What kind of employer is ok with their employees choosing to sleep in once in a while?
A compassionate employer? Yes, they do exist.
You may have to win this kind of treatment though. Don't expect employers do just hand this over on a silver platter to you. They won't.
Employers are often dispassionate about their employees, but expect employees to be passionate about their place of employment. It can't work that way. Either both don't care about each other, or both do care.
Employment is like marriage. Would you want to be married to someone, who, the first time you forgot to throw away garbage, divorced you? No? I didn't think so. Then why do you believe it's OK for employers to behave like that? Don't forget though. You have to win good treatment. No one will volunteer to treat you well, because everyone is selfish. And you can't win anything if you're scared to lose.
Is it really abuse to make sure your employees are where you're paying them to be?
If that's what you are in fact paying them for, it's not abuse. Otherwise it is. Employing someone is not the same thing as owning them. There is a difference between being a slave and being an employee. A slave is property of its master during enslavement. So, if you say that during my working ours I am a property of my employer, you are saying I am enslaved for the duration of my workday.
You can't pay me enough to be your slave. If you ever tried to own me, I'd kill you. If I couldn't kill you, I'd kill or destroy anything that had to do with you. I'd burn your fields and break your tools. In fact, that's exactly what slaves commonly did.
"I do know that you have to kill people to deliver them, I've killed myself, but evidently not thoroughly enough. And you are right, it is nice after it is over. One at least has access to perfect peace. Whether one is smart or determined enough to dwell there is another matter."
You do know? That's good. When I was saying it I knew it too.:)
Access to peace? I'm not sure that's how I'd put it, but I don't necessarily disagree this time.
It might be like you become so dumb, you just don't know what's peace and what's not peace. And determination might be like being so lazy, that you don't mind burning eternally to keep the lazy demeanor, taking responsibility for all the fallout.
I'm just like any other person. If the bus comes, I run screaming like a little boy -- aaaahhhh. Unless maybe I got a bone to pick with the bus, or maybe got a bone to pick with my own body? Just for fun. Who knows.
But if you look around, even the so-called Buddhists, although they talk a lot about emptiness, they don't live life as if it was empty. And in order to continue to keep up this charade comfortably and in a socially acceptable manner, they've developed a system of "two truths". So, now it's very comfortable. When you wanna talk a little crazy talk, you use ultimate truth. When it comes time to pay the bills, or to steal your friend's girlfriend, you use relative. Very easy. Yes, except this isn't a correct application! Ultimate was never meant to be separated from the relative. The very notion of "ultimate" is itself relative to the notion of "relative", and is correctly used as an antidote to melt the calcified mindset. If you keep the hot water away from the ice cubes, nothing will melt! You pour the hot water on the ice cubes -- the end result is -- no hot water and no ice cubes. Hot water is ultimate truth and ice cube is a calcified mind, which is obsessed and blinded with/by the relative truth. So don't keep em separate! Mix it all up. Apply everything to everything. Turn everything upside down and back again -- to your heart's desire, and don't be too skittish in doing so. This example of course is a bad one, because it leads the person to believe that there is warm water left after mixing hot water with ice cubes, some kind of "middle state" that's reached. Oh well... That's what you get for using material examples.
Yes, I like talking to you, no matter what I say. Why else would I reply, eh?:)
"you refuse to come off your high horse and see that we are using different sets of words to create two different signs pointing at the exact same thing."
There are two disagreements here. First, I am not on high horse. I act the way I do, that's true. But the evaluation of "high" is your own responsibility, not mine. Internally I don't feel high or low or in the middle. In fact, if you try to understand my behavior in those terms, you cannot. You can't understand my motivation.
Second, they're not the same thing. Because the way you point is too weak. Your pointing out is like a non-pointing. If a materialistic monists listens to you, he/she just finds validation and comfort in you. The way I operate is very different from that. In me, the only ones who find comfort are Buddhas. Ordinary beings go straight to hell where they belong. If I did it in any other way, I'd have no compassion.
I dislike people like you, not because you're arrogant or whatever. You are weak. You have no balls to throw a person into the void. To effectively kill them. And you must be capable of killing to deliver beings. I don't think you know that yet. To deliver yourself you have to die. To deliver others you have to kill them. It's nice AFTER it's over...the result is just Buddhahood. But the process of it is hell, because during the process you're breaking apart the very heart of what a person takes to be real and valid.
So, you're just a pussy cat, basically. You know how to say some words, but when shit hits the fan, you'll just run away with your tail between your legs. And this is clearly evident in your kowtowing to the materialists.
I don't have respect for any doctrine. But it goes beyond that. Not only do I lack respect for doctrines, I teach others why they should also stop respecting doctrines, no matter what kind and not matter whose. But when I say "teach", I don't mean I stand in front of a blackboard. When I sleep or take a shit, I teach all beings. You can get bored or whine all you want, and you get taught. Nothing I do misses the mark. When I say something, it's always bulls eye. You can disagree and do the opposite of what I say, it doesn't matter.
This isn't new. This is how it's been for some time now.
I have no patience for monkeying around. Seriously. I like you but I can't debate with you any more. So, I'm going to post some replies and that's it. I invite *YOU* to look at this on your own. In other words, instead of me proving it to you, you should try to arouse your own interest in proving it to yourself. You make a lot of silly assumptions. I understand they are acceptable assumptions within this convention, but as someone who at least pretends to be Buddhist, you cannot afford them.
So with this in mind... Here goes:
If space is caused by laws, this just shifts my example from space to laws. Then laws are not causing anything and are not an effect of anything rather than space. And yet we can know these laws. So, all you did is just slightly changed the wording of my example, but you didn't change the nature of my example. Look deeper at the underlying pattern of my examples! I shouldn't have had to point this out to you.
If you think that laws are causing something, rather than me showing you how they cannot be the cause, why don't you use your own mind? Please. Otherwise there will be no end to this -- you pour out a stream of baseless cognitions that I have to endlessly demonstrate to be without any basis. This is something that you need to learn to do for yourself, without relying on me.
Remember, I don't care if I can convince you or not. I am just happy that I see what I see for myself. I don't mind doing a little bit of sharing, but in the end, I won't cause you to see clearly.
"The problem of trying to put what is beyond words into words is that only people who don't understand what you are saying will think you are wise."
Why is that a problem? Do you think my goal is to impress you or to win you over? I don't depend on other people's egos. Other people's egos are like ornaments on my robe. Nice if you have a few pins here and there. Perfectly nice if you don't. Either way, pins are ornaments and not something I need to live or something I need in life.
And I guess you probably will get this one, but just in case you won't, I'll say it:
"Of course, not everything must have a cause, or an effect, but those things that don't can't be known, as knowing itself is an effect."
So, space can't be known?:) Cool.
Friend on the way. You are very deluded. Knowing is not an effect of anything. The mind is omniscient, timeless, omnipotent, perfect from the beginning, invincible, but really beyond any characteristic. You don't know this yet. The fact that you don't is obvious from many many miles away.
I think you are smart, but you're arrogant and blind.
"If it is not a cause, and not an effect it has no impact and is not impacted by anything, therefore it doesn't exist."
That's an extremist view. Your conclusion doesn't follow. For example, space doesn't cause anything and is not an effect of anything, and yet we consider it to be existent.:)
"But this is all missing my point, and I'm afraid you did too in trying to sound wise by putting what you've seen into words.;) "
Not really. I'm far better than you can understand at this point.
"Materialistic Monism is no denial of sentience or awareness, it just places those properties in a subordinate position."
Not really. Monism means only one thing exists. So, it doesn't merely place awareness in a subordinate position. It is effectively saying that since awareness is not one thing that does exist, it, in fact, does NOT exist.
Of course when this is pointed out to a materialistic monist, they'll try all kinds of cop outs, such as "well consciousness exists, but it's an illusion" blah blah, *yawn*.
Monism of any kind is just as an extreme of a view as dualism of any kind.
Monism is a view that results from extreme "emphasis" of one polarity over another, where both polarities are created by a dualistic mindset. I place the word "emphasis" in quotation marks, because it's not really emphasis, but rather monism is a statement that one side of polarity absolutely exists, and is the only thing that exists. It's like saying that light is the only thing that exists, and there is no such thing as darkness (or, darkness is an illusion cop out, etc.).
I don't try to sound wise. I am wise. I am wise even during sleep or when I make mistakes.
Any time there is mention of the word "conspiracy" there is a huge number of people making fun of "tin foiled conspiracy nuts". Sometimes I wish those people worked as judges and/or lawyers.
Running a BitTorrent is a conspiracy now? But all the people who refuse to answer questions about 9/11 are not a conspiracy? Great. So, copyright violation is definitely a no-no, but when people have some questions regarding something that's never happened before, such as a steel skyscraper collapsing from fire, they are tin foil hat wearing nuts. Great.
Very nice reply to a very nice reply (the post you reply to is also nice).
"Free will is a red herring. It just puts the real issue of control and determination at one further level removed. What made this happen? I willed it to happen, and enacted my will. But what made me will what I did? What caused the particuler set of choices I comprehended to appear in my consciousness?"
Invalid line of inquiry, because it assumes that cause is necessary.:) If you assume there is a cause to everything, then your inquiry is not open to discovering anything to the contrary. What you're doing is assuming that such cause exists and then thinking that all that's left to do is to characterize it and locate it (of course, locating it is characterizing it positionally, so it's redundant).
It's one thing if you want to spin some propaganda, and perhaps we all do that. When we propagandize, we absolutely need some assumptions, or else, we have nowhere to stand and no statement to make. That's normal and I don't fault you for that right now, because I'm not in that kind of mood.
However, you should recognize that in a truly sincere inquiry you can't assume anything. A strict view of cause-effectism is very easy to attack, philosophically. All you have to do is examine the delineation between cause and effect, and discover that indeed there is none (except the one you make up in your mind). But there are many other ways too. And I don't want to get into that right now. The point is, a strict cause-effect view of reality is not a sure thing, and you shouldn't fully fall for it, even if you do decide to employ it on a relative level. So, even as you employ cause-effect view in real life, you should understand well the flaws of the strict cause-effect view, and use that understanding to keep your mind open.
Will is not a cause or effect of anything. If will was a cause but not the effect, then how would will connect to effect? You'd have to posit a medium of some sort, but then right away you'd encounter many problems. Then I'd ask, how does will connect to the medium? And so on. Will is not an effect of anything in a similar manner. Materialistic monism is one possible "solution" to this, but it's basically a denial of sentience/awareness at its core, which is a big joke (if everything is a medium, then what is the medium mediating between? etc. etc. etc..). Mind-body dualism is a big joke too.
The point is, if you don't have any sacred cows in your mind, and keep looking carefully at the core, you'll see something that you can't put into words. When you try to put what you see into words, you may sound wise to some and like an idiot to others. Oh well.:)
"There are numerous other individuals who have tried to destroy, undermine, or deprive us of things we enjoy, but towards whom no one directs similar hostility and vilification."
Because that's a type of "freedom" that many people would like to protect. That's why.
Surprisingly, I've even seen poor have-nothings think this way. Why? Because they dream that one day they will be on top, and that when they are on top, they'll get their turn to rape everyone blind. That's why even many abuse victims do not stand against that abuse. They are dreaming of a time when they'll get their turn to abuse others.
It's not a simple issue. Many things communities do and hold in high esteem are trash. Extreme individualism is also correct and soundly critiqued by people like you.
Communities have no rights in reality. Neither do individuals. People in the community have power to act, and so do individuals. If your community decides to bad nakedness, and I go around naked, you cannot just remove me by force. Why not? Because even though I may be in the minority, I may have enough determination and power to make life for that prudish community living hell. Why? Because although I may be alone, my determination to go around naked is probably very high, or else, I wouldn't do something that obviously endangers my standing in community for no good reason. That means if you use force, you will not create a situation of peace, which is what you ultimately desire. You will simply polarize yourself further and create divisions. This is how gangs form. Although gangs are minorities, they are going nowhere and wield considerable power, just for that very reason. So, just because you are in majority, you can't just willy nilly control the minority, because minorities also have significant power, commensurate with their determination to apply it.
In no case does anyone have any inherent rights. I don't have a right to be dressed or to be naked. The community has no rights either.
This is why communities change and evolve. If what you say was true, then community standards would stay locked in and never change. But they change quite a bit over time. And guess how it happens, and will continue to happen, forever and ever more? It happens due to individual influence. It happens because someone ran naked across the street. And you can't stop it. You can participate in this process and throw your 2 cents into the pile. But you can't stop the changes and you can't really claim that any sides have any rights.
The rights are declared as a statement of faith or belief. And that's fine. But as you declare such things, it would be wise for you to understand the relative nature of any such declarations. Any person can declare anything they like. If enough of them agree, there you go -- a community. But this tells you nothing about the community or about how it will change.
You might have a community of naked people where running through the street dressed is an act of rebellion.
Things change. Individuals do matter. Individual still stands at the center of change, and your reasoning doesn't take anything away, but rather, it just explains the stage upon which the individual dances. This is neither selfish nor selfless. It's just how it is. I have no inherent right do slap you, but if I want to, I can, and there is nothing you can do to stop me, except post-factum, which is useless, except if you crave revenge. It's useless for the purpose of totally controlling the situation or for giving someone protection from some event happening.
As I see it, communities owe to individuals and individuals owe to the communities. It goes both ways.
No. He's just talking from his own perspective. He sees himself as a battleground upon which Firefox and IE struggle. So far Firefox has won on that particular battleground (a.k.a. the author of the article). So he's talking about what IE has to do to win him over.
It's a completely valid and highly useful way of looking at things. It actually makes more sense to me personally than going by aggregated statistics which lump all things together. Some sites are dominated by Firefox users. Other sites are not. The sites that are dominated by Firefox represent valid and lucrative markets in and of themselves. Of course if you aggregate everything together into one big lump, then in terms of numbers, IE is "winning". But that's not a very meaningful way to look at things. For exactly the same reason GDP is a horrible way to estimate economic health of a nation, and all the sane economists know this.
Look, Microsoft is screwing you over. Face it. Stop whining about it by placing ads in a newspaper. Start promoting a credible vendor-neutral alternative! Are you capitalists, aren't you? Don't like the market leader? Support alternatives with your dollar!
Support Linux. Promote Linux. Linux is vendor-neutral by nature. With Linux such situation wouldn't happen. And as others have explained, no matter how secure Linux gets, there will be a need for security products, so you won't be out of a job.
The problem is that money is not truly wealth. Wealth is social position and property.
When more and more property is taken out of circulation and when social positions at the middle layer of society become less influential, the market cannot simply "adjust".
The reason you fell into a hole is that you have a very naive understand of wealth.
What you talk about is true about money as a unit in and of itself, but it's not true in terms of real wealth. I won't even go into the intangible aspects of real wealth, such as happiness, fulfillment and so on, which people cannot easily maintain in a socially unbalanced atmosphere. This is not merely a case of unfounded and superficial envy, because there are real and tangible effects caused by concentration of power. Those effects determine the types of decisions that can still fly. In an extreme case, if all property is owned by a single person, you cannot just "decide" to start your own business of selling donuts on street corner. You have to be "allowed". Of course this is an extreme I use to illustrate a point, and the scale is pretty wide and gray, but it is a real scale in a sense that it has tangible and very well defined effects.
Wealth is about the power to make decisions without much opposition. If I am wealthy, I can decide nearly anything and get very little push back. If I am not, then I have to fight a big bureaucratic battle uphill even to open a little donut stand. Again extreme examples are used for clarity.
No is entitled to anything. People are not entitled to hiring others. Hiring is a privilege, you whiny little schmuck. Everything is a privilege and not a right.
CEO living safely in his mansion is also a privilege that is consensually agreed upon, given that CEO doesn't break any societal norms.
Yes, workers have no inherent rights you fuck. I agree with you. But neither do CEO's and people in the so-called "old boys club". Everyone is on the same plane, whether you agree or not. People can whine all they want, just cause they can. If this whine is not heeded by the people who are in position to move jobs back to USA, it can turn to action. And this won't be the fault of anyone, will it?
Parent actually has good points. You just insulted him "in style", but the "in style" part is of course debatable.
Wealth is always relative, and never absolute.
Thus, it's impossible for wealth to be created or for it to disappear in absolute terms. But what IS possible for a relative quantity? Aha, that's right -- concentration. Yes, in relative terms, wealth can concentrate. That's all it ever does. It either concentrates or diffuses, and it's never created or destroyed.
I'd maybe go deeper into it and explain why wealth is relative, but you're a dipshit who is not worth my time. I'm writing this for other people, not for you.
I've never seen any other definition put forth by those wanting it to be more "mature" other than blood and guts. Please tell me how changing the age and graphics style of Zelda would have made it more fun- because I honestly can't see it.
This is easy. Mature gamers want RPGs that explore mature situations, such as the relativity or grayness (as opposed to black and white good vs bad) of morality, the complexity of emotions and so on.
The kiddy RPG has the good guy beat the crap of the bad guy and save the world. That's what kiddy about it. It has nothing to do with sex and gore. Only kids view the world in a simplistic black and white, us vs. them manner.
In general I'm pro patent and copyright but I may be facing a real problem with a new project. How can I be sure I'm not infringing on some one else's patent? Is the first sign the lawsuit? There's no real system in place for spot checking so anything I do in software development may be in breach and I have no way to know it. I want to support the system but with potentially millions of patents in place it's going to be hard to avoid infinging. We're a small company so a lawsuit is french for bankruptcy.
If I told you that such system for spot checking could not be feasibly created, would you still be pro patent?
In other words, does the pragmatic usability of idea affect your opinion about it? Or do you like some things, no matter how well they turn out in real life? (In other words, are you an idealist?) It's a real question. I'm not trying to imply anything.
Are you pro patent, then, in hopes of such system coming online soon? If there is no obvious reason to hope for such a system becoming available soon, then why are you pro patent?
The problem is that giving one man property rights always and necessarily comes at the expense of another man's property rights. See? People in Congress have a right to accept bribes and put up toll gates (not really, but do you see what I'm saying?).
Property rights are not a clean solution, because eventually someone starts hoarding more and more property and puts up their own, private, tollgates for others to use it. At some point it is really no different from the government. The only difference is size. Once a business goes above a certain size, it is in essence a government and has the same impact on society and environment as a government. A large enough business acts exactly like the government. When businesses get large enough they also get corrupted and bureaucratic just like the government.
So, I understand what you're saying. And I even like your example with the hot dogs, and agree with it. But you haven't thought this problem all the way through it seems.
I think this practice should be illegal. Currently it seems quite common for various CEO's and other execs to be involved in many many companies. I think that's insane.
This allows for an insane power concentration and it also solidifies and protects the "old boys club". That's not something we should stand for as people and citizens. If someone is involved in one company, it should be illegal to be involved in another. Any time power concentrates it's bad for the people.
I don't know... The way skeptics behave makes them more like idiots in my eyes. I'm not sure that "skeptic" is a compliment anymore.
Around here there are all kinds of people. But if you really want to label us, then I'd prefer "reasonable" as opposed to "skeptical".
We follow the money here on Slashdot. What does this Engineer have to gain? Nothing. He persists in his message, unsvervingly, for a long time. This does absolutely nothing for his career. This is not the way to get a raise. He is putting himself and his family at risk. Now, tell me, what motivation do you see for this guy to be a liar? Why shouldn't people trust him?
On the other hand, take a mega corp that's only interested in money. Ahh.. Yes, it doesn't take a big genius to understand who is the more likely one that's lying here. A person who has nothing to gain from lies, or a group of people who have everything to gain from lies? Who is more likely lying here? A person who puts his family at risk, or a group of people who hardly carry any personal responsibility for their conduct (since they are protected by the corp, which is a legal person, and plus they act in a group, so they split responsibility, thus making it emotionally easier to commit crimes -- we all did it together)?
It's not about being blindly and unilaterally skeptical. That's just an attitude of an idiot. You have to follow the motivations and money. It's about being reasonable here.
EVEN if this guy is wrong, it takes no effort for Lockheed to come out and say "we have shielded cables and we have the extra cameras". But they're not saying that, are they? All they are saying is "we are OK, trust us". They are not offering direct counter-evidence, are they? It's so trivial to just come out and say, yes we have shielded cables, if it is the truth that is. Of course if it's not the truth...then you have to avoid direct statements and just put heavy political spin on everything.
Basically Lockheed Martin are acting like assholes right now, no doubt about it. I don't need to be either skeptical of gullible to see this. It just makes too much sense for this to be this way, with all the money involved. LM is not a charity operation.
Colbert failed to show that Wikipedia is less factual than books and other media.
The only thing he succeeded in showing was that Wikipedia is somewhat more malleable and more open than books and other media.
Just because a book is not open or malleable does not mean it's more factual.
Some facts are not determined by a democratic process. Some are. For example, if you want to know for a fact an opinion of some group, there is no way to find out other than to engage in a democratic process. There are many types of truth. Some are tangible and some are intangible. I love my parents. That's a truth. It's not subject to proof or examination. If I say so, someone has to basically trust me, for, ultimately, no real reason. Yes, the sky is above, and if for some reason majority voted it was below, it wouldn't mean it actually was below. But that's only one type of truth. The fact that people did vote it (let's suppose they did, for the sake of argument) was below is also a truth. Although what such vote alludes to is misleading, but that people did vote is a truth in its own right.
The faith in books is tied to belief in experts. So far, the belief in experts has been mainstream, and this is ironic! On one hand, people think only experts know all the truth. On the other hand, the majority of people do not seriously ask any expert on whether or not to believe the experts. The majority believes in experts unasked! So, even though the common opinion esteems the experts, the way in which the esteem of experts is upheld is dumb and sheep-like in its actual practice and execution. Don't you think that there is a lot of truthiness in hoards blindly believing the experts?
Don't you think that books just plain old FEEL more factual? I mean, they smell good and they are substantial. They are things that you can touch and set on fire. They are real. Therefore what's printed in them is real and factual. There is a lot of truthiness to this, right? That's why the price of books in colleges keeps going up and up and up, because in our increasingly virtual world books are the last bastions of truthiness, and people are willing to pay top dollar for what just plain feels right (even if the actual material in the book is presented by morons who couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag, look it's glossy and bleached, heavy bond paper goodness).
I'm saying that 100k in POCKET CASH (after taxes), in an area like West Virginia, or Arizona or Colorago and on and on and on, is going to go very, very far. Yes you will own a house outright. In fact, you'll have 3 houses with that money, or one mansion. You'll have a collection of cars and a boat or two. You'll spend 2 months in Europe every year, or heck, you can move to Europe and live there and do your work there. You can hire a permanent nanny and a chef. Maybe you can't do all of the above, but you can really do a lot and live well above the middle class level on that kind of money.
Yes, I did pull the numbers out of my ass, but my point is, however much Mark was making, I am sure he wasn't suffering from a qualitative lifestyle deficiency. In other words, it makes no sense to sell out for money for a wise individual who prefers real freedom, as opposed to token freedom that's *granted to you* by your overlords. Remember, what's given can be taken away. What kind of freedom is it that is handed to you by a corp in a title of "Fellow"? It's fictitious. Genuine freedom, from a spiritual point of view and from a quality of life point of view, is not something that someone can give you. Ultimately, you're either free or not (or, if you are pedantic, it cannot be described at all, even as "freedom", since it's a limiting concept). Relatively speaking, real freedom is what you earn on your own and not what someone agrees to give you and can easily change their mind about.
Things in large corps are never easy or straight. It's highly political (out of necessity). He's not likely to have the freedom to reveal the future Sony rootkit, for example, especially if Sony is a strategic Microsoft partner. Yes, of course you can get more money in the short term. But considering all the insane exit/post-contract period obligations (like non-compete and so on), is it worth it?
Anyway, money never buys security or opportunity. Those things cannot be purchased at any price, since they are ineffable and cannot even be described. We can allude to them, and there is a feeling that we all understand what we mean. I can maybe agree about opportunity, but never security. Security is not for sale at any price.
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You may have to win this kind of treatment though. Don't expect employers do just hand this over on a silver platter to you. They won't.
Employers are often dispassionate about their employees, but expect employees to be passionate about their place of employment. It can't work that way. Either both don't care about each other, or both do care.
Employment is like marriage. Would you want to be married to someone, who, the first time you forgot to throw away garbage, divorced you? No? I didn't think so. Then why do you believe it's OK for employers to behave like that? Don't forget though. You have to win good treatment. No one will volunteer to treat you well, because everyone is selfish. And you can't win anything if you're scared to lose.
You can't pay me enough to be your slave. If you ever tried to own me, I'd kill you. If I couldn't kill you, I'd kill or destroy anything that had to do with you. I'd burn your fields and break your tools. In fact, that's exactly what slaves commonly did.
"I do know that you have to kill people to deliver them, I've killed myself, but evidently not thoroughly enough. And you are right, it is nice after it is over. One at least has access to perfect peace. Whether one is smart or determined enough to dwell there is another matter."
:)
:)
You do know? That's good. When I was saying it I knew it too.
Access to peace? I'm not sure that's how I'd put it, but I don't necessarily disagree this time.
It might be like you become so dumb, you just don't know what's peace and what's not peace. And determination might be like being so lazy, that you don't mind burning eternally to keep the lazy demeanor, taking responsibility for all the fallout.
I'm just like any other person. If the bus comes, I run screaming like a little boy -- aaaahhhh. Unless maybe I got a bone to pick with the bus, or maybe got a bone to pick with my own body? Just for fun. Who knows.
But if you look around, even the so-called Buddhists, although they talk a lot about emptiness, they don't live life as if it was empty. And in order to continue to keep up this charade comfortably and in a socially acceptable manner, they've developed a system of "two truths". So, now it's very comfortable. When you wanna talk a little crazy talk, you use ultimate truth. When it comes time to pay the bills, or to steal your friend's girlfriend, you use relative. Very easy. Yes, except this isn't a correct application! Ultimate was never meant to be separated from the relative. The very notion of "ultimate" is itself relative to the notion of "relative", and is correctly used as an antidote to melt the calcified mindset. If you keep the hot water away from the ice cubes, nothing will melt! You pour the hot water on the ice cubes -- the end result is -- no hot water and no ice cubes. Hot water is ultimate truth and ice cube is a calcified mind, which is obsessed and blinded with/by the relative truth. So don't keep em separate! Mix it all up. Apply everything to everything. Turn everything upside down and back again -- to your heart's desire, and don't be too skittish in doing so. This example of course is a bad one, because it leads the person to believe that there is warm water left after mixing hot water with ice cubes, some kind of "middle state" that's reached. Oh well... That's what you get for using material examples.
Yes, I like talking to you, no matter what I say. Why else would I reply, eh?
"you refuse to come off your high horse and see that we are using different sets of words to create two different signs pointing at the exact same thing."
There are two disagreements here. First, I am not on high horse. I act the way I do, that's true. But the evaluation of "high" is your own responsibility, not mine. Internally I don't feel high or low or in the middle. In fact, if you try to understand my behavior in those terms, you cannot. You can't understand my motivation.
Second, they're not the same thing. Because the way you point is too weak. Your pointing out is like a non-pointing. If a materialistic monists listens to you, he/she just finds validation and comfort in you. The way I operate is very different from that. In me, the only ones who find comfort are Buddhas. Ordinary beings go straight to hell where they belong. If I did it in any other way, I'd have no compassion.
I dislike people like you, not because you're arrogant or whatever. You are weak. You have no balls to throw a person into the void. To effectively kill them. And you must be capable of killing to deliver beings. I don't think you know that yet. To deliver yourself you have to die. To deliver others you have to kill them. It's nice AFTER it's over...the result is just Buddhahood. But the process of it is hell, because during the process you're breaking apart the very heart of what a person takes to be real and valid.
So, you're just a pussy cat, basically. You know how to say some words, but when shit hits the fan, you'll just run away with your tail between your legs. And this is clearly evident in your kowtowing to the materialists.
I don't have respect for any doctrine. But it goes beyond that. Not only do I lack respect for doctrines, I teach others why they should also stop respecting doctrines, no matter what kind and not matter whose. But when I say "teach", I don't mean I stand in front of a blackboard. When I sleep or take a shit, I teach all beings. You can get bored or whine all you want, and you get taught. Nothing I do misses the mark. When I say something, it's always bulls eye. You can disagree and do the opposite of what I say, it doesn't matter.
This isn't new. This is how it's been for some time now.
"You seem intent on convincing me that you have more spiritual knowledge than me."
:)
You don't know my intent, right? Or do you? Do I know your intent?
I'm just playing with you, don't you see?
"Space is caused by the laws of our universe."
I have no patience for monkeying around. Seriously. I like you but I can't debate with you any more. So, I'm going to post some replies and that's it. I invite *YOU* to look at this on your own. In other words, instead of me proving it to you, you should try to arouse your own interest in proving it to yourself. You make a lot of silly assumptions. I understand they are acceptable assumptions within this convention, but as someone who at least pretends to be Buddhist, you cannot afford them.
So with this in mind... Here goes:
If space is caused by laws, this just shifts my example from space to laws. Then laws are not causing anything and are not an effect of anything rather than space. And yet we can know these laws. So, all you did is just slightly changed the wording of my example, but you didn't change the nature of my example. Look deeper at the underlying pattern of my examples! I shouldn't have had to point this out to you.
If you think that laws are causing something, rather than me showing you how they cannot be the cause, why don't you use your own mind? Please. Otherwise there will be no end to this -- you pour out a stream of baseless cognitions that I have to endlessly demonstrate to be without any basis. This is something that you need to learn to do for yourself, without relying on me.
Remember, I don't care if I can convince you or not. I am just happy that I see what I see for myself. I don't mind doing a little bit of sharing, but in the end, I won't cause you to see clearly.
"The problem of trying to put what is beyond words into words is that only people who don't understand what you are saying will think you are wise."
:) Cool.
Why is that a problem? Do you think my goal is to impress you or to win you over? I don't depend on other people's egos. Other people's egos are like ornaments on my robe. Nice if you have a few pins here and there. Perfectly nice if you don't. Either way, pins are ornaments and not something I need to live or something I need in life.
And I guess you probably will get this one, but just in case you won't, I'll say it:
"Of course, not everything must have a cause, or an effect, but those things that don't can't be known, as knowing itself is an effect."
So, space can't be known?
Friend on the way. You are very deluded. Knowing is not an effect of anything. The mind is omniscient, timeless, omnipotent, perfect from the beginning, invincible, but really beyond any characteristic. You don't know this yet. The fact that you don't is obvious from many many miles away.
I think you are smart, but you're arrogant and blind.
"If it is not a cause, and not an effect it has no impact and is not impacted by anything, therefore it doesn't exist."
:)
;) "
That's an extremist view. Your conclusion doesn't follow. For example, space doesn't cause anything and is not an effect of anything, and yet we consider it to be existent.
"But this is all missing my point, and I'm afraid you did too in trying to sound wise by putting what you've seen into words.
Not really. I'm far better than you can understand at this point.
"Materialistic Monism is no denial of sentience or awareness, it just places those properties in a subordinate position."
Not really. Monism means only one thing exists. So, it doesn't merely place awareness in a subordinate position. It is effectively saying that since awareness is not one thing that does exist, it, in fact, does NOT exist.
Of course when this is pointed out to a materialistic monist, they'll try all kinds of cop outs, such as "well consciousness exists, but it's an illusion" blah blah, *yawn*.
Monism of any kind is just as an extreme of a view as dualism of any kind.
Monism is a view that results from extreme "emphasis" of one polarity over another, where both polarities are created by a dualistic mindset. I place the word "emphasis" in quotation marks, because it's not really emphasis, but rather monism is a statement that one side of polarity absolutely exists, and is the only thing that exists. It's like saying that light is the only thing that exists, and there is no such thing as darkness (or, darkness is an illusion cop out, etc.).
I don't try to sound wise. I am wise. I am wise even during sleep or when I make mistakes.
Any time there is mention of the word "conspiracy" there is a huge number of people making fun of "tin foiled conspiracy nuts". Sometimes I wish those people worked as judges and/or lawyers.
Running a BitTorrent is a conspiracy now? But all the people who refuse to answer questions about 9/11 are not a conspiracy? Great. So, copyright violation is definitely a no-no, but when people have some questions regarding something that's never happened before, such as a steel skyscraper collapsing from fire, they are tin foil hat wearing nuts. Great.
Very nice reply to a very nice reply (the post you reply to is also nice).
:) If you assume there is a cause to everything, then your inquiry is not open to discovering anything to the contrary. What you're doing is assuming that such cause exists and then thinking that all that's left to do is to characterize it and locate it (of course, locating it is characterizing it positionally, so it's redundant).
:)
"Free will is a red herring. It just puts the real issue of control and determination at one further level removed. What made this happen? I willed it to happen, and enacted my will. But what made me will what I did? What caused the particuler set of choices I comprehended to appear in my consciousness?"
Invalid line of inquiry, because it assumes that cause is necessary.
It's one thing if you want to spin some propaganda, and perhaps we all do that. When we propagandize, we absolutely need some assumptions, or else, we have nowhere to stand and no statement to make. That's normal and I don't fault you for that right now, because I'm not in that kind of mood.
However, you should recognize that in a truly sincere inquiry you can't assume anything. A strict view of cause-effectism is very easy to attack, philosophically. All you have to do is examine the delineation between cause and effect, and discover that indeed there is none (except the one you make up in your mind). But there are many other ways too. And I don't want to get into that right now. The point is, a strict cause-effect view of reality is not a sure thing, and you shouldn't fully fall for it, even if you do decide to employ it on a relative level. So, even as you employ cause-effect view in real life, you should understand well the flaws of the strict cause-effect view, and use that understanding to keep your mind open.
Will is not a cause or effect of anything. If will was a cause but not the effect, then how would will connect to effect? You'd have to posit a medium of some sort, but then right away you'd encounter many problems. Then I'd ask, how does will connect to the medium? And so on. Will is not an effect of anything in a similar manner. Materialistic monism is one possible "solution" to this, but it's basically a denial of sentience/awareness at its core, which is a big joke (if everything is a medium, then what is the medium mediating between? etc. etc. etc..). Mind-body dualism is a big joke too.
The point is, if you don't have any sacred cows in your mind, and keep looking carefully at the core, you'll see something that you can't put into words. When you try to put what you see into words, you may sound wise to some and like an idiot to others. Oh well.
All in its season.
"There are numerous other individuals who have tried to destroy, undermine, or deprive us of things we enjoy, but towards whom no one directs similar hostility and vilification."
Because that's a type of "freedom" that many people would like to protect. That's why.
Surprisingly, I've even seen poor have-nothings think this way. Why? Because they dream that one day they will be on top, and that when they are on top, they'll get their turn to rape everyone blind. That's why even many abuse victims do not stand against that abuse. They are dreaming of a time when they'll get their turn to abuse others.
It's not a simple issue. Many things communities do and hold in high esteem are trash. Extreme individualism is also correct and soundly critiqued by people like you.
Communities have no rights in reality. Neither do individuals. People in the community have power to act, and so do individuals. If your community decides to bad nakedness, and I go around naked, you cannot just remove me by force. Why not? Because even though I may be in the minority, I may have enough determination and power to make life for that prudish community living hell. Why? Because although I may be alone, my determination to go around naked is probably very high, or else, I wouldn't do something that obviously endangers my standing in community for no good reason. That means if you use force, you will not create a situation of peace, which is what you ultimately desire. You will simply polarize yourself further and create divisions. This is how gangs form. Although gangs are minorities, they are going nowhere and wield considerable power, just for that very reason. So, just because you are in majority, you can't just willy nilly control the minority, because minorities also have significant power, commensurate with their determination to apply it.
In no case does anyone have any inherent rights. I don't have a right to be dressed or to be naked. The community has no rights either.
This is why communities change and evolve. If what you say was true, then community standards would stay locked in and never change. But they change quite a bit over time. And guess how it happens, and will continue to happen, forever and ever more? It happens due to individual influence. It happens because someone ran naked across the street. And you can't stop it. You can participate in this process and throw your 2 cents into the pile. But you can't stop the changes and you can't really claim that any sides have any rights.
The rights are declared as a statement of faith or belief. And that's fine. But as you declare such things, it would be wise for you to understand the relative nature of any such declarations. Any person can declare anything they like. If enough of them agree, there you go -- a community. But this tells you nothing about the community or about how it will change.
You might have a community of naked people where running through the street dressed is an act of rebellion.
Things change. Individuals do matter. Individual still stands at the center of change, and your reasoning doesn't take anything away, but rather, it just explains the stage upon which the individual dances. This is neither selfish nor selfless. It's just how it is. I have no inherent right do slap you, but if I want to, I can, and there is nothing you can do to stop me, except post-factum, which is useless, except if you crave revenge. It's useless for the purpose of totally controlling the situation or for giving someone protection from some event happening.
As I see it, communities owe to individuals and individuals owe to the communities. It goes both ways.
No. He's just talking from his own perspective. He sees himself as a battleground upon which Firefox and IE struggle. So far Firefox has won on that particular battleground (a.k.a. the author of the article). So he's talking about what IE has to do to win him over.
It's a completely valid and highly useful way of looking at things. It actually makes more sense to me personally than going by aggregated statistics which lump all things together. Some sites are dominated by Firefox users. Other sites are not. The sites that are dominated by Firefox represent valid and lucrative markets in and of themselves. Of course if you aggregate everything together into one big lump, then in terms of numbers, IE is "winning". But that's not a very meaningful way to look at things. For exactly the same reason GDP is a horrible way to estimate economic health of a nation, and all the sane economists know this.
Hey McAffee and Symantec:
Look, Microsoft is screwing you over. Face it. Stop whining about it by placing ads in a newspaper. Start promoting a credible vendor-neutral alternative! Are you capitalists, aren't you? Don't like the market leader? Support alternatives with your dollar!
Support Linux. Promote Linux. Linux is vendor-neutral by nature. With Linux such situation wouldn't happen. And as others have explained, no matter how secure Linux gets, there will be a need for security products, so you won't be out of a job.
The problem is that money is not truly wealth. Wealth is social position and property.
When more and more property is taken out of circulation and when social positions at the middle layer of society become less influential, the market cannot simply "adjust".
The reason you fell into a hole is that you have a very naive understand of wealth.
What you talk about is true about money as a unit in and of itself, but it's not true in terms of real wealth. I won't even go into the intangible aspects of real wealth, such as happiness, fulfillment and so on, which people cannot easily maintain in a socially unbalanced atmosphere. This is not merely a case of unfounded and superficial envy, because there are real and tangible effects caused by concentration of power. Those effects determine the types of decisions that can still fly. In an extreme case, if all property is owned by a single person, you cannot just "decide" to start your own business of selling donuts on street corner. You have to be "allowed". Of course this is an extreme I use to illustrate a point, and the scale is pretty wide and gray, but it is a real scale in a sense that it has tangible and very well defined effects.
Wealth is about the power to make decisions without much opposition. If I am wealthy, I can decide nearly anything and get very little push back. If I am not, then I have to fight a big bureaucratic battle uphill even to open a little donut stand. Again extreme examples are used for clarity.
No is entitled to anything. People are not entitled to hiring others. Hiring is a privilege, you whiny little schmuck. Everything is a privilege and not a right.
CEO living safely in his mansion is also a privilege that is consensually agreed upon, given that CEO doesn't break any societal norms.
Yes, workers have no inherent rights you fuck. I agree with you. But neither do CEO's and people in the so-called "old boys club". Everyone is on the same plane, whether you agree or not. People can whine all they want, just cause they can. If this whine is not heeded by the people who are in position to move jobs back to USA, it can turn to action. And this won't be the fault of anyone, will it?
You are whining too, don't you see? Shut up.
Parent actually has good points. You just insulted him "in style", but the "in style" part is of course debatable.
Wealth is always relative, and never absolute.
Thus, it's impossible for wealth to be created or for it to disappear in absolute terms. But what IS possible for a relative quantity? Aha, that's right -- concentration. Yes, in relative terms, wealth can concentrate. That's all it ever does. It either concentrates or diffuses, and it's never created or destroyed.
I'd maybe go deeper into it and explain why wealth is relative, but you're a dipshit who is not worth my time. I'm writing this for other people, not for you.
This is easy. Mature gamers want RPGs that explore mature situations, such as the relativity or grayness (as opposed to black and white good vs bad) of morality, the complexity of emotions and so on.
The kiddy RPG has the good guy beat the crap of the bad guy and save the world. That's what kiddy about it. It has nothing to do with sex and gore. Only kids view the world in a simplistic black and white, us vs. them manner.
If I told you that such system for spot checking could not be feasibly created, would you still be pro patent?
In other words, does the pragmatic usability of idea affect your opinion about it? Or do you like some things, no matter how well they turn out in real life? (In other words, are you an idealist?) It's a real question. I'm not trying to imply anything.
Are you pro patent, then, in hopes of such system coming online soon? If there is no obvious reason to hope for such a system becoming available soon, then why are you pro patent?
The problem is that giving one man property rights always and necessarily comes at the expense of another man's property rights. See? People in Congress have a right to accept bribes and put up toll gates (not really, but do you see what I'm saying?).
Property rights are not a clean solution, because eventually someone starts hoarding more and more property and puts up their own, private, tollgates for others to use it. At some point it is really no different from the government. The only difference is size. Once a business goes above a certain size, it is in essence a government and has the same impact on society and environment as a government. A large enough business acts exactly like the government. When businesses get large enough they also get corrupted and bureaucratic just like the government.
So, I understand what you're saying. And I even like your example with the hot dogs, and agree with it. But you haven't thought this problem all the way through it seems.
I think this practice should be illegal. Currently it seems quite common for various CEO's and other execs to be involved in many many companies. I think that's insane.
This allows for an insane power concentration and it also solidifies and protects the "old boys club". That's not something we should stand for as people and citizens. If someone is involved in one company, it should be illegal to be involved in another. Any time power concentrates it's bad for the people.
Power should be well distributed and diffused.
I don't know... The way skeptics behave makes them more like idiots in my eyes. I'm not sure that "skeptic" is a compliment anymore.
Around here there are all kinds of people. But if you really want to label us, then I'd prefer "reasonable" as opposed to "skeptical".
We follow the money here on Slashdot. What does this Engineer have to gain? Nothing. He persists in his message, unsvervingly, for a long time. This does absolutely nothing for his career. This is not the way to get a raise. He is putting himself and his family at risk. Now, tell me, what motivation do you see for this guy to be a liar? Why shouldn't people trust him?
On the other hand, take a mega corp that's only interested in money. Ahh.. Yes, it doesn't take a big genius to understand who is the more likely one that's lying here. A person who has nothing to gain from lies, or a group of people who have everything to gain from lies? Who is more likely lying here? A person who puts his family at risk, or a group of people who hardly carry any personal responsibility for their conduct (since they are protected by the corp, which is a legal person, and plus they act in a group, so they split responsibility, thus making it emotionally easier to commit crimes -- we all did it together)?
It's not about being blindly and unilaterally skeptical. That's just an attitude of an idiot. You have to follow the motivations and money. It's about being reasonable here.
EVEN if this guy is wrong, it takes no effort for Lockheed to come out and say "we have shielded cables and we have the extra cameras". But they're not saying that, are they? All they are saying is "we are OK, trust us". They are not offering direct counter-evidence, are they? It's so trivial to just come out and say, yes we have shielded cables, if it is the truth that is. Of course if it's not the truth...then you have to avoid direct statements and just put heavy political spin on everything.
Basically Lockheed Martin are acting like assholes right now, no doubt about it. I don't need to be either skeptical of gullible to see this. It just makes too much sense for this to be this way, with all the money involved. LM is not a charity operation.
You really should speak for yourself instead of speaking for huge swaths of population.
Colbert failed to show that Wikipedia is less factual than books and other media.
The only thing he succeeded in showing was that Wikipedia is somewhat more malleable and more open than books and other media.
Just because a book is not open or malleable does not mean it's more factual.
Some facts are not determined by a democratic process. Some are. For example, if you want to know for a fact an opinion of some group, there is no way to find out other than to engage in a democratic process. There are many types of truth. Some are tangible and some are intangible. I love my parents. That's a truth. It's not subject to proof or examination. If I say so, someone has to basically trust me, for, ultimately, no real reason. Yes, the sky is above, and if for some reason majority voted it was below, it wouldn't mean it actually was below. But that's only one type of truth. The fact that people did vote it (let's suppose they did, for the sake of argument) was below is also a truth. Although what such vote alludes to is misleading, but that people did vote is a truth in its own right.
The faith in books is tied to belief in experts. So far, the belief in experts has been mainstream, and this is ironic! On one hand, people think only experts know all the truth. On the other hand, the majority of people do not seriously ask any expert on whether or not to believe the experts. The majority believes in experts unasked! So, even though the common opinion esteems the experts, the way in which the esteem of experts is upheld is dumb and sheep-like in its actual practice and execution. Don't you think that there is a lot of truthiness in hoards blindly believing the experts?
Don't you think that books just plain old FEEL more factual? I mean, they smell good and they are substantial. They are things that you can touch and set on fire. They are real. Therefore what's printed in them is real and factual. There is a lot of truthiness to this, right? That's why the price of books in colleges keeps going up and up and up, because in our increasingly virtual world books are the last bastions of truthiness, and people are willing to pay top dollar for what just plain feels right (even if the actual material in the book is presented by morons who couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag, look it's glossy and bleached, heavy bond paper goodness).
Colbert just plays to the common sentiment.
I'm saying that 100k in POCKET CASH (after taxes), in an area like West Virginia, or Arizona or Colorago and on and on and on, is going to go very, very far. Yes you will own a house outright. In fact, you'll have 3 houses with that money, or one mansion. You'll have a collection of cars and a boat or two. You'll spend 2 months in Europe every year, or heck, you can move to Europe and live there and do your work there. You can hire a permanent nanny and a chef. Maybe you can't do all of the above, but you can really do a lot and live well above the middle class level on that kind of money.
Yes, I did pull the numbers out of my ass, but my point is, however much Mark was making, I am sure he wasn't suffering from a qualitative lifestyle deficiency. In other words, it makes no sense to sell out for money for a wise individual who prefers real freedom, as opposed to token freedom that's *granted to you* by your overlords. Remember, what's given can be taken away. What kind of freedom is it that is handed to you by a corp in a title of "Fellow"? It's fictitious. Genuine freedom, from a spiritual point of view and from a quality of life point of view, is not something that someone can give you. Ultimately, you're either free or not (or, if you are pedantic, it cannot be described at all, even as "freedom", since it's a limiting concept). Relatively speaking, real freedom is what you earn on your own and not what someone agrees to give you and can easily change their mind about.
Things in large corps are never easy or straight. It's highly political (out of necessity). He's not likely to have the freedom to reveal the future Sony rootkit, for example, especially if Sony is a strategic Microsoft partner. Yes, of course you can get more money in the short term. But considering all the insane exit/post-contract period obligations (like non-compete and so on), is it worth it?
Anyway, money never buys security or opportunity. Those things cannot be purchased at any price, since they are ineffable and cannot even be described. We can allude to them, and there is a feeling that we all understand what we mean. I can maybe agree about opportunity, but never security. Security is not for sale at any price.