Neither do I, but I think I'll just point this out:
Whether statements are contradictory is subject to all kinds of considerations, such as genre, intent, subtleties of the grammar, etc.
Which brings it back to interpretation. There are things which seem obviously contradictory to me when I'm reading. Most of the time, I hear these reconciled with things like "Oh, this wasn't meant to be taken literally, it's obviously a metaphor." And then they turn around and pick the parts they like and insist that these are absolutely not metaphor, and that doesn't make sense to me.
...And so on until either we can't answer "why" any more and conclude that it's all arbitrary, or we acknowledge that we live in a moral universe and we've reached the bottom.
Saying that we've reached the bottom is itself arbitrary. For instance, you mention God as an ultimate standard -- the God I read about in the Bible made the Israelites into conquerors, directly responsible for genocide. So, it's completely and totally arbitrary for you to decide that your last step of "why" must include "because God said so".
Well, why should I listen to God? In fact, why can't we hold him to the same standards that we hold ourselves?
It would be analogous to asking why the law of non-contradiction is true. That's a hard or impossible question for us to get our arms around because the law of non-contradiction is our standard for deciding whether other statements are true.
Hmm... Unless I have an entirely different standard. The law of non-contradiction is something we all assume. Not all of us assume that all morality is because God said so. I, personally, see morality as a collection of what is known to work -- and ultimately, I see it as arbitrary, neither right or wrong. Still, I was able to come up with a single principle with which to measure other potential principles of morality.
You can't argue against it without first assuming that it's valid. The question, "Why should I conform to the ultimate standard of morality?" is similar.
Except I didn't say that. I said, "Why should I conform to God or the Bible?"
Now, that distinction is meaningless to many believers, and often leaves them completely stunned and unable to answer, because they hear what you just said -- they assume that God is the ultimate standard of morality, and the Bible is his word, whereas in essence, what I'm asking is "Why should I believe that God is that ultimate standard? Why do you believe that?"
Hopefully that clarifies it for you, however, most people will be just as stupified by that question as by the original one. To most people, that would be like asking "Why should I assume that water is wet?"
The most compelling arguments turn it around on me, and say that the ultimate standard of morality is a definition of God. But, these people usually have several seemingly-bulletproof arguments for the existence of a God, and they don't require it to be the same God -- and certainly, none of them require it to be a Christian God. And in any case, most of these arguments are ridiculoulsy weak, and show a profound lack of imagination, but sound good to people who want to believe.
It usually ends up being something like "If there's an ultimate standard of morality, I call it God." Problem is: There's nothing to convince me that there must be such a standard, and even if I was convinced, how do you know it's not the FSM? Or, say, Milton's Lucifer?
Any such argument inevitably falls on a declaration that there is an ultimate standard or source of morality, and an implicit assumption that the Bible is that source or standard, if not literally true. And your point about non-contradiction is half-right. I can argue very effectively against the Bible without having to admit that it has any validity -- a skill I wish the Democrats could learn. However, I don't see how anyone can argue effectively for the Bible without first assuming that it's true.
It actually is useful for security, because Microsoft actually is that fucking bad at security that they need help from hardware to deal with the spyware issue.
What was the quote? "Never ascribe to malice what could be explained as stupidity..." Something like that.
Anyway, while you may be right about the reason for creating it, the security has become an issue of its own. I would welcome Trusted Computing if it was completely user-programmable -- if it meant, for instance, that a user installing Ubuntu could toggle a hardware switch to give the install process access to the TPM chip, then flip that switch again and Ubuntu becomes trusted. It'd also have to give me the ability to fake a configuration I don't have.
I would rather have no trusted computing than Treacherous Computing without those two items, but I hate to see us lose technology because we're not mature enough as a species to handle it properly.
Our conformance to the bible would be "arbitrary", but the bible itself wouldn't necessarily be.
Since the bible is self-contradictory, and also directly contradicts what many of us consider to be good morality, I have never heard of anyone who conforms to the bible, or interprets it, literally and completely. We are arbitrary in not only our conformance, but our very reading of it.
However, you're right. It's theoretically possible that someone would base their morality strictly on the bible, without any arbitrary crap thrown in. That's still arbitrary, though -- why the bible and not, say, the Qur'An? Or the Tao Te Ching?
Any answer you give would contain, implicitly or explicitly, one of the other bits of morality. For instance: Suppose you say the Bible is the word of God. Even if I believe you about this, why should I follow it? God seems like a pretty nasty entity, based on the bible. Of course, you'll tell me all God's done for me, including sending his only son to die for me. Supposing you're right, my entire basis for using the bible as a moral guide is compassion/reciprocal.
Besides, I didn't say that the bible itself was arbitrary. I said "Textual" is arbitrary, and you were using that in the same context that you used "arbitrary crap". I grew up around people who told me that cold-blooded killing was wrong, and I pretty much stuck by that without thinking about it for many years. My selection of it was arbitrary, but the principle itself isn't, it's part of compassion/reciprocal/hedonism. (Don't kill people because you'd feel sorry for them, you wouldn't want them to kill you, and you don't want anyone coming to kill you or lock you up.)
Textual is Arbitrary Crap. How many people quote the Bible where it supports their beliefs, but ignore it where it contradicts them? How many people who deeply believe in the Bible have ever questioned it?
Compassionate is a function of Reciprocal. Or possibly vice versa, but this one's easy to figure out. You want people to be helped, not hurt, because as a person, you'd want to be helped (not hurt).
Reciprocal is a function of Forseeable consequences, as well as pure hedonism. Follow the Golden Rule and, aside from simply feeling better, it also simply works better. The forseeable consequences of being a bastard, for instance, means people will treat you much worse than if you were friendly and respectful.
Forseeable consequences is actually not so much morality as it is a fact of life, so in the above paragraph, it's the hedonism that matters -- move towards pleasure and away from pain, but for the long term. You care about forseeable consequences because you want pleasure in the future. You make decisions based on your own wants, checking one against the other -- is it worth getting yelled at later (pain) to steal cookies from the cookie jar now (pleasure)?
So, it really comes down to intelligent hedonism, once you eliminate the arbitrary crap. And really, the intelligent hedonism is just more arbitrary crap -- you could just as easily make yourself completely miserable, and some people seem to enjoy that so much they spend their whole lives almost intentionally making themselves miserable so they have something to bitch about.
Good points, and you actually have some real experience -- I don't. I'm just going to throw out one piece of advice to the questioner:
I would suggest that the easiest way to get some perspective would be to talk to the pornstars. Find out if they like what they do, what kind of other choices they have if they don't... Ask them if they have any moral issues. Ask them what they think you should do.
Personally, I find the Flash more offensive. Even pornography can be done tastefully and ethically, but Flash is neither. If you have the technical skills to do so, I'd suggest you try to find a way to replace all of your flash work with actual web standards -- DHTML (now called AJAX), animated GIFs/PNGs, maybe some embedded mpegs. You can at least feel better for putting together a decent proposal, even if nothing changes by the end of the day.
Linux is a kernel. Linus released it as such, and never claimed it was an OS. He's annoyed by the whole GNU/Linux thing for the same reason the rest of us are -- Linux is one syllable shorter, and GNU is annoying to say. Also, a Linux system contains a huge amount of code, most of which is part of neither GNU nor Linux.
Even RMS doesn't try to claim that the Linux kernel itself should be called GNU/Linux, and in fact, the FSF says "Linux" a lot lately, but they're just talking about the kernel -- which is important as a problem of how to take a GPLv2 program and release it as GPLv3.
Lately, I've been sticking to something a lot more neutral -- there is no Linux OS, only Linux distros, so I refer to it as "Ubuntu". This is a lot more accurate -- the people most directly responsible for getting the code into your hands are the Ubuntu people. True, they didn't write it, but nor did my local radio station write the music they release. It's a lot better to call what I'm listening to "KRNA" or "KRUU" than simply call it, say, the "Jimi Hendrix channel", even if they're playing, say, Red Hot Chili Peppers at the moment.
In short: What you call Linux is something Linus didn't write. Linus wrote a kernel. GNU/Linux isn't any better, but it also isn't any worse.
Imagine if the FSF somehow stopped Tivo using Linux like they do now. Tivo would probably respond by dropping Linux and licensing Windows, or some other proprietary system. On the other hand, if tivolisation is really such a bad thing for consumers, eventually someone would bring out an FSF-friendly Tivo clone without the tivolisation problems, and everyone will buy that instead.
That's possible. It's also a lot slower.
Consider the more familiar problem: Linux vs Windows. Windows is really bad for consumers, especially when compared to Linux. Windows is insecure, has been unstable in the past, and is still bloated and slow. Set aside the technological issues, and it's inherently untrustworthy, because Microsoft never acts in the best interests of consumers, it acts in the best interests of businesses -- thus, Windows will support DRM, will actively spy on you to make sure it's not pirated. Windows does not provide source code, so it's a lot harder to figure out exactly what it's doing -- on Linux, no one would dare introduce spyware or any kind of backdoor, because it would be spotted in an instant. On Windows, it's entirely possible that one or two rogue developers could insert code that lets them into your computer.
Keep in mind that all of these issues still apply to non-technical people. Yes, even the "just make it work" people.
The essential problem is that people don't notice this happening.
Now, there are other issues with Linux -- it doesn't currently have all the software people want, the interface isn't quite as slick, it doesn't support all hardware -- take your pick. But consumers could change all that, if they would choose Linux in the first place, and demand at least open source, if not free software throughout the machine. No one would dare release hardware without a decent, GPL'd Linux driver. You couldn't sell a program without a Linux verison. Users -- or hardware manufacturers -- could hire people to fix the usability issues.
The problem is the "network effect" -- that thing from MMORPGs. It's difficult to start a new MMO, because everyone's already playing Warcraft. People quit Warcraft, but they come back, because all their friends are there. No one will join your completely empty MMO, because no one's playing it. So, even if you get one or two people to realize that it might be better to play (insert game here) than Warcraft, they will end up playing Warcraft anyway. You might have a few thousand people in the same boat -- everyone playing Warcraft because they think everyone else is playing Warcraft, even if those thousands would be plenty to start another MMO.
So, the problem is, natural pressure from market forces only really appears when there's real choice, and often, there isn't. If every app was completely cross-platform -- as in, pure Java cross-platform -- we'd be free to choose our OS.
So, there's really no good way the market could exert pressure on the Tivo, for similar reasons. Media companies support the Tivo, because everyone has one -- or at least, everyone has a proprietary PVR. Thus, a Free Software PVR couldn't really gain any momentum, because media companies wouldn't want to go out of their way to give the users more control and make it possible for them to pirate stuff. Because of that, the PVR is useless even to the few would-be users, who go back to proprietary PVRs because they "Just Work".
The power of the free market to control corporations would be incredible. Too bad there's no such thing as a free market.
The FSF can't really do anything to solve the problem, but at least they can refuse to be part of the problem. That's what the anti-Tivoization clause is about -- I respect Tivo's right to develop this evil machine, but I'll never buy one, and what's more, I won't let them use my code. Eventually, they'll have to choose between the cost of:
Rolling their own code
Maintaining old Linux code (assuming Linux goes GPLv3) or carefully choosing GPLv2 s
I, personally, earn a living programming, working on existing GPL'd programs, but no one at my organization would mind me releasing my own scripts and things under the GPL, either. If you'd pull your head out of the sand for a second, you'd see how it's entirely possible to have an economy that's not based on selling individual copies of software.
In other words, a mechanism to allow the owner of the machine to maintain control by having the ability to instruct the TPM to lie on his behalf.
It should do more than that -- it should, at least on the local machine, allow me to sign my own binaries and have the TPM check for my own signature. Then I could secure my own critical systems. In fact, you could also do things like teach the hardware to look for signatures from, say, a Linux distro.
That way, there would be absolutely no excuse for anyone to say "Your computer is less secure because you run Ubuntu instead of Vista, and Vista can use the TPM." In fact, while you might void the Dell warranty, you might also gain a Canonical warranty (if you can buy such a thing). Of course, you could program it to lie on your behalf, but you probably wouldn't unless you were doing some kernel hacking or something, and you probably wouldn't be asking for support if you were doing kernel hacking -- and in any case, as far as the user's concerned, it's nice if it's not lying, and you could head over to the Ubuntu website and verify that you don't have a rootkit (unless you ticked the "lie Canonical" box somewhere).
Of course, you're right, it's wishful thinking -- TPM was never intended for security. It's not really needed for security, except as yet another Kitchen Sink item, and mostly useful for Windows.
What we'd need for that to work would be an inverse class-action lawsuit. Basically, suing a class of people.
Any one computer in a spam botnet causes me very little damage. A whole swarm can fill my inbox. So, the answer is obvious: sue the swarm. Someone whose computer is filled with spyware will have to learn to constantly pay people for the spam they're sending, or will have to stop sending it, period.
The problem is, how much can you sue someone for a single spam, especially if it was sent through their own negligence?
Second time I've done this recently. I keep forgetting whether I'm using HTML or not.
Couldn't we solve the whole issue with a voluntary rating system? Seriously, if you think your game contains material too explicit (sexually or violently) for children, either provide an in-game mechanism to lock it out, or provide your own voluntary rating and ask stores not to sell it to minors. By doing that, you're not preventing anyone from playing it, but you're forcing the parents to get involved.
I'd imagine there are at least a few game developers out there with the decency to admit: "Enemies can be decapitated and dismembered, and their realistic-looking blood spews all over the screen. Not recommended for children." Or maybe "Will teach stupid, impressionable people to be a gangster. Not recommended for children of any age." You get the idea.
Or better: Abolish ratings altogether, and don't allow children to buy games. This might force the parents to actually read some reviews, so they have no excuse to act so fucking surprised when they learn that you can take a hooker to a quiet place, make the car bounce as you regain health, then beat her to death -- and then some -- and eventually get your money back. You'd think they'd show a little discretion when the game is called "Grand Theft Auto" -- what, do we have to call it "Breaking and Entering" before they'll get it?
Oh wait, "Breaking and Entering" might actually sell. Shit.
Couldn't we solve the whole issue with a voluntary rating system? Seriously, if you think your game contains material too explicit (sexually or violently) for children, either provide an in-game mechanism to lock it out, or provide your own voluntary rating and ask stores not to sell it to minors. By doing that, you're not preventing anyone from playing it, but you're forcing the parents to get involved.
I'd imagine there are at least a few game developers out there with the decency to admit: "Enemies can be decapitated and dismembered, and their realistic-looking blood spews all over the screen. Not recommended for children." Or maybe "Will teach stupid, impressionable people to be a gangster. Not recommended for children of any age." You get the idea.
Or better: Abolish ratings altogether, and don't allow children to buy games. This might force the parents to actually read some reviews, so they have no excuse to act so fucking surprised when they learn that you can take a hooker to a quiet place, make the car bounce as you regain health, then beat her to death -- and then some -- and eventually get your money back. You'd think they'd show a little discretion when the game is called "Grand Theft Auto" -- what, do we have to call it "Breaking and Entering" before they'll get it?
Oh wait, "Breaking and Entering" might actually sell. Shit.
Now that I think about it, I remember what I wanted to say being said as "a is not a", but I don't remember how it was written. Thanks for clearing that up.
It's not as simple as "just recompile it for Linux, duh".
If it's not, then you have bigger issues. If your design is modular enough to start with, recompiling for Linux shouldn't be a big deal at all.
Every time I see someone scream for some MMORPG to release 'the Linux client we know you have', they always forget to include the recurring dev cycle costs.
If recompilinig for Linux once is enough, then how much does it really cost to recompile for Linux a second time? You can automate that process.
And especially if your code is modular, the kind of updates MMORPGs do shouldn't be changing anything platform-dependent.
I'm sure OSS or even commercial toolkits exist, but it's still collection of lesser used tools to add to a project. Adding too many different tools (especially if they aren't bundled together in a single API) to a project is a known factor in project failure
I call BS on that. Bundle them together into bigger APIs and your problems go away. Make them modular enough to begin with and you never have the problems in the first place.
Regardless, there is a single API for just about everything a typical game has to do, and it's called SDL -- it wraps around OpenAL, OpenGL, provides input, high-frequency timers, everything you could want. There's still ODE for physics, and I'm not sure if SDL does networking, but that's really not bad, and no worse than the DirectX route.
If that's still too much for you, grab something like Ogre -- a whole game engine that already does the sound, video, physics, etc, and is already ported. Why does every game need its own engine? I suspect that this same lack modularity is to blame, and leads to some engines being good for one thing, and some engines for another.
Or perhaps Microsoft didn't want to support two separate APIs? If someone really wanted GL on the 360, they could write a wrapper layer over the top of directx.
You talk about that as if it's easy. If it was that easy, wouldn't Cedega be flawless by now? (A wrapper for DirectX on OpenGL -- why would going the other way be easier?)
The problem with counting requests like that is that there is not a lot of follow through.
They should have some sort of escrow service. Every Linux gamer who wants a copy "buys" it, and if there aren't enough, you get your money back. If there are, you get your game -- no going back on your word.
But frankly, even less than half of $50,000 should be plenty. If it costs you more than $20,000 of developer time to support another platform, your code isn't modular enough and you'll be losing more money due to bugs and poor design decisions.
Especially with a game -- 90% of your interactions with the underlying OS and user can be handled via SDL. Probably 90% of those are pure OpenGL. Yes, I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, but honestly, things like web browsers and office suites should be harder to port, not easier. There are already so many cross-platform libraries you could use, even for games, that it should be a non-issue: ODE for physics, OpenGL for graphics, OpenAL for sound, SDL for most everything else. You can even take your pick of existing engines -- there's Crystalspace, Ogre, even Quake3 is GPL'd, or you could license Quake4 or the ut2004 engine and hope to make your money back in the sheer number of things the engine does for you (other than platform independence).
Perhaps the most infuriating are the people who you'd think are less than a compile away from your platform. Flash for Linux, but only on x86. Thanks for nothing, Adobe.
That you say you can't explain the difference does prove that you're a moron, but that everyone else missed it isn't helping.
As I understand it, "sleep" on Vista puts the computer into standby, and after a preconfigured amount of time, it wakes from the standby and immediately hibernates. The idea is you just push the "sleep" button, and if you're away for only a few minutes, it's ready for you, but if it (rightly) guesses you're not coming back, it hibernates completely to save power.
However, there is an important difference to the average Joe -- suppose you need to pick up your computer and move it, or replace the battery in your laptop? In other words, suppose you need to deprive your computer of any and all power for a very short amount of time? Your best option then is hibernate -- if you do it after pushing "sleep", you either have to wait an hour for it to hibernate, or you end up losing data.
By the way, I disagree strongly with TFA here:
Inevitably, you are going to think of a long list of intelligent, defensible reasons why each of these options is absolutely, positively essential. Don't bother. I know. Each additional choice makes complete sense until you find yourself explaining to your uncle that he has to choose between 15 different ways to turn off a laptop.
Actually, it's seven. And I can and do explain things like this to my mother. So don't bother bringing out the old "people are stupid" argument.
Look: Even with an automatic shifter, you usually have a choice of: Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Gear 1, and Gear 2. There's also a parking break (often misleadingly called the "E-brake"). Yet people drive these things all the time, even more complex things (manual shifters). Uncle Joe can handle it. We just need to stop pretending he's a moron -- if he really is incapable of understanding the distinctions on his shut down menu, he should not be operating a computer.
Actually, 7 choices is about the right number to show a user, from what I've read of UI design.
So, all that said, there are important distinctions. Let's say I was sharing a gaming rig with my brother. Here, I definitely do care about the difference between "switch user" and "log off" -- if he's logged off, all his programs are stopped. That means there's nothing he's running to lag my games.
It would also be nice to be able to lock without necessarily logging off -- and certainly without telling your computer to shut down. What if I want to leave a download running? What should be the golden standard of idle-ness that tells the computer it's really not doing anything useful and it can shut down?
It also seems nice to be able to switch users without locking -- in theory, that would allow me to toggle quickly between logged in users. Perhaps not as fast as I can on Linux (ctrl+alt+fn), but it's better than having to enter a password every time.
What about actually shutting down or rebooting? Well, rebooting makes sense because it kills all apps and gives you a fresh start, and also seems to magically fix many problems on Windows. Shutting down makes sense because all apps get to know what you're doing, so they save state (and prompt you to save documents), so you don't lose any data if you're planning to pull the plug -- and also, if you're going to dig around inside the case, you really have to shut down, Hibernate doesn't like it when you change the hardware before you boot it again. You also need these options for dual boot, if you have any partitions you want to be readable from the other OS.
Actually, the lock and shutdown/sleep buttons make sense. To a user who's not going to learn the distinctions between sleep and hibernate, there's no need for a reboot button or really anything but sleep, and it's not that difficult to tell the difference between an icon that looks like a padlock and an icon that looks like a power button. I don't think the lock button needs to be there, but two choices isn't bad, and it's obvious why th
If I start and then leave a profitable company... do I have to give up my stock after 50 years? Why not?
I'd say the company is a real entity, still actually producing. Your "intellectual property" is pretty imaginary.
I would say that if, after 50 years, the company itself should be losing some intellectual property -- if they are an R&D firm, they better be making new things if they want to be around after 50 years. If you're selling real, physical products, then by all means, continue. If you're sitting on some real estate, and you've found a way to make money off it, chances are you have to actually do some maintenance, so that seems fair. But if all you're doing is sitting on some patents, then the company should die in 5 years, not 50.
If I create sculptures that I charge people to see in my gallery, do I have to give them up after 50 years?
I'd say that after 50 years, people should be able to copy your sculpture, make derivative works, etc. You don't have to give them up.
I'm just uncomfortable with society appropriating my property when "it" feels I've had it long enough.
The thing is, you're still thinking of copyright as your property.
Copyright is actually a bit mis-named. It's a right to be the only one copying, not simply a right to copy. You can still sell them after 50 years, but others can make copies and sell those.
And I do feel that after 50 years, you should either be doing something else or you should be retired. Think of it as a tax -- after those 50 years, your work becomes available for others to improve on. Derivative works are a good thing. Public archives are a good thing.
It might help if you think of it less as your property and more as a lease from society. After all, society giveth the copyright, society has the right to taketh away. Yes, you put in the work to create the material, but society bears the burden of protecting this artificial right of yours -- laywers, courts, etc. Just somewhat better than, say, signing a deal with most record labels...
the question has exactly the same meaning as "ggrraagh vaarrpp sshhrrmmaa".
But if I were to gargle at a Christian, he might look at me strangely, as if I had some mental disease. If I were to tell him, flat out: "God doesn't exist, and if he did, I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven..." You get the idea. According to you, that has no meaning. According to the Christian, it means I'm evil and I'm going right to Hell, where I belong.
When I say it is meaningless I mean that the pondering as such is nonsensical.
That doesn't help at all... What do you mean by "meaningless"? Or, more specifically:
In fact, the debate around whether a debate on "God exists" has any meaning is far more enlightening than the debate on God.
Why?
In other words, the debate on the debate has meaning while the debate it self is meaningless.
Again, why? Why does this debate have more meaning than a debate about whether a god exists, or could exist?
Put another way, why does anything have meaning at all? As far as I'm concerned, we're the ones who add meaning to an otherwise meaningless universe. Define "meaningful" first, then we can talk about what's "meaningless".
we could, theoretically, get at least as much proof of the existence of God as we have for the existence of a keyboard
No, we couldn't. Not even close. I could find the keyboard. And that is enough evidence. God is not "findable".
Says you. Did you follow my link? Just because we haven't found a god yet doesn't mean it's impossible.
The God entity doesn't have the features of psychohistory, he has absolute knowledge. That is the feature that separates him from man. Without absolute knowledge God is not Omnipotent and Omniscient, he is just a fucking smart dude.
So you're saying we can know where every particle in the Universe is, and what it's doing, right now? The "fucking smart dude" I've created could, easily.
Problem is, the omnipotent and omniscient God was the one that made us blaspheme in the first place, and then he wants to punish us for it.
Nope, he just gave us the ability to blaspheme. We made the choice.
Yes, he could've stopped us, but that violates free will. Or, put another way, as a parent, you can either physically restrain your child 100% of the time, or try to do the same to the environment -- put the cookies in a combination safe -- or let the child do whatever he wants, but punish him when he steals cookies.
It is a bit disturbing to me that the best metaphor most people have for God is a parent. I strongly suspect this is a reaction to people refusing to grow up and let go of their parents -- they need a new father figure.
I looked at my shoulder, there was no angel. I have studied archeology, there never was a flood.
Not saying that there was, just giving you an idea of how this psychohistory god might operate.
If P=NP, then God can exist, no matter what.
The God(s) described in any of the major religions can not. They carry too many self-contradictory features.
P=NP is shorthand for "P is not P". I'm not sure if that's the usual notation, but this is one of the (often implicit) rules of our logic -- that self-contradictory things cannot exist.
Basically, if you start with an axiom of P=NP, you can create a consistent argument that proves absolutely anything, including things like "This statement is false."
So, actually, that was more a joke than anything, but I did want to get you thinking -- it's not just physical reality that may be unreliable, but your own mind and logic. The only thing you can be sure of is that you exist -- you can't even be sure that you thin
Well, that's a start. Now try reading and understanding.
Some things are so unworthy of such consideration, that I would claim that we aren't even agnostic - almost everyone is naturally 'atheist' about such things.
Could be. I'd argue that not giving the question any consideration would mean neither agnosticism nor atheism -- just a complete lack of consideration. If a person is then asked to consider the question, they would then make up their mind.
But in a sense, that is agnosticism -- no position until you're asked to give one.
To give a silly example, almost no-one things that the moon is made of cheese. People aren't even agnostic about it - people are, basically 'acheesists', and anyone who took an agnostic position on this would, justifiably, be ridiculed.
I do take an agnostic position on this. I very much doubt that the moon is made of cheese, and I would assume it's not, so it's not as if this would come up in conversation and have me ridiculed. But, in fact, most of the time, I don't even consider the question, and when I do, I arrive at two conclusions:
It's highly unlikely that the moon is made of cheese, given a whole set of assumptions I have about the way the world works.
It's also quite impossible for me to know whether the moon even exists, much less what it's made of.
Being agnostic is not a neutral position - it is giving weight to the idea you are agnostic about; suggesting it has some validity, that it is a reasonable possibility.
No, it is not. It is suggesting that it is a possibility. Since when must a possibility be reasonable?
I do not have to give the idea weight and validity, and indeed, in casual conversation, I probably come off more as "acheesist" -- I don't prefix my every thought with "I think so" just to avoid being proven wrong.
It's just a fundamental attitude which many "atheists" would like to think they share -- that of an open-minded scientist. Math has theorums and "proofs"; science has only theories. Even if you believe the theories, you still call them theories. Wherever scientists have tightly-held beliefs -- even ones widely considered reasonable, such as the flatness of the Earth -- progress is set back by years, decades, even centuries before someone finally and rightly asks "Why do we believe this? Could we be wrong?"
There are somethings that are less reasonable than others.
Certainly, as long as we realize that this concept of "reasonableness" is something we've created. It may be completely wrong.
Like I said, I probably function in roughly the same way as you do. I don't stare at the moon and think "Wow, what a beautiful hunk of rock or maybe cheese!" At the same time, I'm aware enough of my fundamental uncertainty that I'm much more flexible when the world decides to change the rules on me.
The question of God is nonsensical because it is not falsifiable. The question of the existence of your keyboard is, given the context the basic assumption that what we actually observe is in fact there. If your premise is that nothing is testable because this could all be the dream of a red butterfly then all discussion as such is meaningless.
Why is such discussion meaningless? Discussion about the possibility that this is all the dream of a butterfly actually gives us a refreshing sense of perspective. If people were really aware that they could be just part of a butterfly dream, they might be considerably less arrogant.
Oh, and "not falsifiable" doesn't completely invalidate a question, even if we do accept the mass of assumptions you're starting with. Suppose I threw my keyboard in a ginormous box of junk. I could claim that I have a keyboard in there, and in theory, we can falsify it -- pour the box onto the floor and sift through the junk.
What if it's a whole junkyard? What if it's the whole universe?
And yet, it's not a nonsensical question. I need a keyboard, so I look through the box of junk. If I don't find one, it doesn't necessarily prove that the keyboard isn't there. But what if I do find a keyboard?
If we're starting with the same basic assumptions, we could, theoretically, get at least as much proof of the existence of God as we have for the existence of a keyboard.
Problem is, those attributes are mutually exclusive, and God is therefore a logical impossibility.
There are actually solutions to this problem that Christians may or may not agree with. For one possibility, read the Foundation series (by Asimov) -- it could be possible that God knows everything that can be known, and therefore, God knows the trend of the future better than any human could, and most certainly knows where we are likely to end up, but of course, free will means we could all theoretically go completely contrary to God's plan. We'd all just have to do something unexpected at once.
And in any case, God can intervene, and he can do this in ways which don't mess with free will, which is generally understood to be mental, not physical -- that is, we're free to blaspheme, but God is free to strike us down if we do. In a mankind-runs-away scenario, God can make corrections, from a relatively small scale (the angel on your shoulder, maybe) to a planet-wide scale (the flood).
That's just one possibility, though. It's a tricky problem, and this is part of why I don't believe -- it ends up sounding contrived.
Still, you're also operating on a few other hidden axioms, including logic. If P=NP, then God can exist, no matter what.
And you're right, the question is a silly one -- not nonsensical, just silly to spend all day thinking about unless it's your job. I only follow it because it interests me, and because I hope that one day we will be able to outgrow this delusion -- in any case, it gives me plenty of ammunition if an evangelist ever knocks on my door.
I think you are. I also think you didn't read my post. Please read this one, I'll try to keep it short.
There are some things that don't come close to being worth being unsure about.....
What does it cost to be unsure of something, really?
When I go through life, I'm not constantly checking for invisible pink unicorns/dragons. I assume they aren't there, to keep my sanity. But I don't believe that they don't exist. Or, said another way, I don't have faith in their nonexistence. And I'm sure you agree with me that far -- if, one day, an experiment were devised which provided conclusive proof of an invisible pink dragon, I'm sure you'd be first in line to see it, just as if someone could prove the existence of God, you'd be first in line to meet him.
So, it's not that I live my life in constant doubt, but simply that, if we're going to be philosophical, we may as well be thorough and say that we really don't know anything, we only formulate convenient assumptions. Right now, God is not an assumption that works for me, and in that respect, I've been called atheist. And right now, the assumption that this computer behaves a certain way -- push a key on the keyboard, the corresponding letter appears on the screen -- is such a useful assumption that I'm not conscious of it most of the time, it's in my subconscious and muscle memory. But I don't believe either of these assumptions ("keyboard works" or "god doesn't exist") is any more valid than the other, and I'm ready to reconsider each assumption -- or simply let it go -- should it no longer be useful.
Therefore, if my computer stops responding to certain keys on this keyboard, I'll let go of the assumption that it works (meaning I can stop typing), and buy a new keyboard. Similarly, if a god were to reveal itself to me, I'd let go of the assumption that no god exists for long enough to consider the possibility that this one might be real.
But my ability to let go of my assumptions doesn't mean they're less useful to me than your beliefs. I can type some 80 wpm -- notice how I am conspicuously NOT actively wondering, with every keystroke, whether it will work that time. I simply am open to the possibility that it will die.
The best part is, when one of my assumptions is ripped away, if I'm really not attached to them, I won't be shocked into inaction. I'm agnostic about UFOs, but if an alien did show up on my porch, I'd probably invite it in for coffee -- I wouldn't just stand there with my mouth hanging open.
You are really unsure about, say, pink flying invisible dragons?
Yes. Aren't you?
I mean, how can you be absolutely convinced, beyond doubt, that they don't exist?
It's not that I live in that uncertainty. Frankly, I ignore the question most of the time -- I live with a comfortable set of assumptions, which includes what I need to operate in the world in which I live.
But if we're going to be getting philosophical, than hell yes, I'm unsure. I'm unsure that you exist, I'm unsure that I exist, I'm unsure about P!=NP, and I'm certainly unsure about the dragon in your garage.
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Neither do I, but I think I'll just point this out:
Which brings it back to interpretation. There are things which seem obviously contradictory to me when I'm reading. Most of the time, I hear these reconciled with things like "Oh, this wasn't meant to be taken literally, it's obviously a metaphor." And then they turn around and pick the parts they like and insist that these are absolutely not metaphor, and that doesn't make sense to me.
Saying that we've reached the bottom is itself arbitrary. For instance, you mention God as an ultimate standard -- the God I read about in the Bible made the Israelites into conquerors, directly responsible for genocide. So, it's completely and totally arbitrary for you to decide that your last step of "why" must include "because God said so".
Well, why should I listen to God? In fact, why can't we hold him to the same standards that we hold ourselves?
Hmm... Unless I have an entirely different standard. The law of non-contradiction is something we all assume. Not all of us assume that all morality is because God said so. I, personally, see morality as a collection of what is known to work -- and ultimately, I see it as arbitrary, neither right or wrong. Still, I was able to come up with a single principle with which to measure other potential principles of morality.
Except I didn't say that. I said, "Why should I conform to God or the Bible?"
Now, that distinction is meaningless to many believers, and often leaves them completely stunned and unable to answer, because they hear what you just said -- they assume that God is the ultimate standard of morality, and the Bible is his word, whereas in essence, what I'm asking is "Why should I believe that God is that ultimate standard? Why do you believe that?"
Hopefully that clarifies it for you, however, most people will be just as stupified by that question as by the original one. To most people, that would be like asking "Why should I assume that water is wet?"
The most compelling arguments turn it around on me, and say that the ultimate standard of morality is a definition of God. But, these people usually have several seemingly-bulletproof arguments for the existence of a God, and they don't require it to be the same God -- and certainly, none of them require it to be a Christian God. And in any case, most of these arguments are ridiculoulsy weak, and show a profound lack of imagination, but sound good to people who want to believe.
It usually ends up being something like "If there's an ultimate standard of morality, I call it God." Problem is: There's nothing to convince me that there must be such a standard, and even if I was convinced, how do you know it's not the FSM? Or, say, Milton's Lucifer?
Any such argument inevitably falls on a declaration that there is an ultimate standard or source of morality, and an implicit assumption that the Bible is that source or standard, if not literally true. And your point about non-contradiction is half-right. I can argue very effectively against the Bible without having to admit that it has any validity -- a skill I wish the Democrats could learn. However, I don't see how anyone can argue effectively for the Bible without first assuming that it's true.
It actually is useful for security, because Microsoft actually is that fucking bad at security that they need help from hardware to deal with the spyware issue.
What was the quote? "Never ascribe to malice what could be explained as stupidity..." Something like that.
Anyway, while you may be right about the reason for creating it, the security has become an issue of its own. I would welcome Trusted Computing if it was completely user-programmable -- if it meant, for instance, that a user installing Ubuntu could toggle a hardware switch to give the install process access to the TPM chip, then flip that switch again and Ubuntu becomes trusted. It'd also have to give me the ability to fake a configuration I don't have.
I would rather have no trusted computing than Treacherous Computing without those two items, but I hate to see us lose technology because we're not mature enough as a species to handle it properly.
Since the bible is self-contradictory, and also directly contradicts what many of us consider to be good morality, I have never heard of anyone who conforms to the bible, or interprets it, literally and completely. We are arbitrary in not only our conformance, but our very reading of it.
However, you're right. It's theoretically possible that someone would base their morality strictly on the bible, without any arbitrary crap thrown in. That's still arbitrary, though -- why the bible and not, say, the Qur'An? Or the Tao Te Ching?
Any answer you give would contain, implicitly or explicitly, one of the other bits of morality. For instance: Suppose you say the Bible is the word of God. Even if I believe you about this, why should I follow it? God seems like a pretty nasty entity, based on the bible. Of course, you'll tell me all God's done for me, including sending his only son to die for me. Supposing you're right, my entire basis for using the bible as a moral guide is compassion/reciprocal.
Besides, I didn't say that the bible itself was arbitrary. I said "Textual" is arbitrary, and you were using that in the same context that you used "arbitrary crap". I grew up around people who told me that cold-blooded killing was wrong, and I pretty much stuck by that without thinking about it for many years. My selection of it was arbitrary, but the principle itself isn't, it's part of compassion/reciprocal/hedonism. (Don't kill people because you'd feel sorry for them, you wouldn't want them to kill you, and you don't want anyone coming to kill you or lock you up.)
Because they look easy to simplify.
Textual is Arbitrary Crap. How many people quote the Bible where it supports their beliefs, but ignore it where it contradicts them? How many people who deeply believe in the Bible have ever questioned it?
Compassionate is a function of Reciprocal. Or possibly vice versa, but this one's easy to figure out. You want people to be helped, not hurt, because as a person, you'd want to be helped (not hurt).
Reciprocal is a function of Forseeable consequences, as well as pure hedonism. Follow the Golden Rule and, aside from simply feeling better, it also simply works better. The forseeable consequences of being a bastard, for instance, means people will treat you much worse than if you were friendly and respectful.
Forseeable consequences is actually not so much morality as it is a fact of life, so in the above paragraph, it's the hedonism that matters -- move towards pleasure and away from pain, but for the long term. You care about forseeable consequences because you want pleasure in the future. You make decisions based on your own wants, checking one against the other -- is it worth getting yelled at later (pain) to steal cookies from the cookie jar now (pleasure)?
So, it really comes down to intelligent hedonism, once you eliminate the arbitrary crap. And really, the intelligent hedonism is just more arbitrary crap -- you could just as easily make yourself completely miserable, and some people seem to enjoy that so much they spend their whole lives almost intentionally making themselves miserable so they have something to bitch about.
Good points, and you actually have some real experience -- I don't. I'm just going to throw out one piece of advice to the questioner:
I would suggest that the easiest way to get some perspective would be to talk to the pornstars. Find out if they like what they do, what kind of other choices they have if they don't... Ask them if they have any moral issues. Ask them what they think you should do.
Personally, I find the Flash more offensive. Even pornography can be done tastefully and ethically, but Flash is neither. If you have the technical skills to do so, I'd suggest you try to find a way to replace all of your flash work with actual web standards -- DHTML (now called AJAX), animated GIFs/PNGs, maybe some embedded mpegs. You can at least feel better for putting together a decent proposal, even if nothing changes by the end of the day.
True enough, but he did immediately follow it up with "...and my country [USA]"
I realize you're trolling, but I'll bite anyway.
Linux is a kernel. Linus released it as such, and never claimed it was an OS. He's annoyed by the whole GNU/Linux thing for the same reason the rest of us are -- Linux is one syllable shorter, and GNU is annoying to say. Also, a Linux system contains a huge amount of code, most of which is part of neither GNU nor Linux.
Even RMS doesn't try to claim that the Linux kernel itself should be called GNU/Linux, and in fact, the FSF says "Linux" a lot lately, but they're just talking about the kernel -- which is important as a problem of how to take a GPLv2 program and release it as GPLv3.
Lately, I've been sticking to something a lot more neutral -- there is no Linux OS, only Linux distros, so I refer to it as "Ubuntu". This is a lot more accurate -- the people most directly responsible for getting the code into your hands are the Ubuntu people. True, they didn't write it, but nor did my local radio station write the music they release. It's a lot better to call what I'm listening to "KRNA" or "KRUU" than simply call it, say, the "Jimi Hendrix channel", even if they're playing, say, Red Hot Chili Peppers at the moment.
In short: What you call Linux is something Linus didn't write. Linus wrote a kernel. GNU/Linux isn't any better, but it also isn't any worse.
That's possible. It's also a lot slower.
Consider the more familiar problem: Linux vs Windows. Windows is really bad for consumers, especially when compared to Linux. Windows is insecure, has been unstable in the past, and is still bloated and slow. Set aside the technological issues, and it's inherently untrustworthy, because Microsoft never acts in the best interests of consumers, it acts in the best interests of businesses -- thus, Windows will support DRM, will actively spy on you to make sure it's not pirated. Windows does not provide source code, so it's a lot harder to figure out exactly what it's doing -- on Linux, no one would dare introduce spyware or any kind of backdoor, because it would be spotted in an instant. On Windows, it's entirely possible that one or two rogue developers could insert code that lets them into your computer.
Keep in mind that all of these issues still apply to non-technical people. Yes, even the "just make it work" people.
The essential problem is that people don't notice this happening.
Now, there are other issues with Linux -- it doesn't currently have all the software people want, the interface isn't quite as slick, it doesn't support all hardware -- take your pick. But consumers could change all that, if they would choose Linux in the first place, and demand at least open source, if not free software throughout the machine. No one would dare release hardware without a decent, GPL'd Linux driver. You couldn't sell a program without a Linux verison. Users -- or hardware manufacturers -- could hire people to fix the usability issues.
The problem is the "network effect" -- that thing from MMORPGs. It's difficult to start a new MMO, because everyone's already playing Warcraft. People quit Warcraft, but they come back, because all their friends are there. No one will join your completely empty MMO, because no one's playing it. So, even if you get one or two people to realize that it might be better to play (insert game here) than Warcraft, they will end up playing Warcraft anyway. You might have a few thousand people in the same boat -- everyone playing Warcraft because they think everyone else is playing Warcraft, even if those thousands would be plenty to start another MMO.
So, the problem is, natural pressure from market forces only really appears when there's real choice, and often, there isn't. If every app was completely cross-platform -- as in, pure Java cross-platform -- we'd be free to choose our OS.
So, there's really no good way the market could exert pressure on the Tivo, for similar reasons. Media companies support the Tivo, because everyone has one -- or at least, everyone has a proprietary PVR. Thus, a Free Software PVR couldn't really gain any momentum, because media companies wouldn't want to go out of their way to give the users more control and make it possible for them to pirate stuff. Because of that, the PVR is useless even to the few would-be users, who go back to proprietary PVRs because they "Just Work".
The power of the free market to control corporations would be incredible. Too bad there's no such thing as a free market.
The FSF can't really do anything to solve the problem, but at least they can refuse to be part of the problem. That's what the anti-Tivoization clause is about -- I respect Tivo's right to develop this evil machine, but I'll never buy one, and what's more, I won't let them use my code. Eventually, they'll have to choose between the cost of:
I, personally, earn a living programming, working on existing GPL'd programs, but no one at my organization would mind me releasing my own scripts and things under the GPL, either. If you'd pull your head out of the sand for a second, you'd see how it's entirely possible to have an economy that's not based on selling individual copies of software.
It should do more than that -- it should, at least on the local machine, allow me to sign my own binaries and have the TPM check for my own signature. Then I could secure my own critical systems. In fact, you could also do things like teach the hardware to look for signatures from, say, a Linux distro.
That way, there would be absolutely no excuse for anyone to say "Your computer is less secure because you run Ubuntu instead of Vista, and Vista can use the TPM." In fact, while you might void the Dell warranty, you might also gain a Canonical warranty (if you can buy such a thing). Of course, you could program it to lie on your behalf, but you probably wouldn't unless you were doing some kernel hacking or something, and you probably wouldn't be asking for support if you were doing kernel hacking -- and in any case, as far as the user's concerned, it's nice if it's not lying, and you could head over to the Ubuntu website and verify that you don't have a rootkit (unless you ticked the "lie Canonical" box somewhere).
Of course, you're right, it's wishful thinking -- TPM was never intended for security. It's not really needed for security, except as yet another Kitchen Sink item, and mostly useful for Windows.
What we'd need for that to work would be an inverse class-action lawsuit. Basically, suing a class of people.
Any one computer in a spam botnet causes me very little damage. A whole swarm can fill my inbox. So, the answer is obvious: sue the swarm. Someone whose computer is filled with spyware will have to learn to constantly pay people for the spam they're sending, or will have to stop sending it, period.
The problem is, how much can you sue someone for a single spam, especially if it was sent through their own negligence?
Second time I've done this recently. I keep forgetting whether I'm using HTML or not.
Couldn't we solve the whole issue with a voluntary rating system? Seriously, if you think your game contains material too explicit (sexually or violently) for children, either provide an in-game mechanism to lock it out, or provide your own voluntary rating and ask stores not to sell it to minors. By doing that, you're not preventing anyone from playing it, but you're forcing the parents to get involved.
I'd imagine there are at least a few game developers out there with the decency to admit: "Enemies can be decapitated and dismembered, and their realistic-looking blood spews all over the screen. Not recommended for children." Or maybe "Will teach stupid, impressionable people to be a gangster. Not recommended for children of any age." You get the idea.
Or better: Abolish ratings altogether, and don't allow children to buy games. This might force the parents to actually read some reviews, so they have no excuse to act so fucking surprised when they learn that you can take a hooker to a quiet place, make the car bounce as you regain health, then beat her to death -- and then some -- and eventually get your money back. You'd think they'd show a little discretion when the game is called "Grand Theft Auto" -- what, do we have to call it "Breaking and Entering" before they'll get it?
Oh wait, "Breaking and Entering" might actually sell. Shit.
Couldn't we solve the whole issue with a voluntary rating system? Seriously, if you think your game contains material too explicit (sexually or violently) for children, either provide an in-game mechanism to lock it out, or provide your own voluntary rating and ask stores not to sell it to minors. By doing that, you're not preventing anyone from playing it, but you're forcing the parents to get involved. I'd imagine there are at least a few game developers out there with the decency to admit: "Enemies can be decapitated and dismembered, and their realistic-looking blood spews all over the screen. Not recommended for children." Or maybe "Will teach stupid, impressionable people to be a gangster. Not recommended for children of any age." You get the idea. Or better: Abolish ratings altogether, and don't allow children to buy games. This might force the parents to actually read some reviews, so they have no excuse to act so fucking surprised when they learn that you can take a hooker to a quiet place, make the car bounce as you regain health, then beat her to death -- and then some -- and eventually get your money back. You'd think they'd show a little discretion when the game is called "Grand Theft Auto" -- what, do we have to call it "Breaking and Entering" before they'll get it? Oh wait, "Breaking and Entering" might actually sell. Shit.
Now that I think about it, I remember what I wanted to say being said as "a is not a", but I don't remember how it was written. Thanks for clearing that up.
If it's not, then you have bigger issues. If your design is modular enough to start with, recompiling for Linux shouldn't be a big deal at all.
If recompilinig for Linux once is enough, then how much does it really cost to recompile for Linux a second time? You can automate that process.
And especially if your code is modular, the kind of updates MMORPGs do shouldn't be changing anything platform-dependent.
I call BS on that. Bundle them together into bigger APIs and your problems go away. Make them modular enough to begin with and you never have the problems in the first place.
Regardless, there is a single API for just about everything a typical game has to do, and it's called SDL -- it wraps around OpenAL, OpenGL, provides input, high-frequency timers, everything you could want. There's still ODE for physics, and I'm not sure if SDL does networking, but that's really not bad, and no worse than the DirectX route.
If that's still too much for you, grab something like Ogre -- a whole game engine that already does the sound, video, physics, etc, and is already ported. Why does every game need its own engine? I suspect that this same lack modularity is to blame, and leads to some engines being good for one thing, and some engines for another.
You talk about that as if it's easy. If it was that easy, wouldn't Cedega be flawless by now? (A wrapper for DirectX on OpenGL -- why would going the other way be easier?)
They should have some sort of escrow service. Every Linux gamer who wants a copy "buys" it, and if there aren't enough, you get your money back. If there are, you get your game -- no going back on your word.
But frankly, even less than half of $50,000 should be plenty. If it costs you more than $20,000 of developer time to support another platform, your code isn't modular enough and you'll be losing more money due to bugs and poor design decisions.
Especially with a game -- 90% of your interactions with the underlying OS and user can be handled via SDL. Probably 90% of those are pure OpenGL. Yes, I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, but honestly, things like web browsers and office suites should be harder to port, not easier. There are already so many cross-platform libraries you could use, even for games, that it should be a non-issue: ODE for physics, OpenGL for graphics, OpenAL for sound, SDL for most everything else. You can even take your pick of existing engines -- there's Crystalspace, Ogre, even Quake3 is GPL'd, or you could license Quake4 or the ut2004 engine and hope to make your money back in the sheer number of things the engine does for you (other than platform independence).
Perhaps the most infuriating are the people who you'd think are less than a compile away from your platform. Flash for Linux, but only on x86. Thanks for nothing, Adobe.
That you say you can't explain the difference does prove that you're a moron, but that everyone else missed it isn't helping.
As I understand it, "sleep" on Vista puts the computer into standby, and after a preconfigured amount of time, it wakes from the standby and immediately hibernates. The idea is you just push the "sleep" button, and if you're away for only a few minutes, it's ready for you, but if it (rightly) guesses you're not coming back, it hibernates completely to save power.
However, there is an important difference to the average Joe -- suppose you need to pick up your computer and move it, or replace the battery in your laptop? In other words, suppose you need to deprive your computer of any and all power for a very short amount of time? Your best option then is hibernate -- if you do it after pushing "sleep", you either have to wait an hour for it to hibernate, or you end up losing data.
By the way, I disagree strongly with TFA here:
Actually, it's seven. And I can and do explain things like this to my mother. So don't bother bringing out the old "people are stupid" argument.
Look: Even with an automatic shifter, you usually have a choice of: Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Gear 1, and Gear 2. There's also a parking break (often misleadingly called the "E-brake"). Yet people drive these things all the time, even more complex things (manual shifters). Uncle Joe can handle it. We just need to stop pretending he's a moron -- if he really is incapable of understanding the distinctions on his shut down menu, he should not be operating a computer.
Actually, 7 choices is about the right number to show a user, from what I've read of UI design.
So, all that said, there are important distinctions. Let's say I was sharing a gaming rig with my brother. Here, I definitely do care about the difference between "switch user" and "log off" -- if he's logged off, all his programs are stopped. That means there's nothing he's running to lag my games.
It would also be nice to be able to lock without necessarily logging off -- and certainly without telling your computer to shut down. What if I want to leave a download running? What should be the golden standard of idle-ness that tells the computer it's really not doing anything useful and it can shut down?
It also seems nice to be able to switch users without locking -- in theory, that would allow me to toggle quickly between logged in users. Perhaps not as fast as I can on Linux (ctrl+alt+fn), but it's better than having to enter a password every time.
What about actually shutting down or rebooting? Well, rebooting makes sense because it kills all apps and gives you a fresh start, and also seems to magically fix many problems on Windows. Shutting down makes sense because all apps get to know what you're doing, so they save state (and prompt you to save documents), so you don't lose any data if you're planning to pull the plug -- and also, if you're going to dig around inside the case, you really have to shut down, Hibernate doesn't like it when you change the hardware before you boot it again. You also need these options for dual boot, if you have any partitions you want to be readable from the other OS.
Actually, the lock and shutdown/sleep buttons make sense. To a user who's not going to learn the distinctions between sleep and hibernate, there's no need for a reboot button or really anything but sleep, and it's not that difficult to tell the difference between an icon that looks like a padlock and an icon that looks like a power button. I don't think the lock button needs to be there, but two choices isn't bad, and it's obvious why th
I'd say the company is a real entity, still actually producing. Your "intellectual property" is pretty imaginary.
I would say that if, after 50 years, the company itself should be losing some intellectual property -- if they are an R&D firm, they better be making new things if they want to be around after 50 years. If you're selling real, physical products, then by all means, continue. If you're sitting on some real estate, and you've found a way to make money off it, chances are you have to actually do some maintenance, so that seems fair. But if all you're doing is sitting on some patents, then the company should die in 5 years, not 50.
I'd say that after 50 years, people should be able to copy your sculpture, make derivative works, etc. You don't have to give them up.
The thing is, you're still thinking of copyright as your property.
Copyright is actually a bit mis-named. It's a right to be the only one copying, not simply a right to copy. You can still sell them after 50 years, but others can make copies and sell those.
And I do feel that after 50 years, you should either be doing something else or you should be retired. Think of it as a tax -- after those 50 years, your work becomes available for others to improve on. Derivative works are a good thing. Public archives are a good thing.
It might help if you think of it less as your property and more as a lease from society. After all, society giveth the copyright, society has the right to taketh away. Yes, you put in the work to create the material, but society bears the burden of protecting this artificial right of yours -- laywers, courts, etc. Just somewhat better than, say, signing a deal with most record labels...
But if I were to gargle at a Christian, he might look at me strangely, as if I had some mental disease. If I were to tell him, flat out: "God doesn't exist, and if he did, I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven..." You get the idea. According to you, that has no meaning. According to the Christian, it means I'm evil and I'm going right to Hell, where I belong.
That doesn't help at all... What do you mean by "meaningless"? Or, more specifically:
Why?
Again, why? Why does this debate have more meaning than a debate about whether a god exists, or could exist?
Put another way, why does anything have meaning at all? As far as I'm concerned, we're the ones who add meaning to an otherwise meaningless universe. Define "meaningful" first, then we can talk about what's "meaningless".
Says you. Did you follow my link? Just because we haven't found a god yet doesn't mean it's impossible.
So you're saying we can know where every particle in the Universe is, and what it's doing, right now? The "fucking smart dude" I've created could, easily.
Nope, he just gave us the ability to blaspheme. We made the choice.
Yes, he could've stopped us, but that violates free will. Or, put another way, as a parent, you can either physically restrain your child 100% of the time, or try to do the same to the environment -- put the cookies in a combination safe -- or let the child do whatever he wants, but punish him when he steals cookies.
It is a bit disturbing to me that the best metaphor most people have for God is a parent. I strongly suspect this is a reaction to people refusing to grow up and let go of their parents -- they need a new father figure.
Not saying that there was, just giving you an idea of how this psychohistory god might operate.
P=NP is shorthand for "P is not P". I'm not sure if that's the usual notation, but this is one of the (often implicit) rules of our logic -- that self-contradictory things cannot exist.
Basically, if you start with an axiom of P=NP, you can create a consistent argument that proves absolutely anything, including things like "This statement is false."
So, actually, that was more a joke than anything, but I did want to get you thinking -- it's not just physical reality that may be unreliable, but your own mind and logic. The only thing you can be sure of is that you exist -- you can't even be sure that you thin
Well, that's a start. Now try reading and understanding.
Could be. I'd argue that not giving the question any consideration would mean neither agnosticism nor atheism -- just a complete lack of consideration. If a person is then asked to consider the question, they would then make up their mind.
But in a sense, that is agnosticism -- no position until you're asked to give one.
I do take an agnostic position on this. I very much doubt that the moon is made of cheese, and I would assume it's not, so it's not as if this would come up in conversation and have me ridiculed. But, in fact, most of the time, I don't even consider the question, and when I do, I arrive at two conclusions:
No, it is not. It is suggesting that it is a possibility. Since when must a possibility be reasonable?
I do not have to give the idea weight and validity, and indeed, in casual conversation, I probably come off more as "acheesist" -- I don't prefix my every thought with "I think so" just to avoid being proven wrong.
It's just a fundamental attitude which many "atheists" would like to think they share -- that of an open-minded scientist. Math has theorums and "proofs"; science has only theories. Even if you believe the theories, you still call them theories. Wherever scientists have tightly-held beliefs -- even ones widely considered reasonable, such as the flatness of the Earth -- progress is set back by years, decades, even centuries before someone finally and rightly asks "Why do we believe this? Could we be wrong?"
Certainly, as long as we realize that this concept of "reasonableness" is something we've created. It may be completely wrong.
Like I said, I probably function in roughly the same way as you do. I don't stare at the moon and think "Wow, what a beautiful hunk of rock or maybe cheese!" At the same time, I'm aware enough of my fundamental uncertainty that I'm much more flexible when the world decides to change the rules on me.
When, not if.
Why is such discussion meaningless? Discussion about the possibility that this is all the dream of a butterfly actually gives us a refreshing sense of perspective. If people were really aware that they could be just part of a butterfly dream, they might be considerably less arrogant.
Oh, and "not falsifiable" doesn't completely invalidate a question, even if we do accept the mass of assumptions you're starting with. Suppose I threw my keyboard in a ginormous box of junk. I could claim that I have a keyboard in there, and in theory, we can falsify it -- pour the box onto the floor and sift through the junk.
What if it's a whole junkyard? What if it's the whole universe?
And yet, it's not a nonsensical question. I need a keyboard, so I look through the box of junk. If I don't find one, it doesn't necessarily prove that the keyboard isn't there. But what if I do find a keyboard?
If we're starting with the same basic assumptions, we could, theoretically, get at least as much proof of the existence of God as we have for the existence of a keyboard.
There are actually solutions to this problem that Christians may or may not agree with. For one possibility, read the Foundation series (by Asimov) -- it could be possible that God knows everything that can be known, and therefore, God knows the trend of the future better than any human could, and most certainly knows where we are likely to end up, but of course, free will means we could all theoretically go completely contrary to God's plan. We'd all just have to do something unexpected at once.
And in any case, God can intervene, and he can do this in ways which don't mess with free will, which is generally understood to be mental, not physical -- that is, we're free to blaspheme, but God is free to strike us down if we do. In a mankind-runs-away scenario, God can make corrections, from a relatively small scale (the angel on your shoulder, maybe) to a planet-wide scale (the flood).
That's just one possibility, though. It's a tricky problem, and this is part of why I don't believe -- it ends up sounding contrived.
Still, you're also operating on a few other hidden axioms, including logic. If P=NP, then God can exist, no matter what.
And you're right, the question is a silly one -- not nonsensical, just silly to spend all day thinking about unless it's your job. I only follow it because it interests me, and because I hope that one day we will be able to outgrow this delusion -- in any case, it gives me plenty of ammunition if an evangelist ever knocks on my door.
I think you are. I also think you didn't read my post. Please read this one, I'll try to keep it short.
What does it cost to be unsure of something, really?
When I go through life, I'm not constantly checking for invisible pink unicorns/dragons. I assume they aren't there, to keep my sanity. But I don't believe that they don't exist. Or, said another way, I don't have faith in their nonexistence. And I'm sure you agree with me that far -- if, one day, an experiment were devised which provided conclusive proof of an invisible pink dragon, I'm sure you'd be first in line to see it, just as if someone could prove the existence of God, you'd be first in line to meet him.
So, it's not that I live my life in constant doubt, but simply that, if we're going to be philosophical, we may as well be thorough and say that we really don't know anything, we only formulate convenient assumptions. Right now, God is not an assumption that works for me, and in that respect, I've been called atheist. And right now, the assumption that this computer behaves a certain way -- push a key on the keyboard, the corresponding letter appears on the screen -- is such a useful assumption that I'm not conscious of it most of the time, it's in my subconscious and muscle memory. But I don't believe either of these assumptions ("keyboard works" or "god doesn't exist") is any more valid than the other, and I'm ready to reconsider each assumption -- or simply let it go -- should it no longer be useful.
Therefore, if my computer stops responding to certain keys on this keyboard, I'll let go of the assumption that it works (meaning I can stop typing), and buy a new keyboard. Similarly, if a god were to reveal itself to me, I'd let go of the assumption that no god exists for long enough to consider the possibility that this one might be real.
But my ability to let go of my assumptions doesn't mean they're less useful to me than your beliefs. I can type some 80 wpm -- notice how I am conspicuously NOT actively wondering, with every keystroke, whether it will work that time. I simply am open to the possibility that it will die.
The best part is, when one of my assumptions is ripped away, if I'm really not attached to them, I won't be shocked into inaction. I'm agnostic about UFOs, but if an alien did show up on my porch, I'd probably invite it in for coffee -- I wouldn't just stand there with my mouth hanging open.
Yes. Aren't you?
I mean, how can you be absolutely convinced, beyond doubt, that they don't exist?
It's not that I live in that uncertainty. Frankly, I ignore the question most of the time -- I live with a comfortable set of assumptions, which includes what I need to operate in the world in which I live.
But if we're going to be getting philosophical, than hell yes, I'm unsure. I'm unsure that you exist, I'm unsure that I exist, I'm unsure about P!=NP, and I'm certainly unsure about the dragon in your garage.