried Opera several times (roughly every other major release), and appreciate how far it has come. I probably won't switch since there is nothing wrong with using Chromium instead. This doesn't mean Opera is bad, and Chromium is technically superior, it just means Chromium works for me so I see no reason to change.
The main thing I have against Opera is that a small (probably vanishingly so) portion of their user base is absolute evangelical morons who have to run around to any forum where Opera is even slightly mentioned and post 7000 identical responses (anonymously) saying that Opera is the pinnacle of human technology. Everything has fan boys, but Opera's are even more annoying than most. Don't they realize that the hurt their pet browser, since people don't really want to be in the same goddamn club as them?
How the hell is this a recurring discussion?
All fanboys should die.
How the hell did you get the pet troll?
How many times a day do you have to feed him? Is he litter box trained? Will he fetch your slippers?
That only happens to me with Slashdot... Same with the stupid copy and paste bug. Every other page works fine.
As for speed, I don't think it really matters anymore. I can't really tell the difference between Safari, Chrome/ium, and Firefox. I haven't used Opera lately, but I'm guessing it is more of the same. Browser choice has really become just that; an arbitrary choice based on preference.
Lets put on a SUPER don't ask don't tell policy - then we could have everyone operating in 1 man teams - so everyone gets along with everyone.
But I hate myself too, you insensitive clod!
I've been stuck with such a roomate, and it grows severely irritating that I just stopped staying at home or stayed in my room.
In college I was stuck with a rutting bull 19 year old body-building, footballing playing, hip-hop DJing heterosexual. It annoyed the living shit out of me too, especially when he slept with very young girls 3 feet away from me, and wooed them with idiotic conversations about high school football glory. He did it when I had friends over, he did I had female friends over, he did it when I was trying to write an 80 page capstone paper. I probably would have been just as annoyed if he was gay, and sleeping with guys, he was an uncouth moron, and last I checked anyone can fall into that category regardless of their sexual orientation.
On the other hand my old neighbor was a raging lesbian, and was absolutely awesome. She was very much overly sexual, but damn amusing about it, to the point of having a very large collection of scissors, and loudly complaining to me and my girlfriend, outside here open bedroom window, that who ever she was sleeping with my be severely developmentally disabled. She continually tried to get my and my girlfriend to go out with her to her favorite gay country bar... I'm still somewhat sad I never took her up on it, it would have been highly amusing.
As a proud and native Californian I'll tell you this right off the bat: Too many skilled and a much more disproportionately huge amount of unskilled douches from other states and countries with bartender and actress fantasies are watching too much MTV Spring Break specials and moving here and overcrowding us, driving up property costs of housing big and small while polluting our culture.
As a proud person living in a state bordering California, we have had the same opinion of Californians as you do with everyone else. Wander around in any small town anywhere close to California, and you'll hear the natives saying "damn Californians!".
I really doubt immigration is California's biggest problem. And I really don't see what the hell California's culture ever was. California should be two states, North and South, really, if we want to talk about culture. And this isn't even really that true, since there are (like everywhere else) millions of distinct "cultures" in California. Hell, it can be stated (with a fair bit of validity) that the main part of California's culture is people moving there. It seems to be the historical precedent of California. Read more history (or Steinbeck).
Don't move to California if you're not accepting a job from Google or Oracle.
You do realize that California is NOT Silicon Valley, right? Depsite the beleifs of the residents from there...
The studies did not conflate piracy with free software.
Never said they did. It just is a bit hard to believe since Linux is the only OS I've used where I can have a fully usable system without a single scrap of pay software.
Second, I've moved from cautious acceptence of these studies, to downright skepticism. Not over their conclusions, but over their existence. A bit of time spent on Google wielded no evidence for their existence. I tried my part in due diligence, so barring you providing links to these studies, I would say the whole issue is rather moot.
You're confusing accessibility with desirability.
Nope. The iPhone and various Android options are just as accessible. Last I checked I could get either. Yes, an iPhone would mean changing providers (not so much in the near future), but that really isn't a hurdle. I really can't think of people who really wanted an iPhone being barred from getting one.
The facts are, Linux has LOTS of pirates
Your misusing the term "fact", being that these surveys may or may not actually exist, and may or may not actually back that up if they do exist, and may or may not be valid.
Facts are, its widely believed those pirates largely interesect with the core Linux group.
Widely believed by whom (this is another claim you'll have to reference to properly use the term "fact") ? And who the hell is the "core Linux group"? Commercial IT departments? the fine folks at Novell, the Fedora Project, the Debian Project, and Canonical? Linus? RMS?
So, the discussion has moved to the "actual data or GTFO" phase. Currently we might as well be talking about the state of the economy in Wonderland.
I've read three studies over the last several years which more or less (slight variance in each study) which support the numbers given. Roughly, up to 50% piracy on Windows. Up to 80% piracy on Linux. And up to 20% piracy on OSX.
Not denying that you have, or that such studies exist, but you still really need to reference them. I'm not what these studies consider piracy, for example. It is completely possible to run a full-featured Linux box without ever touching pay software, so it probably isn't software piracy.
These numbers are somewhat amusing, too. If piracy is so harmful, yet so prevalent, why is any "content" industry still in business? An amusing aside.
So its easy to see why Linux has a reputation of being associated with socialistic, anti-capitalistic, freeloading, people.
I don't see this either. Looking around at my friends that are fan-boy-ish devotees to Linux; most of them are pretty die-hard Libertarians. Most of the people who fall towards the hard left, that I know, use Macs. Informal observation, but still I'm guessing there is some validity. How exactly are Linux users freeloading? People make free software (and are often paid for it), offer it up for free, and people download and use it. That is the majority of the Linux ecosystem in a nutshell. I don't see much cause for the term "freeloading". Perhaps anti-capitalist would fit, somewhat, but only in the fact that they aren't willing to pay for an OS. But then again every Linux user I know has several computers sitting around with several (paid for) operating systems installed on them. Very rare is the "pure" Linux user, most of us are computer enthusiasts in general.
I'm not saying that people don't see Linux users like that, I'm just saying the the claims are largely groundless.
For what its worth, Android (which is Linux based and attracts the same people largely because it is Linux), has once again vindicated these studies
Android is now, or will very soon be, the best selling smartphone platform, and it already beats Apple's iOS (or whatever its called) in adoption. This makes Linux nerds a much larger market force than ever believed. This should be news worthy. In fact, Android phones appeal to a larger market segment than Apple's offering. They are more popular, meaning there will be more piracy, and they appeal to a different type of user. People who buy iOS devices (and Apple stuff in general) are more likely to want an "easy" experience, where they accept what a central source wants to give them. This isn't an attack on Apple users, or fans, it just pretty much the definition of "just works". It is much harder to pirate on an iPhone (which has pretty much a single source for all software, which is policed pretty heavily), than on Android (you can get your software from anywhere you like in some cases). So it would attract more pirates. This has nothing to do with the Linux underpinnings of the phone, but more to do with how Google, and various providers, decided to set up their hardware. You could easily lock down a Android phone as much as an iPhone, and only allow a single, heavily regulated, market.
People could still root it, but people can still root iPhones.
Haven't watched it, but you just made it sound like the old Friday the 13th series.
Which wasn't terrible (todays episode is about an ancient Egyptian toaster possessed by the Demon of something-or-another, who turns unsuspecting house wives into cats!), mind you... But was a bit trite.
... even getting pirates to stop destroying the economy and ecosystem... Of course, this is the same reason pirates damage the economy in other sectors too.
I'm not advocating piracy, but I haven't actually seen any hard data backing up this assertion. In the music sector I've even seen evidence to the contrary (pirates buy more music). All of the sectors plagued with piracy are ticking along just fine, last I checked, and even showing some decent amount of growth. The premise that piracy is harming anyone really needs to be backed up.
How is Linux correlated with piracy? I don't see the connection. I own 5, fully bought and paid for, Windows disks, and around 3 OS X updates, also bought and paid for. This is counting the ones discarded for being old and out of date. I have a full 200 disk CD wallet full of games and commercial software, bought and paid for. I am typing this from OpenSuse 11.3, on the open source Chromium browser. I have a Windows box (not a shred of pirated software on it) sitting 3 feet to my left, playing a song from an independent artist, whose CD (in MP3 form) was gotten from Amazon two days ago (The RIAA didn't make money from me... oh dear). In my kitchen I have a fully purchased and paid for (+2 OS updates) Mac Mini being set up to serve music and recipes. I have six computers, 3 of which have Linux running on them (two sole installs, one dual boot). Where is my desire to pirate? Most Linux nerds I know are in my boat, running myriad computers with both free (OSS) software and paid software and OSs.
I really don't see the connection. I'm running Linux right now on this box because I like it BETTER than Windows, not because it is cheaper, or free (I have a paid Windows license that I could use towards this computer). On my HTPC, I'm running Linux because it is lighter than Windows. I own a registered version of Office, because it is better than OpenOffice. I own an old Photoshop license (granted purchased at a heavy student discount), because it is better than the Gimp.
If you simply attempt to deflect, ridicule, and dismiss outright the idea of actually reading and/or listening to, and checking presented facts, references, citations from, people who hold different opinions than your own and evaluating them with intellectual honesty, how will you ever know if you're mistaken about anything? Or are you willing to see only 3 lights if they tell you so?
I do agree with this paragraph, at least. (that was meant to sound jovial, not troll-y)
I agree with you, but there comes a certain point where one has to admit certain things as being wrong. I'm sick of the strange "every view is equal" theme of modern media. Watching Glenn Beck points me towards that point more often or not. I'm not saying he is completely wrong on every single thing he says, since that would be unfair and absurd, but many times he skirts the line between "information" and "sensationalism". I don't have much time for the latter, from any media source and not just those with a conservative bent. I also gave up watching MSNBC (I would switch between Fox and MSNBC just to get a normalized take on things), since my time is more important than having my biases pandered too.
I get most of my news from the Economist and whatever random sources Google News wants to throw at me now. I don't care what the right or left takes home from a certain event. I stopped really caring about my "political identity" some time ago. I hate and disagree with the Democrats and Republicans in equal measure, same with liberals and conservatives, or Libertarians and Marxists, or whatever fudged duality we want to turn the world into. They all may have good points, but often their view of reality is distorted by group-think and baseless idealism. The IDEA of x (insert Democrat, Replublican, or what-have-you) is much more important than the effects in the real world. They all build awesome fantastic utopias, but like all utopias they probably completely flawed.
I see the Libertarians, or Tea Partiers, or Christian Right, or Democrats, or extreme Progressives in the same light as communists, or any other extremist camp that is willing to enforce their view and philosophy on other against their will. There is no difference between Sarah Palin and Josef Stalin, where it matters to me. They both are convinced of their moral superiority, and supreme idealistic authority, over the rest of us poor deluded plebes who don't know whats best for us.
As a libertarian (lowercase "l"), this disgusts me.
When someone claims to know what is "right", I admit I stop listening. I don't find this as a fault, and think that if more people suddenly stopped listening the world would be a much better place.
I'm undoing mod points for someone who truly deserved them... I wanted to mark you as a troll, or such, but that would be abusive, since I doubt you really wanted to troll... So...
Progressives damning themselves in their own words on video completely changes their recorded images and words depending on who paid for the camera? Does Fox have secret reality-altering tech in their cameras?
Its called taking things out of context. All of the major cable news shows do it, Fox as well as MSNBC (using these together since they both amount to partisan masturbation amongst their viewers). They like to edit quotes to sound more threatening to their target demographic. They feed on outrage, real or imagined, since it causes people to come back. Imagine a news show saying "everything is pretty much fine, the sun will rise tomorrow, these politicians (all of them, dem or republican) are somewhat corrupt, but that isn't the end of the world!", who would continue watching that? It might be honest (our politicians are really no better than they ever were, read accounts of Jefferson or Adams), but it isn't compelling.
I think you suffer from the behavioral phenomenon of projecting upon others what you despise in yourself, which seems to be a common affliction among Progressives.
I think you suffer from the behavioral phenomenon of projecting upon others what you despise in yourself, which seems to be a common affliction among Conservatives.
See what I did there?
The more you think you know the TRUTH , the higher your chances of being completely, disastrously, wrong are. The more your views align with some capital letter party or ideology, the more likely your views are completely baseless. If you read or watch any news source and find yourself nodding your head at over 50% of the crap spouted, your not really reading the news, your just reading something to validate your already entrenched views.
Fox news is the Nation for Republicans...
The good news is this affliction is curable with education and an open mind. You can start with these;
Huh? I hope my mind can never open that far, my brains might fall out. The first basically claims that Jesus personally founded America, which is dubious since Jesus was dead for some time before we were founded. I doubt the divine providence of America. Its like saying God is on the side of your football team, while every other damn team thinks God is on their side instead.
How strange it is to think that an infinite being who created the entire damn universe, and every creature in it, who knows all of time and history and every other little tiny thing (that neutrino over there, God knows whats going on!) really cares about a small, recent, country. Why the hell would God give two shits about America (as opposed to Canada, or Brazil, or Angora, or Gibraltar)? We are not that special. Don't get me wrong, I am fond of this country, and think it has some promise, and some interesting first principles, but really in the grand scheme of things we are pretty much just another country.... We will someday fall, and be remembered only in the history books of tomorrow. The only reason we're special is because we were born here... If you were born in Argentina, you would feel the same way as you do about Argentina as you feel about America now.
Of course this all depends on my buying the existence of God... Which is something I can't do (I have tried). Sadly, also, my dreams of a better America involve LESS God, not more. To rephrase that better; less of a public, enforced God. I don't care what religion you subscribe to, as long as it doesn't effect my life (I will try my damnest to keep my atheism from effecting yours, in turn... damn social libertarianism!).
George Washington might have been Christian (probably was), but I fail to see the relevance? Should I go back in time and give him a big (non-homosexual) hug?
Even if he was Christian, I wholly doubt he wou
But yeah, logical positivist, is a pretty good model. I am not sure why wikipedia says "A 1929 pamphlet written by Neurath, Hahn, and Rudolf Carnap summarized the doctrines of the Vienna Circle at that time. The doctrines included the opposition to all metaphysics" as I don't see any contradiction between the two, as logical positivist is dam good starting point an unifying the masculine "Reasoning" and feminine "Gnosis."
Karl Popper had the best reason, falsifiability, it pretty much killed much of the Vienna Circle's bluster, and is still on of the best argument against all the "relative" truths you speak of.
Metaphysics runs into problems when not observationally grounded, which is pretty much why the field is completely dead now. There is a futility in speaking of things that can never be proven true or false. Statements such as these (Anthony Flew's bliks) pretty much amount to saying nothing at all, since they are completely unverifiable and unprovable.
Depending on how you define "everything". It would probably be labled a paradox. i.e. One truth does not negate another truth. The hard part is trying to figure out how the hell to have a super-set theory that can explain both, ala GUT (Grand Unification Theory) for GR (General Relatively) and QM (Quantum Mechanics).
Thats the fun part. Taken alone each theory would be complete, verifiable, and sound. But when both theories emerge they "magically" become contradictory, since neither can be complete anymore lacking an explanation of the other. Even if you developed a GUT to explain both of them away, you stuck in the game that there might be an alternative GUT. Its a fun academic exercise, but I'm not sure what the lesson to take home is.
As the other replier stated, if I was a logical postivist I wouldn't acknowledge that science, per se, is the highest form of truth, but that postulates that are either fully empirical or based on sound and valid deduction are true (with caveats depending on your favorite Vienna Cirlcer). Science may, as formulated, may be contained in it, but it is not wholly it.
The one problem they have is the fact that most of science isn't deductive, or strictly empirical. Science is a big mess in the real world, not a neat little deducto-empirical theory mill.
One reason of why these competing theories could be contradictory could be something raising from Godel's (the most abused philosopher/mathematician in history) incompleteness. There could also be some facts that are unobservable from the basic frameworks of knowledge held by either theory. Think of a chain of facts, each leading to another (Newton and Maxwell = Einstein, etc...), but if we have an "incomplete" (from some perfect outside perception) chain, but still wholly within the lines of verifiability, it would still be correct. Part of the fun was thinking of scenarios like this.
Also, perhaps, by nature both of these theories could be contradictory in that both offer fully complete explanations of phenomena, and have predictability, but neither work in the same way, or explain or predict events for the same reason. In a sense neither would be complete (lacking an explanation of the other), but still be complete...
Good, but useless fun! Which may be the definition of philosophy.