LOL you must not be looking in the right places. Even dell PCs and servers dont come with them more often than not and I would say more people buy PCs than build them.
Ya the only way I am grasping this is the fluidity of energy. I understand the concept of the world outside of linguistics. However outside of scientific research I don't see how it is useful in life other than to show that nothing is permanent. The Christian approach to this is that pretty much every marterial item on this planet is worthless outside of its ability to edify us. Accumulating is a useless task as we cant take any of it with us when we die, and even when we are resurrected everything will have been destroyed.
Perhaps you can explain it to me in a different way. How would dualistic thinking change my daily activity and research?
Well technically thermodynamics would say that something exists apart from that which is around it. It is what is around it that keeps it shifting. As long as energy is flowing through a system it will shift as well. However, if we take energy out of a system, the system defines itself in a permanent state of being. But in your 'non-dualistic' approach the thing is merely a table because we call it such. But that is the point of naming and considering something a 'thing'. A description of it's current state as an object. Therefore since it is what we perceive it is real. We could call everything what it is...energy, but that is not useful or a proper way of existing in life. Proper Christian theology teaches us that every object is transient, worthless, something to be used and then forgotten. However, we are also to be stewards of all of creation, so we must respect the state of things and the way it should be. Bringing a useful order to the mass around us. So we put energy into systems, keeping them in an order that pleases our creator and is beneficial to the society around us. Eventually that thing will shift natures and cease to exist but that does not mean that for the time being that it is what it is. Right now I am human, but what I am came from across the globe and outside the earth over the last several millenia. However, as for right now, I am who I am and that is more useful and real that considering me a compilation of a soul and transient electrons. So in the words of morpheus, "what is real, how do you define real?"
Well a thing is what it is. But in order to communicate since we cannot perceive each other's neurological pathways we invent constructs to convey meaning. To you it may be a table, to me I can call it a thingamajiger and you would know what I meant I am referring to the object that I want you to stand on to reach the light to fix it. When we move into linguistic relativism and remove the constructs we then revert back to our original state. It isn't a lie to say the table is, as long as the person receiving the string agrees that it is. This is where our cooperative nature comes into play as you mentioned 300 posts back, however when I think table I may be thinking a dark oak standing 36" high and has 4 legs. You might be thinking a round table made of cedar with a single pole leg. But Words tie to meaning, and the meaning is fluid as you mentioned. What something is, in my mind, is deaper than any word or description I can put to it. However, defining it, frees me to communicate with others, without communication I cannot cooperate, without terms of agreement we cannot survive and move forward. Am I missing something?
It is an oddity in my life that I haven't read the screwtape letters, I know so much about it though but never have sat down and read it. The Great Divorce is a similar book, largely an agnostic novel, but it paints a wonderful view of heaven and the human condition. It is a quick read.
Well the 'major' christian Denominations are a salvation by works largely, Catholic being the most prominent. However, it it a subtle difference with major consequences, the Jahova's Witnesses take it to the extreme though. I am of the Lutheran LCMS denomination, I like them and they are a well thought out bunch. They have a written down answer for EVERYTHING, their philosophy is more of a, challenge scripture, we dare ya:) It is encouraged to question faith and dogmatic principles.
LOL, being a christian isnt something you choose to do:) I guess you can in the sense of saying "I am a follower of Christ". But in my world as I believe there is only one God, we are all His children so we have no choice in that matter anymore than you can choose who your parents are, you can believe your parents are fish if you want but that means little in reality:)
Being present is a good term for it, I enjoy the Marianne Williamson quote "our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our Deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure...". I believe the only route to happiness is that which Christ has paved before us. I look at the Bible and Christ's teachings as the "How-To be human" guide. Or as one famous song puts it, "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth".
I am intrigued by your concept there of 'being present' are you referring to self actualization? I see the 'being present' and elighntment as that, knowing who you are, flaws and all, embracing that and moving forward.
Correct, the problem is we went through a dark time which still lingers in which Christ's teachings were used as a weapon. An excuse to say I am better than that person. C.S. Lewis does paint a great picture, if you haven't read it, check out the great divorce. Fantastic read. For theology his mere Christianity is a rational approach to Christ's teachings and made a big impact on the way I teach and view Christianity. It has been my understanding that Christ's teachings were intended for self edification, and through self edification we edify others. It is my understanding as well from christian theology that God doesn't punish transgressors as evil but rather works hard to bring us to him, the God servant (I can cite examples hermetically if necessary). It is only through our deliberate rejection do we miss out on the benefits He gives us, they are not earned but rather simply given to us. The major factions of Christianity would have you believe that eternity is earned by not being Gay or not doing evil. That is where you get those massive hypocrites why have no inclination to help other people but rather to keep them down. They think they earn an infinite being's favor over you. But how good is good enough, no such things. Most buddhists I know are closer to Christ's teachings than Christians themselves, it is my opinion that our greatest enemy is not the atheist, but rather ourselves and the image we put out there.
Thus ends my rant:) no I dont force my religion on anyone, your salvation is your decision. Athiest, agnostic, or theist, eternity exists the question is who is right? We can't all be, and eternity is a long damn time to be wrong.
Grumpy and get-off-my-lawn I can deal with, obtuse and irrational I cannot. I know I know the hypocrisy of being a rational Christian knows no bounds:)
lol I just caught your sig...one of my MPFC favorites.
the quote is the advice I give every couple or single searching for the right person. The sooner people can realize it the better, the notebook does a good job of explaining it but I think the point was missed by the general public. Find someone you can spend the rest of your life making happy, there is an amazing joy to be found in the practice.
that sounds tasty...would work well on the marlin I bet, the sport fish has a tuna flavor that needs to be balanced with a sweet glaze, I thought that a simple wood fire rosemary and olive oil combo would tame it but I was wrong:)
My brother (a chef) always tells me that vanilla and garlic are crutches, so i try to avoid them but man, pan searing some chicken breasts with a little sliced garlic and pepper? I cant avoid it:)
A couple years ago I switched to stainless steel and my brother is supposed to be hooking me up with a commercial grade Imperial 6 burner oven and hood. Right now I am stuck with an oven that is off by 40 degrees and an electric spiral top...It cooks...but the pans arent level and there are hot spots all over the place which annoys me, it is bad when you consider using your grill and pan instead of your stove.
Lately I have been augmenting my meals with bread using the no knead method. Have you been working with that at all? It is a great timesaver and makes fantastic bread, I recommend "Artisan bread in 5 minutes", was a great read. But I don't bake much in the summer, mostly salads and grilling for now. I am fortunate and live in Nebraska where we have some of the best beef in the world.
Ya one of the biggest lessons I have learned is that if you walk into a marriage hoping this person is going to make you happy...well you are in for a big dissapointment. Not that my wife doesnt make me exceptionally happy, however it is not my goal in marriage, my goal is to make HER happy. The benefits are amazing:) Don't find the right person, BE the right person;)
Cook's illustrated? Who DOESNT!:) I have 2 at home that I have been itching to read but have been crazy busy this summer. Shamefully I haven't even cooked all that much, although I have been working on a good recipe for a marlin I caught back in June. Haven't really cooked much big game fish so it is new to me. Although finding other guys in my area who enjoy cooking is difficult, well they cook but are much more interested in talking about the latest sports than the different takes on how to prepare a turkey.
Not insulting at all, were I a rand idolizer maybe:) However, being a with me being a Christian you understand that I agree with your post wholeheartedly. Cooperation is very much more efficient than selfishness, where cooperation is possible. However, because of the way we have evolved as separate herds we have developed different ideas of what cooperation IS.
A sidenote: In marriage classes I teach the "yes" spiral which validates exactly what you say. In a home where you have a pairing, if one person keeps assuming the worst of the other, keeps denying them things out of a grudge or negative feelings, the other individual will reciprocate until an event occurs to bring them out of the negative spiral. However the opposite is true, positive influence begets positive influence. This is actually well documented psychologically and I have noted as well in my marriage and those of the couples I teach. Marriages where one person acts unselfishly positive survive and reach much higher levels of success than those that are in it for selfish reasons. The dance works and continues until the terminating factor is death. In negative selfish marriages the termination is much worse, either divorce or an unhappy marriage.
Second sidenote, it is good to have a honest discussion, thank you for that. Often on/. all I find are disillusioned college students or grads with little life experience or the desire to obtain life experience. So pardon my initial assumption:)
excellent, I really enjoyed your post, unfortunately I am not on the same level of knowledge with African history as you so I cannot debate the last statement you had although it seems very logical.
As for learning as you go, excellent, but it deviates a bit from the original difference of opinion on whether or not society can agree on a system of rules.
Buddah did not need to know of the Jews to be influenced by them. Nor would Christ need to know of Lord Ganesha to have learned from the theology involved. I don't want to turn this thread into a theology debate so I will leave it at that.
The reason for civil failure that I was getting at is the second one you mention, conquest. If we were all able to agree on how a system were to be run there would be no need for conquest, unless that system was one in which conquest was an acceptable social construct.
Those most suited to their environment are the ones that will survive. But note, that evolution isn't a step forward, simply a measurement that a change occurred. Sometimes the trait that gets passed on is a negative one, sometimes a positive. But once again, a deviation from the original debate.
However, I did not answer the question you asked a while ago, no I have not taken a civ course. College was so long ago though and I don't remember why. I am more versed in Theology and Philosophy, the natural sciences, and cooking:).
I would however be interested in the atheist (not agnostic) societies that have succeeded. Also the agnostic ones I would be interested in as well. I get more interested in the atheist states because/. folks seem to think that atheism is the answer to the world's problems (at least the loudest/.ers). You don't have to explain them but just to list a couple would be great and I will read up on them. It is my understanding from existing atheistic states that they are a failed practice. Theological states usually were given rise due to the nature of being bonded together and having an excuse to conquer.
the reason I point to the atheistic states is that if your assumption is correct then an atheist state would have no problem maintaining itself with everyone cooperating. Given I have a narrow view of Civics I am more than happy to be proven wrong.
"I'm probably older and more experienced in the ways of the world than you are (You like that? You see what I did there?) but give it a few years and you will understand what I'm talking about.
Face it, we live in an interdependent society. We have to get along with our neighbors or they will make our life hell, that's the way of the world. We have laws in order to codify this behavior and control its excesses."
I think I make a great neighbor because I cooperate according to my ideals. If my neighbor is putting up a fence in the back yard I offer to help. If they value an even lawn I cut mine to match. If I am having a beer on my deck I offer them one and a seat. However, you being an intelligent rational person, as well as in a minority belief system probably know much better than I do, there are just some people it is impossible to get along with. If i were an Christian or Islam extremist, I would never get along with you, but as I am not, you and I get along just fine. However, we are in the minority unfortunately. The majority of people in this world (at least America) are selfish (read Ann Rand's Virtue of selfishness). Not that I am a big Rand follower but she has valid points. It is difficult to find individuals who work for a societal good unless personal gain is involved. Examples involve, volunteering to pick up trash, work at a soup kitchen, or the simple act of recycling.
Doesn't really matter who is older:) Good discussion is good discussion! (I corrected my D&D statement in a reply to my post)
The problem here is that you assume your ideals are correct. In your world there is a certain defined way to handle a murderer in each case. In your own words there is a difference between how I would handle killing someone involved in the raping of my child. Who defined that rule? As a Buddhist your norms are largely post-modern (the philosophy not the time). So therefore truth is subjective, as your quote suggests, only agree with your ideas and common sense, not necessarily the herd instinct. Heck just the fact that I am a Christian and you a Buddhist (by my calendar your religion derived from mine btw, its ok, most people forget that Christianity and Judaism are the same God), shows that we have different acceptance of what is right and wrong.
However, we do have so many things in common; whether it be because of herd instinct or that we all derive from the same religious philosophy that commonalities can be found. As a Christian I believe it is because the same set of rules has been handed down by Yahweh to us. Now, if you understand Christianity/Judaism then you will see that it is more like Buddhism than you think. There is a misconception that God punishes us because of our sin, rather it is our sin punishes us, I don't know what the Buddhist term is but many eastern philosophies look at it like Karma I believe. If you stick your hand in fire, you will get burned, it is physics not punishment. If you break a fundamental rule, God might not smite you but the sin itself will. This is fundamental to the way Christianity works but not essential. Christianity was derived around servanthood much like Buddhism (I have much more tolerance for Buddhists than many other religions as your group tends to be much more forgiving and tolerant). It has been mentioned in more than one Anthropological study that Christ may have stolen the ideas from eastern philosophy.
However, back to the topic at hand. In order for cooperation to exist, we need to have similar goals, as History will show you, Every civilization has failed in this regard, all have torn themselves apart due to their inability to cooperate. One philosophy takes over another, this is the way of humankind, the strong survive. So my recommendation for a PHD thesis does not go against the grain but is rather supported by it. Just check out European history over the last 10K years. Also, the most epic failures in civilizations have come from atheistic societies, nothing holds them together I can cite examples if necessary but you seem like an intelligent fellow. My contention was that if you could figure out why, it would make one hell of a thesis because among the anthropologists I know, they have been studying herd instinct for a very long time and wanting to know the tie to civ as well. Sure we survive stronger as a whole, but why is it we always fall apart?
I am (in D&D terms) Chaotic Lawful. However What I have found is that unless a person subscribes to a supernatural belief then there will always be dissonance as to what 'cooperation' is. In my world child labor may be evil, in another's it may be the only way to survive. Cooperation, is a subjective term, all the examples you cited above are subjective as well. Someone has to define what kind of murder is not cooperative, or what form of pollution is not cooperative. Should I be punished for murdering a man who raped my child? Should I be punished for sound or light pollution because I have a BBQ in my back yard?
It isn't a knee jerk reaction, it is sociology, you may be in college now and haven just taken a civics course but wait until you take some sociology and psychology courses. In particular study alternative lifestyles and civilizations. What is a social norm to you could be outrageous to someone else. What I term as cooperation you may term as destructive and vice versa. This is the inherent flaw in human nature. Christians refer to it as Sin, any deviation from the intended purpose of humankind. As a Christian we are under constant attack because we have a series of laws we try to obey (forget the mosaic laws that is a strawman). But because we follow a set of laws we are attacked at every turn, but our laws inspire us to cooperate with each other, take care of creation, all because we are taught the same rules. However, because of the nature of man we deviate and make up our own rules and as we do we fight and manipulate and destroy the structure. This goes for structures outside of Christianity as well, except they are more frail, check Marxism, Communism, Democracy, and so on. Humans do not like to cooperate or be told to cooperate. Figure out why, without using a religious principle and you will have a great topic for a PHD.
I use EPO and 8.5i and love it. I am quite sane as well FWIW. However their home products are pretty shoddy. I should add as well that I think most/.ers are kids in their basements pretending to be adults. The number of people posting on here with actual experience or actual administrators of networks and or geek jobs is relatively small I would wager.
I always thought it would be interesting to create a project like this with a chat engine. Take a major chat engine and have a "Submit to AI" option where the AI would parse the conversation between you and a friend so it can record questions and responses in an overlapping matrix of possibilities and calculate the probability of what the response should be by historical conversations of the same nature. You should get impressive test results with a large enough set of data.
Ya I garden, in my opinion the most shocking difference is the difference between tomatoes in restaurants and those I pick from my garden...winters are long. I do feel sorry for people who don't go to farmers markets and don't garden as they have not tasted real fruit and veggies...
Good lord, where did you learn basic biology? Your statement is shockingly ignorant.
Biologists most often define "biological diversity" or "biodiversity" as the "totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region".
When you artificially kill off organisms you reduce the diversity of a region. The problem is, when an event occurs in the region the region isn't as tolerant to the change anymore. Example, if there is 10 organisms in a region and one of the organisms kills off the other 9, a single disease can wipe out the last one. Diversity, is the spice of life, diversity is what allows the human race and all living things to survive. Without diversity, we will die as a species, not may, WILL.
If he wants time off then he needs to designate a deputy in his absence. From the letter it appears that he has sole control of the project and this is what is causing the issue I don't know the guy but I would read this kind of behavior as someone who hit a cash mark and decided to abandon the project for a house in Fiji.
I believe you are missing the point and are a victim of the red herring. I didn't say the only problem, you inferred that, however it is a fact that the majority of problems that users report are driver issues. What I said in my post above was that OSX's stability is largely due to the fact that it runs on stable hardware and from there you can extrapolate that this is due to the OS being optimized for that hardware making it very solid. No other OS comes close, except Solaris and AS400 equipment and then you are once again in an environment on a small set of hardware. Different strokes for different folks, so stop being such a flamer and enjoy the diversity.
"Who wants a platform that is so locked down you can't screw it up hacking it"
This is exactly why OSX is so solid, and why I am a linux/windows admin. Don't mod me troll or flamebait yet, I love OSX because of that, it runs very solidly and I barely ever have to go to my creative department to fix things, but you don't get a mac for its mod ability. But the reason OSX is so great is because it runs in a handful of platforms, so driver and software problems are minimal. I assume they are trying to do the same with the iphone, this will get you a solid device, even though it will be a pain to develop on.
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LOL you must not be looking in the right places. Even dell PCs and servers dont come with them more often than not and I would say more people buy PCs than build them.
Perhaps you can explain it to me in a different way. How would dualistic thinking change my daily activity and research?
Well technically thermodynamics would say that something exists apart from that which is around it. It is what is around it that keeps it shifting. As long as energy is flowing through a system it will shift as well. However, if we take energy out of a system, the system defines itself in a permanent state of being. But in your 'non-dualistic' approach the thing is merely a table because we call it such. But that is the point of naming and considering something a 'thing'. A description of it's current state as an object. Therefore since it is what we perceive it is real. We could call everything what it is...energy, but that is not useful or a proper way of existing in life. Proper Christian theology teaches us that every object is transient, worthless, something to be used and then forgotten. However, we are also to be stewards of all of creation, so we must respect the state of things and the way it should be. Bringing a useful order to the mass around us. So we put energy into systems, keeping them in an order that pleases our creator and is beneficial to the society around us. Eventually that thing will shift natures and cease to exist but that does not mean that for the time being that it is what it is. Right now I am human, but what I am came from across the globe and outside the earth over the last several millenia. However, as for right now, I am who I am and that is more useful and real that considering me a compilation of a soul and transient electrons. So in the words of morpheus, "what is real, how do you define real?"
Well a thing is what it is. But in order to communicate since we cannot perceive each other's neurological pathways we invent constructs to convey meaning. To you it may be a table, to me I can call it a thingamajiger and you would know what I meant I am referring to the object that I want you to stand on to reach the light to fix it. When we move into linguistic relativism and remove the constructs we then revert back to our original state. It isn't a lie to say the table is, as long as the person receiving the string agrees that it is. This is where our cooperative nature comes into play as you mentioned 300 posts back, however when I think table I may be thinking a dark oak standing 36" high and has 4 legs. You might be thinking a round table made of cedar with a single pole leg. But Words tie to meaning, and the meaning is fluid as you mentioned. What something is, in my mind, is deaper than any word or description I can put to it. However, defining it, frees me to communicate with others, without communication I cannot cooperate, without terms of agreement we cannot survive and move forward. Am I missing something?
Well the 'major' christian Denominations are a salvation by works largely, Catholic being the most prominent. However, it it a subtle difference with major consequences, the Jahova's Witnesses take it to the extreme though. I am of the Lutheran LCMS denomination, I like them and they are a well thought out bunch. They have a written down answer for EVERYTHING, their philosophy is more of a, challenge scripture, we dare ya :) It is encouraged to question faith and dogmatic principles.
LOL, being a christian isnt something you choose to do :) I guess you can in the sense of saying "I am a follower of Christ". But in my world as I believe there is only one God, we are all His children so we have no choice in that matter anymore than you can choose who your parents are, you can believe your parents are fish if you want but that means little in reality :)
Being present is a good term for it, I enjoy the Marianne Williamson quote "our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our Deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure...". I believe the only route to happiness is that which Christ has paved before us. I look at the Bible and Christ's teachings as the "How-To be human" guide. Or as one famous song puts it, "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth".
I am intrigued by your concept there of 'being present' are you referring to self actualization? I see the 'being present' and elighntment as that, knowing who you are, flaws and all, embracing that and moving forward.
Thus ends my rant :) no I dont force my religion on anyone, your salvation is your decision. Athiest, agnostic, or theist, eternity exists the question is who is right? We can't all be, and eternity is a long damn time to be wrong.
Grumpy and get-off-my-lawn I can deal with, obtuse and irrational I cannot. I know I know the hypocrisy of being a rational Christian knows no bounds :)
the quote is the advice I give every couple or single searching for the right person. The sooner people can realize it the better, the notebook does a good job of explaining it but I think the point was missed by the general public. Find someone you can spend the rest of your life making happy, there is an amazing joy to be found in the practice.
My brother (a chef) always tells me that vanilla and garlic are crutches, so i try to avoid them but man, pan searing some chicken breasts with a little sliced garlic and pepper? I cant avoid it :)
A couple years ago I switched to stainless steel and my brother is supposed to be hooking me up with a commercial grade Imperial 6 burner oven and hood. Right now I am stuck with an oven that is off by 40 degrees and an electric spiral top...It cooks...but the pans arent level and there are hot spots all over the place which annoys me, it is bad when you consider using your grill and pan instead of your stove.
Lately I have been augmenting my meals with bread using the no knead method. Have you been working with that at all? It is a great timesaver and makes fantastic bread, I recommend "Artisan bread in 5 minutes", was a great read. But I don't bake much in the summer, mostly salads and grilling for now. I am fortunate and live in Nebraska where we have some of the best beef in the world.
Ya one of the biggest lessons I have learned is that if you walk into a marriage hoping this person is going to make you happy...well you are in for a big dissapointment. Not that my wife doesnt make me exceptionally happy, however it is not my goal in marriage, my goal is to make HER happy. The benefits are amazing :) Don't find the right person, BE the right person ;)
Cook's illustrated? Who DOESNT! :) I have 2 at home that I have been itching to read but have been crazy busy this summer. Shamefully I haven't even cooked all that much, although I have been working on a good recipe for a marlin I caught back in June. Haven't really cooked much big game fish so it is new to me. Although finding other guys in my area who enjoy cooking is difficult, well they cook but are much more interested in talking about the latest sports than the different takes on how to prepare a turkey.
A sidenote: In marriage classes I teach the "yes" spiral which validates exactly what you say. In a home where you have a pairing, if one person keeps assuming the worst of the other, keeps denying them things out of a grudge or negative feelings, the other individual will reciprocate until an event occurs to bring them out of the negative spiral. However the opposite is true, positive influence begets positive influence. This is actually well documented psychologically and I have noted as well in my marriage and those of the couples I teach. Marriages where one person acts unselfishly positive survive and reach much higher levels of success than those that are in it for selfish reasons. The dance works and continues until the terminating factor is death. In negative selfish marriages the termination is much worse, either divorce or an unhappy marriage.
Second sidenote, it is good to have a honest discussion, thank you for that. Often on /. all I find are disillusioned college students or grads with little life experience or the desire to obtain life experience. So pardon my initial assumption :)
As for learning as you go, excellent, but it deviates a bit from the original difference of opinion on whether or not society can agree on a system of rules.
Buddah did not need to know of the Jews to be influenced by them. Nor would Christ need to know of Lord Ganesha to have learned from the theology involved. I don't want to turn this thread into a theology debate so I will leave it at that.
The reason for civil failure that I was getting at is the second one you mention, conquest. If we were all able to agree on how a system were to be run there would be no need for conquest, unless that system was one in which conquest was an acceptable social construct.
Those most suited to their environment are the ones that will survive. But note, that evolution isn't a step forward, simply a measurement that a change occurred. Sometimes the trait that gets passed on is a negative one, sometimes a positive. But once again, a deviation from the original debate.
However, I did not answer the question you asked a while ago, no I have not taken a civ course. College was so long ago though and I don't remember why. I am more versed in Theology and Philosophy, the natural sciences, and cooking :).
I would however be interested in the atheist (not agnostic) societies that have succeeded. Also the agnostic ones I would be interested in as well. I get more interested in the atheist states because /. folks seem to think that atheism is the answer to the world's problems (at least the loudest /.ers). You don't have to explain them but just to list a couple would be great and I will read up on them. It is my understanding from existing atheistic states that they are a failed practice. Theological states usually were given rise due to the nature of being bonded together and having an excuse to conquer.
the reason I point to the atheistic states is that if your assumption is correct then an atheist state would have no problem maintaining itself with everyone cooperating. Given I have a narrow view of Civics I am more than happy to be proven wrong.
I think I make a great neighbor because I cooperate according to my ideals. If my neighbor is putting up a fence in the back yard I offer to help. If they value an even lawn I cut mine to match. If I am having a beer on my deck I offer them one and a seat. However, you being an intelligent rational person, as well as in a minority belief system probably know much better than I do, there are just some people it is impossible to get along with. If i were an Christian or Islam extremist, I would never get along with you, but as I am not, you and I get along just fine. However, we are in the minority unfortunately. The majority of people in this world (at least America) are selfish (read Ann Rand's Virtue of selfishness). Not that I am a big Rand follower but she has valid points. It is difficult to find individuals who work for a societal good unless personal gain is involved. Examples involve, volunteering to pick up trash, work at a soup kitchen, or the simple act of recycling.
The problem here is that you assume your ideals are correct. In your world there is a certain defined way to handle a murderer in each case. In your own words there is a difference between how I would handle killing someone involved in the raping of my child. Who defined that rule? As a Buddhist your norms are largely post-modern (the philosophy not the time). So therefore truth is subjective, as your quote suggests, only agree with your ideas and common sense, not necessarily the herd instinct. Heck just the fact that I am a Christian and you a Buddhist (by my calendar your religion derived from mine btw, its ok, most people forget that Christianity and Judaism are the same God), shows that we have different acceptance of what is right and wrong.
However, we do have so many things in common; whether it be because of herd instinct or that we all derive from the same religious philosophy that commonalities can be found. As a Christian I believe it is because the same set of rules has been handed down by Yahweh to us. Now, if you understand Christianity/Judaism then you will see that it is more like Buddhism than you think. There is a misconception that God punishes us because of our sin, rather it is our sin punishes us, I don't know what the Buddhist term is but many eastern philosophies look at it like Karma I believe. If you stick your hand in fire, you will get burned, it is physics not punishment. If you break a fundamental rule, God might not smite you but the sin itself will. This is fundamental to the way Christianity works but not essential. Christianity was derived around servanthood much like Buddhism (I have much more tolerance for Buddhists than many other religions as your group tends to be much more forgiving and tolerant). It has been mentioned in more than one Anthropological study that Christ may have stolen the ideas from eastern philosophy.
However, back to the topic at hand. In order for cooperation to exist, we need to have similar goals, as History will show you, Every civilization has failed in this regard, all have torn themselves apart due to their inability to cooperate. One philosophy takes over another, this is the way of humankind, the strong survive. So my recommendation for a PHD thesis does not go against the grain but is rather supported by it. Just check out European history over the last 10K years. Also, the most epic failures in civilizations have come from atheistic societies, nothing holds them together I can cite examples if necessary but you seem like an intelligent fellow. My contention was that if you could figure out why, it would make one hell of a thesis because among the anthropologists I know, they have been studying herd instinct for a very long time and wanting to know the tie to civ as well. Sure we survive stronger as a whole, but why is it we always fall apart?
Damn, I meant Lawful Neutral. Been too long since I played.
I am (in D&D terms) Chaotic Lawful. However What I have found is that unless a person subscribes to a supernatural belief then there will always be dissonance as to what 'cooperation' is. In my world child labor may be evil, in another's it may be the only way to survive. Cooperation, is a subjective term, all the examples you cited above are subjective as well. Someone has to define what kind of murder is not cooperative, or what form of pollution is not cooperative. Should I be punished for murdering a man who raped my child? Should I be punished for sound or light pollution because I have a BBQ in my back yard?
It isn't a knee jerk reaction, it is sociology, you may be in college now and haven just taken a civics course but wait until you take some sociology and psychology courses. In particular study alternative lifestyles and civilizations. What is a social norm to you could be outrageous to someone else. What I term as cooperation you may term as destructive and vice versa. This is the inherent flaw in human nature. Christians refer to it as Sin, any deviation from the intended purpose of humankind. As a Christian we are under constant attack because we have a series of laws we try to obey (forget the mosaic laws that is a strawman). But because we follow a set of laws we are attacked at every turn, but our laws inspire us to cooperate with each other, take care of creation, all because we are taught the same rules. However, because of the nature of man we deviate and make up our own rules and as we do we fight and manipulate and destroy the structure. This goes for structures outside of Christianity as well, except they are more frail, check Marxism, Communism, Democracy, and so on. Humans do not like to cooperate or be told to cooperate. Figure out why, without using a religious principle and you will have a great topic for a PHD.
What a fantastic idea _read sarcasm here_, now in your altruistic world who gets to be our overlord telling us what is cooperative and what is not?
For Christians, it is Yahweh.
For Islam it is Allah.
For Athiests it is self.
For Agnostics it is no-one.
for Slashdotters it is his Noodlyness.
Who gets to set up our rules and dictate them to us?
I use EPO and 8.5i and love it. I am quite sane as well FWIW. However their home products are pretty shoddy. I should add as well that I think most /.ers are kids in their basements pretending to be adults. The number of people posting on here with actual experience or actual administrators of networks and or geek jobs is relatively small I would wager.
I always thought it would be interesting to create a project like this with a chat engine. Take a major chat engine and have a "Submit to AI" option where the AI would parse the conversation between you and a friend so it can record questions and responses in an overlapping matrix of possibilities and calculate the probability of what the response should be by historical conversations of the same nature. You should get impressive test results with a large enough set of data.
Ya I garden, in my opinion the most shocking difference is the difference between tomatoes in restaurants and those I pick from my garden...winters are long. I do feel sorry for people who don't go to farmers markets and don't garden as they have not tasted real fruit and veggies...
Biologists most often define "biological diversity" or "biodiversity" as the "totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region".
When you artificially kill off organisms you reduce the diversity of a region. The problem is, when an event occurs in the region the region isn't as tolerant to the change anymore. Example, if there is 10 organisms in a region and one of the organisms kills off the other 9, a single disease can wipe out the last one. Diversity, is the spice of life, diversity is what allows the human race and all living things to survive. Without diversity, we will die as a species, not may, WILL.
If he wants time off then he needs to designate a deputy in his absence. From the letter it appears that he has sole control of the project and this is what is causing the issue I don't know the guy but I would read this kind of behavior as someone who hit a cash mark and decided to abandon the project for a house in Fiji.
I believe you are missing the point and are a victim of the red herring. I didn't say the only problem, you inferred that, however it is a fact that the majority of problems that users report are driver issues. What I said in my post above was that OSX's stability is largely due to the fact that it runs on stable hardware and from there you can extrapolate that this is due to the OS being optimized for that hardware making it very solid. No other OS comes close, except Solaris and AS400 equipment and then you are once again in an environment on a small set of hardware. Different strokes for different folks, so stop being such a flamer and enjoy the diversity.
This is exactly why OSX is so solid, and why I am a linux/windows admin. Don't mod me troll or flamebait yet, I love OSX because of that, it runs very solidly and I barely ever have to go to my creative department to fix things, but you don't get a mac for its mod ability. But the reason OSX is so great is because it runs in a handful of platforms, so driver and software problems are minimal. I assume they are trying to do the same with the iphone, this will get you a solid device, even though it will be a pain to develop on.