The rumor goes that they will give you credit for uploading their software updates to other people (thereby reducing their bandwith bills); they won't offer you anything for uploading anything else...
Unless you've donated all your property to others and survive only on bread and water, it strikes me that you are being selfish and therefore a hypocrite. Furthermore, if you do not allow other people have access to your body any time they desire it, you are also being selfish (your body is just another piece of private property that you are selfishly hoarding). If you carry out any action primarily due to the satisfaction that you enjoy from it (e.g. reading slashdot, being smug), you are being selfish. I can go on. Face it, evolution and natural selection favours self-interest and enlightened self-interest (sacrificing short-term self-interest for long-term self-interest -- a lot of people confuse this with altruism).
I hope that this doesn't turn out to be linked to some religion or other. All we need is another whacko group claiming to have the only true religion, and proof of its veracity in this pyramid. I truly do hope that this is built by, or inspired by alien visitors, perhaps stranded travellers or something. As long as its anything but more religious hype/tripe/your-fav-bad-thing-here.
Because if your first thought upon discovering a pyramid is that it was "built by, or inspired by alien visitors" you are far saner, more rational, and down to earth than those religious "whacko group[s]"...
If gender really doesn't matter, then why would the general public care of 10% or 99% of the game developers are female?
Because there are three types of discrimination/racism/sexism -- positive, negative, and nonexistant. Negative discrimination occurs then the person perceived to have the upper hand is of a group designated as "the aggressor" (usually white men) as opposed to "the victim" (usually !("the aggressor" || "overachieving Asians") ). Positive discrimination occurs when a policy of active discrimination is used to right a perceived act of negative discrimination; this is the good kind of discrimination, and is therefore not usually refered to as such in order to not confuse the proles. Everything else falls in the nonexistent bin. Capisci?
My one question is this: why is it always an assumed premise that if there's a statistic in which girls or boys are over-represented:
1. it's automatially a bad thing
2. it's automatically a bad thing for girls
Not true. Nobody seems to be concerned that men outnumber women in suicides (in developed countries, with the exception of Chine -- if you count them as developed), or that men outnumber women as drug users, or that most of the people in jail are men, or that most garbagemen (garbagepeople, sorry) are men, or that most coal miners (or any other crap job) are men. If only there was some sort of conclusion we could draw from all of this...
I wonder why we never hear people complaing that women are not 50% of the criminal "workforce".
From the UK: "Men outnumber women in all major crime categories. Between 85 and 95 per cent of offenders found guilty of burglary, robbery, drug offences, criminal damage or violence against the person are male. Although the number of offenders are relatively small, 98 per cent of people found guilty of, or cautioned for, sexual offences are male"
Or how about garbagemen (garbagepeople) or coal miners? Why are people never concerned about women not making headways there?
I agree with everything that you stated in this post, but do not see how it supports your statement in your previous post.
Perhaps I am being dense, but let's go through this:
The article states: "The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer"
Wikipedia state: "Double-blind describes an especially stringent way of conducting an experiment, usually on human subjects, in an attempt to eliminate subjective bias on the part of both experimental subjects and the experimenters. In most cases, double-blind experiments are held to achieve a higher standard of scientific rigour.
In a double-blind experiment, neither the individuals nor the researchers know who belongs to the control group and the experimental group. Only after all the data are recorded (and in some cases, analyzed) do the researchers learn which individuals are which. Performing an experiment in double-blind fashion is a way to lessen the influence of the prejudices and unintentional physical cues on the results (the placebo effect, observer bias, and experimenter effect)."
You state:"There were the standard double-blind groups.
Prayer-receiving and non-prayer receiving, told they were getting prayer and not told they were getting prayer."
I cannot see how what you are proposing would be a double-blind test. If we were conducting a double blind test for a pharmaceutical, we would have two groups: one which receives the actual drug, and one which receives the placebo (control group).
According to you (if I understand what you are saying), however, we would have four groups: drug+told getting drug, drug+told getting placebo, placebo+told getting drug, placebo+told getting placebo, which seems rather strange to me.
Self-fulfilling prophecies and circular logic are quite different. This would be a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and not of circular logic. The fact that the preconception of the researcher (observer bias) or test subject (placebo effect) may affect the outcome of the experiment is accepted and the reason why double blind tests (in which neither the researcher nor the test subject know whether the test subject is receiving the treatment or not (control)). If the preconceptions of neither the researcher nor the test subject did not affect the outcome of the experiment, there would be no reason for double blind tests.
To elaborate upon the difference between circular logic and self fulfiling prophecies: circular logic (begging the question) is a logical fallacy in which the truth of a statement is assumed in the logical proof of its truth. Self fulfilling prophecies on the other hand occur when the belief that something will occur causes that event to occur. An example of self fulfilling prophecies can be found in economics when an assumed scarcity/increase in price of something in the future causes increased demand in the present (resulting in an increased price). The expectation of an increase in price in the future actually resulted in an increase in price.
Couldn't you also eliminate the placebo effect by not telling any of the patients whether they were or were not getting prayer as I understand is done in double-blind experiments?
"In a double-blind experiment, neither the individuals nor the researchers know who belongs to the control group and the experimental group." (Wikipedia)
My apologies; I was speaking in the colloquial. What I should have said instead was: "The subjective assertion (which was not supported with a reference, but which nobody has challenged thus far and which is supported by contemporary parliamentary political theory)... if true, would support my assertion."
There was a group that was told that someone was praying for them. They actually did worse than everyone else. So much for desireable effects.
Was that from the article? The part I found stated: "The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer" which seems to contradict your claim.
Or do we want music created by people who really want to create, who have something to say and can make a decent living out of it? Maybe not creating a market where ten people earn enough to buy a LearJet, but where tens of thousand earn enough to get a really nice car.
What's stopping the people who really want to create from creating right now? The success of others? Seem's rather dubious to me. I mean, if they really wanted to create they'd create, and if they had to die of starvation in the process, they'd still create! That's the sort of artist I want to listen to: one who was so devoted to his artwork that he was willing to give his life for it.
P.S. Not saying I would pay for that chap's music. I would almost certainly pirate it as I do with everything today, but I'm sure (s)he'd understand.
"In fact, our very own Ericsson was founded by copying a Siemens telephone design. History shows, repeatedly, that countries and/or markets with little or no IP protection flourish for the simple reason that time-to-market and true innovation are much stronger incentives for the making of new creations than the stale state-imposed monopolies of patent and copyright."
You might be able to make a case for patents given enough data, but copyrights? Who cares if you are the first to market with "Passion of the Christ 4" if everyone can get your movie at its marginal cost of production ($0).
This problem reoccurs with things that have a large fixed cost, but very low variable cost (resulting in a very low marginal cost). You have to recoup your large fixed cost somehow if you want to break even; people copying and distributing your work don't.
You don't get it, do you? With 4% of the votes, they get a bargaining position.
You don't get it, do you? With 4% of the votes, they get a bargaining position stronger than 4%.
The fact that the Green Party "got basically everything they wanted" as the great grand parent stated supports my assertion. I bet neither of the two parties with 48% of the vote "got basically everything they wanted."
From the article: The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer. Per Institutional Review Board policies governing clinical research, all patients were aware that they might be prayed for by people they did not know, from a variety of faiths.
While double-blind tests are generally a good idea, perhaps another study should be carried out in which the patients themselves know whether people are praying for them (perhaps including people they know, as well as people of the faith they request). The increased optimism and placebo effect may produce something desireable (not saying it will, but it might be worth a study by the same people who expended their resources on this one).
the non-profit sharing of music and other copyrighted materials tends to make the material sell more, not less. Just like having a song played on the radio.
Great. In that case, there is no need to reduce copyright as all profit-maximiziers will voluntarily engage in "the non-profit sharing of music and other copyrighted materials" in order to maximize their profits by "sell[ing] more, not less".
Yet another problem solved without having to change anything. What else is on the agenda today?
Four percent across the country may not sound like much, but if the left- and right-wing blocks get 48% each, like they typically do, then the Pirate Party will hold the balance of power. And that is a very good bargaining chip.
(In the last election, the Green Party achieved this position, counting in at 4.2% in the election, and they got basically everything they wanted.)
So 4% of the vote gets you 100% of the power... sounds like a great democratic system.
I already outlined some posible solutions in my original post. Quote: "write about it, contact the media, or take out an add in a news paper."
Some people are far too eager to see free markets fail. This situation is no different than people voting for politicians you do not like (perhaps because they don't have access to enough information, or for different reasons.) The first line of defense to (perceived) lack of information by others is speech (more information), not regulation (forcing others to conform to your whims). You can't treat grown adults like children (or maybe even worse). What are they going to do when you are not there to regulate every aspect of their life? Jump off a cliff like lemmings (from the lemmings game, not the actual animal)?
Ah, isn't that cute. Someone modded the post down to where nobody would be exposed to it, or the "subversive" ideas contained in it. I just love it when people mod things with which they don't agree down to oblivion (instead of say, replying to it like anyone with an ounce of intellectual and moral fibre would). And such brave moderators too... "overrated"... is that so that you can't be meta-moderated?
Anyways, in the interest of information (which I've been told wants to be free), here is the "forbidden information." Let's see if the thought police try to supress this one as well:
"Saying that the market does not work because the consumer does not have perfect access to all information is akin to saying that democracy does not work because the voter does not have perfect access to all information. Furthermore, the fact that the voter does not have perfect access to information does not give anyone the right to abolish democracy. Likewise, the fact that the consumer does not have perfect access to information does not give anyone the right to abolish the market (or meddle with it, as may be the case). If you think the consumer (or voter) lacks information that they should have, write about it, contact the media, or take out an add in a news paper. (Competitors (/opposition parties) offering other products (/platforms) not suffering from the deficiency you are concerned with should already be doing this, but somethimes they make mistakes and it never hurts to help them out if you believe in the cause.)
As long as freedom of speech exists, meddling with the free market directly (through the use of coercive means) is not the optimal solution. Anyways, remember that the most important freedom (aside from freedom of speech) is the freedom to make mistakes (which applies to both consumers and voters)."
The idea that representative democracy is somehow a correction to direct democracy in the sense that regulation is a correction to capitalism is laughable. Representative democracy and direct democracy are two completely different systems. A closer analogy to regulating the market would be if certain parties/politicians were outlawed by some supreme authority (products you aren't allowed to sell/buy on the market) and if parties which were too popular ("monopolies") were regulated and handicapped to give the less popular parties ("mom and pop") a shot.
To carry on the comparison, representative democracy is actually closer to capitalism than direct democracy (not further form it as you seem to imply). In a representative democracy, voters (consumers) vote (purchase) for the politicians/parties (products) which they like.
Thus, the EFF is stepping up to educate people and help generate market regulation
And my point was that there are better alternatives than market regulation.
You're correct about the right to make mistakes, of course, but this is a tiny mistake with possibly big ramifications, that most people will not notice and the companies are not advertising against.
Of course... the father (state) knows best.
Are you so blinded by the concept of deregulation that you cannot see that certain regulation is necessary in our non-perfect market model,
If you want to talk about regulation, I'll gladly talk about them when they apply to certain externalities (e.g. preventing morons from dumping Mercury in my drinking water), but that can also be viewed through the lens of the tresspassing/private property model.
just like representation is necessary in our non-perfect democratic model?
As I've said before, this is a very nonsensical parallel.
Slashdot Mirror
The rumor goes that they will give you credit for uploading their software updates to other people (thereby reducing their bandwith bills); they won't offer you anything for uploading anything else...
Unless you've donated all your property to others and survive only on bread and water, it strikes me that you are being selfish and therefore a hypocrite. Furthermore, if you do not allow other people have access to your body any time they desire it, you are also being selfish (your body is just another piece of private property that you are selfishly hoarding). If you carry out any action primarily due to the satisfaction that you enjoy from it (e.g. reading slashdot, being smug), you are being selfish. I can go on. Face it, evolution and natural selection favours self-interest and enlightened self-interest (sacrificing short-term self-interest for long-term self-interest -- a lot of people confuse this with altruism).
I hope that this doesn't turn out to be linked to some religion or other. All we need is another whacko group claiming to have the only true religion, and proof of its veracity in this pyramid. I truly do hope that this is built by, or inspired by alien visitors, perhaps stranded travellers or something. As long as its anything but more religious hype/tripe/your-fav-bad-thing-here.
Because if your first thought upon discovering a pyramid is that it was "built by, or inspired by alien visitors" you are far saner, more rational, and down to earth than those religious "whacko group[s]"...
If gender really doesn't matter, then why would the general public care of 10% or 99% of the game developers are female?
Because there are three types of discrimination/racism/sexism -- positive, negative, and nonexistant. Negative discrimination occurs then the person perceived to have the upper hand is of a group designated as "the aggressor" (usually white men) as opposed to "the victim" (usually !("the aggressor" || "overachieving Asians") ). Positive discrimination occurs when a policy of active discrimination is used to right a perceived act of negative discrimination; this is the good kind of discrimination, and is therefore not usually refered to as such in order to not confuse the proles. Everything else falls in the nonexistent bin. Capisci?
My one question is this: why is it always an assumed premise that if there's a statistic in which girls or boys are over-represented:
1. it's automatially a bad thing
2. it's automatically a bad thing for girls
Not true. Nobody seems to be concerned that men outnumber women in suicides (in developed countries, with the exception of Chine -- if you count them as developed), or that men outnumber women as drug users, or that most of the people in jail are men, or that most garbagemen (garbagepeople, sorry) are men, or that most coal miners (or any other crap job) are men. If only there was some sort of conclusion we could draw from all of this...
I wonder why we never hear people complaing that women are not 50% of the criminal "workforce".
From the UK: "Men outnumber women in all major crime categories. Between 85 and 95 per cent of offenders found guilty of burglary, robbery, drug offences, criminal damage or violence against the person are male. Although the number of offenders are relatively small, 98 per cent of people found guilty of, or cautioned for, sexual offences are male"
Or how about garbagemen (garbagepeople) or coal miners? Why are people never concerned about women not making headways there?
Riddle me that, Batman.
Maybe a torrent should have been included in the summary...
Republicans less inclined to regulate the market than Democrats. News at 11.
One should not copy and paste without citing the source. List of applications supporting OpenDocument seems to be where you got that form.
Wikipedia begs to differ.
.odt: AbiWord, KWord, Writely
.ods: KSpread, Gnumeric (incomplete)
.odp: KPresenter
Some highlights according to wikipedia:
Plus StarOffice (maybe that's cheating), and IBM Workplace Documents (never used it)
I agree with everything that you stated in this post, but do not see how it supports your statement in your previous post.
Perhaps I am being dense, but let's go through this:
The article states: "The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer"
Wikipedia state: "Double-blind describes an especially stringent way of conducting an experiment, usually on human subjects, in an attempt to eliminate subjective bias on the part of both experimental subjects and the experimenters. In most cases, double-blind experiments are held to achieve a higher standard of scientific rigour. In a double-blind experiment, neither the individuals nor the researchers know who belongs to the control group and the experimental group. Only after all the data are recorded (and in some cases, analyzed) do the researchers learn which individuals are which. Performing an experiment in double-blind fashion is a way to lessen the influence of the prejudices and unintentional physical cues on the results (the placebo effect, observer bias, and experimenter effect)."
You state:"There were the standard double-blind groups. Prayer-receiving and non-prayer receiving, told they were getting prayer and not told they were getting prayer."
I cannot see how what you are proposing would be a double-blind test. If we were conducting a double blind test for a pharmaceutical, we would have two groups: one which receives the actual drug, and one which receives the placebo (control group).
According to you (if I understand what you are saying), however, we would have four groups: drug+told getting drug, drug+told getting placebo, placebo+told getting drug, placebo+told getting placebo, which seems rather strange to me.
Self-fulfilling prophecies and circular logic are quite different. This would be a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and not of circular logic. The fact that the preconception of the researcher (observer bias) or test subject (placebo effect) may affect the outcome of the experiment is accepted and the reason why double blind tests (in which neither the researcher nor the test subject know whether the test subject is receiving the treatment or not (control)). If the preconceptions of neither the researcher nor the test subject did not affect the outcome of the experiment, there would be no reason for double blind tests.
To elaborate upon the difference between circular logic and self fulfiling prophecies: circular logic (begging the question) is a logical fallacy in which the truth of a statement is assumed in the logical proof of its truth. Self fulfilling prophecies on the other hand occur when the belief that something will occur causes that event to occur. An example of self fulfilling prophecies can be found in economics when an assumed scarcity/increase in price of something in the future causes increased demand in the present (resulting in an increased price). The expectation of an increase in price in the future actually resulted in an increase in price.
Couldn't you also eliminate the placebo effect by not telling any of the patients whether they were or were not getting prayer as I understand is done in double-blind experiments?
"In a double-blind experiment, neither the individuals nor the researchers know who belongs to the control group and the experimental group." (Wikipedia)
My apologies; I was speaking in the colloquial. What I should have said instead was: "The subjective assertion (which was not supported with a reference, but which nobody has challenged thus far and which is supported by contemporary parliamentary political theory) ... if true, would support my assertion."
There was a group that was told that someone was praying for them. They actually did worse than everyone else. So much for desireable effects.
Was that from the article? The part I found stated: "The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer" which seems to contradict your claim.
Or do we want music created by people who really want to create, who have something to say and can make a decent living out of it? Maybe not creating a market where ten people earn enough to buy a LearJet, but where tens of thousand earn enough to get a really nice car.
What's stopping the people who really want to create from creating right now? The success of others? Seem's rather dubious to me. I mean, if they really wanted to create they'd create, and if they had to die of starvation in the process, they'd still create! That's the sort of artist I want to listen to: one who was so devoted to his artwork that he was willing to give his life for it.
P.S. Not saying I would pay for that chap's music. I would almost certainly pirate it as I do with everything today, but I'm sure (s)he'd understand.
"In fact, our very own Ericsson was founded by copying a Siemens telephone design. History shows, repeatedly, that countries and/or markets with little or no IP protection flourish for the simple reason that time-to-market and true innovation are much stronger incentives for the making of new creations than the stale state-imposed monopolies of patent and copyright."
You might be able to make a case for patents given enough data, but copyrights? Who cares if you are the first to market with "Passion of the Christ 4" if everyone can get your movie at its marginal cost of production ($0).
This problem reoccurs with things that have a large fixed cost, but very low variable cost (resulting in a very low marginal cost). You have to recoup your large fixed cost somehow if you want to break even; people copying and distributing your work don't.
You don't get it, do you? With 4% of the votes, they get a bargaining position.
You don't get it, do you? With 4% of the votes, they get a bargaining position stronger than 4%.
The fact that the Green Party "got basically everything they wanted" as the great grand parent stated supports my assertion. I bet neither of the two parties with 48% of the vote "got basically everything they wanted."
From the article:
The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer. Per Institutional Review Board policies governing clinical research, all patients were aware that they might be prayed for by people they did not know, from a variety of faiths.
While double-blind tests are generally a good idea, perhaps another study should be carried out in which the patients themselves know whether people are praying for them (perhaps including people they know, as well as people of the faith they request). The increased optimism and placebo effect may produce something desireable (not saying it will, but it might be worth a study by the same people who expended their resources on this one).
the non-profit sharing of music and other copyrighted materials tends to make the material sell more, not less. Just like having a song played on the radio.
Great. In that case, there is no need to reduce copyright as all profit-maximiziers will voluntarily engage in "the non-profit sharing of music and other copyrighted materials" in order to maximize their profits by "sell[ing] more, not less".
Yet another problem solved without having to change anything. What else is on the agenda today?
I'd vote for them just to spite the corporatists.
Because having your actions motivated only by your hatred of others always has such a great outcome...
Four percent across the country may not sound like much, but if the left- and right-wing blocks get 48% each, like they typically do, then the Pirate Party will hold the balance of power. And that is a very good bargaining chip.
(In the last election, the Green Party achieved this position, counting in at 4.2% in the election, and they got basically everything they wanted.)
So 4% of the vote gets you 100% of the power... sounds like a great democratic system.
I already outlined some posible solutions in my original post. Quote: "write about it, contact the media, or take out an add in a news paper."
Some people are far too eager to see free markets fail. This situation is no different than people voting for politicians you do not like (perhaps because they don't have access to enough information, or for different reasons.) The first line of defense to (perceived) lack of information by others is speech (more information), not regulation (forcing others to conform to your whims). You can't treat grown adults like children (or maybe even worse). What are they going to do when you are not there to regulate every aspect of their life? Jump off a cliff like lemmings (from the lemmings game, not the actual animal)?
Ah, isn't that cute. Someone modded the post down to where nobody would be exposed to it, or the "subversive" ideas contained in it. I just love it when people mod things with which they don't agree down to oblivion (instead of say, replying to it like anyone with an ounce of intellectual and moral fibre would). And such brave moderators too... "overrated"... is that so that you can't be meta-moderated?
Anyways, in the interest of information (which I've been told wants to be free), here is the "forbidden information." Let's see if the thought police try to supress this one as well:
"Saying that the market does not work because the consumer does not have perfect access to all information is akin to saying that democracy does not work because the voter does not have perfect access to all information. Furthermore, the fact that the voter does not have perfect access to information does not give anyone the right to abolish democracy. Likewise, the fact that the consumer does not have perfect access to information does not give anyone the right to abolish the market (or meddle with it, as may be the case). If you think the consumer (or voter) lacks information that they should have, write about it, contact the media, or take out an add in a news paper. (Competitors (/opposition parties) offering other products (/platforms) not suffering from the deficiency you are concerned with should already be doing this, but somethimes they make mistakes and it never hurts to help them out if you believe in the cause.)
As long as freedom of speech exists, meddling with the free market directly (through the use of coercive means) is not the optimal solution. Anyways, remember that the most important freedom (aside from freedom of speech) is the freedom to make mistakes (which applies to both consumers and voters)."
The idea that representative democracy is somehow a correction to direct democracy in the sense that regulation is a correction to capitalism is laughable. Representative democracy and direct democracy are two completely different systems. A closer analogy to regulating the market would be if certain parties/politicians were outlawed by some supreme authority (products you aren't allowed to sell/buy on the market) and if parties which were too popular ("monopolies") were regulated and handicapped to give the less popular parties ("mom and pop") a shot.
To carry on the comparison, representative democracy is actually closer to capitalism than direct democracy (not further form it as you seem to imply). In a representative democracy, voters (consumers) vote (purchase) for the politicians/parties (products) which they like.
Thus, the EFF is stepping up to educate people and help generate market regulation
And my point was that there are better alternatives than market regulation.
You're correct about the right to make mistakes, of course, but this is a tiny mistake with possibly big ramifications, that most people will not notice and the companies are not advertising against.
Of course... the father (state) knows best.
Are you so blinded by the concept of deregulation that you cannot see that certain regulation is necessary in our non-perfect market model,
If you want to talk about regulation, I'll gladly talk about them when they apply to certain externalities (e.g. preventing morons from dumping Mercury in my drinking water), but that can also be viewed through the lens of the tresspassing/private property model.
just like representation is necessary in our non-perfect democratic model?
As I've said before, this is a very nonsensical parallel.