Automobiles, internet and space travel have little or nothing to do with the value of free expression, freedom of religion or of the press. These are fairly fundemental concepts which, so far, survive the passing decades. Why? Because they're the tools with which we as American citizens secure our right to freedom and self-determination.
The fact that many Americans are willing to allow these rights to be infringed only shows that we've begun taking them for granted. The fact that *you* and others like you believe that the world is somehow so different that people, say, don't deserve open trials (because if they weren't guilty, they wouldn't have been arrested, right?) is the bit we need to work on.
To paraphrase: Beware he who would deny you your basic rights to information and expression, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Actually, the internet isn't *supposed* to be anything other than a method of pushing bits from one place to another.
Granted, the historical strength of the internet has always been bringing people together over distance based on common interests or motives (Slashdot, girlskissing.co.uk and eBay are all excellent examples). Just because it's been that way, however, doesn't mean that it's the only practical use.
What I find interesting is that the author suggests keeping the rest of the world out, as opposed to keeping the rest of the world from getting in (which is what China and a few others have been up to) on a scale that's unprescidented. Technically, I'm sure it's possible to accomplish this, but I'm still uncertain as to the practicality or the wisdom of doing so.
You have to wonder what PR brainiac came up with the idea of censoring an interview like this. Anything this guy had to say couldn't possibly look as bad as this does, unless it's on the lines of "we kill puppies and cute little kittens to make mittens".
Now, everyone will just be wondering what they're hiding...
You might be right, but it'd never fly on a large-scale basis.
If you were to allow people to set up unmanaged estates to continue on in perpetuity, you'd end up with a large portion of the world's wealth owned by dead people. It'd only be a matter of time before the living adjusted the laws and raided the funds (and who's going to stop them? The corpsicles?)
a) There aren't enough people.
b) The natural order of the last 10 billion years isn't effective anymore.
c) Who needs children, anyway?
d) The same people in power now should always be there.
e) The idea of social evolution is overrated.
Or is it more likely that your ego just can't take the idea that the world will keep turning without you, or that you could actually be a hinderance to society.
It's cute how you use flawed analogies to try and support your basically flawed argument.
Simply put: Cryonics is simply an expensive tool for those in denial about their own mortality. The idea that you'll wake up in some future time is unrealistic, if not from a medical technology standpoint then certainly from a social and economic standpoint.
I was born, I will die. I live my life in between these two events, and the fact that it's limited is very basically what gives it value.
Hey, I'm a historian, I understand what you mean. However, I want one or two Romans to talk to. I don't want to waste resources raising the whole Roman Empire.
The copy of the social contract in my EULA didn't mention an obligation to revive long-dead and effectively useless people.
To the contrary, it said that I will live, add my unique contribution to society and give rise to a new generation. Then I'll die. This paradigm has worked really, really well for the last 10 billion years or so, so I'm not going to fuck with it.
People who are so afraid of death or who feel their lives weren't long enough need therapy to cure their over-inflated feeling of self-importance.
I've suggested to our management that we freeze our COBOL programmers. When we needed one, we could unthaw them.
Great idea! Not only does that insure there will be one around when we need them, but it also gets them out of our hair in the here-and-now.
While we're at it, we could also freeze all the managers and... no, wait, we'll never actually need to thaw them out (unless the world suddenly runs short of assheads, which I think unlikely).
So let's pretend that a century from now they come up with a technique for reanimating people and repairing the damage done by disease, death and freezing.
What possible motivation would any future society have to thaw these people out? Why would we need more people, especially those who can't accept their own mortality?
Sure, you'd thaw out one or two just to show you could, and you'd probably thaw out the interesting people like Walt Disney. Hey, you might even pull a person or two out of the fridge every so often to do historical research (wouldn't that be great -- you wake up in a room with a history grad student who asks you to explain why your generation felt it necessary to fuck the planet seven ways 'till Sunday and leave it for later generations to clean up).
Getting back to my original point, I don't see how this sort of thing would ever effect more than a few tens of people over a long timeline. Simply put: the future doesn't want you.
Personally, I believe that the cycle of life is the only thing that drives social and technological evolution. The greatest mistake we could make as a species would be to short-circuit this cycle for the sake of our own greedy, short-sighted interests.
While it's true that you can't use the revenues of individual Linux companies to draw any intelligent conclusions about install base, you can use it to gauge the health of the particular companies. Since they don't run on candy and magic, their revenues are extremely important.
Now, that said, comparing them to the 800-lb. gorilla of the industry also seems unfair -- almost nobody has revenues comperable to Microsoft's. As an investor in Red Hat, I care about the following "real" items:
Are they bringing in more money than this time last year?
Can I reasonably expect continued growth in that revenue?
Are they in the red or in the black?
There are some other things to think about as well, but these are basically it.
To sum up: Don't let the jerking of your knee cloud the real concerns.
I got it from a professor in a visual comm class in college a few years ago; she was citing some study. Personally, I find it's true -- I read much more quickly in print than on screen.
you can store it for 100 years and probably still read it without too much trouble.
This would be the biggest problem with a paperless campus -- there is a pretty good probablility that research would be lost in a relatively short amount of time.
I have a history degree. In the research for my thesis, one of my most valuable secondary sources was a paper done in the 60's by another student. He's transcribed portions of the original source material which were difficult to read (it was a farm diary, portions of which were written in an ink which had somehow broken down). If this had been digital, I almost certainly wouldn't have found it or been able to access it (I'm sure these bozos are using a proprietary format for their data).
Some are old and outdated. Some are accurate, useful and way out of print.
I have a history degree. I did reseach work with some very old primary and secondary sources -- one of the most useful books for my capstone project had been out of print since 1935.
Given that you read something like 1/3 more slowly off a video screen opposed to a paper book, this would suck pretty big-time. Reading assignments were always bad enough; the last thing I'd want to do is spend more time than I have to reading.
Besides, nothing (yet) can replace a book you own, a highlighter and a pen for making notes in the margin and taking the whole thing to a study lounge to get away from your roommate's beer party (the sacrifices we make for good grades).
Slashdot Mirror
Automobiles, internet and space travel have little or nothing to do with the value of free expression, freedom of religion or of the press. These are fairly fundemental concepts which, so far, survive the passing decades. Why? Because they're the tools with which we as American citizens secure our right to freedom and self-determination.
The fact that many Americans are willing to allow these rights to be infringed only shows that we've begun taking them for granted. The fact that *you* and others like you believe that the world is somehow so different that people, say, don't deserve open trials (because if they weren't guilty, they wouldn't have been arrested, right?) is the bit we need to work on.
To paraphrase: Beware he who would deny you your basic rights to information and expression, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Granted, the historical strength of the internet has always been bringing people together over distance based on common interests or motives (Slashdot, girlskissing.co.uk and eBay are all excellent examples). Just because it's been that way, however, doesn't mean that it's the only practical use.
What I find interesting is that the author suggests keeping the rest of the world out, as opposed to keeping the rest of the world from getting in (which is what China and a few others have been up to) on a scale that's unprescidented. Technically, I'm sure it's possible to accomplish this, but I'm still uncertain as to the practicality or the wisdom of doing so.
Now, everyone will just be wondering what they're hiding...
Aw, what fun is that? Steve Martin would be very upset.
If you were to allow people to set up unmanaged estates to continue on in perpetuity, you'd end up with a large portion of the world's wealth owned by dead people. It'd only be a matter of time before the living adjusted the laws and raided the funds (and who's going to stop them? The corpsicles?)
Dead people have no money, they can't protest for their rights and as such are effectively (and rightly, if you ask me) powerless.
a) There aren't enough people.
b) The natural order of the last 10 billion years isn't effective anymore.
c) Who needs children, anyway?
d) The same people in power now should always be there.
e) The idea of social evolution is overrated.
Or is it more likely that your ego just can't take the idea that the world will keep turning without you, or that you could actually be a hinderance to society.
Without death, life has no value.
Simply put: Cryonics is simply an expensive tool for those in denial about their own mortality. The idea that you'll wake up in some future time is unrealistic, if not from a medical technology standpoint then certainly from a social and economic standpoint.
I was born, I will die. I live my life in between these two events, and the fact that it's limited is very basically what gives it value.
Hey, I'm a historian, I understand what you mean. However, I want one or two Romans to talk to. I don't want to waste resources raising the whole Roman Empire.
The copy of the social contract in my EULA didn't mention an obligation to revive long-dead and effectively useless people.
To the contrary, it said that I will live, add my unique contribution to society and give rise to a new generation. Then I'll die. This paradigm has worked really, really well for the last 10 billion years or so, so I'm not going to fuck with it.
People who are so afraid of death or who feel their lives weren't long enough need therapy to cure their over-inflated feeling of self-importance.
Great idea! Not only does that insure there will be one around when we need them, but it also gets them out of our hair in the here-and-now.
While we're at it, we could also freeze all the managers and... no, wait, we'll never actually need to thaw them out (unless the world suddenly runs short of assheads, which I think unlikely).
True, but given the fact that all of our subjects are dead before we even get this far, this seems like the least of our worries.
Personally, I think the people who want to be frozen need therapy to deal with their oversized egos.
What possible motivation would any future society have to thaw these people out? Why would we need more people, especially those who can't accept their own mortality?
Sure, you'd thaw out one or two just to show you could, and you'd probably thaw out the interesting people like Walt Disney. Hey, you might even pull a person or two out of the fridge every so often to do historical research (wouldn't that be great -- you wake up in a room with a history grad student who asks you to explain why your generation felt it necessary to fuck the planet seven ways 'till Sunday and leave it for later generations to clean up).
Getting back to my original point, I don't see how this sort of thing would ever effect more than a few tens of people over a long timeline. Simply put: the future doesn't want you.
Personally, I believe that the cycle of life is the only thing that drives social and technological evolution. The greatest mistake we could make as a species would be to short-circuit this cycle for the sake of our own greedy, short-sighted interests.
In my office, they probably would have made him a department head.
Then those people ought not create things using other peoples' money and to which other people own the rights.
They who pay for the film and own the rights can do what they want with it. Everyone else involved were just employees.
While it's true that you can't use the revenues of individual Linux companies to draw any intelligent conclusions about install base, you can use it to gauge the health of the particular companies. Since they don't run on candy and magic, their revenues are extremely important.
Now, that said, comparing them to the 800-lb. gorilla of the industry also seems unfair -- almost nobody has revenues comperable to Microsoft's. As an investor in Red Hat, I care about the following "real" items:
Are they bringing in more money than this time last year?
Can I reasonably expect continued growth in that revenue?
Are they in the red or in the black?
There are some other things to think about as well, but these are basically it.
To sum up: Don't let the jerking of your knee cloud the real concerns.
No time for love, Doctor Jones.
I got it from a professor in a visual comm class in college a few years ago; she was citing some study. Personally, I find it's true -- I read much more quickly in print than on screen.
This would be the biggest problem with a paperless campus -- there is a pretty good probablility that research would be lost in a relatively short amount of time.
I have a history degree. In the research for my thesis, one of my most valuable secondary sources was a paper done in the 60's by another student. He's transcribed portions of the original source material which were difficult to read (it was a farm diary, portions of which were written in an ink which had somehow broken down). If this had been digital, I almost certainly wouldn't have found it or been able to access it (I'm sure these bozos are using a proprietary format for their data).
I have a history degree. I did reseach work with some very old primary and secondary sources -- one of the most useful books for my capstone project had been out of print since 1935.
Besides, nothing (yet) can replace a book you own, a highlighter and a pen for making notes in the margin and taking the whole thing to a study lounge to get away from your roommate's beer party (the sacrifices we make for good grades).
I think I know this guy -- he was the one who hopeless dweebs like myself looked down on as "uncool" in high school.
Actually, there were years when the real-life Bears did this, too.
I'll be waiting with my/your .45