But crime and punishment are what happen when ethics are forgotten and the law falls into disrepute. I agree: show me a society in which laws against file-sharing are respected by all of its virtuous and admirable citizens, and I will be the first to honor them.
But suppose it's against the law to drop bubble-gum on the sidewalk, and yet many flout that law. Does virtue lie, then, in punishing them until they submit, or in putting up with their mildly antisocial behavior as a concession, on the part of the strong and righteous, to human weakness?
I mean, you and I agree that people should not scream and shout in public. But we relax this standard when babies and infants are doing the crying, because we know that they cannot help themselves; a father who beats his baby because it cries too much is rightly called a criminal, even though a grown man who screams in public deserves to be punished.
Should not the same reasoning, or something like it, be applied to those young people who share computer files?
But only one in six American bachelors' degrees is awarded in the fields of science and enginering---and, anyway, most of those graduates are not well educated. So the odds of coming out of college with first-rate technical skills are also low. But whether you're an entrepreneur or a scientist, it is hard work, and not some statistic, that lies between failure and success. Linus Torvalds didn't write the Linux kernel by rolling dice; he wrote it by sitting in a dark room, studying and programming, for countless months on end.
Americans have a comparative advantage in capitalism---that is, in exploiting market opportunities---becuase of America's well-developed capital markets and loose regulation. They should (and do) exploit it while it lasts.
Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation---I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
I suppose you would strangle him for promoting irresponsibility and superstitions?
Databases, like filesystems, are inherently undesirable. Why should programmers have to write programs that explicitly restore their execution state after it has been annihilated by a crash? This can and should be transparent.
Turning a physical computer into n virtual computers that each execute machine instructions in a separate address space. Throw in a bunch of interprocess communication mechanisms (filesystems, sockets, shared memory, etc) and you get unix. The model is so successful because it is so conceptually unambitious.
I'm not some big-time capitalist or a follower of Ayn Rand; I have no need to preach the invisible hand here.
But I do wonder whether it is wise to base business transactions on "higher principles." I mean, when you hire a plumber, do you really want to discuss his personal views on the value of good pipes to society and so on?
Example: a used car dealer refuses to sell you a car because he is full of brotherly love for you and wants you to ride a bicycle so that you will be healthy. (Suppose he came up with this noble idea while praying in church last week.)
Or: a used car dealer sells you a car to make a profit of two hundred bucks, which he will spend on booze and hoes. He's never had an ethical thought in his life and cares only for his own pleasure.
Which one serves you better? Obviously, the greedy, unethical dealer.
I can't stand even normal laptops, to say nothing of poking some little screen with a stylus, or something. Decent computers have Microsoft split keyboards and screens of at least nineteen inches.
Honestly, if people really want to use computers in public, perhaps computer terminals should simply be installed in places like parks and restaurants?
Doing that would mean preaching to people outside the choir---eg, persuading moderate American intellectuals that your policies are preferable to those of the other party. Jerking knees (or something worse) on the web seems unlikely to help.
But who knows, I haven't read this book, maybe it's all about how to turn their site into a bad-ass propaganda machine.
Slashdot Mirror
That's cool, good for you.
...one might direct his sacred life-justifying will towards brutally fucking railroad-company executives.
Really, when you speak Japanese, you speak with Hitler; their prime minister worships war criminals.
But suppose it's against the law to drop bubble-gum on the sidewalk, and yet many flout that law. Does virtue lie, then, in punishing them until they submit, or in putting up with their mildly antisocial behavior as a concession, on the part of the strong and righteous, to human weakness?
I mean, you and I agree that people should not scream and shout in public. But we relax this standard when babies and infants are doing the crying, because we know that they cannot help themselves; a father who beats his baby because it cries too much is rightly called a criminal, even though a grown man who screams in public deserves to be punished.
Should not the same reasoning, or something like it, be applied to those young people who share computer files?
But only one in six American bachelors' degrees is awarded in the fields of science and enginering---and, anyway, most of those graduates are not well educated. So the odds of coming out of college with first-rate technical skills are also low. But whether you're an entrepreneur or a scientist, it is hard work, and not some statistic, that lies between failure and success. Linus Torvalds didn't write the Linux kernel by rolling dice; he wrote it by sitting in a dark room, studying and programming, for countless months on end.
Americans have a comparative advantage in capitalism---that is, in exploiting market opportunities---becuase of America's well-developed capital markets and loose regulation. They should (and do) exploit it while it lasts.
I put Richard Stallman on my head and we sing the free-software song in the bath.
throw out the copyrights and destroy the American Colosseum.
I suppose you would strangle him for promoting irresponsibility and superstitions?
When grown men meet to ridicule little girls, it breaks my heart, too.
To someone who dismisses artistic works because they do not entertain him as much as his television does?
Databases, like filesystems, are inherently undesirable. Why should programmers have to write programs that explicitly restore their execution state after it has been annihilated by a crash? This can and should be transparent.
Normal people have feelings besides boredom and amusement. Americanism has certainly stunted your emotional development.
Great food and hot women---way better than pong.
Most of the children in his experiments did not learn anything. Maybe he will one day succeed, though.
Turning a physical computer into n virtual computers that each execute machine instructions in a separate address space. Throw in a bunch of interprocess communication mechanisms (filesystems, sockets, shared memory, etc) and you get unix. The model is so successful because it is so conceptually unambitious.
But I do wonder whether it is wise to base business transactions on "higher principles." I mean, when you hire a plumber, do you really want to discuss his personal views on the value of good pipes to society and so on?
I guess you must be writing a lot of calls then?
Because every point on the capital market line has a positive mean return. Gambling is always negative unless you're a competent hustler.
Or: a used car dealer sells you a car to make a profit of two hundred bucks, which he will spend on booze and hoes. He's never had an ethical thought in his life and cares only for his own pleasure.
Which one serves you better? Obviously, the greedy, unethical dealer.
There are plenty of second-hand computers (and parts of computers) for sale at that price.
Honestly, if people really want to use computers in public, perhaps computer terminals should simply be installed in places like parks and restaurants?
These days GNOME has a better user interface than OS X, and it runs fine on $200 computers.
But who knows, I haven't read this book, maybe it's all about how to turn their site into a bad-ass propaganda machine.
The whole database concept is just fundamentally wrong.