That is completely ridiculous suggestion. Have you seen books pre-calculator times?
Before graphing calculators, students had to spend an enormous amount of time graphing on graph paper. Also, an insame amount of time learning how a graph of a certain function might look like. Why would you need that when you can just whip out your calculator and graph it? This allows teachers to cover more topics than spend all the time on computation.
Another example - conversion of metrics in trig; degress to radians was insanely painful and needed a lot of special computation techniques to be taught. So, you ended having to ditch more important things like the sine and cosine rule in favor in silly computation tricks which an American university class reaches.
And, how man Indian mathematicians are there? The most famous one, Ramjuian (I spelt his name wrong for sure), did most of his work by computation (his field was combinatorics). He was such a good computer that he was able to come up with a lot of stuff but that is only because he was exceptional in it. Most normal mathematical training would be ill-suited for computation experts.
Yes, race perception has been/is embedded in the society. But, there are stronger perception than just race to overcome that.
There have been a lot of "black nerds". Star Trek always has had black actors and they are part of the Enterprise crew rather than black. You can't dress and behave like a rap fan and expect to be treated like something else. (I'm not implying you did but just for example)
It is very important to understand how you want to be treated and work towards that in how you look and come off. People who say looks don't matter and all are bullshitting since perception is all we have. If people are trying to use "street slang" and rap, then you must come off as a target for that.
The sad thing is that after a while people begin to lean towards what is expected of them. That is complete and utter bullshit, sorry. People do not change. That is a solid fact. No matter how much even a spouse tries to change the other it doesn't work! We have a personality and it doesn't change. You don't start talking in street slang if people talk to you in that. You find people who don't talk to you like that and talk with them.
For them to have succesful tours, people need to hear their music, record labels don't help with this.
No they do. A record label isn't going to take on a band and not promote it. The 'smaller' bands have a different target market and they cater to that.
Whoa, whoa? I kinda see what you are saying but I don't understand how this invalidates my point.
If a Union Carbide is bought out my Dow Chemicals, then where does the Union Carbide responsibities go? Obviously, it just doesn't end. Where does it go?
Survivors not compenstated: wrong. There was a settlement, but the *Indian* court system has had it tied up for years. IIRC the settlement was in the 400 million dollar range, and it did a good job of bankrupting UC.
If survirors were compensated 1 cent then would you still claim that they were compensated? It's about the amount of compensation not being enough rather than not being compensated. There were hundreds of thousands of people in Bhopal and $400 million among them is about $400 per person.
Dow Chemical is somehow responsable: Wrong. Dow chemical bought what was left of Union carbide in the late 80's / early 90's, long after the disaster settlements had been made. Holding Dow responsable for Bhopal would be like an AMX owner suing DiamlerChrysler 20 years after getting a settlement out of AMX.
So, what happens then? The responsibilites disapper into thin air when a company is bought by another company?
Union Carbide ran an evil nasty horrible pit of dispair of a factory. Right. Sorta. The plant fell in line with many Indian safety standards, which at the time were no where near what our standards are. Of course inspections and safety take a back seat to giving people a job in developing countries. This is nothing new.
Yeah, but you do realize that this is the worst industrial disaster ever?
Bhopal was a horrifying disaster, but the impression I'm getting is that India is becoming a truly western society. The scummy lawyers are shooting out of the woodwork to go after the deepest pockets. UC's former chairman stil works for Dow, but once the courts on both sides get their heads out of their asses, he'll end up facing charges in India, it's just a matter of time
We all hate lawyers but let's not bring them into this to bolster arguements.
Well, in that regard doctors shouldn't cure their patients. If they are cured then the doctor's services are no longer needed!
I think the workers have created tools so that they don't have to repeatedly do tedious processes over and over again.
When was a piece of software finished never to be worked on again because it is perfect? There is always little things to do. Article does not have to reach an end.
When has a Darwinain process evened out kinks? The Darwinain process is the most ill-understood or ill-used concepts ever. There is no point even going into the contradictions that above statement spews out.
Of course, the authority part makes conventional encyclopedias useless in many regards. A lot of the ideas are at least 50 years old and some ideas out of date.
Dude, didn't you watch "A Beautiful Mind". If everyone competes, then no-one gets laid going for the blonde. On the other hand, if we co-operate then everyone gets laid.
What I'm saying is #1 is important. However, we also set ourselves culture and laws to protect ourselves by co-operating. That's what treaties are. If someone killed someone else and took their house and posession and we had to law for it, everyone would start killing each other and we'd never get anywhere.
So, we can't get into stupid competative races that all humans are prone to. Everyone agrees to cut down pollution, then everyone shares the burden. However, by doing so we make earth less polluted and more efficient use of resources for a more productive life.
No, but you're surely going to go through hell for a few months, or years, and there's a very good chance you might die. For what? So you can pay less in taxes?
Tell me what personal calculation would motivate someone to say "Give me Liberty or give me death!". What would motivate someone to go through the pure hell that was Valley Forge?
Nope, it's not about cost/benefit, it's about ideas and ideals.
I don't mean people bring out their actuarial tables and calculate the probabilies to the best they can. People see things being beneficial for them and thus, join a cause.
Plus, I don't know which revolution you're using a reference as but it can be exciting times socially for young mens to improve their status quickly.
The personal calculations aren't as I said done on a spreadsheet but done on what our human brain can compute. For hundreds of thousands of years in human history we didn't have societies this large. Thus, the human brain isn't really meant to tackle thinking in terms of large socities and that kind of problems implicitly (I mean without a lot of rigious training). The implications to society might be large but personal confidence (however misguided) might be a factor in all of this.
What I'm saying is on a small scale very dependent on the small set of people we know well we act in definite ways that is driven my personal selfishness. On a big scale it might all wrong and all but as humans who have lived most of our existence in small groups can't really comprehend the large modern societial implications.
I'm sleepy. I hope I made some sense in trying to get what I'm saying.
Cancer cells are broken cells. They're not doing stuff they're designed to. So, it doesn't count. That's a really lame way to try and counter my point!
Every cell is an inactive cancer cell.
A lot of active cancer cells are taken care of the immune system.
If that were true, there would be no revolutions. Participating in a revolution is a good way to get killed. A selfish analysis by nearly any rational person would conclude that living under less than ideal conditions is better than a painful death after living for months in absolutely terrible conditions.
Revolutions are driven by idealism, not by calculations of personal gain/loss.
Duh, it's not. There is a probability that you will get killed but there's also the probability of benefit if the revolution succeeds. It's not like you're surely going to die when you partake a revolution.
Adultery is a moral offence that is a crime in some countries, but not in the US.
I think it's only against women though. I don't think any country has adultery laws against men (that makes it a crime).
So, the question would be if committing adultery is a "victimless" crime of the type you characterized as a "self-regarding action" or is it an offence that harms the person being cheated on? Clearly adultery affects more than the person who commits it. My point is not to argue that adultery should be illegal, but that there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.
I think the reason laws are there is so that if a wrong does happen to you then you don't have to feel that you have to avenge. In mafia, someone kills someone and it's upto the family to avenge the murder. By writing in clear terms and relinquishing our control for murder to a higher authority, we know what murdering will get us. So, it can't be done for conflict resolution or gain since the cost is very high as punishment. Since humans existed before people thought up laws and such, this was the mechanism we choose to resolve.
Our morality on adultery stems from the fact that we don't cheat because we don't want to be cheated on. If you don't care if you're cheated on, then people do cheat (as can be seen many situations).
But we are capable of handling audltery on our own. There is no need to relinquish the control the government for fairness.
Think of a society like a living organism. Cells can only take so many "insults" before becoming cancerous. Similarly, individuals can only become so annoyed before they revolt. We tend to think of those insults as oppression, but they can also be in the form of not being able to oppress others enough. Just look at the US civil war.
That is wrong wrong wrong. Society is NOT like a living organism. In a living organism, the cells all work together selflessly to form the organism and for the benefit of the organism. In a society, selflessness and sharing is only limited to family and loved ones, not to the entire society as a whole. Each person is infinitely selfish and only does better for the society given a system where he can rewarded for such.
People don't revolt because they're annoyed!!! They revolt because it's personally better for them to revolt that to live without revolting.
Obviously, having a huge database of music to download for free anytime is a huge benefit for the average slashdot crowd. There is nothing to lose (as they are not RIAA shareholders or employees) and everything to gain.
However, losing your job to an Indian programmer is personally bad and has only disadvantages to the average slashdotter (as a majority are in the computer field).
OK, you knew that. I'm just being Mr. Obvious here. What I don't understand is why you want to point this out? People will come up with all sort of ridiculous explanations for why since as humans the reasons are not as important as the final view or outcome.
I think it's faulty thinking (inspired by the Greeks) that we should hold to one logic all the time when it comes to personal things. We should be able to take any side of a rule depending on which benefits us the most!
Said person supposedly operating in ignorance could be given the benefit of the doubt with exactly _ONE_ warning, and given a finite interval (perhaps 2 weeks) in which to rectify the situation. Failure to comply within that interval would leave them without any excuse for not knowing they were distributing.
Two weeks is too long. The given file will already be shared and downloaded and history in 2 weeks.
If someone were to get a CD player in this day and age, they would get one with digital output. I think the amplifiers and speakers come more into play here.
Headphones produce a completely different field of sound than speakers. You'll hear things completely different with headphones. The song has to be mixed down with headphones to sound best on headphones which most CDs are not.
The computer fan prob. produces more noise than the difference between the sound cards. It's amazing how much rationalizing $150 sound card can make your perpections different. Unless you're listening with headphones loud enough to cause long-term ear damange.
My point is that for your suggestions might not be as valid as you think:)
Dude, you're living under a rock if you think China is limited to doing the gruntwork (like people talk about India outsourcing).
Just for example, look at the graduate students in any science program in any American university. Half of them are Chinese.
So, in the next generation, even the American base of scientific research will be Chinese.
The point is that China has placed a lot of emphasis in development of basic scientifc research. The US universities who know they need the best of the world finds most in China.
Google works very well for certain things, most notably anything computer related (like programming, or some sort of reference).
However, it's horrendous in many other aspects. I have to search through pages and pages to get the data I want.
And, it's not transparent at all. I have to think - OK how does Google store this and how do I best phrase my search query.
Google has a lot lot more ways to go.
In the end, once they get developed to some reasonable extent, they're gonna hit the wall because the way their society is organized, it can't truly prosper. To make that final step, they'll need good democracy.
Maybe I haven't been keeping up but I don't see how your conclusion of hitting a wall follows from the organization of society.
You obviously under-estimate the brain's ability to be fooled.
I'm sure hollywood will devise methods, effects to counter that.
If your brain could be fooled on VHS, then it can be fooled on HDTV! It's just that the technology is new and no-one's figured that out yet.
Slashdot Mirror
That is completely ridiculous suggestion. Have you seen books pre-calculator times?
Before graphing calculators, students had to spend an enormous amount of time graphing on graph paper. Also, an insame amount of time learning how a graph of a certain function might look like. Why would you need that when you can just whip out your calculator and graph it? This allows teachers to cover more topics than spend all the time on computation.
Another example - conversion of metrics in trig; degress to radians was insanely painful and needed a lot of special computation techniques to be taught. So, you ended having to ditch more important things like the sine and cosine rule in favor in silly computation tricks which an American university class reaches.
And, how man Indian mathematicians are there? The most famous one, Ramjuian (I spelt his name wrong for sure), did most of his work by computation (his field was combinatorics). He was such a good computer that he was able to come up with a lot of stuff but that is only because he was exceptional in it. Most normal mathematical training would be ill-suited for computation experts.
Yes, race perception has been/is embedded in the society. But, there are stronger perception than just race to overcome that.
There have been a lot of "black nerds". Star Trek always has had black actors and they are part of the Enterprise crew rather than black. You can't dress and behave like a rap fan and expect to be treated like something else. (I'm not implying you did but just for example)
It is very important to understand how you want to be treated and work towards that in how you look and come off. People who say looks don't matter and all are bullshitting since perception is all we have. If people are trying to use "street slang" and rap, then you must come off as a target for that.
The sad thing is that after a while people begin to lean towards what is expected of them. That is complete and utter bullshit, sorry. People do not change. That is a solid fact. No matter how much even a spouse tries to change the other it doesn't work! We have a personality and it doesn't change. You don't start talking in street slang if people talk to you in that. You find people who don't talk to you like that and talk with them.
For them to have succesful tours, people need to hear their music, record labels don't help with this.
No they do. A record label isn't going to take on a band and not promote it. The 'smaller' bands have a different target market and they cater to that.
Whoa, whoa? I kinda see what you are saying but I don't understand how this invalidates my point. If a Union Carbide is bought out my Dow Chemicals, then where does the Union Carbide responsibities go? Obviously, it just doesn't end. Where does it go?
Survivors not compenstated: wrong. There was a settlement, but the *Indian* court system has had it tied up for years. IIRC the settlement was in the 400 million dollar range, and it did a good job of bankrupting UC.
If survirors were compensated 1 cent then would you still claim that they were compensated? It's about the amount of compensation not being enough rather than not being compensated. There were hundreds of thousands of people in Bhopal and $400 million among them is about $400 per person.
Dow Chemical is somehow responsable: Wrong. Dow chemical bought what was left of Union carbide in the late 80's / early 90's, long after the disaster settlements had been made. Holding Dow responsable for Bhopal would be like an AMX owner suing DiamlerChrysler 20 years after getting a settlement out of AMX.
So, what happens then? The responsibilites disapper into thin air when a company is bought by another company?
Union Carbide ran an evil nasty horrible pit of dispair of a factory. Right. Sorta. The plant fell in line with many Indian safety standards, which at the time were no where near what our standards are. Of course inspections and safety take a back seat to giving people a job in developing countries. This is nothing new.
Yeah, but you do realize that this is the worst industrial disaster ever?
Bhopal was a horrifying disaster, but the impression I'm getting is that India is becoming a truly western society. The scummy lawyers are shooting out of the woodwork to go after the deepest pockets. UC's former chairman stil works for Dow, but once the courts on both sides get their heads out of their asses, he'll end up facing charges in India, it's just a matter of time
We all hate lawyers but let's not bring them into this to bolster arguements.
Well, in that regard doctors shouldn't cure their patients. If they are cured then the doctor's services are no longer needed! I think the workers have created tools so that they don't have to repeatedly do tedious processes over and over again.
When was a piece of software finished never to be worked on again because it is perfect? There is always little things to do. Article does not have to reach an end.
When has a Darwinain process evened out kinks? The Darwinain process is the most ill-understood or ill-used concepts ever. There is no point even going into the contradictions that above statement spews out.
Of course, the authority part makes conventional encyclopedias useless in many regards. A lot of the ideas are at least 50 years old and some ideas out of date.
Well, it could be worse. They could pour water over it, let it dry and return as defective.
Dude, didn't you watch "A Beautiful Mind". If everyone competes, then no-one gets laid going for the blonde. On the other hand, if we co-operate then everyone gets laid. What I'm saying is #1 is important. However, we also set ourselves culture and laws to protect ourselves by co-operating. That's what treaties are. If someone killed someone else and took their house and posession and we had to law for it, everyone would start killing each other and we'd never get anywhere. So, we can't get into stupid competative races that all humans are prone to. Everyone agrees to cut down pollution, then everyone shares the burden. However, by doing so we make earth less polluted and more efficient use of resources for a more productive life.
The dollar is not a profit-maximizing corporation.
What next? Water has monopoly over showering substance?
No, but you're surely going to go through hell for a few months, or years, and there's a very good chance you might die. For what? So you can pay less in taxes? Tell me what personal calculation would motivate someone to say "Give me Liberty or give me death!". What would motivate someone to go through the pure hell that was Valley Forge? Nope, it's not about cost/benefit, it's about ideas and ideals. I don't mean people bring out their actuarial tables and calculate the probabilies to the best they can. People see things being beneficial for them and thus, join a cause. Plus, I don't know which revolution you're using a reference as but it can be exciting times socially for young mens to improve their status quickly. The personal calculations aren't as I said done on a spreadsheet but done on what our human brain can compute. For hundreds of thousands of years in human history we didn't have societies this large. Thus, the human brain isn't really meant to tackle thinking in terms of large socities and that kind of problems implicitly (I mean without a lot of rigious training). The implications to society might be large but personal confidence (however misguided) might be a factor in all of this. What I'm saying is on a small scale very dependent on the small set of people we know well we act in definite ways that is driven my personal selfishness. On a big scale it might all wrong and all but as humans who have lived most of our existence in small groups can't really comprehend the large modern societial implications. I'm sleepy. I hope I made some sense in trying to get what I'm saying.
Cancer cells are broken cells. They're not doing stuff they're designed to. So, it doesn't count. That's a really lame way to try and counter my point! Every cell is an inactive cancer cell. A lot of active cancer cells are taken care of the immune system.
If that were true, there would be no revolutions. Participating in a revolution is a good way to get killed. A selfish analysis by nearly any rational person would conclude that living under less than ideal conditions is better than a painful death after living for months in absolutely terrible conditions. Revolutions are driven by idealism, not by calculations of personal gain/loss. Duh, it's not. There is a probability that you will get killed but there's also the probability of benefit if the revolution succeeds. It's not like you're surely going to die when you partake a revolution.
Adultery is a moral offence that is a crime in some countries, but not in the US.
I think it's only against women though. I don't think any country has adultery laws against men (that makes it a crime).
So, the question would be if committing adultery is a "victimless" crime of the type you characterized as a "self-regarding action" or is it an offence that harms the person being cheated on? Clearly adultery affects more than the person who commits it. My point is not to argue that adultery should be illegal, but that there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.
I think the reason laws are there is so that if a wrong does happen to you then you don't have to feel that you have to avenge. In mafia, someone kills someone and it's upto the family to avenge the murder. By writing in clear terms and relinquishing our control for murder to a higher authority, we know what murdering will get us. So, it can't be done for conflict resolution or gain since the cost is very high as punishment. Since humans existed before people thought up laws and such, this was the mechanism we choose to resolve.
Our morality on adultery stems from the fact that we don't cheat because we don't want to be cheated on. If you don't care if you're cheated on, then people do cheat (as can be seen many situations).
But we are capable of handling audltery on our own. There is no need to relinquish the control the government for fairness.
Think of a society like a living organism. Cells can only take so many "insults" before becoming cancerous. Similarly, individuals can only become so annoyed before they revolt. We tend to think of those insults as oppression, but they can also be in the form of not being able to oppress others enough. Just look at the US civil war.
That is wrong wrong wrong. Society is NOT like a living organism. In a living organism, the cells all work together selflessly to form the organism and for the benefit of the organism. In a society, selflessness and sharing is only limited to family and loved ones, not to the entire society as a whole. Each person is infinitely selfish and only does better for the society given a system where he can rewarded for such. People don't revolt because they're annoyed!!! They revolt because it's personally better for them to revolt that to live without revolting.
Hmm, I wonder why the discrepancy?
Obviously, having a huge database of music to download for free anytime is a huge benefit for the average slashdot crowd. There is nothing to lose (as they are not RIAA shareholders or employees) and everything to gain.
However, losing your job to an Indian programmer is personally bad and has only disadvantages to the average slashdotter (as a majority are in the computer field).
OK, you knew that. I'm just being Mr. Obvious here. What I don't understand is why you want to point this out? People will come up with all sort of ridiculous explanations for why since as humans the reasons are not as important as the final view or outcome.
I think it's faulty thinking (inspired by the Greeks) that we should hold to one logic all the time when it comes to personal things. We should be able to take any side of a rule depending on which benefits us the most!
Two weeks is too long. The given file will already be shared and downloaded and history in 2 weeks.
If someone were to get a CD player in this day and age, they would get one with digital output. I think the amplifiers and speakers come more into play here. Headphones produce a completely different field of sound than speakers. You'll hear things completely different with headphones. The song has to be mixed down with headphones to sound best on headphones which most CDs are not. The computer fan prob. produces more noise than the difference between the sound cards. It's amazing how much rationalizing $150 sound card can make your perpections different. Unless you're listening with headphones loud enough to cause long-term ear damange. My point is that for your suggestions might not be as valid as you think :)
Yes it does.
Tube amplifiers add their own harmonic frequencies to the sound they amplify. They color the sound with harmonics that are pleasing to the ear.
However, solid state amps do no such thing and amplify exactly the sounds it's asked to amplify.
Thus, the tube amplifier sounds better !!!
Dude, you're living under a rock if you think China is limited to doing the gruntwork (like people talk about India outsourcing). Just for example, look at the graduate students in any science program in any American university. Half of them are Chinese. So, in the next generation, even the American base of scientific research will be Chinese. The point is that China has placed a lot of emphasis in development of basic scientifc research. The US universities who know they need the best of the world finds most in China.
Google works very well for certain things, most notably anything computer related (like programming, or some sort of reference). However, it's horrendous in many other aspects. I have to search through pages and pages to get the data I want. And, it's not transparent at all. I have to think - OK how does Google store this and how do I best phrase my search query. Google has a lot lot more ways to go.
In the end, once they get developed to some reasonable extent, they're gonna hit the wall because the way their society is organized, it can't truly prosper. To make that final step, they'll need good democracy.
Maybe I haven't been keeping up but I don't see how your conclusion of hitting a wall follows from the organization of society.
You obviously under-estimate the brain's ability to be fooled. I'm sure hollywood will devise methods, effects to counter that. If your brain could be fooled on VHS, then it can be fooled on HDTV! It's just that the technology is new and no-one's figured that out yet.
I know Hindi and Urdu has similar things, where you talk to people of different ranks using a different set of conjugation on the verbs.
They can show pictures of food taken by digital camera they want to peddle.