If i write something in Latin, it's either grammatically right or wrong. There are a few ways to express the same idea, but there are absolute standards of right and wrong in grammar.
I do agree that, in some cases, should you have a relatively compelling argument, you are home safe. However, try doing a fourth year seminar on ancient epistemology or history and you'll know the work you have to put into something. You argument has to be rock solid, based on facts you've spent weeks gathering and interpretting. Then present that to a group of ten people who would like nothing better than to prove you wrong. Just because something compiles doesn't mean it's right or well done. Think about all the bugs in the software we use every day. Many people can write a program to accomplish task X, but are they all efficient, bug free and secure? Hell no.
You are also right about proving God's existence, but that is exacly my point. With sciences and math, you are generally aiming at a single, correct answer. There are variables, yes, but generally there is an agreed upon right and wrong answer. In many humanistic disciplines, it is so much more complex than that. We generally have to deal with constantly changing variables, imperfect information, intentionally misleading information, etc, all of which must be considered and understood on so many levels to get a truly defendable answer.
I'm not saying that sciences are not difficult, only that humanities can be damn hard, too. I'm sure this is not your situation, but it drives me crazy when some IT "specialist" or engineer who took Intro to Psych and Sociology 1000 tells me that my major was easy.
I have an MA in a "bogus" humanistic degree. I majored in Classical Studies. I had to learn Latin, Greek, History, Philosophy and a number of other subjects to achieve my degree. While I was at the library on the weekends, my friend's BEng roomates and my BSc co-workers in the computer lab were getting drunk at clubs. I had fun, too, but I would say that I worked at least as hard as all the engineering students I knew.
Many people with science backgrounds think that anything not involving math or complex equations is simple. Try to sit down one day and prove by pure logic that God exists or does not, that there are rules in the maze of cultural interactions between people, that x event happened on x day 2000 years ago based on an anaylsis of 2000 year old letters found in a garbage dump, 2000 year old tidal maps and half eroded inscriptions that have been recreated from a life time of studying Roman formulaic writing (I studied with a professor who did just this)
I've been in a university for 6 years and I often come across engineering students who can't write complete, comprehensive paragraphs, form a comparative correctly (more simple, not "simpler") or speak more than one language. Just because your skill set is different than mine, don't you dare say that your major is harder than mine, or that you studied harder.
A graduate degree can be helpful to those already holding ambition to do something. It's not, however, the meal ticket that many people seem to think it is. Since I received mine 3 years ago, my salary and job freedom have improved quite a bit, however I think that is due more to the skills and ambition I bring to the job than it is to the paper. I would not discourage anyone from earning a better education, but the degree can only amplify the tools you bring to the job market - it isn't a tool in itself.
One should also remember that the characters in the show are not privy to all the information given to the audience. The audience knows a lot more about Baltar's activities and mental state than anyone on the ship. That's always been one of the problems with series whose episodes are as closely connected as BSG. It's hard to make the characters' interactions with each other keep pace with information presented to the audience.
I understand your point, but there are differences between computers and cars that I think you are missing.
First, how many people do you know that will add parts, upgrades to their car without considering how it will effect the car? Will the average car user change the steering wheel, pedals, meters, etc in the car? No, probably not. Will the average computer user download the talking monkey program that is full of spyware or programs that change the look of the interface? Yes. My point is that, in reference to cars, there is a sort of healthy respect - a boundry that people don't cross. When it comes to computers, that boundry is much farther on than it should be. People may not be able to take an engine apart, but they know enough to say "x thing is probably not a good thing to do to my car".
I'm also not talking about major breakdowns...I should have made that clear before. Certainly if your computer has a meltdown or total system crash, you call a pro. However, installing the latest version of adobe acrobat, upgrading IE plugins, installing more smileys for MSN Messenger, etc should be something the average computer user does understand. For example, I use an overhead projector everyday for my work. I know that it will break, probably at some time I urgently need it. Therefore, I know how to change the bulb, clean and adjust the lense and check the switches. It only makes common sense that I understand well a thing I rely on every day. That's my point. And before you ask, I can change a flat, visually check an engine for obvious problems, and use a phone to call a mechanic when I need one.
Am I alone in wanting to scream at people who use computers everyday for their livelihood and entertainment yet want to know absolutely nothing about them? As the "person to call for computer problems" among my friends, I'm getting increasingly frustrated having to fix the smallest problems for every user who is too scared, bored or lazy to understand even the easiest computing concept. I'm not trying to be elitist, but enough is enough.
Why does it have to be one or the other? While I admit that doing good (being the visionary) without making any profit seems a nice theory, in practice there is nothing inherently wrong with making money from your efforts to help people, as long as the money doesn't limit the amount of help you can give. For example, is a person who volunteers at an orphanage any better than a person who works there full time? I don't think so, unless the person working there demands such a wage that the orphanage can't support itself. Fairy tales about knights in shining armor are just that...fairy tales. As long as google provides open access to the information, why shouldn't they be allowed to make profit from it?
Publishers should stamp, in very tiny letters, "Based on a true story" on the last page of every book they publish. Come to think of it, many newspapers should probably do this too.
Honestly though, our society is in no way built on a foundation of personal integrity. I'm not exactly sure why people are so upset - they should be used to being lied to by now. I challenge any of the people who were angered by the lies in James Frey's book to go a whole day without lying to themselves or to someone else.
Not to mention that the Korean alphabet can't distinguish between R and L, so imagine the headaches of half the population spelling it Rindows, while the other half calls it Lindows.
I'm sure it wouldn't be all that hard to find people to go to Mars, even given the 10% probability of death by cancer. Hell, I'd do it. I think we need a more cavalier attitude toward exploration. We have to get over the idea that death is always a terrible thing, not worth the advantages of what the situation can attain.
Of course the problem is that the original paper airplane project will get forked into smaller groups over minor design disagreements and there will end up being a bunch of paper airplanes which are good, but essentially do the same thing. Yes, the freedom to do such a thing is truly wonderful and a great strength of the community - driving innovation, etc. But there is also a point when it's time to pool resources to create a better paper airplane, not just a different one.
Knowing us, we'll probably bring them 45 different distros which will start a war over which one to use. I see the Debian and Fedora factions fighting it out. The Debian side has really old tech but keep up the fight with time tested strategies. The Fedora side is more technologically advance but their equipment crashes at key points in their battle plan. The battle goes on for decades, at which point the Gentoo faction is finally done compiling their software. The.004% performance increase from all that source compiling allows them to make easy work of the other factions. Shortly after the Gentoo faction comes to power, their leader announces he's defecting to the Microsoft side, which has flooded the planet with low priced copies of their software that runs all the latest games. The MS side quickly dominates the planet because all that an advanced civilization really wants is to play all the latest games without any problems....
I work in South Korea. I went to a cinema the other day to catch ROTS. While I was getting my tickets, I saw the system they use to pipe music through the entire, massive lobby area - winamp with the mooamp skin on a windows 98 machine. Made me chuckle
First of all, you cannot make a 100% perfect copy of the Mona Lisa. But if you could, and you chose to distribute it without the consent of the creator, or the owner in this example, it amounts to a kind of theft. You are using the material in a way unintended by the author and you also potentially rob the owner/creator of potential profits, because people will be less inclined to go to the Louvre if they can see the Mona Lisa in the local 7/11. Even if you are not robbing the creator/owner of direct profit, you are using their intellectual property in a way not sanctioned by them.
Perhaps I should clarify the term theft. I don't mean it specifically to be in possession of a thing not your own. This can be the case, if you were to steal the Mona Lisa. Copying and redistributing it is also a kind of theft, because you can a) make profit off the work of someone else or b) employ the copyrighted work of someone else without obeying the terms of the copyright. I may be wrong about this, but I took an ethical standards course in my MA that basically laid out plagiarism in these terms.
Also, I never said fighting social norms was unacceptable. Far from it. However, as long as the social norm runs contrary to a law and that law is not immoral, then you should obey the law while trying to have it changed. Any law or social norm that is immoral should not only be fought but also not obeyed in the least.
You say that you think copyright is not that important. I agree to a certain extent, I'm just trying to make a point. I don't know much about copyright law, but as this is slashdot, that might seem to make me more of an authority on the subject than you:-p
downloading is theft because you are receiving a perfect copy of a thing without paying for it.
I understand and agree with your comment about laws that conflict with social norms. However, that does not give a person the right to break those laws. The fallacy of popularity is just that, a fallacy.
Copyright may not seem that important to you, but perhaps you have never created anything you thought worthy of calling your own.
Sure they would receive a thumbs up in a pure democracy, but that doesn't mean they are all perfectly acceptable activities to engaged in.
Furthermore, you can not lump the three together. Drugs and alcohol fit roughly the same mould, but downloading music is not the same as the other 2. Downloading music via p2p or any other illegal means amounts to theft. You can argue all you want that cd prices are unfair, etc. but you always have the choice not to buy cds and be forced to listen to your music on the radio.
Illicit drugs are illegal, as was drinking alcohol during prohibition, but they were not theft. They are attempts by people to receive products (well, their effects) that they can not obtain by legal means. You can obtain music by legal means, but by using p2p you choose not to.
I'm not a fan of the RIAA by any means but until we can match their lobbying power, we're stuck with laws that while we may not agree with them, we should respect them.
Slashdot Mirror
If i write something in Latin, it's either grammatically right or wrong. There are a few ways to express the same idea, but there are absolute standards of right and wrong in grammar. I do agree that, in some cases, should you have a relatively compelling argument, you are home safe. However, try doing a fourth year seminar on ancient epistemology or history and you'll know the work you have to put into something. You argument has to be rock solid, based on facts you've spent weeks gathering and interpretting. Then present that to a group of ten people who would like nothing better than to prove you wrong. Just because something compiles doesn't mean it's right or well done. Think about all the bugs in the software we use every day. Many people can write a program to accomplish task X, but are they all efficient, bug free and secure? Hell no. You are also right about proving God's existence, but that is exacly my point. With sciences and math, you are generally aiming at a single, correct answer. There are variables, yes, but generally there is an agreed upon right and wrong answer. In many humanistic disciplines, it is so much more complex than that. We generally have to deal with constantly changing variables, imperfect information, intentionally misleading information, etc, all of which must be considered and understood on so many levels to get a truly defendable answer. I'm not saying that sciences are not difficult, only that humanities can be damn hard, too. I'm sure this is not your situation, but it drives me crazy when some IT "specialist" or engineer who took Intro to Psych and Sociology 1000 tells me that my major was easy.
I have an MA in a "bogus" humanistic degree. I majored in Classical Studies. I had to learn Latin, Greek, History, Philosophy and a number of other subjects to achieve my degree. While I was at the library on the weekends, my friend's BEng roomates and my BSc co-workers in the computer lab were getting drunk at clubs. I had fun, too, but I would say that I worked at least as hard as all the engineering students I knew. Many people with science backgrounds think that anything not involving math or complex equations is simple. Try to sit down one day and prove by pure logic that God exists or does not, that there are rules in the maze of cultural interactions between people, that x event happened on x day 2000 years ago based on an anaylsis of 2000 year old letters found in a garbage dump, 2000 year old tidal maps and half eroded inscriptions that have been recreated from a life time of studying Roman formulaic writing (I studied with a professor who did just this) I've been in a university for 6 years and I often come across engineering students who can't write complete, comprehensive paragraphs, form a comparative correctly (more simple, not "simpler") or speak more than one language. Just because your skill set is different than mine, don't you dare say that your major is harder than mine, or that you studied harder.
A graduate degree can be helpful to those already holding ambition to do something. It's not, however, the meal ticket that many people seem to think it is. Since I received mine 3 years ago, my salary and job freedom have improved quite a bit, however I think that is due more to the skills and ambition I bring to the job than it is to the paper. I would not discourage anyone from earning a better education, but the degree can only amplify the tools you bring to the job market - it isn't a tool in itself.
One should also remember that the characters in the show are not privy to all the information given to the audience. The audience knows a lot more about Baltar's activities and mental state than anyone on the ship. That's always been one of the problems with series whose episodes are as closely connected as BSG. It's hard to make the characters' interactions with each other keep pace with information presented to the audience.
I understand your point, but there are differences between computers and cars that I think you are missing. First, how many people do you know that will add parts, upgrades to their car without considering how it will effect the car? Will the average car user change the steering wheel, pedals, meters, etc in the car? No, probably not. Will the average computer user download the talking monkey program that is full of spyware or programs that change the look of the interface? Yes. My point is that, in reference to cars, there is a sort of healthy respect - a boundry that people don't cross. When it comes to computers, that boundry is much farther on than it should be. People may not be able to take an engine apart, but they know enough to say "x thing is probably not a good thing to do to my car". I'm also not talking about major breakdowns...I should have made that clear before. Certainly if your computer has a meltdown or total system crash, you call a pro. However, installing the latest version of adobe acrobat, upgrading IE plugins, installing more smileys for MSN Messenger, etc should be something the average computer user does understand. For example, I use an overhead projector everyday for my work. I know that it will break, probably at some time I urgently need it. Therefore, I know how to change the bulb, clean and adjust the lense and check the switches. It only makes common sense that I understand well a thing I rely on every day. That's my point. And before you ask, I can change a flat, visually check an engine for obvious problems, and use a phone to call a mechanic when I need one.
Am I alone in wanting to scream at people who use computers everyday for their livelihood and entertainment yet want to know absolutely nothing about them? As the "person to call for computer problems" among my friends, I'm getting increasingly frustrated having to fix the smallest problems for every user who is too scared, bored or lazy to understand even the easiest computing concept. I'm not trying to be elitist, but enough is enough.
Why does it have to be one or the other? While I admit that doing good (being the visionary) without making any profit seems a nice theory, in practice there is nothing inherently wrong with making money from your efforts to help people, as long as the money doesn't limit the amount of help you can give. For example, is a person who volunteers at an orphanage any better than a person who works there full time? I don't think so, unless the person working there demands such a wage that the orphanage can't support itself. Fairy tales about knights in shining armor are just that...fairy tales. As long as google provides open access to the information, why shouldn't they be allowed to make profit from it?
Publishers should stamp, in very tiny letters, "Based on a true story" on the last page of every book they publish. Come to think of it, many newspapers should probably do this too. Honestly though, our society is in no way built on a foundation of personal integrity. I'm not exactly sure why people are so upset - they should be used to being lied to by now. I challenge any of the people who were angered by the lies in James Frey's book to go a whole day without lying to themselves or to someone else.
Not to mention that the Korean alphabet can't distinguish between R and L, so imagine the headaches of half the population spelling it Rindows, while the other half calls it Lindows.
That's a pretty lame ass defense they put forward. The could have, at the very least, tried some version of the Chewbacca Defense
I'm sure it wouldn't be all that hard to find people to go to Mars, even given the 10% probability of death by cancer. Hell, I'd do it. I think we need a more cavalier attitude toward exploration. We have to get over the idea that death is always a terrible thing, not worth the advantages of what the situation can attain.
Of course the problem is that the original paper airplane project will get forked into smaller groups over minor design disagreements and there will end up being a bunch of paper airplanes which are good, but essentially do the same thing. Yes, the freedom to do such a thing is truly wonderful and a great strength of the community - driving innovation, etc. But there is also a point when it's time to pool resources to create a better paper airplane, not just a different one.
Knowing us, we'll probably bring them 45 different distros which will start a war over which one to use. I see the Debian and Fedora factions fighting it out. The Debian side has really old tech but keep up the fight with time tested strategies. The Fedora side is more technologically advance but their equipment crashes at key points in their battle plan. The battle goes on for decades, at which point the Gentoo faction is finally done compiling their software. The .004% performance increase from all that source compiling allows them to make easy work of the other factions. Shortly after the Gentoo faction comes to power, their leader announces he's defecting to the Microsoft side, which has flooded the planet with low priced copies of their software that runs all the latest games. The MS side quickly dominates the planet because all that an advanced civilization really wants is to play all the latest games without any problems....
I work in South Korea. I went to a cinema the other day to catch ROTS. While I was getting my tickets, I saw the system they use to pipe music through the entire, massive lobby area - winamp with the mooamp skin on a windows 98 machine. Made me chuckle
First of all, you cannot make a 100% perfect copy of the Mona Lisa. But if you could, and you chose to distribute it without the consent of the creator, or the owner in this example, it amounts to a kind of theft. You are using the material in a way unintended by the author and you also potentially rob the owner/creator of potential profits, because people will be less inclined to go to the Louvre if they can see the Mona Lisa in the local 7/11. Even if you are not robbing the creator/owner of direct profit, you are using their intellectual property in a way not sanctioned by them.
Perhaps I should clarify the term theft. I don't mean it specifically to be in possession of a thing not your own. This can be the case, if you were to steal the Mona Lisa. Copying and redistributing it is also a kind of theft, because you can a) make profit off the work of someone else or b) employ the copyrighted work of someone else without obeying the terms of the copyright. I may be wrong about this, but I took an ethical standards course in my MA that basically laid out plagiarism in these terms.
Also, I never said fighting social norms was unacceptable. Far from it. However, as long as the social norm runs contrary to a law and that law is not immoral, then you should obey the law while trying to have it changed. Any law or social norm that is immoral should not only be fought but also not obeyed in the least.
You say that you think copyright is not that important. I agree to a certain extent, I'm just trying to make a point. I don't know much about copyright law, but as this is slashdot, that might seem to make me more of an authority on the subject than you :-p
downloading is theft because you are receiving a perfect copy of a thing without paying for it. I understand and agree with your comment about laws that conflict with social norms. However, that does not give a person the right to break those laws. The fallacy of popularity is just that, a fallacy. Copyright may not seem that important to you, but perhaps you have never created anything you thought worthy of calling your own.
Sure they would receive a thumbs up in a pure democracy, but that doesn't mean they are all perfectly acceptable activities to engaged in.
Furthermore, you can not lump the three together. Drugs and alcohol fit roughly the same mould, but downloading music is not the same as the other 2. Downloading music via p2p or any other illegal means amounts to theft. You can argue all you want that cd prices are unfair, etc. but you always have the choice not to buy cds and be forced to listen to your music on the radio.
Illicit drugs are illegal, as was drinking alcohol during prohibition, but they were not theft. They are attempts by people to receive products (well, their effects) that they can not obtain by legal means. You can obtain music by legal means, but by using p2p you choose not to. I'm not a fan of the RIAA by any means but until we can match their lobbying power, we're stuck with laws that while we may not agree with them, we should respect them.