The barrier isn't a matter of complexity or understanding per se, but rather the fact that good judgement and self-awareness are the result of a spiritual, rather than mechanical or chemical, process. You won't ever find these traits in an entirely mechanical process.
And you have scientific evidence for this right? You wouldn't be spouting off your own personal opinions as fact now would you?
I think I had enough of that ride, and once RedHat dumped our support I just jumped ship. To FreeBSD. Now I get software that is as up to date as I want it, and the base system and kernel are left alone other than for security fixes. I'm free to stay with that release, or move to a newer release as I choose. I like Linux, and use it at home, but I've gotten kind of weary of letting any Linux vendor drag me along on a production machine.
Dude, then use Debian stable or testing or another community distro. Red Hat != Linux. I have nothing against FreeBSD but condemning Linux because you didn't like Red Hat's policies is pretty foolish IMHO.
Re:Semi-serious?
on
Game with God
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· Score: 0, Troll
That's just silly...
Genesis does not indicate that God forbid the pursuit of knowledge in general, but rather the knowledge of good and evil.
Using this passage, to say that God is against scientific knowledge is assinine.
First of all I never said that. However, you seem to make clear differentiations between types of knowledge, a point of view that I do not share. I define knowledge to be "that which is true", and facts are facts, regardless of the subject. Regardless, the fact that God forbide the pursuit of any sort of knowledge is a very telling factor. What sort of God would willfully keep his subjects ignorant? Are we better off "stupid but happy?"
I don't recall ever saying that that was the only conclusion, merely a possibly valid one. It is certainly clear that Adam & Eve were punished for disobedience to God. However, I believe it is also important to look at the nature of the disobedience. Within the first 3 chapters of the Bible the notion that ignorance is preffered to knowledge is presented. This was the point I was trying to present.
I think it was the command "You can eat of any tree except from this one Tree." Been a while since you read Genesis? Or have you even read it all? I don't see a lack of critical thinking here, but I do see quite a lot of overconfidence...
Wow. You chastize me, then misquote Genesis and accuse me of overconfidence. Truly astounding. The relevant quote you are looking for is:
"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (KJV)
God forbade Adam from eating from a tree that would give him knowledge. Of course, God also lied about Adam dieing, but I wasn't going to bring that up. Humans being the inquisitive creatures that they are (and were supposedly created to be) anything else than the eventual outcome would be impossible.
Re:Semi-serious?
on
Game with God
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· Score: 2, Interesting
But you haven't, and won't. Only one man ever did.
And what command was disobeyed? Geez, a little critical thinking isn't too much to ask, is it?
Re:Semi-serious?
on
Game with God
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· Score: 4, Informative
That's a bit of a stretch. The Original Sin was succumbing to Lucifer's temptation and eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but the story doesn't indicate that Eve ate the fruit of the Tree because of a desire to gain knowledge.
Genesis 3:6 (KJV) And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
It says quite clearly that Eve ate the fruit in order to become wise (i.e. gain knowledge). Now you can "interpret" this story to mean whatever the hell you want, but the FACTS of the story cleary say that Eve ate the fruit to become wise (pursuit of knowledge) and was punished for it.
Re:Semi-serious?
on
Game with God
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· Score: 4, Insightful
As history shows, technology (read science) and religion don't mix well. Science tends to try to explain phenomena with laws that govern nature, while religion tends to use historical beliefs.
Just remember a few core beliefs of Chrisitanity:
1. Even if you live a perfect life, you deserve to go to hell. Why? Original sin.
2. What was original sin? Pursuit of knowledge.
How the heck is a robot supposed to accurately judge that whether a random unique action in a unique situation will cause harm to a human or himself? Humans can't even do this. If we were to create an artificial intellegence that was fully capable of making these decisions, would we even be able to put limits on what it decides?
Have you even read Asimov's robot stories, especially the Robot Novels? Asimov addresses these exact questions, that's the central plot point of the stories! Obviously, robots are only able to protect humans to the best of their limited ability, just as regular humans are. In "The Naked Sun" I believe that the human detective, Elijah Bailey, actually determined that robots can kill people through a series of innocent actions or be used as murder weapons. A scenario would go something like this:
1. HumanA orders robot1 to put poson in a glass of water. Robot1 obeys.
2. HumanA orders robot2 to serve water to HumanB. Robot2, not knowing what else is in the glass, obeys.
3. HumanB drinks water, dies.
4. HumanA - profit!
Ok, just kidding about that last one. Of course, if the robots subsequently discover the results of their actions, they will go quite insane from breaking the laws. Asimov's robots are not some godlike creatures, they are just limited creatures like humans who follow their programming to the best of their ability.
A pint of high-quality water can be obtained from many municipal water systems for a fraction of a penny.
Yet people are happy to pay $2 for a bottle of the same water.
"High quality" is a very subjective term. People are not paying for unprocessed bottled tap water. Bottled water arguably tastes much superior to the locally available tap water (especially in some areas). People will pay more for higher quality products, including water (just look at Macs). People also will pay more for convenience (such as fast food). Most people usually don't carry their tap around with them, but a bottle of water is available most everywhere.
I hear that sometimes many people thing MS being a monopoly is a bad thing but one large monopoly against another like MS against Sony is the essence of competition.
What are you talking about? Sony does not have a monopoly in any market that I am aware of, certainly not like Microsoft (+90% of the desktop OS market, probably similar for the office software market). Sony may be a large corporation and may have a dominant marketshare in some markets but they are no monopoly. Also, two giant titans may seem like the essence of competition to you but it is far from it. Better competition would have many players of different sizes, although this is usually not possible due to several factors (such as high barriers to entry). While it is true that the competition between Sony and MS has been great for prices this is only because MS is not competing fairly. They are selling at a loss and hemorrhaging money just to gain marketshare, they are not competing for profit.
For example I would like to be able to turn on and of JavaScript from a button on the browser. The same way it would be nice to be able to customize a toolbar where you had an on off buttons for those features that I maybe don't want to use all the time.
APL and MPL licensed software is potentially heading towards non-free. Why? Because of the clause to the licenses that states that you abandon all patent claims when contributing code.
WRONG. Both the APL V2.0 and the MPL are 100% free software licenses. Don't believe me, get it srtaight from the FSF. What you are probably referring to is that these licenses are GPL-incompatable, however GPL-incompatable != non-free.
Something comparable would be more like if FreeDOS could be made to run in userspace on Linux and then used it to run Win98.
DOSEMU sounds like what you are describing, and I know people have been successful running Windows 3.1 on it. No Windows 95 and above, though.
The real selling point about Win4Lin over VmWare is that, like WINE, it uses your local filesystem so there no disk image file. Now, I think (think) that the latest VmWare allows this too but I haven't tried it.
Yes, this is a convenient feature. Maybe the QEMU guys can implement it eventually. Right now it is still a fairly new program.
Are we anything more than animals? Once the layer of civilization breaks down, the parallels between humans and the other animals tend to show up.
It is my belief that it is civilization which separates humans from animals. My point was that once you reject civilization and focus only on survival then you are nothing but an animal.
This is true, but only for the more peaceful zones. There are also areas from where the missionaries bugged out or got shot. With sufficiently wide areas of conflict, you get the problems of getting out of there (and the question where to go).
I believe that morality is derived from society, and laws certainly are. If you are in an active combat zone then I would say that society and civilization in that area has ceased to function, and you may indeed be reduced to a primitive survival state. In this scenario there can be no laws and morality can be disputed. However, this scenario is a far cry from the OP's comment about stealing bread from a bakery to feed your starving family not being immoral. All my arguments are based upon the assumption that you are in a working society. I still maintain that in a working society there are always better alternatives to stealing, it can never be justified as necessary for survival.
Large areas of conflict in Africa; East Timor; and there are others that are easy to find with just a bit of Googling. BY FAR not every place is as peaceful as you are used to. Quite sizeable chunk of people is not only stealing there, but also killing the previous owners before.
Again, it does not sound like these occupants are living in a functioning society. Further, are you arguing that their stealing and murder is justified in the name of survival? Even in these scenarios you have people who choose not to steal, but instead leave their homes and become refugees. There is always a choice.
Even in more peaceful areas of the world you can't always use the more legitimate options, eg. when you are on the run.
Are you arguing that stealing is justified if you are already a criminal?
Survival is above the law... Survival is a goal fundamental enough to justify just about anyting.
This is certainly subject to debate. How starving do you have to be to justify illegal behavior? The human body can go quite a long time without food. What if I need my food to survive, are you justified in taking in from me? Who decides who is more worthy? Are we back to "might makes right?" Rejecting the basic laws and morals of society for your own survival is to reject civilization and your own humanity and become an animal.
If I have the choice between dying of hunger and acting against legality/morality, I pick the one that lets me survive one more day and hope the overall situation improves tomorrow.
You are using the common straw man argument of concocting a scenario where either you steal or you die. Real life is not this simple, there are always other options. As a quick example, in the US we have government welfare and unemployment programs. Even in other countries there are charities (such as religious missionaries) who will help, and there is always begging.
Sometimes there just isn't another option available in sufficiently short term.
Examples? How short term are we talking, remember the human body can go quite a while without food. Show me a real life situation where people are starving and in danger of their very survival, and you will see that the vast majority of them do not resort to stealing.
But it's (stealing) a short-term solution, and often a short-term solution is what you need at the moment in order to survive until you manage to implement the long-term solution.
This is true, but what is your point? Are you attempting to justify any short term solutions, regardless of legality or morality, as long as you eventually implement a legal and moral long term solution? Or are you trying to justify theft in general?
But perhaps you manage to find work the next day, and be strong enough to do it and earn the food for that day and perhaps the next day too.
And how does that justify stealing from others to acomplish your goals? As I said in my original post, stealing is not the only option and never a good one.
Slashdot Mirror
It is. Konqueror does this and it's quite nice.
You forgot the obligatory Ask Slashdot Link. ;)
And you have scientific evidence for this right? You wouldn't be spouting off your own personal opinions as fact now would you?
Dude, then use Debian stable or testing or another community distro. Red Hat != Linux. I have nothing against FreeBSD but condemning Linux because you didn't like Red Hat's policies is pretty foolish IMHO.
Wow. You just ruled Linux illegal.
First of all I never said that. However, you seem to make clear differentiations between types of knowledge, a point of view that I do not share. I define knowledge to be "that which is true", and facts are facts, regardless of the subject. Regardless, the fact that God forbide the pursuit of any sort of knowledge is a very telling factor. What sort of God would willfully keep his subjects ignorant? Are we better off "stupid but happy?"
I don't recall ever saying that that was the only conclusion, merely a possibly valid one. It is certainly clear that Adam & Eve were punished for disobedience to God. However, I believe it is also important to look at the nature of the disobedience. Within the first 3 chapters of the Bible the notion that ignorance is preffered to knowledge is presented. This was the point I was trying to present.
Out of curiosity, what words are used to describe Jesus?
Wow. You chastize me, then misquote Genesis and accuse me of overconfidence. Truly astounding. The relevant quote you are looking for is:
"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (KJV)
God forbade Adam from eating from a tree that would give him knowledge. Of course, God also lied about Adam dieing, but I wasn't going to bring that up. Humans being the inquisitive creatures that they are (and were supposedly created to be) anything else than the eventual outcome would be impossible.
Wrong.
Nope, 'twas disobedience.
And what command was disobeyed? Geez, a little critical thinking isn't too much to ask, is it?
It says quite clearly that Eve ate the fruit in order to become wise (i.e. gain knowledge). Now you can "interpret" this story to mean whatever the hell you want, but the FACTS of the story cleary say that Eve ate the fruit to become wise (pursuit of knowledge) and was punished for it.
Just remember a few core beliefs of Chrisitanity:
1. Even if you live a perfect life, you deserve to go to hell. Why? Original sin.
2. What was original sin? Pursuit of knowledge.
Kind of sums things up nicely.
Have you even read Asimov's robot stories, especially the Robot Novels? Asimov addresses these exact questions, that's the central plot point of the stories! Obviously, robots are only able to protect humans to the best of their limited ability, just as regular humans are. In "The Naked Sun" I believe that the human detective, Elijah Bailey, actually determined that robots can kill people through a series of innocent actions or be used as murder weapons. A scenario would go something like this:
1. HumanA orders robot1 to put poson in a glass of water. Robot1 obeys.
2. HumanA orders robot2 to serve water to HumanB. Robot2, not knowing what else is in the glass, obeys.
3. HumanB drinks water, dies.
4. HumanA - profit!
Ok, just kidding about that last one. Of course, if the robots subsequently discover the results of their actions, they will go quite insane from breaking the laws. Asimov's robots are not some godlike creatures, they are just limited creatures like humans who follow their programming to the best of their ability.
"High quality" is a very subjective term. People are not paying for unprocessed bottled tap water. Bottled water arguably tastes much superior to the locally available tap water (especially in some areas). People will pay more for higher quality products, including water (just look at Macs). People also will pay more for convenience (such as fast food). Most people usually don't carry their tap around with them, but a bottle of water is available most everywhere.
What are you talking about? Sony does not have a monopoly in any market that I am aware of, certainly not like Microsoft (+90% of the desktop OS market, probably similar for the office software market). Sony may be a large corporation and may have a dominant marketshare in some markets but they are no monopoly. Also, two giant titans may seem like the essence of competition to you but it is far from it. Better competition would have many players of different sizes, although this is usually not possible due to several factors (such as high barriers to entry). While it is true that the competition between Sony and MS has been great for prices this is only because MS is not competing fairly. They are selling at a loss and hemorrhaging money just to gain marketshare, they are not competing for profit.
How much did it cost to make, including time?
It should be noted that Rocklinux kicks the snot out of Scissorslinux, but gets its ass handed to it by Paperlinux. ;)
http://prefbar.mozdev.org/
Something's not quite right here. ;)
WRONG. Both the APL V2.0 and the MPL are 100% free software licenses. Don't believe me, get it srtaight from the FSF. What you are probably referring to is that these licenses are GPL-incompatable, however GPL-incompatable != non-free.
I thought Win4Lin did emulate hardware. From their site they say that Win4Lin "provides a complete virtual PC environment for the Windows operating systems." Elsewhere it says that they provide a virtual network card. I may be wrong, however, since as I said I have never run the program.
Something comparable would be more like if FreeDOS could be made to run in userspace on Linux and then used it to run Win98.
DOSEMU sounds like what you are describing, and I know people have been successful running Windows 3.1 on it. No Windows 95 and above, though.
The real selling point about Win4Lin over VmWare is that, like WINE, it uses your local filesystem so there no disk image file. Now, I think (think) that the latest VmWare allows this too but I haven't tried it.
Yes, this is a convenient feature. Maybe the QEMU guys can implement it eventually. Right now it is still a fairly new program.
It is my belief that it is civilization which separates humans from animals. My point was that once you reject civilization and focus only on survival then you are nothing but an animal.
This is true, but only for the more peaceful zones. There are also areas from where the missionaries bugged out or got shot. With sufficiently wide areas of conflict, you get the problems of getting out of there (and the question where to go).
I believe that morality is derived from society, and laws certainly are. If you are in an active combat zone then I would say that society and civilization in that area has ceased to function, and you may indeed be reduced to a primitive survival state. In this scenario there can be no laws and morality can be disputed. However, this scenario is a far cry from the OP's comment about stealing bread from a bakery to feed your starving family not being immoral. All my arguments are based upon the assumption that you are in a working society. I still maintain that in a working society there are always better alternatives to stealing, it can never be justified as necessary for survival.
Large areas of conflict in Africa; East Timor; and there are others that are easy to find with just a bit of Googling. BY FAR not every place is as peaceful as you are used to. Quite sizeable chunk of people is not only stealing there, but also killing the previous owners before.
Again, it does not sound like these occupants are living in a functioning society. Further, are you arguing that their stealing and murder is justified in the name of survival? Even in these scenarios you have people who choose not to steal, but instead leave their homes and become refugees. There is always a choice.
Even in more peaceful areas of the world you can't always use the more legitimate options, eg. when you are on the run.
Are you arguing that stealing is justified if you are already a criminal?
Try QEMU. It can run any version of Windows and is pretty fast. I haven't compared it to Win4Lin, since I don't own that program, but give it a shot.
This is certainly subject to debate. How starving do you have to be to justify illegal behavior? The human body can go quite a long time without food. What if I need my food to survive, are you justified in taking in from me? Who decides who is more worthy? Are we back to "might makes right?" Rejecting the basic laws and morals of society for your own survival is to reject civilization and your own humanity and become an animal.
If I have the choice between dying of hunger and acting against legality/morality, I pick the one that lets me survive one more day and hope the overall situation improves tomorrow.
You are using the common straw man argument of concocting a scenario where either you steal or you die. Real life is not this simple, there are always other options. As a quick example, in the US we have government welfare and unemployment programs. Even in other countries there are charities (such as religious missionaries) who will help, and there is always begging.
Sometimes there just isn't another option available in sufficiently short term.
Examples? How short term are we talking, remember the human body can go quite a while without food. Show me a real life situation where people are starving and in danger of their very survival, and you will see that the vast majority of them do not resort to stealing.
This is true, but what is your point? Are you attempting to justify any short term solutions, regardless of legality or morality, as long as you eventually implement a legal and moral long term solution? Or are you trying to justify theft in general?
But perhaps you manage to find work the next day, and be strong enough to do it and earn the food for that day and perhaps the next day too.
And how does that justify stealing from others to acomplish your goals? As I said in my original post, stealing is not the only option and never a good one.