I some how doubt that the trolls that spout racist slurs here on Slashdot would willingly do the same in Times Square.
Trolling isn't the same as flaming or posting flamebait. I guess you could consider flamebait a type of troll, but I've always thought of them as distinct things (and notice we have mods for both here).
Flaimbait, to me, is when people spout racist slurs or are overly rude. They may only be trying to provoke a response (in which case, you could argue it's also a troll), or they may be poorly socialized individuals who, protected by anonymity, are simply out of line.
Trolling, on the other hand, is more of a bizarre form of humor. It's like sarcasm except that you don't want the person you're talking with to know that you're being sarcastic. I mean, you want *someone* to know that it's a troll or else it isn't very funny.
But it may be pretty harmless. For example, Fark's use to the rotsky or the "I work for..." cliches are actually trolls. The hope is often that someone will happen into the discussion, not be aware of the cliche, and respond seriously. In lots of Internet forums these days, the discussion is more about trolling than it is about discussion. But it's all in good fun.
If Hasbro had learned from scrabulous instead of acting like spazzes, I would have switched to playing their client.
I'm still wondering-- does anyone know?-- did Hasbro ever consider coming up with some kind of licensing deal with the makers of Scrabulous? Either for Hasbro to publish the game as their own, or for Scrabulous to license the rights to use the trademarked materials?
It just seems like if I owned the rights to Scrabble and someone came up with a really great version of the game that was wildly popular, I'd be looking to join forces with that guy so I could make some money from the wildly popular version.
The obit is premature. Usually when a service "dies" it would mean it's no longer available, but anyone can still buy usenet access here [usenetserver.com], here [easynews.com], here [tigerusenet.com], here [thundernews.com], here [newsdemon.com], here [newsrazor.net], here [giganews.com], or here [usenet.com].
I haven't looked at the state of the usenet in a few years, but I've kind of assumed it was dead already. Maybe not "dead" in the sense you're talking about, but effectively dead for the purpose of discussion. I stopped looking there partially because most of what was there was spam and warez groups that were using usenet to stay under the radar. But it didn't really seem like people were having discussions anymore.
Agreed. That said, going too small can also be a problem, though, depending on the students. I've seen larger groups (a couple dozen) work better than smaller ones (half a dozen) at least with older students, since larger groups provide a bit of pressure to conform that can help keep students from becoming overly disruptive....Class size of 15-20 seems pretty optimal in my mind, though I've seen classes in the low 20s that were comfortable. By the time you hit 30 kids, unless they are all fairly evenly matched in interest and intellect, it starts to degrade pretty badly
From my limited experience (mostly as a student) that sounds exactly right. 15-20. I had a bunch of classes in college, and even a couple in high school, where the class size was right around 18, and it seemed to work best, whether it was a unfiltered group of high-school kids or a bunch of college seniors who planned to go to grad school.
So I guess that comes back to my point again; people also grow up at different rates.
Yeah, regarding your point about kids being different from each other, I absolutely agree. I was going to comment on that too, but forgot.
Part of the issue IMO is class size. If you have a class of 45 kids for 45 minutes a day for 1 year, either the teacher will focus on a couple kids and pay attention only to them, or the teacher will split their attention equally among all 40 and none of the kids will get much attention. Either way, most of the kids will go pretty well ignored. With 45 kids in a class, the teacher is almost force to treat them as a uniform/faceless mob.
That's not to say that small class size is in itself the holy grail. You could have a class of 5 unmotivated kids with a terrible teacher, and the results won't go too well either. But a good (or even decent) teacher can give much more personalized attention to individual students if the class size is under 20 kids.
IMHO, the biggest problem with schools is that students are assumed to be incapable of making decisions on their own
I think even worse is how we basically teach children that they're worthless. No... really. Think about it. Even an 18 year old senior in high school is forced to fill out identical worksheets that have been given to seniors for years, that just get thrown away within a month of their completion. You're having them do repetitive throw-away work, the implication being that they *can't* do anything interesting or helpful. We refuse to give them responsibilities because we say that they *can't* be responsible. We're sending the message that their time is without value and that they should not exercise their decision-making capabilities.
If you spend years telling someone that they can't do things and they can't be trusted to do things, and then suddenly expect them to do it, you're going to be disappointed. One of the best high school experiences I had was doing real research in a science class. It wasn't vital research. It was kind of stupid piddily stuff in hindsight. But the point is that it was studying something where no one knew quite what our results were going to be, attempting to analyze the results, and then passing those results to real scientists who would review them and perhaps use them for something. (probably not use them without repeating the process) But the point is it gave the illusion of *doing something*.
Even then, it's often the result of good parenting. Kids start out as big sponges. If the people around them are motivated and enthusiastic, and they find a good way to share that with the child, then the child will soak up that motivation and enthusiasm. If the people around that child act as though the child is useless and education is stupid, the child will soak that up too.
"It is not unusual for schools to be isolated on the wrong side of major highways" would suggest you *BUILD A BRIDGE ACROSS IT*
I think that's what he was saying though-- these things are poorly designed/laid-out in that no one has built a bridge across it. There are no sidewalks in lots of places. There are no decent crosswalks, no bridges across the highway. It's not very safe to have your kids walking places.
So he's saying you have to fix that first. You have to build bridges, crosswalks, sidewalks, etc.
Re:I wonder who will play Aunt Madge
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Batman Discussion
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Right, but the Joker's a liar.
I think you're right to pick up on that-- you can't trust his little speech. Joker is a liar... but on the other hand, he's also pretty honest, and doesn't make any real attempt to disguise himself. In a way, at least.
So I don't think it's true that he's "not a schemer", but at the same time, I think it's true that he "wouldn't know what to do once he caught one." He's trying to destroy whatever he can, but not to any particular end. It's not as though he actually particularly likes the result, but rather seems to enjoy the action of destroying things. Even more to the point, he wants people to try to stop him-- he just wants them to fail.
It seems to me that the Joker wants, to a certain extent, is to keep battling it out with Batman, and never have either side quite win. If he ever managed to destroy everything and kill the Batman, he'd probably be disappointed.
So I guess you don't HAVE to call it a monopoly if you want to split hairs, but unhealthy as hell for the consumer--yes. Horrid and greedy move by IBM and others, yes.
I don't know-- I think things would have developed differently, but if PCs couldn't have become IBM compatible, something else would have filled the void. As it is, having everything be IBM compatible effectively installed Microsoft as the default OS, which brought about a *real* monopoly, and continues to cause *real* problems for consumers.
Because even if you consider IBM to have had a "monopoly", it was at a time when there weren't a lot of competitive alternate vendors. There was, what? Apple, Commodore? Would you really claim that Apple dominate the hardware market? Dell isn't competitive? That's complete nonsense.
See, we're not really trying to get Apple to do anything by calling it a monopoly, we're simply looking at the bigger picture and calling it Right or Wrong
Yeah, and it's a bit silly to determine some kind of moral "wrongness" because Apple is choosing to market their products differently that how you wish they would.
Really none of this is at all comparable. You want something comparable, then how about this: Nintendo refuses to license the Wii software to run on XBox 360s. Does that mean that Nintendo is evil and has a monopoly on Wii software? Are they somehow being sneaky and selfish by leveraging the ability to play Wii games to sell their hardware?
No. Of course not. They've developed a platform that consists of both hardware and software, and they're marketing it as an integrated solution. Apple is no different.
I can't continue to discuss this with you because you keep moving the topic of discussion.
I'm not changing the topic. I admit that my point is a bit complex, but if you can't keep it all straight, that's not really my fault.
Except for a few pathologically evil people, the vast majority of the population seeks a better world in some way.
That's a pretty bold claim. Care to back that up? Most people I see are more interested in watching TV, and those who do claim to "seek to better the world" are just on an ego-trip.
What you're harping on is the fact that someone may not be ecologically responsible, to the exclusion of any other possibility.
Er... you're really missing the point. Throughout my posts, I've been focussing much more on health issues, social issues, and economic issues rather than ecological issues. In fact, even my talk about ecological issues is more focussed on the economic damage causes by reckless behavior. I don't really care about ecology except insofar as damage to the ecosystem will have an adverse effect on myself and those I care about.
You are trying to make the long term case that environmental responsibility is ALWAYS best.
Sorry, but you really should read things before you respond. I'm saying that the apparent economic gains made from reckless and damaging behavior are unsustainable at best, and often enough they're completely illusory. I'm claiming that small-minded people look at the immediate future and miss a lot of indirect effects, and so they believe that "economic success" is the same as "economic virtue", i.e. that profitable companies are good for the economy. But it's really not that simple.
Businesses causing wanton ecological damage that then has to be cleaned up or otherwise dealt with by the rest of society is just one instance of profitable companies damaging the economy (even in the short term!). The fact that the company is profitable says nothing as to whether it's beneficial to society (economically or otherwise). But our economic system, unfortunately, doesn't have any particular built-in mechanisms for rewarding those who are focussed on benefiting society over the long-term, and is actually more likely to punish them for failing to provide short-term gratification.
Part of the problem with the current housing problems is that the market was rigged so as to discourage responsible behavior. It was a big pyramid scheme. Everyone knew it was going to collapse, but until it collapsed, it was profitable. (That's not a change in subject, by the way. It's just another example of how a company can be working to maximize short-term profit while damaging the general economy over the long-term. And when I use the term "long term", I have in mind that even 2 years can be long-term.)
I'm not proposing any particular solution, but only asserting that it is a definite problem.
Too many other countries will have lower standards, and they'll produce the products, not you....[snip]... Company B's fault in your example, is that they couldn't sell product at a reasonable price because they were spending too much on the process.
No, Company B's problem is that they were in a market that didn't encourage responsible actions. If I run a company that is ecologically responsible in a system where other companies are not in any way encouraged/forced to be responsible as well, then my company won't be successful. I'll grant you that, and in fact that's part of my point. It's the same with child labor, slave labor, etc. It's also the same, apparently, when it comes to sub-standard crap-- making cheap crap that will break in a year will make you more successful than making a quality product that will be cheaper in the long haul. If I can save money by painting my toys in lead-based paint, then I'll be more successful than the other toy companies that don't engage in that practice, provided the market isn't in any way penalizing companies that use lead-based paint.
But it doesn't follow in any of these cases that it's better for either humanity or the economy for everyone to be using child labor, slave labor, or by creating toxic toys.
I'm not beating up on China. What they're doing is not sustainable. I believe even they know that. What I am showing is that we live in a world where you have to make compromises
No, it's showing that we're building our economies in such a way that they're ensured to create little bubbles, one after another, and then have those bubbles burst. And then, eventually, economic ruin for all because everyone is acting in a way that's irresponsible and unsustainable.
Remember, we live in a global economy...
Right, and there are loads of problems that we're facing because of that fact. It's not all bad and it's not all good, but clearly one of the major problems is that there's no accountability for what happens in other countries, and yet what happens in other countries (wherever you are) can effect you in significant ways. If slave labor is fine in other countries, then your work force had better get their own pool of slaves, or else you won't be "competitive". And I guess if you don't have slaves, according to your logic, then failure is your own fault because you were spending too much on your workforce.
I'm not saying that they aren't trying to remain the sole distributor of hardware that runs their own operating system. I'm saying that calling that "a monopoly" is a stretch. You can't have a "monopoly" by being the only person who sells your own products, when people are free to come up with competing products. Dell could take Darwin, put their own fancy GUI on top, and sell their own integrated hardware/software solution, if Dell chose to do so.
People calling it a "monopoly" are just people who want Apple to sell the OS to run on any hardware, and can't accept that just because they want Apple to do something doesn't mean that Apple will (or even should) do it.
But which seems easier-- building cities that float on air while dealing with acidic air, or building on the ground while dealing with thin air? Hell, we just discovered water on Mars.
Except that you can never really know the side effects - we don't really know what global warming will do, for example.
But what I'm pointing out is that, even if you knew what global warming will do, and even assuming what you knew was that global warming will kill us all, it doesn't necessarily follow that we shouldn't be concerned about the side-effects of the proposed solutions.
All I am saying, is that anything that you are not willing to do to combat global warming shows something that you prioritize higher than global warming
Two objections here: (1) That's not necessarily true, because I might not be willing to do one thing to combat global warming because I think another options is better, safer, or more likely to work; and (2) Even if it was true that I was prioritizing something higher than global warming, it doesn't necessarily follow that I don't believe global warming will kill us all.
If we were facing that, then acting now (even blindly) would be better than not acting. (Leadership and military training studies show that acting is better than not acting in those situations - torpedoes be damnded and all).
Sure, fine... if you're in a situation like that, it's better to act than to do nothing. But even then, you can evaluate your options and try not to make a stupid decision. You can try to pick the option that's most likely to work, least likely to have serious side-effects. You don't have to pick the first hair-brained solution that presents itself.
In a way, Al Gore was right. It really IS about the carbon emissions.
Maybe being excessively wasteful with solar/wind/hydroelectric power satisfies his little pet project of lowering carbon emissions, but that doesn't mean that being wasteful doesn't cause other problems.
This isn't about the style of car. It's about the efficiency of the drive train and the power source we use to move it.
Take the extreme case: If all you're transporting is yourself, and you're driving an 8,000 lbs. Hummer, it doesn't matter if that Hummer is electrical, it's still going to be inefficient. Energy doesn't come out of nowhere, and no matter what method of generating energy you use, it's going to have an environmental impact. If you're generating enough energy for everyone to driver Hummers, that environmental impact is going to be substantial.
I'm not saying that you can't be overly-efficient (favoring efficiency at too great a cost), but we're not really in danger of that happening right now, are we?
Clearly, we have reached a price where we have to move these waste/efficiency set-points for most energy hungry applications. But it doesn't do a company any good to continue efficiency for efficiency's sake. Companies have failed because of over-engineering too.
That companies have failed doing something isn't necessarily a sign that it's bad for humanity as a whole. Companies have succeeded while destroying the environment and poisoning people. But it's a very complicated situation-- the actions that make a given company successful isn't necessarily going to be what's "good for humanity" or even "good for the economy".
For example, let's say Company A and Company B are competing in the same town for the same business. Company A decides to dump poisonous chemicals into the local lake, which saves them loads of money, while Company B chooses not to poison the lake. Because of this, Company A can afford to charge significantly less than Company B, and Company B is thereby driven out of business.
Now there are people who would believe that this sort of thing is good for the economy. Company A has driven down prices, making it easier for people to save money, or spend money on other things. By driving Company B under, they've removed an ineffective player in the market, and you might believe that "survival of the fittest" will clear out those who are economically inefficient. They'll point to the fact that Company A put 2 million dollars of value into the economy.
And all of that makes sense until you realize that the town now has to spend 3 million dollars into cleaning up the lake. Plus the fact that Company B, if allowed to continue, would still have put 1 million dollars into the economy, and driven down prices over time by providing competition.
The net result of this situation is a lot of waste, and the local citizenry would have been better off, both in terms of health and in terms of economics, if neither company had been allowed to pollute the lake.
This sounds counter-intuitive to a lot of people, who assume that economics will naturally benefit the company that will best benefit the economy. Sometimes they'll even try to justify it by thinking that you get economic benefit from the jobs created by cleaning up the pollution, but that's just another example of the broken window fallacy.
So, in this case, global warming is apparently lower perceived risk than the dolphins dying - taking you out of option 1 and putting you into option 2.
Nope, you're missing my point entirely. My metaphor is giving you a solution that we can all see immediately that the solution is riskier than the problem, because that's what the metaphor is meant to illustrate-- that there may be solutions worse than the problem.
But metaphors aren't perfect comparisons. Whereas in the case of the spider and the gun, you can evaluate the risks of each pretty thoroughly, the global ecosystem is complex enough that we can't always tell what results will come about from our actions. We might do something that seems to be innocuous, and later realized that it's an even bigger problem than global warming.
So even if you think global warming will certainly kill us, it's not a question of enumerating the costs (killing dolphins and whatnot) and saying, "Damn the side effects!" Only an idiot would say, "Damn the side effects" without having any idea what the side effects might be, since the side effects could very plausibly be worse. It might kill us faster. It might kill us worse. It might be that it will cause us loads of problems, and afterwards we find out that there was an alternative solution that would have caused us fewer problems.
If you want another metaphor to handle this, imagine you had cancer and have 1 year to live. The doctor comes to you and says, "One possible solution would be an experimental drug, but it's never been tried on anyone before." And you say, "Damn the consequences! I'll do it!" Afterwards you find out that your cancer is cured, but you had a bad reaction to the drug. Now you're going to die a painful death within 2 weeks, during which time your teeth will fall out and your flesh will slowly rot. And then your doctor informs you that you could have had the tumor surgically removed with a 70% chance of full recovery.
I think people are try to be responsible. The problem is that no two people seem to agree on what "responsible" is. The way I see it, "responsible" development means to do whatever some pompous personality says is good for us.
I don't agree. Typically the pompous personalities aren't advocating the responsible thing to do, but instead advocating whatever makes themselves famous or feel important.
Take Al Gore as an example. I saw him on Meet the Press this Sunday, where he was asked how he justified having a large energy-inefficient house, given his fame for being eco-friendly. His response was essentially, "Well, energy efficiency doesn't really matter. It's entirely an issue of carbon emissions."
That is not responsible. The responsibly eco-friendly route has been pretty obvious IMO: start by advocating for greater efficiency, both in terms of energy used and materials used. We waste so much, often only to achieve a minor degree of convenience. Sometimes the benefit of the waste is purely psychological. If private individuals moved to a more efficient lifestyle, and companies moved to more efficient methods, we would be much better off. It might not solve all problems, but we'd be better off. And even though it would make some things more expensive, it would probably be a net gain for our economy. Contrary to popular notions of economics, where "people believe that cheaper is always better, and anyone spending money on anything is always good", waste is actually bad for the economy.
But people aren't advocating anything like that. Instead, everyone is always trying to appease the general population, and se we're constantly being told we can have it both ways. We're being told we can have an over-sized mansion and an SUV as long as its powered by solar power.
If you really think global warming will kill you all, then any side effects are of secondary concern - go nuclear, kill all the dolphins be damned.
Not necessarily. Imagine you had a black-widow spider crawling on your forehead, and your friend sees it, pulls out his gun, and prepares to shoot the spider. Would you say that, if you really believed the spider was going to kill you, you'd let him shoot, because side effects are a secondary concern? Or would you encourage your friend to consider the consequences before he pulled the trigger?
There are times when the cure is worse than the disease, and lots of problems were begun with good intentions. Even the current ecological problems were caused by someone trying to fix an economic problem without considering (or else ignoring) the ramifications. If you're setting out to change the chemistry of our oceans, I'd say it's worth looking at all the angles.
Actually "researchers have discovered" and "scientists have proven" at least claims that something already exists.
I'm not saying I trust a scientist's proof less than an analysts prediction. I'm saying I distrust people (esp. journalists) who use the phrase "scientists have proven" as support for their assertions about as much as I distrust people who use the phrase, "analysts believe" or "experts say".
It all amounts to an appeal to authority in the worst possible way, because you're not appealing to any particular authority, but rather the authority of a nameless/faceless group that you're simultaneously claiming are experts.
While I completely agree that I don't want anyone touching my screen (yuk!), there ARE better methods of inputting x/y coordinate data than a computer mouse.
...maybe... But what lots of people tend to forget is that "better" isn't always better. For example, you might come up with a device that's main advantage is that it's far more precise than the mouse. But if that extra level of precision isn't helpful to me, and the new device has drawbacks that do matter to me, then suddenly that "better" solution is worse.
So it's not enough for a new solution to be "effective". It has to be better, but it also has to be better in a way that people care about. But even then, that's not enough. It has to be better in a way that people care about to a degree that people will think is worth the drawbacks.
Because there will usually be drawbacks of some kind. Usually a technology that's better in some ways will be worse in others. And even if there are no intrinsic drawbacks, you still have to consider the expense of replacement, and the annoyance of learning a new thing.
For example, I used to use a trackball. I got really used to it enough that sitting down at a computer with a normal mouse threw me off a little. And when people came to use my computer, they were always thrown off by the trackball. It was a minor problem, but enough that when it came time to replace it, I bought a normal mouse.
What's a track-stick? I googled it and came up with a GPS device.
Slashdot Mirror
One of my favorites: http://xkcd.com/386/.
I some how doubt that the trolls that spout racist slurs here on Slashdot would willingly do the same in Times Square.
Trolling isn't the same as flaming or posting flamebait. I guess you could consider flamebait a type of troll, but I've always thought of them as distinct things (and notice we have mods for both here).
Flaimbait, to me, is when people spout racist slurs or are overly rude. They may only be trying to provoke a response (in which case, you could argue it's also a troll), or they may be poorly socialized individuals who, protected by anonymity, are simply out of line.
Trolling, on the other hand, is more of a bizarre form of humor. It's like sarcasm except that you don't want the person you're talking with to know that you're being sarcastic. I mean, you want *someone* to know that it's a troll or else it isn't very funny.
But it may be pretty harmless. For example, Fark's use to the rotsky or the "I work for..." cliches are actually trolls. The hope is often that someone will happen into the discussion, not be aware of the cliche, and respond seriously. In lots of Internet forums these days, the discussion is more about trolling than it is about discussion. But it's all in good fun.
If Hasbro had learned from scrabulous instead of acting like spazzes, I would have switched to playing their client.
I'm still wondering-- does anyone know?-- did Hasbro ever consider coming up with some kind of licensing deal with the makers of Scrabulous? Either for Hasbro to publish the game as their own, or for Scrabulous to license the rights to use the trademarked materials?
It just seems like if I owned the rights to Scrabble and someone came up with a really great version of the game that was wildly popular, I'd be looking to join forces with that guy so I could make some money from the wildly popular version.
The obit is premature. Usually when a service "dies" it would mean it's no longer available, but anyone can still buy usenet access here [usenetserver.com], here [easynews.com], here [tigerusenet.com], here [thundernews.com], here [newsdemon.com], here [newsrazor.net], here [giganews.com], or here [usenet.com].
I haven't looked at the state of the usenet in a few years, but I've kind of assumed it was dead already. Maybe not "dead" in the sense you're talking about, but effectively dead for the purpose of discussion. I stopped looking there partially because most of what was there was spam and warez groups that were using usenet to stay under the radar. But it didn't really seem like people were having discussions anymore.
Psssh. It's not so much to give control of "governments" as much as "media companies".
Agreed. That said, going too small can also be a problem, though, depending on the students. I've seen larger groups (a couple dozen) work better than smaller ones (half a dozen) at least with older students, since larger groups provide a bit of pressure to conform that can help keep students from becoming overly disruptive....Class size of 15-20 seems pretty optimal in my mind, though I've seen classes in the low 20s that were comfortable. By the time you hit 30 kids, unless they are all fairly evenly matched in interest and intellect, it starts to degrade pretty badly
From my limited experience (mostly as a student) that sounds exactly right. 15-20. I had a bunch of classes in college, and even a couple in high school, where the class size was right around 18, and it seemed to work best, whether it was a unfiltered group of high-school kids or a bunch of college seniors who planned to go to grad school.
So I guess that comes back to my point again; people also grow up at different rates.
Yeah, regarding your point about kids being different from each other, I absolutely agree. I was going to comment on that too, but forgot.
Part of the issue IMO is class size. If you have a class of 45 kids for 45 minutes a day for 1 year, either the teacher will focus on a couple kids and pay attention only to them, or the teacher will split their attention equally among all 40 and none of the kids will get much attention. Either way, most of the kids will go pretty well ignored. With 45 kids in a class, the teacher is almost force to treat them as a uniform/faceless mob.
That's not to say that small class size is in itself the holy grail. You could have a class of 5 unmotivated kids with a terrible teacher, and the results won't go too well either. But a good (or even decent) teacher can give much more personalized attention to individual students if the class size is under 20 kids.
IMHO, the biggest problem with schools is that students are assumed to be incapable of making decisions on their own
I think even worse is how we basically teach children that they're worthless. No... really. Think about it. Even an 18 year old senior in high school is forced to fill out identical worksheets that have been given to seniors for years, that just get thrown away within a month of their completion. You're having them do repetitive throw-away work, the implication being that they *can't* do anything interesting or helpful. We refuse to give them responsibilities because we say that they *can't* be responsible. We're sending the message that their time is without value and that they should not exercise their decision-making capabilities.
If you spend years telling someone that they can't do things and they can't be trusted to do things, and then suddenly expect them to do it, you're going to be disappointed. One of the best high school experiences I had was doing real research in a science class. It wasn't vital research. It was kind of stupid piddily stuff in hindsight. But the point is that it was studying something where no one knew quite what our results were going to be, attempting to analyze the results, and then passing those results to real scientists who would review them and perhaps use them for something. (probably not use them without repeating the process) But the point is it gave the illusion of *doing something*.
Some very few students are self-motivated.
Even then, it's often the result of good parenting. Kids start out as big sponges. If the people around them are motivated and enthusiastic, and they find a good way to share that with the child, then the child will soak up that motivation and enthusiasm. If the people around that child act as though the child is useless and education is stupid, the child will soak that up too.
"It is not unusual for schools to be isolated on the wrong side of major highways" would suggest you *BUILD A BRIDGE ACROSS IT*
I think that's what he was saying though-- these things are poorly designed/laid-out in that no one has built a bridge across it. There are no sidewalks in lots of places. There are no decent crosswalks, no bridges across the highway. It's not very safe to have your kids walking places.
So he's saying you have to fix that first. You have to build bridges, crosswalks, sidewalks, etc.
Right, but the Joker's a liar.
I think you're right to pick up on that-- you can't trust his little speech. Joker is a liar... but on the other hand, he's also pretty honest, and doesn't make any real attempt to disguise himself. In a way, at least.
So I don't think it's true that he's "not a schemer", but at the same time, I think it's true that he "wouldn't know what to do once he caught one." He's trying to destroy whatever he can, but not to any particular end. It's not as though he actually particularly likes the result, but rather seems to enjoy the action of destroying things. Even more to the point, he wants people to try to stop him-- he just wants them to fail.
It seems to me that the Joker wants, to a certain extent, is to keep battling it out with Batman, and never have either side quite win. If he ever managed to destroy everything and kill the Batman, he'd probably be disappointed.
But what I really think we should be asking ourselves is, is the government spying on paranoid schizophrenics enough?
Sorry, I know it's a bit off-topic. But your post reminded me of this issue.
So I guess you don't HAVE to call it a monopoly if you want to split hairs, but unhealthy as hell for the consumer--yes. Horrid and greedy move by IBM and others, yes.
I don't know-- I think things would have developed differently, but if PCs couldn't have become IBM compatible, something else would have filled the void. As it is, having everything be IBM compatible effectively installed Microsoft as the default OS, which brought about a *real* monopoly, and continues to cause *real* problems for consumers.
Because even if you consider IBM to have had a "monopoly", it was at a time when there weren't a lot of competitive alternate vendors. There was, what? Apple, Commodore? Would you really claim that Apple dominate the hardware market? Dell isn't competitive? That's complete nonsense.
See, we're not really trying to get Apple to do anything by calling it a monopoly, we're simply looking at the bigger picture and calling it Right or Wrong
Yeah, and it's a bit silly to determine some kind of moral "wrongness" because Apple is choosing to market their products differently that how you wish they would.
Really none of this is at all comparable. You want something comparable, then how about this: Nintendo refuses to license the Wii software to run on XBox 360s. Does that mean that Nintendo is evil and has a monopoly on Wii software? Are they somehow being sneaky and selfish by leveraging the ability to play Wii games to sell their hardware?
No. Of course not. They've developed a platform that consists of both hardware and software, and they're marketing it as an integrated solution. Apple is no different.
I can't continue to discuss this with you because you keep moving the topic of discussion.
I'm not changing the topic. I admit that my point is a bit complex, but if you can't keep it all straight, that's not really my fault.
Except for a few pathologically evil people, the vast majority of the population seeks a better world in some way.
That's a pretty bold claim. Care to back that up? Most people I see are more interested in watching TV, and those who do claim to "seek to better the world" are just on an ego-trip.
What you're harping on is the fact that someone may not be ecologically responsible, to the exclusion of any other possibility.
Er... you're really missing the point. Throughout my posts, I've been focussing much more on health issues, social issues, and economic issues rather than ecological issues. In fact, even my talk about ecological issues is more focussed on the economic damage causes by reckless behavior. I don't really care about ecology except insofar as damage to the ecosystem will have an adverse effect on myself and those I care about.
You are trying to make the long term case that environmental responsibility is ALWAYS best.
Sorry, but you really should read things before you respond. I'm saying that the apparent economic gains made from reckless and damaging behavior are unsustainable at best, and often enough they're completely illusory. I'm claiming that small-minded people look at the immediate future and miss a lot of indirect effects, and so they believe that "economic success" is the same as "economic virtue", i.e. that profitable companies are good for the economy. But it's really not that simple.
Businesses causing wanton ecological damage that then has to be cleaned up or otherwise dealt with by the rest of society is just one instance of profitable companies damaging the economy (even in the short term!). The fact that the company is profitable says nothing as to whether it's beneficial to society (economically or otherwise). But our economic system, unfortunately, doesn't have any particular built-in mechanisms for rewarding those who are focussed on benefiting society over the long-term, and is actually more likely to punish them for failing to provide short-term gratification.
Part of the problem with the current housing problems is that the market was rigged so as to discourage responsible behavior. It was a big pyramid scheme. Everyone knew it was going to collapse, but until it collapsed, it was profitable. (That's not a change in subject, by the way. It's just another example of how a company can be working to maximize short-term profit while damaging the general economy over the long-term. And when I use the term "long term", I have in mind that even 2 years can be long-term.)
I'm not proposing any particular solution, but only asserting that it is a definite problem.
Too many other countries will have lower standards, and they'll produce the products, not you....[snip]... Company B's fault in your example, is that they couldn't sell product at a reasonable price because they were spending too much on the process.
No, Company B's problem is that they were in a market that didn't encourage responsible actions. If I run a company that is ecologically responsible in a system where other companies are not in any way encouraged/forced to be responsible as well, then my company won't be successful. I'll grant you that, and in fact that's part of my point. It's the same with child labor, slave labor, etc. It's also the same, apparently, when it comes to sub-standard crap-- making cheap crap that will break in a year will make you more successful than making a quality product that will be cheaper in the long haul. If I can save money by painting my toys in lead-based paint, then I'll be more successful than the other toy companies that don't engage in that practice, provided the market isn't in any way penalizing companies that use lead-based paint.
But it doesn't follow in any of these cases that it's better for either humanity or the economy for everyone to be using child labor, slave labor, or by creating toxic toys.
I'm not beating up on China. What they're doing is not sustainable. I believe even they know that. What I am showing is that we live in a world where you have to make compromises
No, it's showing that we're building our economies in such a way that they're ensured to create little bubbles, one after another, and then have those bubbles burst. And then, eventually, economic ruin for all because everyone is acting in a way that's irresponsible and unsustainable.
Remember, we live in a global economy...
Right, and there are loads of problems that we're facing because of that fact. It's not all bad and it's not all good, but clearly one of the major problems is that there's no accountability for what happens in other countries, and yet what happens in other countries (wherever you are) can effect you in significant ways. If slave labor is fine in other countries, then your work force had better get their own pool of slaves, or else you won't be "competitive". And I guess if you don't have slaves, according to your logic, then failure is your own fault because you were spending too much on your workforce.
I'm not saying that they aren't trying to remain the sole distributor of hardware that runs their own operating system. I'm saying that calling that "a monopoly" is a stretch. You can't have a "monopoly" by being the only person who sells your own products, when people are free to come up with competing products. Dell could take Darwin, put their own fancy GUI on top, and sell their own integrated hardware/software solution, if Dell chose to do so.
People calling it a "monopoly" are just people who want Apple to sell the OS to run on any hardware, and can't accept that just because they want Apple to do something doesn't mean that Apple will (or even should) do it.
But which seems easier-- building cities that float on air while dealing with acidic air, or building on the ground while dealing with thin air? Hell, we just discovered water on Mars.
Except that you can never really know the side effects - we don't really know what global warming will do, for example.
But what I'm pointing out is that, even if you knew what global warming will do, and even assuming what you knew was that global warming will kill us all, it doesn't necessarily follow that we shouldn't be concerned about the side-effects of the proposed solutions.
All I am saying, is that anything that you are not willing to do to combat global warming shows something that you prioritize higher than global warming
Two objections here: (1) That's not necessarily true, because I might not be willing to do one thing to combat global warming because I think another options is better, safer, or more likely to work; and (2) Even if it was true that I was prioritizing something higher than global warming, it doesn't necessarily follow that I don't believe global warming will kill us all.
If we were facing that, then acting now (even blindly) would be better than not acting. (Leadership and military training studies show that acting is better than not acting in those situations - torpedoes be damnded and all).
Sure, fine... if you're in a situation like that, it's better to act than to do nothing. But even then, you can evaluate your options and try not to make a stupid decision. You can try to pick the option that's most likely to work, least likely to have serious side-effects. You don't have to pick the first hair-brained solution that presents itself.
In a way, Al Gore was right. It really IS about the carbon emissions.
Maybe being excessively wasteful with solar/wind/hydroelectric power satisfies his little pet project of lowering carbon emissions, but that doesn't mean that being wasteful doesn't cause other problems.
This isn't about the style of car. It's about the efficiency of the drive train and the power source we use to move it.
Take the extreme case: If all you're transporting is yourself, and you're driving an 8,000 lbs. Hummer, it doesn't matter if that Hummer is electrical, it's still going to be inefficient. Energy doesn't come out of nowhere, and no matter what method of generating energy you use, it's going to have an environmental impact. If you're generating enough energy for everyone to driver Hummers, that environmental impact is going to be substantial.
I'm not saying that you can't be overly-efficient (favoring efficiency at too great a cost), but we're not really in danger of that happening right now, are we?
Clearly, we have reached a price where we have to move these waste/efficiency set-points for most energy hungry applications. But it doesn't do a company any good to continue efficiency for efficiency's sake. Companies have failed because of over-engineering too.
That companies have failed doing something isn't necessarily a sign that it's bad for humanity as a whole. Companies have succeeded while destroying the environment and poisoning people. But it's a very complicated situation-- the actions that make a given company successful isn't necessarily going to be what's "good for humanity" or even "good for the economy".
For example, let's say Company A and Company B are competing in the same town for the same business. Company A decides to dump poisonous chemicals into the local lake, which saves them loads of money, while Company B chooses not to poison the lake. Because of this, Company A can afford to charge significantly less than Company B, and Company B is thereby driven out of business.
Now there are people who would believe that this sort of thing is good for the economy. Company A has driven down prices, making it easier for people to save money, or spend money on other things. By driving Company B under, they've removed an ineffective player in the market, and you might believe that "survival of the fittest" will clear out those who are economically inefficient. They'll point to the fact that Company A put 2 million dollars of value into the economy.
And all of that makes sense until you realize that the town now has to spend 3 million dollars into cleaning up the lake. Plus the fact that Company B, if allowed to continue, would still have put 1 million dollars into the economy, and driven down prices over time by providing competition.
The net result of this situation is a lot of waste, and the local citizenry would have been better off, both in terms of health and in terms of economics, if neither company had been allowed to pollute the lake.
This sounds counter-intuitive to a lot of people, who assume that economics will naturally benefit the company that will best benefit the economy. Sometimes they'll even try to justify it by thinking that you get economic benefit from the jobs created by cleaning up the pollution, but that's just another example of the broken window fallacy.
So, in this case, global warming is apparently lower perceived risk than the dolphins dying - taking you out of option 1 and putting you into option 2.
Nope, you're missing my point entirely. My metaphor is giving you a solution that we can all see immediately that the solution is riskier than the problem, because that's what the metaphor is meant to illustrate-- that there may be solutions worse than the problem.
But metaphors aren't perfect comparisons. Whereas in the case of the spider and the gun, you can evaluate the risks of each pretty thoroughly, the global ecosystem is complex enough that we can't always tell what results will come about from our actions. We might do something that seems to be innocuous, and later realized that it's an even bigger problem than global warming.
So even if you think global warming will certainly kill us, it's not a question of enumerating the costs (killing dolphins and whatnot) and saying, "Damn the side effects!" Only an idiot would say, "Damn the side effects" without having any idea what the side effects might be, since the side effects could very plausibly be worse. It might kill us faster. It might kill us worse. It might be that it will cause us loads of problems, and afterwards we find out that there was an alternative solution that would have caused us fewer problems.
If you want another metaphor to handle this, imagine you had cancer and have 1 year to live. The doctor comes to you and says, "One possible solution would be an experimental drug, but it's never been tried on anyone before." And you say, "Damn the consequences! I'll do it!" Afterwards you find out that your cancer is cured, but you had a bad reaction to the drug. Now you're going to die a painful death within 2 weeks, during which time your teeth will fall out and your flesh will slowly rot. And then your doctor informs you that you could have had the tumor surgically removed with a 70% chance of full recovery.
I think people are try to be responsible. The problem is that no two people seem to agree on what "responsible" is. The way I see it, "responsible" development means to do whatever some pompous personality says is good for us.
I don't agree. Typically the pompous personalities aren't advocating the responsible thing to do, but instead advocating whatever makes themselves famous or feel important.
Take Al Gore as an example. I saw him on Meet the Press this Sunday, where he was asked how he justified having a large energy-inefficient house, given his fame for being eco-friendly. His response was essentially, "Well, energy efficiency doesn't really matter. It's entirely an issue of carbon emissions."
That is not responsible. The responsibly eco-friendly route has been pretty obvious IMO: start by advocating for greater efficiency, both in terms of energy used and materials used. We waste so much, often only to achieve a minor degree of convenience. Sometimes the benefit of the waste is purely psychological. If private individuals moved to a more efficient lifestyle, and companies moved to more efficient methods, we would be much better off. It might not solve all problems, but we'd be better off. And even though it would make some things more expensive, it would probably be a net gain for our economy. Contrary to popular notions of economics, where "people believe that cheaper is always better, and anyone spending money on anything is always good", waste is actually bad for the economy.
But people aren't advocating anything like that. Instead, everyone is always trying to appease the general population, and se we're constantly being told we can have it both ways. We're being told we can have an over-sized mansion and an SUV as long as its powered by solar power.
You give away your bias too easily...
If you really think global warming will kill you all, then any side effects are of secondary concern - go nuclear, kill all the dolphins be damned.
Not necessarily. Imagine you had a black-widow spider crawling on your forehead, and your friend sees it, pulls out his gun, and prepares to shoot the spider. Would you say that, if you really believed the spider was going to kill you, you'd let him shoot, because side effects are a secondary concern? Or would you encourage your friend to consider the consequences before he pulled the trigger?
There are times when the cure is worse than the disease, and lots of problems were begun with good intentions. Even the current ecological problems were caused by someone trying to fix an economic problem without considering (or else ignoring) the ramifications. If you're setting out to change the chemistry of our oceans, I'd say it's worth looking at all the angles.
Actually "researchers have discovered" and "scientists have proven" at least claims that something already exists.
I'm not saying I trust a scientist's proof less than an analysts prediction. I'm saying I distrust people (esp. journalists) who use the phrase "scientists have proven" as support for their assertions about as much as I distrust people who use the phrase, "analysts believe" or "experts say".
It all amounts to an appeal to authority in the worst possible way, because you're not appealing to any particular authority, but rather the authority of a nameless/faceless group that you're simultaneously claiming are experts.
Oh, right. The old Thinkpad nipple.
While I completely agree that I don't want anyone touching my screen (yuk!), there ARE better methods of inputting x/y coordinate data than a computer mouse.
...maybe... But what lots of people tend to forget is that "better" isn't always better. For example, you might come up with a device that's main advantage is that it's far more precise than the mouse. But if that extra level of precision isn't helpful to me, and the new device has drawbacks that do matter to me, then suddenly that "better" solution is worse.
So it's not enough for a new solution to be "effective". It has to be better, but it also has to be better in a way that people care about. But even then, that's not enough. It has to be better in a way that people care about to a degree that people will think is worth the drawbacks.
Because there will usually be drawbacks of some kind. Usually a technology that's better in some ways will be worse in others. And even if there are no intrinsic drawbacks, you still have to consider the expense of replacement, and the annoyance of learning a new thing.
For example, I used to use a trackball. I got really used to it enough that sitting down at a computer with a normal mouse threw me off a little. And when people came to use my computer, they were always thrown off by the trackball. It was a minor problem, but enough that when it came time to replace it, I bought a normal mouse.
What's a track-stick? I googled it and came up with a GPS device.