Lewis does address this theory- really, check him out sometime for a sane, non-American fundy view of Christianity. He actually leaves room for genetic and social origins of some morality, but argues that those alone don't totally explain the morality we observe.
I've recently gotten into Air Hogs Aero Ace. All the RC forums are full of fans and mods of this $30 biplane flier. It's small enough to fly in a yard, extremely crash proof, and available at Target/Toys-r-us/online. I've tried several other Air Hogs RC products, including a $60 heli, and still think the biplane is the easiest to fly and most enjoyable. Trouble is, I'm ready to graduate to the 'real' RC planes now.
I know he's a genius and all, but I think it's overstatement to say earth is "in chaos politically, socially, and environmentally." Compared to history, we're really pretty tame on all fronts. There's a few wars going on, but none on the scale of WWI or II, or older conflicts. There's plenty of social tension in the US and elsewhere, but not as violent as the 60s, and certainly no civil war is imminent. Global warming (or the new term "climate change") is a concern, but humankind survived an ice age and warmer temperatures in the past. So, here's my solution:
Promote free, democratic societies.
Those societies can use the democratic process to bring about political, social and environmental change as the need arises. The alternatives, while they may achieve temporary "fixes" on those fronts, would be far worse in the end.
I would suspect this works by routing transactions meeting certain criteria (ie source/destination state, name, etc.) through a monitoring system of some sort. From a security standpoint, there is a flaw in this system in that a potential terrorist could know he/she is being monitored. Even if the process is completely manual, a timing attack could determine the criteria being used. The attackers would simply initiate a bunch of transactions with varying names & locations, and record the time each takes. With that data, the attacker could determine a 'safe' location and name, or DoS the system by initiating a large number of unsafe transactions. A more secure approach (from Western Union's perspective) would be to delay all transactions for an equal amount of time, though I doubt that would go over too well. An alternative would be to randomly delay a "non-flagged" transaction for each "flagged" transaction.
Show me the logic in interpreting "something finite cannot completely comphrehend the infinite" as "we shouldn't teach math". If you're at all interested in honest, logical debate, you have to concede at least that that was a knee-jerk reaction on your part, and that it is similar to what I described. The merits of the concept itself is really a secondary issue, which you have not even begun to address- choosing rather to give examples of ways we understand certain aspects of infinite numbers, peppered with smug indirect jabs like "just because you say something is true..." and "I'll stick to logic".
it's clear i know every part i care to think about, therefore i must know it all.
No, you just know the parts you care to think about, which is a finite part of it and not anywhere near "knowing it all". My point is it is physically impossible for your finite brain to contain a full understanding of something infinite. As another example, you cannot think of every number between 1 and infinity. You may say you don't care to or call it a non-question, but in the end, there are numbers that exist that no human will never hold in their head.
As to the proof that there are more real numbers than natural, again, I said that it is possible to know things about the infinite- just not the full thing.
Face it, you did exactly what I was describing:
I suggested that the Pope _could_ have said something similar to "If God is infinite, and we are finite, it is impossible to fully comprehend Him", which Hawking took as "you shouldn't study origins."
You jumped to conclusions, and interpreted "If God is infinite, and we are finite, it is impossible to fully comprehend Him" as "we shouldn't teach math," when it's pretty clear I said no such thing. That's exactly the scenario I described, therefore you illustrated my point.
just because you claim something is true doesn't make it true, ya know.
Uh, ok. Same to 'ya'.
You're a perfect example of somebody misunderstanding the statement. It is possible to understand the finite portion of something infinite (ie 1,2,3), and even some aspects of the nature of the infinite portion (ie patterns, etc.), and it is definitely good to learn as much as possible about both. But by it's very definition, there are some things about "infinity" which are incomprehensible, for example, the largest number.
Thanks for illustrating that for me.
I have seen people misunderstand similar statements. A lot of Christians- and theists in general- say that there are aspects of reality that are inherently unknowable. If God is infinite, and we are finite, it is impossible to fully comprehend Him. To someone like Hawking, who has faith that there is nothing infinite, this can be taken as an afront.
That said, Roman Catholics do have a history- especially since the Reformation, of attempting a more rational approach and getting in deep water back-pedaling when it breaks down.
Alot of people don't realize it, but there is document versioning built into Word. If it's turned on, it will track changes, etc. by user. There is also pretty rich editing capabilities. Reviewers can mark up the doc with comments, etc... Adding sharepoint lets you distribute that process pretty well. Get an in-depth Word book and figure out how to do it in sharepoint/word.
What I'd really like to see next in telecommunications is the ability to call someone from anywhere, speak into a device, and have a person on the other end hear what I say, all the time, every time. Once they get that working, the other things will be nice too.
I'm not sure if I agree with his conclusions, but if he's right, and innovation is dead, it could be ironically construed as a 'big thing' in itself. Maybe we're turning a corner where technology is so commonplace and pervasive, we're no longer suprised by it- even when it does new things. In which case, the "next big thing" may be going camping for the weekend.
This is a beautiful example of the illogic of social relativism. It is popular to say morality is determined by what the current culture believes. Often this works- we have laws against murder because society deems murder "wrong". However, in this case, Chinese society has deemed criticising the government as wrong, while "Western" society deems it "right". Without any underlying framework to judge the two, a social relativist would be forced to accept the Chinese position here as "right".
I know it's not popular here, but I'm a.NET developer for a small contracting company, and all I know is there is more work than we can handle. On top of that, there are alot of people writing bad.NET code. As for resources, MSDN, FxCop, and Brad Abram's Framework Design Guidelines would start you out on the right foot.
I remember a little antecdote told by somebody who worked on a missle guidance system when she met the inventor of the mouse. He made some comment to her snubbing her work for being used to kill people, etc. She replied, something to the effect of "it uses a mouse."
Remember you put the 'terminally ill' buzzword back in. I chose not to argue about whether an embryo is alive because that was not the point I wanted to make, and because I don't have any expectation of rational debate on the issue in this venue. My point was that this scientist is just trying to get funding and relax ethics rules by dropping buzzwords like 'stem cell' and 'terminally ill'. I also addressed some of the common objections, such as the description of my opinion as 'attack' or 'coercion'.
Again, your wording proves my second point. You seem like a rational enough guy- step back and read your post. Do you honestly think I'm "attacking terminally ill people", when my point was against the scientist and not his potential test subjects? Why is it that my voicing my opinion is "attacking", but you're "debating"? Could it be that you're not as open to honest debate as you thought? In my mind, the person attacking terminally ill people is the one advocating throwing out ethics so they can use them as lab rats.
You have every right to tell people what you think, but you only have limited rights to tell them what to do.
Splitting hairs. Am I not allowed to say what I think if it involves what other people do? Aren't you telling me what to do by saying I shouldn't post my opinion that this scientist is playing 'buzzword bingo'? As for actually controlling what people do- as we agreed, the legal system and ethics commissions are the place for that, and we all have the right to affect their descisions by voicing opinion. But you only have to read this thread to see that there are many who think that people with my opinion should not have that right.
This is akin to advocating banning cars because they can be melted down and turned into guns.
No, that's pretty much completely different. In my book, harvesting embryonic stem cells is very similar ethically to harvesting organs. A lot of people consider the embryo alive and thus ending it's growth killing. In that context, it is much more similar than your example. Regardless of whether you agree on the 'life' issue, my point is there is an ethical issue, so you can't just say 'X' is ok, because this good thing would come of it. "Good things" could come from genocide, murder, and, yes, baby killing. Doesn't mean we should do them.
The 'commom objection' you are attempting to refute isn't really speaking to your right to speech, but the right of the other party to be free from coercion.
You're so stuck on this one it's hard for you to see what you just said: if I state my belief an embryo is alive, then I'm "coercing". If you state your believe it isn't, then it's fine. Double standard, and you just proved it.
There is also plenty of historical basis for changing the fucking rules.
Sure there is. Feel free to lobby congress (NOT the courts) to get whatever law you want. And give me the freedom to do the same. As you mention, though, "law" isn't the end-all to what is "right" or "wrong"- otherwise it would be wrong to change law. I would argue the same for "social law" like codes of ethics.
Apparently we disagree about what to call mixing a sperm and an egg and harvesting cells from the result. Fine.
Exactly my point. The debate is whether the embryo is alive. There are those who use the above arguments to say "even if an embryo is alive, it is right to kill it because xyz good things could happen". There are even more people that say "people who believe an embryo is alive should not be allowed to say so, or to have any effect in the legal system." My points refute both of those arguments. I haven't even started trying to convince you of the reasons I believe an embryo to be alive, yet you already say 'Just recognize that you aren't going to change my mind.' That tells me you have a very closed mind and are not interested in discussing that rationally. Which is fine.
Let's remove the words 'stem cell' and 'terminally ill' for a while. What he is advocating is relaxing the rules on human research for certain classes of people. His suggestion is morally reprehensible- expirimenting on humans without extensive research proving benefit and safety is just sick and isn't really good science. Regardless of the technology being tested or the body of people being tested on.
Common objections:
O: But it could save lives!
A: Breeding babies to full term and harvesting full grown organs for sale is possible now, could save lives, and is morally wrong. The ends do not justify the means.
O: You have no right to tell someone what to do with their body.
A: Actually I have a 'right' to tell people just about anything, and make my case. And they have a 'right' not to listen, or to listen objectively and change their mind.
O: If they consent to be expirimented on, who are you to object?
A: First, 'consent' is difficult to prove. How does one determine their consent wasn't coerced? Second, there is plenty of historical basis for prohibiting someone from doing everything they want- it's called the legal system. Again, a person may consent to have a child for the express purpose of killing it and giving it's heart to another child. Fortunately, this is illegal.
As a.NET developer, I haven't looked too hard at Mac dev tools, but I will say I could see an argument that Microsoft's rich development environment has some unexcpected consequences. Microsoft has made it easy for just about anybody to pick up software development, and as a result, just about anybody has picked up software development. =)
This can be good, but a downside is that some of the emphasis on design, best practices, etc. is lost. An office nerd who happens to get into VB is not traditionally pushed to think about things like standard UI guidelines. So in a sense the rich toolset can detract from good software. MS seems to be aware of this, and you can see a definite push for more guidance from them. Still, they have a ways to go IMO, and finding the balance between making development easy and making it "good" is difficult.
While MS invented XmlHttpRequest, it's worth noting that they have been markedly timid in recommending it's use in client development. I'd contend their relative silence on the issue is due to these usablility concerns as well as security, etc. I haven't installed the preview of their solution, dubbed Atlas, but from what I've read, it does address some of these issues by giving a solid framework for developing controls that support both dynamic and static models depending on the browser caps, etc...
First make sure the lawyers aren't around, then answer this one:
Your show is available on bittorrent networks to download and watch when/where it's more convenient. Some users, however, could download the show without paying for it via cable service. How do you personally feel about this? (Cheated\Angry\Flattered\What's A Bittorrent?)
Slashdot Mirror
Lewis does address this theory- really, check him out sometime for a sane, non-American fundy view of Christianity. He actually leaves room for genetic and social origins of some morality, but argues that those alone don't totally explain the morality we observe.
I've recently gotten into Air Hogs Aero Ace. All the RC forums are full of fans and mods of this $30 biplane flier. It's small enough to fly in a yard, extremely crash proof, and available at Target/Toys-r-us/online. I've tried several other Air Hogs RC products, including a $60 heli, and still think the biplane is the easiest to fly and most enjoyable. Trouble is, I'm ready to graduate to the 'real' RC planes now.
I'd say just under 5% of journalists have news as their primary topic...
I know he's a genius and all, but I think it's overstatement to say earth is "in chaos politically, socially, and environmentally." Compared to history, we're really pretty tame on all fronts. There's a few wars going on, but none on the scale of WWI or II, or older conflicts. There's plenty of social tension in the US and elsewhere, but not as violent as the 60s, and certainly no civil war is imminent. Global warming (or the new term "climate change") is a concern, but humankind survived an ice age and warmer temperatures in the past. So, here's my solution:
Promote free, democratic societies.
Those societies can use the democratic process to bring about political, social and environmental change as the need arises. The alternatives, while they may achieve temporary "fixes" on those fronts, would be far worse in the end.
I would suspect this works by routing transactions meeting certain criteria (ie source/destination state, name, etc.) through a monitoring system of some sort. From a security standpoint, there is a flaw in this system in that a potential terrorist could know he/she is being monitored. Even if the process is completely manual, a timing attack could determine the criteria being used. The attackers would simply initiate a bunch of transactions with varying names & locations, and record the time each takes. With that data, the attacker could determine a 'safe' location and name, or DoS the system by initiating a large number of unsafe transactions. A more secure approach (from Western Union's perspective) would be to delay all transactions for an equal amount of time, though I doubt that would go over too well. An alternative would be to randomly delay a "non-flagged" transaction for each "flagged" transaction.
You're not sticking to logic at all. I've explained a well-established philisophical concept with mathmatical underpinnings and you've simply gotten frustrated because you misunderstood it in exactly the way I expected.
Show me the logic in interpreting "something finite cannot completely comphrehend the infinite" as "we shouldn't teach math". If you're at all interested in honest, logical debate, you have to concede at least that that was a knee-jerk reaction on your part, and that it is similar to what I described. The merits of the concept itself is really a secondary issue, which you have not even begun to address- choosing rather to give examples of ways we understand certain aspects of infinite numbers, peppered with smug indirect jabs like "just because you say something is true..." and "I'll stick to logic".
it's clear i know every part i care to think about, therefore i must know it all.
No, you just know the parts you care to think about, which is a finite part of it and not anywhere near "knowing it all". My point is it is physically impossible for your finite brain to contain a full understanding of something infinite. As another example, you cannot think of every number between 1 and infinity. You may say you don't care to or call it a non-question, but in the end, there are numbers that exist that no human will never hold in their head.
As to the proof that there are more real numbers than natural, again, I said that it is possible to know things about the infinite- just not the full thing.
Face it, you did exactly what I was describing:
I suggested that the Pope _could_ have said something similar to "If God is infinite, and we are finite, it is impossible to fully comprehend Him", which Hawking took as "you shouldn't study origins."
You jumped to conclusions, and interpreted "If God is infinite, and we are finite, it is impossible to fully comprehend Him" as "we shouldn't teach math," when it's pretty clear I said no such thing. That's exactly the scenario I described, therefore you illustrated my point.
just because you claim something is true doesn't make it true, ya know.
Uh, ok. Same to 'ya'.
You're a perfect example of somebody misunderstanding the statement. It is possible to understand the finite portion of something infinite (ie 1,2,3), and even some aspects of the nature of the infinite portion (ie patterns, etc.), and it is definitely good to learn as much as possible about both. But by it's very definition, there are some things about "infinity" which are incomprehensible, for example, the largest number. Thanks for illustrating that for me.
I have seen people misunderstand similar statements. A lot of Christians- and theists in general- say that there are aspects of reality that are inherently unknowable. If God is infinite, and we are finite, it is impossible to fully comprehend Him. To someone like Hawking, who has faith that there is nothing infinite, this can be taken as an afront. That said, Roman Catholics do have a history- especially since the Reformation, of attempting a more rational approach and getting in deep water back-pedaling when it breaks down.
Alot of people don't realize it, but there is document versioning built into Word. If it's turned on, it will track changes, etc. by user. There is also pretty rich editing capabilities. Reviewers can mark up the doc with comments, etc... Adding sharepoint lets you distribute that process pretty well. Get an in-depth Word book and figure out how to do it in sharepoint/word.
Dy-nooooo-mite.
Any relation to Ben or Franken Stein?
What I'd really like to see next in telecommunications is the ability to call someone from anywhere, speak into a device, and have a person on the other end hear what I say, all the time, every time. Once they get that working, the other things will be nice too.
I'm not sure if I agree with his conclusions, but if he's right, and innovation is dead, it could be ironically construed as a 'big thing' in itself. Maybe we're turning a corner where technology is so commonplace and pervasive, we're no longer suprised by it- even when it does new things. In which case, the "next big thing" may be going camping for the weekend.
through the showcasing of Linux as the major operating system without any technical glitches and security issues
Now I like Linux as much as the next, but to say there will be no technical glitches or security issues is poor project planning.
This is a beautiful example of the illogic of social relativism. It is popular to say morality is determined by what the current culture believes. Often this works- we have laws against murder because society deems murder "wrong". However, in this case, Chinese society has deemed criticising the government as wrong, while "Western" society deems it "right". Without any underlying framework to judge the two, a social relativist would be forced to accept the Chinese position here as "right".
Should We Land on the Moon's Poles or Equator?
Yes!
I know it's not popular here, but I'm a .NET developer for a small contracting company, and all I know is there is more work than we can handle. On top of that, there are alot of people writing bad .NET code. As for resources, MSDN, FxCop, and Brad Abram's Framework Design Guidelines would start you out on the right foot.
I remember a little antecdote told by somebody who worked on a missle guidance system when she met the inventor of the mouse. He made some comment to her snubbing her work for being used to kill people, etc. She replied, something to the effect of "it uses a mouse."
Remember you put the 'terminally ill' buzzword back in. I chose not to argue about whether an embryo is alive because that was not the point I wanted to make, and because I don't have any expectation of rational debate on the issue in this venue. My point was that this scientist is just trying to get funding and relax ethics rules by dropping buzzwords like 'stem cell' and 'terminally ill'. I also addressed some of the common objections, such as the description of my opinion as 'attack' or 'coercion'.
Again, your wording proves my second point. You seem like a rational enough guy- step back and read your post. Do you honestly think I'm "attacking terminally ill people", when my point was against the scientist and not his potential test subjects? Why is it that my voicing my opinion is "attacking", but you're "debating"? Could it be that you're not as open to honest debate as you thought? In my mind, the person attacking terminally ill people is the one advocating throwing out ethics so they can use them as lab rats.
You have every right to tell people what you think, but you only have limited rights to tell them what to do.
Splitting hairs. Am I not allowed to say what I think if it involves what other people do? Aren't you telling me what to do by saying I shouldn't post my opinion that this scientist is playing 'buzzword bingo'? As for actually controlling what people do- as we agreed, the legal system and ethics commissions are the place for that, and we all have the right to affect their descisions by voicing opinion. But you only have to read this thread to see that there are many who think that people with my opinion should not have that right.
This is akin to advocating banning cars because they can be melted down and turned into guns.
No, that's pretty much completely different. In my book, harvesting embryonic stem cells is very similar ethically to harvesting organs. A lot of people consider the embryo alive and thus ending it's growth killing. In that context, it is much more similar than your example. Regardless of whether you agree on the 'life' issue, my point is there is an ethical issue, so you can't just say 'X' is ok, because this good thing would come of it. "Good things" could come from genocide, murder, and, yes, baby killing. Doesn't mean we should do them.
The 'commom objection' you are attempting to refute isn't really speaking to your right to speech, but the right of the other party to be free from coercion.
You're so stuck on this one it's hard for you to see what you just said: if I state my belief an embryo is alive, then I'm "coercing". If you state your believe it isn't, then it's fine. Double standard, and you just proved it.
There is also plenty of historical basis for changing the fucking rules.
Sure there is. Feel free to lobby congress (NOT the courts) to get whatever law you want. And give me the freedom to do the same. As you mention, though, "law" isn't the end-all to what is "right" or "wrong"- otherwise it would be wrong to change law. I would argue the same for "social law" like codes of ethics.
Apparently we disagree about what to call mixing a sperm and an egg and harvesting cells from the result. Fine.
Exactly my point. The debate is whether the embryo is alive. There are those who use the above arguments to say "even if an embryo is alive, it is right to kill it because xyz good things could happen". There are even more people that say "people who believe an embryo is alive should not be allowed to say so, or to have any effect in the legal system." My points refute both of those arguments. I haven't even started trying to convince you of the reasons I believe an embryo to be alive, yet you already say 'Just recognize that you aren't going to change my mind.' That tells me you have a very closed mind and are not interested in discussing that rationally. Which is fine.
Let's remove the words 'stem cell' and 'terminally ill' for a while. What he is advocating is relaxing the rules on human research for certain classes of people. His suggestion is morally reprehensible- expirimenting on humans without extensive research proving benefit and safety is just sick and isn't really good science. Regardless of the technology being tested or the body of people being tested on.
Common objections:
O: But it could save lives!
A: Breeding babies to full term and harvesting full grown organs for sale is possible now, could save lives, and is morally wrong. The ends do not justify the means.
O: You have no right to tell someone what to do with their body.
A: Actually I have a 'right' to tell people just about anything, and make my case. And they have a 'right' not to listen, or to listen objectively and change their mind.
O: If they consent to be expirimented on, who are you to object?
A: First, 'consent' is difficult to prove. How does one determine their consent wasn't coerced? Second, there is plenty of historical basis for prohibiting someone from doing everything they want- it's called the legal system. Again, a person may consent to have a child for the express purpose of killing it and giving it's heart to another child. Fortunately, this is illegal.
As a .NET developer, I haven't looked too hard at Mac dev tools, but I will say I could see an argument that Microsoft's rich development environment has some unexcpected consequences. Microsoft has made it easy for just about anybody to pick up software development, and as a result, just about anybody has picked up software development. =)
This can be good, but a downside is that some of the emphasis on design, best practices, etc. is lost. An office nerd who happens to get into VB is not traditionally pushed to think about things like standard UI guidelines. So in a sense the rich toolset can detract from good software. MS seems to be aware of this, and you can see a definite push for more guidance from them. Still, they have a ways to go IMO, and finding the balance between making development easy and making it "good" is difficult.
While MS invented XmlHttpRequest, it's worth noting that they have been markedly timid in recommending it's use in client development. I'd contend their relative silence on the issue is due to these usablility concerns as well as security, etc. I haven't installed the preview of their solution, dubbed Atlas, but from what I've read, it does address some of these issues by giving a solid framework for developing controls that support both dynamic and static models depending on the browser caps, etc...
First make sure the lawyers aren't around, then answer this one: Your show is available on bittorrent networks to download and watch when/where it's more convenient. Some users, however, could download the show without paying for it via cable service. How do you personally feel about this? (Cheated\Angry\Flattered\What's A Bittorrent?)