That's subjective. You're just guessing, unless they actually TELL you that is their motivation... which they never will.
I do confess that from my distant perspective, there certainly does seem to be something generally dysfunctional about many of the elected people in Australia. Is it something in the water down under? Did the Bush administration send them a gift basket with spiked Kool-Aid in it?
Forget their "religiosity". When are they and everyone else gonna learn that collective community blacklists don't work? Teach people how to set up and manage their own personal blacklists, which they can tailor to match their own personal values, and then get-the-fuck out of the way!
There's nothing wrong with that, but there are Darwinian Highlander-type people who intend to disadvantage you in order to guarantee their own genes out-compete yours, and they will have a problem with you if you begin to succeed too much. If it were entirely up to those people, I would be dead already. They still win anyway, because I've been excluded from the gene pool. More like them, fewer like me.
Your research is a bit lacking; perhaps I should have fed it to you after all. The VMPC provides the emotional input to decision-making and reason. Do you honestly think emotions have any place in ethical reasoning? It's been demonstrated that people such as I described are able to make more ethical decisions than neurotypical people. It's not "empathy" period that is lacking, but more specifically interpersonal bonding. It doesn't mean such people don't feel emotions, but it does mean emotions don't, or are less likely, to affect their decision-making.
Let me translate that for you: a disaster befalls our Martian explorers, one that threatens the entire crew; only one cosmonaut is in a position to take action, but he cannot save the entire crew: he can either save one crew member with whom he has a deep emotional bond, or he can save the rest of the crew. Since that crew member is neurotypical, he's is likely to forsake the rest of the crew and try to save that other cherished crew member first, and possibly to the exclusion of the rest of the crew. He may allow his emotional bond with another to influence his choice of who to save. The correct ethical choice would be to save as many of the crew as possible, not the one that matters most to him personally.
That would be a poor ethical and irrational decision, of the sort that has tragic consequences. We need cosmonauts who can employ cold hard logic, not ones prone to such emotional irrationality. I dare say selecting for the latter and excluding the former is already a deliberate part of the cosmonaut training and selection process; I was suggesting we select for it a bit more explicitly by getting to the neurological root of the problem.
... would be ones who have had the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of their brains surgically damaged or removed, or those who have naturally atrophied or underdeveloped VMPCs. If you don't know why this would matter, there's Google.
As much as I'd like it to be that everyone can be reasonable and egalitarian and work together for the common good, it isn't true. Some people cannot be taught nor rehabilitated to adopt those values. The most irredeemably antisocial people aren't the criminals in our prisons; they're the minor irritations, the warts and rashes of society. The most antisocial of all are the ones who manipulate the social system against itself, like some social autoimmune disorder, for their own selfish benefit. The only thing that such people will understand, the only "reason" to which they will respond, is the blunt reason of a bigger club, gun, or army than they can wield.
It sickens me that reason isn't enough. If anarchy ever arrives, I may be one of the first to die, as reason has been all I know... I've never even fired a gun, nor do I revel in manipulating people (even when I would benefit). If push comes to shove, I don't know if I can adapt quickly enough. I wish reason were enough, but it's not. I don't think evolution will ever take the race to a point where it is enough.
The only way to oust the entrenched antisocial people who caused the global financial meltdown and profited from it, who approved the Iraq War and profited from it, who brainwash people to buy and consume things they don't need at usurious prices that concentrate resources in their hands, and who draft the laws that protect this antisocial house of cards...... the only way to oust them is a revolution.
There isn't likely to ever be a Presidential candidate who can achieve such a goal from within the system. Obama isn't such a man. Hasn't he demonstrated that well enough already? Two of the top three officials he appointed to our Department of (In)Justice are former lawyers for the RIAA! The closest we might have come to an insider to could instigate such drastic reform was perhaps Dennis Kucinich, who demonstrated an ability to bite the hands that sustain him and harm his own selfish interests to do The Right Thing (tm), but that ship sailed. Obama is not such a man. People still fail to comprehend that the necessary force has to be external, because the money-changers now own the temple and hired all the priests.
If you think we've finally become so "civilized" that physical revolutions with shooting and bombs are no longer necessary to achieve freedom and equality, then it's you who are the fuckwit.
We're overdue for one in the United States. If the American Revolution - the first one - had happened in a political and semantic climate like we have today, more likely than not the Founding Fathers who started it would be branded terrorists rather than revolutionaries. No doubt the British of the period did mentally picture the Americans exactly as we now mentally picture terrorists, even if they didn't use the word "terrorist" to describe that imagery. "Terrorist" is now an emotional buzzword taking its place alongside other words like "eugenics" and "atheist", all designed to twist and manipulate popular perceptions.
Revolutions are hardly a thing of the past. The people who deserve to be victims of them have simply gotten a LOT more skilled at manipulating people to forestall their punishment.
Now, if there are people that feel oppressed in Ireland, they can simply get a domain at a different TLD. They could also just move out of Ireland.
Or... they could revolt against their oppressors! Vive la revolucion!
Those Irish folks have been getting a bum rap for centuries. Hmmmm... if native American Indians started a revolt now, would we sing songs praising their righteous bravery or would we label them as terrorists?
So someone has to be an autistic savant with a singular lifelong obsession before you'll consider their reasoning to be anything but trollish? Where's your "apparent expertise and data" for the opinion you rendered above, I wonder? It's not in evidence, that I can see.
Having been modded "Troll" many times myself for merely expressing an unpopular or unexpected opinion, I understand very well the reaction(s) Dyson gets. I don't agree with all of his wacky notions myself, but I respect his willingness and ability to think outside the Groupthink Box.
Since when did "iconoclast" become synonymous with "troll"? I must have missed that memo.
You're not the least bit worried about the monster closer to home, thrashing around in your own back yard? I'd say "sanctions" against our own monster(s) is way overdue....
To put this article in a more local perspective...
on
The Global Warming Heretic
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
... if Dyson were commenting regularly at Slashdot, sans his well-known reputation, he would be routinely modded down as Troll.
Sure, but you mentioned Wordpress and only Wordpress, and most Wordpress blogs don't have a scale that would warrant such a consideration. That was my point. My blog software allows that URL rewriting, too, as I think does Apache, but I don't use it.
BTW, I knew my blog doesn't warrant the consideration, either (and it's self-hosted, so not even Wordpress). My observation wasn't motivated by my-blog-is-better-than-yours egotism or any sort of comparison.
As for whether any huge site that's actually doing similar URL rewriting should be doing it at the expense of some bandwidth, there are reasonable arguments to be made both supporting and against it. I'd even toss in a "social responsibility" angle regarding the collective bandwidth cost. If everybody avoided URL rewriting, then it wouldn't be "unfair" to expect it; the SEO playing field would still be level.
How exactly is my objective comment supposed to hurt your feelings?
You weren't really considering mine, though, were you? You deliberately ran off to my personal blog to see what dirt you could dig up and, finding what you perceived as humiliating dirt, you then deliberately posted it here in an attempt to humiliate me. You didn't hurt my feelings much if any, but if I were a different person you might have.
I didn't even look at your "homepage" at all; all I did was check the URL to confirm that it's not some Facebook-scale site. I didn't attempt to shame you, I merely pointed out the obvious fact that your site isn't relevant to the contents of TFA, and thus that your dismissive remark was also not relevant.
Perhaps it is you who should be less reactive and recognize that people have feelings?
That's a good analogy, if true. It won't matter much beyond the curiosity value of it, of course, until I can buy my first affordable nanotube exosuit.
Riiiight... because you happen to have a really really good mental image of exactly how many rooms/shelves/books/pages are stored in the Library of Congress!
(Which incidentally doesn't happen to be static, BTW; yo momma's LoC ain't the same size as my LoC.)
Yeah, but when you use an alias like Karganeth you're Totally speaking a language I understand! Now I have to go dig my Orcone out of his storage pen and take him for a run in the dog park....
Slashdot Mirror
That's subjective. You're just guessing, unless they actually TELL you that is their motivation... which they never will.
I do confess that from my distant perspective, there certainly does seem to be something generally dysfunctional about many of the elected people in Australia. Is it something in the water down under? Did the Bush administration send them a gift basket with spiked Kool-Aid in it?
Forget their "religiosity". When are they and everyone else gonna learn that collective community blacklists don't work? Teach people how to set up and manage their own personal blacklists, which they can tailor to match their own personal values, and then get-the-fuck out of the way!
You might call it the Transylvanian Connection.
Was this research funded by the estate of Bela Lugosi?
Is that Rick Astley I hear humming in the background?
... because now we'll get more Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
There's nothing wrong with that, but there are Darwinian Highlander-type people who intend to disadvantage you in order to guarantee their own genes out-compete yours, and they will have a problem with you if you begin to succeed too much. If it were entirely up to those people, I would be dead already. They still win anyway, because I've been excluded from the gene pool. More like them, fewer like me.
Your research is a bit lacking; perhaps I should have fed it to you after all. The VMPC provides the emotional input to decision-making and reason. Do you honestly think emotions have any place in ethical reasoning? It's been demonstrated that people such as I described are able to make more ethical decisions than neurotypical people. It's not "empathy" period that is lacking, but more specifically interpersonal bonding. It doesn't mean such people don't feel emotions, but it does mean emotions don't, or are less likely, to affect their decision-making.
Let me translate that for you: a disaster befalls our Martian explorers, one that threatens the entire crew; only one cosmonaut is in a position to take action, but he cannot save the entire crew: he can either save one crew member with whom he has a deep emotional bond, or he can save the rest of the crew. Since that crew member is neurotypical, he's is likely to forsake the rest of the crew and try to save that other cherished crew member first, and possibly to the exclusion of the rest of the crew. He may allow his emotional bond with another to influence his choice of who to save. The correct ethical choice would be to save as many of the crew as possible, not the one that matters most to him personally.
That would be a poor ethical and irrational decision, of the sort that has tragic consequences. We need cosmonauts who can employ cold hard logic, not ones prone to such emotional irrationality. I dare say selecting for the latter and excluding the former is already a deliberate part of the cosmonaut training and selection process; I was suggesting we select for it a bit more explicitly by getting to the neurological root of the problem.
... would be ones who have had the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of their brains surgically damaged or removed, or those who have naturally atrophied or underdeveloped VMPCs. If you don't know why this would matter, there's Google.
As much as I'd like it to be that everyone can be reasonable and egalitarian and work together for the common good, it isn't true. Some people cannot be taught nor rehabilitated to adopt those values. The most irredeemably antisocial people aren't the criminals in our prisons; they're the minor irritations, the warts and rashes of society. The most antisocial of all are the ones who manipulate the social system against itself, like some social autoimmune disorder, for their own selfish benefit. The only thing that such people will understand, the only "reason" to which they will respond, is the blunt reason of a bigger club, gun, or army than they can wield.
It sickens me that reason isn't enough. If anarchy ever arrives, I may be one of the first to die, as reason has been all I know... I've never even fired a gun, nor do I revel in manipulating people (even when I would benefit). If push comes to shove, I don't know if I can adapt quickly enough. I wish reason were enough, but it's not. I don't think evolution will ever take the race to a point where it is enough.
The only way to oust the entrenched antisocial people who caused the global financial meltdown and profited from it, who approved the Iraq War and profited from it, who brainwash people to buy and consume things they don't need at usurious prices that concentrate resources in their hands, and who draft the laws that protect this antisocial house of cards... ... the only way to oust them is a revolution.
There isn't likely to ever be a Presidential candidate who can achieve such a goal from within the system. Obama isn't such a man. Hasn't he demonstrated that well enough already? Two of the top three officials he appointed to our Department of (In)Justice are former lawyers for the RIAA! The closest we might have come to an insider to could instigate such drastic reform was perhaps Dennis Kucinich, who demonstrated an ability to bite the hands that sustain him and harm his own selfish interests to do The Right Thing (tm), but that ship sailed. Obama is not such a man. People still fail to comprehend that the necessary force has to be external, because the money-changers now own the temple and hired all the priests.
If you think we've finally become so "civilized" that physical revolutions with shooting and bombs are no longer necessary to achieve freedom and equality, then it's you who are the fuckwit.
We're overdue for one in the United States. If the American Revolution - the first one - had happened in a political and semantic climate like we have today, more likely than not the Founding Fathers who started it would be branded terrorists rather than revolutionaries. No doubt the British of the period did mentally picture the Americans exactly as we now mentally picture terrorists, even if they didn't use the word "terrorist" to describe that imagery. "Terrorist" is now an emotional buzzword taking its place alongside other words like "eugenics" and "atheist", all designed to twist and manipulate popular perceptions.
Revolutions are hardly a thing of the past. The people who deserve to be victims of them have simply gotten a LOT more skilled at manipulating people to forestall their punishment.
Or... they could revolt against their oppressors! Vive la revolucion!
Those Irish folks have been getting a bum rap for centuries. Hmmmm... if native American Indians started a revolt now, would we sing songs praising their righteous bravery or would we label them as terrorists?
So someone has to be an autistic savant with a singular lifelong obsession before you'll consider their reasoning to be anything but trollish? Where's your "apparent expertise and data" for the opinion you rendered above, I wonder? It's not in evidence, that I can see.
Having been modded "Troll" many times myself for merely expressing an unpopular or unexpected opinion, I understand very well the reaction(s) Dyson gets. I don't agree with all of his wacky notions myself, but I respect his willingness and ability to think outside the Groupthink Box.
Since when did "iconoclast" become synonymous with "troll"? I must have missed that memo.
You're not the least bit worried about the monster closer to home, thrashing around in your own back yard? I'd say "sanctions" against our own monster(s) is way overdue....
... if Dyson were commenting regularly at Slashdot, sans his well-known reputation, he would be routinely modded down as Troll.
Being an alleged Troll is sometimes a good thing.
... and then release the spores!
Sure, but you mentioned Wordpress and only Wordpress, and most Wordpress blogs don't have a scale that would warrant such a consideration. That was my point. My blog software allows that URL rewriting, too, as I think does Apache, but I don't use it.
BTW, I knew my blog doesn't warrant the consideration, either (and it's self-hosted, so not even Wordpress). My observation wasn't motivated by my-blog-is-better-than-yours egotism or any sort of comparison.
As for whether any huge site that's actually doing similar URL rewriting should be doing it at the expense of some bandwidth, there are reasonable arguments to be made both supporting and against it. I'd even toss in a "social responsibility" angle regarding the collective bandwidth cost. If everybody avoided URL rewriting, then it wouldn't be "unfair" to expect it; the SEO playing field would still be level.
How exactly is my objective comment supposed to hurt your feelings?
You weren't really considering mine, though, were you? You deliberately ran off to my personal blog to see what dirt you could dig up and, finding what you perceived as humiliating dirt, you then deliberately posted it here in an attempt to humiliate me. You didn't hurt my feelings much if any, but if I were a different person you might have.
I didn't even look at your "homepage" at all; all I did was check the URL to confirm that it's not some Facebook-scale site. I didn't attempt to shame you, I merely pointed out the obvious fact that your site isn't relevant to the contents of TFA, and thus that your dismissive remark was also not relevant.
Perhaps it is you who should be less reactive and recognize that people have feelings?
Unless your blog endures tens of millions of page hits every day, TFA authors weren't even talking to you. Can you say n-o-n s-e-q-u-i-t-u-r?
(My tongue was planted firmly against my cheek as I wrote that, in case it wasn't obvious.)
... you've been playing too much Grand Theft Auto, and he hasn't.
That's a good analogy, if true. It won't matter much beyond the curiosity value of it, of course, until I can buy my first affordable nanotube exosuit.
Riiiight... because you happen to have a really really good mental image of exactly how many rooms/shelves/books/pages are stored in the Library of Congress!
(Which incidentally doesn't happen to be static, BTW; yo momma's LoC ain't the same size as my LoC.)
Yeah, but when you use an alias like Karganeth you're Totally speaking a language I understand! Now I have to go dig my Orcone out of his storage pen and take him for a run in the dog park....