Actually, I don't think regulators would have a huge problem with this... Clearly the big guy on the block is Google at this point... Fortunately, regulators are smarter than you and sometimes have an eye on more than just the "who is #1 today?" question. They will certainly not want to support the #2 if it means the market is going to be divided by the two top dogs. Their task isn't to watch the #1 dog, it is to watch the market. And a market controlled by two huge corporations is only marginally better than a monopoly.
Which means I'm pretty sure they'll block this. Because who else would be left?
One might also point out, that Christianity reformed itself away from the corruptions of the Dark Ages quite some time ago. Indeed, Modern Christianity has been at the forefront of many of our most celebrated movements. These include the fight against Slavery (started by churches) and the Women's Suffrage in America (Started by Christian Women). Congratulations, your brainwashing is complete and you may collect your certificate at the exit.
The fight against slavery started with humanism during the enlightenment, not with the church. At that time, the church was a solid supporter of the more refined slavery that Europe had largely converted to, that of considering peasants as part of the land, and giving the land to nobles. This layer of indirection had the useful side-effect of removing from the lord any responsibility for the slaves, since they weren't his direct property anymore.
Likewise, women's rights were late to the US, and while it may be true that they were started by xian women, I'm pretty sure the fact that they were women was more important to that than the fact that they were xian. If it had been started by xian men then I would grant you the argument.
Meanwhile, the church has until the end of the 20th century, been one of the few institutions with official restrictions against women. How do you parse that in this context?
Actually, not having read that book is probably the main reason why most christians still are christians.
I read a good part of it. Especially the parts with the long lists of people that you should kill. Or the parts where your peace-loving god tells his followers to slay all the other dudes from that other tribe and take both their land and their women.
Given your comment you certainly did read that book, so I don't need to go on with the vast remainder of the atrocities it contains.
In his defense, basically everyone was in Hitler Youth. True, but when Gunther Grass reveals his membership, it's a scandal. The funny thing is that Gunther Grass and Joseph Ratzinger were actually in the same prisoner's camp after the war. Whatever they did during the war, it wasn't so much apart that Grass received any special treatment, and one thing we know for sure is that Ratzinger wasn't just a "boy scout" but did have an active part in the war as part of an anti-aircraft unit near Munich.
So in summary: He's just another human with faults and shortcomings. Rather a lot of them if you ask me, but you can have a different opinion on that if you like. What he's not is a god-incarnation. Unless you want to say that your god chooses as his speaker on earth people who spent a few years of their live violating most of his commandments.
He didn't make a scientific point, nor did he claim to. He made a moral point, which is well within the realm of the church. Evidence for that claim, please.
All religious people claim that their church has authority on morals. The theory of "realms" has long since been shown to be highly problematic. Most importantly, where does this authority come from? Why is morals "within the realm of the church"? Aside from "because the church says so", I've yet to see a good reason.
Are you trying to say that anything connected to science is "untouchable" when it comes to morality? Perhaps you would have had a successful career in Nazi Germany, doing scientific studies on Jews The rest of the world is in agreement that the causal relation between Nazi ideology and abusing Jews for experiments is very much more likely the cause than any possible relation between scientific thinking and abusing Jews for experiments.
Or in a more metaphorical way: If I visit Rome and find the streets dirty, I'd rather blame the probable cause (the garbage collection sucks) than the circumstantial one (it's the city of the pope, so living near the pope apparently causes people to be dirty).
I don't understand why "life" is your problem at all. A virus is alive as well, as is virtually anything that you eat uncooked.
I figure what you really mean is the issue of the "soul", isn't it? Not that life beings at conception, but that a human being has a soul from the moment of conception. Is that what you're really trying to say?
There is no rational scientific reason for not doing ANYTHING. Nuking the entire crust of the planet to see if you can get it to liquefy and join with the mantle is a valid scientific experiment. It's an extreme example, but that's the point: science has no morals whatsoever, its only pursuit is knowledge. Debateable.
On the other hand, religion offers a lot of excuses for burning, stoning or otherwise killing your fellow humans. And while a very few scientists might be interested in destroying the planet, what freaks me out a lot more is the thousands upon thousands of religious fuckups who are actually looking forward to and longing for Armageddon or whatever they call the destruction of the world. Given half a chance, I'm sure there are hundreds who would push the button to speed things up a little.
So yes, maybe science doesn't have those answers. But contrary to religion, it seldom provides a positive motivation for being evil and destructive. Even the examples you quote don't cut it. German scientists experimented on Jews because they had been influenced by a world-view that made Jews unworthy of living. Science in Nazi Germany was anything but "pure".
Finally, don't forget that it was science, not religion, that brought us the Enlightenment. If the church had had its way, we'd all still be living in the middle ages, and/. would be a local meeting space at the town market, because technology wouldn't have progressed past the cannon.
The Pope is a position granted by adherents of the Catholic Church. You can try to minimize its importance all you want but your declaration is irrelevant and immature. No, it isn't. It reveals an important point that too many people never think about:
There's this old guy elected by a bunch of other old guys. He gets a funny hat. And *boom*, suddenly he's an expert on any subject from biology to physics and his wisdom is lapped up by the media like it is mana falling from heaven.
When, in fact, his life experience is firing anti-aircraft guns at allied bombers, being a prisoner of war, studying theology and becoming a professor of theology at a catholic university.
I want an assurance from the pope that no matter what illness might befall him one day, he will not accept any treatment that is the result of "unethical" medicine, like stem-cell research, and many other branches.
After that, I might start to take him a little serious.
So in other words, what you are saying is that since you and your church are following the other route, that you need slavery since without slaves you can't be masters?
I think I prefer being my own master over being a slavemaster.
Now, you speak of manipulation. What would I manipulate people to do? How about believing in utter nonsense that is not supported by any evidence whatsoever, and constantly contradicts itself? Just for starters.
but to The Persons who created me. Your parents will be glad to hear that, I'm sure...
I have been brainwashed to be a part of one of the largest (if not the largest) and oldest not-for-profit charitable works organization in the world. Almost true. You have been brainwashed to be a part of one of the largest and oldest for-profit power cults in the world.
You really think this is not about money and power? You need to read Sir James Frazer.
Show me someone who had as profoundly positive impact on the world as Blessed Mother Theresa Is that the best challenge you can offer? You can read all about the other side of that woman in Hitchins book about her. She's not half the saint the church and media has made her. Now before you ditch Hitchins, do remember that your beloved church did indeed invite him to play the devil's advocate role on the hearings about "mother Theresa". So if your church accepts him as an authority on the subject, reading your words above I'll assume that you will, too. So before you use that woman as an argument, why not confront yourself with the other side's POV on her?
s/Fundamentalist/Fundamental Thanks. I knew the native german term, but not the proper english one.
how about he simply shuts up about stuff he doesn't know about?
And this applies to what percentage of/. posts? A great deal of them. The difference being that/. posts are seldom thrown around as "expert opinion" on the TV news.
The pope can quack all he wants to, as far as I care. If only they'd stop giving him free TV time. If he wants advertisement for his cult, he should buy it like everyone else.
By the way, he *is* an expert in ethics. From what I know about his biography, that isn't true. Philosophy isn't all ethics, and theology much less so (well, it claims dominion over ethics via faith, but that's an unsubstantiated claim).
You're missing the point. The results of nuking the mantle are bad, but science can't show what's bad and why. Only if you fall into the same trap as every other geek (gosh isn't it getting crowded down there?) to limit "science" to the natural sciences only.
I know it's shocking, so take a seat, but there actually are sciences that explore this most unknown of all territories - the human being. No! I don't mean biology you sex-starved freak!
Catholics, myself included, believe that life begins at conception Your problem being simply that religious belief is a weak basis for any assumptions regarding the real world. Everything the bible says about the world that we can accurately verify is false. It's the knowledge of a desert tribe around 1000 B.C. - and we can check that it is, by comparison to desert tribes today who are at a similar primitive stage of development.
But, of course, evidence and rational thought are not something that could ever shatter belief, because belief as a meme as long included this cute little self defense that says that it is always right, and any evidence to the contrary is either a test or a temptation.
Though people in religious traditions might disagree with the pope, they nonetheless would express some opinion about his pronouncements, as opposed to Slashdot atheists, who think he says nothing of import for or against their own metaphysical views (or lack thereof). As an atheist - and strong opponent of the catholic church - tell me why exactly the pope's words should mean any more (or less) to me than the words of the bum at the corner or those of the milkman, or my secretary, or my co-workers, or any other human being?
The Pope is speaking on similar moral truths. If allow ourselves to start restricting further and further the definition of life, it will become easier for us to eliminate everyone else that falls outside those boundaries. Humans can't be trusted to decide who lives and who dies. Especially not the catholic church, because we know how decisions are. Witch hunts, crusades, allying with the Nazis, telling the africans to not use condoms because hey, there's only a 60% chance that your partner has AIDS in this part of the continent...
In the case of the Borg collective, it is a community dedicated to unity through compulsive slavery. The difference is ...something you can not possibly see from the inside.
The Borg, and any true collective, can only work if its members forget that it was compulsive. Otherwise you'd have constant rebellions. Making the slaves believe they are free men, and have chosen their destiny voluntarily, is the magic part right before "Profit!!!".
but not one based on slavery (like the Borg) but one based on a personal choice. ...or at least the impression or memory of having made a personal choice.
The literature on how to manipulate people so that they make the choices you want them to make, while believing honestly that it was all their own choices, and they were in no way influenced, is vast. If you do indeed study to become a priest, some of it will be included in your studies, because that's what priests sometimes do. Of course, by that time you will have long forgotten that this could possibly have happened - or still is happening - to you.
Rome was not built in a day, don't expect the Church to change in one either. Good quote, because it enlightens one aspect: Sometimes, in order for things to change at all, the old crap must go away.
Given that the pope is not an expert on either biology nor ethics, how about he simply shuts up about stuff he doesn't know about?
(he studied theology, with a focus on Fundamentalist Theology, if you really want to know what his "ethics" are. His first stint as a professor (at a catholic "university") was in the subjects of Theology and Dogmatics.)
Look 25 years into the past. That means 1982. Then look at any "25 years from now" articles from 1982. What's your guess as to their accuracy?
Cell phones? In 1982, we had the "B-Net" here in Germany. It was analog, had about 20,000 users and 75 channels. The devices were huge, very few people carried them around.
Computers? The original IBM PC had just been released (August, 1981). In case you don't remember, it had a 4.77 MHz CPU and 16 or 64 KB of RAM (extendible to the legendary 640 KB). It also had no hard drive. It did come with floppy drives, though - 5 1/4".
Games? I'm too lazy to google up all the details, but Akalabeth, the predecessor of Ultima, was released in 1979.
Internet? Well, TCP/IP was developed in 1982. Two years later, the Internet had about 1000 hosts. Anyone claiming in 1982 that this fragile university-connection thing would have billions of users in 2008 would've been laughed at. BBS was what networking was about, and FidoNet (started in 1983) appeared as a more likely candidate for an international network for the masses into the 90s.
So in other words, any "what's the world going to be like in 25 years" is, to put it bluntly, bullshit pulled out of someone's ass. 25 years from now, we'll look at it and shake our hads in sad admiration of the guy who was daft enough to publish something so obviously wrong and nonsensical.
The question is what the goal of the exercise was.
Sometimes, these exercises are "free for all". There's a scoring system and you win if you get the highest score, good luck.
Sometimes, though, there are more refined goals. If the goal of the exercise is to evaluate different reactions to a given threat, for example, then taking away that threat by whatever creativity you bring isn't a "smart move", it's breaking the game because removing the threat wasn't the goal, and by doing so you make it impossible for the exercise to reach its goal.
That reminds me of the US general who played a wargame at the start of the Iraq war. He played the Iraqis, and through clever use of everything he had, including guerilla tactics, concentrating on fighting street battles, misdirection and other tactics, he actually managed to beat the invading US forces. That probably gave them a little shiver. They also fired him from the war games. At first I thought that was dumb. But later news reports were more detailed and revealed that he had not, in fact, been given the goal of trying to win or playing the Iraqi forces as best as he could, but to lead them through a scenario of pre-planned basic strategies. He didn't win the game, he ruined it, because the goal was to analyze specific scenarios, not to find out who would win a sandbox version of Iraq.
So in other words the companies you've been inside of have had managers that are unable to hire competent Windows admins? Yes, that's one way to put it.
And the reason is that there are so few of them. I know they exist, because I've met one. Probably two. But they are kind of an endangered species, and I'm not sure if there are any breeding pairs left.
Slashdot Mirror
That's exactly what most of the dumbasses who vote people like Bush into office need: A world-view tuned more to what and who they already know.
Thanks for making sure they'll never be confronted with the world outside their small box.
Which means I'm pretty sure they'll block this. Because who else would be left?
The fight against slavery started with humanism during the enlightenment, not with the church. At that time, the church was a solid supporter of the more refined slavery that Europe had largely converted to, that of considering peasants as part of the land, and giving the land to nobles. This layer of indirection had the useful side-effect of removing from the lord any responsibility for the slaves, since they weren't his direct property anymore.
Likewise, women's rights were late to the US, and while it may be true that they were started by xian women, I'm pretty sure the fact that they were women was more important to that than the fact that they were xian. If it had been started by xian men then I would grant you the argument.
Meanwhile, the church has until the end of the 20th century, been one of the few institutions with official restrictions against women. How do you parse that in this context?
Actually, not having read that book is probably the main reason why most christians still are christians.
I read a good part of it. Especially the parts with the long lists of people that you should kill. Or the parts where your peace-loving god tells his followers to slay all the other dudes from that other tribe and take both their land and their women.
Given your comment you certainly did read that book, so I don't need to go on with the vast remainder of the atrocities it contains.
So in summary: He's just another human with faults and shortcomings. Rather a lot of them if you ask me, but you can have a different opinion on that if you like. What he's not is a god-incarnation. Unless you want to say that your god chooses as his speaker on earth people who spent a few years of their live violating most of his commandments.
All religious people claim that their church has authority on morals. The theory of "realms" has long since been shown to be highly problematic. Most importantly, where does this authority come from? Why is morals "within the realm of the church"? Aside from "because the church says so", I've yet to see a good reason. Are you trying to say that anything connected to science is "untouchable" when it comes to morality? Perhaps you would have had a successful career in Nazi Germany, doing scientific studies on Jews The rest of the world is in agreement that the causal relation between Nazi ideology and abusing Jews for experiments is very much more likely the cause than any possible relation between scientific thinking and abusing Jews for experiments.
Or in a more metaphorical way: If I visit Rome and find the streets dirty, I'd rather blame the probable cause (the garbage collection sucks) than the circumstantial one (it's the city of the pope, so living near the pope apparently causes people to be dirty).
I don't understand why "life" is your problem at all. A virus is alive as well, as is virtually anything that you eat uncooked.
I figure what you really mean is the issue of the "soul", isn't it? Not that life beings at conception, but that a human being has a soul from the moment of conception. Is that what you're really trying to say?
On the other hand, religion offers a lot of excuses for burning, stoning or otherwise killing your fellow humans. And while a very few scientists might be interested in destroying the planet, what freaks me out a lot more is the thousands upon thousands of religious fuckups who are actually looking forward to and longing for Armageddon or whatever they call the destruction of the world. Given half a chance, I'm sure there are hundreds who would push the button to speed things up a little.
So yes, maybe science doesn't have those answers. But contrary to religion, it seldom provides a positive motivation for being evil and destructive. Even the examples you quote don't cut it. German scientists experimented on Jews because they had been influenced by a world-view that made Jews unworthy of living. Science in Nazi Germany was anything but "pure".
Finally, don't forget that it was science, not religion, that brought us the Enlightenment. If the church had had its way, we'd all still be living in the middle ages, and
There's this old guy elected by a bunch of other old guys. He gets a funny hat. And *boom*, suddenly he's an expert on any subject from biology to physics and his wisdom is lapped up by the media like it is mana falling from heaven.
When, in fact, his life experience is firing anti-aircraft guns at allied bombers, being a prisoner of war, studying theology and becoming a professor of theology at a catholic university.
Most excellent point.
I want an assurance from the pope that no matter what illness might befall him one day, he will not accept any treatment that is the result of "unethical" medicine, like stem-cell research, and many other branches.
After that, I might start to take him a little serious.
So in other words, what you are saying is that since you and your church are following the other route, that you need slavery since without slaves you can't be masters?
I think I prefer being my own master over being a slavemaster.
You really think this is not about money and power? You need to read Sir James Frazer. Show me someone who had as profoundly positive impact on the world as Blessed Mother Theresa Is that the best challenge you can offer? You can read all about the other side of that woman in Hitchins book about her. She's not half the saint the church and media has made her. Now before you ditch Hitchins, do remember that your beloved church did indeed invite him to play the devil's advocate role on the hearings about "mother Theresa". So if your church accepts him as an authority on the subject, reading your words above I'll assume that you will, too. So before you use that woman as an argument, why not confront yourself with the other side's POV on her?
And this applies to what percentage of
The pope can quack all he wants to, as far as I care. If only they'd stop giving him free TV time. If he wants advertisement for his cult, he should buy it like everyone else. By the way, he *is* an expert in ethics. From what I know about his biography, that isn't true. Philosophy isn't all ethics, and theology much less so (well, it claims dominion over ethics via faith, but that's an unsubstantiated claim).
I know it's shocking, so take a seat, but there actually are sciences that explore this most unknown of all territories - the human being. No! I don't mean biology you sex-starved freak!
But, of course, evidence and rational thought are not something that could ever shatter belief, because belief as a meme as long included this cute little self defense that says that it is always right, and any evidence to the contrary is either a test or a temptation.
The Borg, and any true collective, can only work if its members forget that it was compulsive. Otherwise you'd have constant rebellions. Making the slaves believe they are free men, and have chosen their destiny voluntarily, is the magic part right before "Profit!!!". but not one based on slavery (like the Borg) but one based on a personal choice. ...or at least the impression or memory of having made a personal choice.
The literature on how to manipulate people so that they make the choices you want them to make, while believing honestly that it was all their own choices, and they were in no way influenced, is vast.
If you do indeed study to become a priest, some of it will be included in your studies, because that's what priests sometimes do. Of course, by that time you will have long forgotten that this could possibly have happened - or still is happening - to you.
Given that the pope is not an expert on either biology nor ethics, how about he simply shuts up about stuff he doesn't know about?
(he studied theology, with a focus on Fundamentalist Theology, if you really want to know what his "ethics" are. His first stint as a professor (at a catholic "university") was in the subjects of Theology and Dogmatics.)
Seriously, what bullshit.
Look 25 years into the past. That means 1982. Then look at any "25 years from now" articles from 1982. What's your guess as to their accuracy?
Cell phones? In 1982, we had the "B-Net" here in Germany. It was analog, had about 20,000 users and 75 channels. The devices were huge, very few people carried them around.
Computers? The original IBM PC had just been released (August, 1981). In case you don't remember, it had a 4.77 MHz CPU and 16 or 64 KB of RAM (extendible to the legendary 640 KB). It also had no hard drive. It did come with floppy drives, though - 5 1/4".
Games? I'm too lazy to google up all the details, but Akalabeth, the predecessor of Ultima, was released in 1979.
Internet? Well, TCP/IP was developed in 1982. Two years later, the Internet had about 1000 hosts. Anyone claiming in 1982 that this fragile university-connection thing would have billions of users in 2008 would've been laughed at. BBS was what networking was about, and FidoNet (started in 1983) appeared as a more likely candidate for an international network for the masses into the 90s.
So in other words, any "what's the world going to be like in 25 years" is, to put it bluntly, bullshit pulled out of someone's ass. 25 years from now, we'll look at it and shake our hads in sad admiration of the guy who was daft enough to publish something so obviously wrong and nonsensical.
The question is what the goal of the exercise was.
Sometimes, these exercises are "free for all". There's a scoring system and you win if you get the highest score, good luck.
Sometimes, though, there are more refined goals. If the goal of the exercise is to evaluate different reactions to a given threat, for example, then taking away that threat by whatever creativity you bring isn't a "smart move", it's breaking the game because removing the threat wasn't the goal, and by doing so you make it impossible for the exercise to reach its goal.
That reminds me of the US general who played a wargame at the start of the Iraq war. He played the Iraqis, and through clever use of everything he had, including guerilla tactics, concentrating on fighting street battles, misdirection and other tactics, he actually managed to beat the invading US forces. That probably gave them a little shiver. They also fired him from the war games. At first I thought that was dumb. But later news reports were more detailed and revealed that he had not, in fact, been given the goal of trying to win or playing the Iraqi forces as best as he could, but to lead them through a scenario of pre-planned basic strategies. He didn't win the game, he ruined it, because the goal was to analyze specific scenarios, not to find out who would win a sandbox version of Iraq.
Ok, what is it? MS Week or something? I've not seen as many MS stories on /. since Vista was released^H^H^H^Hkicked out the door.
It is on purpose, because windows are these.
I don't like marketing people preying on our language.
And the reason is that there are so few of them. I know they exist, because I've met one. Probably two. But they are kind of an endangered species, and I'm not sure if there are any breeding pairs left.