Just FYI, NeXT did offer fat binaries when OPENSTEP/Mach ran on x86, m68k, HPPA, and Sparc. That was the origin of the 'lipo' tool as well, which was funny as hell, I agree.:-)
What I wonder, though, is how "self-fulfilling" this is. If we don't allow people to drink, smoke, have sex, drive a car, vote, or fight in a war until age x, isn't it possible that age x is when these new experiences and events in the environment spur brain development? I'd say that's very likely considering the evidence from past times when all those things happened earlier in life and produced responsible adults much more quickly than today.
Kapellen: Play a game with you? Yeah! That'd be awesome! 30 seconds later...
Bono: So, (boop beep boop) have you considered the problems in Ghana?
Kapellen: Well, err...no. Not really. (boop beep)
Bono: Well, you should. (beep beep) Do you know how high their interest rates are on (boop) Monetary Fund loans are? (beep)
Kapellen: Um, yeah. (boopity boop) That sucks for sure.
Bono: And the starving children, (beep) with flies on their lips and distending stomachs (boop boop) are crying out in pain while the bloody worms are boring holes in their eye-sockets just so they can get an outside view of the world. (beepity boop)
Kapellen: Well, I...
Bono: And even the worms are starving (boink beep) because there isn't enough meat on a starving child's large intestine to make a dent in their hunger.
Kapellen: Ugh. I think I'm getting sick...
Bono: You're getting sick!? Have you ever had to experience (beepity boink) a bad case of Ebola? Have you? (beep boop boink)
Kapellen: Ummmm...
Bono: Have you ever (beep) had to smell the bloody stool and vomit of a child whose parents were hacked to death with machetes by roving bands of warlords? Have you?!?
Kapellen: *baaaarf* Oohhhh...
Bono: Yes! Yes! Just like that. (boink beep boink)
I get the impression it's the same with Americans travelling to Europe. Europeans have this vision of Americans that we're all a bunch of whiny demanding assholes. Unfortunately, most of the Americans who are interested in visiting Europe probably fit that profile.
The Politically Correct thing to do is allow this behavior on a couple of servers only for starters, and increase the number of servers if these become over crowded.
I would describe that as the libertarian thing to do. My perception of the use of the term "Politically Correct" would imply forcing school teachers to read propaganda to students about homosexuality to "correct social injustice." At least, that's how the term is usually used.
The U.N. There's already such clamor for an end to national governments and sovereignty that it's largely a matter of time before there's only one alternative: the U.N.
Central versus local is orthogonal to libertarian versus authoritarian. I'll take a limited central government over an overbearing local goverment any day.
My contention is that you may not be able to have a limited central government. Since there are no other options, a central government can expand to fill all available space and challenge any practice or belief you hold dear. Or as Jefferson put it, a government large enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.
Consider also religious and cultural standards. Why shouldn't people in Utah be allowed to marry more than one wife? I think it's wrong but I don't see why it's my job here in South Carolina to stop it. There are an awful lot of things that people simply will not and cannot agree on. Many of them are portrayed as being black and white by the mainstream, and perhaps some of them actually are. But responsibility lies with individuals within a particular cultural, economic, or religious group to deal with it. If they don't, and the practice is truly bad, it will end in disaster for them and the practice will stop. Those watching from the outside will be enlightened. Are abortion and gay marriage truly destructive to society? Let those who favor them try it and we'll find out. But that can never happen if those values are universalized, one way or the other.
That's all I'm really shooting for here. Not to mention the fact that the structure of the government described in the Constitution requires that approach unless and until the Constitution is explicitly changed. Of course, there are so few people paying serious attention these days that Constitutional government is an unrealistic goal.
Ideally, the central/federal and local governments act as checks on each other. I certainly agree that the balance has tilted too far in the direction of centralism (I wrote a little about that here).
Well put. It's funny to watch Left and Right advance and back away from Federalism constantly. But then, they're both built on the same foundation: the Puritans' vision of a shining city on a hill. They mostly just disagree on which hill and what color the light should be.
That's why I threw slavery into the mix. The hidden philosophical argument behind the Union and Confederacy was the appropriation and modification of the Puritans' Biblical interpretation by the Northeastern Transcendentalist movement. The Northern religious establishment won out on the issue of political activism but later split into what we know as Liberal and Conservative over interpretations of what the Bible dictates for society. That's why both sides often use identical arguments for supposedly opposed ideologies. Of course, there were also influences from Marxism and other philosophies. But they were largely interpreted in the language and tenor of Puritan utopianism.
Sure they do. "All politics is local", after all. The power of a federal government is largely abstract; if you want to rule people's day-to-day lives, become mayor.
I was actually referring to the concentration of money more than detailed day-to-day operations.
Land ownership is a creation of the government that issues the deed; if it's not my government but that of another locality, why should I care?
If one respects borders and sovereignty it makes a difference. But that's part of the point in question here.:-)
Ah. Like, it's supposed to be so much better to be oppressed by a local rather than a national government?
No. But your chances of being oppressed rise when centralization occurs, just as your chances of being shafted rise when one player monopolizes an economic market. Also, power breeds power. Large governments with large budgets attract people who like power and influence. Power-hungry people do not gravitate toward smaller and less significant governments.
The idea that local governments are better for liberty than a national government was laid to rest between the passage of Amendment XIV and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
The idea was never laid to rest. The Central Government merely usurped our power as sovereigns in an illegal fashion. Popular sovereignty means the people are the King. As the King, we delegated authority to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The authority granted never included anything approaching the authority the Congress has treasonously taken for itself. The 14th Amendment did not grant Congress that authority, nor did it repeal the 10th Amendment, which gives extra force to our sovereign rights. The American people today are like Louis XVI. We have lost our rightful control over our public servants through neglect of oversight. When we lose our head, we'll have only ourselves to blame.
Who granted anyone the authority to stop me from carrying out my anti-slavery raid, then? I didn't.
God. Or the people to whom the land belongs. Take your pick. If you want to carry out anti-slavery raids, go to Africa and do it now. There's still plenty of slavery there. But I doubt you will have much success.
The solution here is that the upper ranges of government coordinate between the municipalities. The national government coordinates commerce and transportation between states.
Absolutely. Well, that's the way it started out. The state governments were the real governments that exercised moral authority and derived their legitimacy from the citizens. The Central Government was created to coordinate on the basic administrative issues that states could not easily agree on but which were causing serious practical problems under the Articles of Confederation (currencies, foreign policy and treaties, common defense, interstate transportation, etc.)
Yes, that is one of the tradeoffs of distributed government. The upside is that communities, states, or even regions can make laws that best suit their culture and legal needs. Plains states are going to need different laws from coastal states, simply because of the different economic sources of income (agriculture versus transportation). But things are that way right now. In fact, the Constitution, as it was intended to function, gave even more latitude to state and local governments than it does now. The Bill of Rights, for example, was intended to be a restriction only on the actions of the Central Government. States were free to draw up their own Bills of Rights, and many did.
This is the reason that Thomas Jefferson regularly proclaimed days of "religious observance" as the governor of Virginia but steadfastly refused to do so when serving as President. The restrictions on the Central Government would not, in his opinion, permit him to do that as President. But he was perfectly free to "establish religion" while a state governor.
This is the situation [1] that sparked the famous phrase "wall of separation between church and state." Jefferson received a letter (and an enormous cheese-wheel, which is an interesting story in its own right) from a Baptist organization requesting clarification on his anti-religious-establishment stance as President. He responded with a well-thought-out letter that included the famous phrase. Of course, it has been severely twisted since then. But in context, it makes perfect sense.
[1] This is all from memory, so I may miss some details or confuse something.
To put "slavery" - the use of force to hold another human being to labor - in the same category wity "drug use" - the private decision to alter one's body chemistry - is ridiculous.
In moral terms, certinaly they're different. But not from the standpoint of local vs. central control. There are people in the world, some of them are or have been in charge of governments, who see drug or alcohol use being as bad or worse than slavery. Remember prohibition? The only safeguard against moral dictatorship is to keep the moral reach of governments small, localized, and competitive.
If the next town over is allowing the keeping of slaves, I say we get a posse together and go free 'em, using whatever force is necessary.
A stirring sentiment, and one that I agree with in theory. But if they're not threatening you militarily, this would be overstepping your bounds. Governments and peoples cannot take military action against anyone in any place that they deem to be morally corrupt simply on the grounds that they are morally corrupt. Individuals and governments were never granted that authority by anyone.
The case of slavery doesn't fit here. Suppose Town S has slavery, while Town N does not. In a free market of laws, someone disagreeing with Town S's policy could simply go to Town N. But of course, the people living in Town S who have a problem with slavery are not free to go to Town N, because, well... they're slaves.
A free market is all very well, provided that all participants are free. If some are slaves, then that market is definitely not free.
You misunderstand the metaphor. Those who are subjected to legislation are not the participants, any more than customers are the participants in a economic free market. The legislators are the participants.
If slavery is an inferior and self-destructive way to organize society (and I think it is), it will be the downfall of societies that embrace it. Meanwhile, those societies that embrace free labor tend to succeed and prosper more freely.
Let's put it in another context—one that is slightly less emotional. The inhabitants of the Eastern Bloc nations during the Cold War could not vote with their feet. Should the West have launched a military invasion to force them to "do the right thing"? I say not. Rather, we simply let them crumble from within, a victim to their own deslf-destructive vice. (Ronald Reagan helped push them over the edge by reducing the amount of help the West gave to the Eastern Bloc, but that's non-interference.)
I like to think of it as a "Free Market of Laws." Municipalities compete on tax codes, restrictions on drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and firearms, and on anything else government tends to get involved in. Unfortunately, there are so many people with Sacred Cows (abortion, the "temperance" movement, slavery, drug use, whatever) that they believe must be universally abolished or allowed, that they'll never allow local populations to compete on it and see what's *really* best. They just can't stand the fact that somebody, somewhere, is doing something they deem wrong, or not allowing something they deem necessary. In the process, they become advocates of monopoly power in moral government.
But how many of those people will (rightfully) complain about monopolies in the private sector?
Of course they have a choice. The people who don't have a choice currently live in China. And remember, laws aren't changed by being complicit with them. Ask any one in the civil rights movement.
Slightly off-topic here, but I don't believe the freedom riders really had all that much to do with things changing in this country. I think it had more to do with Martin Luther King's assassination. I think it made a lot of people wake up and seriously examine the situation and their role in it.
Microsoft often moves to support standards, but then tweaks their behavior in such a way that the net result favors their implementation. This behavior even has a name. Yes, I see that the Microsoft employee says their implementation is consistent with other browsers, but for how long? And how consistent is it now, really?
From my reading of the IE blog (and a few other sources where Microsoft employees comment), I'd say this is sincere on the part of the team. Individual Microsoft programmers and designers usually seem to be pretty decent folks who really want to make a great product.
But they won't be the ones who actually make the long-range strategic decisions. And eventually, they'll be constrained by limitations from above, in addition to the usual limitations of software development.
Microsoft has proven it can make a good web browser. When they are backed into a corner.
And if IE7 makes a big splash, we'll end up waiting another 6 years for Microsoft to catch up to whatever the state-of-the-art in browsing becomes because they'll ditch the project once they deem it no longer critical to their strategic position.
Slashdot Mirror
Just FYI, NeXT did offer fat binaries when OPENSTEP/Mach ran on x86, m68k, HPPA, and Sparc. That was the origin of the 'lipo' tool as well, which was funny as hell, I agree. :-)
Could you fill me in? I have no idea who the hell Maynard James Keenan is, and I've only barely heard of Tool. :-)
What I wonder, though, is how "self-fulfilling" this is. If we don't allow people to drink, smoke, have sex, drive a car, vote, or fight in a war until age x, isn't it possible that age x is when these new experiences and events in the environment spur brain development? I'd say that's very likely considering the evidence from past times when all those things happened earlier in life and produced responsible adults much more quickly than today.
Kapellen: Play a game with you? Yeah! That'd be awesome!
30 seconds later...
Bono: So, (boop beep boop) have you considered the problems in Ghana?
Kapellen: Well, err...no. Not really. (boop beep)
Bono: Well, you should. (beep beep) Do you know how high their interest rates are on (boop) Monetary Fund loans are? (beep)
Kapellen: Um, yeah. (boopity boop) That sucks for sure.
Bono: And the starving children, (beep) with flies on their lips and distending stomachs (boop boop) are crying out in pain while the bloody worms are boring holes in their eye-sockets just so they can get an outside view of the world. (beepity boop)
Kapellen: Well, I...
Bono: And even the worms are starving (boink beep) because there isn't enough meat on a starving child's large intestine to make a dent in their hunger.
Kapellen: Ugh. I think I'm getting sick...
Bono: You're getting sick!? Have you ever had to experience (beepity boink) a bad case of Ebola? Have you? (beep boop boink)
Kapellen: Ummmm...
Bono: Have you ever (beep) had to smell the bloody stool and vomit of a child whose parents were hacked to death with machetes by roving bands of warlords? Have you?!?
Kapellen: *baaaarf* Oohhhh...
Bono: Yes! Yes! Just like that. (boink beep boink)
Et cetera...
I get the impression it's the same with Americans travelling to Europe. Europeans have this vision of Americans that we're all a bunch of whiny demanding assholes. Unfortunately, most of the Americans who are interested in visiting Europe probably fit that profile.
Prince is the guy who said "in this life, you're on your own"! You mean he doesn't actually believe that?
They did. But all the people from the first world decided that it was unjust for the other world to exist.
I would describe that as the libertarian thing to do. My perception of the use of the term "Politically Correct" would imply forcing school teachers to read propaganda to students about homosexuality to "correct social injustice." At least, that's how the term is usually used.
The U.N. There's already such clamor for an end to national governments and sovereignty that it's largely a matter of time before there's only one alternative: the U.N.
My contention is that you may not be able to have a limited central government. Since there are no other options, a central government can expand to fill all available space and challenge any practice or belief you hold dear. Or as Jefferson put it, a government large enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.
Consider also religious and cultural standards. Why shouldn't people in Utah be allowed to marry more than one wife? I think it's wrong but I don't see why it's my job here in South Carolina to stop it. There are an awful lot of things that people simply will not and cannot agree on. Many of them are portrayed as being black and white by the mainstream, and perhaps some of them actually are. But responsibility lies with individuals within a particular cultural, economic, or religious group to deal with it. If they don't, and the practice is truly bad, it will end in disaster for them and the practice will stop. Those watching from the outside will be enlightened. Are abortion and gay marriage truly destructive to society? Let those who favor them try it and we'll find out. But that can never happen if those values are universalized, one way or the other.
That's all I'm really shooting for here. Not to mention the fact that the structure of the government described in the Constitution requires that approach unless and until the Constitution is explicitly changed. Of course, there are so few people paying serious attention these days that Constitutional government is an unrealistic goal.
Well put. It's funny to watch Left and Right advance and back away from Federalism constantly. But then, they're both built on the same foundation: the Puritans' vision of a shining city on a hill. They mostly just disagree on which hill and what color the light should be.
That's why I threw slavery into the mix. The hidden philosophical argument behind the Union and Confederacy was the appropriation and modification of the Puritans' Biblical interpretation by the Northeastern Transcendentalist movement. The Northern religious establishment won out on the issue of political activism but later split into what we know as Liberal and Conservative over interpretations of what the Bible dictates for society. That's why both sides often use identical arguments for supposedly opposed ideologies. Of course, there were also influences from Marxism and other philosophies. But they were largely interpreted in the language and tenor of Puritan utopianism.
I was actually referring to the concentration of money more than detailed day-to-day operations.
If one respects borders and sovereignty it makes a difference. But that's part of the point in question here. :-)
No. But your chances of being oppressed rise when centralization occurs, just as your chances of being shafted rise when one player monopolizes an economic market. Also, power breeds power. Large governments with large budgets attract people who like power and influence. Power-hungry people do not gravitate toward smaller and less significant governments.
The idea was never laid to rest. The Central Government merely usurped our power as sovereigns in an illegal fashion. Popular sovereignty means the people are the King. As the King, we delegated authority to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The authority granted never included anything approaching the authority the Congress has treasonously taken for itself. The 14th Amendment did not grant Congress that authority, nor did it repeal the 10th Amendment, which gives extra force to our sovereign rights. The American people today are like Louis XVI. We have lost our rightful control over our public servants through neglect of oversight. When we lose our head, we'll have only ourselves to blame.
God. Or the people to whom the land belongs. Take your pick. If you want to carry out anti-slavery raids, go to Africa and do it now. There's still plenty of slavery there. But I doubt you will have much success.
Absolutely. Well, that's the way it started out. The state governments were the real governments that exercised moral authority and derived their legitimacy from the citizens. The Central Government was created to coordinate on the basic administrative issues that states could not easily agree on but which were causing serious practical problems under the Articles of Confederation (currencies, foreign policy and treaties, common defense, interstate transportation, etc.)
Yes, that is one of the tradeoffs of distributed government. The upside is that communities, states, or even regions can make laws that best suit their culture and legal needs. Plains states are going to need different laws from coastal states, simply because of the different economic sources of income (agriculture versus transportation). But things are that way right now. In fact, the Constitution, as it was intended to function, gave even more latitude to state and local governments than it does now. The Bill of Rights, for example, was intended to be a restriction only on the actions of the Central Government. States were free to draw up their own Bills of Rights, and many did.
This is the reason that Thomas Jefferson regularly proclaimed days of "religious observance" as the governor of Virginia but steadfastly refused to do so when serving as President. The restrictions on the Central Government would not, in his opinion, permit him to do that as President. But he was perfectly free to "establish religion" while a state governor.
This is the situation [1] that sparked the famous phrase "wall of separation between church and state." Jefferson received a letter (and an enormous cheese-wheel, which is an interesting story in its own right) from a Baptist organization requesting clarification on his anti-religious-establishment stance as President. He responded with a well-thought-out letter that included the famous phrase. Of course, it has been severely twisted since then. But in context, it makes perfect sense.
[1] This is all from memory, so I may miss some details or confuse something.
In moral terms, certinaly they're different. But not from the standpoint of local vs. central control. There are people in the world, some of them are or have been in charge of governments, who see drug or alcohol use being as bad or worse than slavery. Remember prohibition? The only safeguard against moral dictatorship is to keep the moral reach of governments small, localized, and competitive.
A stirring sentiment, and one that I agree with in theory. But if they're not threatening you militarily, this would be overstepping your bounds. Governments and peoples cannot take military action against anyone in any place that they deem to be morally corrupt simply on the grounds that they are morally corrupt. Individuals and governments were never granted that authority by anyone.
You misunderstand the metaphor. Those who are subjected to legislation are not the participants, any more than customers are the participants in a economic free market. The legislators are the participants.
If slavery is an inferior and self-destructive way to organize society (and I think it is), it will be the downfall of societies that embrace it. Meanwhile, those societies that embrace free labor tend to succeed and prosper more freely.
Let's put it in another context—one that is slightly less emotional. The inhabitants of the Eastern Bloc nations during the Cold War could not vote with their feet. Should the West have launched a military invasion to force them to "do the right thing"? I say not. Rather, we simply let them crumble from within, a victim to their own deslf-destructive vice. (Ronald Reagan helped push them over the edge by reducing the amount of help the West gave to the Eastern Bloc, but that's non-interference.)
I like to think of it as a "Free Market of Laws." Municipalities compete on tax codes, restrictions on drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and firearms, and on anything else government tends to get involved in. Unfortunately, there are so many people with Sacred Cows (abortion, the "temperance" movement, slavery, drug use, whatever) that they believe must be universally abolished or allowed, that they'll never allow local populations to compete on it and see what's *really* best. They just can't stand the fact that somebody, somewhere, is doing something they deem wrong, or not allowing something they deem necessary. In the process, they become advocates of monopoly power in moral government.
But how many of those people will (rightfully) complain about monopolies in the private sector?
Slightly off-topic here, but I don't believe the freedom riders really had all that much to do with things changing in this country. I think it had more to do with Martin Luther King's assassination. I think it made a lot of people wake up and seriously examine the situation and their role in it.
Yes, the CSS issues (and the lack of proper alpha transparency for PNG) are what I had in mind.
From my reading of the IE blog (and a few other sources where Microsoft employees comment), I'd say this is sincere on the part of the team. Individual Microsoft programmers and designers usually seem to be pretty decent folks who really want to make a great product.
But they won't be the ones who actually make the long-range strategic decisions. And eventually, they'll be constrained by limitations from above, in addition to the usual limitations of software development.
This is off-topic, but that's a great .sig. :-)
And if IE7 makes a big splash, we'll end up waiting another 6 years for Microsoft to catch up to whatever the state-of-the-art in browsing becomes because they'll ditch the project once they deem it no longer critical to their strategic position.
It's OK. It will just announce the time for Sam Waterston to jump into action.
What, and lose all this sparkling repartee? Killjoy.
That's gonna leave a mark. I can't wait to see the replay on ESPN.
Well, "Ars doesn't make many mistakes but when it does, boy, are they doozies!"