You know what? I think this is the most intelligent comment I've ever seen on slashdot.
Thank you for letting me know that I'm not alone in these opinions.:D
It's cool that you read the first chapter. The "noble savage" theory is addressed quite early on in Ishmael. Fortunately, the rest of the text is far from what the first chapter may imply it is. It is, among other things, a critique of the skeptical narrowmindedness that often defines historically-derived arguments about "human nature," as well as our mythology in general. I assure you, utopia is not a creation of my mind... in fact, I wholly refute the concept.
I had not heard of the "Cassandra Complex," but that's quite funny. I've often wondered if I may suffer from it a little bit. I challenge you, though, to look past all the "groundbreaking studies," for even those are culturally biased. (I was just talking to someone today about the cult of empiricism... from where I am, studies aren't that impressive.) But, like my own experiences, they can at times be valuable.
The reason I post anything at all is to make people think. Unfortunately, I have a penchant for one-upping dissenters. It's fun to debate. I apologize for the rudeness in my remarks, and I'll take your suggestion for tempering predictions with practicality, but there is cause for concern when I hear about Monsanto doing yet another silly thing...
If you're at all interested in debunking your assumptions about Ishmael, or further ridiculing me for liking it, please read it. I don't think you'd find what you expect.
I don't know if you've ever had the experience of telling people the "truth" (as you see it), and then being ignored. You seem to be a stickler for [modern kinds of] mythology. I suggest you read about Cassandra...
And I might use words like "fucked"--sorry if they offend you--but that's exactly how an increasing number of people, farmers among them, feel. Intensity is an appropriate response to a desperate situation.
Look around you. There's a whole world of corporate lies and nastiness to explore.
Sure I'll post that research, when I get my copy of Shiva's book back from my friend Lauren.:)
I won't stoop so low to say that my feelings are all based on empirical evidence... a lot of it is my own personal, subjective experience, which I and many others--fundies and scientists and decent folks alike--value.
I guess that explains why I value my experience in the first place, and why I'm more likely to value opinions from an earth-minded, world-renowned, feminist Indian woman scientist than, well, folks like you. I think it's a far better idea to "run out to the forest and eat weeds for our Vitamin A" (a dubious Shiva quote, at best) than to try and control a situation into something worse, which history will show you has happened many times.
By the way, to say that famers who sign these contracts should know the terms is like blaming a poor Black woman in the city for working at a dangerous factory. The fact is that farmers have increasingly fewer choices due to trade regulations. How dare you blame them when there are structural forces--ones which, I might add, you apparently subscribe to and have faith in--holding them back?
It's refreshing to see slashdotters responding (for the most part) on the obvious absurdity of this situation.
IM(not so)HO, Monsanto is crap.
Their Roundup Ready agreement, required for people to use their seed, includes the following provisions:
1) a $5/lb. "technology fee" for using the seed.
2) the right for Monsanto to come onto your property, unannounced, and investigate your crops for three or so years after you start using their seed.
3) a ridiculous liability for any damage due to violations of the agreement. The farmer is liable for 10s of times of damage actually caused. I think it is 100, but I'm not 100% sure on this point. This includes accidental cross-pollination of others' crops.
(What's even funnier is that research shows these crops neither require fewer pesticides nor produce greater yields.)
Additionally, because of the new trade regulations and the exporting of Western-style trade and intellectual property agreements across the world, six corporations (Cargill, Monsanto, etc...) virtually control the world grain trade.
For example, most countries now, including the UK, there are seed registries from which a farmer must choose seed to grow. Trading of seed, a long-time tradition and promotion of biodiversity, is now illegal in the countries that subscribe to these agreements.
Also, after a "mysterious" adulteration too big for any one farmer to orchestrate in India, millions of livelihoods were lost because the government outlawed traditional mustard seed in favor of imported oils... All the while Monsanto is also engineering seeds that genetically terminate after one generation of crops, which would bankrupt the farmers in poorer countries bound by corporate legislation.
In short, corporations have seriously fucked entire local economies with gestapo policies like the one this article is reporting. It's less than funny, and a little bit more than serious.
If you want more information on this topic, I suggest Vandana Shiva's Stolen Harvest. She is a leading activist on these issues, and the book is a fascinating read.
There was absolutely no consumer-based reason t upgrade to 4.0.1, other than to appease the record labels.
I think they may have snuck in some minor networking fixes, but overall the motives were quite... arbitrary.
I gotta be honest though... this new update scares me a little. What is Apple gonna have to do to maintain the RIAA's favor? It's now wholly dependent on the cooperation of some of the most heavy-handed and technophobic people (oh, and powerful), as its whole business model--and, by extension, public favor--rests on their happiness. Long sentence.
There may not have been a consumer based reason for the last iTunes upgrade, but you can bet your ass there will be for the next one, because Apple _can't_ allow this kind of thing to continue... inevitability aside.
Let's just hope Apple's consumer-friendliness isn't its end. The RIAA would love to set an example. (assholes!)
This story and all the responses are indicative of an attitude so transparent to you guys that I doubt anyone even pays attention to this post.
Humans of industrialized societies--actually, it goes back to the beginning of totalitarian agriculture 10,000 years ago--view themselves as being in direct competition with natural process. It's a logical conclusion: whenever you try and control your food supply and nature f's up your harvest, what are you gonna think?
This is a recent development (oh... 5% of the time humans have been here with our capacity for intelligence) and we are already trying to control the processes that allowed us to even come into existence!
I reject this idea as belonging to a philosophy which tries (and fails) to put humans at the top of the evolutionary pyramid. Comparitively we are more advanced, but for us to try and control these processes is like a branch trying to control a tree... we can't do it to any successful degree. It might work right now, but it isnt sustainable.
And what of these people when we do modify them? What of the discrimination that will ensue? (For chrissake we still have our own people starving in this country... if we cant allow blacks and gays and other minorities equal opportunities...... what do you think will happen?) BTW, if it isnt obvious to you by now, we cant legislate happiness or fairness into existence.
I can already tell you. The same people who feel they have a right to use this technology will offload the consequences onto "human nature" (whatever the fuck that is). If we want to make any progress that really helps humans we _have_ to stop doing MORE of the same thing. In other words, give up trying to control things here. To attempt to control ensures our death.
More interestingly than anything else here is the persistence of the idea that humans are in some way 'higher' than other life forms on earth.
More complex, perhaps... but complexity, as is evidenced by, say, American tax law, is not to be confused with supremacy. It figures, though, in a culture that necessitates hierarchy, that most would function under these ideas as if they were universally, empirically, and philosophically true.
Allow me some heresy...
Surprise! We're not the end of creation here.:) We are just paving the way for Version 3.1b4. It's almost comical that at this point we insist on superiority, when everything we learn is equally valid at disproving such... arrogance.
Apple really did piss a lot of people off with their slow shipping.
Not me... I got the 12". Who really wants to carry around a behemoth of a laptop?
This is not to say, of course, that I wouldn't take one if I got it for free. But, err, Apples don't, um... grow on trees. heh.
What? So you expect us to just sit around and let all this happen around you when you have the ability to fix it?
Honestly, how well have our efforts to solve starvation worked? The people you have fed have just made more people to feed.
Saying that we shouldn't feed the starving isn't inhumane. Nothing guarantees you the right to live indefinitely. You are an animal and as such should be subject to environmental cycles. Famine is a population control mechanism. It restores an environment to its original stability. Do you think you're not subject to this balance because you're a human?
It's not about apathy. It's about accepting the fact that assertion of your species' unchecked dominance will a) lead to an unsustainable environment, and then b) kill your species. As much as we would like to think so, humans can not control the intricate workings of life on this planet. You know why? Surprise! We're subject to the rules!
As for me watching TV, I doubt you will ever speak to anyone more separated from our culture than I, so I will excuse your irrelevant assumptions.
You do have the ability to further our species, but you are doing the exact opposite by manipulating the rules of the game that allowed you to come into existence. Humans are natural-born technologists, but they have made some decisions that are putting their success at jeopardy.
Again, though, you can continue to think how you do without discomfort, because your culture endorses that way of thinking.
You will see.:) Or perhaps your grandchildren will see... but in either case, it will be your doing.
I know you have all the cultural justification you want to think how you do, but you are wrong.
Scientists who do this kind of work are doing humans and the living community no favor whatsoever. Evolution produces only things that work because it has the patience and method to sift through options as numerous as all the organisms that have lived.
We are reckless, and expect to outdo this process in an infinitessimal amount of time.
If people are starving, you want to feed them. However, you should know that when a population is fed, it grows, and then you'll have to feed more.
The most compassionate thing you (scientists) can do for the human race (and all of the living kingdom, for that matter) is to stop fucking with the laws that brought you here.
You say: to be a scientist is to revere life and the process of living above all else. you should have more faith in us to do what is right. better yet, inform yourself about the issue or ask a friendly neighbourhood science pal and thrash out the real issues.
Your friendly neighborhood science pal is operating under the cultural assumption that he is the arbiter of evolution, as are you. If you really want to use your intellect for the benefit of humanity, you should use it according to the very laws that allowed your intellect to come about in the first place.
In other words, inform yourself about the real processes going on here... and quit trying to change things you shouldn't.
You'd understand how we've gotten to this point of f'in things up so badly. It's regrettable that we won't be here in 200 years to see this mini-ice age.
Think about it: our population has doubled in 35 years. If we keep it up at this rate, by the year 5000 we would have enough humans to populate one planet per star in the known universe.
Somethin's gonna give, and it's probably gonna be our egos.
That mentality will drive our species to extinction.
For proof, read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.
For more immediate information, read this.
Some of your points are good, i.e. that there are checks and balances in place. However, in the last 10000 years alone humans have seized the role of proprietor on this planet and have single-handedly changed permanently these mechanisms.
If you're as observant as your post suggests, you owe it to yourself to read the book I have listed above... it would clear up a lot of the confusion you must feel.
(NOTE: This might be a troll, but at least it's an intelligent one.)
Americans don't really have time between the 500-odd advertisements they see each day to think for themselves.
Ultimately, the First Amendment doesn't guarantee any freedom. Freedom of speech is a self-protective mechanism present only to guarantee the status quo. Specifically, if a government allows its people to say anything, then they might as well say nothing at all, because anything revolutionary I say is dismissed offhand as the words of "another crazy."
It's like the First Amendment guarantees the government the right to say "Yeah, yeah. Very good." and then send dissenters on their merry ways.
Oppression just has more creative roots in this country. So, when I hear about "Americans" voicing their opinions about our First Amendment Rights, I think to myself: Do these people realize that everything they say has (if they're lucky) minimal effect on how this country works?
Of course not. All of you believe that you're free, but you're just a different shade of oppressed.
To hell with surveys of idiots.:P
Yes. Except, you'd probably get a paper cut from the ticket and a subsequent deadly rare bacterial infection and die.
That's not _good_ luck, getting hit by a meteorite.
Oh... he got struck by lightning? Better have _him_ handle my finances.:P
I live here in relative silence because it's pretty damned hard to fight against 260 million other idiots who believe in the same trite propaganda-fed banter. That doesn't mean I don't take a shot at disagreeing with you when I get the chance.
I'm glad I make you sick. Maybe you'll do some mental vomiting and get rid of the PSAs in your head. People like you breed people like you.
Besides, the one thing you never realized is that for every one of us willing to fight for a cause, there's someone else willing to fight for the opposite cause. And, if you were able to get past your socially encouraged church-bred self-righteousness, you'd see that they're as convinced as you are about their points of view. Therefore--since you apparently need some cognitive assistance--as long as you're willing to fight for your country, you're willing to oppress a conviction of equally personal import (to someone else.)
If you ever want to evolve past Survival of the Fittest, you have to start critically thinking.
Or, you always have option 2: breed and consume. It's your right, but your children will get blown up because someone else thinks like you... hence army video games.
If you want more information, I can provide it.:) Don't be afraid to ask. I'd be glad to help.
Apparently, even the brightest of you can't see through this.
Some people respond with vengeful "You'd better respect our servicemen!" messages, while others reply with half-ass comments about cleaning bathrooms.
I'm not particularly thankful for our military service-people. If they want to go get their asses blown up, hey, cool! I know I'm gonna die some day, and it may not be fun, but I'm not gonna do it for some government.
You people watch too much TV. No wonder they're using video games: they have a captive audience.
America sure is interesting.::yawn::
Slashdot Mirror
You know what? I think this is the most intelligent comment I've ever seen on slashdot. Thank you for letting me know that I'm not alone in these opinions. :D
It's cool that you read the first chapter. The "noble savage" theory is addressed quite early on in Ishmael. Fortunately, the rest of the text is far from what the first chapter may imply it is. It is, among other things, a critique of the skeptical narrowmindedness that often defines historically-derived arguments about "human nature," as well as our mythology in general. I assure you, utopia is not a creation of my mind... in fact, I wholly refute the concept.
I had not heard of the "Cassandra Complex," but that's quite funny. I've often wondered if I may suffer from it a little bit. I challenge you, though, to look past all the "groundbreaking studies," for even those are culturally biased. (I was just talking to someone today about the cult of empiricism... from where I am, studies aren't that impressive.) But, like my own experiences, they can at times be valuable.
The reason I post anything at all is to make people think. Unfortunately, I have a penchant for one-upping dissenters. It's fun to debate. I apologize for the rudeness in my remarks, and I'll take your suggestion for tempering predictions with practicality, but there is cause for concern when I hear about Monsanto doing yet another silly thing...
If you're at all interested in debunking your assumptions about Ishmael, or further ridiculing me for liking it, please read it. I don't think you'd find what you expect.
I don't know if you've ever had the experience of telling people the "truth" (as you see it), and then being ignored. You seem to be a stickler for [modern kinds of] mythology. I suggest you read about Cassandra...
And I might use words like "fucked"--sorry if they offend you--but that's exactly how an increasing number of people, farmers among them, feel. Intensity is an appropriate response to a desperate situation.
Look around you. There's a whole world of corporate lies and nastiness to explore.
Sure I'll post that research, when I get my copy of Shiva's book back from my friend Lauren. :)
I won't stoop so low to say that my feelings are all based on empirical evidence... a lot of it is my own personal, subjective experience, which I and many others--fundies and scientists and decent folks alike--value.
I guess that explains why I value my experience in the first place, and why I'm more likely to value opinions from an earth-minded, world-renowned, feminist Indian woman scientist than, well, folks like you. I think it's a far better idea to "run out to the forest and eat weeds for our Vitamin A" (a dubious Shiva quote, at best) than to try and control a situation into something worse, which history will show you has happened many times.
By the way, to say that famers who sign these contracts should know the terms is like blaming a poor Black woman in the city for working at a dangerous factory. The fact is that farmers have increasingly fewer choices due to trade regulations. How dare you blame them when there are structural forces--ones which, I might add, you apparently subscribe to and have faith in--holding them back?
Or did I just answer my own question?
It's refreshing to see slashdotters responding (for the most part) on the obvious absurdity of this situation.
IM(not so)HO, Monsanto is crap.
Their Roundup Ready agreement, required for people to use their seed, includes the following provisions:
1) a $5/lb. "technology fee" for using the seed.
2) the right for Monsanto to come onto your property, unannounced, and investigate your crops for three or so years after you start using their seed.
3) a ridiculous liability for any damage due to violations of the agreement. The farmer is liable for 10s of times of damage actually caused. I think it is 100, but I'm not 100% sure on this point. This includes accidental cross-pollination of others' crops.
(What's even funnier is that research shows these crops neither require fewer pesticides nor produce greater yields.)
Additionally, because of the new trade regulations and the exporting of Western-style trade and intellectual property agreements across the world, six corporations (Cargill, Monsanto, etc...) virtually control the world grain trade. For example, most countries now, including the UK, there are seed registries from which a farmer must choose seed to grow. Trading of seed, a long-time tradition and promotion of biodiversity, is now illegal in the countries that subscribe to these agreements.
Also, after a "mysterious" adulteration too big for any one farmer to orchestrate in India, millions of livelihoods were lost because the government outlawed traditional mustard seed in favor of imported oils... All the while Monsanto is also engineering seeds that genetically terminate after one generation of crops, which would bankrupt the farmers in poorer countries bound by corporate legislation.
In short, corporations have seriously fucked entire local economies with gestapo policies like the one this article is reporting. It's less than funny, and a little bit more than serious.
If you want more information on this topic, I suggest Vandana Shiva's Stolen Harvest. She is a leading activist on these issues, and the book is a fascinating read.
There was absolutely no consumer-based reason t upgrade to 4.0.1, other than to appease the record labels.
I think they may have snuck in some minor networking fixes, but overall the motives were quite... arbitrary.
I gotta be honest though... this new update scares me a little. What is Apple gonna have to do to maintain the RIAA's favor? It's now wholly dependent on the cooperation of some of the most heavy-handed and technophobic people (oh, and powerful), as its whole business model--and, by extension, public favor--rests on their happiness. Long sentence.
There may not have been a consumer based reason for the last iTunes upgrade, but you can bet your ass there will be for the next one, because Apple _can't_ allow this kind of thing to continue... inevitability aside.
Let's just hope Apple's consumer-friendliness isn't its end. The RIAA would love to set an example. (assholes!)
This story and all the responses are indicative of an attitude so transparent to you guys that I doubt anyone even pays attention to this post.
... what do you think will happen?) BTW, if it isnt obvious to you by now, we cant legislate happiness or fairness into existence.
:)
Humans of industrialized societies--actually, it goes back to the beginning of totalitarian agriculture 10,000 years ago--view themselves as being in direct competition with natural process. It's a logical conclusion: whenever you try and control your food supply and nature f's up your harvest, what are you gonna think?
This is a recent development (oh... 5% of the time humans have been here with our capacity for intelligence) and we are already trying to control the processes that allowed us to even come into existence!
I reject this idea as belonging to a philosophy which tries (and fails) to put humans at the top of the evolutionary pyramid. Comparitively we are more advanced, but for us to try and control these processes is like a branch trying to control a tree... we can't do it to any successful degree. It might work right now, but it isnt sustainable.
And what of these people when we do modify them? What of the discrimination that will ensue? (For chrissake we still have our own people starving in this country... if we cant allow blacks and gays and other minorities equal opportunities...
I can already tell you. The same people who feel they have a right to use this technology will offload the consequences onto "human nature" (whatever the fuck that is). If we want to make any progress that really helps humans we _have_ to stop doing MORE of the same thing. In other words, give up trying to control things here. To attempt to control ensures our death.
I would love to hear thoughts on this
More interestingly than anything else here is the persistence of the idea that humans are in some way 'higher' than other life forms on earth.
:) We are just paving the way for Version 3.1b4. It's almost comical that at this point we insist on superiority, when everything we learn is equally valid at disproving such... arrogance.
More complex, perhaps... but complexity, as is evidenced by, say, American tax law, is not to be confused with supremacy. It figures, though, in a culture that necessitates hierarchy, that most would function under these ideas as if they were universally, empirically, and philosophically true.
Allow me some heresy...
Surprise! We're not the end of creation here.
Apple really did piss a lot of people off with their slow shipping. Not me... I got the 12". Who really wants to carry around a behemoth of a laptop? This is not to say, of course, that I wouldn't take one if I got it for free. But, err, Apples don't, um... grow on trees. heh.
www.readishmael.com :)
Start there for answers about the workforce.
Nice opinion piece. I look forward to hearing facts from you when you can muster them. :)
What? So you expect us to just sit around and let all this happen around you when you have the ability to fix it?
:) Or perhaps your grandchildren will see... but in either case, it will be your doing.
Honestly, how well have our efforts to solve starvation worked? The people you have fed have just made more people to feed.
Saying that we shouldn't feed the starving isn't inhumane. Nothing guarantees you the right to live indefinitely. You are an animal and as such should be subject to environmental cycles. Famine is a population control mechanism. It restores an environment to its original stability. Do you think you're not subject to this balance because you're a human?
It's not about apathy. It's about accepting the fact that assertion of your species' unchecked dominance will a) lead to an unsustainable environment, and then b) kill your species. As much as we would like to think so, humans can not control the intricate workings of life on this planet. You know why? Surprise! We're subject to the rules!
As for me watching TV, I doubt you will ever speak to anyone more separated from our culture than I, so I will excuse your irrelevant assumptions.
You do have the ability to further our species, but you are doing the exact opposite by manipulating the rules of the game that allowed you to come into existence. Humans are natural-born technologists, but they have made some decisions that are putting their success at jeopardy.
Again, though, you can continue to think how you do without discomfort, because your culture endorses that way of thinking.
You will see.
I know you have all the cultural justification you want to think how you do, but you are wrong.
Scientists who do this kind of work are doing humans and the living community no favor whatsoever. Evolution produces only things that work because it has the patience and method to sift through options as numerous as all the organisms that have lived.
We are reckless, and expect to outdo this process in an infinitessimal amount of time.
If people are starving, you want to feed them. However, you should know that when a population is fed, it grows, and then you'll have to feed more.
The most compassionate thing you (scientists) can do for the human race (and all of the living kingdom, for that matter) is to stop fucking with the laws that brought you here.
You say:
to be a scientist is to revere life and the process of living above all else. you should have more faith in us to do what is right. better yet, inform yourself about the issue or ask a friendly neighbourhood science pal and thrash out the real issues.
Your friendly neighborhood science pal is operating under the cultural assumption that he is the arbiter of evolution, as are you. If you really want to use your intellect for the benefit of humanity, you should use it according to the very laws that allowed your intellect to come about in the first place.
In other words, inform yourself about the real processes going on here... and quit trying to change things you shouldn't.
Mod me down if you want...
ALL of you need to read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.
You'd understand how we've gotten to this point of f'in things up so badly. It's regrettable that we won't be here in 200 years to see this mini-ice age.
Think about it: our population has doubled in 35 years. If we keep it up at this rate, by the year 5000 we would have enough humans to populate one planet per star in the known universe.
Somethin's gonna give, and it's probably gonna be our egos.
I reiterate, read Ishmael.
That mentality will drive our species to extinction. For proof, read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. For more immediate information, read this. Some of your points are good, i.e. that there are checks and balances in place. However, in the last 10000 years alone humans have seized the role of proprietor on this planet and have single-handedly changed permanently these mechanisms. If you're as observant as your post suggests, you owe it to yourself to read the book I have listed above... it would clear up a lot of the confusion you must feel.
(NOTE: This might be a troll, but at least it's an intelligent one.) Americans don't really have time between the 500-odd advertisements they see each day to think for themselves. Ultimately, the First Amendment doesn't guarantee any freedom. Freedom of speech is a self-protective mechanism present only to guarantee the status quo. Specifically, if a government allows its people to say anything, then they might as well say nothing at all, because anything revolutionary I say is dismissed offhand as the words of "another crazy." It's like the First Amendment guarantees the government the right to say "Yeah, yeah. Very good." and then send dissenters on their merry ways. Oppression just has more creative roots in this country. So, when I hear about "Americans" voicing their opinions about our First Amendment Rights, I think to myself: Do these people realize that everything they say has (if they're lucky) minimal effect on how this country works? Of course not. All of you believe that you're free, but you're just a different shade of oppressed. To hell with surveys of idiots. :P
Yes. Except, you'd probably get a paper cut from the ticket and a subsequent deadly rare bacterial infection and die. That's not _good_ luck, getting hit by a meteorite. Oh... he got struck by lightning? Better have _him_ handle my finances. :P
I live here in relative silence because it's pretty damned hard to fight against 260 million other idiots who believe in the same trite propaganda-fed banter. That doesn't mean I don't take a shot at disagreeing with you when I get the chance. I'm glad I make you sick. Maybe you'll do some mental vomiting and get rid of the PSAs in your head. People like you breed people like you. Besides, the one thing you never realized is that for every one of us willing to fight for a cause, there's someone else willing to fight for the opposite cause. And, if you were able to get past your socially encouraged church-bred self-righteousness, you'd see that they're as convinced as you are about their points of view. Therefore--since you apparently need some cognitive assistance--as long as you're willing to fight for your country, you're willing to oppress a conviction of equally personal import (to someone else.) If you ever want to evolve past Survival of the Fittest, you have to start critically thinking. Or, you always have option 2: breed and consume. It's your right, but your children will get blown up because someone else thinks like you... hence army video games. If you want more information, I can provide it. :) Don't be afraid to ask. I'd be glad to help.
Apparently, even the brightest of you can't see through this. Some people respond with vengeful "You'd better respect our servicemen!" messages, while others reply with half-ass comments about cleaning bathrooms. I'm not particularly thankful for our military service-people. If they want to go get their asses blown up, hey, cool! I know I'm gonna die some day, and it may not be fun, but I'm not gonna do it for some government. You people watch too much TV. No wonder they're using video games: they have a captive audience. America sure is interesting. ::yawn::