I just want to say that this is one of the most interesting comments I've seen on Slashdot. Not because it is well-written (it is), but because I learnt something from it, which is too rare on Slashdot. I'm not a Linux zealot (though I use it exclusively at home now) and am bracing myself for when it does become a popular target for widespread attack. This is an argument about Linux security that I've read that really addresses it which I hadn't heard before. The "thousand eyes" principle may provide another security advantage over Windows, but I don't know. This point however, is very well argued. Thank you.
H.
Well the article did give its own definition of Introvert and you are right that in the context of the article the poster you are replying to is wrong. But the word introvert is not the article authors to define. It's useful in the article for him to say what he means, but once we move outside that article to discussing introversion elsewhere, we're going to run into problems because "introvert" does suggest to most people what the poster you're replying to thinks it does.
gardyloo... is not the only one. It's an interesting article that talks, not from my point of view, but from one that I can recognize. The issue I would take with the article is to do with the term introvert. I think the author has decided they are an introvert (according to their definition) and attributed a lot of things to it that are actually more general. Whether extrovert, introvert or, more commonly in anyone who has reached a level of maturity in who their personal development, someone who is appopriately extroverted or introverted in any given circumstance, it doesn't matter. If you are focussed on something, you don't want to be distracted with trivia. And for a lot of us, we are people who spend a lot of our time focused on something. Similarly, if you are involved in a lot of "meaningful" work or activities, then you will likely see general chat with a low information content as trivial. Is the author implying that only introverted people are involved in serious work?
But aside from what I think is the mis-attribution of his attitude to being an "introvert" personality type, I recognize a lot of what he's saying. Both the annoyance of people who now wish to waste your time because they don't have things to fill it like you do, or do but are out of sync with you, and the problem of isolation imposed by needing to withdraw from the always-on communication channels.
Prior to the Noise-Age, activities that filled people's idle time were passive or required physically meeting up with others. Now that is not the case and we are feeling the effects just starting.
This has been explained in this thread many times over, but I'll try again using very small words.
He deliberately chose programs that the company he is shilling for will never port to the platform he is deriding.
And I will explain to you in very small words: When your point is that not everything you want to run is available for a target platform, it is correct to talk about the things that are not available. Re-read my original post - that is exactly what I said. Nor did he, in the post that I read, "deride" GNU/Linux. He just made the point that he wants to use certain applications and that therefore Linux is not an option to him / his users. This is a factual point that you have not addressed. You have however accused him personally of bias in place of that, which is an ad hominem.
Technophile just means someone who likes technology. It's independent of how well someone understands technology or the consequences thereof. But excepting the use of that word, I agree with the intent. It's usually the people who are most capable with a technology who best understand when not to use it.
Well, I'll admit - I didn't expect such an entertaining reply!:) Especially like the "Bias? This is SLASHDOT!!!!" banner change. But regards your comment - no I wasn't aware of the history of either of you and lack the context that you so obviously work in. Thus for myself (and I guess a lot of other people), flamewars in which two factions twist arguments to win, aren't necessarily productive. Don't wish to detract from your fun, but when I see a comment that shows the pushing of an agenda, that side immediately loses points from the audience. I guess it depends on what you seek to gain from the battle whether that matters or not.
Well whether you meant shill as in directly paid by Microsoft or merely shill as in "their income is tied to its prosperity" it's still an ad hominem in place of actually addressing what he said.
Well that depends if they're trying to convince you (who is plainly not inclined to be convinced) or the vast numbers of people who read the threads without posting. Reading through it as I have been, I find your description of the thread as a argument to be "won" is very much a sign to me that I should regard what you say carefully. The moment people see things in terms of sides, there's a strong pressure to start arguing to win, rather than to arrive at truth.
If he was anything other than an obvious troll, he would not have used intentionally platform-specific examples.
Sorry? He shouldn't have used platform specific examples to make the point that some of the applications he wants are platform specific? That makes no sense. If someone is "shilling for Microsoft" then presumably they are making incorrect statements or conclusions that can be addressed. And if they are not incorrect, then what is wrong with posting them? The only point I see to challenge what he said was to query whether he needs to use Office 2007 when Open Office might meet his requirements. For 98% of the Word users out there, this is going to be the case, but maybe he has some specific need for features in Office 2007 that most people use. (Maybe he's the person out there that uses Access). But he wasn't asked that - he was just accused of being paid by Microsoft to make supportive statements ("shilling").
I thought that Linux fans were also the DIY folks.
Linux developers are DIY folks. A lot of those doing testing and bug reports are DIY folks. People like myself who are UNIX based programmers and know the way around the Linux system are to some extent DIY folks. But Linux "fans"? There are a lot of Linux "fans" that are not very savvy at all in getting things to work where they're not supposed to. I'm afraid Linux has now reached the stage of a lot of followers who seem evangelistic in inverse proportion to their actual contributions to the code-base. After all, who will throw the most slurs at a Microsoft Operating System? The person who has actually contributed to writing a kernel themselves and knows what an epic undertaking it is? Or the person who has not and sees only a target to bash and none of the vast amount of work that's gone into it.
Just because you can't play some specific Windows only game under Linux doesn't make Linux bad.
To be more accurate, it is a lot of games, not "some specific [...] game". I don't think the original poster said that GNU/Linux was bad. These are your words. The poster merely made the valid counter-point that he couldn't run Office 2007 on Linux which to the best of my knowledge, is correct. It's obviously a valid comment to say that Open Office might well meet his needs, but it's not right to have a go at him for things he hasn't said and tell him to "stop complaining." The bias is showing here.
Slightly off-topic, but I recently bought my first computer case that was actually a quality case (an Antec P182) and the difference to what I normally buy (the cheapest I can find) is extraordinary. It's got lots of space around the hard drives with an air-flow design that specifically sucks the air right over them. Impossible to say if it will increase their reliability, but it's certainly not going to be doing any harm.
From another POV, how is a blog representing the military any different (or more harmful) than when Colin Powell or David Petraeus goes on Meet the Press?
If you're talking generally, then perhaps it is no worse or better at all. And even if it is, it's not sufficiently different that we could absolutely conclude one way or the other. But if you're talking about the specific subject matter of this story, then it is significantly different (and potentially more harmful) because the blogs are not representing the military as you say. They are actually representing ostensibly disinterested parties that have been subverted as part of a deliberate deception. I don't think it's up for debate that deceiving the public is harmful to the principle of democracy.
My general point about your presented choice between being lied to or being subject to force is twofold. Firstly, whether I'm robbed by force or by trickery, I'm still robbed and you may accept that but I and others will not. Secondly, your choice only works if the lies really are a substitute for force. I think you will find that whilst the Pentagon may be willing to lie to the US public to get X, they would not necessarily order US troops to act against the US public to get the same thing. You choice presents the latter as the inevitable recourse of the first failing. That is not the case - it simply isn't a choice in reality.
So in summary, I basically see your position as (a) presenting a choice that does not exist in reality and (b) arguing for lowering standards of acceptance of public control by the military. The latter being the inference I draw from you saying 'wouldn't you rather just be lied to than arrested.' Neither is acceptable at all.
with Twitter, it's a subscription thing, I publish and whoever wants it gets it. With IRC, it's a "you have to be there at the right time" thing.
You could look at it that way, I guess. I honestly think a better analogy would be a chat room where you are permanently logged in. Those txt messages will just keep pouring at you so long as your phone has space. In effect you are carrying around your little IRC window with you. The analogy to logging out of the chat is unsubscribing from a particular group in which case the messages stop. Of course then you miss the messages, just like being logged out of IRC. However, the parallels to IRC are only parallels. Twitter doesn't have nearly the speed or toolset of IRC, though it does have the ability to keep beeping your mobile at you all day long.
Pretty much. All the power and distraction of IRC but over an achingly slow, asynchonous protocol. It really couldn't be better named - "Twitter" says it all.
Nice example. The obvious next questions are: who was he getting milk for and what did his wife feel about the matter? Of course, we find it difficult to ask follow up questions from the mass media. It's a broadcast, not a dialogue, and maybe it's that disenfranchisement that is at the root of the problem.
I'd say both definitions are (a) grossly inadquate as a basis for categorising political viewpoints which are massively more complicated and (b) merely attitudes that do not necessarily equate to the outcomes of any given policy. The divisive split between "left" and "right" is one of the things that most cripples democracy in the USA, today. By labelling something as belonging to one faction or another, serious consideration of the merits of a particular action can be derailed. Maybe tax cuts are the right thing at a given time to stimulate the economy. Maybe state aid to a faltering financial institution is going to head off disaster on another occasion. But instead of assessing ideas as good or bad, "left" and "right" become substitutes for good and bad and nothing needs to be said beyond that. Never mind that often enough it is not appropriate to categorise things in these terms. It seems half the time that political beliefs are treated as merely territory to be captured by "left" or "right" and claimed as fitting that faction's ideology.
In the words of the immortal Bill Hicks (well, except that he's dead): "Hey, waitaminute! It's one guy holding up both puppets!"
It's a system whereby people tragically sit there in pubs "twittering" to other people instead of participating in an actual conversation. At least in my experience. In practice, it's just basically IRC re-implemented over SMS messages. They even seem to have kept the old "line limit" in that your cut off at the length of a standard txt (about 140 characters, I think). In my view, all it really seems to accomplish is leaving people not quite focused on what they're doing because they keep getting "twitters" arriving. If you have something important to send, you use email (with all its inherent advantages). If you just want to make limited comments to a "chat room," you can use Twitter that other users may or may not be paying attention to, you can use Twitter.
As mobile access to the Internet gets more pervasive, SMS will die or at least merge with other technologies anyway.
I wasn't arguing that manipulation can be in our interest as much as I was saying that we are going to be subject to manipulation attempts.
Oh, okay. We agree on this then. I was talking at slight cross-purposes to you. Where we differ (possibly) is not so much on the acceptability of being lied to (I say not at all and you say lesser of two evils), but that I don't see your lesser of two evils as a stable system. Inevitably, the public are going to look after their own interests and push back against government manipulation. And from there you either go to reducing government manipulation (success) or increased efforts to control the population. The latter in turn feeds into the loop that ultimately culminates in a situation intolerable to the people and revolution seems the only option. Government manipulation is not an end state - it's a point on the slope to totalitarianism. The activity of the public in fighting this sort of manipulation is necessary to prevent worse things from happening. (My fairly certain opinion).
Logically, the counter to lies is truth, not other lies that simply say something different. If you wish to counter "enemy" propaganda you do so by showing it to be incorrect by reference to established fact. People are not just things that must be kept free of another factions control by shouting your own lies louder than your rivals.
You need to bring about higher levels of Education in the population
I just don't see that happening.
Well, it happens or we live in a society of repression and manipulation forevermore, until this species winds up its existence and says goodbye. I only see one door out of here, and that's it.
Anyway, you asked how you can change your society to a democratic republic. You didn't ask for an easy way to do it. Good luck.:)
If you look through the other propaganda posters at the time you will see exactly what you are talking about, I just cited the ones that are most memorable in this era. There are numerous examples of posters depicting Japanese and Germans as evil, detestable, and animal-like and bent on the destruction of America. Check out the "Destroy This Mad Brute" and the "It Can Happen Here" posters.
That's not in dispute. I agree this isn't new. I just don't see that it countradicts what I've been saying. I've gone back and looked at the posts, and I've realised that you were trying to demonstrate how it can be in your interests to be manipulated. Is that correct? The Loose Lips and Rosie Riveter stuff, I don't see as being manipulation in the same way fake blogging would be. It's a kind of propaganda, but it's not the deceitful kind. So while it might not be against people's interests, it's not really what I was talking about. The latter propaganda - the bestial foreigners - I do agree is manipulative and deceitful propaganda. But I think it's clearly against the interests of the public to be so misinformed. Would you agree with that? If you believe in democracy, then I think you have to believe in an honest and uncensored flow of information to the public, else how can they make informed decisions?
So to protest a military getting its point across domestically via propaganda is a bit disingenuous -- it IS in fact the ideal method of doing so.
It may be better than being shot at (though some blogs get awfully boring), but there remain those of us who think the military shouldn't be trying to get any point across in the first place. At least as far as trying to persuade us whether or not a war is justified. It particularly shouldn't be trying to pull tricks like pretending to be representative of the population and create the illusion that there is more widespread report than there actually is which is what they were wanting to do in this case. You sound intelligent - I'm assuming that you're arguing hypotheticals, rather than actually being in favour of such an action by the US military on the US public?
Slashdot Mirror
I just want to say that this is one of the most interesting comments I've seen on Slashdot. Not because it is well-written (it is), but because I learnt something from it, which is too rare on Slashdot. I'm not a Linux zealot (though I use it exclusively at home now) and am bracing myself for when it does become a popular target for widespread attack. This is an argument about Linux security that I've read that really addresses it which I hadn't heard before. The "thousand eyes" principle may provide another security advantage over Windows, but I don't know. This point however, is very well argued. Thank you.
H.
Well the article did give its own definition of Introvert and you are right that in the context of the article the poster you are replying to is wrong. But the word introvert is not the article authors to define. It's useful in the article for him to say what he means, but once we move outside that article to discussing introversion elsewhere, we're going to run into problems because "introvert" does suggest to most people what the poster you're replying to thinks it does.
gardyloo... is not the only one. It's an interesting article that talks, not from my point of view, but from one that I can recognize. The issue I would take with the article is to do with the term introvert. I think the author has decided they are an introvert (according to their definition) and attributed a lot of things to it that are actually more general. Whether extrovert, introvert or, more commonly in anyone who has reached a level of maturity in who their personal development, someone who is appopriately extroverted or introverted in any given circumstance, it doesn't matter. If you are focussed on something, you don't want to be distracted with trivia. And for a lot of us, we are people who spend a lot of our time focused on something. Similarly, if you are involved in a lot of "meaningful" work or activities, then you will likely see general chat with a low information content as trivial. Is the author implying that only introverted people are involved in serious work?
But aside from what I think is the mis-attribution of his attitude to being an "introvert" personality type, I recognize a lot of what he's saying. Both the annoyance of people who now wish to waste your time because they don't have things to fill it like you do, or do but are out of sync with you, and the problem of isolation imposed by needing to withdraw from the always-on communication channels.
Prior to the Noise-Age, activities that filled people's idle time were passive or required physically meeting up with others. Now that is not the case and we are feeling the effects just starting.
And I will explain to you in very small words: When your point is that not everything you want to run is available for a target platform, it is correct to talk about the things that are not available. Re-read my original post - that is exactly what I said. Nor did he, in the post that I read, "deride" GNU/Linux. He just made the point that he wants to use certain applications and that therefore Linux is not an option to him / his users. This is a factual point that you have not addressed. You have however accused him personally of bias in place of that, which is an ad hominem.
Technophile just means someone who likes technology. It's independent of how well someone understands technology or the consequences thereof. But excepting the use of that word, I agree with the intent. It's usually the people who are most capable with a technology who best understand when not to use it.
Well, I'll admit - I didn't expect such an entertaining reply!
Cheers,
-H.
Well whether you meant shill as in directly paid by Microsoft or merely shill as in "their income is tied to its prosperity" it's still an ad hominem in place of actually addressing what he said.
Well that depends if they're trying to convince you (who is plainly not inclined to be convinced) or the vast numbers of people who read the threads without posting. Reading through it as I have been, I find your description of the thread as a argument to be "won" is very much a sign to me that I should regard what you say carefully. The moment people see things in terms of sides, there's a strong pressure to start arguing to win, rather than to arrive at truth.
Sorry? He shouldn't have used platform specific examples to make the point that some of the applications he wants are platform specific? That makes no sense. If someone is "shilling for Microsoft" then presumably they are making incorrect statements or conclusions that can be addressed. And if they are not incorrect, then what is wrong with posting them? The only point I see to challenge what he said was to query whether he needs to use Office 2007 when Open Office might meet his requirements. For 98% of the Word users out there, this is going to be the case, but maybe he has some specific need for features in Office 2007 that most people use. (Maybe he's the person out there that uses Access). But he wasn't asked that - he was just accused of being paid by Microsoft to make supportive statements ("shilling").
Linux developers are DIY folks. A lot of those doing testing and bug reports are DIY folks. People like myself who are UNIX based programmers and know the way around the Linux system are to some extent DIY folks. But Linux "fans"? There are a lot of Linux "fans" that are not very savvy at all in getting things to work where they're not supposed to. I'm afraid Linux has now reached the stage of a lot of followers who seem evangelistic in inverse proportion to their actual contributions to the code-base. After all, who will throw the most slurs at a Microsoft Operating System? The person who has actually contributed to writing a kernel themselves and knows what an epic undertaking it is? Or the person who has not and sees only a target to bash and none of the vast amount of work that's gone into it.
To be more accurate, it is a lot of games, not "some specific [...] game". I don't think the original poster said that GNU/Linux was bad. These are your words. The poster merely made the valid counter-point that he couldn't run Office 2007 on Linux which to the best of my knowledge, is correct. It's obviously a valid comment to say that Open Office might well meet his needs, but it's not right to have a go at him for things he hasn't said and tell him to "stop complaining." The bias is showing here.
Slightly off-topic, but I recently bought my first computer case that was actually a quality case (an Antec P182) and the difference to what I normally buy (the cheapest I can find) is extraordinary. It's got lots of space around the hard drives with an air-flow design that specifically sucks the air right over them. Impossible to say if it will increase their reliability, but it's certainly not going to be doing any harm.
If you're talking generally, then perhaps it is no worse or better at all. And even if it is, it's not sufficiently different that we could absolutely conclude one way or the other. But if you're talking about the specific subject matter of this story, then it is significantly different (and potentially more harmful) because the blogs are not representing the military as you say. They are actually representing ostensibly disinterested parties that have been subverted as part of a deliberate deception. I don't think it's up for debate that deceiving the public is harmful to the principle of democracy.
My general point about your presented choice between being lied to or being subject to force is twofold. Firstly, whether I'm robbed by force or by trickery, I'm still robbed and you may accept that but I and others will not. Secondly, your choice only works if the lies really are a substitute for force. I think you will find that whilst the Pentagon may be willing to lie to the US public to get X, they would not necessarily order US troops to act against the US public to get the same thing. You choice presents the latter as the inevitable recourse of the first failing. That is not the case - it simply isn't a choice in reality.
So in summary, I basically see your position as (a) presenting a choice that does not exist in reality and (b) arguing for lowering standards of acceptance of public control by the military. The latter being the inference I draw from you saying 'wouldn't you rather just be lied to than arrested.' Neither is acceptable at all.
You could look at it that way, I guess. I honestly think a better analogy would be a chat room where you are permanently logged in. Those txt messages will just keep pouring at you so long as your phone has space. In effect you are carrying around your little IRC window with you. The analogy to logging out of the chat is unsubscribing from a particular group in which case the messages stop. Of course then you miss the messages, just like being logged out of IRC. However, the parallels to IRC are only parallels. Twitter doesn't have nearly the speed or toolset of IRC, though it does have the ability to keep beeping your mobile at you all day long.
Pretty much. All the power and distraction of IRC but over an achingly slow, asynchonous protocol. It really couldn't be better named - "Twitter" says it all.
Nice example. The obvious next questions are: who was he getting milk for and what did his wife feel about the matter? Of course, we find it difficult to ask follow up questions from the mass media. It's a broadcast, not a dialogue, and maybe it's that disenfranchisement that is at the root of the problem.
I'd say both definitions are (a) grossly inadquate as a basis for categorising political viewpoints which are massively more complicated and (b) merely attitudes that do not necessarily equate to the outcomes of any given policy. The divisive split between "left" and "right" is one of the things that most cripples democracy in the USA, today. By labelling something as belonging to one faction or another, serious consideration of the merits of a particular action can be derailed. Maybe tax cuts are the right thing at a given time to stimulate the economy. Maybe state aid to a faltering financial institution is going to head off disaster on another occasion. But instead of assessing ideas as good or bad, "left" and "right" become substitutes for good and bad and nothing needs to be said beyond that. Never mind that often enough it is not appropriate to categorise things in these terms. It seems half the time that political beliefs are treated as merely territory to be captured by "left" or "right" and claimed as fitting that faction's ideology.
In the words of the immortal Bill Hicks (well, except that he's dead): "Hey, waitaminute! It's one guy holding up both puppets!"
It's a system whereby people tragically sit there in pubs "twittering" to other people instead of participating in an actual conversation. At least in my experience. In practice, it's just basically IRC re-implemented over SMS messages. They even seem to have kept the old "line limit" in that your cut off at the length of a standard txt (about 140 characters, I think). In my view, all it really seems to accomplish is leaving people not quite focused on what they're doing because they keep getting "twitters" arriving. If you have something important to send, you use email (with all its inherent advantages). If you just want to make limited comments to a "chat room," you can use Twitter that other users may or may not be paying attention to, you can use Twitter.
As mobile access to the Internet gets more pervasive, SMS will die or at least merge with other technologies anyway.
Heh! Nice one. Maybe it's time for a good old-fashioned Google-bomb for "I Sold Out"
I'm sure if you give ISO enough money, they'll happily produce a standardised Bit that can have a value of 0.5.
Oh, okay. We agree on this then. I was talking at slight cross-purposes to you. Where we differ (possibly) is not so much on the acceptability of being lied to (I say not at all and you say lesser of two evils), but that I don't see your lesser of two evils as a stable system. Inevitably, the public are going to look after their own interests and push back against government manipulation. And from there you either go to reducing government manipulation (success) or increased efforts to control the population. The latter in turn feeds into the loop that ultimately culminates in a situation intolerable to the people and revolution seems the only option. Government manipulation is not an end state - it's a point on the slope to totalitarianism. The activity of the public in fighting this sort of manipulation is necessary to prevent worse things from happening. (My fairly certain opinion).
Logically, the counter to lies is truth, not other lies that simply say something different. If you wish to counter "enemy" propaganda you do so by showing it to be incorrect by reference to established fact. People are not just things that must be kept free of another factions control by shouting your own lies louder than your rivals.
Though many enjoy thinking so.
Well, it happens or we live in a society of repression and manipulation forevermore, until this species winds up its existence and says goodbye. I only see one door out of here, and that's it.
Anyway, you asked how you can change your society to a democratic republic. You didn't ask for an easy way to do it. Good luck.
-H.
That's not in dispute. I agree this isn't new. I just don't see that it countradicts what I've been saying. I've gone back and looked at the posts, and I've realised that you were trying to demonstrate how it can be in your interests to be manipulated. Is that correct? The Loose Lips and Rosie Riveter stuff, I don't see as being manipulation in the same way fake blogging would be. It's a kind of propaganda, but it's not the deceitful kind. So while it might not be against people's interests, it's not really what I was talking about. The latter propaganda - the bestial foreigners - I do agree is manipulative and deceitful propaganda. But I think it's clearly against the interests of the public to be so misinformed. Would you agree with that? If you believe in democracy, then I think you have to believe in an honest and uncensored flow of information to the public, else how can they make informed decisions?
It may be better than being shot at (though some blogs get awfully boring), but there remain those of us who think the military shouldn't be trying to get any point across in the first place. At least as far as trying to persuade us whether or not a war is justified. It particularly shouldn't be trying to pull tricks like pretending to be representative of the population and create the illusion that there is more widespread report than there actually is which is what they were wanting to do in this case. You sound intelligent - I'm assuming that you're arguing hypotheticals, rather than actually being in favour of such an action by the US military on the US public?