Human mind (not brain) is selective in general. About all things. Including the minds of the most sincere, scientifically materialistic (speaking about philosophy here, and not making a moral judgement), objectivistic (again, philosophy reference -- a belief in an objectively existing world) people.
In other words, the mind is not only selective about paranormal-sounding things. It's selective about all things, including what we consider factual.
In other words, selectivity of human mind is evenly distributed among people. It's innate to the mind and how it works. If we didn't make some assumptions and selections, we couldn't function as human beings. If you're lucky and have the selectivity that agrees with convention, then you go unnoticed. If you're unlucky (or lucky, depending on your point of view) and your selectivity is unconventional, then you are called "a fraud", "a loony", "a basket case" and so on.
Why would people who are selective about the same things criticize each other's selectivity of mind? Just because there is a lack of critique in some areas does not mean anything ultimately. Just because people love to make fun of certain point of views, likewise, does not mean anything ultimately.
I disagree. You'd be a fool to take Microsoft's offer if you run a successful independent company. I bet Mark and others made enough money as is. Past a certain point, getting a pay raise in exchange for sacrificing your ethics is not really worth it. I say "really", but arguably it's never worth it.
This is hypothetical, but imagine you make 100k a year (after taxes) as an independent software company owner (this also means you can live in lush and cheap areas, keeping most of that money in your pocket). You are your own boss. There is little or no bureaucracy. You have clear conscience. You can afford pretty much anything you want (within reason, because if you want to purchase the entire earth, you can't afford it, so of course there will always be things you cannot afford, but they are meaningless in day to day life). It's not a life of lack by any means. It's a life of freedom and abundance.
Now, why would you accept a deal to get even 500k a year, but giving up your sanity to bureaucracy and giving up your conscience to the ethical nightmare that is Microsoft? Yes, you can buy a jet or a yacht, perhaps. But who cares? You can time share with less money and get the same experience. You can hire 10 chefs, but you only have 1 mouth to eat. You could donate more money, but the point of that is spiritual, and not measured in raw $$$ donated. In fact, from that point of view, a life of non-accumulation is the highest charity. Giving away accumulations is merely atoning for accumulating so much in the first place. So what exactly is the benefit? There is none.
It takes a only a little wisdom and long term vision to say NO to Microsoft's offer.
It would also be nice if arcades were visited by the cleaning crews more than once every two years. Pretty much every arcade I've been in had a stinky slimy carpet, nasty film on the games themselves, and in general stunk.
I think you could keep more people in if the facilities were sparkling clean and kept that way.
Also many arcades need to pay more mind to proper lighting. An arcade is not a dungeon.
I'm not sure how long it will take for Western Philosophy to collapse though. It might get marginalized enough to simply be irrelevant in day to day life.
It's impossible to assign all the credit to a single person for anything other than a completely trivial change.
Things in the world happen due to a wide variety of causes and conditions. No single person stands at the head of any major change. There is no driver, or alternatively, every person is a driver. People who buy into some change are causing it as much as the person who is selling some change. It takes two to tango. You can't reasonably attribute the outcome of an intricate dance to a single person.
Another thing is that we don't know what would have happened without Gates. What if without Gates personal computers proliferated even faster? It's an unknown. Because it's an unknown, we can't compare a known outcome against it in a reasonable way. If you could be certain that without Gates it wouldn't have worked out, and with and only with Gates it would work, then you'd have a slightly better position to assign all the credit to Gates. But still you can't satisfactorily assign all the credit for a major social change to one person for reasons outlined above.
Does anyone really think that Microsoft would resist taking advantage of an open source Intel-based kernel if it could help them solve the mountain of problems under which Windows is buried?
Microsoft has way too much ego and pride to do that, even if it was a logical choice. The only code they seem to use from others is the type they can buy and call "mine".
There is more than one mistake there. Software and business process patents is one such mistake. Allowing people to create fictitious legal persons to shift responsibility for their actions from themselves into this fictitious person is another mistake. And there may be 10 other mistakes.
In other words, don't assume it's just one mistake and we have to find which one is it.
Well, your post is the same as his. I can't see any difference.
However, emotionally I am against you. Emotions count, but only in real life. So does reason. Reason tells me you're doing the same thing as what you're criticizing. Emotion tells me you have no compassion. It doesn't matter if it's ultimately right or wrong. I don't care if I make a mistake in judgement. I'm going to form an opinion that you're a jerk and the grandparent is at least an OK guy.
The reason I write this is to give you some insight into thought and emotion processes of at least one person.
Stop whining about other people's whining. It is unseemly. Just kidding!! Hahah... bet you thought I was serious.
Try it. It beat the crap out of Google on a very difficult search for me. But that's just one search and it's just me. But from what it looks like so far, it's definitely doing fine on the results so far. Give it a shot and let us know.
I'm hoping someone will post some more detailed research on the actual search results.:)
It looks like ask.com will be kicking Google's ass. I think it's already right up there with Google, and considering that people say it has no Chinese operation, it may be a winner for me. We'll see.
I can confirm that it works better than Google on at least one search. I was looking for a friend's email just yesterday and I spent about 20 minutes with Google and got nowhere. With ask.com I got my answer on the first link!
ask.com is definitely going to be something I will consider using.
Unfortunately I can't post my search string, because it's personal, but I'll mention that it's three words: first two are my friend's nickname and the third ward is his first real name. My friend has a very unique nickname when you put two words together, but both words are very very common individually. I'm hoping some others will post some detailed results.
Yea, that's because of some bad blood between Microsoft and the user community (and the blood is bad for a good reason too -- it's all documented, just google for it... you can start with halloween memos). Microsoft can overcome that type of perception, but it will take some seriously positive action to do that, or else it would just take a very long time of non-antagonizing for the bad perception to wear off naturally.
So yea, if you act like a dick to people, then no matter what you do one day later, you'll be seen as a dickhead. No big surprise there.
Open source is about technology, not ideology. People in the real world choose it and use it to the degree to which it is superior and/or more economical. No one cares about the ideology of the developers.
Open source movement really is about ideology, even if they won't admit it. Why do I say this? Because even a BSD license is not public domain. If open source people were only about tech and nothing else, they'd release all their code into public domain. But they do not. They still retain copyrights. Now, historically, open source people have said that it's more effective to preach about technical merits -- that's true. But they are preachers just the same (e.g. ESR). So your statement I am quoting is either completely wrong or is a mere caricature of the real situation at best. Reality is that open source people do care about freedom -- they just believe it's more effective to support their belief via appeals to technological superioty of open source process.
But open source people still want freedom in the end, and not just superior tech. If they only cared about superior tech, why would so many pro-BSD people bash GPL so strongly? What would they care if some software was licensed under GPL, as long as the tech was great? And yet they do care! That's because they do care about freedom and not just tech.
And you completely overlook a huge, huge amount of free software. Free software movement really is 100% ideological. That doesn't mean it's not pragmatic. Freedom is quite pragmatic. Free software users get certain very pragmatic freedoms and they really DO appreciate and treasure them. Call this zealotry, if you want, but I don't think you'll win many ears that way. Calling people you disagree with "zealots" is really a cheesy way to discuss things. If you think some of the GPL freedoms are bad, you should discuss that in concrete terms, instead of making fuzzy appeals to "zealotry".
You hate Microsoft, well guess what, no one cares. The people who make decisions about how their IT budget will be spent don't give a rat's ass about your feelings.
You're wrong. We do care. And the people who make decisions about how IT budget will be spent is ALL OF US. Fact is, we bring real (not fake!) value into the company, and higher ups benefit greatly when they listen to us. If they ignore us, they can fire or outsource us, but that's not going to continue indefinitely. Why not? Because in the end many people will stand firm and decide that life of slavery is a fate worse than death. It's very hard to subdue this kind of mindset. Once this type of "Spartacus mindset" takes hold, it's going to change things. And from what I can tell, it's already taken hold and it's already changing things. People all over the world, right now, are standing up for themselves, without fear. Maybe some of those people get fired, but they are happy knowing they did the right things and can go to their graves without worrying "What if I said what I really felt like? What if I wasn't a coward?"
In the end, as people realize their innate power, they will marginalize the so-called "top" decision makers. Fact is, we all make decisions and we are all equally important. Even the janitor makes decisions and is important. We are all people and we all have very real impact on society. What we do counts! It's not just voting that counts -- that's junk. It's EVERYTHING we do that counts and changes the society.
It's really just bullshit disempowering propaganda coming down from the top layers that wants us to believe in our own impotence and insignificance. But all we have to do is to disbelieve it and we are free of that yoke! What we do matters. Even if I just say to my coworker, "Microsoft sucks, and here's why I think so... blah blah" it matters and it changes things. Everything we do has power. Every breath is power. And we all have it.
I agree with you that empowering people is the right way to help. However, have you considered that the way we do business is a sickness that should not be taught? In other words, when you talk about a person becoming responsible for themselves, you're talking about integrating the person into a dead-end system of master-slave psychodynamics.
For example, I can go and fish right now... Oh wait! I can't, because I need a permit. I can go and hunt wild animals wherever and whenever I want...ahh no. I can clear some land and start farming? Nope -- all the land is owned already, so first I have to buy it, and then I have to buy a load of other crap, and then I have to get someone else to buy my crap, and why should they, when the corporate farms can do things cheaper? (who cares about quality...people still buy it, that's all that matters, right?).
In other words, a person who you teach how to fish the way you yourself fish is only just a slave of the system, but is not really a fearless lord who stands above the tides of birth and death. Standing above birth and death and having an immovable and vast mind is what real empowerment is. It doesn't depend on money or skills or playing "nice" with fools. But it does depend on wisdom. And wisdom is awareness of how all things relate, it is the cognisance of wholeness. For example, a stupid person praises their own self for success but blames themselves for failure. But a wise person realizes that failure is inherent in our makeup. A wise person also knows that there is also a share of stupidity that is timeless and that's not going to go away. So a wise person has no blind spot because they are aware of their own blindspot. They have no weakness because they know about their weakness and accept it. They do not denigrate themselves mentally for failures and do not become overly puffed up over successes. This kind of behavior cannot be explained in terms of money or any type of substance (like atoms, molecules, chairs, apples, bodies and other things people believe to be substantial).
Next time you see a hungry person, give them some food, EVEN IF they do not learn how to make food for themselves. You know why? Because real help is unconditional. Because ever person deserves rest from the insane wirlpool of death we call "career". Because it's a symbol that signals that not all beautiful things can be purchased. Stop fucking judging the needy. If they want to learn how to procure their own food, teach them. If they don't, just give it away anyway. Because if you only give to the ones you think are "worthy" then you are not really giving -- you are investing. It means your mind is still invested in various ideas, and as long as that's true, you're narrow minded. And as long as you're narrow, you won't taste real freedom, but instead you'll only have to make do with a cheap ass proxy, which is the freedom of a well-to-do businessman, whose body rots away and who is surrounded by pissed off, depressed, extremists who apathetic on one side, and insanely passionate about some lunacy (which they have never subjected to any type of serious questioning) on the other side. You'll be living in a world of strong polarities and you'll be needing to invest into a tall fence, or go on an island to really separate yourself from all that crap, but the crap won't go away... It will be lapping at your door step. That's not real freedom.
You don't know why people are the way they are. You haven't figured out women. You have no clue. You see someone who is out of the "career" loop and immediately your mind starts spinning and judging. Forget that crap. Give away your shit to the needy even if everyone else things it's wrong. Give it away, because if you keep it, you admit that you need it to be happy. And if you do that, you base your happiness on a very shaky foundation.
(and no, I'm not a Christian and I am not a Bible thumper, etc., I don't belong to any religions and I don't stand on corners proselytizing). So don't take my
It'd be nice if you at least understood and acknowledged the parent's conscious choice to be less rich in order to be more wealthy.
As it is, I don't think you understand wealth and you don't appreciate the choice that parent post speaks of. See, you measure everything in money, and that's not the right way to measure true wealth.
Point by point, 1 is money, 2 is money (unless you mean wisdom passing on to descendants, which I really doubt, having read quite a few of your posts), 3 money again.
I see wealth as having a happy life -- the kind of life where the person feels at ease and social relations are free from strain. When people focus on making money, they make all other goals half-assed. Or spoken in different words, a person who performs some art, such as healing (like a surgeon), constructions, etc., when doing so for money, is bringing ulterior motive into their art/craft, thus invariable and necessarily degrading it. And this is what we see happening all around! Look how crappy the fruits and vegetables are in your supermarket. Shit, you may not even have seen a good looking tomato in your entire life, if you grew up in USA. What they sell in supermarkets across America is CRAP. Why? Because it's efficient -- the fruits are not tasty enough for worms, they don't rot, they last long. The main priority is quantity and lastingness. That's what happens when you do it for money. If you did it in any other way, then you'd make less money. So we have tomatoes that taste like leather, green bananas, mushy and blackened potatoes and so on. Some things you can't even buy, because they're not profitable (but damn, they are tasty). I once had to fight with the store ordering guy to get him to order some beets for the store. His argument, "No one buys beets, so we don't carry it." So what if the majority of culture is happy with just fucken' ramen? And that's likely to happen because they sell crap vegetables. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: you sell crap produce and drive people to rely more on canned goods and cereal (5 dollars for a box of air) and pasta, etc... People buy fewer vegetables, so you have to carry a less diverse stock and less more expensive cereal. Profit. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
This is not what I'd call wealth. Lots of money flows thru a supermarket store. But everything on its shelves is CRAP and every fuckin supermarket employee I've seen has been a very SICK and unhappy person. Why is that? Because the store treats them like crap. That's why. But they don't have to be treated like that. They could be paid more (and yes, I know... I KNOW the store will make less money if they pay their clerks more, or GOD FORBID, give them part ownership of the store, so they feel responsible for what they do and they feel part of the success of their own work). The result: very very strained human relations. The result of strained relations is segregations of society into layers. The result of layering of society is formations of elites at the top and gangs who have nothing to lose and nothing to live for at the bottom.
Greed and the focus on money as exclusive measure of wealth turns everything into crap. You end up with booming economy, with lots of dollars, but all the people are pissed off, the government is bloated (YES, because, for corps to keep pumping more and more money out of public, they need to get government on board, and this is just a natural extention of doing it for money and seeing money as wealth), and all the products are of bare-minimum quality that the market will bear, and there is no point in excellence if a mediocre thing will sell too.
dada, it is people like YOU who bloat our government. You just don't see how it happens. It's a guy like you who ends up, in luckier circumstances with owning a corporation. And it's a guy like you that at the end of the day goes to the government and asks for laws that protect and ensure your business. You only talk trash when you're a small fry, but once you get more
Because I disagree with people who think that it does matter? Doh.
What Linus says doesn't matter, but if people misjudge what doesn't matter for what does, then that kind of misjudgement DOES matter.
I mean, if what Linus says really matters, why not publish more ESR, RMS, Theo, and so on? Why single out Linus? Just because he gave interview to Forbes? Big woop-de-doo, if you ask me.
I mean, what Linus says does matter to an extent. But it's nothing worth bellyaching over. Linus is a good guy, but good guys say and do silly things all the fucking time. So just because Linus is nice doesn't mean we have to go crazy over what he says or does. In particular, it makes no sense to start a big polemic over his words.
Nah. I don't believe in this kind of stuff. What's a disease and what's not a disease is just a convention. But I don't want to have a long philosophical discussion about it now. Suffice it to say that, no, I don't diagnose myself in that way at all. And I have no plans to turn into a hypochondriac when I'm old either -- but who knows how it will be?
Long time ago I used to think very highly of Linus. But I am under no obligation to continue to think so.
Today I think Linus is pretty much irrelevant, if not foolish. But at least he's not arrogantly and offensively stupid yet -- only just foolish.
I think some people in technical community feel like they're married to Linus. Meaning, whatever Linus things, they have to "yes dear". Ah, no. We're not married to Linus. If Linus starts spouting off nonsense to Forbes, then "fuck you Linus" may be in order.
So far I don't think a "fuck you" is actually in order, but nor does it shake the foundations of my being if I used to really like Linus' personality in the past and now I like it less. Big woop de doo. Things change. Sure, someone can say that Linus was this way all along, but that's not what I'm talking about. How can I possibly know how Linus really is? I can't. All I know is my experience, which is contextual. In other words, maybe I realized just now that I really don't care all that much for Linus' opinion. So what? I still respect his coding skills, but I don't have to base myself on Linus (or RMS for that matter).
The reason I like RMS is not RMS himself, but the idea that he stands for.
So let's just relax and stop posting articles about Linus' opinion, like it matters. Linus' opinion matters when it comes time to include patches into his tree and what happens to his family, etc. But other than that, it doesn't matter much.
I've had from about 1000 friends (not kidding) to almost none. I'm not this or that. I'm not social or anti-social. Sometimes I chat up almost anyone, and other times I want my space. Sometimes I am a party/clown type fool and others times I'm serious. Don't stick me with your idiotic labels just because you didn't have the priviledge to know me for more than 3 years, please.
Right now I work in a cube. I love talking to others. Right now. I am not obligated to keep loving it. I am not obligated to hate it. And here's the kicker, I still enter the zone! Even in a social situation I can be as focused as anyone in a completely isolated and sound-proof office. AND it doesn't stop me from being able to chat with my cube buddies once in a while, or maybe a lot on some days. Or maybe not at all on others.
For Pete's sake, just stop stereotyping. The zone, social, anti-social, good, bad, asshole, nice, it's not how you imagine. It's really not. It only seems you got it nailed down. But once you start asking yourself tough questions and start being really observant, you'll see that people are individuals and that many qualities you previously thought to be exclusive are not necessarily exclusive.
Someone in an office can be very friendly and social. Someone in a cube farm or in a completely open environment can be able to enter the zone. Someone who can enter the zone can be very considerate of others. Someone who is a socialite could be an inconsiderate and narcisistic asshole. And so on. Just because you talk to others a lot and get your code reviewed doesn't mean you write good code. You might be stupid and resistant to change, no matter how much your code gets reviewed. The reviewers might be idiots. It's really, really hard to say. It's very context/situation dependent. And please, I am not trying to know code reviews -- I love open source and I constantly solicit reviews of my own code, even though code review is not even a policy in my workplace.
In a word, just try to grow an open mind. Please. For all of us! Not just for your own sake.
The point is valid. The point is that helping out of context is not necessarily "helping". The guy I was replying to made a good post, but his last paragraph was a "feel good" non sequitur.
Oh and don't worry about WW2. Many of my family members died in it, so don't give me your political correctness BS please.
Slashdot Mirror
Human mind (not brain) is selective in general. About all things. Including the minds of the most sincere, scientifically materialistic (speaking about philosophy here, and not making a moral judgement), objectivistic (again, philosophy reference -- a belief in an objectively existing world) people.
In other words, the mind is not only selective about paranormal-sounding things. It's selective about all things, including what we consider factual.
In other words, selectivity of human mind is evenly distributed among people. It's innate to the mind and how it works. If we didn't make some assumptions and selections, we couldn't function as human beings. If you're lucky and have the selectivity that agrees with convention, then you go unnoticed. If you're unlucky (or lucky, depending on your point of view) and your selectivity is unconventional, then you are called "a fraud", "a loony", "a basket case" and so on.
Why would people who are selective about the same things criticize each other's selectivity of mind? Just because there is a lack of critique in some areas does not mean anything ultimately.
Just because people love to make fun of certain point of views, likewise, does not mean anything ultimately.
I disagree. You'd be a fool to take Microsoft's offer if you run a successful independent company. I bet Mark and others made enough money as is. Past a certain point, getting a pay raise in exchange for sacrificing your ethics is not really worth it. I say "really", but arguably it's never worth it.
This is hypothetical, but imagine you make 100k a year (after taxes) as an independent software company owner (this also means you can live in lush and cheap areas, keeping most of that money in your pocket). You are your own boss. There is little or no bureaucracy. You have clear conscience. You can afford pretty much anything you want (within reason, because if you want to purchase the entire earth, you can't afford it, so of course there will always be things you cannot afford, but they are meaningless in day to day life). It's not a life of lack by any means. It's a life of freedom and abundance.
Now, why would you accept a deal to get even 500k a year, but giving up your sanity to bureaucracy and giving up your conscience to the ethical nightmare that is Microsoft? Yes, you can buy a jet or a yacht, perhaps. But who cares? You can time share with less money and get the same experience. You can hire 10 chefs, but you only have 1 mouth to eat. You could donate more money, but the point of that is spiritual, and not measured in raw $$$ donated. In fact, from that point of view, a life of non-accumulation is the highest charity. Giving away accumulations is merely atoning for accumulating so much in the first place. So what exactly is the benefit? There is none.
It takes a only a little wisdom and long term vision to say NO to Microsoft's offer.
Not true. Sony can license the use of their patent to other companies.
It would also be nice if arcades were visited by the cleaning crews more than once every two years. Pretty much every arcade I've been in had a stinky slimy carpet, nasty film on the games themselves, and in general stunk.
I think you could keep more people in if the facilities were sparkling clean and kept that way.
Also many arcades need to pay more mind to proper lighting. An arcade is not a dungeon.
Well said.
I'm not sure how long it will take for Western Philosophy to collapse though. It might get marginalized enough to simply be irrelevant in day to day life.
It's impossible to assign all the credit to a single person for anything other than a completely trivial change.
Things in the world happen due to a wide variety of causes and conditions. No single person stands at the head of any major change. There is no driver, or alternatively, every person is a driver. People who buy into some change are causing it as much as the person who is selling some change. It takes two to tango. You can't reasonably attribute the outcome of an intricate dance to a single person.
Another thing is that we don't know what would have happened without Gates. What if without Gates personal computers proliferated even faster? It's an unknown. Because it's an unknown, we can't compare a known outcome against it in a reasonable way. If you could be certain that without Gates it wouldn't have worked out, and with and only with Gates it would work, then you'd have a slightly better position to assign all the credit to Gates. But still you can't satisfactorily assign all the credit for a major social change to one person for reasons outlined above.
Does anyone really think that Microsoft would resist taking advantage of an open source Intel-based kernel if it could help them solve the mountain of problems under which Windows is buried?
Microsoft has way too much ego and pride to do that, even if it was a logical choice. The only code they seem to use from others is the type they can buy and call "mine".
Maybe Microsoft will wise up, and perhaps it's happening right now, but conventionally they are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Invented_Here people.
Where are my mod points? Parent should be +5 Insightful.
There is more than one mistake there. Software and business process patents is one such mistake. Allowing people to create fictitious legal persons to shift responsibility for their actions from themselves into this fictitious person is another mistake. And there may be 10 other mistakes.
In other words, don't assume it's just one mistake and we have to find which one is it.
Well, your post is the same as his. I can't see any difference.
However, emotionally I am against you. Emotions count, but only in real life. So does reason. Reason tells me you're doing the same thing as what you're criticizing. Emotion tells me you have no compassion. It doesn't matter if it's ultimately right or wrong. I don't care if I make a mistake in judgement. I'm going to form an opinion that you're a jerk and the grandparent is at least an OK guy.
The reason I write this is to give you some insight into thought and emotion processes of at least one person.
Stop whining about other people's whining. It is unseemly. Just kidding!! Hahah... bet you thought I was serious.
Can you say greasemonkey? :)
Try it. It beat the crap out of Google on a very difficult search for me. But that's just one search and it's just me. But from what it looks like so far, it's definitely doing fine on the results so far. Give it a shot and let us know.
:)
I'm hoping someone will post some more detailed research on the actual search results.
Very nice map! Thanks.
It looks like ask.com will be kicking Google's ass. I think it's already right up there with Google, and considering that people say it has no Chinese operation, it may be a winner for me. We'll see.
I can confirm that it works better than Google on at least one search. I was looking for a friend's email just yesterday and I spent about 20 minutes with Google and got nowhere. With ask.com I got my answer on the first link!
ask.com is definitely going to be something I will consider using.
Unfortunately I can't post my search string, because it's personal, but I'll mention that it's three words: first two are my friend's nickname and the third ward is his first real name. My friend has a very unique nickname when you put two words together, but both words are very very common individually. I'm hoping some others will post some detailed results.
Yea, that's because of some bad blood between Microsoft and the user community (and the blood is bad for a good reason too -- it's all documented, just google for it... you can start with halloween memos). Microsoft can overcome that type of perception, but it will take some seriously positive action to do that, or else it would just take a very long time of non-antagonizing for the bad perception to wear off naturally.
So yea, if you act like a dick to people, then no matter what you do one day later, you'll be seen as a dickhead. No big surprise there.
Open source is about technology, not ideology. People in the real world choose it and use it to the degree to which it is superior and/or more economical. No one cares about the ideology of the developers.
Open source movement really is about ideology, even if they won't admit it. Why do I say this? Because even a BSD license is not public domain. If open source people were only about tech and nothing else, they'd release all their code into public domain. But they do not. They still retain copyrights. Now, historically, open source people have said that it's more effective to preach about technical merits -- that's true. But they are preachers just the same (e.g. ESR). So your statement I am quoting is either completely wrong or is a mere caricature of the real situation at best. Reality is that open source people do care about freedom -- they just believe it's more effective to support their belief via appeals to technological superioty of open source process.
But open source people still want freedom in the end, and not just superior tech. If they only cared about superior tech, why would so many pro-BSD people bash GPL so strongly? What would they care if some software was licensed under GPL, as long as the tech was great? And yet they do care! That's because they do care about freedom and not just tech.
And you completely overlook a huge, huge amount of free software. Free software movement really is 100% ideological. That doesn't mean it's not pragmatic. Freedom is quite pragmatic. Free software users get certain very pragmatic freedoms and they really DO appreciate and treasure them. Call this zealotry, if you want, but I don't think you'll win many ears that way. Calling people you disagree with "zealots" is really a cheesy way to discuss things. If you think some of the GPL freedoms are bad, you should discuss that in concrete terms, instead of making fuzzy appeals to "zealotry".
You hate Microsoft, well guess what, no one cares. The people who make decisions about how their IT budget will be spent don't give a rat's ass about your feelings.
You're wrong. We do care. And the people who make decisions about how IT budget will be spent is ALL OF US. Fact is, we bring real (not fake!) value into the company, and higher ups benefit greatly when they listen to us. If they ignore us, they can fire or outsource us, but that's not going to continue indefinitely. Why not? Because in the end many people will stand firm and decide that life of slavery is a fate worse than death. It's very hard to subdue this kind of mindset. Once this type of "Spartacus mindset" takes hold, it's going to change things. And from what I can tell, it's already taken hold and it's already changing things. People all over the world, right now, are standing up for themselves, without fear. Maybe some of those people get fired, but they are happy knowing they did the right things and can go to their graves without worrying "What if I said what I really felt like? What if I wasn't a coward?"
In the end, as people realize their innate power, they will marginalize the so-called "top" decision makers. Fact is, we all make decisions and we are all equally important. Even the janitor makes decisions and is important. We are all people and we all have very real impact on society. What we do counts! It's not just voting that counts -- that's junk. It's EVERYTHING we do that counts and changes the society.
It's really just bullshit disempowering propaganda coming down from the top layers that wants us to believe in our own impotence and insignificance. But all we have to do is to disbelieve it and we are free of that yoke! What we do matters. Even if I just say to my coworker, "Microsoft sucks, and here's why I think so... blah blah" it matters and it changes things. Everything we do has power. Every breath is power. And we all have it.
I agree with you that empowering people is the right way to help. However, have you considered that the way we do business is a sickness that should not be taught? In other words, when you talk about a person becoming responsible for themselves, you're talking about integrating the person into a dead-end system of master-slave psychodynamics.
For example, I can go and fish right now... Oh wait! I can't, because I need a permit. I can go and hunt wild animals wherever and whenever I want...ahh no. I can clear some land and start farming? Nope -- all the land is owned already, so first I have to buy it, and then I have to buy a load of other crap, and then I have to get someone else to buy my crap, and why should they, when the corporate farms can do things cheaper? (who cares about quality...people still buy it, that's all that matters, right?).
In other words, a person who you teach how to fish the way you yourself fish is only just a slave of the system, but is not really a fearless lord who stands above the tides of birth and death. Standing above birth and death and having an immovable and vast mind is what real empowerment is. It doesn't depend on money or skills or playing "nice" with fools. But it does depend on wisdom. And wisdom is awareness of how all things relate, it is the cognisance of wholeness. For example, a stupid person praises their own self for success but blames themselves for failure. But a wise person realizes that failure is inherent in our makeup. A wise person also knows that there is also a share of stupidity that is timeless and that's not going to go away. So a wise person has no blind spot because they are aware of their own blindspot. They have no weakness because they know about their weakness and accept it. They do not denigrate themselves mentally for failures and do not become overly puffed up over successes. This kind of behavior cannot be explained in terms of money or any type of substance (like atoms, molecules, chairs, apples, bodies and other things people believe to be substantial).
Next time you see a hungry person, give them some food, EVEN IF they do not learn how to make food for themselves. You know why? Because real help is unconditional. Because ever person deserves rest from the insane wirlpool of death we call "career". Because it's a symbol that signals that not all beautiful things can be purchased. Stop fucking judging the needy. If they want to learn how to procure their own food, teach them. If they don't, just give it away anyway. Because if you only give to the ones you think are "worthy" then you are not really giving -- you are investing. It means your mind is still invested in various ideas, and as long as that's true, you're narrow minded. And as long as you're narrow, you won't taste real freedom, but instead you'll only have to make do with a cheap ass proxy, which is the freedom of a well-to-do businessman, whose body rots away and who is surrounded by pissed off, depressed, extremists who apathetic on one side, and insanely passionate about some lunacy (which they have never subjected to any type of serious questioning) on the other side. You'll be living in a world of strong polarities and you'll be needing to invest into a tall fence, or go on an island to really separate yourself from all that crap, but the crap won't go away... It will be lapping at your door step. That's not real freedom.
You don't know why people are the way they are. You haven't figured out women. You have no clue. You see someone who is out of the "career" loop and immediately your mind starts spinning and judging. Forget that crap. Give away your shit to the needy even if everyone else things it's wrong. Give it away, because if you keep it, you admit that you need it to be happy. And if you do that, you base your happiness on a very shaky foundation.
(and no, I'm not a Christian and I am not a Bible thumper, etc., I don't belong to any religions and I don't stand on corners proselytizing). So don't take my
Yes, what about it?
It'd be nice if you at least understood and acknowledged the parent's conscious choice to be less rich in order to be more wealthy.
As it is, I don't think you understand wealth and you don't appreciate the choice that parent post speaks of. See, you measure everything in money, and that's not the right way to measure true wealth.
Point by point, 1 is money, 2 is money (unless you mean wisdom passing on to descendants, which I really doubt, having read quite a few of your posts), 3 money again.
I see wealth as having a happy life -- the kind of life where the person feels at ease and social relations are free from strain. When people focus on making money, they make all other goals half-assed. Or spoken in different words, a person who performs some art, such as healing (like a surgeon), constructions, etc., when doing so for money, is bringing ulterior motive into their art/craft, thus invariable and necessarily degrading it. And this is what we see happening all around! Look how crappy the fruits and vegetables are in your supermarket. Shit, you may not even have seen a good looking tomato in your entire life, if you grew up in USA. What they sell in supermarkets across America is CRAP. Why? Because it's efficient -- the fruits are not tasty enough for worms, they don't rot, they last long. The main priority is quantity and lastingness. That's what happens when you do it for money. If you did it in any other way, then you'd make less money. So we have tomatoes that taste like leather, green bananas, mushy and blackened potatoes and so on. Some things you can't even buy, because they're not profitable (but damn, they are tasty). I once had to fight with the store ordering guy to get him to order some beets for the store. His argument, "No one buys beets, so we don't carry it." So what if the majority of culture is happy with just fucken' ramen? And that's likely to happen because they sell crap vegetables. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: you sell crap produce and drive people to rely more on canned goods and cereal (5 dollars for a box of air) and pasta, etc... People buy fewer vegetables, so you have to carry a less diverse stock and less more expensive cereal. Profit. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
This is not what I'd call wealth. Lots of money flows thru a supermarket store. But everything on its shelves is CRAP and every fuckin supermarket employee I've seen has been a very SICK and unhappy person. Why is that? Because the store treats them like crap. That's why. But they don't have to be treated like that. They could be paid more (and yes, I know... I KNOW the store will make less money if they pay their clerks more, or GOD FORBID, give them part ownership of the store, so they feel responsible for what they do and they feel part of the success of their own work). The result: very very strained human relations. The result of strained relations is segregations of society into layers. The result of layering of society is formations of elites at the top and gangs who have nothing to lose and nothing to live for at the bottom.
Greed and the focus on money as exclusive measure of wealth turns everything into crap. You end up with booming economy, with lots of dollars, but all the people are pissed off, the government is bloated (YES, because, for corps to keep pumping more and more money out of public, they need to get government on board, and this is just a natural extention of doing it for money and seeing money as wealth), and all the products are of bare-minimum quality that the market will bear, and there is no point in excellence if a mediocre thing will sell too.
dada, it is people like YOU who bloat our government. You just don't see how it happens. It's a guy like you who ends up, in luckier circumstances with owning a corporation. And it's a guy like you that at the end of the day goes to the government and asks for laws that protect and ensure your business. You only talk trash when you're a small fry, but once you get more
Because I disagree with people who think that it does matter? Doh.
What Linus says doesn't matter, but if people misjudge what doesn't matter for what does, then that kind of misjudgement DOES matter.
I mean, if what Linus says really matters, why not publish more ESR, RMS, Theo, and so on? Why single out Linus? Just because he gave interview to Forbes? Big woop-de-doo, if you ask me.
I mean, what Linus says does matter to an extent. But it's nothing worth bellyaching over. Linus is a good guy, but good guys say and do silly things all the fucking time. So just because Linus is nice doesn't mean we have to go crazy over what he says or does. In particular, it makes no sense to start a big polemic over his words.
Nah. I don't believe in this kind of stuff. What's a disease and what's not a disease is just a convention. But I don't want to have a long philosophical discussion about it now. Suffice it to say that, no, I don't diagnose myself in that way at all. And I have no plans to turn into a hypochondriac when I'm old either -- but who knows how it will be?
Long time ago I used to think very highly of Linus. But I am under no obligation to continue to think so.
Today I think Linus is pretty much irrelevant, if not foolish. But at least he's not arrogantly and offensively stupid yet -- only just foolish.
I think some people in technical community feel like they're married to Linus. Meaning, whatever Linus things, they have to "yes dear". Ah, no. We're not married to Linus. If Linus starts spouting off nonsense to Forbes, then "fuck you Linus" may be in order.
So far I don't think a "fuck you" is actually in order, but nor does it shake the foundations of my being if I used to really like Linus' personality in the past and now I like it less. Big woop de doo. Things change. Sure, someone can say that Linus was this way all along, but that's not what I'm talking about. How can I possibly know how Linus really is? I can't. All I know is my experience, which is contextual. In other words, maybe I realized just now that I really don't care all that much for Linus' opinion. So what? I still respect his coding skills, but I don't have to base myself on Linus (or RMS for that matter).
The reason I like RMS is not RMS himself, but the idea that he stands for.
So let's just relax and stop posting articles about Linus' opinion, like it matters. Linus' opinion matters when it comes time to include patches into his tree and what happens to his family, etc. But other than that, it doesn't matter much.
Ah, you should open up your mind more.
I've had from about 1000 friends (not kidding) to almost none. I'm not this or that. I'm not social or anti-social. Sometimes I chat up almost anyone, and other times I want my space. Sometimes I am a party/clown type fool and others times I'm serious. Don't stick me with your idiotic labels just because you didn't have the priviledge to know me for more than 3 years, please.
Right now I work in a cube. I love talking to others. Right now. I am not obligated to keep loving it. I am not obligated to hate it. And here's the kicker, I still enter the zone! Even in a social situation I can be as focused as anyone in a completely isolated and sound-proof office. AND it doesn't stop me from being able to chat with my cube buddies once in a while, or maybe a lot on some days. Or maybe not at all on others.
For Pete's sake, just stop stereotyping. The zone, social, anti-social, good, bad, asshole, nice, it's not how you imagine. It's really not. It only seems you got it nailed down. But once you start asking yourself tough questions and start being really observant, you'll see that people are individuals and that many qualities you previously thought to be exclusive are not necessarily exclusive.
Someone in an office can be very friendly and social. Someone in a cube farm or in a completely open environment can be able to enter the zone. Someone who can enter the zone can be very considerate of others. Someone who is a socialite could be an inconsiderate and narcisistic asshole. And so on. Just because you talk to others a lot and get your code reviewed doesn't mean you write good code. You might be stupid and resistant to change, no matter how much your code gets reviewed. The reviewers might be idiots. It's really, really hard to say. It's very context/situation dependent. And please, I am not trying to know code reviews -- I love open source and I constantly solicit reviews of my own code, even though code review is not even a policy in my workplace.
In a word, just try to grow an open mind. Please. For all of us! Not just for your own sake.
You misspelled "the devil." Here, let me help you:
teh devil
The point is valid. The point is that helping out of context is not necessarily "helping". The guy I was replying to made a good post, but his last paragraph was a "feel good" non sequitur.
Oh and don't worry about WW2. Many of my family members died in it, so don't give me your political correctness BS please.