A common method for schools to punish people who commit academic dishonesty is to expel them.
Yup, I had more than one professor state that if they caught you cheating, they would make it their personal mission to have you expelled. Welcome to the real world kids.
Prosecutors advance their careers and reputations by getting a lot of convictions. Their incentive is to go after the easy prey.
More often prosecuters advance their careers by going after 'famous' names, check out Rudy Giuliani's career. They want the fish that will have lots of flash bulbs and put them in news conferences. Swartz was a big enough name to be made an example of.
It's the result of an algorithm, not a human. Algorithms have no sense of morality, they just do what they're told. You might as well say a car slandered you for backfiring as it drove by. Also... he doesn't own an exclusive right to the name 'Guy Hingston'.
Algorithms are produced by people, and ultimately it is up to those people to manage its behavior. That's why they can't hide behind the shield of 'It's just an algoritm' in anti-trust cases. They have to demonstrate that the expected behavior of the algorithm is neutral towards competitors. I'm not sure of the merit of the case based on Australian law, though it would set a dangerous precident. If you happen to share a name with somebody who has been accused of racist remarks, can you sue when autocomplete adds 'racist' to your name?
Yes, there were inquisitions and the like, but from everything I've ever read about history I don't see the evidence that beyond specific pockets things were as universally bad as we so with Muslim extremists today.
European colonialism felt justified in killing or enslaving native populations because they worshiped false idols. Manifest Destiny justified killing natives and Mexicans because it was God's will. Millions died because of their beliefs during the holocaust and under communist states.
A disturbingly large number of people who identify themselves as Muslims go around blowing up buildings, hijacking refineries, chopping off heads, raping Western reporters to celebrate "democracy", and generally doing their damnedest to make the rest of the world hate them. The rest of the world has no obligation to give a shit about why we shouldn't consider the left hand as bad as the right; The burden rests on "the good ones" to get their own house in order.
An increasing number of nerdy white kids who play video games are going on killing sprees. Time to round them up. Eco and animal rights terrorists commit violent acts, do we arrest anybody who speaks out about animals and the environment? Then you have right wing gun/abortion/anti-government folks who bombed OKC, Atlanta, and committed a number of shootings over the years.
The common thread in all terrorism is the intent to impose ones values on others, no matter what the underlying beliefs are.
Like I said, you've redefined lottery. Basic survival is no more a lottery than anything else in life. It is a ridiculously utilitarian definition.
Going back to your original idea of a million passion based business, the reason it doesn't happen is because it's not sustainable. If people can't survive it's not going to happen.
To quote Office Space: Peter Gibbons: Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars then you're supposed to be an auto mechanic...
Michael Bolton: No, you're working at Initech because that question is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her, there'd be no janitors, because no one would clean shit up if they had a million dollars.
You also fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of google's 20% self-directed time. It isn't about a trade-off between "public demand" or what the company "needs" versus "passion" - its about recognizing that top-down structure is not sufficient for a creative enterprise. [ted.com] They fully expect to reap financial results from that 20% time - the company "needs" 100% of their time.
It goes deeper than that, the history of the 20% can be linked to the founder's Montessori education, pareto efficiency, 3M, and HP. In the presentation he specifically mentions how "passion" and "individual interest" drove the Google Deskbar and Google News, respectively. The results aren't something easily quantifiable and the failure rate is high. Most companies shy away from the concept because it doesn't make sense financially; essentially 20% of your resources are dedicated to high risk ventures with no tangible expectation of return. It's not a financial decision, it's a cultural one.
Huh? Success as a CEO is measured in money. Success as an artist is not. The only way you can say that a profession in the arts is a lottery is if you take the MBA perspective that success is measured in money.
The most basic measure of success is survival. Most people survive by doing something other than what they are passionate about. That doesn't mean you can't snowboard, create a web comic, or work on public access, but counting on that as your primary means to live is a lotto at best.
That's just begging the question. Society benefits from artistic and philosophical endeavors all of the time. Look at the original Star Trek - a labor of love (and ego) that was a financial failure but inspired all kinds of scientific and engineering progress, as well as social progress (first on-screen interracial kiss, etc).
Star Trek was released to try and make a buck. For a couple people it was a labor of love, for most it was a paycheck. My statement isn't reserved just for the arts. The disconnect between individual passion and public demand exists in engineering and science as well. Google recognizes this disconnect with their 20% rule - There's what you want to work on, and what the company needs.
I had the same experience. You quickly just revert to the things that you did at home to enjoy. If you didn't go to art galleries, museums, clubbing, or camping, that doesn't change when you're in another country. Luckily, I enjoyed sports so going to the bar to watch some games was my way of mixing in a bit.
Personally I would rather the world were filled with millions of minor-league businesses of passion that were only sufficiently profitable to support their employees and founders in moderately prosperous lifestyles than the one we have now dominated by a relatively few amoral megacorps with no passion for anything besides money and a lottery mentality of management and investors.
Look at the lives of people who follow their passion and pursue art, music, modelling, acting, sports, etc, it's a much bigger lottery than the business world. Not everybody's passions line up with what consumers demand. Most programmers I know didn't grow up dreaming of working on software to manage waste water treatment or databases to track shipments, they wanted to create video games. Individuals benefit when they do something they are passionate about, society benefits when people do something that is wanted. Like you say, there's a huge spectrum of people trying to find the balance.
After meeting with Hawking, Rattner said he wondered whether his company’s processor technology could restore the scientist’s ability to communicate at five words per minute, or even increase that rate to 10.
A business person would probably have left and said, "boring conversation anyway"
Or it could just be that we're human and we help people. The cold hard fact is if we get hurt, we would like people to help us, so we help the less fortunate.
That is a personal view, there have been societies where "the right thing" was to euthanize people, including children, who showed signs of disease or disability. Going back to my original point, there are rules that we come to accept not based on fact, but based on instinct and social norms.
Such as? Not wanting people to come kill me because they don't like what I believe or do? That's pretty easy to prove.
It's possible we might be better off if everybody thought the same way. Think how much time and energy would be saved if religon was wiped out, no more meaningless debates about non-ideas like creationism. People would also be more open to philosophical discussions and push forth our ability to understand rather than hide behind the words of a few thousand year old book.
Equality is a concept that often contradicts the facts. There are some people with physical or mental handicaps that will require more resources than they can produce and are thus a drain on society. From a purely analytical view, they hurt more than they help. Yet warm touchy feely beliefs lead us to help those people. Not all speech is equal either. Religious zealots spew forth "information" that just causes more noise and confusion. Still, there is a general belief that it is their right to do so. There are also fuzzy areas, like property rights, where the common good and individual good come in conflict. We see a spectrum of solutions, to try and find the balance, but it is extremely difficult to factually describe what is correct.
I remember a statement that a man who lived in the year 1000 would be considered wildly ignorant today, and yet could likely also be a religious scholar. One area has expanded its knowledge, the other has remained pretty static.
People still read Aristotle, Plato, and Confucious. We still learn Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry. There is wisdom in the past that we can learn from, even though modern times have far exceeded the imaginations of those people.
I would say worse. At least Turkey is overt about their religious fanatacism, the US is still delusional about being free, while burning down the planetarium.
If it ain't based on cold hard facts it has no business governing anyone other than the individual who believes it.
That's a narrow view that can be just as bad as religion. Many "human rights" are built upon concepts which cannot be proven by fact, or in some cases opposed by the current body of knowledge. There are many questions which have no answers or are fuzzy at best. Ideally you would have continual open discussion, but people prefer to latch onto religion because it gives them the comfort of concrete answers.
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, once you have nukes then the bigger worry for the US is that they keep control of the nukes.
How about 99 red balloons delivered by Captain Kirk
A common method for schools to punish people who commit academic dishonesty is to expel them.
Yup, I had more than one professor state that if they caught you cheating, they would make it their personal mission to have you expelled. Welcome to the real world kids.
Prosecutors advance their careers and reputations by getting a lot of convictions. Their incentive is to go after the easy prey.
More often prosecuters advance their careers by going after 'famous' names, check out Rudy Giuliani's career. They want the fish that will have lots of flash bulbs and put them in news conferences. Swartz was a big enough name to be made an example of.
I'd much prefer a legal system where the prosecutor is charged with finding the truth
Philosophers have been working on this for thousands of years. Isn't the court system already slow enough.
It's the result of an algorithm, not a human. Algorithms have no sense of morality, they just do what they're told. You might as well say a car slandered you for backfiring as it drove by. Also... he doesn't own an exclusive right to the name 'Guy Hingston'.
Algorithms are produced by people, and ultimately it is up to those people to manage its behavior. That's why they can't hide behind the shield of 'It's just an algoritm' in anti-trust cases. They have to demonstrate that the expected behavior of the algorithm is neutral towards competitors.
I'm not sure of the merit of the case based on Australian law, though it would set a dangerous precident. If you happen to share a name with somebody who has been accused of racist remarks, can you sue when autocomplete adds 'racist' to your name?
If it's a Roger Corman movie, the effect will be cheesy with a sprinkle of T&A
Yes, there were inquisitions and the like, but from everything I've ever read about history I don't see the evidence that beyond specific pockets things were as universally bad as we so with Muslim extremists today.
European colonialism felt justified in killing or enslaving native populations because they worshiped false idols. Manifest Destiny justified killing natives and Mexicans because it was God's will. Millions died because of their beliefs during the holocaust and under communist states.
A disturbingly large number of people who identify themselves as Muslims go around blowing up buildings, hijacking refineries, chopping off heads, raping Western reporters to celebrate "democracy", and generally doing their damnedest to make the rest of the world hate them. The rest of the world has no obligation to give a shit about why we shouldn't consider the left hand as bad as the right; The burden rests on "the good ones" to get their own house in order.
An increasing number of nerdy white kids who play video games are going on killing sprees. Time to round them up.
Eco and animal rights terrorists commit violent acts, do we arrest anybody who speaks out about animals and the environment? Then you have right wing gun/abortion/anti-government folks who bombed OKC, Atlanta, and committed a number of shootings over the years.
The common thread in all terrorism is the intent to impose ones values on others, no matter what the underlying beliefs are.
Like I said, you've redefined lottery. Basic survival is no more a lottery than anything else in life. It is a ridiculously utilitarian definition.
Going back to your original idea of a million passion based business, the reason it doesn't happen is because it's not sustainable. If people can't survive it's not going to happen.
To quote Office Space:
Peter Gibbons: Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars then you're supposed to be an auto mechanic...
Michael Bolton: No, you're working at Initech because that question is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her, there'd be no janitors, because no one would clean shit up if they had a million dollars.
You also fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of google's 20% self-directed time. It isn't about a trade-off between "public demand" or what the company "needs" versus "passion" - its about recognizing that top-down structure is not sufficient for a creative enterprise. [ted.com] They fully expect to reap financial results from that 20% time - the company "needs" 100% of their time.
It goes deeper than that, the history of the 20% can be linked to the founder's Montessori education, pareto efficiency, 3M, and HP. In the presentation he specifically mentions how "passion" and "individual interest" drove the Google Deskbar and Google News, respectively. The results aren't something easily quantifiable and the failure rate is high. Most companies shy away from the concept because it doesn't make sense financially; essentially 20% of your resources are dedicated to high risk ventures with no tangible expectation of return. It's not a financial decision, it's a cultural one.
Huh? Success as a CEO is measured in money. Success as an artist is not. The only way you can say that a profession in the arts is a lottery is if you take the MBA perspective that success is measured in money.
The most basic measure of success is survival. Most people survive by doing something other than what they are passionate about. That doesn't mean you can't snowboard, create a web comic, or work on public access, but counting on that as your primary means to live is a lotto at best.
That's just begging the question. Society benefits from artistic and philosophical endeavors all of the time. Look at the original Star Trek - a labor of love (and ego) that was a financial failure but inspired all kinds of scientific and engineering progress, as well as social progress (first on-screen interracial kiss, etc).
Star Trek was released to try and make a buck. For a couple people it was a labor of love, for most it was a paycheck.
My statement isn't reserved just for the arts. The disconnect between individual passion and public demand exists in engineering and science as well. Google recognizes this disconnect with their 20% rule - There's what you want to work on, and what the company needs.
I had the same experience. You quickly just revert to the things that you did at home to enjoy. If you didn't go to art galleries, museums, clubbing, or camping, that doesn't change when you're in another country. Luckily, I enjoyed sports so going to the bar to watch some games was my way of mixing in a bit.
Personally I would rather the world were filled with millions of minor-league businesses of passion that were only sufficiently profitable to support their employees and founders in moderately prosperous lifestyles than the one we have now dominated by a relatively few amoral megacorps with no passion for anything besides money and a lottery mentality of management and investors.
Look at the lives of people who follow their passion and pursue art, music, modelling, acting, sports, etc, it's a much bigger lottery than the business world. Not everybody's passions line up with what consumers demand. Most programmers I know didn't grow up dreaming of working on software to manage waste water treatment or databases to track shipments, they wanted to create video games.
Individuals benefit when they do something they are passionate about, society benefits when people do something that is wanted. Like you say, there's a huge spectrum of people trying to find the balance.
Miles O'Beef
After meeting with Hawking, Rattner said he wondered whether his company’s processor technology could restore the scientist’s ability to communicate at five words per minute, or even increase that rate to 10.
A business person would probably have left and said, "boring conversation anyway"
I don't think it was worth dying over, though his public suicide does seem to have ended up as a particularly effective form of public disobedience.
The peaceful civil disobedience of MLK & Gandhi was compliemented by violent revolutionary groups. Sometimes you have to kill/die for your beliefs.
some of them outlawed acts which, if you have ever had sex, you have probably done
This is Slashdot, nobody needs to worry about breaking those laws.
Or it could just be that we're human and we help people. The cold hard fact is if we get hurt, we would like people to help us, so we help the less fortunate.
That is a personal view, there have been societies where "the right thing" was to euthanize people, including children, who showed signs of disease or disability. Going back to my original point, there are rules that we come to accept not based on fact, but based on instinct and social norms.
Such as? Not wanting people to come kill me because they don't like what I believe or do? That's pretty easy to prove.
It's possible we might be better off if everybody thought the same way. Think how much time and energy would be saved if religon was wiped out, no more meaningless debates about non-ideas like creationism. People would also be more open to philosophical discussions and push forth our ability to understand rather than hide behind the words of a few thousand year old book.
Equality is a concept that often contradicts the facts. There are some people with physical or mental handicaps that will require more resources than they can produce and are thus a drain on society. From a purely analytical view, they hurt more than they help. Yet warm touchy feely beliefs lead us to help those people. Not all speech is equal either. Religious zealots spew forth "information" that just causes more noise and confusion. Still, there is a general belief that it is their right to do so.
There are also fuzzy areas, like property rights, where the common good and individual good come in conflict. We see a spectrum of solutions, to try and find the balance, but it is extremely difficult to factually describe what is correct.
I remember a statement that a man who lived in the year 1000 would be considered wildly ignorant today, and yet could likely also be a religious scholar. One area has expanded its knowledge, the other has remained pretty static.
People still read Aristotle, Plato, and Confucious. We still learn Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry. There is wisdom in the past that we can learn from, even though modern times have far exceeded the imaginations of those people.
though development will occur at a snail's pace.
There will be plenty of people to argue with, but it will be less and less effective.
Creationism should be taught alongside astrology, numerology, and alchemy.
I would say worse. At least Turkey is overt about their religious fanatacism, the US is still delusional about being free, while burning down the planetarium.
If it ain't based on cold hard facts it has no business governing anyone other than the individual who believes it.
That's a narrow view that can be just as bad as religion. Many "human rights" are built upon concepts which cannot be proven by fact, or in some cases opposed by the current body of knowledge.
There are many questions which have no answers or are fuzzy at best. Ideally you would have continual open discussion, but people prefer to latch onto religion because it gives them the comfort of concrete answers.
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."