These death threats and insults are definitely mean and insenitive and although I'm not sure I'd have the same emotional response as Kathy she's entitled to feel scared I guess.
She'll probably turn this into a good thing though. I mean... bloggers, even good ones, are a dime-a-dozen these days. How many people had actually heard of, or were interested in following the details of the eTech conference? Now, by backing out, and discussing her situation she has expanded her fanbase and reach and will have a platform to discuss ethics and behavior in the "blogosphere". She will most likely have an opportunity to do television interviews, podcasts, guest blogs, articles, conferences, etc... playing her cards right and this could work out very well for her.
His solution? Tell 'em off and make it known he's packing pistols.
Yeah, I had a similar situation occur in Second Life. I was being harrassed and threatened by these jerks... so I told them any time they wanted to come down to my house and mess with me, my shurikens, and my nunchukas they were welcome to. Never heard from them.
You shouldn't have posted AC... you're point is valid. Half the shit people post on forums is just over reactions to their own personal inadequacies, fears, and weaknesses. Anonymity gives people an opportunity to explore emotions that they cannot excercise and those can be very ugly... but I agree that the likelihood of these threats being real is probably pretty low.
The fact is the Internet is full of people and people are messed up mother fuckers... and if any of you jack asses dares to disagree with me I'm going to post photoshop images of you being eaten by sharks or cut up by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy, the Matthew McConaughey one, not the classic or the remake. I will p0wn you b1tch3s... errr... once I clean out my Mom's car.
Sure... what's interesting is to question why you give a damn what your daughter does.
Rational answers for limited beings would be
* It makes me feel good, due to some biological response about protecting your offspring. - I'd accept that, although I'd also point out that it's a weakness just like empathy. You're placing your well being in the hands of another who you cannot directly control in the same way you can control yourself.
* My daughter will give me benefits... companionship, do work, take care of me in my old age - This also makes sense... But it does emphasize that your objective with your daughter is to gain additional benefits later in life. If your daughter was unable or unwilling to provide those benefits then your relationship sould become hostile/apathetic?
I think this biological / morality thing essentially brings the whole idea of love as a real positive into question. It may serve some larger purpose, but individually it has no value. Empathy, compassion, and love without an expecteed return are then all weaknesses.
The debate is rather silly b/c no one in the mainstream who supports this biological argument supports the elvation of sociopaths as the greatest of all men (at least they don't in public), but that's what the logic leads you to. So... ignore the logic and take care of your daughter... but let this nag your thinking. Do you really behave morally b/c you're wired to or are there maybe actually "rights" and "wrongs" in the universe.
First, that the universe is probably everlasting yet changes forms. Second that we "are" a configuration of whatever the universe is actually made of. And third, that we are really intelligent machines that can be created over and over again by the processes of the universe. If that is the case, then in some sense we have always existed, and always will exist, and that our knowledge of this time and place is just temporary. In that sense, morality becomes, anything you do bad or good to someone, you do to to yourself...eventually.
Uhhm... wow... so uh... those are some HUGE presuppositions. Can you prove or argue in favor of any of them.
I'm particularly interesed in #2... I know I feel like me, I can sense that I'm something individual... I'm not you... I'm not a tree... where in the world do you come up with that I'm part of the universe?
I also have the capability to think... so if my "hard wired" actions really aren't in my best interests then I choose not to do them or resist their urges. This could go both ways... if I had a urges to eat or drink to extreme excess I might decide that ultimately that is not beneficial for me and resist those urges and if I had empathetic urges towards people who I could take advantage of I might in kind resist those urges as it would benefit me to take advantage of these other people.
Even if wasn't as questionable as it is... all that it could ever possibly say is that we have tendancies... and then one asks... so what? If they don't help me as an individual then they're weaknesses.
You're an illiterate idiot. That's exactly what I said. Morality becomes a relatively meaningless subject under an evolutionary model. Raising morality to some high place while emphasizing its biological origins and total relativity is irrational. In this system, the question is and always is what can those with power get away with without causing others with some greater power to respond.
How do you define social animals... are they animals that tend to be in groups and have "rules of conduct"?
What seems, in my view, to be ingrained into our neural wiring isn't a specific moral code, but the need to fit within a hierarchy, and this requires rules.
Maybe... or maybe we're out for ourselves and we realize that fucking with the group or stronger individuals tends to result in more pain and trouble then its worth... couple that with emotions and an imprecise ability to calculate risk and a bias towards our previous experience and you have the human condition... maybe?
Assuming you will die and that's that. One would think that maximizing pleasure over pain for yourself in your life is both natural and the only thing you should really be interested in. True empathy is then a weakness... to give up your own benefit for others by internal compulsion without some expectation of a return is counter-productive to you and your limited life and your objective to make that limited life a personally satisfying as possible. Those who can act without any regard for others, and still maintain some social balance so they receive the benefits of society and don't suffer consequences greater then the their benefits would be the elite livers... the strong, the ones who maximize their lives.
I believe we call these people sociopaths and frown on their behavior.
Maybe... but in the end the big question is who the fuck cares? If I'm going to die and die forever and consequences for not behaving "morally" are only enforceable in my current biological life then it would seem I should just do whatever the hell I want as long as I don't suffer consequences greater then the benefit I gain.
And why as an individual should you follow any one of these social rules?
The only answer I can think of is that a stronger individual or group will enforce consequences on you... if you can act without the stronger entity knowing, are actually stronger then the entity, can keep the entity from enacting the consequences, or can gain greater benefit by acting and accepting the consequences then act always and forever in your own interest.
If you're going to die and that's it and there's no Karma, God, gods, etc... then you've got a very limited amount of time left to maximize your enjoyment of life.
Who gives a flying fuck about the species. You are going to die and thats it. All this bullshit about the benefit to the species indicates that you haven't thought about the issue much, are mentally ill and are sacrificing your own limited life and the opportunity to make it gratifying for intangible benefits not directly given to you, or you're just a liar and want us to behave "morally" while you go on doing what you're doing.
If you're going to die and that's it... do whatever you possibly can that makes you happy as long as you can avoid consequences that are worse than the benefit you gained by acting.
This shit about the benefit to the group as the basis for moral codes is silly. All that means is there are some social best practices out there that seem to work... but they have no teeth or permanent meaning. Under different circumstances other rules may be more beneficial. It's also based entirely on the scope of the group.
For example... if we start running out of food, it may be beneficial to slaughter the weakest humans in order to preserve the strongest. Is this somehow wrong?
Furthermore it's insane to take a best practice that works for the group and then follow it personally as if it were the most important thing in guiding your actions. If the only consequence of breaking a "moral" code is the consequence meted out by others, and that consequence will only materialize based on the limited knowledge others have then do whatever you find to be pleasurable if you can get away with it or not suffer consequences that more personally painful then the benefit you gained by violating the "moral" code.
If morality is just an evolved set of best practices and we are all going to die, and that's the end of it... why behave "morally" all of the time? It would seem that you only really benefit from those positive experiences you have during your lifetime and that you would want to maximize those at all costs. If you can steal $10 billion dollars and not suffer consequences worse than the benefit then do it...
Those who chose to limit their actions are weak. Either they cannot exercise there will on others in order to obtain their own personal satisfaction because the other individual or a group would exact consequences great then the benefit they would gain, or they are internally weak and their emotions and feelings override their quest for ultimate satisfaction. If you felt guilty about stealing the $10 billion for the rest of your life then you should probably not do it... of course your guilt and feelings, your empathy, is a personal weakness. You had the opportunity but because of your weakness (possibly evolved?) you cannot attain the higher level of satisfaction.
An evolved morality means there is no real "right" or "wrong" those are simply labels applied to actions, the effectiveness of those labels is determined by the consequences others have the power to enforce.
If there is some external force that governs "right" and "wrong" (God, gods, karma, The Dharma Initiative, etc.) then morality matters... if not, then all that really matters is what you get caught doing that other people have power to make you suffer for.
I think you're glorifying "the American spirit". Although there have been great explorers and people driven purely by the desire to know... I think most people, particularly the early American colonists, were more interested in making a new life for themselves, whether that meant more freedom or more money. The big migration out West had an adventurer component, but it was also full of people asking "how do I make some money and a better life for myself off of this".
Slashdot Mirror
Why rush it? Let them take their time...
I totally agree... the longer they wait the more irrelevant the whole GPLv3 seems which in my opinion is a very good thing.
These death threats and insults are definitely mean and insenitive and although I'm not sure I'd have the same emotional response as Kathy she's entitled to feel scared I guess.
She'll probably turn this into a good thing though. I mean... bloggers, even good ones, are a dime-a-dozen these days. How many people had actually heard of, or were interested in following the details of the eTech conference? Now, by backing out, and discussing her situation she has expanded her fanbase and reach and will have a platform to discuss ethics and behavior in the "blogosphere". She will most likely have an opportunity to do television interviews, podcasts, guest blogs, articles, conferences, etc... playing her cards right and this could work out very well for her.
Well said!
His solution? Tell 'em off and make it known he's packing pistols.
Yeah, I had a similar situation occur in Second Life. I was being harrassed and threatened by these jerks... so I told them any time they wanted to come down to my house and mess with me, my shurikens, and my nunchukas they were welcome to. Never heard from them.
You shouldn't have posted AC... you're point is valid. Half the shit people post on forums is just over reactions to their own personal inadequacies, fears, and weaknesses. Anonymity gives people an opportunity to explore emotions that they cannot excercise and those can be very ugly... but I agree that the likelihood of these threats being real is probably pretty low.
The fact is the Internet is full of people and people are messed up mother fuckers... and if any of you jack asses dares to disagree with me I'm going to post photoshop images of you being eaten by sharks or cut up by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy, the Matthew McConaughey one, not the classic or the remake. I will p0wn you b1tch3s... errr... once I clean out my Mom's car.
Oh you beat me to it... the issue is serious, but at the same time... there are so many jokes.
Sure... what's interesting is to question why you give a damn what your daughter does.
Rational answers for limited beings would be
* It makes me feel good, due to some biological response about protecting your offspring. - I'd accept that, although I'd also point out that it's a weakness just like empathy. You're placing your well being in the hands of another who you cannot directly control in the same way you can control yourself.
* My daughter will give me benefits... companionship, do work, take care of me in my old age - This also makes sense... But it does emphasize that your objective with your daughter is to gain additional benefits later in life. If your daughter was unable or unwilling to provide those benefits then your relationship sould become hostile/apathetic?
I think this biological / morality thing essentially brings the whole idea of love as a real positive into question. It may serve some larger purpose, but individually it has no value. Empathy, compassion, and love without an expecteed return are then all weaknesses.
The debate is rather silly b/c no one in the mainstream who supports this biological argument supports the elvation of sociopaths as the greatest of all men (at least they don't in public), but that's what the logic leads you to. So... ignore the logic and take care of your daughter... but let this nag your thinking. Do you really behave morally b/c you're wired to or are there maybe actually "rights" and "wrongs" in the universe.
First, that the universe is probably everlasting yet changes forms. Second that we "are" a configuration of whatever the universe is actually made of. And third, that we are really intelligent machines that can be created over and over again by the processes of the universe. If that is the case, then in some sense we have always existed, and always will exist, and that our knowledge of this time and place is just temporary. In that sense, morality becomes, anything you do bad or good to someone, you do to to yourself...eventually.
Uhhm... wow... so uh... those are some HUGE presuppositions. Can you prove or argue in favor of any of them.
I'm particularly interesed in #2... I know I feel like me, I can sense that I'm something individual... I'm not you... I'm not a tree... where in the world do you come up with that I'm part of the universe?
I also have the capability to think... so if my "hard wired" actions really aren't in my best interests then I choose not to do them or resist their urges. This could go both ways... if I had a urges to eat or drink to extreme excess I might decide that ultimately that is not beneficial for me and resist those urges and if I had empathetic urges towards people who I could take advantage of I might in kind resist those urges as it would benefit me to take advantage of these other people.
Even if wasn't as questionable as it is... all that it could ever possibly say is that we have tendancies... and then one asks... so what? If they don't help me as an individual then they're weaknesses.
I have a friend whose company is virtual. They rely heavily on Skype and have no complaints as far as I know.
You might consider giving people broadband cards for their notebooks if they will be traveling or meeting together a lot.
You're an illiterate idiot. That's exactly what I said. Morality becomes a relatively meaningless subject under an evolutionary model. Raising morality to some high place while emphasizing its biological origins and total relativity is irrational. In this system, the question is and always is what can those with power get away with without causing others with some greater power to respond.
Who cares what people think about what music other people listen to?
How do you define social animals... are they animals that tend to be in groups and have "rules of conduct"?
What seems, in my view, to be ingrained into our neural wiring isn't a specific moral code, but the need to fit within a hierarchy, and this requires rules.
Maybe... or maybe we're out for ourselves and we realize that fucking with the group or stronger individuals tends to result in more pain and trouble then its worth... couple that with emotions and an imprecise ability to calculate risk and a bias towards our previous experience and you have the human condition... maybe?
Social animals MUST have a sense of empathy.
Ants, bees, and termites... are they empathetic? How do you actually measure/know that?
Assuming you will die and that's that. One would think that maximizing pleasure over pain for yourself in your life is both natural and the only thing you should really be interested in. True empathy is then a weakness... to give up your own benefit for others by internal compulsion without some expectation of a return is counter-productive to you and your limited life and your objective to make that limited life a personally satisfying as possible. Those who can act without any regard for others, and still maintain some social balance so they receive the benefits of society and don't suffer consequences greater then the their benefits would be the elite livers... the strong, the ones who maximize their lives.
I believe we call these people sociopaths and frown on their behavior.
Maybe... but in the end the big question is who the fuck cares? If I'm going to die and die forever and consequences for not behaving "morally" are only enforceable in my current biological life then it would seem I should just do whatever the hell I want as long as I don't suffer consequences greater then the benefit I gain.
And why as an individual should you follow any one of these social rules?
The only answer I can think of is that a stronger individual or group will enforce consequences on you... if you can act without the stronger entity knowing, are actually stronger then the entity, can keep the entity from enacting the consequences, or can gain greater benefit by acting and accepting the consequences then act always and forever in your own interest.
If you're going to die and that's it and there's no Karma, God, gods, etc... then you've got a very limited amount of time left to maximize your enjoyment of life.
Who gives a flying fuck about the species. You are going to die and thats it. All this bullshit about the benefit to the species indicates that you haven't thought about the issue much, are mentally ill and are sacrificing your own limited life and the opportunity to make it gratifying for intangible benefits not directly given to you, or you're just a liar and want us to behave "morally" while you go on doing what you're doing.
If you're going to die and that's it... do whatever you possibly can that makes you happy as long as you can avoid consequences that are worse than the benefit you gained by acting.
This shit about the benefit to the group as the basis for moral codes is silly. All that means is there are some social best practices out there that seem to work... but they have no teeth or permanent meaning. Under different circumstances other rules may be more beneficial. It's also based entirely on the scope of the group.
For example... if we start running out of food, it may be beneficial to slaughter the weakest humans in order to preserve the strongest. Is this somehow wrong?
Furthermore it's insane to take a best practice that works for the group and then follow it personally as if it were the most important thing in guiding your actions. If the only consequence of breaking a "moral" code is the consequence meted out by others, and that consequence will only materialize based on the limited knowledge others have then do whatever you find to be pleasurable if you can get away with it or not suffer consequences that more personally painful then the benefit you gained by violating the "moral" code.
Well the "why" tends to be pretty simple and straightforward, until you bring religion into it and then its generally pretty arbitrary.
Oh really... pray tell... do enlighten us.
So the seriously depressed are evil, bad people? Thanks for that awesome insight!
NO! But the Thetans and meta-Thetans and images of Tom Cruise that torment them most certainly are.
If morality is just an evolved set of best practices and we are all going to die, and that's the end of it... why behave "morally" all of the time? It would seem that you only really benefit from those positive experiences you have during your lifetime and that you would want to maximize those at all costs. If you can steal $10 billion dollars and not suffer consequences worse than the benefit then do it...
Those who chose to limit their actions are weak. Either they cannot exercise there will on others in order to obtain their own personal satisfaction because the other individual or a group would exact consequences great then the benefit they would gain, or they are internally weak and their emotions and feelings override their quest for ultimate satisfaction. If you felt guilty about stealing the $10 billion for the rest of your life then you should probably not do it... of course your guilt and feelings, your empathy, is a personal weakness. You had the opportunity but because of your weakness (possibly evolved?) you cannot attain the higher level of satisfaction.
An evolved morality means there is no real "right" or "wrong" those are simply labels applied to actions, the effectiveness of those labels is determined by the consequences others have the power to enforce.
If there is some external force that governs "right" and "wrong" (God, gods, karma, The Dharma Initiative, etc.) then morality matters... if not, then all that really matters is what you get caught doing that other people have power to make you suffer for.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vcsharp/aa336793. aspx
I think you're glorifying "the American spirit". Although there have been great explorers and people driven purely by the desire to know... I think most people, particularly the early American colonists, were more interested in making a new life for themselves, whether that meant more freedom or more money. The big migration out West had an adventurer component, but it was also full of people asking "how do I make some money and a better life for myself off of this".
Inconvenient Truth 2: A Fire Inside