I wouldn't call it "arrogance" myself... I'd call it a lack of objectivity. It's the same effect either way; it's just that one is more deliberate than the other.
Otherwise... it's a shame I put my last modpoint to a less worthy use than modding this up.
'discovered' multiple times, often by separate scientists."
One would certainly HOPE it was from separate scientists, now wouldn't one.....
Having the same guy name the same snail again and again and nobody catching it wouldn't say much about the rest of the guy's peers.
The following are the biggest myths about science:
It works exactly as advertised
It is completely untainted from any and all political motivation, direct or indirect, including political correctness
Groupthink never, ever interferes with recognition of the facts
The need to secure funding/grants never, ever stops researchers from challenging mainstream ideas
It is somehow completely free of the bureaucracy and strict orthodoxy that plague all other major institutions of society
Prestige, fame, and entrenched authority never work to favor certain theories when multiple theories fit the facts
Old theories are always immediately discarded in favor of new theories with different premises that better predict observations
As far as institutions go, mainstream science is pretty damned amazing. It's still an endeavor of human beings, not robots that process pure information. It's still subject to human foibles, though it tries hard to divorce itself from them. The most bothersome thing about it, to me, is that too many good ideas were ridiculed for far too long before eventually being seriously considered and finally found to be true and revolutionary. This has happened more than enough times that a certain willingness to entertain what appears to be absurd should have been adopted by now, at least long enough to see if there is enough merit for further examination. What I am talking about has little to do with collecting data/evidence and more to do with how to interpret it within the framework of a given theory. I speak of what has now become cliche -- the paradigm shift.
I find it baffling that the submitter chose to link to the Fox News source when this news item has literally been plastered all over the internet all day long. It's being covered by dozens and dozens of news outlets, almost all of which are less politically toxic that Fox News.
I think I know who did that. It's probably the same guy or group of guys who keep favoring paywall sites for stories that are available freely from other sources.
The first myth about Slashdot "editors" is that they are editors. Ah, well. Who needs quality and accessibility as long as the traffic keeps pouring in?
And that's the problem. I'll describe the mentality with which you are dealing when you speak of corporations that want to control what can be done with a device post-sale: "it is not enough for me to win -- someone else must also lose." They are not interested in finding the balance of which you speak.
The corporations own most of our legal system and media. I'm glad for these cracker groups. They're just about the only remaining check against them that seems to actually work.
Moral relativism is the modern refuge of the coward. If you cannot see why North Korea's mass starvation and rigidly controlled media is worse than the US, or if you think that the mote in the US's eye means it should not criticize the beam in North Korea's eye, then you need to grow a pair. You admit you prefer your country to North Korea -- who are you to make that value judgment?
Amen, brother.
The last time I ran into one of those "who are YOU to judge?" types (something one could train a parrot to say) I explained to him why his brand of relativism is inherently contradictory and self-defeating. That's generally a thankless job. As it turned out, all he did was repeat himself a few more times as though I didn't understand what he said the first time, and eventually he gives up and adds me to his Foe list. He probably thought "wow, I sure showed HIM! That'll teach him!" Indeed, it taught me something. It taught me that this individual is childish and unable to handle honest debate without getting his feelings hurt.
My point is that you're right, they are cowards. Relativism isn't something they arrived at by carefully examining the merits of many different philosophies. It's almost exclusively used to answer criticism, not by showing that the criticism is ill-founded or invalid but rather by making an excuse or personally attacking the critic. I have never seen this "relativist school of thought" put forth its own original ideas. It only ever makes an appearance as a last-resort response to something else.
The reason this particular thing is so appealing to cowards is easy enough to understand. If everything is "just your perspective" or "just your opinion" or "just your viewpoint" then where does anyone have to fulfill a burden of proof? Where does anyone have to show that they have solid reasoning to back up their statements? Solid reasoning and good evidence is how you demonstrate that your position is something more than your imagination, and cowards can't stand that.
I read that article. This paragraph from it will be useful for making my point:
The topic of the meeting was the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by a collection of western countries, including the U.S. and E.U. Tsvangirai told the western officials that, while there had been some progress in the last year, Mugabe and his supporters were dragging their feet on delivering political reforms. To overcome this, he said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe "must be kept in place" to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.
He didn't have the courage to be honest and publically say, "this is terrible right now but I sincerely believe it is a necessary step towards a brighter future and therefore worth enduring, however unfortunate that will be". Instead of doing that, openly and honestly, he said what he thought people wanted to hear in public while saying what he really believes they should do in private. There's a word for that: hypocrisy.
Now hypocrisy is nothing precisely new from politicians, even the more well-intentioned ones. Apparently that's just as true in Africa as it is in North America. It is unfortunate though that the situation in Zimbabwe is a lot more dire. If Tsvangirai thought he could pull a fast one and say something he did not sincerely believe -- an action also known as "lying through one's teeth" -- then isn't he responsible for that decision? Why would you blame someone else for pointing this out? There'd be no such thing to point out if he had been honest.
What is it about government? Why does the presence of this organization or any of its members suddenly invert our thought processes? When government is involved, we don't blame the liar anymore for deceiving us, especially when the stakes are high, like we normally would do. No. Instead, we have sympathy for the liar and turn all our blame and spite towards the person who calls them on it and points out the lie. WTF? Are you really that impressed by authority?
The media also strongly discourages participation in science when it depicts it as a field that only socially awkward people would ever have an interest in. We really see a lot more of that, coupled with a strong push for everyone to become some kind of businessman, than we see of movies that might encourage children to become scientists. Welcome to American culture.
No. Too many people wait for movies or other mass media to "inspire" them, to tell them who they are and what they should do and what stereotype they fit. That is the majority of American culture. That is why we have these "problems of inspiration". Too many people are passive and pliable and waiting for some prominent figure to tell them what, how, and who they should be. It's a total rejection of the individual freedom for which our ancestors fought and died. That's why we have a lack of "inspiration" -- we have replaced it almost entirely with "outspiration".
It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Guidance counselors are telling them that from Junior High. They're telling them to go to college. Then when they get to college and want to study 'underwater basket weaving', the colleges aren't kicking them out, they're actually offering PhD's in it.
And when we've reached the destination at the end of that path, we will have made a college degree (i.e. K-12 + college) into a much more time-consuming, much more expensive equivalent of what a high school diploma is today.
I wish that about three quarters of the energy, effort, and attention we pour into "inspiring kids" were instead put towards teenagers and young adults. You can have the most inspired children in the world; it won't matter much by the time peer pressure, celebrity worship, and your average high school curriculum gets through with them (my sig line is apropos).
Teaching them how to do basic things like balance a checkbook, manage credit, and live within their means so they can eventually build wealth would be a great starting point. From there you can teach them how to think critically, use logic, perform basic research, to understand what skepticism is and isn't. A generation or two of that and we'd have a much better and healthier society.
A few entrenched monied interests would also make less money that way, and that's the problem with actually implementing it.
No. You are applying the same reasoning to two entirely different concepts. My premise is that there is no objective truth for how someone should enjoy themselves. You are applying that reasoning to the area in which I am calling you out, which is different. What I'm calling you out for is how you treat others, not what you choose to find enjoyable.
Different facets of people interacting with each other can, and should, be judged by different standards. Some can (and should) be judged with a position that all is relative; some should be judged from the position that there is an absolute right and wrong. To do otherwise leads to two equally bad extremes: if one is always permissive of others' views, then one will turn a blind eye to all kinds of situations caused by a tyranny of the majority because, well, it's their right to run their affairs how they see fit. If one is always absolutist, then there is no tolerance for anyone who has a differing point of view. Neither is a just perspective.
In that spirit, I am judging people's preferences for enjoyment as something that should be viewed permissively, where there is no right answer. I am also judging the way one chooses to react to those preferences as something where there is a right answer, and expressing my belief that you are on the wrong side of that line. You may disagree with my judgement of how these two situations should be regarded (and, I would say you almost certainly do). Fine, I take no issue with that. However, the mere fact that I don't have one single way to approach all situations doesn't invalidate my position on its face.
I most certainly do apply my premise to someone with whom I disagree. In fact, I have already applied it to the people who are masochists or who enjoy advertisements. I don't understand it, nor will I ever understand (or agree) with it. However, I am content to live and let live, even though we disagree.
I also, to return to something you said earlier, find it highly ironic that you lament that people are not willing to adopt Voltaire's attitude of being willing to defend the right of someone to say things they disagree with. I have done so already, in your case. I could have simply done what so many moderators do here, and used my mod points to try to drag your comment down. I didn't, because I don't believe anyone has the right to try to censor you (despite the fact that I disagree with what you are saying). My attempting to change your mind through discussion does not constitute an unwillingness to defend your right to say what you wish. No one is using force here, even if I am expressing the opinion that your handling of a given situation should not be considered acceptable.
How I treat others is very simple. I respect their freedom of speech even though they may say things with great conviction that I find abhorrent. Where I draw the line is when they insist on using force or fraud to coerce others into agreement.
You have contradicted yourself left and right to try and show that my speech is somehow unacceptable while that of another is perfectly valid. Now you stumble over yourself and backpeddle to pretend that you shared my ethos about free speech all along.
This is laughable. Not only is your position stupid, because I can just as easily challenge you to prove that advertisements do not carry literary and artistic value (hint: you can't prove this about anything, because those are subjective concepts), but you don't even remember what I said originally. I don't personally find any value in advertisements, and I have no desire to watch them. This has nothing to do with me trying to boost my ego by convincing someone else that my activities are OK; it is about me saying that you don't have the right to take a subjective thing you think, and declare that it is true for everyone.
It's really simple. Your premise is self-defeating. That's why you are not committed to your own premise.
If you were committed to your own premise, then when I say something is "pathological" then you would regard that as "my opinion, to which I am entitled" or "my equally valid perspective" or "my particular viewpoint". But no, there are opinions and perspectives and viewpoints you regard as valid and invalid. So you do adhere to an absolute reference. The problem is, that totally contradicts the position of relativism you advocate for those who do anything I would call "pathological."
Like I said, you are not prepared to apply your own premise to someone with whom you disagree. That's why it is not valid; it's merely a tool you use to paint with the same "right and wrong" brush you accuse me of using. Pot -> Kettle -> Black.
No, I recognize your right to call this behavior strange. What I do not recognize is a right to call it "pathological" (which, to me, carries an implication that something is wrong and needs to be fixed), nor to claim that your position is objective truth, rather than simply your preference.
I'm not advocating that government or anyone else use force or threat of force to coerce anyone into fixing anything. So if I call something pathological, you may agree or disagree with that assessment. But how is it anything other than my exercise of my free speech? Incidentally, that's something I am going to exercise anyway with no regard to how you feel about whether I should. Where are the courageous, noble men like Voltaire who feel that "while I may disagree with what you say, I will defend with my life your ability to say it?" All I see are a bunch of cowards who can't stand that somebody might not like what they do.
The whole relativism thing doesn't even work, and yes that's what this is about. If you say there is no absolute truth, I can easily defeat that by asking "are you absolutely sure?" If there is no absolute truth, then on what basis would you answer that question? So why even bother?
I note that no one has truly answered my earlier challenge. Not one person is prepared to demonstrate why advertisements carry the same literary and artistic value as something like a well-written sci-fi novel. They can't, and that is why. The best they can do is try a dismissal tactic and claim that the value of a thing has nothing to do with whether someone should enjoy it, and that's a cop-out, the refuge of the weak who want something to be so, yet cannot truly defend their position.
Again, if you are so thoroughly convinced that something is worthy of your time then do it. Do it even though there are guys like me who won't agree with you that it is a worthy use of your limited time as a mortal being on Earth. I don't see anywhere near that level of courage or strength of character or conviction from the "how dare you disagree with me, I'm offended!" crowd. That much was predictable from any crowd that derives their legitimacy from the agreement and approval of others. Tell me, if you are so thoroughly convinced of the legitimacy and inherent value of a thing, why do you care what anyone else thinks? Answer: because you're not so convinced and need the security of being part of the bandwagon. It's really that simple.
I don't care if pointing that out offends you because it's the truth, not merely a matter of taste or opinion.
No, it's a matter of taste/opinion. Just because you feel very strongly on the matter does not make your position correct. I don't agree with it either, but who are you to dictate what others should and should not enjoy?
You said it right there in your last sentence but didn't realize it.
You see, I am not dictating anything. As I explicitly said in my previous post, you're free to enjoy advertisements if you want to do that. I am free to think that's quite strange if I want to do that. Both are OK because in neither case is anyone using force or fraud to coerce anyone into doing what they don't wish to do.
If you want to have some very strange hobbies, like enjoying ads or enjoying physical pain, you have that right. You are entitled to it. What you are not entitled to is to force me to like that or agree with it or support it. At this point you are trying to tell me what I should or should not like. If you are so insecure that you cannot do what you believe is right unless everyone agrees and approves, that is a personal problem and not a problem with people who might disagree. Have some guts, be who you are, make no apologies for it. Most of all, have the strength to understand and appreciate that not everyone feels the same way.
That's why the whole "must not ever offend anybody at all costs" bullshit doesn't hold water. I recognize your freedom to have strange tastes if you want to have them. You do not recognize my freedom to call them strange. That's why you have the inferior position. Yes, that's a judgment call, and I'm making it. I'm making it for a reason. The reason is simple: my respect for freedom includes those things with which I might disagree. Yours apparently does not. That's why any disagreement I voice hits your insecurity and you think I am "dictating" anything by merely speaking my mind.
Being that you are likely a fan of scifi, why are you being judgemental of what other people enjoy?
Some people are masochists and really enjoy physical pain. There's nothing "judgmental" or otherwise faulty about saying that this is pathological. Something is wrong with those people. I don't care if pointing that out offends you because it's the truth, not merely a matter of taste or opinion.
One can only be "judgmental" (a thoroughly overused word) when there is a prejudice against one of two equally viable options. You're not being "judgmental" when you say that having $1000 is better than having $10, merely realistic. Thus, to claim that GP is being "judgmental" is equivalent to claiming that banner ads have as much literary and artistic value as a well-written sci-fi novel. If you think you can prove that claim, I'm willing to entertain your evidence, but until then I remain fully skeptical.
Some guy is free to enjoy ads if that's really what he wants to do. Others are free to think that's pretty damned strange. I don't see anyone advocating that either freedom should be taken away, so really what's the problem here?
I don't care. Life is better with data. I would actually pay for a phone that records my heartbeat and location and communicates it to a trusted 3rd party. You know what, it might save my life.
Yeah, if it's sold to you that way and openly listed as a feature then I'd say buy it if you find it useful.
The subject of this story is the multitude of devices that record such data without your knowledge and without your consent and secretly send it to third parties you have no reason to trust at all.
Isn't it inconsistent to deny this freedom to the companies that sell us these devices?
What about a person's right to not be secretly recorded, logged, tracked and monitored purely for corporate greed?
I'm pretty sure that AC was just trolling. At least, I'd really like to think so.
Unfortunately there really are a lot of people who, for some reason, will act against their own self-interests and vehemently defend this kind of intrusive surveillance. I believe the term for them is "useful idiots".
Throughout history, every time a relatively free nation became a brutal dictatorship, there were such people who welcomed it with open arms at least until it was finally their face smashed by a jackbooted thug. The GP might be one of those.
Did you index those prices against the median household income?
No, because that wasn't necessary to demonstrate that the GP's reasoning was backwards. If I wanted to demonstrate precisely how backwards it was then I might have done something like that.
Such arguments were compelling enough to convince two dozen or so U.S. states to deregulate their electric industries. Most began in the mid-1990s, and problems emerged soon after, most famously in the rolling blackouts that Californians suffered through in the summer of 2000 and the months that followed. At the root of these troubles is the fact that free markets can be messy and volatile, something few took into account when deregulation began. But the consequences have since proved so chaotic that a quarter of these states have now suspended plans to revamp the way they manage their electric utilities, and few (if any) additional states are rushing to jump on the deregulation bandwagon.
Yeah, so, how about not continuing this experiment with our critical infrastructure?
Not to mention that a business which a) has extremely high barriers to entry and b) is inherently a monopoly was never going to have much of a "free market" to begin with. Of course trying to force it to act contrary to its nature, by fiat, is only going to create problems.
As far as wisdom and foresight go, this is bottom-of-the-class material here.
It's amazing that there is so much debate about this. If you take a hard look at this debate, it's the same old story every time. It just gets rehashed every now and then as though it were a new issue, as though this "debate" were covering new ground. The truth is it never moves forward. It moves in circles. Really, how hard is it to understand that natural monopolies are not fertile ground for free-market principles?
I'm all for free markets. I want them to succeed. This one can't. The reason electrical service has higher prices, lower service, outages, and other problems when you try to treat them like free markets is because they are not free markets. You will never have an electrical free market until it becomes cheap, reliable, and cost-effective for each home to be "off the grid" and generate its own electricity. Until we come up with that kind of technology, we're going to need local monopolies to deliver electricity to us. Because monopolies are inherently abusive, they need reasonable regulation and close scrutiny.
Please can we stop presenting this as a new and interesting issue? It's neither. It's more like an algorithm that produces the same results each time it iterates.
I think you have that backwards. 2010 dollars are worth about 1/3 of a 1980 dollar, granted. So if you paid $1000 in 1980 and pay $1000 now, you're still paying less now because that $1000 has a lower value than it did before.
That you're paying 45% of the previous price AND paying it with dollars that aren't worth as much means two different ways that the tickets cost less than they once did.
you're an ignorant hypocrite unwilling to see the truth.
did your mother name you "causality"? why do you cower behind a chosen pseudonym? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
Oh, I almost forgot, you're one of those clones. I wouldn't have bothered responding to you had I noticed. I'm surprised you're only in the triple digits these days.
To have all of that time to maintain that many Slashdot accounts and all of that anger to be a complete asshole with each one of them... How's your quality of life these days?
If hosting pirated content so that people can take it without paying is "striking a blow for freedom", then standards have seriously droppped.
They seem to be within the law, and are confident enough about this that they're thumbing their nose at the litigation-hungry RIAA. If they are doing nothing illegal then they are operating within the legitimate bounds of freedom.
The standard is the same: don't use legal bullying and intimidation tactics against those who are breaking no laws. If you can't separate that from the fact that maybe you happen not to like what they are doing then you, sir, are part of the problem.
Sounds like an upstanding citizen to me. Ultimately most of these sites are for profit. The users may feel they are striking a blow for freedom but the sites are largely run by people trying to make a buck.
If someone can make a buck by striking a blow for freedom that'd be an instance of the system working the way it should. I like that better than the obscene profits and amounts of political power which tend to reward those who help bring tyranny.
Unfortunately there's little reason to doubt that someone in Congress is thinking of the optimal way to ban sites like this. Or one of the agencies under the executive branch is looking for a way to do that without involving Congress.
right.... because if you aren't guilty, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO HIDE, right?
That's a saying about privacy. It's one thing to decide that you don't want people invading your privacy and that it's legitimate for non-criminals to feel that way -- that's understandable. It would be quite another thing to try to buy up every Web site that might conceivably be related to privacy -- that's unreasonable and not even feasible.
That's why this isn't a privacy issue and borrowing sayings from debates about privacy won't persuade anyone.
what if they also registered the executives names with a "-IS-THE-GREATEST.COM" suffix? would that be pretty close to admitting that their senior execs were the greatest?
I'd say that it's a waste of money and therefore a disservice to their shareholders and account holders. If they want to prove how great they are, they can do it by showing how well they can manage a company.
would you be forced to believe such a thing due to you rampant hypocritically ignorant paranoia?
Are you forced to believe it's pure coincidence that this company wants to buy up all these unfavorable domain names right after it becomes known that Wikileaks seems to have a lot of dirt on this company? Isn't it strange how the potential existence of these domains never bothered BoA prior to that becoming known? The paranoia belongs to the execs of BoA.
you're an idiot.
I'm guessing you say that to anyone who disagrees with you. We all know, intelligent, reasonable people can never disagree on anything.
Ok this I don't understand. A GUI can clean things up a lot. Instead of wading through a 1000 line config file all the options are in front of you. They are better organized and can prevent things like conflicting options or flags. I've seen NFS stop working because there was a space used instead of a tab in the config. At least apache was nice enough to finally split up httpd.conf into different parts.
The config file needs to be plain ASCII that can be edited with any standard text editor or read with any pager. It's acceptable to have a GUI to help you edit that plain ASCII human-readable config file, but use of the GUI should never be mandatory.
FYI, it sounds like NFS is unusually anal about its config files. I can't say much more since I don't personally use NFS. I will mention that most of the time, all whitespace is treated equally. To name one important system file as an example, the/etc/fstab file doesn't care whether you use tabs or spaces, nor does it care how many you use. The problem you mention with NFS is not caused by the absence of a GUI. Using a GUI to overcome that problem is a workaround; it is not a solution.
Meaningful error messages mean you might figure out how to solve the problem yourself, and then you wouldn't need an expensive, annually-renewed, convoluted, "platinum" support contract.
Managed to get a client away from just this sort of jackassery. It was a DOS-based medical practice app that was buggy as hell. Their solution: Package bug-fixes as "upgrades" and charge for 'em. I was disgusted.
For commercial software that sounds like a standard industry practice.
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I wouldn't call it "arrogance" myself... I'd call it a lack of objectivity. It's the same effect either way; it's just that one is more deliberate than the other.
Otherwise... it's a shame I put my last modpoint to a less worthy use than modding this up.
'discovered' multiple times, often by separate scientists."
One would certainly HOPE it was from separate scientists, now wouldn't one.....
Having the same guy name the same snail again and again and nobody catching it wouldn't say much about the rest of the guy's peers.
The following are the biggest myths about science:
As far as institutions go, mainstream science is pretty damned amazing. It's still an endeavor of human beings, not robots that process pure information. It's still subject to human foibles, though it tries hard to divorce itself from them. The most bothersome thing about it, to me, is that too many good ideas were ridiculed for far too long before eventually being seriously considered and finally found to be true and revolutionary. This has happened more than enough times that a certain willingness to entertain what appears to be absurd should have been adopted by now, at least long enough to see if there is enough merit for further examination. What I am talking about has little to do with collecting data/evidence and more to do with how to interpret it within the framework of a given theory. I speak of what has now become cliche -- the paradigm shift.
I find it baffling that the submitter chose to link to the Fox News source when this news item has literally been plastered all over the internet all day long. It's being covered by dozens and dozens of news outlets, almost all of which are less politically toxic that Fox News.
I think I know who did that. It's probably the same guy or group of guys who keep favoring paywall sites for stories that are available freely from other sources.
The first myth about Slashdot "editors" is that they are editors. Ah, well. Who needs quality and accessibility as long as the traffic keeps pouring in?
And that's the problem. I'll describe the mentality with which you are dealing when you speak of corporations that want to control what can be done with a device post-sale: "it is not enough for me to win -- someone else must also lose." They are not interested in finding the balance of which you speak.
The corporations own most of our legal system and media. I'm glad for these cracker groups. They're just about the only remaining check against them that seems to actually work.
Amen, brother.
The last time I ran into one of those "who are YOU to judge?" types (something one could train a parrot to say) I explained to him why his brand of relativism is inherently contradictory and self-defeating. That's generally a thankless job. As it turned out, all he did was repeat himself a few more times as though I didn't understand what he said the first time, and eventually he gives up and adds me to his Foe list. He probably thought "wow, I sure showed HIM! That'll teach him!" Indeed, it taught me something. It taught me that this individual is childish and unable to handle honest debate without getting his feelings hurt.
My point is that you're right, they are cowards. Relativism isn't something they arrived at by carefully examining the merits of many different philosophies. It's almost exclusively used to answer criticism, not by showing that the criticism is ill-founded or invalid but rather by making an excuse or personally attacking the critic. I have never seen this "relativist school of thought" put forth its own original ideas. It only ever makes an appearance as a last-resort response to something else.
The reason this particular thing is so appealing to cowards is easy enough to understand. If everything is "just your perspective" or "just your opinion" or "just your viewpoint" then where does anyone have to fulfill a burden of proof? Where does anyone have to show that they have solid reasoning to back up their statements? Solid reasoning and good evidence is how you demonstrate that your position is something more than your imagination, and cowards can't stand that.
I read that article. This paragraph from it will be useful for making my point:
The topic of the meeting was the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by a collection of western countries, including the U.S. and E.U. Tsvangirai told the western officials that, while there had been some progress in the last year, Mugabe and his supporters were dragging their feet on delivering political reforms. To overcome this, he said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe "must be kept in place" to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.
He didn't have the courage to be honest and publically say, "this is terrible right now but I sincerely believe it is a necessary step towards a brighter future and therefore worth enduring, however unfortunate that will be". Instead of doing that, openly and honestly, he said what he thought people wanted to hear in public while saying what he really believes they should do in private. There's a word for that: hypocrisy.
Now hypocrisy is nothing precisely new from politicians, even the more well-intentioned ones. Apparently that's just as true in Africa as it is in North America. It is unfortunate though that the situation in Zimbabwe is a lot more dire. If Tsvangirai thought he could pull a fast one and say something he did not sincerely believe -- an action also known as "lying through one's teeth" -- then isn't he responsible for that decision? Why would you blame someone else for pointing this out? There'd be no such thing to point out if he had been honest.
What is it about government? Why does the presence of this organization or any of its members suddenly invert our thought processes? When government is involved, we don't blame the liar anymore for deceiving us, especially when the stakes are high, like we normally would do. No. Instead, we have sympathy for the liar and turn all our blame and spite towards the person who calls them on it and points out the lie. WTF? Are you really that impressed by authority?
The media also strongly discourages participation in science when it depicts it as a field that only socially awkward people would ever have an interest in. We really see a lot more of that, coupled with a strong push for everyone to become some kind of businessman, than we see of movies that might encourage children to become scientists. Welcome to American culture.
No. Too many people wait for movies or other mass media to "inspire" them, to tell them who they are and what they should do and what stereotype they fit. That is the majority of American culture. That is why we have these "problems of inspiration". Too many people are passive and pliable and waiting for some prominent figure to tell them what, how, and who they should be. It's a total rejection of the individual freedom for which our ancestors fought and died. That's why we have a lack of "inspiration" -- we have replaced it almost entirely with "outspiration".
It is that every kid with an IQ of 90 or more is told that they can be a doctor, lawyer, or scientist
Who is telling them that? Last I checked, we were telling our children that they should aspire to be either businessmen or celebrities.
Guidance counselors are telling them that from Junior High. They're telling them to go to college. Then when they get to college and want to study 'underwater basket weaving', the colleges aren't kicking them out, they're actually offering PhD's in it.
And when we've reached the destination at the end of that path, we will have made a college degree (i.e. K-12 + college) into a much more time-consuming, much more expensive equivalent of what a high school diploma is today.
I wish that about three quarters of the energy, effort, and attention we pour into "inspiring kids" were instead put towards teenagers and young adults. You can have the most inspired children in the world; it won't matter much by the time peer pressure, celebrity worship, and your average high school curriculum gets through with them (my sig line is apropos).
Teaching them how to do basic things like balance a checkbook, manage credit, and live within their means so they can eventually build wealth would be a great starting point. From there you can teach them how to think critically, use logic, perform basic research, to understand what skepticism is and isn't. A generation or two of that and we'd have a much better and healthier society.
A few entrenched monied interests would also make less money that way, and that's the problem with actually implementing it.
No. You are applying the same reasoning to two entirely different concepts. My premise is that there is no objective truth for how someone should enjoy themselves. You are applying that reasoning to the area in which I am calling you out, which is different. What I'm calling you out for is how you treat others, not what you choose to find enjoyable.
Different facets of people interacting with each other can, and should, be judged by different standards. Some can (and should) be judged with a position that all is relative; some should be judged from the position that there is an absolute right and wrong. To do otherwise leads to two equally bad extremes: if one is always permissive of others' views, then one will turn a blind eye to all kinds of situations caused by a tyranny of the majority because, well, it's their right to run their affairs how they see fit. If one is always absolutist, then there is no tolerance for anyone who has a differing point of view. Neither is a just perspective.
In that spirit, I am judging people's preferences for enjoyment as something that should be viewed permissively, where there is no right answer. I am also judging the way one chooses to react to those preferences as something where there is a right answer, and expressing my belief that you are on the wrong side of that line. You may disagree with my judgement of how these two situations should be regarded (and, I would say you almost certainly do). Fine, I take no issue with that. However, the mere fact that I don't have one single way to approach all situations doesn't invalidate my position on its face.
I most certainly do apply my premise to someone with whom I disagree. In fact, I have already applied it to the people who are masochists or who enjoy advertisements. I don't understand it, nor will I ever understand (or agree) with it. However, I am content to live and let live, even though we disagree.
I also, to return to something you said earlier, find it highly ironic that you lament that people are not willing to adopt Voltaire's attitude of being willing to defend the right of someone to say things they disagree with. I have done so already, in your case. I could have simply done what so many moderators do here, and used my mod points to try to drag your comment down. I didn't, because I don't believe anyone has the right to try to censor you (despite the fact that I disagree with what you are saying). My attempting to change your mind through discussion does not constitute an unwillingness to defend your right to say what you wish. No one is using force here, even if I am expressing the opinion that your handling of a given situation should not be considered acceptable.
How I treat others is very simple. I respect their freedom of speech even though they may say things with great conviction that I find abhorrent. Where I draw the line is when they insist on using force or fraud to coerce others into agreement.
You have contradicted yourself left and right to try and show that my speech is somehow unacceptable while that of another is perfectly valid. Now you stumble over yourself and backpeddle to pretend that you shared my ethos about free speech all along.
This is beneath you.
This is laughable. Not only is your position stupid, because I can just as easily challenge you to prove that advertisements do not carry literary and artistic value (hint: you can't prove this about anything, because those are subjective concepts), but you don't even remember what I said originally. I don't personally find any value in advertisements, and I have no desire to watch them. This has nothing to do with me trying to boost my ego by convincing someone else that my activities are OK; it is about me saying that you don't have the right to take a subjective thing you think, and declare that it is true for everyone.
It's really simple. Your premise is self-defeating. That's why you are not committed to your own premise.
If you were committed to your own premise, then when I say something is "pathological" then you would regard that as "my opinion, to which I am entitled" or "my equally valid perspective" or "my particular viewpoint". But no, there are opinions and perspectives and viewpoints you regard as valid and invalid. So you do adhere to an absolute reference. The problem is, that totally contradicts the position of relativism you advocate for those who do anything I would call "pathological."
Like I said, you are not prepared to apply your own premise to someone with whom you disagree. That's why it is not valid; it's merely a tool you use to paint with the same "right and wrong" brush you accuse me of using. Pot -> Kettle -> Black.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
No, I recognize your right to call this behavior strange. What I do not recognize is a right to call it "pathological" (which, to me, carries an implication that something is wrong and needs to be fixed), nor to claim that your position is objective truth, rather than simply your preference.
I'm not advocating that government or anyone else use force or threat of force to coerce anyone into fixing anything. So if I call something pathological, you may agree or disagree with that assessment. But how is it anything other than my exercise of my free speech? Incidentally, that's something I am going to exercise anyway with no regard to how you feel about whether I should. Where are the courageous, noble men like Voltaire who feel that "while I may disagree with what you say, I will defend with my life your ability to say it?" All I see are a bunch of cowards who can't stand that somebody might not like what they do.
The whole relativism thing doesn't even work, and yes that's what this is about. If you say there is no absolute truth, I can easily defeat that by asking "are you absolutely sure?" If there is no absolute truth, then on what basis would you answer that question? So why even bother?
I note that no one has truly answered my earlier challenge. Not one person is prepared to demonstrate why advertisements carry the same literary and artistic value as something like a well-written sci-fi novel. They can't, and that is why. The best they can do is try a dismissal tactic and claim that the value of a thing has nothing to do with whether someone should enjoy it, and that's a cop-out, the refuge of the weak who want something to be so, yet cannot truly defend their position.
Again, if you are so thoroughly convinced that something is worthy of your time then do it. Do it even though there are guys like me who won't agree with you that it is a worthy use of your limited time as a mortal being on Earth. I don't see anywhere near that level of courage or strength of character or conviction from the "how dare you disagree with me, I'm offended!" crowd. That much was predictable from any crowd that derives their legitimacy from the agreement and approval of others. Tell me, if you are so thoroughly convinced of the legitimacy and inherent value of a thing, why do you care what anyone else thinks? Answer: because you're not so convinced and need the security of being part of the bandwagon. It's really that simple.
I don't care if pointing that out offends you because it's the truth, not merely a matter of taste or opinion.
No, it's a matter of taste/opinion. Just because you feel very strongly on the matter does not make your position correct. I don't agree with it either, but who are you to dictate what others should and should not enjoy?
You said it right there in your last sentence but didn't realize it.
You see, I am not dictating anything. As I explicitly said in my previous post, you're free to enjoy advertisements if you want to do that. I am free to think that's quite strange if I want to do that. Both are OK because in neither case is anyone using force or fraud to coerce anyone into doing what they don't wish to do.
If you want to have some very strange hobbies, like enjoying ads or enjoying physical pain, you have that right. You are entitled to it. What you are not entitled to is to force me to like that or agree with it or support it. At this point you are trying to tell me what I should or should not like. If you are so insecure that you cannot do what you believe is right unless everyone agrees and approves, that is a personal problem and not a problem with people who might disagree. Have some guts, be who you are, make no apologies for it. Most of all, have the strength to understand and appreciate that not everyone feels the same way.
That's why the whole "must not ever offend anybody at all costs" bullshit doesn't hold water. I recognize your freedom to have strange tastes if you want to have them. You do not recognize my freedom to call them strange. That's why you have the inferior position. Yes, that's a judgment call, and I'm making it. I'm making it for a reason. The reason is simple: my respect for freedom includes those things with which I might disagree. Yours apparently does not. That's why any disagreement I voice hits your insecurity and you think I am "dictating" anything by merely speaking my mind.
Being that you are likely a fan of scifi, why are you being judgemental of what other people enjoy?
Some people are masochists and really enjoy physical pain. There's nothing "judgmental" or otherwise faulty about saying that this is pathological. Something is wrong with those people. I don't care if pointing that out offends you because it's the truth, not merely a matter of taste or opinion.
One can only be "judgmental" (a thoroughly overused word) when there is a prejudice against one of two equally viable options. You're not being "judgmental" when you say that having $1000 is better than having $10, merely realistic. Thus, to claim that GP is being "judgmental" is equivalent to claiming that banner ads have as much literary and artistic value as a well-written sci-fi novel. If you think you can prove that claim, I'm willing to entertain your evidence, but until then I remain fully skeptical.
Some guy is free to enjoy ads if that's really what he wants to do. Others are free to think that's pretty damned strange. I don't see anyone advocating that either freedom should be taken away, so really what's the problem here?
I don't care. Life is better with data. I would actually pay for a phone that records my heartbeat and location and communicates it to a trusted 3rd party. You know what, it might save my life.
Yeah, if it's sold to you that way and openly listed as a feature then I'd say buy it if you find it useful.
The subject of this story is the multitude of devices that record such data without your knowledge and without your consent and secretly send it to third parties you have no reason to trust at all.
Surely you can understand the difference?
We put up with far too much of both. I see no reason not to treat both as malice.
Isn't it inconsistent to deny this freedom to the companies that sell us these devices?
What about a person's right to not be secretly recorded, logged, tracked and monitored purely for corporate greed?
I'm pretty sure that AC was just trolling. At least, I'd really like to think so.
Unfortunately there really are a lot of people who, for some reason, will act against their own self-interests and vehemently defend this kind of intrusive surveillance. I believe the term for them is "useful idiots".
Throughout history, every time a relatively free nation became a brutal dictatorship, there were such people who welcomed it with open arms at least until it was finally their face smashed by a jackbooted thug. The GP might be one of those.
Did you index those prices against the median household income?
No, because that wasn't necessary to demonstrate that the GP's reasoning was backwards. If I wanted to demonstrate precisely how backwards it was then I might have done something like that.
From TFA:
Such arguments were compelling enough to convince two dozen or so U.S. states to deregulate their electric industries. Most began in the mid-1990s, and problems emerged soon after, most famously in the rolling blackouts that Californians suffered through in the summer of 2000 and the months that followed. At the root of these troubles is the fact that free markets can be messy and volatile, something few took into account when deregulation began. But the consequences have since proved so chaotic that a quarter of these states have now suspended plans to revamp the way they manage their electric utilities, and few (if any) additional states are rushing to jump on the deregulation bandwagon.
Yeah, so, how about not continuing this experiment with our critical infrastructure?
Not to mention that a business which a) has extremely high barriers to entry and b) is inherently a monopoly was never going to have much of a "free market" to begin with. Of course trying to force it to act contrary to its nature, by fiat, is only going to create problems.
As far as wisdom and foresight go, this is bottom-of-the-class material here.
It's amazing that there is so much debate about this. If you take a hard look at this debate, it's the same old story every time. It just gets rehashed every now and then as though it were a new issue, as though this "debate" were covering new ground. The truth is it never moves forward. It moves in circles. Really, how hard is it to understand that natural monopolies are not fertile ground for free-market principles?
I'm all for free markets. I want them to succeed. This one can't. The reason electrical service has higher prices, lower service, outages, and other problems when you try to treat them like free markets is because they are not free markets. You will never have an electrical free market until it becomes cheap, reliable, and cost-effective for each home to be "off the grid" and generate its own electricity. Until we come up with that kind of technology, we're going to need local monopolies to deliver electricity to us. Because monopolies are inherently abusive, they need reasonable regulation and close scrutiny.
Please can we stop presenting this as a new and interesting issue? It's neither. It's more like an algorithm that produces the same results each time it iterates.
A 2010 dollar is worth about 1/3 of a 1980 dollar, so tickets are actually more expensive than they used to be.
http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm
I think you have that backwards. 2010 dollars are worth about 1/3 of a 1980 dollar, granted. So if you paid $1000 in 1980 and pay $1000 now, you're still paying less now because that $1000 has a lower value than it did before.
That you're paying 45% of the previous price AND paying it with dollars that aren't worth as much means two different ways that the tickets cost less than they once did.
this is a saying about you: you're an idiot.
you're an ignorant hypocrite unwilling to see the truth.
did your mother name you "causality"? why do you cower behind a chosen pseudonym? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
Oh, I almost forgot, you're one of those clones. I wouldn't have bothered responding to you had I noticed. I'm surprised you're only in the triple digits these days.
To have all of that time to maintain that many Slashdot accounts and all of that anger to be a complete asshole with each one of them... How's your quality of life these days?
If hosting pirated content so that people can take it without paying is "striking a blow for freedom", then standards have seriously droppped.
They seem to be within the law, and are confident enough about this that they're thumbing their nose at the litigation-hungry RIAA. If they are doing nothing illegal then they are operating within the legitimate bounds of freedom.
The standard is the same: don't use legal bullying and intimidation tactics against those who are breaking no laws. If you can't separate that from the fact that maybe you happen not to like what they are doing then you, sir, are part of the problem.
Sounds like an upstanding citizen to me. Ultimately most of these sites are for profit. The users may feel they are striking a blow for freedom but the sites are largely run by people trying to make a buck.
If someone can make a buck by striking a blow for freedom that'd be an instance of the system working the way it should. I like that better than the obscene profits and amounts of political power which tend to reward those who help bring tyranny.
Unfortunately there's little reason to doubt that someone in Congress is thinking of the optimal way to ban sites like this. Or one of the agencies under the executive branch is looking for a way to do that without involving Congress.
That's a saying about privacy. It's one thing to decide that you don't want people invading your privacy and that it's legitimate for non-criminals to feel that way -- that's understandable. It would be quite another thing to try to buy up every Web site that might conceivably be related to privacy -- that's unreasonable and not even feasible.
That's why this isn't a privacy issue and borrowing sayings from debates about privacy won't persuade anyone.
I'd say that it's a waste of money and therefore a disservice to their shareholders and account holders. If they want to prove how great they are, they can do it by showing how well they can manage a company.
Are you forced to believe it's pure coincidence that this company wants to buy up all these unfavorable domain names right after it becomes known that Wikileaks seems to have a lot of dirt on this company? Isn't it strange how the potential existence of these domains never bothered BoA prior to that becoming known? The paranoia belongs to the execs of BoA.
I'm guessing you say that to anyone who disagrees with you. We all know, intelligent, reasonable people can never disagree on anything.
Ok this I don't understand. A GUI can clean things up a lot. Instead of wading through a 1000 line config file all the options are in front of you. They are better organized and can prevent things like conflicting options or flags. I've seen NFS stop working because there was a space used instead of a tab in the config. At least apache was nice enough to finally split up httpd.conf into different parts.
The config file needs to be plain ASCII that can be edited with any standard text editor or read with any pager. It's acceptable to have a GUI to help you edit that plain ASCII human-readable config file, but use of the GUI should never be mandatory.
/etc/fstab file doesn't care whether you use tabs or spaces, nor does it care how many you use. The problem you mention with NFS is not caused by the absence of a GUI. Using a GUI to overcome that problem is a workaround; it is not a solution.
FYI, it sounds like NFS is unusually anal about its config files. I can't say much more since I don't personally use NFS. I will mention that most of the time, all whitespace is treated equally. To name one important system file as an example, the
Meaningful error messages mean you might figure out how to solve the problem yourself, and then you wouldn't need an expensive, annually-renewed, convoluted, "platinum" support contract.
Managed to get a client away from just this sort of jackassery. It was a DOS-based medical practice app that was buggy as hell. Their solution: Package bug-fixes as "upgrades" and charge for 'em. I was disgusted.
For commercial software that sounds like a standard industry practice.