Does this mean that we can kill sleeping people? Since sleeping people are not conscious, they just have the potential for consciousness if they wake up, why care about that lump of cells?
Oh, come on! Sleeping is just a temporary recharging of batteries, and not even fully unconcious. A self sustaining person (late embryonic stage and onwards) has realised at least parts of his potential. To destroy this would be wrong IMHO. I agree that this can be a difficult line to draw, but that example is just stupid. Try a brain dead trauma victim instead! (In that case, i don't think he/she has any more value than a corpse, since the actual person has been permanently destroyed. Even if the lump of cells can be kept alive, that would be pointless.)
you're going to have a very hard time deciding between you who is right.
Yes, we will. I admit that. But I think this is a debate we will have to take. There is no easy absolute logically consistant "right" here. Except for the pro-life stance of course, that is a simple easily defined answer. But I think that stance is a mistake. For example, I value womens rights, and without the right to decide over their own bodies there is no such thing as equality between sexes. And I am not ready to throw that away just to gain a easily defined moral ground to stand on.
Trust me, when all involved know of this beforehand, the bridge won't collapse! When you have to trust your work with your life, you do a good job.
No matter how wicked this sounds, it probably worked... I doubt many people was killed. (Of cours Stalin more than compensated for the lack of bloodshed in other ways...)
I think there are at least one country that is holding on to old (supposedly outdated) Surface To Sea missiles for this exact reason.
Test (where they were presumably used as target practice) showed that they were very difficult to hit due to their erratic flight. This "feature" (and now we are talking eature in the MS sense, folks) was considered to compensate for their low accuracy.
Calculations indicated that they would have a higher kill ratio than a better missile would. Wierd!
So on one hand you have the inflicting of a belief on a being that 100% of the people believe is human,
Actually, this is not true. At least two groups claim otherwise.
Racists who think that black/white/whatever people are not fully human, or at least "not equally equal" to the rest of humanity.
Then, you have (more interestingly) those who don't make a distinction between human life and other suficciently advanced life (usually mamal).
I hate the guts of the first group, but the other one has a point, well, sort of...
I don't think there is any "objective" reason to value human life higher than, say a horse. I do however value human life higher than other lifeforms, but that is a completely subjective stance to take. I value mankind higher because they are my species! And I value my friends and family higher than the rest of mankind, because I know them.
I mean, if you ask any (non religious) human what makes a life more valuable than another they would answer intelligence (naturally, because it places us on top). If you could ask the horse however, I think you would get a completely different answer that would classify horses as the most valuable life form.
Values are completely subjective, and depend entirely on who you ask.
If this wasn't true, there would for example be no war. A large part of training for war is objectification of the enemy. (It's hard to kill an actual person, since most people value human life.)
For example, the enemy is often given a nickname to isolate them from the rest of mankind in the troops eyes. Some american examples are Fritz (German), Charlie/Gooks (Vietnamese), Skinnies (Somalian), Chrunchies/Towel Heads (Iraki). This has been done by all armies in all times.
I believe that most people in the pro-life camp think that those in the pro-choice camp believe that killing is bad but sanctioneable. Not that killing is good.
No, they are wrong. Many of us actually believe that conciousness is worth preserving. Not a lump of cells. Thus we do not value a the early stages of an embryo as much as a more mature embryo.
I personaly view an embryo as a potential person. And, yes, taking that potential away is unfortunate.
But billions of eggs and sperms are wasted every day, and every one of them holds this potential (to a lesser degree), who mourns them?
Fact is, not all potential humans can get a shot at existance, so we better make sure that those who do get a good shot at it!
And that is one of the reasons I am pro-choice. If you are to young and pregnant, have an abortion. You may waste that potential but you can have another baby later, when you are ready, and give that potential human (who wouldn't get the chance otherwise, people doesn't make infinite number of babys) a better start in life.
Ok, I'll go back and reread it. English is not my mother tongue (obviously), and I might have misinterpreted some statements. (I must admit, I was coding and reading at the same time. So I didn't pay full attention to the reading.) Anyway, it was an amusing read, you can really see the scene with your minds eye. The smiling, polite and machiavellic lawyer. The squirming, sweating "victim" trying to survive the questioning. Gradually realizing that he is making an ass out of him self and will be the laughing stock on campus for months to come... It's better than Ally McBeal I tell you!;-)
...getting grilled by a guy who wouldn't know the business end of a compiler
That one I can relate to, I get it every other week. By my boss.;-)
He may indeed know that. But when you read the transcript you clearly see that the guy is in severe pain. And clearly out of his depth technically.
Actually I kind of enjoyed reading this.
My guess is that he hasn't kept up with the last decades of OS/desktop development and focused on management instead. Microsoft hasn't made it easy for him... For example, read the guys really amusing attempt to avoid admitting that there are no "cross-dependencies" between notepad.exe and IE, as previously claimed by Microsoft.
One day all of america wakes up and finds their closet full of Bin Laden t-shirts.
The president of the USA has to cut his visit to france short after having the words "F**k you frog-eaters!" suddenly appear on his tie during an important meeting.
In China earthquakes are triggered as 1 billion people frantically try to get rid of the illegal "Free Tibet" t-shirts that suddenly are everywhere. And so on. It's the end of the world as we know it!
And somwhere, in his parents dark basement, a 15-year old pimple-faced script-kiddie who can't get laid giggles as his revenge on society takes effect.
Not to mention, how the hell is windows democratic?
To my knowledge everything windows is controlled by one single entity, Microsoft, and ultimately by a handful of people (Ballmer, Gates etc.). And they are, of course, unelected and unaccountable.
I am not saying that for example linux (the most "democratic") is anything but a meritocracy. But when I am faced with a choice between meritocracy and despotism, I choose meritocracy every time.
More than I would trust one ending with.gov.
At least the word anarchy (probably) makes you pay attention to what they are saying and force you to evaluate the information critically. If it passes this evaluation it is, IMHO, more worth than any information you just swallow down because some source with "authority" tells you.
This is one of the good things about slashdot too. Half of what is posted here is rubbish, there are true gems here too. But you have to use your intellect to find them.
Thats it!
From now on I'll be doing all my documentation as haiku, starting with my custom streamInputHandler for Apache Fop;-) This may actually make documentation a little less boring methinks.
I wonder what my boss will say. (If she bothers to look at the code, that is...)
Cast as inputHandler,
Arguments enter as streams
Call getParser next.
Ok, that was terrible! I don't even dare to count the syllables.
Curse those long class and function names! Maybe I'll get better with a little practice...
i.e. a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?
And don't forget to tap everyones phone while you're at it!
This must be the most privacy infringing statement I have ever seen on the slashdot frontpage.
On the other hand, they already have a system that would/may be capable of somthing like monitoring a large portion of net communications. Echelon. And they never bothered to tell anybody about that one in the first place... Some people may be all to willing to put it in **AA's service...
I find this proposition just as frightening as any of Holling's half baked bills.
cmdrTaco will probably recieve one of those Cease & Desist letters in the next few days...
A slashdotting, even in a comment is bound to be noticed on that shitty site. oh, well. That what that stupid lawyer claims isn't wort the paper it's written on, and I can't imagine it will amount to anything. Not even in an us courtroom (no offence).
If he's actually speaking from the heart, then he may actually be one of the stupid ones.
Or he might be a intelligent man with morals... but I guess that is considered stupid in american politics. In politics anywhere when I come to think about it.
I think we just hit the real issue here. Thanks, now I am really depressed.
Very few people ever ask "why", and even fewer ever seek out an answer.
And those who do are called geeks, and shunned by the general population as beeing wierd, boring and making to much money for not doing something useful, like managing or marketing...
Sad but true.
Joe Sixpack is not interested. Just imagine what could be achived if all those wasted brain-ticks was put to use (no not all non geeks are stupid).
Sure, there are many other worthwile pursuits in life, but society could use a higher percentage of geeks IMHO.
The same thing can be said about people interested in politics, history and other subjects. But most people just don't work that way.
They are not interested in complexity, just simplicity.
Human nature, I guess...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes...
...unless he plans to give the world "ghostwriter" a whole new meaning.
Does this mean that we can kill sleeping people? Since sleeping people are not conscious, they just have the potential for consciousness if they wake up, why care about that lump of cells?
Oh, come on! Sleeping is just a temporary recharging of batteries, and not even fully unconcious. A self sustaining person (late embryonic stage and onwards) has realised at least parts of his potential. To destroy this would be wrong IMHO. I agree that this can be a difficult line to draw, but that example is just stupid.
Try a brain dead trauma victim instead!
(In that case, i don't think he/she has any more value than a corpse, since the actual person has been permanently destroyed. Even if the lump of cells can be kept alive, that would be pointless.)
you're going to have a very hard time deciding between you who is right.
Yes, we will. I admit that.
But I think this is a debate we will have to take. There is no easy absolute logically consistant "right" here. Except for the pro-life stance of course, that is a simple easily defined answer. But I think that stance is a mistake. For example, I value womens rights, and without the right to decide over their own bodies there is no such thing as equality between sexes.
And I am not ready to throw that away just to gain a easily defined moral ground to stand on.
Well, call me old fashioned, but I want my processor to count both faster and more correct than me... ;)
Trust me, when all involved know of this beforehand, the bridge won't collapse!
When you have to trust your work with your life, you do a good job.
No matter how wicked this sounds, it probably worked... I doubt many people was killed.
(Of cours Stalin more than compensated for the lack of bloodshed in other ways...)
I think there are at least one country that is holding on to old (supposedly outdated) Surface To Sea missiles for this exact reason.
Test (where they were presumably used as target practice) showed that they were very difficult to hit due to their erratic flight.
This "feature" (and now we are talking eature in the MS sense, folks) was considered to compensate for their low accuracy.
Calculations indicated that they would have a higher kill ratio than a better missile would.
Wierd!
Well, lets hope they don't shoot during reboot then...
For some reason, Wordpad saves RTF files smaller than Word does. Go figure.
;-)
Easy, wordpad was too small to get all the bloat in.
I'm sure they will have fixed that in the next version of windows
Actually, this is not true.
At least two groups claim otherwise.
- Racists who think that black/white/whatever people are not fully human, or at least "not equally equal" to the rest of humanity.
- Then, you have (more interestingly) those who don't make a distinction between human life and other suficciently advanced life (usually mamal).
I hate the guts of the first group, but the other one has a point, well, sort of...I don't think there is any "objective" reason to value human life higher than, say a horse.
I do however value human life higher than other lifeforms, but that is a completely subjective stance to take. I value mankind higher because they are my species!
And I value my friends and family higher than the rest of mankind, because I know them.
I mean, if you ask any (non religious) human what makes a life more valuable than another they would answer intelligence (naturally, because it places us on top).
If you could ask the horse however, I think you would get a completely different answer that would classify horses as the most valuable life form.
Values are completely subjective, and depend entirely on who you ask.
If this wasn't true, there would for example be no war. A large part of training for war is objectification of the enemy.
(It's hard to kill an actual person, since most people value human life.)
For example, the enemy is often given a nickname to isolate them from the rest of mankind in the troops eyes. Some american examples are Fritz (German), Charlie/Gooks (Vietnamese), Skinnies (Somalian), Chrunchies/Towel Heads (Iraki).
This has been done by all armies in all times.
I believe that most people in the pro-life camp think that those in the pro-choice camp believe that killing is bad but sanctioneable. Not that killing is good.
No, they are wrong. Many of us actually believe that conciousness is worth preserving. Not a lump of cells.
Thus we do not value a the early stages of an embryo as much as a more mature embryo.
I personaly view an embryo as a potential person. And, yes, taking that potential away is unfortunate.
But billions of eggs and sperms are wasted every day, and every one of them holds this potential (to a lesser degree), who mourns them?
Fact is, not all potential humans can get a shot at existance, so we better make sure that those who do get a good shot at it!
And that is one of the reasons I am pro-choice.
If you are to young and pregnant, have an abortion. You may waste that potential but you can have another baby later, when you are ready, and give that potential human (who wouldn't get the chance otherwise, people doesn't make infinite number of babys) a better start in life.
Just my 0.02 kr
Ok, I'll go back and reread it. English is not my mother tongue (obviously), and I might have misinterpreted some statements. (I must admit, I was coding and reading at the same time. So I didn't pay full attention to the reading.) ;-)
...getting grilled by a guy who wouldn't know the business end of a compiler
;-)
Anyway, it was an amusing read, you can really see the scene with your minds eye. The smiling, polite and machiavellic lawyer. The squirming, sweating "victim" trying to survive the questioning. Gradually realizing that he is making an ass out of him self and will be the laughing stock on campus for months to come...
It's better than Ally McBeal I tell you!
That one I can relate to, I get it every other week.
By my boss.
He knows very well what KDE and GNOME are.
He may indeed know that. But when you read the transcript you clearly see that the guy is in severe pain. And clearly out of his depth technically.
Actually I kind of enjoyed reading this.
My guess is that he hasn't kept up with the last decades of OS/desktop development and focused on management instead.
Microsoft hasn't made it easy for him... For example, read the guys really amusing attempt to avoid admitting that there are no "cross-dependencies" between notepad.exe and IE, as previously claimed by Microsoft.
...organizations with serious management.
Which are, in my experience, few and far between.
And imagine the viruses...
One day all of america wakes up and finds their closet full of Bin Laden t-shirts.
The president of the USA has to cut his visit to france short after having the words "F**k you frog-eaters!" suddenly appear on his tie during an important meeting.
In China earthquakes are triggered as 1 billion people frantically try to get rid of the illegal "Free Tibet" t-shirts that suddenly are everywhere.
And so on.
It's the end of the world as we know it!
And somwhere, in his parents dark basement, a 15-year old pimple-faced script-kiddie who can't get laid giggles as his revenge on society takes effect.
I'm looking forward to painting cars with this...then EVERYONE can have flames on their SUV.
Moving flames too!
Now, the only problem is how the hell to afford a SUV...
We'll see in 6 months if this is all it's cracked up to be :)
I saw this toted as news six months ago in a dead tree tech paper.
I'm not holding my breath for practical application within another six months...
It would be immensly cool though.
Not to mention, how the hell is windows democratic?
To my knowledge everything windows is controlled by one single entity, Microsoft, and ultimately by a handful of people (Ballmer, Gates etc.).
And they are, of course, unelected and unaccountable.
I am not saying that for example linux (the most "democratic") is anything but a meritocracy. But when I am faced with a choice between meritocracy and despotism, I choose meritocracy every time.
Would You Trust a Source Named Anarchy?
.gov.
More than I would trust one ending with
At least the word anarchy (probably) makes you pay attention to what they are saying and force you to evaluate the information critically.
If it passes this evaluation it is, IMHO, more worth than any information you just swallow down because some source with "authority" tells you.
This is one of the good things about slashdot too. Half of what is posted here is rubbish, there are true gems here too. But you have to use your intellect to find them.
Earth's bacteria have been evolving to survive longer and reproduce more. Disease that kill their hosts and do it quickly are NOT successful at this.
Except those who have mastered the ability to produce spores.
For example anthrax.
Watch out, you are going to cut your self on Ockham's Razor...
From now on I'll be doing all my documentation as haiku, starting with my custom streamInputHandler for Apache Fop
This may actually make documentation a little less boring methinks.
I wonder what my boss will say. (If she bothers to look at the code, that is...) Ok, that was terrible!
I don't even dare to count the syllables.
Curse those long class and function names!
Maybe I'll get better with a little practice...
i.e. a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?
And don't forget to tap everyones phone while you're at it!
This must be the most privacy infringing statement I have ever seen on the slashdot frontpage.
On the other hand, they already have a system that would/may be capable of somthing like monitoring a large portion of net communications. Echelon.
And they never bothered to tell anybody about that one in the first place...
Some people may be all to willing to put it in **AA's service...
I find this proposition just as frightening as any of Holling's half baked bills.
cmdrTaco will probably recieve one of those Cease & Desist letters in the next few days...
A slashdotting, even in a comment is bound to be noticed on that shitty site.
oh, well.
That what that stupid lawyer claims isn't wort the paper it's written on, and I can't imagine it will amount to anything.
Not even in an us courtroom (no offence).
If he's actually speaking from the heart, then he may actually be one of the stupid ones.
Or he might be a intelligent man with morals... but I guess that is considered stupid in american politics.
In politics anywhere when I come to think about it.
I think we just hit the real issue here.
Thanks, now I am really depressed.
Very few people ever ask "why", and even fewer ever seek out an answer.
And those who do are called geeks, and shunned by the general population as beeing wierd, boring and making to much money for not doing something useful, like managing or marketing...
Sad but true.
Joe Sixpack is not interested.
Just imagine what could be achived if all those wasted brain-ticks was put to use (no not all non geeks are stupid).
Sure, there are many other worthwile pursuits in life, but society could use a higher percentage of geeks IMHO.
The same thing can be said about people interested in politics, history and other subjects.
But most people just don't work that way.
They are not interested in complexity, just simplicity.
Human nature, I guess...
Well, I was going to say Sweden, ;-)
but our king spells like cmdrTaco, so he probably doesn't fill out his own forms...