So Apple, as a newcomer to the industry, is now making others in the same space play catch up to them.
Right, and I think that's why the news media is demanding (wrongly) that Apple blows the door of the hinges at WWDC. They saw Apple go from nothing to an industry leader (in the mobile industry) in the space of a year or two, and they're thinking to themselves, "How can Apple keep that pace up?! They're definitely going to falter!" Bu the truth is Apple doesn't need to keep that pace up. All they have to do is release solid updates that will fix some of the problems people have with their products, throw in a couple of new good features, and continue to win converts.
People can register a domain name with no credentials at all
Well it does depend a fair bit on what you think the purpose of an SSL certificate is. I wouldn't expect the SSL cert to do anything more than verify that the site your connected to is, in fact, controlled by the person who registered the domain you're trying to connect to (in addition to allowing you to encrypt traffic). Not even in the ideal situation would I expect anything more than that.
In my opinion, the only reason to have CAs at all instead of using self-signed certs is to prevent hacks that include rerouting traffic to a phony address, man-in-the-middle attacks, and stuff like that. But you're suggesting that they should also vouch for the trustworthiness of the person who owns the domain? And then what are the criteria for that? How trustworthy do I have to be? Lots of people here on Slashdot don't think Microsoft is trustworthy-- do they get to keep their domain?
At which point I have no problem dismissing their words as worthless bible-thumping, and switching to a more important goal -- demonstrating their stupidity, so they won't be able to spread it to other people.
Since when has demonstrable stupidity kept an idea from being spread?
But, now, do you at least see my point that "dismissing" other people's ideas as "worthless" and "stupid" isn't going to convince them? In fact, it's not really going to do anything except rally people who already agree with you, and anger those who don't.
And besides that, dismissing other people's ideas as worthless and stupid without addressing them with a sensible argument is just as irrational as "bible thumping".
My first reaction to "Publishers want a slice of used game market," was "Well yeah, I want a slice of the used game market too. Unfortunately for me and game publishers, we have absolutely no legal right to it." I mean, really, of course we all *want* a share of someone else's profitable business. That doesn't mean anything.
Well really you're just taking the argument through another layer. You're saying their belief in God is dangerous, and those people would say it's something valuable that you're trying to rob them of. What I'm saying is, in that argument, you would each be arguing from a position of trying to protect something. It's possible that you're trying to protect your ego as much as the religious opposition might be trying to protect theirs. Or possibly you're trying to protect your sense of "rational thought" and they're trying to protect their ideas of "stable morality".
Of course, the argument is a little different each time, and what's being protected depends on who's arguing (and not the argument itself). But if all you can do is snipe from the sidelines and you fail to make a logical argument yourself in favor of the things you're trying to protect, then don't expect anyone on the opposing side to be convinced.
Well first of all, cherry-picking some particular bad philosopher isn't a fair way to argue that philosophy isn't useful. Scientific studies constantly fail to produce helpful results, but we can't then conclude that science in useless. We look at the scientific successes, and certainly those are helpful.
Second, if you think Nietzsche was trying to present a rigorous philosophic framework, then that's your first mistake. It's sort of like watching NOVA on PBS and saying, "SEE! Scientists don't prove things rigorously! I watched that whole show and there wasn't a single rigorous proof of the claims they were making!"
Third, your talk about the Greeks "disrespect for first principles"-- where do you think we get the idea of logical "first principles"? Our whole concept of "first principles" can be traced back to Euclid and Aristotle.
I'm sorry to say this because I don't like to sound insulting, but I think you aren't very well educated about philosophy, science, or logic. Have you ever read Aristotle? Have you read Plato? Are you aware of the degree to which modern science is based on ancient Greek concepts?
Well, they originally intended to use online distribution, which is why they're called Netflix. Shipping DVDs was an interim solution they came up with because online distribution wasn't ready for movies yet (too many people still on dialup).
I think the stress on their online offerings is less a response to anyone in particular, and more that the market and the technology were finally ready for it.
Channels? Why should we have "channels" at all if we're going to TVoIP? Why should I have to pay for the cable company to carry Oprah when the only thing I watch on ABC is Lost?
I'm sort of joking, but there's a serious component here. We're in an age where the content is totally separable from the distribution network/infrastructure/media. I should basically be able to get what I want, when I want it, on any device capable of playing the thing. Why should we have "channels"?
iTunes is mostly selling songs, which people generally listen to over and over and over. Hulu shows TV shows, which people generally only watch once and rarely ever again.
iTunes also sells TV episodes by the episode or by the season, in your choice of SD or HD (depending on the show). They also sell and offer "rentals" for movies.
I agree that it often makes less sense to "buy" TV shows, but my whole point there is that they're looking for a business model that is profitable and that consumers will accept. Ideally I'm sure they're also looking to maximize profits overall (i.e. what will make the most profit online without cannibalizing their deals with network TV and cable channels, or else something that will make more money than their deals with TV channels), but they may need to eventually settle for "profitable".
I think their best move for the long-term would to be to jump on a model where you had a pay-per-view model for a relatively cheap price, backed up by sales-- so basically the iTunes model for movies, but also with $0.50 TV show "rentals" rather than $2 TV show purchases. Of course, this leaves all the DRM problems in place, so it would leave lots of people dissatisfied, but I don't think people are ready to spend $2/episode to watch it once.
Hulu's ad-supported model may make sense in lieu of TV show "rentals", but I suspect that regardless of the technology they use to insert the ads, it will only be a matter of time before people figure out how to strip them back out. So either way, coming up with a profitable business model is a problem.
Well I think ultimately the issue is this: Everyone sees the writing on the wall. TV shows and movies are going to have to be offered available online, or else people will get it through pirate channels. So the movie studios and everyone are starting to reluctantly jump on board, but they don't have the business model all worked out.
So can they make enough money from advertisements? Can they make enough money from subscriptions, or a la carte sales? Can they work out some kind of combination, or will consumers balk at the idea of paying for a subscription and still watching ads? People already do that with cable (pay for it and still watch tons of ads), so it's not unthinkable.
iTunes is doing the a la carte sales, Hulu is doing ads. If someone else isn't doing subscriptions, someone will probably try it soon.
1) Yeah, I know. Did you notice that I called Socrates a "character"? I also posted elsewhere explaining, "The whole thing makes a lot more sense if you consider Plato's dialogs to be almost like plays, in which Socrates is a very sarcastic and tricky character."
3) Well either way, that wasn't really the point. My point was that Plato's Republic was a definitive work on this topic. If Plato was first, that only supports the idea that the Republic is important.
4) You're still missing the point on this one too. The "philosopher king" is not actually the king, but is the slave. He is not the person in power. That's how the system works out, because he is not the one keeping himself in power by force, but he's being kept "in power" by force, which means he's not actually the one "in power".
5) I still don't really see what you mean there. I mean, I can understand that if you start with the assumption that seeking political power is a sign of being unfit to have power, then those people who you think haven't sought power would seem more fit. But are you trying to convince me about particular people?
6) You'd have to convince me that any kind of an automated system without human intervention could even possibly be "just". I don't think that's the case. I'm not saying, "I don't think we've figured it out yet," or, "I don't think it's practically possible." I'm saying, "It's a contradiction in terms, and isn't even theoretically possible." Saying, "we should design a fair and just automated justice system that doesn't involve human judgement," is a bit like saying, "we should design a state-of-the-art powerful computer system that doesn't involve any kind of technology."
But that's getting into a philosophic question, which you've essentially claimed to have no interest in such things. Saying "it's a philosophic question" doesn't lessen the practical impact. Philosophic problems have lots of very practical ramifications.
Are any of those things worth paying for a landline? I don't know-- last time I had a landline is was something like $40 a month even if I didn't make any calls.
Are any of those things even worth spending $25/month for VOIP?
I think there's a good point in the article about the monopolistic problems at stake:
When J.D. Rockefeller set out to monopolize the oil industry, there were several crucial areas where he attacked. He knew that he couldnâ(TM)t control all of the oil fields because it was literally bubbling out of the ground, but what he could control was the distribution method for getting oil to the end customer.
It's also particularly noteworthy when talking about media. For example, what do we tend to call those companies that control the music business? "Record companies". All those companies essentially started out as just the companies that manufactured the records, but it was the control of the distribution media of music that put them in control of the entire music industry. That's why record companies are so afraid of people buying music online. Online sales give transfer a lot of control over distribution from the record companies to the online retailers, which could eventually make record companies completely obsolete.
I know this sounds like I'm going off-topic, but it's very important to know this when you're talking about Microsoft and media formats. Microsoft spent a lot of money developing their own media formats and DRM, and then pushing those formats and DRM on everyone. From the record companies' point of view, this was a good thing because it gave them increased control over online distribution, but what they may not have noticed is that it also gave Microsoft a foot in the door. It's pretty obvious that Microsoft stood to gain a piece of the action in the media industry, as well as another monopoly that could reenforce their OS monopoly.
What seems to have tripped them up is (a) the most popular portable media player not supporting their media formats; and (b) the music industry finally dropping DRM. If not for those two things, we might be in a real nightmare situation by now.
1) I wasn't claiming that you were a philosopher. I was saying that Socrates (who is the character usually being cited when people claim that philosophers should be put in charge) was being sarcastic. He was a philosopher who was basically telling other people, "You should put a philosopher (specifically: me) in charge, since we philosophers don't seek power and therefore would do a good job. Of course, I don't want the job, because I'm a philosopher, but that makes me the perfect candidate. Put me in charge!" It's actually fairly clever and funny, but modern readers tend to assume he's serious.
2) I'm not just saying that you can't make it happen, I'm saying that this line of thinking, if you take it to its logical conclusion, exposes itself as being somewhat silly.
3) Well that's my mistake. I thought you were referencing Plato. The guy you were responding to was certainly referencing Plato, and you presented the basic argument present in Plato, which may have also been influenced by Aesop (I believe Aesop came first). Either way, the Republic is a definite must-read if you're interested in the topic.
4) In most cases where you'd say a ruler is "held in power by force", you'd probably mean that the ruler is the one wielding the "force" in order to keep himself in power. The absurd thing about the philosopher king is that he would have to be made king against his will, by force-- the people being ruled being the ones wielding the force.
5) I don't know on what basis your making that judgement, so I have no idea whether I'd agree with it.
6) I don't see how a system of set rules, absent human decision-making, can be "just". I suppose it depends on what you consider "justice" to be, but since you say you're not a philosopher, I would guess you wouldn't be interested in a question like "what is 'justice'?".
Yeah, it was my impression that Microsoft's demonstration was more like, "We have this concept, and kind of have something that sort of works, but it's not really a product yet." Sony's is more like, "Here's a product that we'll be launching soon."
I more or less agree with you, but I can't tell is the "waggle" aspect of the Wii falls flat because (a) the novelty has encouraged developers to shoe-horn it into games even when they can't do it well; and (b) the inaccuracy of the wiimote makes it a flawed experience even in cases where it would be appropriate.
On the second point, I'll say that I like the Wii and find the control scheme pretty good in a lot of instances where finesse isn't really required. However, the controller does not seem to pick up on fine/subtle movements, and sometimes if you're moving too fast or too slow, it will register the exact opposite motion of what you made. I've had times when I swung the controller in one direction and that motion was not picked up, but the sudden stop or small recoil at the end of the motion was picked up, and so it treated the whole thing as a swing in the opposite direction.
Some of these things should improve and work themselves out over time. The controllers will get better, and developers will shot shoe-horning things when the novelty wears off.
Patenting actual hardware device innovations shouldn't be up for debate
Well, it seems like it depends on what level those things are patented. Are you patenting the specific design of that hardware, or are you trying to apply the patent to "all hardware controllers that accomplish [x]"? Because I don't mind it so much when the patent is of a particular design or mechanism that's truly novel, leaving the door open for someone else to design their own mechanism and implementation to achieve the same results. What's troublesome is that a lot of times companies are patenting big general ideas.
I know this is part of it for me. It's not going to be a popular opinion here on Slashdot, but a truly native feel to an application is more important to me than a couple milliseconds of speed.
I don't want to run an application that feels like it was built for another desktop environment. I don't like it when applications use their own widgets and break conventions set by the OS. I want my web browser to look like it was designed by the same UI designer that made my office suit, my file browser, my ftp client, my mail client, and everything else.
Weirdly, Firefox sometimes does a better job at this than even the native clients actually designed by the OS-makers.
Heh. I like your arguing style, especially since you're making the sort of arguments that were popular among Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophers.
The problem is, it's sort of a weird circular reasoning to try to use science to undermine ancient philosophy, given that "science" as we know it is an offshoot of ancient Greek "natural philosophy". Basically, we're living in the intellectual house where Aristotle is the foundation.
That's not to say that Aristotle (or other philosophers) knew everything or were right about everything, but modern scientists don't either. It's all just an issue of trying to experiment and explain as best we can with the tools we have available.
Take your example of the 4 elements, and think about them more as the 3 states of matter (earth=solid, water=liquid, air=gas) plus energy (fire). Now saying everything in the universe consists of matter (in one of the 3 states) plus energy starts to sound a lot more like high school science class. It might not be completely accurate either, but it's certainly not stupid.
But early scientists discovered that the earth was round, and even calculated it's size fairly accurately (no, it was not discovered by Columbus). They formulated geometry and algebra, discovered lots of basic physical laws worked, and understood a fair amount of biology (even understood some things about genetic inheritance, in spite of having no idea what the mechanism was). Newton was a natural philosopher more than he was a modern physicist. Even when Einstein rewrote the laws of physics, it was more an act of natural philosophy than anything else. He didn't start from a mathematical equation or an experiment in a lab, but he began his formulation of Relativity by asking what it meant to "measure" something.
So I don't want to be so rude as to suggest that you don't know what you're talking about, but... well, you'll need to present a more thorough argument if you want to convince me.
However, in a modern society, power is spread out between a lot of people: politicians, bureaucrats, legal professionals, CEOs of major corporations, political advisors, and so on.
Yeah, but that doesn't really matter. What Socrates (and Plato) are really pointing to is more that there's an inherent problem in allocating power-- that the people who get into power are the people who are motivated most strongly to accumulate power to themselves, and among them the people who are best at gaining power for themselves. There's not really any possible mechanism for allocating power to the people who would wield it best-- assuming we could even agree on what the best use of power is.
That's not to say that's all of what's going on in the Republic, but that's certainly one component of the discussion of the "philosopher king".
At the base of all philosophy is a gut feeling, with lots of flowery language to make it pretty and marketable.
Sounds like a sort of philosophic theory that you have going there. But then maybe that's just your gut feeling, and there's nothing more substantial behind it?
And factually incorrect? That seems like a strange charge to make against discussions which often aren't concerned with matters of mere fact, but are more likely trying to uncover our basis for being able to claim something as "fact".
You're going to have to make a more complete argument if you want to convince me.
But philosophers ARE the ones most suited to be kings (well, most of them) because they are the ones least interested in power.
Didn't you notice some irony in that answer? A philosopher claims that philosophers should be put in power because they're the best suited, because they don't seek power. Doesn't it seem like he's presenting an argument that he should be put in power, which thereby suggests that he seeks power?
What follows from the initial idea is also absurd. According to the proposed system, the way in which a philosopher king would be put into power is that a bunch of people ill-suited to power would need to track down the philosopher and forcibly place him in power. So the unwashed masses who aren't suited to make good decisions for themselves would need to be wise enough to choose the best ruler. The power-seekers would need to give up their power-seeking in order to place someone else in power. And when all that is done, the person in power would be held in power by force-- which is to say that he wouldn't be in charge. He would essentially be a slave who would be doing the will of the masses against his own wishes.
The whole concept collapses in on itself in such a way that even if we were to accept that the ideal ruler is a disinterested philosopher, it becomes a self-contradictory and impossible ideal to bring into being.
Slashdot Mirror
So Apple, as a newcomer to the industry, is now making others in the same space play catch up to them.
Right, and I think that's why the news media is demanding (wrongly) that Apple blows the door of the hinges at WWDC. They saw Apple go from nothing to an industry leader (in the mobile industry) in the space of a year or two, and they're thinking to themselves, "How can Apple keep that pace up?! They're definitely going to falter!" Bu the truth is Apple doesn't need to keep that pace up. All they have to do is release solid updates that will fix some of the problems people have with their products, throw in a couple of new good features, and continue to win converts.
People can register a domain name with no credentials at all
Well it does depend a fair bit on what you think the purpose of an SSL certificate is. I wouldn't expect the SSL cert to do anything more than verify that the site your connected to is, in fact, controlled by the person who registered the domain you're trying to connect to (in addition to allowing you to encrypt traffic). Not even in the ideal situation would I expect anything more than that.
In my opinion, the only reason to have CAs at all instead of using self-signed certs is to prevent hacks that include rerouting traffic to a phony address, man-in-the-middle attacks, and stuff like that. But you're suggesting that they should also vouch for the trustworthiness of the person who owns the domain? And then what are the criteria for that? How trustworthy do I have to be? Lots of people here on Slashdot don't think Microsoft is trustworthy-- do they get to keep their domain?
I see. That makes some sense. Thanks.
At which point I have no problem dismissing their words as worthless bible-thumping, and switching to a more important goal -- demonstrating their stupidity, so they won't be able to spread it to other people.
Since when has demonstrable stupidity kept an idea from being spread?
But, now, do you at least see my point that "dismissing" other people's ideas as "worthless" and "stupid" isn't going to convince them? In fact, it's not really going to do anything except rally people who already agree with you, and anger those who don't.
And besides that, dismissing other people's ideas as worthless and stupid without addressing them with a sensible argument is just as irrational as "bible thumping".
My first reaction to "Publishers want a slice of used game market," was "Well yeah, I want a slice of the used game market too. Unfortunately for me and game publishers, we have absolutely no legal right to it." I mean, really, of course we all *want* a share of someone else's profitable business. That doesn't mean anything.
Can you say more? How does signing the root DNS solve the problems associated with SSL certs?
Well really you're just taking the argument through another layer. You're saying their belief in God is dangerous, and those people would say it's something valuable that you're trying to rob them of. What I'm saying is, in that argument, you would each be arguing from a position of trying to protect something. It's possible that you're trying to protect your ego as much as the religious opposition might be trying to protect theirs. Or possibly you're trying to protect your sense of "rational thought" and they're trying to protect their ideas of "stable morality".
Of course, the argument is a little different each time, and what's being protected depends on who's arguing (and not the argument itself). But if all you can do is snipe from the sidelines and you fail to make a logical argument yourself in favor of the things you're trying to protect, then don't expect anyone on the opposing side to be convinced.
Well first of all, cherry-picking some particular bad philosopher isn't a fair way to argue that philosophy isn't useful. Scientific studies constantly fail to produce helpful results, but we can't then conclude that science in useless. We look at the scientific successes, and certainly those are helpful.
Second, if you think Nietzsche was trying to present a rigorous philosophic framework, then that's your first mistake. It's sort of like watching NOVA on PBS and saying, "SEE! Scientists don't prove things rigorously! I watched that whole show and there wasn't a single rigorous proof of the claims they were making!"
Third, your talk about the Greeks "disrespect for first principles"-- where do you think we get the idea of logical "first principles"? Our whole concept of "first principles" can be traced back to Euclid and Aristotle.
I'm sorry to say this because I don't like to sound insulting, but I think you aren't very well educated about philosophy, science, or logic. Have you ever read Aristotle? Have you read Plato? Are you aware of the degree to which modern science is based on ancient Greek concepts?
Well, they originally intended to use online distribution, which is why they're called Netflix. Shipping DVDs was an interim solution they came up with because online distribution wasn't ready for movies yet (too many people still on dialup).
I think the stress on their online offerings is less a response to anyone in particular, and more that the market and the technology were finally ready for it.
Channels? Why should we have "channels" at all if we're going to TVoIP? Why should I have to pay for the cable company to carry Oprah when the only thing I watch on ABC is Lost?
I'm sort of joking, but there's a serious component here. We're in an age where the content is totally separable from the distribution network/infrastructure/media. I should basically be able to get what I want, when I want it, on any device capable of playing the thing. Why should we have "channels"?
iTunes is mostly selling songs, which people generally listen to over and over and over. Hulu shows TV shows, which people generally only watch once and rarely ever again.
iTunes also sells TV episodes by the episode or by the season, in your choice of SD or HD (depending on the show). They also sell and offer "rentals" for movies.
I agree that it often makes less sense to "buy" TV shows, but my whole point there is that they're looking for a business model that is profitable and that consumers will accept. Ideally I'm sure they're also looking to maximize profits overall (i.e. what will make the most profit online without cannibalizing their deals with network TV and cable channels, or else something that will make more money than their deals with TV channels), but they may need to eventually settle for "profitable".
I think their best move for the long-term would to be to jump on a model where you had a pay-per-view model for a relatively cheap price, backed up by sales-- so basically the iTunes model for movies, but also with $0.50 TV show "rentals" rather than $2 TV show purchases. Of course, this leaves all the DRM problems in place, so it would leave lots of people dissatisfied, but I don't think people are ready to spend $2/episode to watch it once.
Hulu's ad-supported model may make sense in lieu of TV show "rentals", but I suspect that regardless of the technology they use to insert the ads, it will only be a matter of time before people figure out how to strip them back out. So either way, coming up with a profitable business model is a problem.
Well I think ultimately the issue is this: Everyone sees the writing on the wall. TV shows and movies are going to have to be offered available online, or else people will get it through pirate channels. So the movie studios and everyone are starting to reluctantly jump on board, but they don't have the business model all worked out.
So can they make enough money from advertisements? Can they make enough money from subscriptions, or a la carte sales? Can they work out some kind of combination, or will consumers balk at the idea of paying for a subscription and still watching ads? People already do that with cable (pay for it and still watch tons of ads), so it's not unthinkable.
iTunes is doing the a la carte sales, Hulu is doing ads. If someone else isn't doing subscriptions, someone will probably try it soon.
1) Yeah, I know. Did you notice that I called Socrates a "character"? I also posted elsewhere explaining, "The whole thing makes a lot more sense if you consider Plato's dialogs to be almost like plays, in which Socrates is a very sarcastic and tricky character."
3) Well either way, that wasn't really the point. My point was that Plato's Republic was a definitive work on this topic. If Plato was first, that only supports the idea that the Republic is important.
4) You're still missing the point on this one too. The "philosopher king" is not actually the king, but is the slave. He is not the person in power. That's how the system works out, because he is not the one keeping himself in power by force, but he's being kept "in power" by force, which means he's not actually the one "in power".
5) I still don't really see what you mean there. I mean, I can understand that if you start with the assumption that seeking political power is a sign of being unfit to have power, then those people who you think haven't sought power would seem more fit. But are you trying to convince me about particular people?
6) You'd have to convince me that any kind of an automated system without human intervention could even possibly be "just". I don't think that's the case. I'm not saying, "I don't think we've figured it out yet," or, "I don't think it's practically possible." I'm saying, "It's a contradiction in terms, and isn't even theoretically possible." Saying, "we should design a fair and just automated justice system that doesn't involve human judgement," is a bit like saying, "we should design a state-of-the-art powerful computer system that doesn't involve any kind of technology."
But that's getting into a philosophic question, which you've essentially claimed to have no interest in such things. Saying "it's a philosophic question" doesn't lessen the practical impact. Philosophic problems have lots of very practical ramifications.
They're not established in this market.
Are any of those things worth paying for a landline? I don't know-- last time I had a landline is was something like $40 a month even if I didn't make any calls.
Are any of those things even worth spending $25/month for VOIP?
I think there's a good point in the article about the monopolistic problems at stake:
When J.D. Rockefeller set out to monopolize the oil industry, there were several crucial areas where he attacked. He knew that he couldnâ(TM)t control all of the oil fields because it was literally bubbling out of the ground, but what he could control was the distribution method for getting oil to the end customer.
It's also particularly noteworthy when talking about media. For example, what do we tend to call those companies that control the music business? "Record companies". All those companies essentially started out as just the companies that manufactured the records, but it was the control of the distribution media of music that put them in control of the entire music industry. That's why record companies are so afraid of people buying music online. Online sales give transfer a lot of control over distribution from the record companies to the online retailers, which could eventually make record companies completely obsolete.
I know this sounds like I'm going off-topic, but it's very important to know this when you're talking about Microsoft and media formats. Microsoft spent a lot of money developing their own media formats and DRM, and then pushing those formats and DRM on everyone. From the record companies' point of view, this was a good thing because it gave them increased control over online distribution, but what they may not have noticed is that it also gave Microsoft a foot in the door. It's pretty obvious that Microsoft stood to gain a piece of the action in the media industry, as well as another monopoly that could reenforce their OS monopoly.
What seems to have tripped them up is (a) the most popular portable media player not supporting their media formats; and (b) the music industry finally dropping DRM. If not for those two things, we might be in a real nightmare situation by now.
1) I wasn't claiming that you were a philosopher. I was saying that Socrates (who is the character usually being cited when people claim that philosophers should be put in charge) was being sarcastic. He was a philosopher who was basically telling other people, "You should put a philosopher (specifically: me) in charge, since we philosophers don't seek power and therefore would do a good job. Of course, I don't want the job, because I'm a philosopher, but that makes me the perfect candidate. Put me in charge!" It's actually fairly clever and funny, but modern readers tend to assume he's serious.
2) I'm not just saying that you can't make it happen, I'm saying that this line of thinking, if you take it to its logical conclusion, exposes itself as being somewhat silly.
3) Well that's my mistake. I thought you were referencing Plato. The guy you were responding to was certainly referencing Plato, and you presented the basic argument present in Plato, which may have also been influenced by Aesop (I believe Aesop came first). Either way, the Republic is a definite must-read if you're interested in the topic.
4) In most cases where you'd say a ruler is "held in power by force", you'd probably mean that the ruler is the one wielding the "force" in order to keep himself in power. The absurd thing about the philosopher king is that he would have to be made king against his will, by force-- the people being ruled being the ones wielding the force.
5) I don't know on what basis your making that judgement, so I have no idea whether I'd agree with it.
6) I don't see how a system of set rules, absent human decision-making, can be "just". I suppose it depends on what you consider "justice" to be, but since you say you're not a philosopher, I would guess you wouldn't be interested in a question like "what is 'justice'?".
Yeah, it was my impression that Microsoft's demonstration was more like, "We have this concept, and kind of have something that sort of works, but it's not really a product yet." Sony's is more like, "Here's a product that we'll be launching soon."
I more or less agree with you, but I can't tell is the "waggle" aspect of the Wii falls flat because (a) the novelty has encouraged developers to shoe-horn it into games even when they can't do it well; and (b) the inaccuracy of the wiimote makes it a flawed experience even in cases where it would be appropriate.
On the second point, I'll say that I like the Wii and find the control scheme pretty good in a lot of instances where finesse isn't really required. However, the controller does not seem to pick up on fine/subtle movements, and sometimes if you're moving too fast or too slow, it will register the exact opposite motion of what you made. I've had times when I swung the controller in one direction and that motion was not picked up, but the sudden stop or small recoil at the end of the motion was picked up, and so it treated the whole thing as a swing in the opposite direction.
Some of these things should improve and work themselves out over time. The controllers will get better, and developers will shot shoe-horning things when the novelty wears off.
Patenting actual hardware device innovations shouldn't be up for debate
Well, it seems like it depends on what level those things are patented. Are you patenting the specific design of that hardware, or are you trying to apply the patent to "all hardware controllers that accomplish [x]"? Because I don't mind it so much when the patent is of a particular design or mechanism that's truly novel, leaving the door open for someone else to design their own mechanism and implementation to achieve the same results. What's troublesome is that a lot of times companies are patenting big general ideas.
I know this is part of it for me. It's not going to be a popular opinion here on Slashdot, but a truly native feel to an application is more important to me than a couple milliseconds of speed.
I don't want to run an application that feels like it was built for another desktop environment. I don't like it when applications use their own widgets and break conventions set by the OS. I want my web browser to look like it was designed by the same UI designer that made my office suit, my file browser, my ftp client, my mail client, and everything else.
Weirdly, Firefox sometimes does a better job at this than even the native clients actually designed by the OS-makers.
Heh. I like your arguing style, especially since you're making the sort of arguments that were popular among Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophers.
The problem is, it's sort of a weird circular reasoning to try to use science to undermine ancient philosophy, given that "science" as we know it is an offshoot of ancient Greek "natural philosophy". Basically, we're living in the intellectual house where Aristotle is the foundation.
That's not to say that Aristotle (or other philosophers) knew everything or were right about everything, but modern scientists don't either. It's all just an issue of trying to experiment and explain as best we can with the tools we have available.
Take your example of the 4 elements, and think about them more as the 3 states of matter (earth=solid, water=liquid, air=gas) plus energy (fire). Now saying everything in the universe consists of matter (in one of the 3 states) plus energy starts to sound a lot more like high school science class. It might not be completely accurate either, but it's certainly not stupid.
But early scientists discovered that the earth was round, and even calculated it's size fairly accurately (no, it was not discovered by Columbus). They formulated geometry and algebra, discovered lots of basic physical laws worked, and understood a fair amount of biology (even understood some things about genetic inheritance, in spite of having no idea what the mechanism was). Newton was a natural philosopher more than he was a modern physicist. Even when Einstein rewrote the laws of physics, it was more an act of natural philosophy than anything else. He didn't start from a mathematical equation or an experiment in a lab, but he began his formulation of Relativity by asking what it meant to "measure" something.
So I don't want to be so rude as to suggest that you don't know what you're talking about, but... well, you'll need to present a more thorough argument if you want to convince me.
However, in a modern society, power is spread out between a lot of people: politicians, bureaucrats, legal professionals, CEOs of major corporations, political advisors, and so on.
Yeah, but that doesn't really matter. What Socrates (and Plato) are really pointing to is more that there's an inherent problem in allocating power-- that the people who get into power are the people who are motivated most strongly to accumulate power to themselves, and among them the people who are best at gaining power for themselves. There's not really any possible mechanism for allocating power to the people who would wield it best-- assuming we could even agree on what the best use of power is.
That's not to say that's all of what's going on in the Republic, but that's certainly one component of the discussion of the "philosopher king".
At the base of all philosophy is a gut feeling, with lots of flowery language to make it pretty and marketable.
Sounds like a sort of philosophic theory that you have going there. But then maybe that's just your gut feeling, and there's nothing more substantial behind it?
And factually incorrect? That seems like a strange charge to make against discussions which often aren't concerned with matters of mere fact, but are more likely trying to uncover our basis for being able to claim something as "fact".
You're going to have to make a more complete argument if you want to convince me.
But philosophers ARE the ones most suited to be kings (well, most of them) because they are the ones least interested in power.
Didn't you notice some irony in that answer? A philosopher claims that philosophers should be put in power because they're the best suited, because they don't seek power. Doesn't it seem like he's presenting an argument that he should be put in power, which thereby suggests that he seeks power?
What follows from the initial idea is also absurd. According to the proposed system, the way in which a philosopher king would be put into power is that a bunch of people ill-suited to power would need to track down the philosopher and forcibly place him in power. So the unwashed masses who aren't suited to make good decisions for themselves would need to be wise enough to choose the best ruler. The power-seekers would need to give up their power-seeking in order to place someone else in power. And when all that is done, the person in power would be held in power by force-- which is to say that he wouldn't be in charge. He would essentially be a slave who would be doing the will of the masses against his own wishes.
The whole concept collapses in on itself in such a way that even if we were to accept that the ideal ruler is a disinterested philosopher, it becomes a self-contradictory and impossible ideal to bring into being.