I'd be more impressed if it could record all the "TV" broadcast over the net.
Seriously. They think we want their channels of media?
Keep your "TV" Keep your "Blockbusters" Keep your "Idols"
You had control in the past, but now its shifted and not even Boxes capable of holding a *million* hours of reality TV and home renovation or "Trusted Computing" or DRM or "The next big Justin Timberlake" will bring us back.
"Computers" - I'm sick of them. People should start to accept that its their *life* that's computerised. While we continue to improve this "box in corner of the room" we'll all continue to live in frustration.
1. Better Input. Typing and clicking the mouse is 'nice' but my computer is used for far more than that. The input devices are archaic and need to be redesigned while still allowing for traditional methods of input. These new inputs (speech recognition, Gloves with pressure/location feedback, track IR, Assignable macro keyboards and any more revolutionary inputs) need to be hardware driven rather than software driven. I can't rely on my speech recognition when the CPU gets loaded. I can't even rely on my macro's at 80% CPU load, while my trusty hardware keyboard and mouse still operate at 0 Latency.
2. Better Output. We all experience in analog, but I stare at a flickering series of still images aligned to a grid all day. I want points which appear at a slightly random spot at a slightly random time. I want resolution independence in images. I want frame rate independence in video. I want anything to connect to anything (basically I want Alias to design all software & hardware:) And yes, give me my augmented reality glasses in the next decade so I can stop "using a computer" and start just living digitally (please?)
3. More realistic UI. Icons were developed to represent the real world, with the "desktop" being the analogy. Now we are nearing the ability to have a UI that more closely resembles the real world, not for art's sake, but for usability. For example, my itunes music collection is on random, so I can get equally bored of all of it simultaneously, rather than my real collection which has some CDs closer to the top of the pile, some left to fall to the bottom of the drawer never to be played (but never thrown out) It is allowed to dynamically change and evolve in the real world without a thought, unlike in the computer world where, because the computer wants organisation and categorisation, I too have to adhere to its 'logic' I don't want to hit the edges of screens. I don't even want this "multiple desktop" thing. I just want an edgeless desktop. I want to pull back away from firefox and slide/look over at other software i'm using. I don't want my software forced to be stored in a locked box I know they've experimented with UI's like this, but they were still just cute "swap between software in 3D" toys, not serious usable UIs. Two dimensions and screen borders feels cramped in 2005.
4. No more "Male/Female" plugs and converters. Design one type of plug and make it a hermaphrodide.
5. No more propriety formats, patents, DRM etc. No more spoon feeding us "HD1024 projectors" and "revolutionary two wheeled mice" (give us another ball instead of the wheel. Its not that hard. We're not cash cows) Stop trying to lock us into closed box "media systems" and "Phones", "PDAs" & "MP3 players". I want different things to my neighbor. Theres no way you could ever please us both. (For example: Give us a completely open mobile/bluetooth PDA and allow us to VNC to our desktops from *anywhere*, streaming music or doing any processor intensive tasks from anywhere.)
Don't choke formats forcing you to use different formats (mp3/wav for example) for different software, or different software for closely related tasks just because you're all too proud to allow me to composite in your video editor, or have maya feed directly into a compositor. Enough bottlenecks. Take a leaf out of "Propellerhead's Rewire" software (for allowing audio softwares from any developer who wants the SDK, to talk to each other.) Work *together* Open up software. Let us inside. Let us plug anything into anything (Let alias design everything already!) Innovation for the benefit of all users.
6. REDUNDANCY! Don't even sell me a single HD any more. You know i'm just going to go out and buy a second one to back it up onto. Don't give me "Fanta
Digital has thus far failed to meet one unavoidable reality.
We observe in analog...
the pixels in a digital image shouldn't be aligned.. they should be slightly random.. the frames in video/computer monitors should be a constant sequence of random photons. Digital audio should be Hi Def and slightly fuzzy and data storage should have a level of redundancy.
Until that is met, purists will continue to dislike the tech.
If I can see a scene, capture it with a single click and later frame it, adjust the colours display it on a high dynamic range monitor, or modify the image so the mountains are as visible as the sun setting behind them, then I say this overcomes a *massive* shortcoming of current and previous cameras.
I don't care for the "art" of technical photography. The real art is in seeing and capturing the images.. the technical side is a clumsy romanticised inconvenience.
The thing that always bothered me was the notion that a "past" arrived at from the present was causally "in the present's future". IE the sequence of events means that causally, the new perception of the past actually occurs in the observers future.
The timeline is unavoidably singular.
"you can pop back in time and have a look around, but you cannot do anything that will alter the present you left behind."
so assuming you can go in as invisible and without affecting matter - as a ghost (its the only way to avoid altering the present), and you look around "as a ghost" what happens to those photons that were absorbed by your eye? eye shaped shadows? You could minimise your impact, but how could you possibly observe the past without affecting it? heisenberg would have a field day!
"backwards movement is possible, but only in a way that is 'complementary' to the present."
I'll accept that without any problems. I would however suggest that it is impossible for any backward movement to be complementary to the present. Because of the intricate connection between every piece of matter or energy within a system, backward movement is inherently unable to be complementary to the present given the requirement that any "complementary movement" will not affect the past.
ok you made a good point. the need for reassurance or verification is a very astute observation.
sorry if i came off as hostile.. noone likes a nazi analogy it seems (cause they were different to us...;)
polar bears aren't a good analogy because they aren't as predisposed to social dynamics as us people are... Culture sweeps across the human race in days at present. No such dynamic exists in other creatures.
There are two separate issues: the issue of 'art' imitating life, and that of life imitating 'art'.
We watch people picking their nose on big brother and we feel validated, but we watch people throwing themselves down stairs in shopping trolleys and suddenly we feel the need to emulate. (perhaps our expectations of validification are not met) Just look at the massive subculture that 'reality' shows like jackass spawned.
Equally so, we watch people watching people and we emulate. We've had voyeurism forced into our popular culture for the last 60 years.
Most people like to be led (your point) Most people watch *alot* of television. (there is one of these unidirectional picture boxes in just about *every home*. You mightn't watch much but don't kid yourself) Most people inadvertantly become products of the drivel that is churned out relentlessly. How else does a middle class white kid convince himself he is from the ghetto. How else does a girl decide she has to have 'booty' in order to have any sense of worth despite 50 years of feminism. How else do millions of dollars get channelled every week via SMS from young men and women's pockets into the "big brother" voting lines, because they feel the need to keep "geoff the guy who likes minty toothpaste" in the house. (despite having no interest in *real* politics - seriously, its tragic)
The brainwashing is not an overstatement. Why do millions of people think their lives are better because they eat mcdonalds and suck down cocacola into their 180kg bodies? why do they feel their lives are enriched by cynical corporate ploys like the endless conveyor belt of vacuous pop idols? They are deluded, lied to and brainwashed.
I personally don't get any gratification seeing what other people are doing (and largely just don't care) Its a fashion (like liking feet). 'Voyeurism' is only as fundamental to humanity as 'jazz' or 'equality' or 'mowing the lawn' or any other ubiquitous cultural phenomenon.
we're not a species of voyuers, just like we're not a species of racists/murderers. Extreme brainwashing poisons the mind to create this effect...
I mean something truly extreme like * The rise of a national Nazi party
* having a picture box inside everyones home that broadcasts the activities & opinions of a select few (of questionable interest/morality/intelligence) twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year.
If you assume we're a species of voyeurs I recommend you get away more often.
Its noones business what I feel I want to hide. What if i'm wearing an "evolvefish" necklace hidden under my clothes when i'm a member of W's administration? What if i have "Hells Angels for life" tattooed on my ass from when I was 14 and drunk? What if I have a non contageous skin condition that causes the security staff (or whoever else manages to access the imagery) to treat you differently.
I thought a blank keyboard might mean "an assignable keyboard" but alas.
I could probably write:
for (i = 1; i y[i]) ? i | *z : i ^ *z); y[i+1] = x[i]; }
if I could assign my function keys and other top row keys to be the !@#$%^& keys (ah.. I mean those character keys not the fkin keys!) and reassign those non critical to typing 'function' keys to a separate row of keys (or a separate keyboard)
I'd like to see a dual keyboard with completely assignable keys, so I could set it up as Dvorak or qwerty or abcde or however I wanted, and assign various common tasks that *I* use to the extra 50 or so keys at the top... *Then* i'd buy it.
I've been teased by this limited mutimedia keyboard for too long.
I remember when I passionately threw my windows 98 laptop at the ground... does that count?
Re:Stone age Investments
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why oh why do we still use mice keyboards & monitors?
I'm looking at the gyromouse (can be lifted free from the desk) as an absolute comprimise. I can't even run two independent mice at once? I can't even run two independent keyboards at once? (why you ask? macros for one)
I don't care how good they make the "mouse" or the "keyboard" they are next to obsolete in my eyes. The manufacturers just haven't caught up with the present. Are we all still cynical because of movies like lawnmower man? Yes we *should* have direct interaction with the computer. We *should* be able to liberate ourselves from our desks.
i'm more able to expand the functionality & efficiency of my computer by expanding its controls indefinitely with midi. Yes I know it too has its limitations but it was atleast designed to be expandable, not be a static typewriter replacement.
give me an expandable interface. let me connect 10 racks of assignable buttons. Let me rotate an object in maya by grabbing one side of it with one hand and moving the other side. Theres no processing limitation on this, just a lack of vision (or marketability)
You're missing the point. Humans make mistakes. Software *does* crash.
The confirmation will come in the form of people losing their lives. Perhaps not in the case of the prius, but people have to be aware of the issues in advance.
Car manufacturers who have "digital brakes" or such are putting lives at risk. The problem plaguing software/digital is that one single error can lead to total crash/glitch. Theres no room for a single programmer mistake or *any* internal wear and tear.
IMHO, before these things take off there needs to be some very simple manual/mechanical/analog override systems in place: A real direct braking system, and a real direct steering system.
"simplify simplify" - build as many software systems atop of this fundamental, direct, *real* control.
Well iTunes raped my music collection and turned it into some horrible directory structure... then I moved my music to another drive and reimported it and it raped it again (large numbers of albums missing track info)
the only way forward with this technology is to keep it completely open. I want to buy the hardware and download the software.
"From what we've seen the Doom 3 engine can't do huge areas with the current technology"
I remember the very brief scenes involving... was it a tram? i don't know... but I remember a few scenes in doom 3 where there was a visible amount of real poly outdoors without a massive frame rate drop... I remember thinking that "hmm given they can DO these outdoor scenes, this corridor stuff must be a deliberate design strategy"
"Their brains havn't even developed the "code" to interpret the optic nerve signals."
I believe the brain would receive a new signal and would begin to process it as "vision" (whatever that is) Tests done using a tongue plate which converts video footage into stimulus have, (when used on test subjects - both blind and seeing) begun as an unintelligable tingling sensation on the tongue and ended up as an intuitive sense of "vision" and spacial awareness.
Granted, the brain already has an interface for tongue sensitivity, but I think future tests using this technology on blind from birthers will yeild similar results.
it is *possible* that google is the first company in our age that actually has admirable pride and morals. We went through a short phase where people were posing the question of whether or not anyone could truly do anything selflessly. (suggesting that every motive is just a self serving one) fortunately we are beyond that now and the world is blossoming as a result (google, wikipedia et al being obvious examples)
Closed source and copyright/patents are crippling society. We could be moving a thousand times faster if people followed open source's lead.
Besides, we're supposed to be the most intelligent species on this planet. How did we miss the whole "diversity is the most important feature for survival" lesson?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be more impressed if it could record all the "TV" broadcast over the net.
Seriously. They think we want their channels of media?
Keep your "TV"
Keep your "Blockbusters"
Keep your "Idols"
You had control in the past, but now its shifted and not even Boxes capable of holding a *million* hours of reality TV and home renovation or "Trusted Computing" or DRM or "The next big Justin Timberlake" will bring us back.
RIP centralised media
Yeah he's right guys! Microsoft are our *benevolent* dictators...
not like those other tyranous, oppressive or otherwise evil dictators of old!
...by combining the sims 2 with with Half Life 2:9 997674F1.JPG
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/9999/9
at the request of a thousand horny teenagers wanting to see Dr Breen have it on with Alyx.
"If people can just duplicate things... what point is there to working?"
sounds like the cry of a thousand millionaire musicians/movie execs...
does this mean the virtual world has finally caught up with the real?
"Computers" - I'm sick of them. People should start to accept that its their *life* that's computerised. While we continue to improve this "box in corner of the room" we'll all continue to live in frustration.
:)
1. Better Input. Typing and clicking the mouse is 'nice' but my computer is used for far more than that. The input devices are archaic and need to be redesigned while still allowing for traditional methods of input. These new inputs (speech recognition, Gloves with pressure/location feedback, track IR, Assignable macro keyboards and any more revolutionary inputs) need to be hardware driven rather than software driven. I can't rely on my speech recognition when the CPU gets loaded. I can't even rely on my macro's at 80% CPU load, while my trusty hardware keyboard and mouse still operate at 0 Latency.
2. Better Output. We all experience in analog, but I stare at a flickering series of still images aligned to a grid all day. I want points which appear at a slightly random spot at a slightly random time. I want resolution independence in images. I want frame rate independence in video. I want anything to connect to anything (basically I want Alias to design all software & hardware
And yes, give me my augmented reality glasses in the next decade so I can stop "using a computer" and start just living digitally (please?)
3. More realistic UI. Icons were developed to represent the real world, with the "desktop" being the analogy. Now we are nearing the ability to have a UI that more closely resembles the real world, not for art's sake, but for usability.
For example, my itunes music collection is on random, so I can get equally bored of all of it simultaneously, rather than my real collection which has some CDs closer to the top of the pile, some left to fall to the bottom of the drawer never to be played (but never thrown out)
It is allowed to dynamically change and evolve in the real world without a thought, unlike in the computer world where, because the computer wants organisation and categorisation, I too have to adhere to its 'logic'
I don't want to hit the edges of screens. I don't even want this "multiple desktop" thing. I just want an edgeless desktop. I want to pull back away from firefox and slide/look over at other software i'm using. I don't want my software forced to be stored in a locked box
I know they've experimented with UI's like this, but they were still just cute "swap between software in 3D" toys, not serious usable UIs.
Two dimensions and screen borders feels cramped in 2005.
4. No more "Male/Female" plugs and converters. Design one type of plug and make it a hermaphrodide.
5. No more propriety formats, patents, DRM etc. No more spoon feeding us "HD1024 projectors" and "revolutionary two wheeled mice" (give us another ball instead of the wheel. Its not that hard. We're not cash cows)
Stop trying to lock us into closed box "media systems" and "Phones", "PDAs" & "MP3 players". I want different things to my neighbor. Theres no way you could ever please us both.
(For example: Give us a completely open mobile/bluetooth PDA and allow us to VNC to our desktops from *anywhere*, streaming music or doing any processor intensive tasks from anywhere.)
Don't choke formats forcing you to use different formats (mp3/wav for example) for different software, or different software for closely related tasks just because you're all too proud to allow me to composite in your video editor, or have maya feed directly into a compositor. Enough bottlenecks. Take a leaf out of "Propellerhead's Rewire" software (for allowing audio softwares from any developer who wants the SDK, to talk to each other.)
Work *together*
Open up software. Let us inside. Let us plug anything into anything (Let alias design everything already!)
Innovation for the benefit of all users.
6. REDUNDANCY! Don't even sell me a single HD any more. You know i'm just going to go out and buy a second one to back it up onto. Don't give me "Fanta
Digital has thus far failed to meet one unavoidable reality.
We observe in analog...
the pixels in a digital image shouldn't be aligned.. they should be slightly random.. the frames in video/computer monitors should be a constant sequence of random photons. Digital audio should be Hi Def and slightly fuzzy and data storage should have a level of redundancy.
Until that is met, purists will continue to dislike the tech.
That said, HDR cameras (http://www.cybergrain.com/tech/hdr/) and HD cameras will revolutionise (even more so) the imaging world.
If I can see a scene, capture it with a single click and later frame it, adjust the colours display it on a high dynamic range monitor, or modify the image so the mountains are as visible as the sun setting behind them, then I say this overcomes a *massive* shortcoming of current and previous cameras.
I don't care for the "art" of technical photography. The real art is in seeing and capturing the images.. the technical side is a clumsy romanticised inconvenience.
Does anyone know what tech/process they are using to get stereoscopic info from monoscopic footage?
:)
Is this an automated frame interpolation type process, a thousand hours work with "liquify" or did lucas shoot the whole thing in stereo?
(how was spykids 3D shot btw? I imagine it gets cumbersome shooting with 2 large cameras gaffataped together
The thing that always bothered me was the notion that a "past" arrived at from the present was causally "in the present's future".
IE the sequence of events means that causally, the new perception of the past actually occurs in the observers future.
The timeline is unavoidably singular.
"you can pop back in time and have a look around, but you cannot do anything that will alter the present you left behind."
so assuming you can go in as invisible and without affecting matter - as a ghost (its the only way to avoid altering the present), and you look around "as a ghost" what happens to those photons that were absorbed by your eye? eye shaped shadows?
You could minimise your impact, but how could you possibly observe the past without affecting it? heisenberg would have a field day!
"backwards movement is possible, but only in a way that is 'complementary' to the present."
I'll accept that without any problems. I would however suggest that it is impossible for any backward movement to be complementary to the present.
Because of the intricate connection between every piece of matter or energy within a system, backward movement is inherently unable to be complementary to the present given the requirement that any "complementary movement" will not affect the past.
my 7 cents
-plex
Well it sure begs the question when you have a team of lawyers and judges viewing the images to confirm they are indeed pornographic...
Its the poetic irony of censorship IMHO
ok you made a good point.
;)
the need for reassurance or verification is a very astute observation.
sorry if i came off as hostile.. noone likes a nazi analogy it seems (cause they were different to us...
polar bears aren't a good analogy because they aren't as predisposed to social dynamics as us people are... Culture sweeps across the human race in days at present. No such dynamic exists in other creatures.
There are two separate issues: the issue of 'art' imitating life, and that of life imitating 'art'.
We watch people picking their nose on big brother and we feel validated, but we watch people throwing themselves down stairs in shopping trolleys and suddenly we feel the need to emulate. (perhaps our expectations of validification are not met) Just look at the massive subculture that 'reality' shows like jackass spawned.
Equally so, we watch people watching people and we emulate. We've had voyeurism forced into our popular culture for the last 60 years.
Most people like to be led (your point)
Most people watch *alot* of television. (there is one of these unidirectional picture boxes in just about *every home*. You mightn't watch much but don't kid yourself)
Most people inadvertantly become products of the drivel that is churned out relentlessly.
How else does a middle class white kid convince himself he is from the ghetto.
How else does a girl decide she has to have 'booty' in order to have any sense of worth despite 50 years of feminism.
How else do millions of dollars get channelled every week via SMS from young men and women's pockets into the "big brother" voting lines, because they feel the need to keep "geoff the guy who likes minty toothpaste" in the house. (despite having no interest in *real* politics - seriously, its tragic)
The brainwashing is not an overstatement. Why do millions of people think their lives are better because they eat mcdonalds and suck down cocacola into their 180kg bodies? why do they feel their lives are enriched by cynical corporate ploys like the endless conveyor belt of vacuous pop idols? They are deluded, lied to and brainwashed.
I personally don't get any gratification seeing what other people are doing (and largely just don't care) Its a fashion (like liking feet).
'Voyeurism' is only as fundamental to humanity as 'jazz' or 'equality' or 'mowing the lawn' or any other ubiquitous cultural phenomenon.
"We're a species of voyeurs for the most part."
we're not a species of voyuers, just like we're not a species of racists/murderers.
Extreme brainwashing poisons the mind to create this effect...
I mean something truly extreme like
* The rise of a national Nazi party
* having a picture box inside everyones home that broadcasts the activities & opinions of a select few (of questionable interest/morality/intelligence) twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year.
If you assume we're a species of voyeurs I recommend you get away more often.
ever heard of lesbians? (cmon.. you visit slashdot.. of course you have)
"If you've got nothing to hide, why is the need to be concerned?"
/ 25/2116250&tid=215&tid=126&tid=103&tid=218&tid=219
This one of the most common fallacies with regards to infringing upon peoples privacy.
Did the Nokia representatives have anything to hide when they were denied their rights to attend the IATC Meeting for supporting Kerry in the last election? http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04
Its noones business what I feel I want to hide.
What if i'm wearing an "evolvefish" necklace hidden under my clothes when i'm a member of W's administration? What if i have "Hells Angels for life" tattooed on my ass from when I was 14 and drunk? What if I have a non contageous skin condition that causes the security staff (or whoever else manages to access the imagery) to treat you differently.
It. Is. None. Of. Their. Business.
I thought a blank keyboard might mean "an assignable keyboard" but alas.
I could probably write:
for (i = 1; i y[i]) ? i | *z : i ^ *z); y[i+1] = x[i]; }
if I could assign my function keys and other top row keys to be the !@#$%^& keys (ah.. I mean those character keys not the fkin keys!) and reassign those non critical to typing 'function' keys to a separate row of keys (or a separate keyboard)
I'd like to see a dual keyboard with completely assignable keys, so I could set it up as Dvorak or qwerty or abcde or however I wanted, and assign various common tasks that *I* use to the extra 50 or so keys at the top... *Then* i'd buy it.
I've been teased by this limited mutimedia keyboard for too long.
-'plex
I remember when I passionately threw my windows 98 laptop at the ground... does that count?
why oh why do we still use mice keyboards & monitors?
I'm looking at the gyromouse (can be lifted free from the desk) as an absolute comprimise. I can't even run two independent mice at once? I can't even run two independent keyboards at once? (why you ask? macros for one)
I don't care how good they make the "mouse" or the "keyboard" they are next to obsolete in my eyes. The manufacturers just haven't caught up with the present. Are we all still cynical because of movies like lawnmower man? Yes we *should* have direct interaction with the computer. We *should* be able to liberate ourselves from our desks.
i'm more able to expand the functionality & efficiency of my computer by expanding its controls indefinitely with midi. Yes I know it too has its limitations but it was atleast designed to be expandable, not be a static typewriter replacement.
give me an expandable interface. let me connect 10 racks of assignable buttons. Let me rotate an object in maya by grabbing one side of it with one hand and moving the other side. Theres no processing limitation on this, just a lack of vision (or marketability)
ah thats the end of that rant... - 'plex
There is one thing and one thing alone that keeps me coming back to IE: Support for Dragon Naturally speaking.
:) where as firefox has little to no support for dragon.
in IE I can browse hands free (no lame jokes.. I juggle alot is all
Anyone care to write an extention? i'd love to delete IE from my machine
'plex
Now what someone needs to do is combine Stumbleto with Greasemonkey, so sites I visit are optionally modified by people with similar tastes to me...
You're missing the point.
Humans make mistakes.
Software *does* crash.
The confirmation will come in the form of people losing their lives. Perhaps not in the case of the prius, but people have to be aware of the issues in advance.
Car manufacturers who have "digital brakes" or such are putting lives at risk. The problem plaguing software/digital is that one single error can lead to total crash/glitch. Theres no room for a single programmer mistake or *any* internal wear and tear.
IMHO, before these things take off there needs to be some very simple manual/mechanical/analog override systems in place: A real direct braking system, and a real direct steering system.
"simplify simplify" - build as many software systems atop of this fundamental, direct, *real* control.
Well iTunes raped my music collection and turned it into some horrible directory structure... then I moved my music to another drive and reimported it and it raped it again (large numbers of albums missing track info)
the only way forward with this technology is to keep it completely open. I want to buy the hardware and download the software.
*Buy the hardware - download the software*
amen
"From what we've seen the Doom 3 engine can't do huge areas with the current technology"
I remember the very brief scenes involving... was it a tram? i don't know... but I remember a few scenes in doom 3 where there was a visible amount of real poly outdoors without a massive frame rate drop... I remember thinking that "hmm given they can DO these outdoor scenes, this corridor stuff must be a deliberate design strategy"
'plex
"Their brains havn't even developed the "code" to interpret the optic nerve signals."
I believe the brain would receive a new signal and would begin to process it as "vision" (whatever that is)
Tests done using a tongue plate which converts video footage into stimulus have, (when used on test subjects - both blind and seeing) begun as an unintelligable tingling sensation on the tongue and ended up as an intuitive sense of "vision" and spacial awareness.
Granted, the brain already has an interface for tongue sensitivity, but I think future tests using this technology on blind from birthers will yeild similar results.
'plex
Corporations mightn't have any responsibility to social issues but "persons" certainly do
'plex
it is *possible* that google is the first company in our age that actually has admirable pride and morals.
We went through a short phase where people were posing the question of whether or not anyone could truly do anything selflessly. (suggesting that every motive is just a self serving one) fortunately we are beyond that now and the world is blossoming as a result (google, wikipedia et al being obvious examples)
Closed source and copyright/patents are crippling society. We could be moving a thousand times faster if people followed open source's lead.
Besides, we're supposed to be the most intelligent species on this planet. How did we miss the whole "diversity is the most important feature for survival" lesson?