One would hope this isn't the selling point of the phone, but rather that it is a flexible phone that meets the users' needs.
The fact that it's hackable and "community-driven" is a means, not an end.
I suppose the question following on from there is selling point to whom?.
If the sales pitch is directed at phone manufacturers, then giving them a cheap
software stack that they can customise to suit their desires, and then lock down tight,
Is probably going to be very appealing. That said, it doesn't really offer the end user
very much in that scenario.
If it's selling to end user, as in trying get people excited about using Android,
then, really, it's got to be hackable.
It's a tricky one for Google. Do you GPLv3 the stack, and hope that community pressure will
drive adoption? Or do you licence the code so it can be locked down, and
hope for buy in from the manufacturers who want to use DRM on ringtones or
are frightened you might filter out their SMS spam?
I couldn't really blame Google for going for the second option, but I can surely
understand the disappointment of those who'd hoped for something that would be open
to the end user.
There will not be an ongoing market for custom software. Nearly every business school or other place where people talk about real business has been harping on the incredible screwing over businesses have gotten over the years from programmers, software companies, and consultants. This is what led to most of the packaged software revolution of the 1980s.
It's a fair point. But I tend to think that before we get to 2020, we'll see the same schools
also talking about the incredible screwing over business got from big software houses, in terms of vendor lock-in and of expensive, generic software packages that don't fit the task
well enough to justify the expense. We see that a lot where I work.
Sorry, the "custom software" game is just about done.
In it's old form, certainly.
I think the future lies in a hybrid approach. Discrete, reliable open source components linked together in custom configurations. It's still going to be custom software,
but it's going to be the difference between writing a shell script to pipe some software
through half a dozen filters, and writing the whole thing from scratch, in C.
I think that, ultimately, coders are going to be like plumbers. If yo need to redo the
plumbing in your house, you don't go down the store and buy a prepackaged solution,
and you don't start by turning each fitting by hand on a lathe. You hire a guy to use
pre-made parts to give you a custom solution.
You will also find that you would be a poor scientist in the new "popular consensus" means everything politicized science that we see practiced today
Your definition "poor scientist" of sounds to me like "doing it properly":D
I shall stay as I am, thank you.
Perhaps it's your scientific training that makes you concentrate on the results and not the process that gets the results, perhaps it's just your ego.
That's an odd thing to say. The process is the part where so far haven't
challenged the objectivity of science. Where you appear to think the subjectivity
lies in communicating the results of that process to the public. Or maybe
you think the communication part is the scientific process?
Or maybe, (and this is what I think), you don't believe word one of this crap.
You just thought that if you wound me up about science, you could goad me into
saying something like "people are stupid, they need to be told what to think",
so that you could say "see, I told you so".
I play it once every two years or so, so I think I'm entitled to my opinion here;-)
... and indeed, even if you didn't:)
For what it's worth, I dug out my copy of SS2 the other day. I'm currently about halfway through the
hydroponics deck, and I can see you point a lot more clearly. There's a lot more detail to the simulation;
Bioshock seems a bit simplistic in comparison.
That said, from some of the articles I'd read about Bioshock, I was expecting some level of
dumbing down, so I was really quite relieved
to find they'd made a reasonable attempt at an SS2 play-alike.
Although, on balance, I think I'm glad I didn't run through SS2 first to get in mood
Lol.. Objectiveness of always subjective to the person evaluating it.
You know, I'm starting to think that "lol" of yours is a tell.
You only even use it when you don't know how to reply to a point.
I mean objectivity has nothing to do with popular opinion, and
there's nothing you can do to make it so. So what are you going to do?
Lol.
Of course, I you can always play the
solipism card I suppose,
and claim that everything is subjective in so far as its mediated through our
senses, then we have no access at all to objective reality, and that everything
we see is the product of our imaginations.
Of course, the comeback to that is that since you're therefore a
figment of my imagination, this is therefore some, sort of dream
I can therefore safely disregard anything you may come up with
as sheer twaddle. I have to say, to that extent at least, the theory
seems to fit this discussion disturbingly well.
Lol.. I like who Wikipedia changes depending on which force is in control at the time.
I like how you're always happy to cite wikipedia when it
supports your point. Lol.
Anyways, that's neither here nor there because when I open the biology text from my highschool or college, they include interbreeding in the definition of a species.
And as I'm sure we're all agreed, there's no more recent nor sophisticated
definitions available than those written in high school textbooks. Lol.
Lol.. NO. What I am saying is that the people who wouldn't know if a prayer wheel would work or not aren't in the position to make the mars lander in the first place.
Since popular opinion apparently no longer defines reality,
you're going to have to find another reason why this is relevant.
Lol.
Personally, in the words of the song, I don't subscribe to your point of view.
You don't need to subscribe to my point of view, just take the blinders off and look at the point of what makes people do the things they do.
The point of view to which I decline to subscribe to is the one that popular opinion has
the least bearing on the objectivity or otherwise of a series of procedures and investigations.
If acceptance of such a notion constitutes taking off the blinkers, then I'm quite happy
stumbling around here in the darkness, thank you. You just carry on with whatever
it is you think you're doing.
To the average person, both creation, evolution, the big bang, and everything else that isn't provable without a time machines of direct evidence in the form of some usable device or something you can use right now, is just that.
Now all you have to do now is show me where the words "the average person" appear in the definition of objectivity
and you'll have a relevant and valid point.
I didn't say that interbreed is the definition, I said it is part of the definition of a species. Don't attempt to invert the input to create a different statement.
"Invert the input?" All I'm doing is pointing out that your (unstated) definition is probably a little simplistic, and that
modern biologists take a slightly more sophisticated view of the problem.
Wikipedia discusses the problems in finding a single useful definition and lists thirteen different ones used
by different biological specialties.
You can't insist that evolutionary biologists use your definition of "species", and then claim it as
evidence against them. Sorry.
It's the perception of the theory that counts the most.
I've always thought the "popular perception == reality" idea to be rather cynical and self
serving, myself.
Certainly, I can see the appeal for a politician, but it's not a terribly useful viewpoint when it comes to science and engineering.
Basically, you're saying that it doesn't matter if the Mars lander does use a prayer wheel for its landing gear.
The important thing, you're saying, is that everyone thinks the landing gear will work.
Of course, the mechanism won't function purely because people believe in it, but I guess
if you manage perceptions properly, no one is going to blame you when it crashes.
Which I suppose is the whole point, from the political viewpoint, anyway.
Personally, in the words of the song, I don't subscribe to your point of view.
Do you mean the same objective evidence that evolution presents where in conflict with creation? I don't think either of us can find that in either sect.
Can you rephrase that? It sounds like I might agree with you if I knew what you were talking about.
In creation, you look around and see what the bible claims to have created
That is evidence that the universe exists, but not for the means by which it was created. It offers no support for the events described in Genesis,
or if you insist that it does support Genesis, it also supports the Big Bang theory to equal measure. it also supports,
every creation myth on the planet, and any crackpot creation theory we may care to make up on the spot, so long as it results in the world around us.
It's not even evidence of creation, because it equally mean that the world has been here forever. Net effect: nil.
we have to alter the definition of speciation from not able to breed (part of the definition of species) to don't or can't because they don't want to or are blocked from doing it.
I think any biologist worth his salt would agree that there are better ways of defining species than "can" interbreed. Wikipedia goes into some
detail on the subject. The distinction is useful for separating two very closely related lines, but as a definition, it's a little out of date.
You have to believe in evolution in order to connect the dots to complete evolution in order to say it is true and there is no DNA or any other scientific experiment that can't be done to validate it outside of an interpretation
Certainly, it's still a theory, and in the absence of time travel, it may well remain as such. On the other hand, it's a theory supported by a lot of objective evidence.
Fossils, carbon dating, observed mutations in current species... all of it with the the researcher and dates recorded, all of it verifiable.
The best evidence you have for the Garden of Eden is an unattributed, undated creation myth.
Objectivity is relative. There is no way you can present creationism as even remotely objective.
You're tilting at windmills.
Or at least that is how it will be perceived by anyone without intimate knowledge of it.
By some people lacking a superficial knowledge of it, perhaps.
Look, I'm deeply gratified by your sudden, uncharacteristic enthusiasm for
the will of the people, really I am. But until we find a way of voting laws
of nature into reality I can't see what practical impact it has on science.
And I can't begin to imagine what you might think popular perception,
itself inherently subjective, has to do with the level of objectivity
behind any theory at all.
OK. I know you're big on definitions, so let's look at one for "objective" and make sure we're both on the same page here
The definition that applies to my point is this one:
(adj) objective (belonging to immediate experience of actual things or events) "objective benefits"; "an objective example"; "there is no objective evidence of anything of the kind"
Now you find me some objective evidence for creationism, and I'll concede the point.
I should add that I don't regard the bible as objective evidence that the Garden of Eden is the literal truth. Hell, it's not even objective evidence of
those things for which we have independent historical corroboration. It's hearsay at best, and it's a hearsay account of a sequence of events that we
have no objective reason to believe to be possible.
No, I haven't abandoned anything. We have just strayed into another topic with that. As for speaking for creationists, That's sort of not what I was attempting to do.
Well, I wish you'd say what your point actually is, then. Preferably in a paragraph by itself and in twenty five words or less.
My major point is that science is essentially objective and religion essentially subjective.
Incidentally, I don't think you can limit the debate to purely evolutionary biology. If we take the Bible as the literal truth, then we limit the age of the universe as six-thousand-and-something years.
Well, actually no we don't limit the age of anything. The English translation of the bible says days but the original word yowm meant periods of time as well as days
Yes, that came up recently in another discussion. The most interesting question there is: who do you mean by "we" in that sentence?
For instance, you don't mean Christians as a whole, because I know loads of them who are quite happy with the notion of
Genesis as either allegory or creation myth. You don't even speak for all creationists, since there are factions
within fundamentalist Christianity that will tell you that if it says "days" if means "days". I seem to recall a
couple of them posted to that same thread where "yoim" came up.
Also, you rather appear to have abandoned the devil's advocate/neutral-point-of-view
stance you adopted in your earlier posts.
Perhaps this is a good time to declare an interest?
So, when little Timmy comes home and tells me that the heathen schoolteacher told him that the Earth is round, what then? Must we now stop teaching geography as well?
Little timmy comming home saying the teacher claims the earth is round isn't the problem. Little timmy is comming home telling you that the teacher said your religion is a bunch of lies.
Not a problem for you, but like I say, I don't think you speak for all Christian fundamentalists. Some of them are indeed going to object to
the teacher saying "evolution is true". Some are going to insist that only creationism is taught. Some of them want that exercise in intellectual
dishonesty known as intelligent design to be taught as science. And that's without even considering the more extreme fringe cults, like little
Timmy's Church of Christ Flatlander.
We can't accommodate every religious conviction under the sun. How do you decide whose religious convictions need explicit equal time in the classroom,
and which we can quietly disregard?
There is a difference between saying this is science, science does things this way and saying your religion is wrong (even if it is). Science doesn't even speak of religion and there is no need ever for someone in the course of teaching science to make a statement about religion at all
This actually sounds like a productive approach. So when the teacher gets out a globe, and Timmy sticks up a hand and says "please miss my church says the earth is flat and globes are the tool of Satan"
what does the teacher say in reply?
Ok, suppose that you have to people that you have never met. You will have to trust one of them with your life before the day is over. Each one of the people offer difference approaches to different things somewhat but not totally related. Lets call them him Mr. Creation and Mr, Evolution.
Actually, I know them both quite well, but I appreciate that's not your point.
The rationality of the decision is the same for either and it is all subjective. The person who doesn't know and will never be able to do the science or observe the miracles and so on will always have to trust someone elses words on it.
meh. They get evidence that science works every time they flick a light switch or get in a car. The best evidence for religion they've
see is in all probability a preacher who tells them every Sunday that they have to have FAY-uth, or they'll burn in HAY-ull.
This differs then with other parts of science because you can't put a cell phone that evolves into a monkey into my hands, you can't put a 2000 year old extinct creature in my back yard to play with me, you can't accomplish the "I have it or I can benefit from it, or I can see it right now when it's happening, when it was alive" that other sciences end up with
But then you have to have already accepted the "corrupt evolutionary scientific community" conspiracy theory
or else why else do you assume that the nice Mister Science who makes your car go, and your cell phone ring should
be jerking your chain when the subject changes to fossils?
Incidentally, I don't think you can limit the debate to purely evolutionary biology. If we take the
Bible as the literal truth, then we limit the age of the universe as six-thousand-and-something years.
So we have to stop teaching a whole chunk of astrophysics right there. We can estimate the age of stellar
objects by the amount of red shift they show. What do you propose we stop teaching? Do we have to junk
the speed of light and most of relativity with it? We already lost carbon dating. Where do we stop?
But politics isn't claiming to be the end all truth finder. It is nothing more then opinion from people with opinions about things.
Science isn't the be all and end all truth finder, either. It's a way of understanding the universe,
But even if it was, it isn't infinitely fast, or else we'd have colonies in the Andromeda Galaxy and
be having this discussion via telepathic interfaces.
Also, if you ever try and advance a political theory yourself, do try and find something
in support of your ideas. I don't think you'll get very far if all you have to say
"it's an opinion about a thing".
It's that when people have no other way of knowing, they have to trust someone in that what they are saying is more true then the person saying the opposite against it.
So, basically you're saying that people aren't stupid? I'd agree with that:)
Of what? Designing Mars landers using the Holy Book of Spode?
Of attempting to use their religion and or rituals to manifest things into existence.. In other words, the mars rover.
That was never my point, as I suspect you're very well aware. My point was that religion would be a
poor choice of discipline for such a project. From what you say elsewhere in this debate,
I rather doubt you disagree.
The conflicts with them in schools stem from science teachers teaching evolution saying that the bible or someone's religion is wrong, incorrect and so on.
I'll tell you what: I just founded the First Church of Christ Flatlander. It is a sacred tenet of my religion that the Earth is flat.
All evidence to the contrary, up to and including moon landings and satellite photography must therefore be the
Actually, I think I trust the process to generate information that is consistent, reliable and useful.
Well, I meant the concept or process too. Somewhere along the lines you said I can trust this which turned out to be the basis for the willingness to trust other things.
mmm... I may be misreading your intent entirely here, there's something about the way you use the word "trust"
that suggests to me you mean "trust" in a "blind faith" sort of way; that you meant to imply that the decision
to trust one side or another is essentially arbitrary. I don't accept that.
On the other hand, if you mean trust in the sense of having seen the process in operation and having good grounds
to trust the process of scientific research to deliver reliable, objective real world results, then ok, I'll agree
with you.
But it's still an odd choice of words to my way of thinking. It's like saying, "I trust the sun to come up in the morning"
or "I trust gravity to keep me from flying off into space".
Back in the early to mid 80's I saw my grandmother suffer from stomach ulcers... It took another several years before I started hearing about the new treatment being discovered on the news.
It takes time for new ideas to become widely accepted in any
human activty - science is no exception. And that's not a bad thing - I mean do you really want a medical
community that leaps to accept each and every new idea, no matter how superficially outlandish it may appear?
Or do you want a community of professionals who follow best practice?
It took another several years before I started hearing about the new treatment being discovered on the news.
yep. Now we know a lot more about extremeophile bacteria in general, and the notion is widely accepted.
Now, how do you think it got that way? Did the Pope, perhaps, issue a papal bull on the subject? No, he did not.
Did God appear in a vision to the president of the AMA? I very much doubt it.
The idea gained accpetance because scientists did the hard work to mass sufficient evidence to
convince their rightly sceptical peers.
That was my first instance in doubt in the system. It goes along with the ideas you presented with the Oxygen and you have to ask, what if no one could figure out the test? Would you have considered the system or process to have been broken, Paused, or just not complete?
I'd have said "in progress".
Look at it this way. I can remember when the libertarian movement was a half dozen guys, self publishing pamphlets,
and hauling them round to every head shop and counter-culture outlet going, because no-one else would youch them
with a barge pole. Give it ten years or so, and libertarian theory is suddenly driving economic policy for
half the western world.
Was politics broken because the new idea wasn't instantly accepted? No? Then why should science be any faster
to accept a revolutionary new idea?
As for religion, We aren't really talking about using religion to figure out thermal dynamics or complex weather systems or the chemical composition of a nuclear reaction without radioactive materials present during the start of it
Says you:)
I'm talking about which discipline is best at delivering reliable, objective, real world results.
I'm still not sure what you're trying to establish, except that it seems to revolve around
religion being just as good at delivering objective results as science, which is the point
at which I run into difficulties.
Well, even if we ignore the charities that operate businesses or the ones that invest in businesses to guarantee a steady income, if you limit the corporation to one that provides non essential goods and or services, the chances would be simi
But you would agree that you had to make the decision to trust someone or some side in this over another
Actually, I think I trust the process to generate information that is consistent, reliable and useful.
Scientists have disagreed with one another before. There was a tremendous row two hundred and fifty years ago,
for instance. Joseph Priestly had this idea that something called "oxygen" made things burn, and he was attacked
on all sides by supporters of the then popular
phlogiston theory of combustion. Eventually someone found the right
test to settle the debate and these days most people have never heard of phlogiston.
The scientific method has given us the vast majority of the tools we use in the world around us.
It's been tested by time and shown to work well. And, when it comes to describing the way the world
around us behaves, it works rather better than religion. I don't think any of these points require
any great justification.
Objectivity is no more guaranteed from one source to the other, it all depends on the honesty of the people involved.
Sorry, but I don't accept that. That's like saying that the chances of a corporation making money are about
the same as they are for a charity, simply because you can find poor managers working for both businesses
and charities.
Religion is inherently subjective and encourages people to make decisions based on their own subjective experience.
Science does not. So if we assume that there's no greater level of intellectual dishonesty on either side, then we
can still expect a greater level of objectivity from science.
Objectivity is what science does. With religion, if it happens at all
it's happy accident.
And to complicate the rationality argument
Rationality for what purpose? You can't just say "action is X is rational", because the concept
is relative. You need to say "action X is a rational way to achieve objective Y".
Also, rationality is still not the same as objectivity, and the fact that many people
may understand the distinction does not mean we can dispense with it here.
So you would or could have someone using a prayer wheel as well as Physics, chemistry, Biology and other sciences to create the mars lander and actually put it on mars.
I'm not against having a prayer wheel in the lander if it helps morale and doesn't weigh more than a few grammes.
What I'm against is using it as the landing mechanism because it says in the Holy Book Of Spode that prayer is a cushion
against all the shocks and hardships of life. It's a question of which discipline has priority for a given
purpose.
Somewhere along the lines, you made the decision to trust your source of information which is why
you seem to think scientist won't skew their results for some ulterior agenda but
you didn't think the politicians would have the people's interest at heart
I don't trust scientists, as such; I trust peer review, and I trust the fact that for every
prof out there who sells his soul to Vested Interest X, there's a dozen grad students looking to
get easy PhDs by demonstrating that he's full of it. If we're going to mirror one another's
position from last time, think "checks and balances":)
The question and decision in this raw position of life is really a lot like you having to decide which of two flavors of IceCream you want to order when you have never tasted them. In one ear, I'm saying the double fugde pecan, vanilla swirl is excellent, in the other ear, someone is saying that the Pistachio garlic crunch is the best (they are actually both very good). Somewhere, you have to decide something based solely on what someone else tells you.
Well yes, ok. I'll grant that the recent politicisation of science has damaged the reputation of science in a lot of people's
eyes. I'll grant that people have to decide what information sources they're going to trust. I'll even grant that blindly
trusting what some talking head tells you that "scientists" have discovered is not on the whole a wise move.
The point I'm missing still is... so what? If you want objectivity, look to
science rather than religion. That doesn't change just because we have a lot of
widely sponsored bad science. And if you want a Mars lander that works, prayer wheels
are not the technology you should be looking at.
It's not so much that I can't see your point. But I'm having difficulty seeing why it's relevant to the point at hand.
I don't think you understand the point I was attempting to make. It builds off you point in that someone who alters the results because of a dream involving the FSM and comes to a certain conclusion will only be invalidated if and when someone who doesn't alter the results because of the same reasons or not does the testing. There isn't a guarantee that this would happen. It might be probable that it would but that probability requires your trust in it's happening in order to use it as a basis for knowing something is right or wrong just because of the scientific method.
Well, yes. I have to trust that the scientific community is doing science, as opposed to conspiring to delude the rest of humanity in
pursuit of some private agenda. I think perhaps I'm still missing your point, because that doesn't see a particularly unreasonable assumption, to me.
Everyone is corruptible and has the potential to be corrupted. Of course this doesn't mean they will be corrupted or whatever, but nothing is stopping them from being so any more then anyone else. Now some branches of science are more political then others and this potential can increase or decrease.
Isn't life strange sometimes? A couple of weeks ago, you devoted quite a lot of time and energy
to trying to persuade me that politicians were fundamentally good, wise, compassionate responsible people who
had the best interests of their electorate at heart. Now you seem to be suggesting that several
branches of scientific research are institutionally corrupt because scientists are too, umm... political.
I doubt I'll ever share your worldview, my friend:)
After rereading it, I take his statement to mean more of what you claim. But when I originally read it, and I have some reservations of abandoning this, was that the part in which said "a creationist is as rational/irrational as an evolutionary biologist." to mean that they aren't just as rational
Well, for what it's worth, I though he was saying that evolutionary biology was far more objective than creationism, until I realised we were talking at cross
purposes, and went back to see what he really did say. Certainly, I've no intention of arguing the case for creationism or ID.
Well, the point I was attempting to make was that neither objectivity or rational thought can be different for the vast majority of people because they aren't interpreting history or doing experiments of anything of the sorts, they are deciding who to believe and who not to believe
A lot of people won't appreciate the distinction, certainly, but that doesn't mean to say it doesn't exist,
nor that we should disregard it. I think I'm still missing your point, here.
Sure. And it would be a valid check if the researchers verifying it didn't have the same dreams
I think that I didn't fully address your point last time. It doesn't matter where a scientist gets his initial ideas from
as long as he follows the scientific method when he comes to test his theory. He can guess, dream, roll a dice, or read the entrails.
The difference between the scientist and the oneiromancer is that that the scientist doesn't accept the dream without question.
or worse yet, some neo-quasi-political reasoning to find his research valid.
Well, if you assume that science, (or at least some branches of it) are institutionally corrupt
then you'd have cause to doubt their findings. All the same, the scientists I've met tend not to be
political animals. They're just interested in the research.
I would agree in general but when you have people claiming that creationist are rational or objective because of their own views which seem to be no more rational or objective, I find cause to call shenanigans on them.
In actual fact the poster in question didn't make any claim about creationism. This is what he said:
just because people are inherently biased doesn't mean that we are incapable of being objective, or that everyone is equally biased. that's like saying that just because people aren't 100% rational all the time that logic doesn't exist, or that a creationist is as rational/irrational as an evolutionary biologist.
So he's not claiming that creationism is more (or even less) rational or objective than science. He's just objecting to people trying to claim that the two are
both more or less equivalent, and that it all boils down to a matter of personal preference. I can't fault him for that, personally.
But my decisions to trust science to a degree over religion is no more rational or more elite then someone else's decision because in the end, I will never be able to reproduce the studies, verify the date, validate the conclusions, or come to any conclusion other then if someone's claim is creditable or not
I think the key here is that "rational" != "objective". If you want "objective" go to science because even with fallible human researchers,
science as a disciple aims to be objective, while religion aims for an inherently subjective experience. Whether it's a more rational
choice depends what you're trying to achieve. If you happen to be a monk, isolated from the world and striving to bring yourself closer to
God, then accepting the Bible as the literal truth may be a more rational choice than looking for the Almighty in the behaviour of
quarks. On the other hand, if you want to set send a manned mission to Mars, building the spacecraft based on divine inspiration
and sacred writings may well get you a trip to the nearest funny farm.
I see what your saying and somewhat agree, but what if the Physicist came to the 9.81 m/s instead of 6.381 m/s because his dream of the FSM said it was closer to 10 so he ignored early findings until he could somehow validate what he wanted to be true, well where would we be then.
We'd be waiting for researchers to try and verify his data and replicate his results. Barring the existence of a covert FSM agenda
among gravitational physicists, it seems likely that a more objective value will quickly be adopted.:)
Simply labeling something as science then claiming objectiveness is really creating more of a problem with objectivity or subjectivity
Well... again, objectivity is a relative quality. In the example I gave, the one physicist's findings were more objective than
those of his his pastafarian colleague. If the pattern repeats across the careers of the two researchers, we could reasonably
describe the first of them as more objective in his work than the second.
Similarly, we can generalise this further, and say that if we have one discipline that draws conclusions
based on reproducible observations and logical deduction, and we have a second that bases its deductions
on received wisdom and articles of dogma, we can reasonably say that the first discipline is more objective
than the second.
That's not to say that all scientists are always correct, any more than I mean to say that all clerics are
always wrong. Neither am I saying that all scientists always follow the rigours of the Scientific Method,
nor that the religious debater will always ignore the evidence of his own eyes where it conflicts with
the tenets of his faith.
But if you're looking for an objective conclusion about a subject, objectivity is what science is all about.
Religion on the other hand tends to be about faith and dogma first, and objectivity when it doesn't get
in the way of dogma.
For that reason, if you want objectivity, then (IMHO) I'd say that science is by far the better bet.
I think the point the GP wanted to make was that, while Objectivity as an ideal is necessarily absolute,
objectivity as a human trait is a relative quality.
As an example, consider the case of the physicst who times falling objects all over the earth and concludes that the
acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the earth is generally 9.81 m/s, with given margins for regional
variations.
Now let's suppose he has a colleague who claims the true value is 11.0 m/s, because that was the value
revealed to him in a dream by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Since the first physicist's observations are mediated through his own senses, it's possible to
claim that they are therefore subjective, and therefore that neither researcher is being objective.
On the other hand, I think most reasonable people would agree that the first physicists work,
(being grounded in careful observation and reproducible by anyone who follows the methodology) is
considerably more objective than that of the second.
Most certainly. I just don't understand why don't the same is true of bioshock.
Look at what you have:
There's the jaded socialites and mad cosmetic surgeons of the first level
The blue collar grit of Neptune's Bounty
The pleasure resort gone to hell in Arcadia
Art meets madness in Fort Frolic; Hephaestus as a temple to 50's mad science, with some lovely creepy bits with the corpses, to say nothing of the meeting with Andrew Ryan
Crushing poverty and squalor in Apollo Square
And the way OTT creepiness of Point Promethius. From the way they make a Big Daddy to the rooms they use to condtion the Little Sisters to imprint on the Daddies over their own mothers.
It's not often a game leaves me feeling genuinely angry at in-game characters,
but Bioshock managed it twice there. Once with Point Promethius, and earlier when
I realised how Sander Cohen was making his statues. But that's beside the point. The point is that the tone of the levels is different from SS2, certainty, but I wouldn't have said it was in any way inferior.
some places you had to (re)visit to get upgrades, to buy certain things, to heal, whatever. Some places were creepy, some were dangerous, some were fairly safe.
Yeah. Like when I returned to the Medical Pavilion to make some safe case and stock up on first aid kits after running dry in Arcadia. Later I returned to Arcadia to get components for anti-personnel pistol rounds and electric gel, becuase it was safer there. I've also returned to Neptune's Bounty to take photo's of Rosies, and Arciadia to research Houdini Splicers.
I'm beginning to think you never game this game a proper chance.
In SS2 you make choices: which skills, which weapons, where to go and what to do
Pfft. Yes, there was a high initial cost to open a line of skills. That stopped you from developing all of them on any one run through. Certainly, I'd have welcomed something similar in Bioshock, but I can't say its absence ruined the game for me. As for places to go - how many places in SS2 where they that presented you with an either/or choice? As far as I can recall, you could roam the entire ship, as far as you'd unlocked up, up until just before the end in the Body of the Many.
Maybe you're remembering SS2 as better than it was?
The enemies in SS2 are *creepy*: the cyborg midwives with their "must protect eggs", the protocol droids who were apologizing as they came up to kill you, etc.
It is not so much about the number or the variety, it is about character. SS2 had plenty of that, and Bioshock not so much
I think bioshock did pretty well for characterisation of the enemies. It jsut didn't weld the personalities on to attack types like SS2 did. So you get the
society harridans "I\m better than you, you worthless parasite!"; you get the street tough types "You think I'm dumb, is that it? Su-u-u-re, why not? You keep thinking that"; you get the unwilling, working class conscripts: "Don't you judge me! I do what I'm told. If I don't find you, they'll kill me. Why not make it easier for both of us?"
I'm not denying the creepiness of the midwives in SS2, but some of the splicers made my blood run just as cold.
It also kept details like the audio dairies and the ghosts, a rich cast of characters (most of whose corpses you
eventually find).
You do? How would you know? I only recall a very small number of recognizable corpses. Not that it matters, I never recognized anybody in SS2 either.
As a rule of thumb, if you find a corpse carrying a message tape,
it's because they taped the message, but died before they could leave it anywhere. It's most obvious with the shoe designer lady impaled ou
I know it is cool to try out different OSes from time to time, but is there really any solid technical reason why anyone would choose solaris on a laptop over linux?
If you truly are a Linux fan - isn't your first phrase answer enough?
What? All "true" Linux fans should use Solaris as their laptop O/S because trying things out can be fun? Bit of a
non-sequiteur there, I can't help feeling. Besides which, if true it would also mean I had to have MinuetOS, Haiku,
some flavour of BSD, ReactOS, and probably Windows Vista. Not to mention Ubuntu, RedHat, Debian and Slackware.
All as my primary operating system. That doesn't seem feasible.
So: "is there really any solid technical reason why anyone would choose solaris?"
I've asked this sort of question about Linux enough times (e.g. "Do we really need another distro?" or "Do we really need yet another window manager?"), and Linux fanboys all think that "because we can" is a good enough answer in and of itself.
Good enough reason for developing a distro, certainly. Far from a compelling reason for trying it out. There are probably hundreds
of specialist distros uot there whose user base is lucky to be in double digits - there isn't time to try them all, even if I wanted to
do so. And if someone had a new Linux distro they were touting around the place I'd want to know what made that special too, before I tried it.
It is also clearly not a 'spiritual successor' to System Shock 2 - the closest to that has to be Deus Ex 1.
I'd be interested to know what you thought was good about SS2 that bioshock didn't accomplish. I mean the gameplay is
linear in the same way as is Bioshock's (work hard to open up a level, and then you can roam at will), the Bioshock
monsters are pretty much a 1:1 mapping from SS2 with the splicers showing IMHO a bit more visual and auditory variety
than the Many from SS2. Even the big daddies have a SS2 counterpart in the rumblers. The splicing is about the same
as the cybernetic modules from SS2, the weapons upgrade mechanism is about the same.
It also kept details like the audio dairies and the ghosts, a rich cast of characters (most of whose corpses you
eventually find). There's also the motif of a cental all-controlling intelligence. Really - what was it about SS2
that you liked that wasn't in Bioshock?
The enemies basically either run straight at you or straight away from you
I dunno, maybe you need to play it a higher difficulty level or something. The leadheads move and circle strafe when I play. The nitro splicers
hide, ambush, and hide again. The spider splicers hide on the ceiling and change between melee and ranged attacks. The houdinis
teleport for heaven's sake.
You sure you're playing the same game as the rest of us?
I just love PC gaming, and I hate for this to be held out as a great PC game
It was all right. Like you say, I loved the style and the setting, and it was nice to see the SS2 ideas given
another spin, even if they couldn't use the name. However, the thing that raised it from "OK" to "great" in my
opinion, was the brain candy involved. The examination of Objectivism, its strengths and failings.
And at the end of the day, you're left to draw your own conclusions, Did rapture fail because Ryan
found an adversary of equal talent in the person of Fontaine?
Or was the flaw inherent in the economic system he established? Or was it in Ryan himself
when he abandoned his principles rather than yeild control?
I'm sorry you didn't like it, but any game that can make me ask questions like that is going to end up on my all time favourite list.
At least with a private monopoly, you have the choice to "opt out". Comcast has a monopoly in my area, but its rates are outrageously high, so I simply decided to opt-out of giving them my money. I'd like to see you try to do the same with a Government Monopoly (for example: Medicare).
I'm sorry, but that logic is broken in so many ways it's hard to keep track of them all. For one thing, you're presenting a false dichotomy - either we allow private monopolies, or else government ones are inevitable. This is plainly not the case - there are many, many nations that have limited government regulation of commerce and industry where there are neither
government or private monopolies. It's a basic logical fallacy.
Secondly, you don't always have the option of opting out. Suppose the monopoly is on food? Unless you have a farm, it's unlikely that you can achieve self sufficiency in this area, and if you can, it still requires a complete change of lifestyle for most people. Supposing the monopoly is for fuel? Or electricity? Opting out is not practical in all cases.
Thirdly, your example is rather comparing apples with aardvarks. There's a world world of difference between internet access
with almost everyone can live without, and medical care, without which we can live but for rather a shorter period of time.
Fourthly, even given a private monopoly on a given area of business, what stops you from opting out of that? Do they shoot you
if you don't use the service?
Fifthly, and most importantly of all, it's a complete red herring. What the blue bloody blazes does that have to do
with the question of whether or not it's sensible to allow monopolies to arise in the hope that they will dissipate
naturally before they can do any real damage?
A government monopoly is even worse than a private monopoly. I'd rather have the later, than the former,
And I'd rather have neither, thank you. See previous comments about false dichotomies.
especially since the latter has the possibility of new companies being born to break-up the monopoly
Still not a justification for removing anti-monopoly laws. It'd be a bit like repealing the laws against
taking human life on the grounds that "murderers tend to get what's coming to them anyway". OK, it's
probably true in a certain proportion of cases. However, neither murder nor monopoly is a
practice any sane society really wants to encourage.
Also, I think you're focusing too much on the IT sector and not considering the ramification of your proposal in
less volatile sectors. Let's go back to food - suppose someone consolidates all the retail outlets and distribution networks.
What are you going to do? Do you wait until food is downloadable over the Internet?
Do you start researching gene therapy to let you photosynthesise sunlight?
I'm not ruling out either one happening, but I don't think it's smart to bet your life that we'd see
either one within our lifetime - which is what you'd have to do if you wanted to opt out of a food monopoly.
But as I pointed-out elsewhere, a monopoly can not last forever because new innovators arrive on the scene.
Hmmm... you're just re-stating your point rather than adding support for it. Yes, monopolies
will probably die naturally given a long enough time scale. I understand and accept that.
My points in reply to this are:
While we're waiting for this to happen, monopolies can be tremendously damaging to the economy.
We have no way to predict how long we need to wait for the monopoly to die naturally.
It might be longer than our lifespan. Just waiting is not a sensible approach.
Having a monopoly control a market for its own ends is just as much a violation of
free a market as any amount of government control. And in the case of the monopoly
this control will probably be a lot worse, since the monopoly lacks even the most
notional responsibility to act in anyone's interest but its own. Moreover,
since it is a monopoly, there is no way for market forces to compel
responsible behaviour.
I'm sorry, but I think that letting monopolies form in the hope and expectation that they
will die out of their own accord is a little naive and extremely foolish.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose the question following on from there is selling point to whom?.
If the sales pitch is directed at phone manufacturers, then giving them a cheap software stack that they can customise to suit their desires, and then lock down tight, Is probably going to be very appealing. That said, it doesn't really offer the end user very much in that scenario.
If it's selling to end user, as in trying get people excited about using Android, then, really, it's got to be hackable.
It's a tricky one for Google. Do you GPLv3 the stack, and hope that community pressure will drive adoption? Or do you licence the code so it can be locked down, and hope for buy in from the manufacturers who want to use DRM on ringtones or are frightened you might filter out their SMS spam?
I couldn't really blame Google for going for the second option, but I can surely understand the disappointment of those who'd hoped for something that would be open to the end user.
It's a fair point. But I tend to think that before we get to 2020, we'll see the same schools also talking about the incredible screwing over business got from big software houses, in terms of vendor lock-in and of expensive, generic software packages that don't fit the task well enough to justify the expense. We see that a lot where I work.
In it's old form, certainly.
I think the future lies in a hybrid approach. Discrete, reliable open source components linked together in custom configurations. It's still going to be custom software, but it's going to be the difference between writing a shell script to pipe some software through half a dozen filters, and writing the whole thing from scratch, in C.
I think that, ultimately, coders are going to be like plumbers. If yo need to redo the plumbing in your house, you don't go down the store and buy a prepackaged solution, and you don't start by turning each fitting by hand on a lathe. You hire a guy to use pre-made parts to give you a custom solution.
It's the only approach that makes sense.
Bizzaro Boy! You're back! I was beginning to think you'd been kidnapped and replaced by a well person.
Your definition "poor scientist" of sounds to me like "doing it properly" :D
I shall stay as I am, thank you.
That's an odd thing to say. The process is the part where so far haven't challenged the objectivity of science. Where you appear to think the subjectivity lies in communicating the results of that process to the public. Or maybe you think the communication part is the scientific process?
Or maybe, (and this is what I think), you don't believe word one of this crap. You just thought that if you wound me up about science, you could goad me into saying something like "people are stupid, they need to be told what to think", so that you could say "see, I told you so".
For what it's worth, I dug out my copy of SS2 the other day. I'm currently about halfway through the hydroponics deck, and I can see you point a lot more clearly. There's a lot more detail to the simulation; Bioshock seems a bit simplistic in comparison.
That said, from some of the articles I'd read about Bioshock, I was expecting some level of dumbing down, so I was really quite relieved to find they'd made a reasonable attempt at an SS2 play-alike.
Although, on balance, I think I'm glad I didn't run through SS2 first to get in mood
You know, I'm starting to think that "lol" of yours is a tell. You only even use it when you don't know how to reply to a point. I mean objectivity has nothing to do with popular opinion, and there's nothing you can do to make it so. So what are you going to do? Lol.
Of course, I you can always play the solipism card I suppose, and claim that everything is subjective in so far as its mediated through our senses, then we have no access at all to objective reality, and that everything we see is the product of our imaginations.
Of course, the comeback to that is that since you're therefore a figment of my imagination, this is therefore some, sort of dream I can therefore safely disregard anything you may come up with as sheer twaddle. I have to say, to that extent at least, the theory seems to fit this discussion disturbingly well.
I like how you're always happy to cite wikipedia when it supports your point. Lol.
And as I'm sure we're all agreed, there's no more recent nor sophisticated definitions available than those written in high school textbooks. Lol.
Since popular opinion apparently no longer defines reality, you're going to have to find another reason why this is relevant. Lol.
The point of view to which I decline to subscribe to is the one that popular opinion has the least bearing on the objectivity or otherwise of a series of procedures and investigations. If acceptance of such a notion constitutes taking off the blinkers, then I'm quite happy stumbling around here in the darkness, thank you. You just carry on with whatever it is you think you're doing.
Lol.
Now all you have to do now is show me where the words "the average person" appear in the definition of objectivity and you'll have a relevant and valid point.
"Invert the input?" All I'm doing is pointing out that your (unstated) definition is probably a little simplistic, and that modern biologists take a slightly more sophisticated view of the problem. Wikipedia discusses the problems in finding a single useful definition and lists thirteen different ones used by different biological specialties.
You can't insist that evolutionary biologists use your definition of "species", and then claim it as evidence against them. Sorry.
I've always thought the "popular perception == reality" idea to be rather cynical and self serving, myself.
Certainly, I can see the appeal for a politician, but it's not a terribly useful viewpoint when it comes to science and engineering. Basically, you're saying that it doesn't matter if the Mars lander does use a prayer wheel for its landing gear. The important thing, you're saying, is that everyone thinks the landing gear will work.
Of course, the mechanism won't function purely because people believe in it, but I guess if you manage perceptions properly, no one is going to blame you when it crashes. Which I suppose is the whole point, from the political viewpoint, anyway.
Personally, in the words of the song, I don't subscribe to your point of view.
Can you rephrase that? It sounds like I might agree with you if I knew what you were talking about.
That is evidence that the universe exists, but not for the means by which it was created. It offers no support for the events described in Genesis, or if you insist that it does support Genesis, it also supports the Big Bang theory to equal measure. it also supports, every creation myth on the planet, and any crackpot creation theory we may care to make up on the spot, so long as it results in the world around us. It's not even evidence of creation, because it equally mean that the world has been here forever. Net effect: nil.
I think any biologist worth his salt would agree that there are better ways of defining species than "can" interbreed. Wikipedia goes into some detail on the subject. The distinction is useful for separating two very closely related lines, but as a definition, it's a little out of date.
Certainly, it's still a theory, and in the absence of time travel, it may well remain as such. On the other hand, it's a theory supported by a lot of objective evidence. Fossils, carbon dating, observed mutations in current species... all of it with the the researcher and dates recorded, all of it verifiable.
The best evidence you have for the Garden of Eden is an unattributed, undated creation myth.
Objectivity is relative. There is no way you can present creationism as even remotely objective. You're tilting at windmills.
By some people lacking a superficial knowledge of it, perhaps.
Look, I'm deeply gratified by your sudden, uncharacteristic enthusiasm for the will of the people, really I am. But until we find a way of voting laws of nature into reality I can't see what practical impact it has on science.
And I can't begin to imagine what you might think popular perception, itself inherently subjective, has to do with the level of objectivity behind any theory at all.
OK. I know you're big on definitions, so let's look at one for "objective" and make sure we're both on the same page here The definition that applies to my point is this one:
Now you find me some objective evidence for creationism, and I'll concede the point.
I should add that I don't regard the bible as objective evidence that the Garden of Eden is the literal truth. Hell, it's not even objective evidence of those things for which we have independent historical corroboration. It's hearsay at best, and it's a hearsay account of a sequence of events that we have no objective reason to believe to be possible.
Well, I wish you'd say what your point actually is, then. Preferably in a paragraph by itself and in twenty five words or less.
My major point is that science is essentially objective and religion essentially subjective.
What's yours?
Yes, that came up recently in another discussion. The most interesting question there is: who do you mean by "we" in that sentence?
For instance, you don't mean Christians as a whole, because I know loads of them who are quite happy with the notion of Genesis as either allegory or creation myth. You don't even speak for all creationists, since there are factions within fundamentalist Christianity that will tell you that if it says "days" if means "days". I seem to recall a couple of them posted to that same thread where "yoim" came up.
Also, you rather appear to have abandoned the devil's advocate/neutral-point-of-view stance you adopted in your earlier posts.
Perhaps this is a good time to declare an interest?
Not a problem for you, but like I say, I don't think you speak for all Christian fundamentalists. Some of them are indeed going to object to the teacher saying "evolution is true". Some are going to insist that only creationism is taught. Some of them want that exercise in intellectual dishonesty known as intelligent design to be taught as science. And that's without even considering the more extreme fringe cults, like little Timmy's Church of Christ Flatlander.
We can't accommodate every religious conviction under the sun. How do you decide whose religious convictions need explicit equal time in the classroom, and which we can quietly disregard?
This actually sounds like a productive approach. So when the teacher gets out a globe, and Timmy sticks up a hand and says "please miss my church says the earth is flat and globes are the tool of Satan" what does the teacher say in reply?
Actually, I know them both quite well, but I appreciate that's not your point.
meh. They get evidence that science works every time they flick a light switch or get in a car. The best evidence for religion they've see is in all probability a preacher who tells them every Sunday that they have to have FAY-uth, or they'll burn in HAY-ull.
But then you have to have already accepted the "corrupt evolutionary scientific community" conspiracy theory or else why else do you assume that the nice Mister Science who makes your car go, and your cell phone ring should be jerking your chain when the subject changes to fossils?
Incidentally, I don't think you can limit the debate to purely evolutionary biology. If we take the Bible as the literal truth, then we limit the age of the universe as six-thousand-and-something years. So we have to stop teaching a whole chunk of astrophysics right there. We can estimate the age of stellar objects by the amount of red shift they show. What do you propose we stop teaching? Do we have to junk the speed of light and most of relativity with it? We already lost carbon dating. Where do we stop?
Science isn't the be all and end all truth finder, either. It's a way of understanding the universe, But even if it was, it isn't infinitely fast, or else we'd have colonies in the Andromeda Galaxy and be having this discussion via telepathic interfaces.
Also, if you ever try and advance a political theory yourself, do try and find something in support of your ideas. I don't think you'll get very far if all you have to say "it's an opinion about a thing".
So, basically you're saying that people aren't stupid? I'd agree with that :)
That was never my point, as I suspect you're very well aware. My point was that religion would be a poor choice of discipline for such a project. From what you say elsewhere in this debate, I rather doubt you disagree.
I'll tell you what: I just founded the First Church of Christ Flatlander. It is a sacred tenet of my religion that the Earth is flat. All evidence to the contrary, up to and including moon landings and satellite photography must therefore be the
mmm... I may be misreading your intent entirely here, there's something about the way you use the word "trust" that suggests to me you mean "trust" in a "blind faith" sort of way; that you meant to imply that the decision to trust one side or another is essentially arbitrary. I don't accept that.
On the other hand, if you mean trust in the sense of having seen the process in operation and having good grounds to trust the process of scientific research to deliver reliable, objective real world results, then ok, I'll agree with you.
But it's still an odd choice of words to my way of thinking. It's like saying, "I trust the sun to come up in the morning" or "I trust gravity to keep me from flying off into space".
It takes time for new ideas to become widely accepted in any human activty - science is no exception. And that's not a bad thing - I mean do you really want a medical community that leaps to accept each and every new idea, no matter how superficially outlandish it may appear? Or do you want a community of professionals who follow best practice?
yep. Now we know a lot more about extremeophile bacteria in general, and the notion is widely accepted. Now, how do you think it got that way? Did the Pope, perhaps, issue a papal bull on the subject? No, he did not. Did God appear in a vision to the president of the AMA? I very much doubt it.
The idea gained accpetance because scientists did the hard work to mass sufficient evidence to convince their rightly sceptical peers.
I'd have said "in progress".
Look at it this way. I can remember when the libertarian movement was a half dozen guys, self publishing pamphlets, and hauling them round to every head shop and counter-culture outlet going, because no-one else would youch them with a barge pole. Give it ten years or so, and libertarian theory is suddenly driving economic policy for half the western world.
Was politics broken because the new idea wasn't instantly accepted? No? Then why should science be any faster to accept a revolutionary new idea?
Says you :)
I'm talking about which discipline is best at delivering reliable, objective, real world results. I'm still not sure what you're trying to establish, except that it seems to revolve around religion being just as good at delivering objective results as science, which is the point at which I run into difficulties.
Actually, I think I trust the process to generate information that is consistent, reliable and useful.
Scientists have disagreed with one another before. There was a tremendous row two hundred and fifty years ago, for instance. Joseph Priestly had this idea that something called "oxygen" made things burn, and he was attacked on all sides by supporters of the then popular phlogiston theory of combustion. Eventually someone found the right test to settle the debate and these days most people have never heard of phlogiston.
The scientific method has given us the vast majority of the tools we use in the world around us. It's been tested by time and shown to work well. And, when it comes to describing the way the world around us behaves, it works rather better than religion. I don't think any of these points require any great justification.
Sorry, but I don't accept that. That's like saying that the chances of a corporation making money are about the same as they are for a charity, simply because you can find poor managers working for both businesses and charities.
Religion is inherently subjective and encourages people to make decisions based on their own subjective experience. Science does not. So if we assume that there's no greater level of intellectual dishonesty on either side, then we can still expect a greater level of objectivity from science.
Objectivity is what science does. With religion, if it happens at all it's happy accident.
Rationality for what purpose? You can't just say "action is X is rational", because the concept is relative. You need to say "action X is a rational way to achieve objective Y". Also, rationality is still not the same as objectivity, and the fact that many people may understand the distinction does not mean we can dispense with it here.
I'm not against having a prayer wheel in the lander if it helps morale and doesn't weigh more than a few grammes. What I'm against is using it as the landing mechanism because it says in the Holy Book Of Spode that prayer is a cushion against all the shocks and hardships of life. It's a question of which discipline has priority for a given purpose.
I don't trust scientists, as such; I trust peer review, and I trust the fact that for every prof out there who sells his soul to Vested Interest X, there's a dozen grad students looking to get easy PhDs by demonstrating that he's full of it. If we're going to mirror one another's position from last time, think "checks and balances" :)
Well yes, ok. I'll grant that the recent politicisation of science has damaged the reputation of science in a lot of people's eyes. I'll grant that people have to decide what information sources they're going to trust. I'll even grant that blindly trusting what some talking head tells you that "scientists" have discovered is not on the whole a wise move.
The point I'm missing still is ... so what? If you want objectivity, look to
science rather than religion. That doesn't change just because we have a lot of
widely sponsored bad science. And if you want a Mars lander that works, prayer wheels
are not the technology you should be looking at.
It's not so much that I can't see your point. But I'm having difficulty seeing why it's relevant to the point at hand.
Well, yes. I have to trust that the scientific community is doing science, as opposed to conspiring to delude the rest of humanity in pursuit of some private agenda. I think perhaps I'm still missing your point, because that doesn't see a particularly unreasonable assumption, to me.
Isn't life strange sometimes? A couple of weeks ago, you devoted quite a lot of time and energy to trying to persuade me that politicians were fundamentally good, wise, compassionate responsible people who had the best interests of their electorate at heart. Now you seem to be suggesting that several branches of scientific research are institutionally corrupt because scientists are too, umm ... political.
I doubt I'll ever share your worldview, my friend :)
Well, for what it's worth, I though he was saying that evolutionary biology was far more objective than creationism, until I realised we were talking at cross purposes, and went back to see what he really did say. Certainly, I've no intention of arguing the case for creationism or ID.
A lot of people won't appreciate the distinction, certainly, but that doesn't mean to say it doesn't exist, nor that we should disregard it. I think I'm still missing your point, here.
I think that I didn't fully address your point last time. It doesn't matter where a scientist gets his initial ideas from as long as he follows the scientific method when he comes to test his theory. He can guess, dream, roll a dice, or read the entrails. The difference between the scientist and the oneiromancer is that that the scientist doesn't accept the dream without question.
Well, if you assume that science, (or at least some branches of it) are institutionally corrupt then you'd have cause to doubt their findings. All the same, the scientists I've met tend not to be political animals. They're just interested in the research.
In actual fact the poster in question didn't make any claim about creationism. This is what he said:
So he's not claiming that creationism is more (or even less) rational or objective than science. He's just objecting to people trying to claim that the two are both more or less equivalent, and that it all boils down to a matter of personal preference. I can't fault him for that, personally.
I think the key here is that "rational" != "objective". If you want "objective" go to science because even with fallible human researchers, science as a disciple aims to be objective, while religion aims for an inherently subjective experience. Whether it's a more rational choice depends what you're trying to achieve. If you happen to be a monk, isolated from the world and striving to bring yourself closer to God, then accepting the Bible as the literal truth may be a more rational choice than looking for the Almighty in the behaviour of quarks. On the other hand, if you want to set send a manned mission to Mars, building the spacecraft based on divine inspiration and sacred writings may well get you a trip to the nearest funny farm.
And you'd be right. m/s/s, obviously :)
We'd be waiting for researchers to try and verify his data and replicate his results. Barring the existence of a covert FSM agenda among gravitational physicists, it seems likely that a more objective value will quickly be adopted. :)
Well... again, objectivity is a relative quality. In the example I gave, the one physicist's findings were more objective than those of his his pastafarian colleague. If the pattern repeats across the careers of the two researchers, we could reasonably describe the first of them as more objective in his work than the second.
Similarly, we can generalise this further, and say that if we have one discipline that draws conclusions based on reproducible observations and logical deduction, and we have a second that bases its deductions on received wisdom and articles of dogma, we can reasonably say that the first discipline is more objective than the second.
That's not to say that all scientists are always correct, any more than I mean to say that all clerics are always wrong. Neither am I saying that all scientists always follow the rigours of the Scientific Method, nor that the religious debater will always ignore the evidence of his own eyes where it conflicts with the tenets of his faith.
But if you're looking for an objective conclusion about a subject, objectivity is what science is all about. Religion on the other hand tends to be about faith and dogma first, and objectivity when it doesn't get in the way of dogma.
For that reason, if you want objectivity, then (IMHO) I'd say that science is by far the better bet.
I think the point the GP wanted to make was that, while Objectivity as an ideal is necessarily absolute, objectivity as a human trait is a relative quality.
As an example, consider the case of the physicst who times falling objects all over the earth and concludes that the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the earth is generally 9.81 m/s, with given margins for regional variations.
Now let's suppose he has a colleague who claims the true value is 11.0 m/s, because that was the value revealed to him in a dream by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Since the first physicist's observations are mediated through his own senses, it's possible to claim that they are therefore subjective, and therefore that neither researcher is being objective. On the other hand, I think most reasonable people would agree that the first physicists work, (being grounded in careful observation and reproducible by anyone who follows the methodology) is considerably more objective than that of the second.
All IMHO, obviously :)
Most certainly. I just don't understand why don't the same is true of bioshock. Look at what you have:
It's not often a game leaves me feeling genuinely angry at in-game characters, but Bioshock managed it twice there. Once with Point Promethius, and earlier when I realised how Sander Cohen was making his statues. But that's beside the point. The point is that the tone of the levels is different from SS2, certainty, but I wouldn't have said it was in any way inferior.
Yeah. Like when I returned to the Medical Pavilion to make some safe case and stock up on first aid kits after running dry in Arcadia. Later I returned to Arcadia to get components for anti-personnel pistol rounds and electric gel, becuase it was safer there. I've also returned to Neptune's Bounty to take photo's of Rosies, and Arciadia to research Houdini Splicers.
I'm beginning to think you never game this game a proper chance.
Pfft. Yes, there was a high initial cost to open a line of skills. That stopped you from developing all of them on any one run through. Certainly, I'd have welcomed something similar in Bioshock, but I can't say its absence ruined the game for me. As for places to go - how many places in SS2 where they that presented you with an either/or choice? As far as I can recall, you could roam the entire ship, as far as you'd unlocked up, up until just before the end in the Body of the Many.
Maybe you're remembering SS2 as better than it was?
I think bioshock did pretty well for characterisation of the enemies. It jsut didn't weld the personalities on to attack types like SS2 did. So you get the society harridans "I\m better than you, you worthless parasite!"; you get the street tough types "You think I'm dumb, is that it? Su-u-u-re, why not? You keep thinking that"; you get the unwilling, working class conscripts: "Don't you judge me! I do what I'm told. If I don't find you, they'll kill me. Why not make it easier for both of us?"
I'm not denying the creepiness of the midwives in SS2, but some of the splicers made my blood run just as cold.
As a rule of thumb, if you find a corpse carrying a message tape, it's because they taped the message, but died before they could leave it anywhere. It's most obvious with the shoe designer lady impaled ou
What? All "true" Linux fans should use Solaris as their laptop O/S because trying things out can be fun? Bit of a non-sequiteur there, I can't help feeling. Besides which, if true it would also mean I had to have MinuetOS, Haiku, some flavour of BSD, ReactOS, and probably Windows Vista. Not to mention Ubuntu, RedHat, Debian and Slackware. All as my primary operating system. That doesn't seem feasible.
So: "is there really any solid technical reason why anyone would choose solaris?"
Good enough reason for developing a distro, certainly. Far from a compelling reason for trying it out. There are probably hundreds of specialist distros uot there whose user base is lucky to be in double digits - there isn't time to try them all, even if I wanted to do so. And if someone had a new Linux distro they were touting around the place I'd want to know what made that special too, before I tried it.
I'd be interested to know what you thought was good about SS2 that bioshock didn't accomplish. I mean the gameplay is linear in the same way as is Bioshock's (work hard to open up a level, and then you can roam at will), the Bioshock monsters are pretty much a 1:1 mapping from SS2 with the splicers showing IMHO a bit more visual and auditory variety than the Many from SS2. Even the big daddies have a SS2 counterpart in the rumblers. The splicing is about the same as the cybernetic modules from SS2, the weapons upgrade mechanism is about the same.
It also kept details like the audio dairies and the ghosts, a rich cast of characters (most of whose corpses you eventually find). There's also the motif of a cental all-controlling intelligence. Really - what was it about SS2 that you liked that wasn't in Bioshock?
I dunno, maybe you need to play it a higher difficulty level or something. The leadheads move and circle strafe when I play. The nitro splicers hide, ambush, and hide again. The spider splicers hide on the ceiling and change between melee and ranged attacks. The houdinis teleport for heaven's sake. You sure you're playing the same game as the rest of us?
It was all right. Like you say, I loved the style and the setting, and it was nice to see the SS2 ideas given another spin, even if they couldn't use the name. However, the thing that raised it from "OK" to "great" in my opinion, was the brain candy involved. The examination of Objectivism, its strengths and failings. And at the end of the day, you're left to draw your own conclusions, Did rapture fail because Ryan found an adversary of equal talent in the person of Fontaine? Or was the flaw inherent in the economic system he established? Or was it in Ryan himself when he abandoned his principles rather than yeild control?
I'm sorry you didn't like it, but any game that can make me ask questions like that is going to end up on my all time favourite list.
I'm sorry, but that logic is broken in so many ways it's hard to keep track of them all. For one thing, you're presenting a false dichotomy - either we allow private monopolies, or else government ones are inevitable. This is plainly not the case - there are many, many nations that have limited government regulation of commerce and industry where there are neither government or private monopolies. It's a basic logical fallacy.
Secondly, you don't always have the option of opting out. Suppose the monopoly is on food? Unless you have a farm, it's unlikely that you can achieve self sufficiency in this area, and if you can, it still requires a complete change of lifestyle for most people. Supposing the monopoly is for fuel? Or electricity? Opting out is not practical in all cases.
Thirdly, your example is rather comparing apples with aardvarks. There's a world world of difference between internet access with almost everyone can live without, and medical care, without which we can live but for rather a shorter period of time.
Fourthly, even given a private monopoly on a given area of business, what stops you from opting out of that? Do they shoot you if you don't use the service?
Fifthly, and most importantly of all, it's a complete red herring. What the blue bloody blazes does that have to do with the question of whether or not it's sensible to allow monopolies to arise in the hope that they will dissipate naturally before they can do any real damage?
And I'd rather have neither, thank you. See previous comments about false dichotomies.
Still not a justification for removing anti-monopoly laws. It'd be a bit like repealing the laws against taking human life on the grounds that "murderers tend to get what's coming to them anyway". OK, it's probably true in a certain proportion of cases. However, neither murder nor monopoly is a practice any sane society really wants to encourage.
Also, I think you're focusing too much on the IT sector and not considering the ramification of your proposal in less volatile sectors. Let's go back to food - suppose someone consolidates all the retail outlets and distribution networks. What are you going to do? Do you wait until food is downloadable over the Internet? Do you start researching gene therapy to let you photosynthesise sunlight? I'm not ruling out either one happening, but I don't think it's smart to bet your life that we'd see either one within our lifetime - which is what you'd have to do if you wanted to opt out of a food monopoly.
Hmmm... you're just re-stating your point rather than adding support for it. Yes, monopolies will probably die naturally given a long enough time scale. I understand and accept that. My points in reply to this are:
Having a monopoly control a market for its own ends is just as much a violation of free a market as any amount of government control. And in the case of the monopoly this control will probably be a lot worse, since the monopoly lacks even the most notional responsibility to act in anyone's interest but its own. Moreover, since it is a monopoly, there is no way for market forces to compel responsible behaviour.
I'm sorry, but I think that letting monopolies form in the hope and expectation that they will die out of their own accord is a little naive and extremely foolish.