Yes, I saw that, but other than a brief mention of a 'liberal' bias from the article, there's really no indication of what, exactly, was controversial.
I can't get to the blog itself at the moment, presumably because the IT folk here have turned up websense to "paranoide" and "deusexmalcontent" can be scanned as having the word "sex" in it, so I can't evaluate the content--
What, exactly, did he post that was so damn controversial that CNN felt the need to let him go?
You'd be surprised, sometimes. Not all of 'em are complete idiots, and if you can manage to find a crack, you can at least worm the idea into their mind that the concept of evolution is not there because a bunch of scientists hate god--and really, that's usually all that's needed.
It's not that they need to -fully understand- the concept--merely reassuring them (and having them believe the reassurance) that it's no threat is often sufficient for most practical cases. If you can educate 'em a bit, and remove some misconceptions, then so much the better.
True enough--though I would note that the concept of evolution that is most commonly rejected is that which is presented in said works that you reference.
Correcting -that- misconception is always fun. Nearly always causes one of those "Wait.....what?" moments.
I define a 'theory' as a hypothesis that has the following attributes:
It forms the simplest and most complete explanation for a phenomenon. It must be testable, and capable of being disproven--and, having been extensively tested, must not have been disproven. It must be capable of being used to predict how a phenomenon will happen. It must be entirely consistent with nature--no supernatural allowed, because supernatural events have nothing to do with science, and we're talking about scientific theories here.
Unless a hypothesis fulfills these constraints--and -all- of these constraints--it is not a theory.
My argumentation style in these matters is generally along the following lines: to stick to facts that cannot be denied, and to construct, using basic logic, the conclusion that is being denied from these undeniable facts. This technique has proven useful in the past--though it always could use improvement.
So the hypothetical creative being's spaceship/orbital platform/planet/space station/infinite plane's rotational period is 24 hours relative to the nearest source of intense light?
If we were on Jupiter, would you be insisting on a 60-hour creation?
It's not really a question of religion, if you think about it--it's more a question of politics.
It just happens that the politics involved are largely being used within the framework of religion in order to maintain a certain population within a given power structure, and to resist attempts to overturn said power structure from the outside.
I have a hobby where I argue with various fundamentalists, creationists, and the like in order to understand their particular points of view--using them as an evolutionary pressure for my arguments, as it were, to see which ones have an effect.
I've noticed in my various arguments that the chief difficulty is getting them to understand the terminology behind the concepts--they simply do not have the vocabulary necessary to vocalize and understand the concepts in question.
One of those words that is most egregiously misused is "theory"--the "common" form of the word is almost universally understood, but the "scientific" meaning of the word, even when carefully explained, becomes conflated with the common form.
(Other difficulties I've noticed are: that those who do not accept evolutionary theory are convinced that evolution is directed towards some 'goal'; that all mutations are necessarily harmful; an ignorance of introns and other means by which genetic material can be added to a genome--one of the current arguments that crops up is the one about how you can't get more information into a genome by evolutionary means, which is, of course, utter bosh; a misunderstanding of the scientific method; the false notion that science attempts to be the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything rather than a best-fit approximation; and the notion that scientists are trying actively to discourage religion)
Other than teaching the proper meaning of the word 'theory'--which doesn't work very well, frankly; the meaning that they knew first tends to stick no matter how often you teach them the proper one due to recency bias--I'd perhaps recommend a slight change in terminology when speaking of hypotheses that have withstood rigorous testing. Such a change would, of course, have to be accepted by the scientific community as a whole, so it may not be practical--but it's perhaps worth giving some thought to.
I'd almost recommend 'theorem' rather than 'theory', to leech off of the mathematician's meaning, but while that word is appealing for reasons of similarity and having the proper tone, it may not be ideal due to conflation with mathematical proofs.
I don't really think that any single person or entity 'controls' Anonymous-the-entity--and as such, there's really no 'orchestration' going on, as orchestration requires a conductor--while Anonymous is more along the lines of a very large jazz band jam session.
The phenomenon you mention, e.g. the dead dog picture, is not so much evidence of orchestration as evidence of memetic susceptability and a touch of perversity and 'peer pressure'. That is, if an image or whatnot evokes a strong emotional response, it is more likely to be re-enforced and passed along--this is one of the core principles behind advertising.
I would note that were Anonymous to 'coalesce' and become a fixed entity, it would indeed fail to have any effect against Scientology--but so long as Anonymous remains nebulous, centerless, and leaderless, it still retains a chance of having an effect.
Further, you've neglected to take into account the Silent Majority, as it were: both Scientology and Anonymous take 'recruits' from this pool, but Anonymous has a vast advantage in terms of recruiting--or at least, stopping Scientology from recruiting--from this pool. They have a much wider distribution, they have no problems in translating core doctrines, and they have no need to report to a central organization, or even follow guidelines placed by a central organization.
Scientology has the distinct disadvantage that, as a recognizable entity with a structure, leaders, et al., action can be taken against it in any number of ways--Anonymous is far less susceptable to thinks such as lawsuits, governmental interference, etc.
In the end, no matter what effect Anonymous has on Scientology, it will still be an interesting phenomenon to study.
(And while Scientology does know what they're doing in most cases, they have a very large blind spot brought on by their rigid structure and hierarchy, and their doctrines: they are unable to change to meet new challenges quickly and effectively. That, and they keep blaming space aliens for all their problems.)
From what I understand, the Church of Scientology is convinced at the moment that the Anonymous movement is being underwritten by either German psychiatrists or a space alien invader fleet.
Zim assures me that it's not him.;-p
And apologies if I conveyed an unclear message; I did not intend to denigrate the efforts of the folks who have been fighting against the practices of the Church of Scientology for some time now.
However, the Anonymous movement arose independently of the anti-scientology movement; it's only after (I think) January 23rd of this year that there began to be any sort of significant overlap between Anonymous and the existing anti-scientology organization. Anonymous has existed as an internet-based entity for some years now, and is only now making a significant crossover to the 'real world'.
I would caution you against underestimating Anonymous--there's rather a lot more to it than one might expect on first glance. Dismissing it as "just another example of a real world group coordinating via the internet" ignores some of the more interesting parts of this phenomenon.
As a disclaimer, I'm not an Anon myself--I just watch 'em.
Most protests aren't quite as large and as widely distributed as the Feb 10 protests.
Reports had attendance figures anywhere from the high 5k mark up to over the 9k mark, and there was a presence over a fair portion of the world.
I found some of the footage I saw amusing, though, especially the Atlanta protest where they called out the SWAT team to stand on the Scientologist's side of the street.
(Though...isn't there a water shortage there? 'cuz the Scientologists had their sprinklers on in a bunch of the pictures; I was under the impression that sprinkler usage wasn't allowed at the moment?)
I think so. I don't have any of my notes with me at the moment, so I'd have to look up where I found that information in the first place, but I'm fairly sure that it was some variant thereof.
Interestingly, I'd also read that Hubbard did not build the first one himself, and possibly may not have designed it--that he had hired an electrical engineer to do that.
As I recall, there was a patent filed in....1995, I think, that covered 'improvements' to the device in question (which is the grounds for the eBay removals, IIRC)--it may not work quite the same today as it used to.
From what I understand, after that volcano thing, all the ghosts were trapped in some kind of cineplex where they were shown movies that imparted the idea of 'god' into 'em.
I read something this morning about the OTVIII documents saying something about Jesus being a pedophile, too, but I don't recall where I read that.
Germany, especially, which is launching an investigation into their practices.
You may be interested in the phenomenon of Anonymous--a sort of movement that has coalesced to fight against the abuses of the Church of Scientology.
Interestingly, the 'official' position (if so nebulous a thing can have anything 'official') is not that the -religion- of scientology is wrong and evil, but that the -organization- that calls itself the 'Church of Scientology' does not deserve tax exemption, recognition as a church, etc.
I've been keeping track of Anonymous for some time--they seem to be the origin of many of the various memes that end up getting popular, so they seem to work well as a sort of miner's canary when discerning the opinion of the internet in general. This is, to my knowledge, the first time that this particular phenomenon has occurred--an internet movement that has had significant international effect in the real world. What makes it even more interesting is that it -has no leaders-. Somehow, out of total anarchy, it's managed to coalesce a sort of identity to itself, and has directed attention towards a single goal.
At any rate, it appears that as a followup to the February 10th protests (which were remarkable in themselves in that they were entirely without violence and none of the protesters in any of the countries were arrested--that has to be a first, in a protest of that scope) there are another series of protests being planned for March 15th--sort of a "Happy Birthday" to Hubbard, whose birthday was apparently March 13th and not conveniently on a Saturday this year. I've also heard some mention of plans for April, but not being an Anon, I don't know the details.
IIRC, one of the Anonymous-sponsored websites is youfoundthecard.com; it's worth looking into.
Slashdot Mirror
Efficiency isn't the point here, though.
The point appears to be to make modern art, not a usable interface.
Yes, I saw that, but other than a brief mention of a 'liberal' bias from the article, there's really no indication of what, exactly, was controversial.
I can't get to the blog itself at the moment, presumably because the IT folk here have turned up websense to "paranoide" and "deusexmalcontent" can be scanned as having the word "sex" in it, so I can't evaluate the content--
What, exactly, did he post that was so damn controversial that CNN felt the need to let him go?
Well, considering that port 80 is just about the only damn thing that isn't filtered and shaped to hell and back these days by the major telcos...
You'd be surprised, sometimes. Not all of 'em are complete idiots, and if you can manage to find a crack, you can at least worm the idea into their mind that the concept of evolution is not there because a bunch of scientists hate god--and really, that's usually all that's needed.
It's not that they need to -fully understand- the concept--merely reassuring them (and having them believe the reassurance) that it's no threat is often sufficient for most practical cases. If you can educate 'em a bit, and remove some misconceptions, then so much the better.
True enough--though I would note that the concept of evolution that is most commonly rejected is that which is presented in said works that you reference.
Correcting -that- misconception is always fun. Nearly always causes one of those "Wait.....what?" moments.
I define a 'theory' as a hypothesis that has the following attributes:
It forms the simplest and most complete explanation for a phenomenon.
It must be testable, and capable of being disproven--and, having been extensively tested, must not have been disproven.
It must be capable of being used to predict how a phenomenon will happen.
It must be entirely consistent with nature--no supernatural allowed, because supernatural events have nothing to do with science, and we're talking about scientific theories here.
Unless a hypothesis fulfills these constraints--and -all- of these constraints--it is not a theory.
My argumentation style in these matters is generally along the following lines: to stick to facts that cannot be denied, and to construct, using basic logic, the conclusion that is being denied from these undeniable facts. This technique has proven useful in the past--though it always could use improvement.
You're entirely correct; I mistyped. I hadn't finished my coffee yet, so I'll blame that. ;-p
True enough, and that's your perogative.
However, I'd note that it's a lot easier to observe the veracity of scientific assertions than theological ones.
Further, scientific assertions tend to be repeatable.
Probably the same guys who advise the RIAA. They're showing a similar level of 'technical expertise'.
That might work, though all the CAD/CAM folks will end up thinking it's the unvarnished truth that one must build reality from. ;-p
It's a perfect example of the Streisand Effect in action.
So the hypothetical creative being's spaceship/orbital platform/planet/space station/infinite plane's rotational period is 24 hours relative to the nearest source of intense light?
If we were on Jupiter, would you be insisting on a 60-hour creation?
Belief has nothing to do with it.
That's one rather large difference between science and religion: science still works when you don't believe in it.
Hell, science works when you actively try to -dis-believe it.
It's not really a question of religion, if you think about it--it's more a question of politics.
It just happens that the politics involved are largely being used within the framework of religion in order to maintain a certain population within a given power structure, and to resist attempts to overturn said power structure from the outside.
I have a hobby where I argue with various fundamentalists, creationists, and the like in order to understand their particular points of view--using them as an evolutionary pressure for my arguments, as it were, to see which ones have an effect.
I've noticed in my various arguments that the chief difficulty is getting them to understand the terminology behind the concepts--they simply do not have the vocabulary necessary to vocalize and understand the concepts in question.
One of those words that is most egregiously misused is "theory"--the "common" form of the word is almost universally understood, but the "scientific" meaning of the word, even when carefully explained, becomes conflated with the common form.
(Other difficulties I've noticed are: that those who do not accept evolutionary theory are convinced that evolution is directed towards some 'goal'; that all mutations are necessarily harmful; an ignorance of introns and other means by which genetic material can be added to a genome--one of the current arguments that crops up is the one about how you can't get more information into a genome by evolutionary means, which is, of course, utter bosh; a misunderstanding of the scientific method; the false notion that science attempts to be the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything rather than a best-fit approximation; and the notion that scientists are trying actively to discourage religion)
Other than teaching the proper meaning of the word 'theory'--which doesn't work very well, frankly; the meaning that they knew first tends to stick no matter how often you teach them the proper one due to recency bias--I'd perhaps recommend a slight change in terminology when speaking of hypotheses that have withstood rigorous testing. Such a change would, of course, have to be accepted by the scientific community as a whole, so it may not be practical--but it's perhaps worth giving some thought to.
I'd almost recommend 'theorem' rather than 'theory', to leech off of the mathematician's meaning, but while that word is appealing for reasons of similarity and having the proper tone, it may not be ideal due to conflation with mathematical proofs.
Oh, that's alright. My nice thick blinds will keep me safe. ;-p
I don't really think that any single person or entity 'controls' Anonymous-the-entity--and as such, there's really no 'orchestration' going on, as orchestration requires a conductor--while Anonymous is more along the lines of a very large jazz band jam session.
The phenomenon you mention, e.g. the dead dog picture, is not so much evidence of orchestration as evidence of memetic susceptability and a touch of perversity and 'peer pressure'. That is, if an image or whatnot evokes a strong emotional response, it is more likely to be re-enforced and passed along--this is one of the core principles behind advertising.
I would note that were Anonymous to 'coalesce' and become a fixed entity, it would indeed fail to have any effect against Scientology--but so long as Anonymous remains nebulous, centerless, and leaderless, it still retains a chance of having an effect.
Further, you've neglected to take into account the Silent Majority, as it were: both Scientology and Anonymous take 'recruits' from this pool, but Anonymous has a vast advantage in terms of recruiting--or at least, stopping Scientology from recruiting--from this pool. They have a much wider distribution, they have no problems in translating core doctrines, and they have no need to report to a central organization, or even follow guidelines placed by a central organization.
Scientology has the distinct disadvantage that, as a recognizable entity with a structure, leaders, et al., action can be taken against it in any number of ways--Anonymous is far less susceptable to thinks such as lawsuits, governmental interference, etc.
In the end, no matter what effect Anonymous has on Scientology, it will still be an interesting phenomenon to study.
(And while Scientology does know what they're doing in most cases, they have a very large blind spot brought on by their rigid structure and hierarchy, and their doctrines: they are unable to change to meet new challenges quickly and effectively. That, and they keep blaming space aliens for all their problems.)
Something about how no charges shall issue except on a warrant or something like that?
Wasn't one of the bits in the declaration of independence criticizing King George III about secret trials?
Bit sad, really, that it's coming to this.
I've seen it compared to the "Stand Alone Complex" from one of the Ghost in the Shell series. The comparison seems somewhat apt.
From what I understand, the Church of Scientology is convinced at the moment that the Anonymous movement is being underwritten by either German psychiatrists or a space alien invader fleet.
;-p
Zim assures me that it's not him.
And apologies if I conveyed an unclear message; I did not intend to denigrate the efforts of the folks who have been fighting against the practices of the Church of Scientology for some time now.
However, the Anonymous movement arose independently of the anti-scientology movement; it's only after (I think) January 23rd of this year that there began to be any sort of significant overlap between Anonymous and the existing anti-scientology organization. Anonymous has existed as an internet-based entity for some years now, and is only now making a significant crossover to the 'real world'.
I would caution you against underestimating Anonymous--there's rather a lot more to it than one might expect on first glance. Dismissing it as "just another example of a real world group coordinating via the internet" ignores some of the more interesting parts of this phenomenon.
As a disclaimer, I'm not an Anon myself--I just watch 'em.
Most protests aren't quite as large and as widely distributed as the Feb 10 protests.
Reports had attendance figures anywhere from the high 5k mark up to over the 9k mark, and there was a presence over a fair portion of the world.
I found some of the footage I saw amusing, though, especially the Atlanta protest where they called out the SWAT team to stand on the Scientologist's side of the street.
(Though...isn't there a water shortage there? 'cuz the Scientologists had their sprinklers on in a bunch of the pictures; I was under the impression that sprinkler usage wasn't allowed at the moment?)
I think so. I don't have any of my notes with me at the moment, so I'd have to look up where I found that information in the first place, but I'm fairly sure that it was some variant thereof.
Interestingly, I'd also read that Hubbard did not build the first one himself, and possibly may not have designed it--that he had hired an electrical engineer to do that.
As I recall, there was a patent filed in....1995, I think, that covered 'improvements' to the device in question (which is the grounds for the eBay removals, IIRC)--it may not work quite the same today as it used to.
From what I understand, after that volcano thing, all the ghosts were trapped in some kind of cineplex where they were shown movies that imparted the idea of 'god' into 'em.
I read something this morning about the OTVIII documents saying something about Jesus being a pedophile, too, but I don't recall where I read that.
Germany, especially, which is launching an investigation into their practices.
You may be interested in the phenomenon of Anonymous--a sort of movement that has coalesced to fight against the abuses of the Church of Scientology.
Interestingly, the 'official' position (if so nebulous a thing can have anything 'official') is not that the -religion- of scientology is wrong and evil, but that the -organization- that calls itself the 'Church of Scientology' does not deserve tax exemption, recognition as a church, etc.
I've been keeping track of Anonymous for some time--they seem to be the origin of many of the various memes that end up getting popular, so they seem to work well as a sort of miner's canary when discerning the opinion of the internet in general. This is, to my knowledge, the first time that this particular phenomenon has occurred--an internet movement that has had significant international effect in the real world. What makes it even more interesting is that it -has no leaders-. Somehow, out of total anarchy, it's managed to coalesce a sort of identity to itself, and has directed attention towards a single goal.
At any rate, it appears that as a followup to the February 10th protests (which were remarkable in themselves in that they were entirely without violence and none of the protesters in any of the countries were arrested--that has to be a first, in a protest of that scope) there are another series of protests being planned for March 15th--sort of a "Happy Birthday" to Hubbard, whose birthday was apparently March 13th and not conveniently on a Saturday this year. I've also heard some mention of plans for April, but not being an Anon, I don't know the details.
IIRC, one of the Anonymous-sponsored websites is youfoundthecard.com; it's worth looking into.