"However, youre 'Schools are supposed to serve business and the economy' statement, is pure BS, unbe-fucking-leivable. Schools can and should be so much more. I was one of the few people who loved school, and knew i loved it whilst i was there. Its a shame more people didnt, and wont have, the same experience."
It's not "unfucking believable" until humans move to another system other then capitalism, that's one of schools main functions is to pump out some workers from those who's sole reason is to be corporate fodder in a competitive world. While the others serve necessary societal functions.
Why do you think parents say so often "Either go to school or GET A JOB" because the sole reason for school is to prepare kids with skills that are marketable in the economy, we live for the economy at this time in human history, if you dont think so then you're simply ignoring the facts. Everytime we invent technology that can free up human labour, instead of people having more free time the efficiency gains made are consumed by the drive for profit and extracting te most work out of the worker while paying him as little as the market allows.
Genesis 1:
"1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day."
So there was days without a sun? That's a logical contradiction. Also you can't seperate light from darkness, because darkness by definition is a lack of light. How could God the lord of the universe, perfect and flawless, omniscient and omnipotent in all his glory make such a trivial mistake? But wait theres more...
"6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day."
Ok so now we have days without a sun, and a sky and water cycle system without a sun.
Skipping some verses...
"14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.""
So now the lights in the expanse of the sky are there to seperate day from night? But I already thought we had figured that out way back in verse three?
"And it was so. 16 God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning-the fourth day."
Man, so now we're creating more things whose allegedly (according to god himself) is to seperate day from night, when all you need is a sun and a planet rotating around it.
If anyone should be offended it should be every thinkign rational human being on the planet that understands that the bible is a myth that is demonstrably and provably so on the most cursory examination.
Human memory is limited, and the more you try to cram into kids heads the more likely they are to forget and loose the skills they aren't using. I think many courses in school right now amount to fucking pointless wastes of time because of the 3 month summer gap. No one starting a new semester is going to remember much of what they learned last year, so we go through short reviews of last years material in the first few weeks (maybe longer) of the semester. Some of the weaker kids who loose skills faster when they are not using them end up struggling longer through the new material and we end up with someone with lopsided through skill decay through sheer lack of use.
Schools right now are the most fucked places, instead apprenticeshipping people into real jobs in the real workplaces we isolate them and get them to do work and work on problems that are disconnected from the working world. It's an insane system. If I want to learn how to be a scientist or even a lowly mechanic, who's the best person to learn from? Someone on the job who's doing it right now.
I personally think many schools are out-dated and corporations should be taking their best workers and getting them to come up with curriculum that is relevant to their business.
Schools are supposed to serve business and the economy, not just solely educate people in isolation from the real world.
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa....
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"Now tell me, how do you fancy doll playing ? That's no more contempt against others than the look of an adult toward a child : the league is not the same, so there's no point in imagining that the gifted should interact normaly with his or her school mates of the same physical age. They may look alike, but inside they're completely different."
I understand this perspective, that people of greater maturity and faster growth outgrow certain modes of thinking, thoughts and activities. But this is exactly why they shouldn't become sectarian or prejudice, or have contempt for meeting people on a level they understand. I'm not saying you should be forced to waste all your time engaging people frutlessly. Just realize it is in fact an ass backwards strategy to not meet people on the level they are at and help develop and grow them from there if you are to make the world a better place and saner environment for yourself and others like you. I know what you mean because I was assaulted for my intelligence constantly growing up as well, and couldn't understand the base nature and rituals of my peers of which I had no interest in.
It's like being in a world alien beings who are you're your 'inferiors' because you do not socially or intellectually mesh because the gap in ability and level of development is so wide in many areas. These contradictions though always exist to a greater or lesser degree, everywhere, the problem is with perception and focusing too much on the gaps and differences.
If we made everyone equally as intelligent as say you or similar to you, if you had to live with autonomous clones of yourself would you all get along or would there be natural divergences of the million you's that ended up tearing the society of apart just through occupying different time, space and set of motion and of atoms? It's a nice thought experiment but many intelligent people couldn't stand to live with mirror images of themselves.
I understand the reason for these societies, to find a people who are at your stage of development and who can act as peers and like family and a source of support and stimulation you can't find anywhere else. But you'd think that such a group would be doing everything in their power to recognize the realities of the world and to make the world a better place instead of just living their lives with like minded people of the same status of intellectual and emotional development.
As long as human beings are born and are dieing the same sets of gaps will always exist until we intervene in the evolution of our race.
The natural prejudice resulting from abilitiy gaps, cause you to disassociate from others because you're using the gaps in your abilities to justify disciriminating against association with others who are not at your level of development.
Just imagine if you had kids and but you abandoned associating with them because they may not turn out like you or may end up on the bottom 'bell curve', you're just completely different people.
There was a reason someone coined the phrase for their families "It's like we're strangers living under the same roof." It's these gaps and human differences that give rise to the want to disassociation, the fact is because you're more intellectually and emotionally developed as hard as it is for you at some level, you must engage and entertain the notion of coming down and meeting them on their level, or you're really not as gifted human being as you think you are.
There is a lot we gifted people can learn from simplicity of those who are allegedly on the bottom of the intellectual and emotional developmental pile. Some of the strongest and caring people I have ever met were the people many intellectual ethicists say we should discard. Which just goes to show gifts exist in everyone in different amounts, but because you have excessive amount of gifts you should realize that your responsiblity to use them wisely is necessary if you have any care or concern for the world and humanity as a whole and making a better future for everyone, you can't do it alone, but with your gifts you can certainly "piss in riff raffs proverbial pond", hoping another gifted person will take up the responsiblity sometime down the line of history.
Re:Ah. You tried to get into mensa....
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If you were truly gifted you would acknowledge their frailty and weakness, and rely on your own strength of ability and reason to carry you through the slanderings of people more ignorant then yourself.
The problem comes is when you think eliminating or isolating your self and/or having contempt for ALL the "the lesser" beings whose abilities don't match your own. Instead of complaining about it you could be rationally arguing against the segments of people discriminating against you, getting articles in newspapers and raising awareness against bullying and discrimination of those who have gifts, but at the same time decrying the superiority complex and contempt those who have gifts have for everyone who isn't on the same plateua of ability or thought, you have to remember you may tbe the smartest person or most gifted person in the world, but on the scope of cosmological history you're intelligence and wisdom is tiny and weak by comparison of future generations.
The most important quality in a person is ethics in my opinion, intelligence without ethics and without love, compassion and concern for all human beings no matter their weakness or stature is insanity. A world without compassion is not a world any really intelligent person would want to live in.
"The reason capitalism works is that it is amoral."
Actually this is totally wrong, because captitalism is a tool of its actors. There would be no need to legistlate minimum wage of capitalism was really amoral system. Only in theory, or some kind of platonic heaven is captialism amoral.
"Communism and socialism have inconvenient morality so resources tend to be wasted, while capitalism only allows those who can provide to pull resources back out of the system."
I can point out enormous waste of resources in capitalism. Short life light bulbs just to name one common every-day item people buy over and over again therefore *wasting* resources and costing us money over the long term.
"This may not be fair from a moral standpoint, but it allows society as a whole to be more efficent by forcing those who would be wasteful to be more mindful of that which they consume, and through good government, makes workplaces safer by providing economic incentives that do not exist under communism.
If you think capitalism is bad, move to china for a year. You'll be cured."
No true socialism has ever exist, nor any true communism, yet, nor any true capitalism. Again the actors in the system determine whether it succeeds or fails. I don't dispute the facts that things are bad, but it it would take a lot of proof that it is the result of the idealogy or economic system in question. All systems have their pro's and cons and using a word broad brush without understanding the nuances of why a people or country "failed" would be a little hasty.
Needless to say though: All that exists is process. Capitalism is not amoral because it requires people through financial obligation (i.e. money spaeks) to co-operate. Therefore people are forced from their homes when they can't afford to live there but you're missing the point that this scarcity of resources in many cases is artificial and not actual, it's created by the capitalist money system.
Therefore, no capitalism is not amoral since their are abundant resources that are purposely that are not scarce (like basic necessities) that people "can't afford".
"Don't you already pirate games? Aren't you just scratching for any excuse to make your blatantly illegal activity seem morally OK?"
Morals are in no way objective, it's a valid evolutionary strategy to steal. I don't see you crying when you eat hamburger or steak over the enslavement of animals everywhere to be our food. I don't see you crying for the burger flipper at McDonalds who through nature didn't have the skills to make it through highschool and therefore is forced by a capitalist economy to work 40+ hour weeks just to pay the rent.
You may say "this has nothing to do with stealing or morality" well you're wrong, this has everything to do with morality. Our capitalist economy is the very antithesis of morality.
Already exists, it's called life. Took us... a few million years but we finally got around to getting to what life has had since well... 3 point something billion year ago.
Older hardware is a problem for trusted computing. There is simply no way they could stamp out all the old hardware in moving to trusted computing. Black markets would emerge to sell non trusted computing devices. It would be way too lucrative if they try to go to trusted computing for companies that only care about profit and nothing else to come in and fill the void.
I'm not loyal to any specific idealogy but Militarism and imperalism is rampant and is a byproduct of commercial/stategic interests of a country, any serious scholar KNOWS this. For example, the Illegal war in iraq violated the geneva convention and international law. To overthrow a ruler the U.S. Government put there. This is solely so the U.S. and its 'allies' could come in and suck up Iraq's resources under the illusion of "liberating" iraq.
"This, in economic terms, is called descriminatory pricing. The idea is that those who can pay more will, and those who can't or won't, well, won't.
Before you scream, notice that it happens daily, on a wide scale: going to movies are the classic example; 9 bucks for a ticket, and then 7 more for popcorn and a drink that would have cost you, maybe, a dollar outside of the theatre. It also happens buying cars, dinner, and booze (Think of the opportunity cost of going 'cross town...)
People pay what they think something is worth daily. And that's a negotiation, even if it happens solely in one's own head - "A pack of ramen costs $0.32 over there, and $0.99 here. Do I want to walk over there?" Sure, you can smuggle in food to a movie, and my example is very urban. But I think you et the point. All these businessess survive."
Yeah under bourgeois economics. As if there was only one economic system or social order that is 'the best'. The fact is modern production facilities could give the poor and working class a much higher standard of living the fact that discriminatory pricing is even used indicates the very flaws of the capitalist system and that the poor even exist in the first place and 'need' to be 'supported'.
"We don't need more steenken regulation. People are capable of spotting a scam."
And thats why they continue to offer rebates in hopes people wont claim them? If people are that capable why do rebates, denials of reception by businesses and expiry schemes persist? This is similar in principle to why spam doesn't go away: Because the spammers make money doing it.
What I meant by regulation is that, any retailer that advertises rebates during a sales period can not have them expire for the buyer who bought during that sales period. This wouldn't be "overburdening" regulation. It prevents the fraud that now goes on on a massive scale.
"I disagree with several of the posters here who say that rebates ought to be illegal and offer no value other than to return products to market value."
Rebates are not needed at all, they burden the consumer and are in fact designed to take advantage of human beings. You've imbibed too much free market capitalistic religion. Sorry but if Manufacturer A) is willing to give money back to the *customer* then it follows that manufacturer A) should be giving that money to the store when the item is sold and NOT burden the customer. It's this simple, the rest of your argument just doesn't wash with real world economics, businesses primary aims are profit not enabling the poor to buy their items. If they were to enable the poor to buy their items they wouldn't have to sell the item at a higher price and then refund it after the fact.
"If the rebate is not paid, then that is fraud, otherwise:"
Yes but most rebates are so small as to make "taking the company" to task not worth it financially, this is exactly why it amounts to con-artistry and unfair market practices all around. Rebates exist because businesses and their partners can abuse them.
Nice economics but profit motive does away with any kind of 'market analysis for the benefit of X'.
Well considering the amount on peoples plates in modern life, remembering to send in a rebate to save $20, $30 when they have so much to consider doesn't seem unreasonable. The fact is offering rebates should be illegal because the reason they are offered is because they are burdening the customer with after sale Bullshit and schemes that amount to con-artistry.
The fact is they pump up the price and offer the rebate, and the rebate usually only brings the price of the item to 'market' value for someone who spends time looking for the lowest prices. Rebates are bait and switch, no bones about it.
I've sent in rebates I have not recieved. I also had rebates that "expire" by the company claiming that it "didn't get it on time" a month after the fact, when they should have recieved it within two days after mailing it.
There are actually 'expiry schemes' where they have expirations and the stores offering them continue to advertise 'rebates' knowing that the expiry will keep them from having to put out money, if they even do it at all.
The fact is, if you can't sell the item for the rebated price outright, you have no right to even offer the rebate in the first place.
Rebates should be illegal or legislated at the time of purchase (and advertisment of the rebate) the customer who bought it then does not have to worry about expiry.
BSOD's still exist on XP, in particular in some nasty offending drivers or combination of software that conspires against your drivers. I've had BSOD's happen to me on brand new XP machines and we still get machines that have BSOD issues in XP, especially when its related to cheap hardware and poorly developed software and/or drivers for the cheap hardware (scanner, printer, whatever) in question.
If you think XP is all that you are dreaming. I've seen XP machines so infested with spyware and whatnot that BSOD's are a common occurance.
Backwars compatability. The DS had it and its most likely the next Gameboy will have it. Nintendo has already started the trend of backwards compatable on handhelds and I dont see it going away because this is their biggest market in which they can't afford to fail.
But I do agree flooding the market with hardware is not the answer, this is exactly how Sega DIED. Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, etc.
Usenet is not going to go away because usenet you pay for usenet access you are assured access to binaries and messages that are months old. You can get everything from apps, movies, games to MP3's and torrents off Usenet. While **AA's of world are going after public websites. Usenet is flourishing for those who dont mind paying for the service.
If anything companies could learn from the usenet model i.e. pay a flat fee, download all the content you want.
I disagree somewhat, There are good and bad gamers in both the casual and hardcore market. In the hardcore you have a small section of them that loves really boring repetitive grindy shit but I'd say the are in the minority since judging by game sales most hardcore gamers only buy the best of the best games. In fact I'd venture to say that hardcore gamers with years of video game playing experience are more critical of games because they have a huge library of experiences to compare it the latest games to previous offerings over the years in terms of fun.
You'd think that the person that posted this would be a bit more knowledgeable using a real firewall and antivirus software. There are many good anti virus and firewall protection software now, not to mention Firefox browser.
If you want to access the net you have to be responsible and take care of your computer because no one will. If you can't afford $100 for that $1000 computer with that 20-50$ a month internet connection then those people have issues.
No one should cry because people love to live in ignorance. I think this has to do with more of a lack of user education then it does by putting the burden on a single software company. Even anti virus and firewall products have to constantly be updated because of new exploits.
Games have become derivative because its cost have risen so this has to be weighed vs. profit potential.
I dont think game designers have gotten worse, they just have enormous pressure to make a product thats going to get someone to fork over $50. So it better damn well be good enough to get that $50. You see the prices of games haven't changed all that much but the cost to produce them has skyrocketed so this necessarily reduces innovation and risktaking because now when you make a game and it flops you are out a shitload of resources that would have been better spent elsewhere and not "wasted" on a niche game.
Being communist has very little to do with innovation, what really matters is where they are spending their resources educationally and what they are doing to maintain the economy and peacefulness within their own ranks.
With over 1 billion people, once they become all educated I'd say every nation on earth will be screwed. Think about the probability of smart people from the amount of people/population they produce alone outweighs any kind of deterimental factor.
Get a grip man, birth of a person isn't that exciting. It's how you parent and love a child that matters, not oggling some baby being squirt into the world. Christ man. Some people have a passion for what they do, and just because the guy had passion for his work doesn't mean he's an idiot. The games industry and especially blizzard would like their employee's to be pretty hardcore about games and play them enough to understand them and from their track record of hits, guys like these are exactly why we have such awesome games.
Again your still missing the point, you're the troll here. The game didn't sell well and thats not good news for capcom releasing games for Nintendo systems period. Being a hardcore player of MGS, you are in the minority not the majority.
A port of a game everyone has already played doesn't count. MGS Twin snakes is the FIRST Metal gear solid game from the playstation 1 updated for the gamecube, its the exact same game. MGS1 was released for the PS1 and the PC so why would anyone want to buy it for the cube when they'd already played the game years prior?
And FF crystal chronicles was not a final fantasy game in the slightest. You show your ignorance here. FF crystal chronicles was not final fantasy, period. It a badly designed 3D hack and slash with no story and it only sold something like 250K units. It was a total cash in attempt.
Lets face it, people that think gaming on linux will ever get anywhere are living in a pipe dream world. Thinking Linux gaming is ever going to match PC's especially when PC gaming except for the few triple-A titles is going out of style in a big way because of modern consoles (read: Xbox, PS2, Gamecube). Also to top it off the internet has made it insanely easy to pirate PC games in record numbers online.
Just what makes you think that any sane commercial developer will want to make games run under the already losing steam PC gaming market? If anything more and more developers are going console only and saying goodbye to the warez fest that the PC is. Only really high profile games can survive on the PC, or games that have a legacy and history of sequels already established.
Almost every PC game worth playing is a sequel to another game or a port of a console game, or a multiplatform title like NFSU2.
With video card prices at record highs and new cards coming out every year for $300US or $300-400CDN dollars. PC gaming is a friggin expensive hobby and the graphics card companies are the ones to blame for making the market for 3D games increasingly smaller and smaller. It is becoming less and less appealing to want ot invest the insane amount of money you have to in a PC to just get a selection of games that is DWINDLING ever year, playable.
Still, it's not like Nintendo is going out of their way to woo 3rd parties. I mean the gamecube was originally supposed to go head to head and be neck-and-neck with the PS2 but there was no developer support for the GC at all and all the exclusivity deals with 3rd party killer apps (MGS, GTA, FFX, etc) killed any hope for the GC and even Xbox as well from really competing with the PS2.
Also note that: The difference is though MMO's are games so you expect a certain level of childishness and idiocy. I don't play MMO's so I dont really have a problem with it. But still you can't compare investing 7 years of your life in a relationship and say getting dumped to an MMO, I can't stand people that don't know who they are and what they want. Why waste investing all that energy in a relatinoship for example if someone is going to change their mind later down the road?
For me in my opinion, it's better just to have temporary short term relationships that you dont invest yourself heavily in and dont expect much out of. You keep yourself sane by not emotionally investing yourself in people that are fickle and prone to change. I'm one of those people who know who I am and have been burned too many times when I place my full trust in someone and they turn around and I end up getting screwed feeling that I wasted my time investing all that energy in that person that I can't get back.
Games you can control and turn off, and move on if you dont like it almost immediately when it goes sour and your life and psychology is not effected at all like it is when you invest yourself in relationships with other people.
I just don't enjoy socializing with people that are not on my level or don't share my interests, I think the same can be said for everyone. There are just people you don't want to be around, are just too different from and don't get along with. Personality and culture clashes, then theres the clashes of worldviews and life philosophies. Most people dont figure themselves out until they are 30, I'm just one of those people that grew up too fast and most people my own age (26'ish) leave a lot to be desired.
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"However, youre 'Schools are supposed to serve business and the economy' statement, is pure BS, unbe-fucking-leivable. Schools can and should be so much more. I was one of the few people who loved school, and knew i loved it whilst i was there. Its a shame more people didnt, and wont have, the same experience."
It's not "unfucking believable" until humans move to another system other then capitalism, that's one of schools main functions is to pump out some workers from those who's sole reason is to be corporate fodder in a competitive world. While the others serve necessary societal functions.
Why do you think parents say so often "Either go to school or GET A JOB" because the sole reason for school is to prepare kids with skills that are marketable in the economy, we live for the economy at this time in human history, if you dont think so then you're simply ignoring the facts. Everytime we invent technology that can free up human labour, instead of people having more free time the efficiency gains made are consumed by the drive for profit and extracting te most work out of the worker while paying him as little as the market allows.
Genesis 1: "1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day." So there was days without a sun? That's a logical contradiction. Also you can't seperate light from darkness, because darkness by definition is a lack of light. How could God the lord of the universe, perfect and flawless, omniscient and omnipotent in all his glory make such a trivial mistake? But wait theres more... "6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day." Ok so now we have days without a sun, and a sky and water cycle system without a sun. Skipping some verses... "14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth."" So now the lights in the expanse of the sky are there to seperate day from night? But I already thought we had figured that out way back in verse three? "And it was so. 16 God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning-the fourth day." Man, so now we're creating more things whose allegedly (according to god himself) is to seperate day from night, when all you need is a sun and a planet rotating around it. If anyone should be offended it should be every thinkign rational human being on the planet that understands that the bible is a myth that is demonstrably and provably so on the most cursory examination.
Human memory is limited, and the more you try to cram into kids heads the more likely they are to forget and loose the skills they aren't using. I think many courses in school right now amount to fucking pointless wastes of time because of the 3 month summer gap. No one starting a new semester is going to remember much of what they learned last year, so we go through short reviews of last years material in the first few weeks (maybe longer) of the semester. Some of the weaker kids who loose skills faster when they are not using them end up struggling longer through the new material and we end up with someone with lopsided through skill decay through sheer lack of use.
Schools right now are the most fucked places, instead apprenticeshipping people into real jobs in the real workplaces we isolate them and get them to do work and work on problems that are disconnected from the working world. It's an insane system. If I want to learn how to be a scientist or even a lowly mechanic, who's the best person to learn from? Someone on the job who's doing it right now.
I personally think many schools are out-dated and corporations should be taking their best workers and getting them to come up with curriculum that is relevant to their business.
Schools are supposed to serve business and the economy, not just solely educate people in isolation from the real world.
"Now tell me, how do you fancy doll playing ? That's no more contempt against others than the look of an adult toward a child : the league is not the same, so there's no point in imagining that the gifted should interact normaly with his or her school mates of the same physical age. They may look alike, but inside they're completely different."
I understand this perspective, that people of greater maturity and faster growth outgrow certain modes of thinking, thoughts and activities. But this is exactly why they shouldn't become sectarian or prejudice, or have contempt for meeting people on a level they understand. I'm not saying you should be forced to waste all your time engaging people frutlessly. Just realize it is in fact an ass backwards strategy to not meet people on the level they are at and help develop and grow them from there if you are to make the world a better place and saner environment for yourself and others like you. I know what you mean because I was assaulted for my intelligence constantly growing up as well, and couldn't understand the base nature and rituals of my peers of which I had no interest in.
It's like being in a world alien beings who are you're your 'inferiors' because you do not socially or intellectually mesh because the gap in ability and level of development is so wide in many areas. These contradictions though always exist to a greater or lesser degree, everywhere, the problem is with perception and focusing too much on the gaps and differences.
If we made everyone equally as intelligent as say you or similar to you, if you had to live with autonomous clones of yourself would you all get along or would there be natural divergences of the million you's that ended up tearing the society of apart just through occupying different time, space and set of motion and of atoms? It's a nice thought experiment but many intelligent people couldn't stand to live with mirror images of themselves.
I understand the reason for these societies, to find a people who are at your stage of development and who can act as peers and like family and a source of support and stimulation you can't find anywhere else. But you'd think that such a group would be doing everything in their power to recognize the realities of the world and to make the world a better place instead of just living their lives with like minded people of the same status of intellectual and emotional development.
As long as human beings are born and are dieing the same sets of gaps will always exist until we intervene in the evolution of our race.
The natural prejudice resulting from abilitiy gaps, cause you to disassociate from others because you're using the gaps in your abilities to justify disciriminating against association with others who are not at your level of development.
Just imagine if you had kids and but you abandoned associating with them because they may not turn out like you or may end up on the bottom 'bell curve', you're just completely different people.
There was a reason someone coined the phrase for their families "It's like we're strangers living under the same roof." It's these gaps and human differences that give rise to the want to disassociation, the fact is because you're more intellectually and emotionally developed as hard as it is for you at some level, you must engage and entertain the notion of coming down and meeting them on their level, or you're really not as gifted human being as you think you are.
There is a lot we gifted people can learn from simplicity of those who are allegedly on the bottom of the intellectual and emotional developmental pile. Some of the strongest and caring people I have ever met were the people many intellectual ethicists say we should discard. Which just goes to show gifts exist in everyone in different amounts, but because you have excessive amount of gifts you should realize that your responsiblity to use them wisely is necessary if you have any care or concern for the world and humanity as a whole and making a better future for everyone, you can't do it alone, but with your gifts you can certainly "piss in riff raffs proverbial pond", hoping another gifted person will take up the responsiblity sometime down the line of history.
If you were truly gifted you would acknowledge their frailty and weakness, and rely on your own strength of ability and reason to carry you through the slanderings of people more ignorant then yourself.
The problem comes is when you think eliminating or isolating your self and/or having contempt for ALL the "the lesser" beings whose abilities don't match your own. Instead of complaining about it you could be rationally arguing against the segments of people discriminating against you, getting articles in newspapers and raising awareness against bullying and discrimination of those who have gifts, but at the same time decrying the superiority complex and contempt those who have gifts have for everyone who isn't on the same plateua of ability or thought, you have to remember you may tbe the smartest person or most gifted person in the world, but on the scope of cosmological history you're intelligence and wisdom is tiny and weak by comparison of future generations.
The most important quality in a person is ethics in my opinion, intelligence without ethics and without love, compassion and concern for all human beings no matter their weakness or stature is insanity. A world without compassion is not a world any really intelligent person would want to live in.
"The reason capitalism works is that it is amoral."
Actually this is totally wrong, because captitalism is a tool of its actors. There would be no need to legistlate minimum wage of capitalism was really amoral system. Only in theory, or some kind of platonic heaven is captialism amoral.
"Communism and socialism have inconvenient morality so resources tend to be wasted, while capitalism only allows those who can provide to pull resources back out of the system."
I can point out enormous waste of resources in capitalism. Short life light bulbs just to name one common every-day item people buy over and over again therefore *wasting* resources and costing us money over the long term.
"This may not be fair from a moral standpoint, but it allows society as a whole to be more efficent by forcing those who would be wasteful to be more mindful of that which they consume, and through good government, makes workplaces safer by providing economic incentives that do not exist under communism.
If you think capitalism is bad, move to china for a year. You'll be cured."
No true socialism has ever exist, nor any true communism, yet, nor any true capitalism. Again the actors in the system determine whether it succeeds or fails. I don't dispute the facts that things are bad, but it it would take a lot of proof that it is the result of the idealogy or economic system in question. All systems have their pro's and cons and using a word broad brush without understanding the nuances of why a people or country "failed" would be a little hasty.
Needless to say though: All that exists is process. Capitalism is not amoral because it requires people through financial obligation (i.e. money spaeks) to co-operate. Therefore people are forced from their homes when they can't afford to live there but you're missing the point that this scarcity of resources in many cases is artificial and not actual, it's created by the capitalist money system.
Therefore, no capitalism is not amoral since their are abundant resources that are purposely that are not scarce (like basic necessities) that people "can't afford".
"Don't you already pirate games? Aren't you just scratching for any excuse to make your blatantly illegal activity seem morally OK?"
Morals are in no way objective, it's a valid evolutionary strategy to steal. I don't see you crying when you eat hamburger or steak over the enslavement of animals everywhere to be our food. I don't see you crying for the burger flipper at McDonalds who through nature didn't have the skills to make it through highschool and therefore is forced by a capitalist economy to work 40+ hour weeks just to pay the rent.
You may say "this has nothing to do with stealing or morality" well you're wrong, this has everything to do with morality. Our capitalist economy is the very antithesis of morality.
Already exists, it's called life. Took us ... a few million years but we finally got around to getting to what life has had since well... 3 point something billion year ago.
Older hardware is a problem for trusted computing. There is simply no way they could stamp out all the old hardware in moving to trusted computing. Black markets would emerge to sell non trusted computing devices. It would be way too lucrative if they try to go to trusted computing for companies that only care about profit and nothing else to come in and fill the void.
"Spoken like a loyal marxist."
I'm not loyal to any specific idealogy but Militarism and imperalism is rampant and is a byproduct of commercial/stategic interests of a country, any serious scholar KNOWS this. For example, the Illegal war in iraq violated the geneva convention and international law. To overthrow a ruler the U.S. Government put there. This is solely so the U.S. and its 'allies' could come in and suck up Iraq's resources under the illusion of "liberating" iraq.
"This, in economic terms, is called descriminatory pricing. The idea is that those who can pay more will, and those who can't or won't, well, won't.
Before you scream, notice that it happens daily, on a wide scale: going to movies are the classic example; 9 bucks for a ticket, and then 7 more for popcorn and a drink that would have cost you, maybe, a dollar outside of the theatre. It also happens buying cars, dinner, and booze (Think of the opportunity cost of going 'cross town...)
People pay what they think something is worth daily. And that's a negotiation, even if it happens solely in one's own head - "A pack of ramen costs $0.32 over there, and $0.99 here. Do I want to walk over there?" Sure, you can smuggle in food to a movie, and my example is very urban. But I think you et the point. All these businessess survive."
Yeah under bourgeois economics. As if there was only one economic system or social order that is 'the best'. The fact is modern production facilities could give the poor and working class a much higher standard of living the fact that discriminatory pricing is even used indicates the very flaws of the capitalist system and that the poor even exist in the first place and 'need' to be 'supported'.
"We don't need more steenken regulation. People are capable of spotting a scam."
And thats why they continue to offer rebates in hopes people wont claim them? If people are that capable why do rebates, denials of reception by businesses and expiry schemes persist? This is similar in principle to why spam doesn't go away: Because the spammers make money doing it.
What I meant by regulation is that, any retailer that advertises rebates during a sales period can not have them expire for the buyer who bought during that sales period. This wouldn't be "overburdening" regulation. It prevents the fraud that now goes on on a massive scale.
"I disagree with several of the posters here who say that rebates ought to be illegal and offer no value other than to return products to market value."
Rebates are not needed at all, they burden the consumer and are in fact designed to take advantage of human beings. You've imbibed too much free market capitalistic religion. Sorry but if Manufacturer A) is willing to give money back to the *customer* then it follows that manufacturer A) should be giving that money to the store when the item is sold and NOT burden the customer. It's this simple, the rest of your argument just doesn't wash with real world economics, businesses primary aims are profit not enabling the poor to buy their items. If they were to enable the poor to buy their items they wouldn't have to sell the item at a higher price and then refund it after the fact.
"If the rebate is not paid, then that is fraud, otherwise:"
Yes but most rebates are so small as to make "taking the company" to task not worth it financially, this is exactly why it amounts to con-artistry and unfair market practices all around. Rebates exist because businesses and their partners can abuse them.
Nice economics but profit motive does away with any kind of 'market analysis for the benefit of X'.
Well considering the amount on peoples plates in modern life, remembering to send in a rebate to save $20, $30 when they have so much to consider doesn't seem unreasonable. The fact is offering rebates should be illegal because the reason they are offered is because they are burdening the customer with after sale Bullshit and schemes that amount to con-artistry.
The fact is they pump up the price and offer the rebate, and the rebate usually only brings the price of the item to 'market' value for someone who spends time looking for the lowest prices. Rebates are bait and switch, no bones about it.
I've sent in rebates I have not recieved. I also had rebates that "expire" by the company claiming that it "didn't get it on time" a month after the fact, when they should have recieved it within two days after mailing it.
There are actually 'expiry schemes' where they have expirations and the stores offering them continue to advertise 'rebates' knowing that the expiry will keep them from having to put out money, if they even do it at all.
The fact is, if you can't sell the item for the rebated price outright, you have no right to even offer the rebate in the first place.
Rebates should be illegal or legislated at the time of purchase (and advertisment of the rebate) the customer who bought it then does not have to worry about expiry.
BSOD's still exist on XP, in particular in some nasty offending drivers or combination of software that conspires against your drivers. I've had BSOD's happen to me on brand new XP machines and we still get machines that have BSOD issues in XP, especially when its related to cheap hardware and poorly developed software and/or drivers for the cheap hardware (scanner, printer, whatever) in question.
If you think XP is all that you are dreaming. I've seen XP machines so infested with spyware and whatnot that BSOD's are a common occurance.
Backwars compatability. The DS had it and its most likely the next Gameboy will have it. Nintendo has already started the trend of backwards compatable on handhelds and I dont see it going away because this is their biggest market in which they can't afford to fail.
But I do agree flooding the market with hardware is not the answer, this is exactly how Sega DIED. Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, etc.
Usenet is not going to go away because usenet you pay for usenet access you are assured access to binaries and messages that are months old. You can get everything from apps, movies, games to MP3's and torrents off Usenet. While **AA's of world are going after public websites. Usenet is flourishing for those who dont mind paying for the service.
If anything companies could learn from the usenet model i.e. pay a flat fee, download all the content you want.
I disagree somewhat, There are good and bad gamers in both the casual and hardcore market. In the hardcore you have a small section of them that loves really boring repetitive grindy shit but I'd say the are in the minority since judging by game sales most hardcore gamers only buy the best of the best games. In fact I'd venture to say that hardcore gamers with years of video game playing experience are more critical of games because they have a huge library of experiences to compare it the latest games to previous offerings over the years in terms of fun.
You'd think that the person that posted this would be a bit more knowledgeable using a real firewall and antivirus software. There are many good anti virus and firewall protection software now, not to mention Firefox browser.
If you want to access the net you have to be responsible and take care of your computer because no one will. If you can't afford $100 for that $1000 computer with that 20-50$ a month internet connection then those people have issues.
No one should cry because people love to live in ignorance. I think this has to do with more of a lack of user education then it does by putting the burden on a single software company. Even anti virus and firewall products have to constantly be updated because of new exploits.
Games have become derivative because its cost have risen so this has to be weighed vs. profit potential.
I dont think game designers have gotten worse, they just have enormous pressure to make a product thats going to get someone to fork over $50. So it better damn well be good enough to get that $50. You see the prices of games haven't changed all that much but the cost to produce them has skyrocketed so this necessarily reduces innovation and risktaking because now when you make a game and it flops you are out a shitload of resources that would have been better spent elsewhere and not "wasted" on a niche game.
Being communist has very little to do with innovation, what really matters is where they are spending their resources educationally and what they are doing to maintain the economy and peacefulness within their own ranks.
With over 1 billion people, once they become all educated I'd say every nation on earth will be screwed. Think about the probability of smart people from the amount of people/population they produce alone outweighs any kind of deterimental factor.
Get a grip man, birth of a person isn't that exciting. It's how you parent and love a child that matters, not oggling some baby being squirt into the world. Christ man. Some people have a passion for what they do, and just because the guy had passion for his work doesn't mean he's an idiot. The games industry and especially blizzard would like their employee's to be pretty hardcore about games and play them enough to understand them and from their track record of hits, guys like these are exactly why we have such awesome games.
Again your still missing the point, you're the troll here. The game didn't sell well and thats not good news for capcom releasing games for Nintendo systems period. Being a hardcore player of MGS, you are in the minority not the majority.
A port of a game everyone has already played doesn't count. MGS Twin snakes is the FIRST Metal gear solid game from the playstation 1 updated for the gamecube, its the exact same game. MGS1 was released for the PS1 and the PC so why would anyone want to buy it for the cube when they'd already played the game years prior?
And FF crystal chronicles was not a final fantasy game in the slightest. You show your ignorance here. FF crystal chronicles was not final fantasy, period. It a badly designed 3D hack and slash with no story and it only sold something like 250K units. It was a total cash in attempt.
Lets face it, people that think gaming on linux will ever get anywhere are living in a pipe dream world. Thinking Linux gaming is ever going to match PC's especially when PC gaming except for the few triple-A titles is going out of style in a big way because of modern consoles (read: Xbox, PS2, Gamecube). Also to top it off the internet has made it insanely easy to pirate PC games in record numbers online.
Just what makes you think that any sane commercial developer will want to make games run under the already losing steam PC gaming market? If anything more and more developers are going console only and saying goodbye to the warez fest that the PC is. Only really high profile games can survive on the PC, or games that have a legacy and history of sequels already established.
Almost every PC game worth playing is a sequel to another game or a port of a console game, or a multiplatform title like NFSU2.
With video card prices at record highs and new cards coming out every year for $300US or $300-400CDN dollars. PC gaming is a friggin expensive hobby and the graphics card companies are the ones to blame for making the market for 3D games increasingly smaller and smaller. It is becoming less and less appealing to want ot invest the insane amount of money you have to in a PC to just get a selection of games that is DWINDLING ever year, playable.
Still, it's not like Nintendo is going out of their way to woo 3rd parties. I mean the gamecube was originally supposed to go head to head and be neck-and-neck with the PS2 but there was no developer support for the GC at all and all the exclusivity deals with 3rd party killer apps (MGS, GTA, FFX, etc) killed any hope for the GC and even Xbox as well from really competing with the PS2.
Also note that: The difference is though MMO's are games so you expect a certain level of childishness and idiocy. I don't play MMO's so I dont really have a problem with it. But still you can't compare investing 7 years of your life in a relationship and say getting dumped to an MMO, I can't stand people that don't know who they are and what they want. Why waste investing all that energy in a relatinoship for example if someone is going to change their mind later down the road?
For me in my opinion, it's better just to have temporary short term relationships that you dont invest yourself heavily in and dont expect much out of. You keep yourself sane by not emotionally investing yourself in people that are fickle and prone to change. I'm one of those people who know who I am and have been burned too many times when I place my full trust in someone and they turn around and I end up getting screwed feeling that I wasted my time investing all that energy in that person that I can't get back.
Games you can control and turn off, and move on if you dont like it almost immediately when it goes sour and your life and psychology is not effected at all like it is when you invest yourself in relationships with other people.
I just don't enjoy socializing with people that are not on my level or don't share my interests, I think the same can be said for everyone. There are just people you don't want to be around, are just too different from and don't get along with. Personality and culture clashes, then theres the clashes of worldviews and life philosophies. Most people dont figure themselves out until they are 30, I'm just one of those people that grew up too fast and most people my own age (26'ish) leave a lot to be desired.