Would you pay a few cents more to have lossless downloads from iTunes and other online music retailers?
Yes, if there is no DRM. Otherwise, I simply buy the CD and make my digital music myself. iTunes and similar efforts appeals to me not at all as long as they continue to pretend they have any right to limit how I use my purchased music on any machine, any number of machines, any kind of machines, that I own or wish to use. They have no such right; no law can give them any such right, because no such right EXISTS.
When you buy DRM, you're only screwing yourself. Compression isn't even a faint shadow of the problem that DRM is.
I think you were trying to make a valid point about C++ libraries
Yes, I didn't say that OO was poor, I said that it was "poorly used." I meant to imply (and I think I did) that you could write small code in an OO language. And you can write poor code in a non-OO language too, but you don't generally have anywhere near the magnitude of the OPC (other people's code) bloat factor you often have in an OO system. I was just observing that generally speaking, we don't see it nearly as much in C programs. I'm not limiting that assessment to MS, either. Examples: Linux:Openoffice. MS:Office. MS+OSX:Photoshop. OSX:Delicious Library.
Consider these three graphics apps aimed at image manipulation, prepress, art and effects:
Photoshop 7
45 megs (includes libs,exe,no docs), medium feature count, medium speed. Mixed. Commercial.
Gimp 2.2
15 megs (includes libs, compressed for download, no docs), low feature count, medium speed. C. Collaboration.
WinImages 7
4 megs (includes libs,exe, no docs), very high feature count, very high speed. C. Commercial.
I give the gimp some room because with really loose collaboration on a complex project, you're going to lose a lot of potential internal code reuse. It's just difficult for programmer A to know all the cool ins and outs of programmer B's work, and take advantage of them, and vice-versa. The gimp is very slow to start, but runs OK once it is going. Googling it seems to indicate its in C. The gimp is also larger in size because it was developed for Linux, which has no modern GUI -- so you end up downloading the huge GTK widget set so the gimp can have user controls / widgets. This isn't really related to the coding style for the application itself, but then again, you have to have it, so you have to count it.
WinImages, written in C, is by far the leader in features, speed and minimum size. It is so tight because it doesn't use other people's libraries except for just a few (Twain, MNG, JPEG) that have been completely reworked by the coding team, and because with regard to code reuse, the development approach makes sure that once an optimum implementation has been worked out for something (eg, layer re-display or draw mode rendering), everyone has to use that. Extensive code reviews between the programmers result in remarks like "this section is essentially the same as module so-and-so" which have to be addressed (meaning, the code must become shared or decently explained as to why it is not prudent to do that) before the code can ship. And -- ironically -- it is tight because it uses C-based OO for its hundreds of operators, OO that carries no bloat whatsoever because no feature of it is ever unused, overloaded, or redundant. WinImages starts as fast as the OS can load it, which generally, these days, means before you can get your finger off the mouse button the first time, and even faster after that (because of OS executable caching.) Operators (think filters, sort of, only much more flexible) are near-realtime (with the exception of things like full bore ray tracing or real-world simulations like exfoliation), and even the area selections have been tuned to reduce unnecessary UI interactions which means the user gets more done with less UI work... it feels faster because it is more efficient.
Photoshop's size pretty much speaks for itself. Startup time is quite long, operations are medium speed (basically comparable to the gimp, typically 2x-4x slower than winimages) and in terms of major features, again in count it is roughly comparable to the gimp, but far behind winimages. I assume the reason for the oversized executable is not just bad C coding. I suppose it could be, but man... Be interesting to see how big CS3 for the Mac is. That'll come out of an OO development system; they don't have any choice.
The three applications do not have complete overlap -- gimp does some cool and unique things especially in supplied plug-
I came up with some ideas for a mix of hardware and software for the Amiga that would do SSTV, as well as a new SSTV mode that would provide a degree of noise resistance not present in then-current SSTV modes. Previously, I had written a PCB CAD system that did circuit trace layout. I designed a microprocessor-based board that would do the modulating and demodulating, but I didn't have a schematic capture system which I really wanted to use since I had seen them in magazines, so I wrote one and then used that. Then, when it came time to write the code for the CPU, I didn't have an assembler; so I wrote a cross-assembler for the Amiga. So that code had to be burned to the EPROM in the CPU; as it happened, I had worked for a company in Ft. Lauderdale and designed a burner for that CPU and I still had one of those, so I used that. I wrote the host program in C -- lucky me, I had the Lattice C compiler and 68000 assembler that came with the Amiga.:-)
What was cool about this, to me, is that I kind of picked myself up by my bootstraps almost every step of the way. The PCB design system and the schematic capture I wrote, the board I designed, the circuit I designed, the 68705 assembler I wrote, the code for the 68705 I wrote, the 68705 burner I designed, the C host code and all of it running an SSTV mode I designed... that is the most varied set of tasks I ever had to do for any one project and to this day I have one of those gadgets hanging on the wall to remind me that if you can't find what you need... you can do it yourself.
Eventually a HAM radio company (AEA) bought the design and it went on to do pretty well for the kind of widget it was. It was in the ARRL handbook for a while, might still be for all I know. It won technical achievement of the year at the Dayton hamfest, too, for the noise resistance. Almost everything about that project (except the FCC approval process) was fun. Although the device passed first time out, the bloody Amiga itself was noisy as hell; we just got in under the wire. That was my first real lesson on just how unreasonable and silly the FCC can be. Since then, I've learned... they're even worse than I thought.:)
What you call bloat I call making the product easier to use and in general more pleasant to use
Generally speaking, bloat is a consequence of (poorly used) OO languages, bringing in tons of code to do one or two silly things out of a module. A basic C program compiles to a fews tens of K (or less), a basic C++ program compiles to many megabytes, and it just gets worse from there. These things can be managed, but few people bother. That's where bloat comes from. You can still write a compact, powerful program in C that C++ authors would have a very hard time coming close to in terms of executable size; it's just that most programmers won't take the time. C++ is faster to write; that's because code reuse, the same thing that pigs up exe sizes, trims down coding time. To the programmer, when the choice is more of their time and effort as opposed to telling you to get better hardware... well, you can guess which way they typically go.
Ease of use has little to no connection with program size and speed. There is nothing, and I mean *nothing*, that you can create in UI space with fat C++ code that you can't code efficiently in C code. You can, of course, slow it down... just use Java.:)
Oh, I don't know. I've still got a bunch of computers running Win98. Properly designed applications work just fine under win98, you don't have to deal with MS's DRM (phoning home, comparing your hardware, etc), Win98 is lighter, faster, quicker to boot, and does most things just fine. It also doesn't annoy you every thirty seconds (it seems like) with little annoy-o-bubbles(tm) with messages like "your computer may not be up to date!" and similar marketing foo foo. XP seems, at least to me, to be an amazingly poorly designed OS with really annoying features designed to send me running the other way.
Although I do have a dedicated XP system, I've not yet run into anything that wouldn't run under win98. Even on my Mac, running Parallels, Win98 is sufficient to the task, and again, takes less resources to do what amounts to the same job.
I spend about 90% of my time these days on the Mac notebook, just hopping into a 98 virtual machine for specific tasks that can't be done under OSX. Strangely enough, it may be Mac software that forces me into XP; Parallels, the people who make the virtual machine, are distributing a beta right now that at least under XP, allows running Windows XP virtual machine apps in a Mac OSX window, instead of a virtual windows desktop. If that's an XP-only feature... well, some bullet biting will be required.:)
But... Vista? I can't see anything forcing me into Vista. Not unless someone invents true AI and it only runs there, anyway.
If both or just participating, how do you maintain your general tone and fitness? Is your job physically demanding? Mine isn't (desk job, several times over) and so sports have always been a big part of my own health plan, as it were. I readily admit watching them is pretty lame (though I enjoy it) but I've always found physical play to be well worth my time.
When I was younger, I used to travel all over Florida and the south to martial arts tournaments; now we go in North Dakota and Montana, and I go as coach, rather than competitor. Still a very physically active role, just not competitive. Between that and instructing here, I'm probably as physically active as anyone I know. I do know that if I don't stay active, my condition goes to worthless in about four weeks, and it is quite difficult and time-consuming to work back. Getting old, no question about it.
I apologize if you feel I have let you down and been helping the enemy, but it is not simply "politically correct" to say people have a right to believe what they want to believe. It's part of the basis for the foundation of this country (forgive me is I assume you live in the USA , because your lament seems to fit with what I see in the USA). Out of all that you say thats the only thing that hit a nerve with me
Hold on a second: I think you've misconstrued my position a bit.
I don't advocate forcing people down any particular path. I just tell them what I think instead of keeping silent and actually, that is the most basic founding principle of the country. Free speech. You can say what you want, and I support that, but so can I, even if I disagree with you. I just won't shut up when the public's perception is that silence is the "appropriate" response to a declaration of superstition rules the cosmos, or the more passive, but still harmful, "superstition is ok." I don't think it is ok, and I reserve the right to say so. Not to tell you what to do, but to disagree firmly and vocally.
I am very serious about this. I mean, I would go so far as to say exposing a child to religion as if it was part of reality is flat out child abuse, just as lying to them about Santa and the Easter bunny is — only worse. But I also feel that it is the parent's child and if that's how they want to raise them, then I think that should be their choice. If for no other reason than to protect my ability to teach my child about all the lies and deceptions in the world. I am no fan on any level of "mommy" government mechanisms.
Combating superstition is fine, but do you stand outside schools screaming kids who are won't step on a crack?
No. I don't interfere with how other people raise their children at the level of the individual child. I try to only have discourse with adults. I tell children to talk to their parents if I get cornered on an issue like this. My position on public schools is that superstition has no place in them, pro or con. I confess to an urge to "load the deck" by encouraging teaching critical thinking skills in junior high school, but the odds of that actually happening are about zero, so...:)
to me if feels like you place Fred Phelps and family (people I think could use killing, I am ashamed to admit to feeling) in the same category as the man down the street who keeps his belief to himself and does not try to enact laws or convert people into his views. Have I read you incorrectly?
Yes. Phelps is a poster child for all manner of sickness, extending far beyond superstition. I don't think he needs killing — I prefer that my enemies be allowed to speak at length, loud and long, so I know exactly who they are. There will always be homophobes (and every other kind of -phobe) until or unless we are able to actually engineer the flaws out of the human mind. Better to know who the dangerous ones are by letting them say what they will and attract like-minded sycophants, rather than to attempt to silence them. He's really not much of a threat; so far out in the extremes that not even religious Americans pay much attention to him. The more dangerous types are apparent moderates who can manage to get their agendas enacted into law. Homosexuality is slowly becoming more accepted, as well it should be, and will likely be followed by other alternative lifestyles such as polygamy and its brethren. Arizona, for instance, has recently taken a huge step forward; I take that as a very good sign.
By the way, should any god or gods exist that care about humanity on any level whatsoever, I have to think that they would hate Fred Phelps with a passion.:)
We're all without knowledge, though. Theists, atheists... doesn't matter. No one knows; some people believe.
Agnostic doesn't quite have the usual etymology. When Huxley coined the term agnostic, he was being flip; He said he did it because of the self-professed "gnostics" in the church who claimed to "know everything." He was saying he didn't know anything.
Ok, you don't know... what? You don't know if you believe or not, or you don't know if there is a god or gods?
If you don't know if you believe, then it is time for more contemplation. I don't believe because I only believe things that I can find evidence to support. Perhaps the question to ask in this case is, what is required for you to enter into the state of belief?
If you don't know if there is a god, well, you're in the same position as everyone else. No one knows, because there is no evidence. Theists don't know -- they can claim they do, but what they have is belief god exists, not knowledge, unless they can prove otherwise, and of course, they can't. Hard atheists don't know god or gods do not exist -- they can claim they do, but what they have again is belief, not knowledge. There is no knowledge of this issue, either way. That doesn't mean we can't reach some very firm conclusions about what we should believe (more on that below) but it does mean no one can definitively know the answer to the question.
The question of belief stands apart from knowledge. I can give you an example to prove the case. For instance, children believe in Santa and the easter bunny. They do this not because they have knowledge, but because they have been lied to; in fact, they believe because they do not know the facts. This (rather sad) example shows how belief is about an inner position that may be taken on no more than opinion or trust in someone else's opinion. Of course, one could believe in Santa after having met the man, which would be a case of justified belief, however, again, this makes my point -- belief can exist with or without knowledge, it is not really connected to the idea of knowledge.
But... if you want to talk about knowledge, consider how humans usually figure things out:
List A:
A List of proofs that Santa exists:
[empty list]
List B:
A List of proofs that Santa does not exist:
1) See List A
In other words, when we can't find anything to support an idea, we don't tend to grace it with belief, even if, as is the case with Santa, it would be nice if it were true. Those precise same two lists apply to god or gods.
Revisiting why one would give credence to the empty list for proof of belief in god or gods is worth doing for anyone. Sure, socially, atheism is poison. Is that a good reason to believe? Sure, it's fun to have a community, as in church on Sunday... Is that a good reason to believe? Sure, it's nice to have a set of canned morals and ethics laid out for you so you don't have to work at figuring out what is right and how, or if, context is important... is that a good reason to believe? I don't buy any of those, myself.
The question of theism is delineated by faith, by belief. "Theist: One who believes in a god or gods." It isn't "One who knows there is a god or gods", which would be something else entirely. The polar opposite is one who does not believe in a god or gods, the prefix "a" meaning without, and "theism" meaning belief in a god or gods. Often, people misread (and misapply) the word atheism to mean "disbelieves in god or gods" but this is neither a sensible etymology for the word, nor consistent with similar words (a:moral = without morals, a:gnostic=without knowledge, a:theism, without belief in god or gods.)
Atheists will accept you as one of them if you say that you do not believe in a god or gods. It is not required to either disbelieve, or to profess knowledge.
Theists will accept you if you say that you believe in (their particular version of) god or gods. It is not required to profess knowledge.
It's a weird feeling and frankly if I could just be done with it and state
No I do not believe there is any supreme diety. Nor do I believe one does not exist. I have no belief one way or the other
Ah. I see. You're an atheist — without belief in god or gods. Not an agnostic at all.
An agnostic attempts to stake the "middle ground" by claiming there is no way to know; obviously, you've already figured out that the evidence doesn't call for belief, and you don't have any as a result. The reason why you don't fall into a center position is because you don't even give lip service to the agnostic case. Good for you; this is the sensible position, intellectually speaking.
Sorry to hear about your TBI. There's a distant member of my family that had a bicycle accident, name of David, who also suffered a TBI. I've corresponded with him, a very sad situation indeed. You have my best wishes.
I'm aware of how a DVR works. If you're having to go back and forth replaying things then obviously your method of watching isn't very effective.
Heh heh. No, I don't think you are familiar with DVR use. Nice try, though.
You must be an armchair fan. The crowd is what distinguishes sport from more sterile and passive forms of entertainment.
Actually, I find that participation is the defining line. Armchair, stadium chair... not a lot of difference in terms of passive entertainment as far as I'm concerned. I prefer the armchair over the stadium, as well as other amenities, if I'm going to watch others. The stadium is for you, which is fine. I am not entertained by crowds.
Well you must be a millionaire. I don't know anyone who even has room for a TV like that.
Your reading skills need work. Go back. Read the entire paragraph. You can do it. The building price was in there. C'mon, go! go! go! Reading is FUNdamental!
Therefore missing everything else that happens whilst you're doing that.
No... no one misses anything. You've never used a DVR, I take it. You should look into them. They bring a great deal of convenience and new functionality to watching broadcast material.
My idea of atmosphere is tens of thousands of people loudly supporting their team, not sitting down listening to music.
Ok, well, we agree to disagree here. Screaming people don't do anything for me.
There's no TV big enough to fit in anyone's house that can show the whole field. HD only provides resolution, not size. Tell me when I can get a TV that fills my whole field of vision.
My TV does fill the viewer's entire field of vision. It's about 20 or so feet diagonal. So there's no problem with size. Size is important to make use of high resolution; if a display is small, but has many dots, the dots become smaller than your ability to make them out, and at that point, they're a lot less useful. With a large projection system like mine, every dot in HD is usable. The trick to filling your field of vision is to design the viewing triangle properly so your view is filled, but you don't have to turn your head. You can get a TV like this too; it's just an HD projection system. The real trick is arranging for a wall of sufficient size, and then treating it so it acts as a proper screen. Still, the price is comparable to a good LCD or plasma set. $1500 to $5000 for the projector, depending on type and resolution, and perhaps another $500 to treat the wall. The cost of the wall varies. I paid $25k for the entire building (its an old church) and my sweetheart and I refurbished it, very reasonably priced overall. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary cost wise; just requires some vision and planning.
Pretentious assholes like you are generally not into sport, you must be a rare exception.
What an interesting comment. Pretentious. You have a good day now.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I go to a game...to watch the game, not to stuff myself with crap.
I don't serve crap. I generally serve dishes such as shrimp cocktail, lobster tails, grilled steaks and greek salads. Also excellent pizza, which I consider to be nearly a perfect food. At the game, my option is, indeed, crap — tubes stuffed with lips and assholes, to quote one insightful individual, carbonated water with flavorings derived, as near as I can tell, from chemical accidents — and I wouldn't consume that crap either. Although, at home, one does have the option, should one lack the taste.:) Oh yes... and at the game, all of this stuff is priced at approximately the level of semiprecious stones, kind of like concessions at a movie. For that kind of money, I can bring in strippers, or stack high quality pizza to the ceiling out of my pizza oven, or boost my kid's college funds. That's how I roll. Your milage apparently varies. Good luck with that.:)
And at the game, I can look at any part of the field I want, whenever at want
And while you look at X, you miss Y. Every pulled back shot in an HD game, from every angle, can be paused, zoomed, re-run. No matter how much later in the game it is. You can save the game in HD for posterity if you like. You can see when the calls are bogus, you can see people make plays that otherwise go unrecognized, and you can settle differences of opinion right then and there. Me, I'll take all of the latter over the ability to stare, once, at a field from one vantage point, and no chance to go "hey, what happened over there?" or "why's that player limping all of a sudden?" or "is that cheerleader wearing underwear?" or "isn't that drsquare over there in the stands with baby-puke all down his back and neck? Look, his war paint is all smudged!" When someone says, "Hey, did you see that?" I have the option of saying, "no, let's take a look" instead of "no, what happened?" Sorry, I've been in the stands, owned season tickets to great seats, and it just can't compare, for me, with the experience of a home theater in HD.
Meanwhile all the people at home are forced to look at closeups cutting off everything else, or shots of coaches or celebrities in the crowd, or talking heads, or commercials, or replays.
That (so far) hasn't been how HD coverage has generally been used. They seem to be aware that pulling back is better. That could change, I'll grant you.
Also whilst people at the game are soaking in the atmosphere, you're listening to some old boring bastard's mindless banter.
Hardly. We are soaking in the atmosphere, all right, but it isn't that old fart screaming at his kid next to you, it's generally some form of rock and roll or progressive rock. We don't turn the game sound on at all. The commentator's opinion is of precisely the same interest to us as the opinion of the person sitting next to you in the stands probably is to you — that is, none at all, and irritating, when loud enough to make sense of. The atmosphere we're soaking in is arms around our significant others, cuddled in a deep, soft couch, (quality) drinks in hand, bets on the table. You think about that the next time you're stuffing your face with lips and assholes and trying to see past the moron with the moose antlers on his hat sitting in front of you. You might just develop a yen for a nice home theater experience. Or maybe not. After all, atmosphere is in the eye of the beholder. Hence tub girl, eh?
TV sports coverage is pre-chewed and diluted.
Not HD coverage. Not yet, anyway. I have no explanation for this, but there it is. Right now, they shoot the game, generally from far enough away that you can see everything that is going on, for the entire length of the game. Someone must
This one is easy; we don't yet have the data to know how the brain works, so I withhold any inclination to even worry about it until that data is in; and unlike issues that deal with the supernatural or the cosmos at large, I actually expect this data to arrive quite soon, that is, in my lifetime. Once this data is in, it will be time to re-visit how quantum (and possibly other) levels of activity affect (or do not) brain operation, and that in turn may give us enough information to determine an answer to that question, among others.
My personal outlook on many mundane, but unknown, things is that the questions are most interesting, but drawing final conclusions without data is foolhardy at best. For instance, I have every reason to think that the explanation(s) for the universe are all mundane, but unknown. Unlike many, I feel no need to say that I "know" or "believe" or "think" it all works one way or another; I am quite sure that it'll be a while before we actually know, and until then, I'm happily in the camp of those who do not know. Mind you, these are mundane, non-supernatural issues; the temptation to misconstrue those positions as applying to events that are not in evidence other than as stories and books can be strong among some. Please don't go there.:)
When you say balance, do you mean 50/50? Because very few self-described agnostics would hold that belief.
50-50-ish, as it were; central enough to be unwilling to just say "no, I don't find the case for god or gods to be sufficiently compelling, and consequently, I don't hold any such belief" on the one hand, and also central enough to be unwilling to say "yes, I find the case for god or gods to be strong enough that it seems to me that they must, at some level, really be out there." That is, to make the case for an agnostic stand rather than a theist or atheist stand, it seems to me that to be intellectually honest with oneself (and others, of course), one must balance the values of the two cases at the middle. And personally, I do not see how one might accomplish that. Though I am very interested to learn.
If, however, you merely mean that we think that God is more likely than IPUs, then I'll accept that distinction.
I would go even further -- by asking, what about the case (such as it is) for god do you find more compelling than the case for one or more IPUs? I find them to be precisely the same case: Ideas, easily understandable in terms of the mundane, but impossible to demonstrate in the mundane, both 100% without evidence. I discount fervent belief as "not evidence" and I also discount number of believers as "not evidence", and finally I discount duration of the belief as "not evidence." When you say that "As for the evidence comment, I'll point out that many people DO have 'evidence' of God. It's just not scientific evidence in the sense of being reproducible" I will state categorically that this is not evidence at all, but simply claims of precisely the same order as "I trapped an invisible pink unicorn, but he got away", which is to say, claims of no value whatsoever to anyone but the claimant, who is by definition the only person in the entire universe who can know the truth or falsehood of the claim.
Then, of course, there's the fact that one-in-a-million events happen all the time - but for those to which these events happen, they seem like good evidence for the existence of God (or Satan, depending on the nature of the one-in-a-million event, I suppose).
I would take more notice if unlikely events did not take place in a world as complex and interesting as ours, than I do when they pop up here and there. That's because I am somewhat educated in math; I understand probability reasonably well. Unlikely is not in any way evidence for the supernatural; unlikely is, in the end, simply normal and natural. Often uncommon, but even that is not a given.
I am, like anyone, pleased when the unlikely event favors me. For instance, I found an awesome and huge home, which used to be a church on multiple city lots in a wonderful location (dead center in the city), for which I had to part with the highly unlikely, but delightful, sum of 25 grand. This event was unlikely not only by price, location and building quality, but also amusingly unlikely in that a dedicated and comfortable atheist (a pair of us, actually) ends up buying, and living, in an ex-church.
I am also, like anyone, displeased when the unlikely event does not favor me. For example, the US government took via eminent domain the house I grew up in and treasured deeply for a project they never even bothered to follow through on.
I've been very lucky in love and not very lucky in health. I see similar situations, and the opposites, and middle cases, everywhere. None of it makes me think there is any "force" working outside of the usual ones we can nail to a lab table or build into a simulation. Or which I expect we will eventually be able to do so.
When you say that "to those" that "these things" happen to "they seem like good evidence", I simply observe that the occurrence of a non-supernatural event, regardless of how unlikely, need not in any wa
Now you're doing what yopu accuse me of doing, there is a middle ground and not all agnostics seek to avoid the issue. I along with other agnostics seek to confront the issue, we don't hide from or avoid the issue
Well, then, let's begin to see where in that middle ground you want to make the case for your stand.
First, do you hold any fraction of a belief that there is a god, or gods? In other words, do you believe there is a deity or deities, anywhere, of any type, regardless of how closely they might or might not cleave to the various religious ideas prevalent today or in the past?
Second, as (presently, it appears to me) you seek to hold onto the central position between there might be a god or gods, and there might not be a god or gods, can you tell me why you find the odds for the two cases to be relatively balanced? I have found no evidence for a god or gods, just as I have found no evidence for invisible pink unicorns, and have come to the same conclusion about both, which is that sans any evidence (which would, I readily admit, be a huge surprise to me) they're both of the same order of likelihood, that is to say, not very likely at all. You, however, apparently have found balance between the two cases, and (as I posted at the beginning of the thread) can give me the reason(s) that you think it is essentially, equally likely that there is, or is not, a god or gods, that in turn showing how the comparison to the invisible pink unicorn presumably fails.
My interpretation of the agnostic position is always open to input from declared agnostics. It's just where I start from. I've not found anyone (yet) to really step outside of it, but I am certainly ready and willing to the day someone makes a decent case to me. Also, I've really not encountered very many agnostics who are open to discussion; that does tend to get them thrown into my prefab "agnostics are copouts" box, but in those cases, I don't feel very apologetic about it... they just feel like people who have taken politically correct behavior to an intellectually dishonest extreme to me.
You seem to be willing to discuss this, so by all means, please do.
Here's my issue with the agnostic position. While technically I would agree that an answer could land on either end of the spectrum, IE, there is a god or gods, or there is not a god or gods, the weighting for the two ends appears to me to be vastly unequal.
From where I sit, I see no evidence of any kind having been brought to the table despite (in the case of Christianity) just under 2000 years of innumerable practitioners trying to actualize the promises of their faith through prayer, hope, prophecy, promises, claims and more recently, outright experimentation. In the case of other faiths, usually even more time and people have been involved, with Islam and Mormonism coming in late, but certainly not shy of participants.
We often talk about invisible pink unicorns (IPUs) and teapots in our metaphors; the tiny pink teapot, presumably in orbit somewhere, which cannot be disproved, and the IPU, which cannot be seen (it's invisible, you [don't] see.) We give no credence to these examples, though — and this is critically important — they bring exactly the same amount of evidence to the table as do arguments for god or gods. That is, none. They also show all the same hallmarks; that is, they are anthropocentric, they are descriptions of the mundane with supernatural characteristics, they require faith for acceptance because they offer no tangible standing in our mutual, shared reality other than the idea itself, plunked down on the table.
I find that again, while it is possible that these ideas represent reality, the likelihood of that being the case falls hard against the "snicker and try not to laugh out loud" barrier. As does religion. Possibility, clearly, to me, is not something that must be in balance. In these matters, balance is so far off towards one horizon on the one hand, and up against your cheek on the other, that common sense leads me directly to not feel any fraction of belief that these assertions represent any part of reality until the extremely unlikely event that someone is able to show that they are true by photographing an orbiting teapot, trapping an invisible unicorn, or presenting either a supernatural being or a supernatural effect.
This, in a nutshell, delineates why agnosticism, with its implied balance between "might be" and "might not be" seems intellectually dishonest to me. It is why I dismiss it as a cop-out; if one actually thinks that there is a balance between "there might be gods" and "there might not be gods", then one has given a great deal of credence to something that is, in the end, faith based; and I think what we actually have is a theist who wants to appear more of a thinker to those who are not theists. If one does not actually think that these ideas are balanced, yet asserts an agnostic position, then I think we have an atheist who doesn't want to offend the superstitious among their friends, family, coworkers and so on. I readily admit these are cynical takes, and am always interested to hear an agnostic's rationale(s) for the position they assert.
I think this also answers your earlier question about the difference between a soft atheist position (mine) and the agnostic position. I am perfectly willing to stipulate that I do not believe, in even the slightest fraction, in a god or gods. I will go further and stipulate that the idea of holding such a belief feels precisely like holding a belief in the easter bunny, santa claus, orbiting teapots, and invisible pink unicorns, despite my ability to admit that yes, somewhere deep down in the mantissa of a very, very large number system, is a tiny non-zero fraction representing this as a possibility. Agnostics, in my experience, fail to declare any standing and they typically use the assertion that the answer cannot be known, along with (it seems to me) the sub-rosa and entirely dubious implication that the possibilities are in balance.
All this is entirely aside from the question of belief, which as I said previously, can only define two distinct camps from which we must use other criteria to further differentiate the various fractions and divisions.
You're quite right. My statement was based upon the idea that if they're not under the citizen's control, they're out of the constitutional realm of legitimate operations. But of course, they're under the complete and direct control of PACs and corporations. This is a miserable state of affairs for the citizens.
but them I'm guessing "soft atheism" is synonymous with "agnosticim", no? If not, how are they different? (And don't try defining "agnosticism" as not knowing what you believe, because unless you can show me an "agnostic community" that professes such beliefs, I'm not buying it.
I believe — and by all means, any self-professed agnostics should step in here with their understandings — that agnosticism is the declared position that one cannot know if there is a god or gods.
Here's a link that refers to Huxley; here's another with more detail.
I view the the statement "I don't know if I believe" as an evasion, or an admission of simple-mindedness. I certainly know if I believe, and I've found that both theists and atheists don't seem to have any problems with such knowledge. However, like the misunderstanding of atheism by theists, it may be the case that some people misunderstand agnosticism and declare into, or for, that misunderstanding.
You might have a point about going to the group, however, because I left off the 2nd defintion for atheism: "2. Godlessness; immorality." (I kid you not.)
Oh, I'm quite sure you're not kidding. This is simply gross evidence of what I alluded to earlier, that dictionary definitions have been put in place by the overwhelmingly Christian populace, and are as about as likely to be accurate as are a republican's description of the democratic platform, and for some of the same reasons. In defense of the more scholarly works out there, you will occasionally find a correct definition as well. For instance, Worldnet of Princeton university has "a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods" as definition #2, which is the correct definition.
you can PIP (though they desperately need a cheerleader channel)
high end view
you can select your companions, if any
no riots (see our friends in Europe, who seem to have some behavior problems)
no parking problems
no travel
no waiting in line
better seating (ok, a LOT better seating)
no drunks (unless you decide to go that way)
your right to wager will not be infringed
you can throw out anyone who doesn't behave properly
no weather issues
you can skip the patriotic hoop jumping
...and you can actually see the cheerleaders sometimes
I have a fairly high end HD projection setup. I'd never want to go back. I rarely, and by that I mean maybe once a month, view anything in standard broadcast formats. No point to it. Looks like crap on toast. Cold, unbuttered, burned toast. Every time I read about someone saying that HD "isn't all that", I just laugh quietly. My system drops jaws on a regular basis when we have visitors, and it could be better yet. And... it will be.:)
It takes, on average, 800 million to produce a new prescription drug.
This is not an inherent problem in such development. This is a problem that is a consequence of laws that require the drug companies to go through a series of very expensive, and often superfluous, steps. If they were allowed more leeway in producing drugs, and consumers were allowed more leeway in the choices they made about consuming drugs, a great deal of these costs would disappear. It is also a consequence of drug companies being vulnerable to litigation; part of a drug's development cost is the potential liability. Again, this is actually a legal problem, not an actual cost problem.
You can compare this to the FCC's "type acceptance" requirements for starting a radio station. To do it the way the FCC requires, it costs about 100,000.00 to start a relatively low power FM station. Not counting the license. However, using carefully selected equipment and engineering skill, a radio station of higher quality, higher power, greater reliability and far less cost — just a few thousand dollars, certainly less than 1/10th the cost — can be put into service. The catch? It is illegal, of course. And of course, if you were willing to give up a few things — a bit of power, a bit of signal to noise at the audio input end, perhaps a little less sophisticated radiation pattern — the whole thing can be done for about $100.00 without interfering with anyone else in any way. Except for the government's interfering with the whole thing, of course.
Anyway, back to drugs: Every time someone dies from X, where drugs for X are unavailable due to being deep into some FDA testing protocol, the point is made again. And ignored again. Also, the extended time frames for drug development are in many ways legal problems — submit form A to department B and wait for time T to proceed to the next step.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, if there is no DRM. Otherwise, I simply buy the CD and make my digital music myself. iTunes and similar efforts appeals to me not at all as long as they continue to pretend they have any right to limit how I use my purchased music on any machine, any number of machines, any kind of machines, that I own or wish to use. They have no such right; no law can give them any such right, because no such right EXISTS.
When you buy DRM, you're only screwing yourself. Compression isn't even a faint shadow of the problem that DRM is.
Yes, I didn't say that OO was poor, I said that it was "poorly used." I meant to imply (and I think I did) that you could write small code in an OO language. And you can write poor code in a non-OO language too, but you don't generally have anywhere near the magnitude of the OPC (other people's code) bloat factor you often have in an OO system. I was just observing that generally speaking, we don't see it nearly as much in C programs. I'm not limiting that assessment to MS, either. Examples: Linux:Openoffice. MS:Office. MS+OSX:Photoshop. OSX:Delicious Library.
Consider these three graphics apps aimed at image manipulation, prepress, art and effects:
45 megs (includes libs,exe,no docs), medium feature count, medium speed. Mixed. Commercial.
15 megs (includes libs, compressed for download, no docs), low feature count, medium speed. C. Collaboration.
4 megs (includes libs,exe, no docs), very high feature count, very high speed. C. Commercial.
I give the gimp some room because with really loose collaboration on a complex project, you're going to lose a lot of potential internal code reuse. It's just difficult for programmer A to know all the cool ins and outs of programmer B's work, and take advantage of them, and vice-versa. The gimp is very slow to start, but runs OK once it is going. Googling it seems to indicate its in C. The gimp is also larger in size because it was developed for Linux, which has no modern GUI -- so you end up downloading the huge GTK widget set so the gimp can have user controls / widgets. This isn't really related to the coding style for the application itself, but then again, you have to have it, so you have to count it.
WinImages, written in C, is by far the leader in features, speed and minimum size. It is so tight because it doesn't use other people's libraries except for just a few (Twain, MNG, JPEG) that have been completely reworked by the coding team, and because with regard to code reuse, the development approach makes sure that once an optimum implementation has been worked out for something (eg, layer re-display or draw mode rendering), everyone has to use that. Extensive code reviews between the programmers result in remarks like "this section is essentially the same as module so-and-so" which have to be addressed (meaning, the code must become shared or decently explained as to why it is not prudent to do that) before the code can ship. And -- ironically -- it is tight because it uses C-based OO for its hundreds of operators, OO that carries no bloat whatsoever because no feature of it is ever unused, overloaded, or redundant. WinImages starts as fast as the OS can load it, which generally, these days, means before you can get your finger off the mouse button the first time, and even faster after that (because of OS executable caching.) Operators (think filters, sort of, only much more flexible) are near-realtime (with the exception of things like full bore ray tracing or real-world simulations like exfoliation), and even the area selections have been tuned to reduce unnecessary UI interactions which means the user gets more done with less UI work... it feels faster because it is more efficient.
Photoshop's size pretty much speaks for itself. Startup time is quite long, operations are medium speed (basically comparable to the gimp, typically 2x-4x slower than winimages) and in terms of major features, again in count it is roughly comparable to the gimp, but far behind winimages. I assume the reason for the oversized executable is not just bad C coding. I suppose it could be, but man... Be interesting to see how big CS3 for the Mac is. That'll come out of an OO development system; they don't have any choice.
The three applications do not have complete overlap -- gimp does some cool and unique things especially in supplied plug-
That wasn't a laser. That was your mom's penlight. :)
That's really neat.
My "coolest" thing was related to ham radio also.
I came up with some ideas for a mix of hardware and software for the Amiga that would do SSTV, as well as a new SSTV mode that would provide a degree of noise resistance not present in then-current SSTV modes. Previously, I had written a PCB CAD system that did circuit trace layout. I designed a microprocessor-based board that would do the modulating and demodulating, but I didn't have a schematic capture system which I really wanted to use since I had seen them in magazines, so I wrote one and then used that. Then, when it came time to write the code for the CPU, I didn't have an assembler; so I wrote a cross-assembler for the Amiga. So that code had to be burned to the EPROM in the CPU; as it happened, I had worked for a company in Ft. Lauderdale and designed a burner for that CPU and I still had one of those, so I used that. I wrote the host program in C -- lucky me, I had the Lattice C compiler and 68000 assembler that came with the Amiga. :-)
What was cool about this, to me, is that I kind of picked myself up by my bootstraps almost every step of the way. The PCB design system and the schematic capture I wrote, the board I designed, the circuit I designed, the 68705 assembler I wrote, the code for the 68705 I wrote, the 68705 burner I designed, the C host code and all of it running an SSTV mode I designed... that is the most varied set of tasks I ever had to do for any one project and to this day I have one of those gadgets hanging on the wall to remind me that if you can't find what you need... you can do it yourself.
Eventually a HAM radio company (AEA) bought the design and it went on to do pretty well for the kind of widget it was. It was in the ARRL handbook for a while, might still be for all I know. It won technical achievement of the year at the Dayton hamfest, too, for the noise resistance. Almost everything about that project (except the FCC approval process) was fun. Although the device passed first time out, the bloody Amiga itself was noisy as hell; we just got in under the wire. That was my first real lesson on just how unreasonable and silly the FCC can be. Since then, I've learned... they're even worse than I thought. :)
Generally speaking, bloat is a consequence of (poorly used) OO languages, bringing in tons of code to do one or two silly things out of a module. A basic C program compiles to a fews tens of K (or less), a basic C++ program compiles to many megabytes, and it just gets worse from there. These things can be managed, but few people bother. That's where bloat comes from. You can still write a compact, powerful program in C that C++ authors would have a very hard time coming close to in terms of executable size; it's just that most programmers won't take the time. C++ is faster to write; that's because code reuse, the same thing that pigs up exe sizes, trims down coding time. To the programmer, when the choice is more of their time and effort as opposed to telling you to get better hardware... well, you can guess which way they typically go.
Ease of use has little to no connection with program size and speed. There is nothing, and I mean *nothing*, that you can create in UI space with fat C++ code that you can't code efficiently in C code. You can, of course, slow it down... just use Java. :)
Oh, I don't know. I've still got a bunch of computers running Win98. Properly designed applications work just fine under win98, you don't have to deal with MS's DRM (phoning home, comparing your hardware, etc), Win98 is lighter, faster, quicker to boot, and does most things just fine. It also doesn't annoy you every thirty seconds (it seems like) with little annoy-o-bubbles(tm) with messages like "your computer may not be up to date!" and similar marketing foo foo. XP seems, at least to me, to be an amazingly poorly designed OS with really annoying features designed to send me running the other way.
Although I do have a dedicated XP system, I've not yet run into anything that wouldn't run under win98. Even on my Mac, running Parallels, Win98 is sufficient to the task, and again, takes less resources to do what amounts to the same job.
I spend about 90% of my time these days on the Mac notebook, just hopping into a 98 virtual machine for specific tasks that can't be done under OSX. Strangely enough, it may be Mac software that forces me into XP; Parallels, the people who make the virtual machine, are distributing a beta right now that at least under XP, allows running Windows XP virtual machine apps in a Mac OSX window, instead of a virtual windows desktop. If that's an XP-only feature... well, some bullet biting will be required. :)
But... Vista? I can't see anything forcing me into Vista. Not unless someone invents true AI and it only runs there, anyway.
Participating in them, observing them, or both?
If both or just participating, how do you maintain your general tone and fitness? Is your job physically demanding? Mine isn't (desk job, several times over) and so sports have always been a big part of my own health plan, as it were. I readily admit watching them is pretty lame (though I enjoy it) but I've always found physical play to be well worth my time.
When I was younger, I used to travel all over Florida and the south to martial arts tournaments; now we go in North Dakota and Montana, and I go as coach, rather than competitor. Still a very physically active role, just not competitive. Between that and instructing here, I'm probably as physically active as anyone I know. I do know that if I don't stay active, my condition goes to worthless in about four weeks, and it is quite difficult and time-consuming to work back. Getting old, no question about it.
Hold on a second: I think you've misconstrued my position a bit.
I don't advocate forcing people down any particular path. I just tell them what I think instead of keeping silent and actually, that is the most basic founding principle of the country. Free speech. You can say what you want, and I support that, but so can I, even if I disagree with you. I just won't shut up when the public's perception is that silence is the "appropriate" response to a declaration of superstition rules the cosmos, or the more passive, but still harmful, "superstition is ok." I don't think it is ok, and I reserve the right to say so. Not to tell you what to do, but to disagree firmly and vocally.
I am very serious about this. I mean, I would go so far as to say exposing a child to religion as if it was part of reality is flat out child abuse, just as lying to them about Santa and the Easter bunny is — only worse. But I also feel that it is the parent's child and if that's how they want to raise them, then I think that should be their choice. If for no other reason than to protect my ability to teach my child about all the lies and deceptions in the world. I am no fan on any level of "mommy" government mechanisms.
No. I don't interfere with how other people raise their children at the level of the individual child. I try to only have discourse with adults. I tell children to talk to their parents if I get cornered on an issue like this. My position on public schools is that superstition has no place in them, pro or con. I confess to an urge to "load the deck" by encouraging teaching critical thinking skills in junior high school, but the odds of that actually happening are about zero, so... :)
Yes. Phelps is a poster child for all manner of sickness, extending far beyond superstition. I don't think he needs killing — I prefer that my enemies be allowed to speak at length, loud and long, so I know exactly who they are. There will always be homophobes (and every other kind of -phobe) until or unless we are able to actually engineer the flaws out of the human mind. Better to know who the dangerous ones are by letting them say what they will and attract like-minded sycophants, rather than to attempt to silence them. He's really not much of a threat; so far out in the extremes that not even religious Americans pay much attention to him. The more dangerous types are apparent moderates who can manage to get their agendas enacted into law. Homosexuality is slowly becoming more accepted, as well it should be, and will likely be followed by other alternative lifestyles such as polygamy and its brethren. Arizona, for instance, has recently taken a huge step forward; I take that as a very good sign.
By the way, should any god or gods exist that care about humanity on any level whatsoever, I have to think that they would hate Fred Phelps with a passion. :)
We're all without knowledge, though. Theists, atheists... doesn't matter. No one knows; some people believe.
Agnostic doesn't quite have the usual etymology. When Huxley coined the term agnostic, he was being flip; He said he did it because of the self-professed "gnostics" in the church who claimed to "know everything." He was saying he didn't know anything.
By all means, no need to apologize.
Ok, you don't know... what? You don't know if you believe or not, or you don't know if there is a god or gods?
If you don't know if you believe, then it is time for more contemplation. I don't believe because I only believe things that I can find evidence to support. Perhaps the question to ask in this case is, what is required for you to enter into the state of belief?
If you don't know if there is a god, well, you're in the same position as everyone else. No one knows, because there is no evidence. Theists don't know -- they can claim they do, but what they have is belief god exists, not knowledge, unless they can prove otherwise, and of course, they can't. Hard atheists don't know god or gods do not exist -- they can claim they do, but what they have again is belief, not knowledge. There is no knowledge of this issue, either way. That doesn't mean we can't reach some very firm conclusions about what we should believe (more on that below) but it does mean no one can definitively know the answer to the question.
The question of belief stands apart from knowledge. I can give you an example to prove the case. For instance, children believe in Santa and the easter bunny. They do this not because they have knowledge, but because they have been lied to; in fact, they believe because they do not know the facts. This (rather sad) example shows how belief is about an inner position that may be taken on no more than opinion or trust in someone else's opinion. Of course, one could believe in Santa after having met the man, which would be a case of justified belief, however, again, this makes my point -- belief can exist with or without knowledge, it is not really connected to the idea of knowledge.
But... if you want to talk about knowledge, consider how humans usually figure things out:
List A:
A List of proofs that Santa exists:
[empty list]
List B:
A List of proofs that Santa does not exist:
1) See List A
In other words, when we can't find anything to support an idea, we don't tend to grace it with belief, even if, as is the case with Santa, it would be nice if it were true. Those precise same two lists apply to god or gods.
Revisiting why one would give credence to the empty list for proof of belief in god or gods is worth doing for anyone. Sure, socially, atheism is poison. Is that a good reason to believe? Sure, it's fun to have a community, as in church on Sunday... Is that a good reason to believe? Sure, it's nice to have a set of canned morals and ethics laid out for you so you don't have to work at figuring out what is right and how, or if, context is important... is that a good reason to believe? I don't buy any of those, myself.
The question of theism is delineated by faith, by belief. "Theist: One who believes in a god or gods." It isn't "One who knows there is a god or gods", which would be something else entirely. The polar opposite is one who does not believe in a god or gods, the prefix "a" meaning without, and "theism" meaning belief in a god or gods. Often, people misread (and misapply) the word atheism to mean "disbelieves in god or gods" but this is neither a sensible etymology for the word, nor consistent with similar words (a:moral = without morals, a:gnostic=without knowledge, a:theism, without belief in god or gods.)
Atheists will accept you as one of them if you say that you do not believe in a god or gods. It is not required to either disbelieve, or to profess knowledge.
Theists will accept you if you say that you believe in (their particular version of) god or gods. It is not required to profess knowledge.
[stares hard at Jim, begins to count... 0... moves to next citizen... 1...]
Law for the least common denominator is not a solution. It is a problem.
Ah. I see. You're an atheist — without belief in god or gods. Not an agnostic at all.
An agnostic attempts to stake the "middle ground" by claiming there is no way to know; obviously, you've already figured out that the evidence doesn't call for belief, and you don't have any as a result. The reason why you don't fall into a center position is because you don't even give lip service to the agnostic case. Good for you; this is the sensible position, intellectually speaking.
Sorry to hear about your TBI. There's a distant member of my family that had a bicycle accident, name of David, who also suffered a TBI. I've corresponded with him, a very sad situation indeed. You have my best wishes.
Heh heh. No, I don't think you are familiar with DVR use. Nice try, though.
Actually, I find that participation is the defining line. Armchair, stadium chair... not a lot of difference in terms of passive entertainment as far as I'm concerned. I prefer the armchair over the stadium, as well as other amenities, if I'm going to watch others. The stadium is for you, which is fine. I am not entertained by crowds.
Your reading skills need work. Go back. Read the entire paragraph. You can do it. The building price was in there. C'mon, go! go! go! Reading is FUNdamental!
No... no one misses anything. You've never used a DVR, I take it. You should look into them. They bring a great deal of convenience and new functionality to watching broadcast material.
Ok, well, we agree to disagree here. Screaming people don't do anything for me.
My TV does fill the viewer's entire field of vision. It's about 20 or so feet diagonal. So there's no problem with size. Size is important to make use of high resolution; if a display is small, but has many dots, the dots become smaller than your ability to make them out, and at that point, they're a lot less useful. With a large projection system like mine, every dot in HD is usable. The trick to filling your field of vision is to design the viewing triangle properly so your view is filled, but you don't have to turn your head. You can get a TV like this too; it's just an HD projection system. The real trick is arranging for a wall of sufficient size, and then treating it so it acts as a proper screen. Still, the price is comparable to a good LCD or plasma set. $1500 to $5000 for the projector, depending on type and resolution, and perhaps another $500 to treat the wall. The cost of the wall varies. I paid $25k for the entire building (its an old church) and my sweetheart and I refurbished it, very reasonably priced overall. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary cost wise; just requires some vision and planning.
What an interesting comment. Pretentious. You have a good day now.
I don't serve crap. I generally serve dishes such as shrimp cocktail, lobster tails, grilled steaks and greek salads. Also excellent pizza, which I consider to be nearly a perfect food. At the game, my option is, indeed, crap — tubes stuffed with lips and assholes, to quote one insightful individual, carbonated water with flavorings derived, as near as I can tell, from chemical accidents — and I wouldn't consume that crap either. Although, at home, one does have the option, should one lack the taste. :) Oh yes... and at the game, all of this stuff is priced at approximately the level of semiprecious stones, kind of like concessions at a movie. For that kind of money, I can bring in strippers, or stack high quality pizza to the ceiling out of my pizza oven, or boost my kid's college funds. That's how I roll. Your milage apparently varies. Good luck with that. :)
And while you look at X, you miss Y. Every pulled back shot in an HD game, from every angle, can be paused, zoomed, re-run. No matter how much later in the game it is. You can save the game in HD for posterity if you like. You can see when the calls are bogus, you can see people make plays that otherwise go unrecognized, and you can settle differences of opinion right then and there. Me, I'll take all of the latter over the ability to stare, once, at a field from one vantage point, and no chance to go "hey, what happened over there?" or "why's that player limping all of a sudden?" or "is that cheerleader wearing underwear?" or "isn't that drsquare over there in the stands with baby-puke all down his back and neck? Look, his war paint is all smudged!" When someone says, "Hey, did you see that?" I have the option of saying, "no, let's take a look" instead of "no, what happened?" Sorry, I've been in the stands, owned season tickets to great seats, and it just can't compare, for me, with the experience of a home theater in HD.
That (so far) hasn't been how HD coverage has generally been used. They seem to be aware that pulling back is better. That could change, I'll grant you.
Hardly. We are soaking in the atmosphere, all right, but it isn't that old fart screaming at his kid next to you, it's generally some form of rock and roll or progressive rock. We don't turn the game sound on at all. The commentator's opinion is of precisely the same interest to us as the opinion of the person sitting next to you in the stands probably is to you — that is, none at all, and irritating, when loud enough to make sense of. The atmosphere we're soaking in is arms around our significant others, cuddled in a deep, soft couch, (quality) drinks in hand, bets on the table. You think about that the next time you're stuffing your face with lips and assholes and trying to see past the moron with the moose antlers on his hat sitting in front of you. You might just develop a yen for a nice home theater experience. Or maybe not. After all, atmosphere is in the eye of the beholder. Hence tub girl, eh?
Not HD coverage. Not yet, anyway. I have no explanation for this, but there it is. Right now, they shoot the game, generally from far enough away that you can see everything that is going on, for the entire length of the game. Someone must
This one is easy; we don't yet have the data to know how the brain works, so I withhold any inclination to even worry about it until that data is in; and unlike issues that deal with the supernatural or the cosmos at large, I actually expect this data to arrive quite soon, that is, in my lifetime. Once this data is in, it will be time to re-visit how quantum (and possibly other) levels of activity affect (or do not) brain operation, and that in turn may give us enough information to determine an answer to that question, among others.
My personal outlook on many mundane, but unknown, things is that the questions are most interesting, but drawing final conclusions without data is foolhardy at best. For instance, I have every reason to think that the explanation(s) for the universe are all mundane, but unknown. Unlike many, I feel no need to say that I "know" or "believe" or "think" it all works one way or another; I am quite sure that it'll be a while before we actually know, and until then, I'm happily in the camp of those who do not know. Mind you, these are mundane, non-supernatural issues; the temptation to misconstrue those positions as applying to events that are not in evidence other than as stories and books can be strong among some. Please don't go there. :)
50-50-ish, as it were; central enough to be unwilling to just say "no, I don't find the case for god or gods to be sufficiently compelling, and consequently, I don't hold any such belief" on the one hand, and also central enough to be unwilling to say "yes, I find the case for god or gods to be strong enough that it seems to me that they must, at some level, really be out there." That is, to make the case for an agnostic stand rather than a theist or atheist stand, it seems to me that to be intellectually honest with oneself (and others, of course), one must balance the values of the two cases at the middle. And personally, I do not see how one might accomplish that. Though I am very interested to learn.
I would go even further -- by asking, what about the case (such as it is) for god do you find more compelling than the case for one or more IPUs? I find them to be precisely the same case: Ideas, easily understandable in terms of the mundane, but impossible to demonstrate in the mundane, both 100% without evidence. I discount fervent belief as "not evidence" and I also discount number of believers as "not evidence", and finally I discount duration of the belief as "not evidence." When you say that "As for the evidence comment, I'll point out that many people DO have 'evidence' of God. It's just not scientific evidence in the sense of being reproducible" I will state categorically that this is not evidence at all, but simply claims of precisely the same order as "I trapped an invisible pink unicorn, but he got away", which is to say, claims of no value whatsoever to anyone but the claimant, who is by definition the only person in the entire universe who can know the truth or falsehood of the claim.
I would take more notice if unlikely events did not take place in a world as complex and interesting as ours, than I do when they pop up here and there. That's because I am somewhat educated in math; I understand probability reasonably well. Unlikely is not in any way evidence for the supernatural; unlikely is, in the end, simply normal and natural. Often uncommon, but even that is not a given.
I am, like anyone, pleased when the unlikely event favors me. For instance, I found an awesome and huge home, which used to be a church on multiple city lots in a wonderful location (dead center in the city), for which I had to part with the highly unlikely, but delightful, sum of 25 grand. This event was unlikely not only by price, location and building quality, but also amusingly unlikely in that a dedicated and comfortable atheist (a pair of us, actually) ends up buying, and living, in an ex-church.
I am also, like anyone, displeased when the unlikely event does not favor me. For example, the US government took via eminent domain the house I grew up in and treasured deeply for a project they never even bothered to follow through on.
I've been very lucky in love and not very lucky in health. I see similar situations, and the opposites, and middle cases, everywhere. None of it makes me think there is any "force" working outside of the usual ones we can nail to a lab table or build into a simulation. Or which I expect we will eventually be able to do so.
When you say that "to those" that "these things" happen to "they seem like good evidence", I simply observe that the occurrence of a non-supernatural event, regardless of how unlikely, need not in any wa
Well, then, let's begin to see where in that middle ground you want to make the case for your stand.
First, do you hold any fraction of a belief that there is a god, or gods? In other words, do you believe there is a deity or deities, anywhere, of any type, regardless of how closely they might or might not cleave to the various religious ideas prevalent today or in the past?
Second, as (presently, it appears to me) you seek to hold onto the central position between there might be a god or gods, and there might not be a god or gods, can you tell me why you find the odds for the two cases to be relatively balanced? I have found no evidence for a god or gods, just as I have found no evidence for invisible pink unicorns, and have come to the same conclusion about both, which is that sans any evidence (which would, I readily admit, be a huge surprise to me) they're both of the same order of likelihood, that is to say, not very likely at all. You, however, apparently have found balance between the two cases, and (as I posted at the beginning of the thread) can give me the reason(s) that you think it is essentially, equally likely that there is, or is not, a god or gods, that in turn showing how the comparison to the invisible pink unicorn presumably fails.
My interpretation of the agnostic position is always open to input from declared agnostics. It's just where I start from. I've not found anyone (yet) to really step outside of it, but I am certainly ready and willing to the day someone makes a decent case to me. Also, I've really not encountered very many agnostics who are open to discussion; that does tend to get them thrown into my prefab "agnostics are copouts" box, but in those cases, I don't feel very apologetic about it... they just feel like people who have taken politically correct behavior to an intellectually dishonest extreme to me.
You seem to be willing to discuss this, so by all means, please do.
Here's my issue with the agnostic position. While technically I would agree that an answer could land on either end of the spectrum, IE, there is a god or gods, or there is not a god or gods, the weighting for the two ends appears to me to be vastly unequal.
From where I sit, I see no evidence of any kind having been brought to the table despite (in the case of Christianity) just under 2000 years of innumerable practitioners trying to actualize the promises of their faith through prayer, hope, prophecy, promises, claims and more recently, outright experimentation. In the case of other faiths, usually even more time and people have been involved, with Islam and Mormonism coming in late, but certainly not shy of participants.
We often talk about invisible pink unicorns (IPUs) and teapots in our metaphors; the tiny pink teapot, presumably in orbit somewhere, which cannot be disproved, and the IPU, which cannot be seen (it's invisible, you [don't] see.) We give no credence to these examples, though — and this is critically important — they bring exactly the same amount of evidence to the table as do arguments for god or gods. That is, none. They also show all the same hallmarks; that is, they are anthropocentric, they are descriptions of the mundane with supernatural characteristics, they require faith for acceptance because they offer no tangible standing in our mutual, shared reality other than the idea itself, plunked down on the table.
I find that again, while it is possible that these ideas represent reality, the likelihood of that being the case falls hard against the "snicker and try not to laugh out loud" barrier. As does religion. Possibility, clearly, to me, is not something that must be in balance. In these matters, balance is so far off towards one horizon on the one hand, and up against your cheek on the other, that common sense leads me directly to not feel any fraction of belief that these assertions represent any part of reality until the extremely unlikely event that someone is able to show that they are true by photographing an orbiting teapot, trapping an invisible unicorn, or presenting either a supernatural being or a supernatural effect.
This, in a nutshell, delineates why agnosticism, with its implied balance between "might be" and "might not be" seems intellectually dishonest to me. It is why I dismiss it as a cop-out; if one actually thinks that there is a balance between "there might be gods" and "there might not be gods", then one has given a great deal of credence to something that is, in the end, faith based; and I think what we actually have is a theist who wants to appear more of a thinker to those who are not theists. If one does not actually think that these ideas are balanced, yet asserts an agnostic position, then I think we have an atheist who doesn't want to offend the superstitious among their friends, family, coworkers and so on. I readily admit these are cynical takes, and am always interested to hear an agnostic's rationale(s) for the position they assert.
I think this also answers your earlier question about the difference between a soft atheist position (mine) and the agnostic position. I am perfectly willing to stipulate that I do not believe, in even the slightest fraction, in a god or gods. I will go further and stipulate that the idea of holding such a belief feels precisely like holding a belief in the easter bunny, santa claus, orbiting teapots, and invisible pink unicorns, despite my ability to admit that yes, somewhere deep down in the mantissa of a very, very large number system, is a tiny non-zero fraction representing this as a possibility. Agnostics, in my experience, fail to declare any standing and they typically use the assertion that the answer cannot be known, along with (it seems to me) the sub-rosa and entirely dubious implication that the possibilities are in balance.
All this is entirely aside from the question of belief, which as I said previously, can only define two distinct camps from which we must use other criteria to further differentiate the various fractions and divisions.
You're quite right. My statement was based upon the idea that if they're not under the citizen's control, they're out of the constitutional realm of legitimate operations. But of course, they're under the complete and direct control of PACs and corporations. This is a miserable state of affairs for the citizens.
I believe — and by all means, any self-professed agnostics should step in here with their understandings — that agnosticism is the declared position that one cannot know if there is a god or gods.
Here's a link that refers to Huxley; here's another with more detail.
I view the the statement "I don't know if I believe" as an evasion, or an admission of simple-mindedness. I certainly know if I believe, and I've found that both theists and atheists don't seem to have any problems with such knowledge. However, like the misunderstanding of atheism by theists, it may be the case that some people misunderstand agnosticism and declare into, or for, that misunderstanding.
Oh, I'm quite sure you're not kidding. This is simply gross evidence of what I alluded to earlier, that dictionary definitions have been put in place by the overwhelmingly Christian populace, and are as about as likely to be accurate as are a republican's description of the democratic platform, and for some of the same reasons. In defense of the more scholarly works out there, you will occasionally find a correct definition as well. For instance, Worldnet of Princeton university has "a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods" as definition #2, which is the correct definition.
I have a fairly high end HD projection setup. I'd never want to go back. I rarely, and by that I mean maybe once a month, view anything in standard broadcast formats. No point to it. Looks like crap on toast. Cold, unbuttered, burned toast. Every time I read about someone saying that HD "isn't all that", I just laugh quietly. My system drops jaws on a regular basis when we have visitors, and it could be better yet. And... it will be. :)
You're new here, then?
About slashdot moderation.
This is not an inherent problem in such development. This is a problem that is a consequence of laws that require the drug companies to go through a series of very expensive, and often superfluous, steps. If they were allowed more leeway in producing drugs, and consumers were allowed more leeway in the choices they made about consuming drugs, a great deal of these costs would disappear. It is also a consequence of drug companies being vulnerable to litigation; part of a drug's development cost is the potential liability. Again, this is actually a legal problem, not an actual cost problem.
You can compare this to the FCC's "type acceptance" requirements for starting a radio station. To do it the way the FCC requires, it costs about 100,000.00 to start a relatively low power FM station. Not counting the license. However, using carefully selected equipment and engineering skill, a radio station of higher quality, higher power, greater reliability and far less cost — just a few thousand dollars, certainly less than 1/10th the cost — can be put into service. The catch? It is illegal, of course. And of course, if you were willing to give up a few things — a bit of power, a bit of signal to noise at the audio input end, perhaps a little less sophisticated radiation pattern — the whole thing can be done for about $100.00 without interfering with anyone else in any way. Except for the government's interfering with the whole thing, of course.
Anyway, back to drugs: Every time someone dies from X, where drugs for X are unavailable due to being deep into some FDA testing protocol, the point is made again. And ignored again. Also, the extended time frames for drug development are in many ways legal problems — submit form A to department B and wait for time T to proceed to the next step.