"I urge you to read "Human Action" if you really want to understand the subject, because clearly you don't.
In the truly free market people are simply left to their own free will to decide who to exchange with."
I'm sorry but class has been a part of human history, what von Mises suggest requires people who are genuinely good hearted people. People are naturally antagonistic towards one another, think of all the people on slashdot who were bullied in school or in the workplace. Think about how people are treated at work in the middle and lower classes and many horrible jobs. Which they don't make enough to live on because of idiots idiots and selfish people outnumber intelligent and ethical people in this world people by a large margin.
Next you have learned completely nothing from the history of mankind and especially the recent financial crisis: People will fuck one another over if they all believe the other person is cheating and/or the other guy is getting in on something they're not.
You can't control people's behavior, the world is a fucked up place precisely because people in general and the culture we inhabit are fucked up. The world is a reflection of the people that inhabit it.
Intellectuals are frequently myopic and disregard herd mentality, and that money is a flawed medium of exchange and store of value to begin with. All economics are political, money and property is political power over those who have no say in how rewards are divided out. Poverty exists because for a lot of different reasons, but people ignore the most obvious one - poverty exists because of the price mechanism itself. People become insane when they see people have disproportionate amount of wealth and all and the same as the top 5% of the population, which skews expectations and creates a culture that is ultimately materialistic and toxic
A totally capitalistic society with no government or minimialistic government would just as easily become manipulated by those whose economic interests are hostile to the majority. Wealthy people are myopic and many wealthy people are crazy, a lot of sensible people are non materialistic because they know.
Money makes people fucking crazy. Human beings are anything but rational, think about how recently slavery was abolished and even then it's still not in many parts of the world, even in our vaunted capitalistic society.
In fact I would argue that most people today are already there, they have no concept of how destructive their own lifestyles and greed really are, suggesting we need a more capitalistic society in a complex world is just foolish, the more wealth you want, the more destructive you really are as a person.
Principles and ideologies should be taken with a large grain of salt, when principles begin to break down nothing can stop the resulting human fall out.
You cannot solve the problems of humanity by letting it be, the real problem is human behavior, attitudes and psychology which are going to take a long time to change beyond any one persons small lifetime.
Most human problems are technical or psychological, and the psychological is the most difficult of all.
"It is quite a logical outcome of our increasing reliance on scientific principles to explain and analyse our world. I find it ironic that many/. members would hate this approach of analysing workers, yet its roots lie in our reliance on science to breakdown, label, categorise, and figure out how we and our world works. In the same way psychology, neuroscience, and other mind-related fields were bastardised to figure out how to manipulate the human mind to makes us consume, the computer sciences will be used in a similar fashion to make us behave a certain way: if you don't want to get fired, you need to make sure what you do conforms to their model.
Sadly, figuring out the "optimal" and "perfect" workers will, like my.sig says, make us realise just what it was that made us human, instead of just robots."
It's not science that makes us do these things, it's the economic culture and institutions which we've inherited. The whole idea of economic efficiency is in fact a farce, einstein realized the negative effects of our economy on human beings, so much so he wrote an essay entitled "Why socialism?" in 1949
"In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history hasâ"as is well knownâ"been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior. "
The number is a rough estimate by some who work in the field. But I could put it another way, do you know exactly what is going on in your mind right now in exact detail? Not likely. The same way you don't know with certainty the position of every cell in your body or what kind of bacteria live in your stomach, etc, etc. There are limits on your ability to know about yourself and your environment. Most processes in your own body for most of human history people had no awareness of, it's not a stretch to say that most cognitive functions (i.e. what is actually going on in the brain) is inaccessable to your conscious thought, since most of what is going on in your body currently you are completely unaware of.
"I'm guessing you don't have kids? Truth is, despite all the complaining about diapers and sleepless nights and moody teenagers, its overall on average fun, both the initial procreation for a couple minutes (obviously) and the next couple decades of playing and reminiscing about your own youth, etc."
I'm not going to disagree with what you say, but what you said is not mutually exclusive to what I said. You can have fun without having kids. You're argument is that kids (and raising them) are fun, but you're really talking about companionship. You're also not understanding the historical precedent that has been set to live a middle class life in north america. To think we had slavery only a mere 150 or so years ago (and still do in some parts of the world to some extent, and we could also argue that poverty is a form of slavery), and then the serious racism less then 100 years ago (and still do in other parts of the world) this all in the blink of a historical eye.
A good question... my own opinion on the matter is because that's what women are designed to do - procreate, we can backwards rationalize it all we want, but the primary purpose of life is survive and procreate. I think the process is mostly unconscious and instinctive, I've been doing a lot of reading in the cognitive sciences and how they see that most thought is unconscious, most thought is below your awareness... about 98%. So it would not be a surprise that people then backwards rationalize their actions (i.e. I wanted kids for x,y, z). Truth be told people have kids for companionship/economic reasons and (the hope) of old age security I think, that has always been the 'traditional' view imho.
I've thought about this more as I've had to take care of my own grandmother who's very old, she wouldn't have anyone to take care of her if she didn't have her kids and grandkids. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a woman with no kids who is not financially secure and is getting old... we have to remember that for most of history poverty was a significant fact of life.
People have kids just because 'thats what everyone else is doing'. When I asked my own mother why she had kids, she said 'thats just what people did back then'. Personally I think most people don't really think about it, they do it out of habit or instinct.
"Because those countries may also not care too much about patents and copyrights?"
Companies are double dealers, the real winners are those who luck out in certain sectors and those in a position of power or authority to skim/glean the most profits, companies will spout copyright and patent protection on one side and heave off expensive workers for low wage workers on the other.
The problem is companies don't care for workers anymore, there are whole legal services dedicated to avoiding hiring local (expensive) workers. Since when have most companies been long term thinkers? Many companies operate on short-termism, the same kind of short sighted thinking that led to bank lending crisis.
... for on average a lot less pay, I think that's the biggest problem. Why pay a north american a decent middle class wage when you can farm science, technology and engineering careers to lower wage countries?
I keep trying to find this person for whom my crap is their treasure,
I meant along the lines of what someone is not interested in / considered crap is not universal.
Also you may be interested in the story of Emily dickinson
"The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet"
"Ah, depends on how you look at it. There's a whole lot of awful crapola that justifies itself sitting on the "long tail" (or ass-end) of publishing."
There's also a lot of interesting literature on many subjects that is not widely read outside academia or the research community but which many people nonetheless find fascinating. I can't count how many times I've found great books I've bookmarked for later reading via google.
Remember you get results based on key words, if you're going to get crap it's likely you were looking for it to begin with. One man's crappy book is another man's treasure.
"Because people no longer desired their product. Copying someone's work is pretty much the opposite of that."
You're missing the point, if whip and buggies could be duplicated at zero cost, they would still be out of a job. The point is technology has created infinite supply of certain works, if the same thing happened to physical goods you could imagine grave implications for manufacturers of goods that are no longer scarce, nor hard to produce.
We use a scarcity based economic system not because of some moral law, but because physical resources are scarce, once scarcity is gone, it doesn't matter what you think you own, when someone makes a copy of your work, they are not stealing what you own, they are reproducing it.
Artists and authors who are whining about copyright are not reading the writing on the wall: The 'replicator' has been invented for information, thereby devaluing their work... they're not seeing the forest from the tree's. Prohibition didn't work for a reason, and trying to put the internet and digital information technology which reduces the cost and monopolization of information to near zero is the writing on the wall. If the same thing happened to physical goods, the same thing would occur.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you aren't a professional writer, or at least not a professional writer of fiction.
Here's the thing. Putting aside the ridiculous assumption that you have a right to the product of someone else's creative efforts by virtue of being born, people gotta eat, right? So let's say that music is free to whoever wants it, and anyone can play it or listen to it whenever with no consideration to the creator of the work. Now, the only people making money from music are the people who are playing it. That's fine, as far as it goes; songwriters would either learn an instrument or go in to a different line of work. You can project how this would affect music but the bottom line is that musicians could still make money."
I understand your point, but whip and buggy manufacturers had to find another job when technology changed and put them out of a job. If something becomes (in peoples minds) too unprofitable to work at, then find something else. There is no right to profit or a job. Information technology has devalued information because supply exceeds demand, be thankful that people still pay for anything related to digitized works when they don't have to. It's not about morality, our economic system was initially designed to in order to distribute scarce resources, digital resources you produce are not scarce.
Classic supply and demand, it's just now that creators are having to deal with what most on the bottom of the economic food chain have always had to deal with in jobs there: the supply exceeds demand and so the value of your work goes down, same goes for goods that are overpriced and no one wants, so they try to dump the excess inventory.
It's just now that authors, singers and artists are finally having to put up with what most workers have to put up with : Getting replaced by cheaper alternatives thereby having your work devalued or being obsoleted by technology.
It's not a nice thing to have happen to someone, but neither is seeing your white collar job offshored to some low wage country
"Moral of your story: Always get a second opinion when you don't feel things are right."
Thats one take n what I said. To be more specific the sayings and judgments of those of high status, authority and credentialed - does not mean they bear any relation to their trustworthiness, reality or truth. It can be exhausting and anxiety provoking to question those who are experts 'in the field' for many people, and like I said not everyone in the world has the awareness of just how bad human judgment can be on the whole until you put it to the test.
It may be hard to swallow in many instances, but nowhere in life is expertise put on trial more often then when one is dealing with serious consequences to oneself.
While your take is one of the takes on what I said, you can't simply distill the gestalt of that kind of information via book learning. Feelings are not enough because you simply have to go through the experiences yourself before you have the confidence and fortitude in yourself to use your own judgment DESPITE "the evidence" and your feelings may be telling you. Your feelings may in fact be leaning towards trust, while your sense something is logically flawed veers in the opposite direction.
You have to be critical of everything around you, and realize that education, expertise and whatnot does not make human beings better at monolithically judging things then you are able to in any situation.
Education and even practice can blind, just as much as it helps because it constrains one's thinking to merely what one has experiences second hand through a vast collection of other peoples knowledge.
To be less wordy: Question everything there is much bad judgment and false knowledge in the world because the experts frequently do not have to bear the consequences of their errors in judgment and mistakes.
... as the title of this entry suggest. Not all doctors are created equal, and lets get this straight - all human beings, no matter how educated are very fallible and human.
I had one young doctor think I should have my moles checked out that "looked cancerous" and another doctor whom I'm also freinds with that tells me "that doctor is full of shit". I also had my GP (general practitioner) suggest I had a part of my foot cut off after a series of infections after many an ingrown nail, needless to say I rejected his suggestion and did the work on the foot myself and still have everything all intact and normal as ever.
Just because someone suggests something who is in a position of recognized credentialed authority, does not mean it is a license to take their judgments and advice without scrutiny and a grain of salt.
Knowing how to do this and when is the hard part, but this is something that only people who've lived long enough and have the wherewithal to gain by experience - mankind is extremely fallible. Therefore critical skepticism must be employed when decisions can have significant consequences.
It's easy for experts to suggest something to someone else when they don't have to bear the risk and consequences of going through with it.
Nope. It's not part of the same series. The way the Prince of persia franchise has functioned is more like an isolated series of different worlds based on the core general ideas.
The sands of time is the first installment in what we might call the "Sands of time" trilogy, where the 2nd and 3rd games (warrior within + two thrones) were the same world referring to the same storyline.
The way the Prince of persia franchise has functioned is the games that bear the Prince of persia name, are usually different games more along the lines of reimagining the series in alternative world/universe.
Prince of Persia "2008" (as many call it to differentiate it from the original), is another re-imagining of Prince of persia - new universe, cast of characters, and storyline.
Real life graphics are over-rated, almost all games bend the rules of reality significantly. The fact is even in the movies, the 'photorealistic' images we are seeing have been usually doctored to high hell. Almost everything one see's in a movie is made to be look ideal or if not ideal a certain unrealistic way that looks visually nice.
I think his point about 'not being able to connect with' polygon characters to be a overstatement, a good case study is Prince of persia: the sands of time.
The characterization in that game and banter back and forth was excellent. There's more to developing interest in a character beyond mere appearances and fancy animations people get the gist of things. I know I was disappointed to what they did to the series and it's characters after the first game, with the whole injection of the "badass prince" persona with it's sequels the warrior within and the two thrones. The game veered well away from the original princes personality in significant ways.
... my guess is that flash penetration has to be at least significant, since youtube uses flash practically exclusively before you can view any videos. I'd like to see numbers from major video streaming sites and other flash using sites as well.
I know that I sometimes get peeved when I am asked to download a file like quicktime or some other format now instead of just stream it via flash.
Correct, but I think you're discounting advances in other areas such as miniaturization and battery life that could make your point about x86 moot. At some point it's going to get 'efficient enough' for use in many applications, just like how cheap LCD's, SSD and ram converted into netbooks.
Looking back over the last 20 years of technology and I think many people would not have imagined the internet as it is today or people with iPods, fancy cell phones, PSP's/gameboy advances, and music players that can contain whole libraries of music on something smaller then the size of your hand.
Like there's a good defense of endless copyright extension and patent trolling?
Like there's a good defense of sweatshops in the third world?
Like there's a good defense for an illegal war in IRAQ?
I could go on, but lets face it. When has anyone fought what the majority of people want and won?
Trying to act like a resource is scarce when it is not is part of the whole problem to begin with, once made, digital works are not scarce and can always fulfill supply. They are the perfect product to fit a socialist/communist economic model, why should we expect people NOT to pirate? There's no good argument considering the resource is not scarce. Physical products and digital products are not on the same level in legal and other terms and the people are voting with their behaviour.
IMHO piracy is fair reaction regardless of whether the people pirating do so for political reasons in addition to the fact that it's possible. Considering to how twisted the law and legal system has become. How the law is bought and sold by those with the most money. And the endless attempts at DRM and trying to licesense everything instead of people actually owning the stuff they buy. I consider it a counter force to the overwhelming concentration of corporate and private power at the expense of the public good and the individuals rights to own what they buy and not trying to be turned into serfs of consumption via legal corruption of the law and peoples rights.
"And although a cat's killing maneuver (the neck-bite) is instinctual and doesn't need to be learned, learning the stalking and pouncing behavior specific to each prey species makes a cat a much more effective hunter."
Many cats are self taught, we had a house cat when I was growing up that when left outside to it's own devices would go hunting and bring in rodents or birds that it caught. Cat's don't need to be taught truth be told, they just need to be in an environment that allows their hunting skills to flourish. Cats will teach themselves very quickly to do so. I'm not sure how common this is in the big city, but in rural area's there's lots of wildlife for housecats to learn to hunt with on their own.
With the domestication of cats you get cats that 'dont know what to do', but I'm certain that many cats are natural born hunters it's the lack of open wild environments that keeps their inner hunter at bay.
"I think we need to see more Braids and Galateas, and better Fables that are less about sword slashing and more about our inner conflicts as human beings, before we get there"
Most gamers couldn't give less of a crap about "inner conflicts of human beings", when I play a game I don't want some game developers whiny philosophical whinging of characters to be the forefront of the experience. I want to get on with the game.
Most game writing and movie plots do not support "high art" for the most part. Really good movies like say Schindlers list that do (in my mind) qualify as "art" because they make serious statements about our humanity or inhumanity are influential because they take up you full attention, the movie isn't trying to distract you with gaming action on the side... games have a real problem because story can often distract a player from the action and what he wants to do. I've had this experience countless times in RPG's especially, where the developer wants to pimp or interject "too much movie" to the detriment of the gameplay itself. The narrative should be built into the game and for the most part a part of the background, the more upfront the narrative, the more linear the game is going to have to be to "keep the flow" going, like an editor in a movie. But the same thing can also destroy the flow of a game by being too overt, if your game does not have one hell of a story, then I'd rather have more game and have the development team flesh out experience of the world with small details. Like the talking soldiers in halo, or if you should ever get the chance: Get Rogue Galaxy for the PS2. This is probably the best way I've seen character development NOT interfere with gameplay, where characters naturally and spontaneously converse while running around without being "in your face" and breaking the experience.
I can't tell you how often I hate when the game developers take control of my character away from me and interject a lot of their bad stories and cheezy dialogue.
But most games plots have to bow to, and facilitate the gameplay, the fun and gameplay is the star, the story, cutscenes, etc is a bonus. I really think many game developers are also in the wrong industry - they should be making movies, not developing games, because you definitely sound like someone who wants to impact people. There are better avenues for doing so.
The perfect genre for "story based games" was the adventure genre, noticed how it died out mostly as a genre, because most people don't play games for the story, they play for action, competition and interactivity. Gaming is more like a sport or riding amusement park rides then it is like passively watching a movie or reading a book.
This is the same thing that killed JRPG's and many games who have way too much FMV or cutscenes in them like Metal gear solid 4, GAMES are not the same as movies! Many development teams are out of touch with this, I couldn't stand final fantasy X and 12 for similar reasons : Gameplay has been continually dumbed down and full motion or in game cutscenes have gone way up, when all I want to do is PLAY the game, if I wanted to watch a badly made B movie I'd go watch a movie. Next is the fact that "inner conflict" in game characters cannot really be produced well without making the game linear (well scripted and voice acted) or unbelievable (most computer NPC's). Many people playing the game could care less about someones philosophical or NPC's moral whinging. The problem with games like Bioshock who presented the "Save the little girls or not" is that - we know its fake and there was no emotional investment in said characters, they didn't really present as genuine human beings, more like little monsters who happen to look human.
I know I didn't play call of duty 4 modern warfare to be presented with the "inner conflicts of human beings", I played it for the action packed entertainment and roller coaster ride of experiences of what it's like to experience (in an exagerrated and unrealistic way) "a sol
"Consider the piracy of software, for instance. "Let's take...ooh, I don't know, err...Photoshop for instance. Massively pirated, and pretty expensive. You might correctly say that should I pirate a copy of Photoshop, Adobe has not lost a sale of Photoshop since I was never going to buy it anyway.
This is too simplistic though. I wasn't going to buy Photoshop, so what could I have done?"
There is a fundamental, philosophical, problem with the traditional means of distribution: the product is abundant.
Cars are not abundant. It takes a significant expenditure of materials and effort to put one together. When I drive off in one, I cannot simply dupe it and give the dupe to my friend. The laws of physics dictate a level of scarcity to this good, and as such it makes perfect sense to expect to receive money from every person who obtains a car.
The world of "data" follows different laws of physics. Once I have the data in my hot little hands, I can dupe it and give it to my friends at zero direct cost to the producer. There is no deprivation of use nor loss of mineral resources nor expenditure of manpower nor anything of the sort on the part of the original developer when I dupe the game. None. And I can keep duplicating this ad infinitum, at the same cost (of zero). Furthermore, my friends can do the same thing with the copy I gave them...there is no quality loss. Once the good exists, it can instantly exist everywhere. It is "abundant."
So, since data follows these laws (rather than the laws of physics as they apply to physical goods) people feel like they are being cheated when they are asked to pretend like data follows the laws of physical matter. They feel like they are buying into a game of control that is unfounded in reality and ultimately to their detriment (since they have to pay money for something that doesn't cost anything to produce *at this point* (excluding initial development costs).
I think that is the crux of the issue. We all know the good is abundant, and we all feel like pretending it is not abundant is just silly, and harmful to us (our money is valuable and if we can get games for free then we have optimized our entertainment budget and have more money left over to spend on things like real cars or educations for our kids or what-have-you).
What about the potential sale that we are "stealing" by copying a game? We tend to respond to such a representation of the situation with great cynicism. We feel like the only reason you feel entitled to every single "potential sale" is because of your insistence in everyone pretending that an abundant good is not abundant. We also feel that the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism doesn't guarantee a ROI on any kind of development project, so when you pound your fist in frustration at your inability to monetize your efforts we just say, "so try something else...thats what every other entrepreneur in the world has had to do...what makes you special? If you can't make money making games, do something else, and stop whining." That is the same answer we get when we complain about being downsized, or having low-paying jobs, or what-have-you...so we are just responding in turn.
Lastly...the age-old mantra that if you can't get money for every copy of a game sold then nobody will produce games. I call BS. Piracy has been alive and well since before the computer games industry even existed...and since long before DRM existed...and the games industry thrived anyway. And it still thrives, despite the continued piracy. Enough people pay for the games (even though they don't have to) that the industry remains profitable. If that model suddenly stops working, alternative models will take its place (subscription-based games and so on). If that doesn't work, and we actually reach a state of utter cultural impoverishment where no games (or music or movies, for that matter) are being produced because nobody can figure out how to make a living doing it (and no hobbiests manage to churn out anything but crap)...which I maintain is an eco
"How about you devote all the energy, time, and effort that you would have put into doing yet another ill-advised sequel or remake into writing something ORIGINAL?"
Most of what is original isn't if you looked hard enough and had enough time. There are only so many themes that have wide enough commercial or financial appeal to a general audience. Where you can see this a lot is in video games: Early video games were much more original then later ones. People I think tend to forget that the expense of doing original stuff at the quality people today expect is a large part of the problem. That and lots of great stuff fails financially, lets face it, most people have average tastes. The further away you get from the average the smaller your audience because it is less widely appealing. Let's not also forget the marketing (or lack thereof) for many original works.
"So I dunno, is there actually a market that you could sell real "retro" games to?"
Yes depending on what kind of titles you mean by "retro". If someone developed a real sequel to Chrono Trigger I'm certain their is a market for that. Just as there was a market for remakes of older final fantasy titles. The fact is, if you're going to do "retro" development you have to develop something new or you should get hired to do an update of classics, but you ultimately have to do market research. The problem with many developers is lack of resources to do advertising and proper market research, also many developers are simply clueless to what the market wants. That fact has to be faced. I've seen so many good genre of games and franchises get ignored that were profitable and sold enough but who's publishers dropped them because they weren't million plus sellers. This kind of mentality of trying to be a jack of all trades and master of none is going to stop you from targetting the appropriate market you're going after.
Sins of a Solar empire, by all intents - an indie game, sold over 500,000 copies but note the largest portion of that sold was at retail. Many indie game developers games have no real retail presence. This kind of lack of business sense is what gets a lot of developers in trouble. Not to mention the enormous amount of market saturation filled with average to downright crappy games. Developers have to stop releasing bug ridden, or total junk as well, that fact has to be faced.
Slashdot Mirror
"Most of what we do every minute of every day is unconscious, "says University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Paul Whelan.
http://www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/ENGL2210/USNWR-mind.html
Hope that helps.
"I urge you to read "Human Action" if you really want to understand the subject, because clearly you don't.
In the truly free market people are simply left to their own free will to decide who to exchange with."
I'm sorry but class has been a part of human history, what von Mises suggest requires people who are genuinely good hearted people. People are naturally antagonistic towards one another, think of all the people on slashdot who were bullied in school or in the workplace. Think about how people are treated at work in the middle and lower classes and many horrible jobs. Which they don't make enough to live on because of idiots idiots and selfish people outnumber intelligent and ethical people in this world people by a large margin.
Next you have learned completely nothing from the history of mankind and especially the recent financial crisis: People will fuck one another over if they all believe the other person is cheating and/or the other guy is getting in on something they're not.
You can't control people's behavior, the world is a fucked up place precisely because people in general and the culture we inhabit are fucked up. The world is a reflection of the people that inhabit it.
Intellectuals are frequently myopic and disregard herd mentality, and that money is a flawed medium of exchange and store of value to begin with. All economics are political, money and property is political power over those who have no say in how rewards are divided out. Poverty exists because for a lot of different reasons, but people ignore the most obvious one - poverty exists because of the price mechanism itself. People become insane when they see people have disproportionate amount of wealth and all and the same as the top 5% of the population, which skews expectations and creates a culture that is ultimately materialistic and toxic
A totally capitalistic society with no government or minimialistic government would just as easily become manipulated by those whose economic interests are hostile to the majority. Wealthy people are myopic and many wealthy people are crazy, a lot of sensible people are non materialistic because they know.
Money makes people fucking crazy. Human beings are anything but rational, think about how recently slavery was abolished and even then it's still not in many parts of the world, even in our vaunted capitalistic society.
In fact I would argue that most people today are already there, they have no concept of how destructive their own lifestyles and greed really are, suggesting we need a more capitalistic society in a complex world is just foolish, the more wealth you want, the more destructive you really are as a person.
Principles and ideologies should be taken with a large grain of salt, when principles begin to break down nothing can stop the resulting human fall out.
You cannot solve the problems of humanity by letting it be, the real problem is human behavior, attitudes and psychology which are going to take a long time to change beyond any one persons small lifetime.
Most human problems are technical or psychological, and the psychological is the most difficult of all.
"It is quite a logical outcome of our increasing reliance on scientific principles to explain and analyse our world. I find it ironic that many /. members would hate this approach of analysing workers, yet its roots lie in our reliance on science to breakdown, label, categorise, and figure out how we and our world works. In the same way psychology, neuroscience, and other mind-related fields were bastardised to figure out how to manipulate the human mind to makes us consume, the computer sciences will be used in a similar fashion to make us behave a certain way: if you don't want to get fired, you need to make sure what you do conforms to their model.
Sadly, figuring out the "optimal" and "perfect" workers will, like my .sig says, make us realise just what it was that made us human, instead of just robots."
It's not science that makes us do these things, it's the economic culture and institutions which we've inherited. The whole idea of economic efficiency is in fact a farce, einstein realized the negative effects of our economy on human beings, so much so he wrote an essay entitled "Why socialism?" in 1949
http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php
"In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history hasâ"as is well knownâ"been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior. "
The number is a rough estimate by some who work in the field. But I could put it another way, do you know exactly what is going on in your mind right now in exact detail? Not likely. The same way you don't know with certainty the position of every cell in your body or what kind of bacteria live in your stomach, etc, etc. There are limits on your ability to know about yourself and your environment. Most processes in your own body for most of human history people had no awareness of, it's not a stretch to say that most cognitive functions (i.e. what is actually going on in the brain) is inaccessable to your conscious thought, since most of what is going on in your body currently you are completely unaware of.
"I'm guessing you don't have kids? Truth is, despite all the complaining about diapers and sleepless nights and moody teenagers, its overall on average fun, both the initial procreation for a couple minutes (obviously) and the next couple decades of playing and reminiscing about your own youth, etc."
I'm not going to disagree with what you say, but what you said is not mutually exclusive to what I said. You can have fun without having kids. You're argument is that kids (and raising them) are fun, but you're really talking about companionship. You're also not understanding the historical precedent that has been set to live a middle class life in north america. To think we had slavery only a mere 150 or so years ago (and still do in some parts of the world to some extent, and we could also argue that poverty is a form of slavery), and then the serious racism less then 100 years ago (and still do in other parts of the world) this all in the blink of a historical eye.
"Why do women have babies?"
A good question... my own opinion on the matter is because that's what women are designed to do - procreate, we can backwards rationalize it all we want, but the primary purpose of life is survive and procreate. I think the process is mostly unconscious and instinctive, I've been doing a lot of reading in the cognitive sciences and how they see that most thought is unconscious, most thought is below your awareness... about 98%. So it would not be a surprise that people then backwards rationalize their actions (i.e. I wanted kids for x,y, z). Truth be told people have kids for companionship/economic reasons and (the hope) of old age security I think, that has always been the 'traditional' view imho.
I've thought about this more as I've had to take care of my own grandmother who's very old, she wouldn't have anyone to take care of her if she didn't have her kids and grandkids. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a woman with no kids who is not financially secure and is getting old... we have to remember that for most of history poverty was a significant fact of life.
People have kids just because 'thats what everyone else is doing'. When I asked my own mother why she had kids, she said 'thats just what people did back then'. Personally I think most people don't really think about it, they do it out of habit or instinct.
"Because those countries may also not care too much about patents and copyrights?"
Companies are double dealers, the real winners are those who luck out in certain sectors and those in a position of power or authority to skim/glean the most profits, companies will spout copyright and patent protection on one side and heave off expensive workers for low wage workers on the other.
The problem is companies don't care for workers anymore, there are whole legal services dedicated to avoiding hiring local (expensive) workers. Since when have most companies been long term thinkers? Many companies operate on short-termism, the same kind of short sighted thinking that led to bank lending crisis.
... for on average a lot less pay, I think that's the biggest problem. Why pay a north american a decent middle class wage when you can farm science, technology and engineering careers to lower wage countries?
And I was talking about literal excrement
I just noticed and it certainly stinks...
because I'm a shitty person.
Fixed that for you ;)
I keep trying to find this person for whom my crap is their treasure,
I meant along the lines of what someone is not interested in / considered crap is not universal.
Also you may be interested in the story of Emily dickinson
"The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson
"Ah, depends on how you look at it. There's a whole lot of awful crapola that justifies itself sitting on the "long tail" (or ass-end) of publishing."
There's also a lot of interesting literature on many subjects that is not widely read outside academia or the research community but which many people nonetheless find fascinating. I can't count how many times I've found great books I've bookmarked for later reading via google.
Remember you get results based on key words, if you're going to get crap it's likely you were looking for it to begin with. One man's crappy book is another man's treasure.
"Because people no longer desired their product. Copying someone's work is pretty much the opposite of that."
You're missing the point, if whip and buggies could be duplicated at zero cost, they would still be out of a job. The point is technology has created infinite supply of certain works, if the same thing happened to physical goods you could imagine grave implications for manufacturers of goods that are no longer scarce, nor hard to produce.
We use a scarcity based economic system not because of some moral law, but because physical resources are scarce, once scarcity is gone, it doesn't matter what you think you own, when someone makes a copy of your work, they are not stealing what you own, they are reproducing it.
Artists and authors who are whining about copyright are not reading the writing on the wall: The 'replicator' has been invented for information, thereby devaluing their work... they're not seeing the forest from the tree's. Prohibition didn't work for a reason, and trying to put the internet and digital information technology which reduces the cost and monopolization of information to near zero is the writing on the wall. If the same thing happened to physical goods, the same thing would occur.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you aren't a professional writer, or at least not a professional writer of fiction.
Here's the thing. Putting aside the ridiculous assumption that you have a right to the product of someone else's creative efforts by virtue of being born, people gotta eat, right? So let's say that music is free to whoever wants it, and anyone can play it or listen to it whenever with no consideration to the creator of the work. Now, the only people making money from music are the people who are playing it. That's fine, as far as it goes; songwriters would either learn an instrument or go in to a different line of work. You can project how this would affect music but the bottom line is that musicians could still make money."
I understand your point, but whip and buggy manufacturers had to find another job when technology changed and put them out of a job. If something becomes (in peoples minds) too unprofitable to work at, then find something else. There is no right to profit or a job. Information technology has devalued information because supply exceeds demand, be thankful that people still pay for anything related to digitized works when they don't have to. It's not about morality, our economic system was initially designed to in order to distribute scarce resources, digital resources you produce are not scarce.
Classic supply and demand, it's just now that creators are having to deal with what most on the bottom of the economic food chain have always had to deal with in jobs there: the supply exceeds demand and so the value of your work goes down, same goes for goods that are overpriced and no one wants, so they try to dump the excess inventory.
It's just now that authors, singers and artists are finally having to put up with what most workers have to put up with : Getting replaced by cheaper alternatives thereby having your work devalued or being obsoleted by technology.
It's not a nice thing to have happen to someone, but neither is seeing your white collar job offshored to some low wage country
"Moral of your story: Always get a second opinion when you don't feel things are right."
Thats one take n what I said. To be more specific the sayings and judgments of those of high status, authority and credentialed - does not mean they bear any relation to their trustworthiness, reality or truth. It can be exhausting and anxiety provoking to question those who are experts 'in the field' for many people, and like I said not everyone in the world has the awareness of just how bad human judgment can be on the whole until you put it to the test.
It may be hard to swallow in many instances, but nowhere in life is expertise put on trial more often then when one is dealing with serious consequences to oneself.
While your take is one of the takes on what I said, you can't simply distill the gestalt of that kind of information via book learning. Feelings are not enough because you simply have to go through the experiences yourself before you have the confidence and fortitude in yourself to use your own judgment DESPITE "the evidence" and your feelings may be telling you. Your feelings may in fact be leaning towards trust, while your sense something is logically flawed veers in the opposite direction.
You have to be critical of everything around you, and realize that education, expertise and whatnot does not make human beings better at monolithically judging things then you are able to in any situation.
Education and even practice can blind, just as much as it helps because it constrains one's thinking to merely what one has experiences second hand through a vast collection of other peoples knowledge.
To be less wordy: Question everything there is much bad judgment and false knowledge in the world because the experts frequently do not have to bear the consequences of their errors in judgment and mistakes.
... as the title of this entry suggest. Not all doctors are created equal, and lets get this straight - all human beings, no matter how educated are very fallible and human.
I had one young doctor think I should have my moles checked out that "looked cancerous" and another doctor whom I'm also freinds with that tells me "that doctor is full of shit". I also had my GP (general practitioner) suggest I had a part of my foot cut off after a series of infections after many an ingrown nail, needless to say I rejected his suggestion and did the work on the foot myself and still have everything all intact and normal as ever.
Just because someone suggests something who is in a position of recognized credentialed authority, does not mean it is a license to take their judgments and advice without scrutiny and a grain of salt.
Knowing how to do this and when is the hard part, but this is something that only people who've lived long enough and have the wherewithal to gain by experience - mankind is extremely fallible. Therefore critical skepticism must be employed when decisions can have significant consequences.
It's easy for experts to suggest something to someone else when they don't have to bear the risk and consequences of going through with it.
Nope. It's not part of the same series. The way the Prince of persia franchise has functioned is more like an isolated series of different worlds based on the core general ideas.
The sands of time is the first installment in what we might call the "Sands of time" trilogy, where the 2nd and 3rd games (warrior within + two thrones) were the same world referring to the same storyline.
Here's a wiki entry (in case you're interested)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia
The way the Prince of persia franchise has functioned is the games that bear the Prince of persia name, are usually different games more along the lines of reimagining the series in alternative world/universe.
Prince of Persia "2008" (as many call it to differentiate it from the original), is another re-imagining of Prince of persia - new universe, cast of characters, and storyline.
Real life graphics are over-rated, almost all games bend the rules of reality significantly. The fact is even in the movies, the 'photorealistic' images we are seeing have been usually doctored to high hell. Almost everything one see's in a movie is made to be look ideal or if not ideal a certain unrealistic way that looks visually nice.
I think his point about 'not being able to connect with' polygon characters to be a overstatement, a good case study is Prince of persia: the sands of time.
The characterization in that game and banter back and forth was excellent. There's more to developing interest in a character beyond mere appearances and fancy animations people get the gist of things. I know I was disappointed to what they did to the series and it's characters after the first game, with the whole injection of the "badass prince" persona with it's sequels the warrior within and the two thrones. The game veered well away from the original princes personality in significant ways.
... my guess is that flash penetration has to be at least significant, since youtube uses flash practically exclusively before you can view any videos. I'd like to see numbers from major video streaming sites and other flash using sites as well.
I know that I sometimes get peeved when I am asked to download a file like quicktime or some other format now instead of just stream it via flash.
"Efficiency *matters*."
Correct, but I think you're discounting advances in other areas such as miniaturization and battery life that could make your point about x86 moot. At some point it's going to get 'efficient enough' for use in many applications, just like how cheap LCD's, SSD and ram converted into netbooks.
Looking back over the last 20 years of technology and I think many people would not have imagined the internet as it is today or people with iPods, fancy cell phones, PSP's/gameboy advances, and music players that can contain whole libraries of music on something smaller then the size of your hand.
"i'm yet to see a good defense for this."
Like there's a good defense of endless copyright extension and patent trolling?
Like there's a good defense of sweatshops in the third world?
Like there's a good defense for an illegal war in IRAQ?
I could go on, but lets face it. When has anyone fought what the majority of people want and won?
Trying to act like a resource is scarce when it is not is part of the whole problem to begin with, once made, digital works are not scarce and can always fulfill supply. They are the perfect product to fit a socialist/communist economic model, why should we expect people NOT to pirate? There's no good argument considering the resource is not scarce. Physical products and digital products are not on the same level in legal and other terms and the people are voting with their behaviour.
IMHO piracy is fair reaction regardless of whether the people pirating do so for political reasons in addition to the fact that it's possible. Considering to how twisted the law and legal system has become. How the law is bought and sold by those with the most money. And the endless attempts at DRM and trying to licesense everything instead of people actually owning the stuff they buy. I consider it a counter force to the overwhelming concentration of corporate and private power at the expense of the public good and the individuals rights to own what they buy and not trying to be turned into serfs of consumption via legal corruption of the law and peoples rights.
"And although a cat's killing maneuver (the neck-bite) is instinctual and doesn't need to be learned, learning the stalking and pouncing behavior specific to each prey species makes a cat a much more effective hunter."
Many cats are self taught, we had a house cat when I was growing up that when left outside to it's own devices would go hunting and bring in rodents or birds that it caught. Cat's don't need to be taught truth be told, they just need to be in an environment that allows their hunting skills to flourish. Cats will teach themselves very quickly to do so. I'm not sure how common this is in the big city, but in rural area's there's lots of wildlife for housecats to learn to hunt with on their own.
With the domestication of cats you get cats that 'dont know what to do', but I'm certain that many cats are natural born hunters it's the lack of open wild environments that keeps their inner hunter at bay.
"I think we need to see more Braids and Galateas, and better Fables that are less about sword slashing and more about our inner conflicts as human beings, before we get there"
Most gamers couldn't give less of a crap about "inner conflicts of human beings", when I play a game I don't want some game developers whiny philosophical whinging of characters to be the forefront of the experience. I want to get on with the game.
Most game writing and movie plots do not support "high art" for the most part. Really good movies like say Schindlers list that do (in my mind) qualify as "art" because they make serious statements about our humanity or inhumanity are influential because they take up you full attention, the movie isn't trying to distract you with gaming action on the side... games have a real problem because story can often distract a player from the action and what he wants to do. I've had this experience countless times in RPG's especially, where the developer wants to pimp or interject "too much movie" to the detriment of the gameplay itself. The narrative should be built into the game and for the most part a part of the background, the more upfront the narrative, the more linear the game is going to have to be to "keep the flow" going, like an editor in a movie. But the same thing can also destroy the flow of a game by being too overt, if your game does not have one hell of a story, then I'd rather have more game and have the development team flesh out experience of the world with small details. Like the talking soldiers in halo, or if you should ever get the chance: Get Rogue Galaxy for the PS2. This is probably the best way I've seen character development NOT interfere with gameplay, where characters naturally and spontaneously converse while running around without being "in your face" and breaking the experience.
I can't tell you how often I hate when the game developers take control of my character away from me and interject a lot of their bad stories and cheezy dialogue.
But most games plots have to bow to, and facilitate the gameplay, the fun and gameplay is the star, the story, cutscenes, etc is a bonus. I really think many game developers are also in the wrong industry - they should be making movies, not developing games, because you definitely sound like someone who wants to impact people. There are better avenues for doing so.
The perfect genre for "story based games" was the adventure genre, noticed how it died out mostly as a genre, because most people don't play games for the story, they play for action, competition and interactivity. Gaming is more like a sport or riding amusement park rides then it is like passively watching a movie or reading a book.
This is the same thing that killed JRPG's and many games who have way too much FMV or cutscenes in them like Metal gear solid 4, GAMES are not the same as movies! Many development teams are out of touch with this, I couldn't stand final fantasy X and 12 for similar reasons : Gameplay has been continually dumbed down and full motion or in game cutscenes have gone way up, when all I want to do is PLAY the game, if I wanted to watch a badly made B movie I'd go watch a movie. Next is the fact that "inner conflict" in game characters cannot really be produced well without making the game linear (well scripted and voice acted) or unbelievable (most computer NPC's). Many people playing the game could care less about someones philosophical or NPC's moral whinging. The problem with games like Bioshock who presented the "Save the little girls or not" is that - we know its fake and there was no emotional investment in said characters, they didn't really present as genuine human beings, more like little monsters who happen to look human.
I know I didn't play call of duty 4 modern warfare to be presented with the "inner conflicts of human beings", I played it for the action packed entertainment and roller coaster ride of experiences of what it's like to experience (in an exagerrated and unrealistic way) "a sol
"Consider the piracy of software, for instance. "Let's take...ooh, I don't know, err...Photoshop for instance. Massively pirated, and pretty expensive. You might correctly say that should I pirate a copy of Photoshop, Adobe has not lost a sale of Photoshop since I was never going to buy it anyway.
This is too simplistic though. I wasn't going to buy Photoshop, so what could I have done?"
There is a fundamental, philosophical, problem with the traditional means of distribution: the product is abundant.
Cars are not abundant. It takes a significant expenditure of materials and effort to put one together. When I drive off in one, I cannot simply dupe it and give the dupe to my friend. The laws of physics dictate a level of scarcity to this good, and as such it makes perfect sense to expect to receive money from every person who obtains a car.
The world of "data" follows different laws of physics. Once I have the data in my hot little hands, I can dupe it and give it to my friends at zero direct cost to the producer. There is no deprivation of use nor loss of mineral resources nor expenditure of manpower nor anything of the sort on the part of the original developer when I dupe the game. None. And I can keep duplicating this ad infinitum, at the same cost (of zero). Furthermore, my friends can do the same thing with the copy I gave them...there is no quality loss. Once the good exists, it can instantly exist everywhere. It is "abundant."
So, since data follows these laws (rather than the laws of physics as they apply to physical goods) people feel like they are being cheated when they are asked to pretend like data follows the laws of physical matter. They feel like they are buying into a game of control that is unfounded in reality and ultimately to their detriment (since they have to pay money for something that doesn't cost anything to produce *at this point* (excluding initial development costs).
I think that is the crux of the issue. We all know the good is abundant, and we all feel like pretending it is not abundant is just silly, and harmful to us (our money is valuable and if we can get games for free then we have optimized our entertainment budget and have more money left over to spend on things like real cars or educations for our kids or what-have-you).
What about the potential sale that we are "stealing" by copying a game? We tend to respond to such a representation of the situation with great cynicism. We feel like the only reason you feel entitled to every single "potential sale" is because of your insistence in everyone pretending that an abundant good is not abundant. We also feel that the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism doesn't guarantee a ROI on any kind of development project, so when you pound your fist in frustration at your inability to monetize your efforts we just say, "so try something else...thats what every other entrepreneur in the world has had to do...what makes you special? If you can't make money making games, do something else, and stop whining." That is the same answer we get when we complain about being downsized, or having low-paying jobs, or what-have-you...so we are just responding in turn.
Lastly...the age-old mantra that if you can't get money for every copy of a game sold then nobody will produce games. I call BS. Piracy has been alive and well since before the computer games industry even existed...and since long before DRM existed...and the games industry thrived anyway. And it still thrives, despite the continued piracy. Enough people pay for the games (even though they don't have to) that the industry remains profitable. If that model suddenly stops working, alternative models will take its place (subscription-based games and so on). If that doesn't work, and we actually reach a state of utter cultural impoverishment where no games (or music or movies, for that matter) are being produced because nobody can figure out how to make a living doing it (and no hobbiests manage to churn out anything but crap)...which I maintain is an eco
"How about you devote all the energy, time, and effort that you would have put into doing yet another ill-advised sequel or remake into writing something ORIGINAL?"
Most of what is original isn't if you looked hard enough and had enough time. There are only so many themes that have wide enough commercial or financial appeal to a general audience. Where you can see this a lot is in video games: Early video games were much more original then later ones. People I think tend to forget that the expense of doing original stuff at the quality people today expect is a large part of the problem. That and lots of great stuff fails financially, lets face it, most people have average tastes. The further away you get from the average the smaller your audience because it is less widely appealing. Let's not also forget the marketing (or lack thereof) for many original works.
"So I dunno, is there actually a market that you could sell real "retro" games to?"
Yes depending on what kind of titles you mean by "retro". If someone developed a real sequel to Chrono Trigger I'm certain their is a market for that. Just as there was a market for remakes of older final fantasy titles. The fact is, if you're going to do "retro" development you have to develop something new or you should get hired to do an update of classics, but you ultimately have to do market research. The problem with many developers is lack of resources to do advertising and proper market research, also many developers are simply clueless to what the market wants. That fact has to be faced. I've seen so many good genre of games and franchises get ignored that were profitable and sold enough but who's publishers dropped them because they weren't million plus sellers. This kind of mentality of trying to be a jack of all trades and master of none is going to stop you from targetting the appropriate market you're going after.
Sins of a Solar empire, by all intents - an indie game, sold over 500,000 copies but note the largest portion of that sold was at retail. Many indie game developers games have no real retail presence. This kind of lack of business sense is what gets a lot of developers in trouble. Not to mention the enormous amount of market saturation filled with average to downright crappy games. Developers have to stop releasing bug ridden, or total junk as well, that fact has to be faced.