Why is it anything technology related makes people go back 2000 years in thinking?
Saying that we've regressed 2000 years is an insult... to the Romans! 2000 years ago they actually had a more enlightened view about sex than we do now.
If you want to talk about regression, complain about the Christian church (Roman Catholic and otherwise) from about 400 A.D. to today.
The teacher may not have desired to install the spyware, but almost certainly did do something negligent
Oh yeah? Then where does the SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR figure into all this? Since when was it the teacher's job to maintain the computers instead of, you know, teaching?!
Poor guy... you missed the point entirely! What made Star Trek interesting was the exploration of ethical and philosophical issues, and figuring out interesting and novel solutions to the problems the crew encountered. Star Trek has had episodes and movies about the following topics: religion, race relations, euthanasia, conservation, cybernetics, the definition of "life," the definition of "sentient life," love, hate, war, peace, etc. -- way too much stuff to list here. That's what made it great, not the technology. If all you care about are gadgets, you're better off watching a Bond flick instead.
That's a contradiction: to chose anything at all implies planning. The opposite of planning is not a conscious decision to leave the matter to chance; the opposite of planning is to act irrationally without considering the consequences at all.
Yeah... I do get your point.
Glad to hear it! Do you still believe I'm "ridiculing someone else to make [myself] feel better?" (Incidentally, I'm curious: what would I have been making myself feel better about?)
Hmm... you've just made me realize that I need to retract my statement. I should have said that it's the uneducated (not unintelligent) people who are causing the problem, because I have no doubt that people in the third world are just as likely to be intelligent as those in the first world but less likely to be educated.
Well said. When i was in High School (called middelbare school in the Netherlands) we often had discussions. For a while i thought they werent very usefull, people just sticked to their ideas, but now i think it was important for me to get my ideas in a row.
Ah, but were they in the context of science class? I suspect not!
And that's exactly the problem here: the whole point of science is that it defines a rigorous framework for investigating nature, called the Scientific Method. To lend credence to so-called "theories" that have no basis in observation or logic and whose validity cannot be evaluated experimentally is to attack science itself. Obviously, therefore, such non-theories should not be presented in science class!
If the school really wants to debate whether science is a desirable way to interpret the world, I say they should go for it! However, such a debate should be presented in the wider context of philosophy, not science.
The sentence is a bit distorted, issues themselves dont have prejudice, people do.
I suspect the people who attack science and logic are incapable of understanding the point you just made.
BTW some people insinuated it would become "hell on earth" because of global warming. Sounds rather unlikely to me, climate change may make some places less habitable, but probably make other places more habitable. (For instance: there were ice-ages in which the sahara was green.)
That depends on what you mean by "Hell." All of Hell wouldn't necessarily be hot, you know -- in fact, Dante wrote that the 9th Circle is cold because of the Devil flapping his wings.
But that's beside the point. I submit to you that it's reasonable to say that any climate change could create a "Hell on Earth," because even if the net amount of arable land remained the same, the cost and effort associated with moving all the people and infrastructure around would cause a Hell (excuse the pun) of a lot of discomfort and despair. For example, if there was another ice age where Europe froze but the Sahara turned green, we'd have an entire continent worth of refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean, and an entire continent worth of cities to rebuild.
If you think about it, it doesn't even matter if climate change is natural or man-made. Either way, it's bad.
did I miss the scientific study that shows that having fewer kids makes you more intelligent?
I DID NOT CLAIM THAT! In fact, I claimed the converse: that being more intelligent makes you less likely to have large numbers of kids.
Now, let me ask you a few questions about this engineer: Can he care for his family, or are they on welfare or something? Were each of his children planned, or did his partner get pregnant accidentally? Does he really "love his kids and love having a family," or does he regret it?
I suspect you'll tell me the answers to each of these questions are the former possibilities, and I don't doubt it. What that means, though, is that having 8 kids was a good decision for him (because, as an engineer, he actually is capable of supporting a large family financially, etc.), and that he likely made it rationally.
On the other hand, this is generally not the case for stupid people, which is why things like DFCS and welfare exist. It's not that making bad choices made them stupid, it's that being stupid caused them to make bad choices!
But it's possible to hold fundamentalist beliefs (i.e. the Bible is the inspired word of God) without overly relying on dogma to hold that belief.
Sure, but it's not possible to call those beliefs "scientific!"
Let me ask you this: can you scientifically investigate whether something is the "inspired word of God?" The answer is no -- but not because I'm being closed-minded. The reason the answer is no is that it's defined to be such. Therefore, any matter of "faith" cannot have the scientific method applied to it: it cannot be turned into a theory, cannot be tested by experiment, and cannot be proven true or false.
By this fact alone, religion does not belong in science class. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not or whether it's desirable to teach or not; it simply doesn't fit in within the cognitive framework of science! Presenting the book of Revelations as credible evidence against global warming -- which is the goal of the school board in question, even if they can only get away with implying it -- makes exactly the same amount of sense as trying to solve a math problem by writing a poem about it.
And I think we need to be honest: any beliefs we hold, even those regarding the epistemic respectability of science, eventually are justified by a dogma if you as the question "why?" with enough repetitions.
This is not true. Luckily, canadacow explained why already, so I'll just quote him:
The problem with said statement is that with a stream of "whys", an honest scientist/skeptic will eventually answer "I don't know, but let's try to find out". On the other hand a theologian/fundamentalist will instead say, "God did it." This is dogma on the part of the theologian and clearly separates the two epistemologies.
In fact, this is the core of the issue: the fundamentalists are trying to trick the children into thinking it's okay not to ask "why!"
My current take on it is that while there may be some self-proclaimed Christians who have little justification for their faith in God, there are some I've met who seem to have pretty decent justification, either based on personal experiences or by philosophical judgments on the matter.
Good for them! But it doesn't matter -- those personal experiences and philosophical judgements are irrelevant unless they can be tested experimentally! Do you see the problem here?
science (which isn't a perfect system, and does IMHO involve a lot of subjectivity in how it's typically practiced)
If it's subjective, it's not science. Of course, it's wonderful that you brought up the point that subjectivity is a problem. Now, consider this: teaching children that subjectivity is okay (i.e., they can ignore results they don't like and instead go on "faith") only adds to the problem!
they may have good warrant to choose the religious conclusions on the matter.
Fine, but they can't arrive at that conclusion within the bounds of the mental framework of science.
I thought the point of science (for most people, anyway) was to discover truths about the physical world, no? Teaching skepticism, systematic investigation, and logic is a helpful means to that end, but teaching those things isn't (at least to me) the goal.
Without skepticism, systematic investigation, and logic, you can't tell when you've discovered the truth! Sure, you can claim to know the truth, and you can believe you know the truth, but there's no good reason for anyone else to believe you.
but you're attacking a group of people specifically because they're expressing skepticism
But they're not! What they're specifically expressing is a rejection of skepticism, by trying to pass off non-scientific faith as science. In fact, they are attacking skepticism.
Debating the issues only works after people have been taught to think critically, and the fundamental problem with these fundamentalists is that they're trying to prevent that from happening in the first place.
The problem isn't in saying that "global warming is only a theory;" the problem is elevating the words of the Bible to the same status. Whatever the Bible says is not a theory no matter how much someone might believe in it, because it's not scientific.
Let me put it this way: the whole point of science is to teach skepticism, systematic investigation, and logic. When these assholes try to tell kids that the Bible has the same status as scientific theories, they're making a direct attack on those principles. Skepticism is not faith, investigation is not dogma, and logic is not irrationality, yet these people are trying to damage the children by brainwashing them into confusing the two!
...and not because of global warming! It's doomed because inclination to have children is inversely proportional to intelligence -- the idiots are out-breeding us!
once they get rolling with the main units, they may look at a distinctive commercial derivative for individual sale.
What do you mean, "derivative?" All they need to do to is use a different color plastic for the case on the commercial version. That'll make it plenty "distinctive," and it's easy enough that they can sell them immediately!
He wasn't talking about buying one from the developers, he was talking about buying one from some warlord who hijacked the shipment and hocked them on Ebay for ammo money.
What I am trying to say is that although education is certainly the only way to solve the problems in the third-world, I am still not sure if OLPC is the best way to provide that education.
What you (and everyone else who say this kind of thing fail to realize) is that whether this is the "best" method for giving them education is irrelevant. The people behind this project are hackers -- their area of expertise is computers, so computers is what their project is damn well going to be about! It's not a choice between this and some other hypothetical solution; it's a choice between this and nothing at all.
So seriously, if you think you can do a better job, do it yourself. Otherwise, shut the fuck up because you have no right to criticize!
It seems to me that this is a pipe dream without a fully regulated hardware path
This is a pipe dream even with a fully regulated hardware path, because in a lot of cases the only difference between an infringing use and a non-infringing one is the human's intent.
Well, they can't call it the "iGo" because then Toyota would get mad.
Personally, I think it ought to be called "iPod" -- the multiple functions certainly make it more of a "pod" than those things that were basically only media players ever were.
And yes, eGo would be a great name for it too! Of course, then they'd need to partner with iD to put mobile Doom on it...
A North Sea oil platform isn't exactly an "island paradise." You'd be much better off getting something in the South Pacific instead. According to the episode of "Man vs. Wild" I saw the other day, there are lots of little islands there that are uninhabited because they have no source of fresh water, but that could be solved by desalinization or collecting rainwater.
My understanding was that the Mac did a variation of this, counting the number of days from the beginning of a certain year (I think the year was 1950) and that is why a Y2K-type problem wouldn't affect the original Macs until 2048. I wasn't aware other OSes didn't have this problem.
Actually, UNIX (including OS X, AFAIK) measures the number of seconds since 1 January 1970.
NOW w[h]ere are the posters proclaiming how this is a good thing that another actor doesn't get paid too much money?
They have nothing to proclaim, because if you'd read the fucking summary (let alone the article) you'd see that Harrison Ford "instead opted for the same amount [of money] to play Indiana Jones for the fourth time" (emphasis added).
You realize he does want to play Indiana Jones again, don't you? Indiana Jones is no less youthful or athletic than Han Solo. If he can do one, he can equally well do the other!
Slashdot Mirror
Saying that we've regressed 2000 years is an insult... to the Romans! 2000 years ago they actually had a more enlightened view about sex than we do now.
If you want to talk about regression, complain about the Christian church (Roman Catholic and otherwise) from about 400 A.D. to today.
No, you must take a sledge hammer to each and every one of them. It's the only way to be sure.
Oh yeah? Then where does the SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR figure into all this? Since when was it the teacher's job to maintain the computers instead of, you know, teaching?!
Do you realize that you're a complete dumbass?
...but not in SCIENCE class! How many fucking times do I have to keep repeating it before you people understand?!!
Science class should only teach science. Debate is not science. Therefore, debate should not be taught in science class.
If you want to teach debate, go for it. I think it's a great idea. But do it in debate class, not science class!
Poor guy... you missed the point entirely! What made Star Trek interesting was the exploration of ethical and philosophical issues, and figuring out interesting and novel solutions to the problems the crew encountered. Star Trek has had episodes and movies about the following topics: religion, race relations, euthanasia, conservation, cybernetics, the definition of "life," the definition of "sentient life," love, hate, war, peace, etc. -- way too much stuff to list here. That's what made it great, not the technology. If all you care about are gadgets, you're better off watching a Bond flick instead.
That's a contradiction: to chose anything at all implies planning. The opposite of planning is not a conscious decision to leave the matter to chance; the opposite of planning is to act irrationally without considering the consequences at all.
Glad to hear it! Do you still believe I'm "ridiculing someone else to make [myself] feel better?" (Incidentally, I'm curious: what would I have been making myself feel better about?)
Hmm... you've just made me realize that I need to retract my statement. I should have said that it's the uneducated (not unintelligent) people who are causing the problem, because I have no doubt that people in the third world are just as likely to be intelligent as those in the first world but less likely to be educated.
Ah, but were they in the context of science class? I suspect not!
And that's exactly the problem here: the whole point of science is that it defines a rigorous framework for investigating nature, called the Scientific Method. To lend credence to so-called "theories" that have no basis in observation or logic and whose validity cannot be evaluated experimentally is to attack science itself. Obviously, therefore, such non-theories should not be presented in science class!
If the school really wants to debate whether science is a desirable way to interpret the world, I say they should go for it! However, such a debate should be presented in the wider context of philosophy, not science.
I suspect the people who attack science and logic are incapable of understanding the point you just made.
That depends on what you mean by "Hell." All of Hell wouldn't necessarily be hot, you know -- in fact, Dante wrote that the 9th Circle is cold because of the Devil flapping his wings.
But that's beside the point. I submit to you that it's reasonable to say that any climate change could create a "Hell on Earth," because even if the net amount of arable land remained the same, the cost and effort associated with moving all the people and infrastructure around would cause a Hell (excuse the pun) of a lot of discomfort and despair. For example, if there was another ice age where Europe froze but the Sahara turned green, we'd have an entire continent worth of refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean, and an entire continent worth of cities to rebuild.
If you think about it, it doesn't even matter if climate change is natural or man-made. Either way, it's bad.
I DID NOT CLAIM THAT! In fact, I claimed the converse: that being more intelligent makes you less likely to have large numbers of kids.
Now, let me ask you a few questions about this engineer: Can he care for his family, or are they on welfare or something? Were each of his children planned, or did his partner get pregnant accidentally? Does he really "love his kids and love having a family," or does he regret it?
I suspect you'll tell me the answers to each of these questions are the former possibilities, and I don't doubt it. What that means, though, is that having 8 kids was a good decision for him (because, as an engineer, he actually is capable of supporting a large family financially, etc.), and that he likely made it rationally.
On the other hand, this is generally not the case for stupid people, which is why things like DFCS and welfare exist. It's not that making bad choices made them stupid, it's that being stupid caused them to make bad choices!
Sure, but it's not possible to call those beliefs "scientific!"
Let me ask you this: can you scientifically investigate whether something is the "inspired word of God?" The answer is no -- but not because I'm being closed-minded. The reason the answer is no is that it's defined to be such. Therefore, any matter of "faith" cannot have the scientific method applied to it: it cannot be turned into a theory, cannot be tested by experiment, and cannot be proven true or false.
By this fact alone, religion does not belong in science class. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not or whether it's desirable to teach or not; it simply doesn't fit in within the cognitive framework of science! Presenting the book of Revelations as credible evidence against global warming -- which is the goal of the school board in question, even if they can only get away with implying it -- makes exactly the same amount of sense as trying to solve a math problem by writing a poem about it.
This is not true. Luckily, canadacow explained why already, so I'll just quote him:
In fact, this is the core of the issue: the fundamentalists are trying to trick the children into thinking it's okay not to ask "why!"
Good for them! But it doesn't matter -- those personal experiences and philosophical judgements are irrelevant unless they can be tested experimentally! Do you see the problem here?
If it's subjective, it's not science. Of course, it's wonderful that you brought up the point that subjectivity is a problem. Now, consider this: teaching children that subjectivity is okay (i.e., they can ignore results they don't like and instead go on "faith") only adds to the problem!
Fine, but they can't arrive at that conclusion within the bounds of the mental framework of science.
Without skepticism, systematic investigation, and logic, you can't tell when you've discovered the truth! Sure, you can claim to know the truth, and you can believe you know the truth, but there's no good reason for anyone else to believe you.
But they're not! What they're specifically expressing is a rejection of skepticism, by trying to pass off non-scientific faith as science. In fact, they are attacking skepticism.
Debating the issues only works after people have been taught to think critically, and the fundamental problem with these fundamentalists is that they're trying to prevent that from happening in the first place.
The problem isn't in saying that "global warming is only a theory;" the problem is elevating the words of the Bible to the same status. Whatever the Bible says is not a theory no matter how much someone might believe in it, because it's not scientific.
Let me put it this way: the whole point of science is to teach skepticism, systematic investigation, and logic. When these assholes try to tell kids that the Bible has the same status as scientific theories, they're making a direct attack on those principles. Skepticism is not faith, investigation is not dogma, and logic is not irrationality, yet these people are trying to damage the children by brainwashing them into confusing the two!
...and not because of global warming! It's doomed because inclination to have children is inversely proportional to intelligence -- the idiots are out-breeding us!
(Say it with me:)
rAmen!
Yep, that's what happens when they don't teach about condoms in schools!
On the contrary: I'd be terrified Microsoft would crash my brain!
What do you mean, "derivative?" All they need to do to is use a different color plastic for the case on the commercial version. That'll make it plenty "distinctive," and it's easy enough that they can sell them immediately!
He wasn't talking about buying one from the developers, he was talking about buying one from some warlord who hijacked the shipment and hocked them on Ebay for ammo money.
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" -- Vroomfondel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
What you (and everyone else who say this kind of thing fail to realize) is that whether this is the "best" method for giving them education is irrelevant. The people behind this project are hackers -- their area of expertise is computers, so computers is what their project is damn well going to be about! It's not a choice between this and some other hypothetical solution; it's a choice between this and nothing at all.
So seriously, if you think you can do a better job, do it yourself. Otherwise, shut the fuck up because you have no right to criticize!
This is a pipe dream even with a fully regulated hardware path, because in a lot of cases the only difference between an infringing use and a non-infringing one is the human's intent.
Well, they can't call it the "iGo" because then Toyota would get mad.
Personally, I think it ought to be called "iPod" -- the multiple functions certainly make it more of a "pod" than those things that were basically only media players ever were.
And yes, eGo would be a great name for it too! Of course, then they'd need to partner with iD to put mobile Doom on it...
A North Sea oil platform isn't exactly an "island paradise." You'd be much better off getting something in the South Pacific instead. According to the episode of "Man vs. Wild" I saw the other day, there are lots of little islands there that are uninhabited because they have no source of fresh water, but that could be solved by desalinization or collecting rainwater.
Actually, UNIX (including OS X, AFAIK) measures the number of seconds since 1 January 1970.
They have nothing to proclaim, because if you'd read the fucking summary (let alone the article) you'd see that Harrison Ford "instead opted for the same amount [of money] to play Indiana Jones for the fourth time" (emphasis added).
You realize he does want to play Indiana Jones again, don't you? Indiana Jones is no less youthful or athletic than Han Solo. If he can do one, he can equally well do the other!