"Ah, but academia is more subtle than that. First, there's the word "serious" you use. How does one determine if it's serious?"
How about: well-reasoned, repeatable, falsifiable/verifiable, ideally conforming to Occams Razor and/or internally-consistent?
"Tenure-track professors? Well, what if it's rather difficult to get a tenure-track job as a climatologist if you don't advocate the consensus view? One would need a rather good publication record as a grad student/postdoc to do that."
Well, several people have made their names by overturning well-established ideas or finding evidence in favour of alternative theories. Einstein, for one.
I think the key point is whether your obsrvations were well-made and your explanation (however tentative) sensible.
"What happens, then, if it's difficult to get a contrarian article into a peer-reviewed journal? That's often the case, as it happens. For someone with results that cut against the grain, it can take years to break through the peer review wall, assuming you're able to keep going that long."
Here we have a dilemma:
1. Peer-review exists to select what's "good science we should listen to" out from the seething mass of "cranks, fuckwits and people with an axe to grind or agenda to push".
2. Anyone who has their paper refused because it falls into the "bad science" bucket can either:
2a. Go home, painfully reassess their speculations and "evidence" and either re-write them more carefully or realise they are, in fact a crank or shill and just give up... or
2b. Continue to claim they're right, claim they're being secretly repressed by an elite clique of conspirators, scream to the high heavens about censorship, cliques, elitism and repression, making a martyr of themselves and gaining lots of publicity for them and their pet "theory".
Which do you think is more appealing to people generally? How about the kind of people who hold badly-reasoned pet theories and write crank papers, or who are being paid to shill junk science under the guise of "impartial" research?
So, we've got a moderation system designed to weed out cranks and fuckwits... and (shock horror!) some people are being weeded out by it.
Now, I know it's not a flawless process, and I know it's terribly trendy these days to be anti-intellectual and anti-expert, and to always believe other points of view have merit, and to instinctively knee-jerk-react on the side of the oppressed minorrity bravely struggling against the tyrannical majority, but did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe the peer-review process is actually doing exactly what it's supposed to do?
And that maybe the only differences from when people didn't used to shout so loudly are:
1. Self-publishing on the internet is a lot easier than getting a paper in a peer-revieweed journal, so you hear about it more.
2. People are more instinctively anti-expert these days, so credulous people will sit and listen to the modded-down party, rather than writing them off as a crank by virtue of the fact they didn't pass the peer-review stage.
3. Cranks and fuckwits believe just as much as everyone else that everyone's point of view has merit, and feel it particularly strongly because they're the ones being "censored" (at least, in their minds)?
4. Shills, fundamentalists and the rest now have a large and powerful support network to trot out purchased "studies" that "confirm" the agendas of their corporate backers, and to publicise bullshit like Intelligent Design irrespective of how obviously it is blatant unadulterated horseshit?
"This isn't unique to climatology - I've seen other situations in which a highly charged issue that has many believers on one side can squeeze out any last dissent. At best, the standard for publishing a contrarian view is much higher"
Yes. When you want to overturn the collected, combined understanding of the entire scientific establishment, you'd be
What makes you think a "criminal genius" president is remotely, or in any way a good idea?
What you're basically arguing for is for someone smarter than you. Fine - vote in someone smarter than you... although good luck with that, as whole swathes of America are traditionally frightened and sneery of "intellectuals".
What I don't understand is, given you (as a country) already refuse to vote in anyone "smart", why do you think voting in someone intelligent and evil is like a good idea?
"Smart" goes without saying. "Evil" is fucking stupid, especially if they're cleverer than you.
"Evil but dumb" gives you at least a chance of keeping them in check. "Evil and cleverer than you" virtually ensures they'd be able to do whatever they wanted.
Bush is still in power, but people are trying to claim his actions don't represent what "America" really wants.
There are three possibilities
1. Actually a majority of people agree with Bush. 2. Most people disagree, but nobody has any power to change Bush's actions. 3. Most people disagree, but nobody can be bothered to change Bush's actions.
If 1 is true, then "America" agrees with what Bush and the neocons have done. Any individual Americans who wish to defend "America" from bashing by foreigners can now shut up and sit down, because while they may personally disagree, their country as a whole supports him. In this case you personally are a lovely American, but America as a country is exactly what all the USA-bashers are accusing it of.
If 2 is true, you no longer have a functioning democracy. America the country is absolved from responsibility for Bush's actions, but also now has to shut up about "Freedom" and "Democracy" and how you're exporting them to the entire benighted, unenlightened world. If 2 is true, these claims just make you (the country) both expansionist and hypocritical.
If 3 is true then America isn't a violent bully as the USA-bashers claim. It is, instead, a pathetically lazy, disgustingly self-obsessed, naval-gazing apathetic. I don't care how much work it is - if someone was threatening to shoot someone in front of me, I would personally crawl across a mile of broken glass with my flies open to stop them. Really, voting or writing a few letters isn't that big a deal, especially when there are hundreds of thousands of people being shot because America couldn't be arsed to remove Bush sooner.
It sounds like you're arguing for a combination of 1 and 3 - it's hard to oppose Bush's foreign policy, and most Americans don't really care that much if a lot of little brown people are shot, as long as their representative ensures their lives are fractionally more comfortable.
I'm being deliberately harsh, but try to see it from the point of view of an Iraqi. America the country is either:
1. Violent, aggressive and expansionist, 2. A lying hypocritical police-state, claiming democracy while engaging in the same faults as the very states they claim to "liberate". 3. So self-absorbed they'll honestly take a fractionally more affluent comfortable life for themselves, even if it means the death of your entire family.
None of these are particularly positive statements about America. All of these statements lead you to the conclusion that America is somewhere to be afraid of, and something to fight against. Statements 1 and 3 in particular are the kind of thing that could easily make you angry enough about to strap explosives to yourself.
ObCaveat: Not, obviously that I agree with these statements, and terrorism that targets innocent civilians is always and without exception unwarranted.
However... you don't get to stand idly by while your leader acts the way Bush has, and then claim that you can't stop him but you still live in a functioning democracy.
Seriously - try to find an excuse for America's actions that you think would be persuasive to the average Iraqi man-in-the-street.
"1. Yes, it is natural. Humans are natural. Unless you are supposing some fundamentalist version of creationism or other ex-nhilo origin for our species, we're basically just smart monkeys. And our use of computers is no less natural than a monkey's use of a stick or a crow's use of a rock. There's no rational basis for calling the actions or creations of human beings un-natural without recourse to superstition."
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's a pet hate when people indulge in pseudo-drippy-new-age "everything should be natural man... and not, like, all the artificial, y'know... stuff that harshes up our natural buzz..." bullshit.
Unless you can draw a line around "natural" and "unnatural" and sharply distinguish the difference, shut the fuck up with your romantic, luddite, wanna-live-two-hundred-years-ago-and-most-probably -die-of-tuberculosis crap.
I had a taxi driver once who found out I worked in computing, and spent an entire 30-minute ride bending my ear about how he hated "artificial stuff" and "that technology" and "liked things to be natural". He shut up fast at the end of the journey when when I enquired if he still ate his meat raw and lived in a tree.
You have spent six years failing to "keep in check" a president with the brains of a concussed chicken.
You want to elect an evil genius, on the basis that while he might be evil, the genius part would be great if you can keep him in check?
Prove your democracy's "checks and balances" can handle something as dangerous as a baby's rattle without fucking up international politics, then maybe we'll look at getting you that really handy assault rifle, mmmkay?
"Smart is smart, regardless of the subject."
Yes, but you have to ensure the subject remains "how can I best promote freedom and benefit this country and the people in it", and stop it changing to "how can I get as rich as possible, while still forcing the little people to do my bidding".
Again, if you can't do this with an unintelligible mumbling fool, you really, really don't want to elect Dr Evil and trust him to act in the common good.
Actually, before 9/11 you were relatively highly thought-of.
Of course the middle east (Iran, Syria, etc) disliked you, but that's because you were a useful bogeyman the governments could use to keep their own people in check (kind of how your government now uses the threat of "Eeek - t3h TerR0r1st5!!!1!!1one!").
The rest of the world actually quite liked you. Sure, you bragged incessantly about how you were the shining example of successful democracy... but to be fair you were. Sure, people good-naturedly poked fun at you for your complete lack of international understanding, but it was always respectful, because you could pretty much squish anyone else like a bug.
Since you obviously haven't worked it out, there's a useful yardstick you can measure how much you're disliked - how many countries attack you, or how much terrorism you have to put up with.
Now, at the end of last century the UK had problems with Irish terrorists. That wasn't just words, that was hate - we were getting bombings, murders and abductions on a weekly basis at times, but we kept on going and eventually negotiated a peaceful solution.
America during this period had... no foreign terrorist incidents on its soil. You weren't hated - you were just envied a bit.
Thanks to your incessant interference in the Middle East, you finally managed to anger some violent people. They committed one (large, but one) terrorist act on your soil.
This was a horrific act, and garnered sympathy from around the world. For a few weeks, you were probably more popular than you've ever been.
Unfortunately, your new-found popularity (and your own national need to always "get one back") took over. Instead of beefing up security and putting political pressure on the countries harbouring the trerrorists, you went balls-out and invaded, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process. Your media, public statements from your leaders and treatment of captives (irrespective of whether they were guilty or merely taken by mistake) managed to hurt world opinion of you massively, but you didn't care - you just kept ploughing on ahead, intent not on justice, but revenge.
You then went on invade a second country, which provably had nothing to do with the paper-thin excuse you offered. During this process you lost the remains of the symptahy the world had for you, and forced them to confront the fact that you were out-of-control, simply rampaging around in a tantrum and poking in the eye anyone who looked at your funny.
When you'd got yourself bogged down trying to hold two countries already and then publically started eyeing up Syrian and Iran, we knew you were a nutter. Sympathy went out the window and your image changed from a wronged innocent to an emotionally-unstable gunman. People stopped telling each other how awful what had happened to you was, and instead started planning how to limit the damage you could cause.
Now, since that time you've calmed down and started coming to your senses again. You've kicked out one of the leaders who caused this mess, and have reigned in the power of the rest. You're still occupying two foreign countries, and are now morally obliged to withdraw your troops without letting the whole region descend into chaos and bloodshed. This won't be easy, but having caused the problem it's your moral obligation to at least help fix it. Importantly, by doing this you can also recoup some of that lost respect that the world had for you.
We know you've had a tough time of it, and can even understand you wanting to lash out blindly because of it. Nevertheless, now you've calmed down and can look at where it's got you, it's important that you realise adults don't do that. We don't throw tantrums, we don't strike out at anyone near us - we try to respond in proportion to what was done to us, and only to the people who did it. Good luck with rebuilding Iraq, your reputation and your own half-gutted democracy.
You were never hated. You were occasionally disliked and widely envied. You made yourselves hated.
Hah, give it time. Blair's doing everything he can to move to US-style "scripted propaganda" drama rather than face actual questions from actual constituents.
But for the time being, it's sure great to see him get asked tough questions and watch him squirming.
Like it or not, voting for him is by definition an approval of his leadership.
That approval might be motivated by fear, but it's still approval.
And to the poor middle-eastern farmer who's had half his family killed and his house bombed to shit by "collateral damage", I don't think he's going to have an easy time seeing the other guy's point of view.
Especially when the other guy's a rich, comfortable, affluent westerner who keeps voting back in the guy who started the war.
But I agree with everything you said about Bush - 9/11 was a neocon wet-dream. In fact, we were watching the whole thing unfold on TV, and when the second plane hit the twin towers my housemate and I turned to each other and said "Well, Bush is in for a second term, then".
I know America is made up of individuals, and I have to say almost all of the American individuals I've ever met are wonderful, charming people.
However, we're not talking about my opinion of individual Americans, but about world opinion of the general behaviour of the American people as a whole.
(Incidentally, I am aware I sometimes hammer the point home and sound like I'm anti-american, but I'm honestly not - I'm playing, at least partially, devils advocate.;-)
Like it or not though, your leaders are democratically elected - what they do, they do in your name.
If you disagree, that makes you a nice person. Your objection does not make your entire country a nice country.
If you were living in a dictatorship, you could reasonably claim the leader wasn't acting in the name of the American people. If the leader is elected, and can be "unelected" at any time, "the American people" are responsible for what he does.
The problem I have is that I'll say something like:
"Individual Americans" I've met are lovely, but "America the country" is an internationally-ignorant quick-to-anger bully.
People will then post "I'm an American but I don't believe in what's happening, so "America" isn't bad."
I'll then point out that they're an individual, who I've already pointed out is in all probability lovely, but that one nice person doesn't make their whole country nice.
They will then claim that their democratically-elected leader isn't acting in the way they would personally wish, with the clear implication that the majority of people also don't agree with the leader.
I point out if the majority really disagreed then the leader wouldn't have got re-elected, or would certainly have been removed by now.
They point out how hard it is to impeach someone (conveniently ignoring Clinton's near-impeachment for lying in public about a private, personal matter).
I point how, when someone's killing thousands of people in your name, "I can't be bothered to stop him" isn't a valid excuse. If the majority of the American people didn't want thousands of Iraqis killed but couldn't be arsed to register their dislike, that still makes the country "not nice".
At this point they either stop posting, take personal offence or accuse me of hating America.
Nobody's explained how a country can either approve of such actions or simply be too lazy to stop them, and still be "nice".
If I've forgotten it, you can bet your arse that a poor guy living in Buttfuck, Syria has either forgotten it or never knew.
You approve your system. Your system allows Bush to be elected. Implicitly, this means you approved of Bush. I know it's very simplified logic, but it's reasonable and it's what people take away from the situation.
When the system is demonstrated not to reflect public opinion, nothing changes. This would be the "apathy" that people get upset about.
But fair point on the "with us or against us rhetoric" - maybe I should amend that to "or risk being condemned to history as supporting him"?
"Except at election time, where the American people have spoken quite loudly about their opposition to the actions of the Republican party, how would you propose that the American people take action?"
Lobby for impeachment hearings. Buttonhole your representatives. Run for office. Write letters to newspapers. There are a million ways to agitate if you believe in it.
Well done, incidentally, for giving the administration a solid nut-kicking in the midterms - I didn't give enough credit for this in my previous post.
However, if you want to reach the guy in Buttfuck, Iran who still believes the USA kills Iranian babies for fun and is considering volunteering for suicide bombing duties, well, you might have to go a bit further than just giving Bush a wedgie in the middle of his second term of office...:-/
"Protests against the war have been happening for years, for example. Do those go ignored outside the US?"
From what I've seen of American media, they mostly go ignored inside the US, too.
For six years Bush has been able to do more or less what he wants, and that's pissed off a lot of people. A few token protests (maybe unfair, but...) don't do anything when he gets voted back in for a second term - that's what sticks in people's minds, and that's what you have to shift.
Voting the guy back in is an explicit approval of his policies - harrassing him and making him powerless while he's still in office is good, but isn't nearly as demonstrative as impeachment, a vote of no confidence or simply not voting him back in for a second term.
As it stands, Bush has won - he's had his maximum two terms in office, done exactly what he likes, and he's got away free - no jail-time, no impeachment, no embarrassment, no retraction.
"Taking away some of his power when he's heading towards the end of his presidency anyway" doesn't really stack up to that insult to the people he's affected.
Fair point - I wasn't aware even Jeb(?) had ditched GW.
It is, though, a little disingenuous to describe Blair's predicament as "some party dissent" - his own backbenchers (and even, unofficially, cabinet ministers) are openly trying to lever him out of Number 10 Downing St. His own second-in-command Gordon Brown is doing his absolute utmost to remove Blair from power short of coming out and flatly telling him to piss off.
In addition, I'd be happy if people wanted to impeach (or our equivalent) Blair for his part in the Iraq war, but given Bush lead the way and Blair was widely regarded as just doing whatever he was told, the public perception of the USA has taken much, much more of a battering than the UK has.
It's widely known that the ongoing post-9/11 fuckup in world diplomacy was mostly prompted by Bush - leaks and memos beyond count show Blair (rather pathetically) playing lap-dog and even trying to dissuade him form some of the more excessive or stupid moves. Not that this exhonerates Blair from his deserved share of nut-kicking, but it does mean the American people are going to have to go even further than the UK to convince the world their leader wasn't governing in their name.
"However, if you really want an idea of what Americans think of Bush Jr.'s presidency, you need look no further than the last election. Six months ago, only a handful of wishful thinkers thought that the Republicans might lose both the Senate and House."
Fair point... but it's too little, too late. When Bush is removed from power, or investigated and punished after leaving office, then the world will believe he wasn't acting in the names of most normal Americans.
Unfortunately, we all know he's going to sit out the rest of his term as a lame-duck president, nobody's going to impeach him and by the time he's out of power it'll all be "old news" that nobody wants to rake over again by investigating.
However, when someone has done quite as much as Bush and the Neocons have, supposedly in your names, mere apathetic inaction isn't enough. The American people have to either swiftly and pro-actively either make it clear that you disapprove of his actions, or be condemned to history as supporting him.
This is exactly why many people in the Middle East hate America so much - they either believe you[1] approve of everything your leaders do, or they realise you disagree but know you're too apathetic to actually oppose them.
I think I'd be pretty pissed off if my life was going to hell... and even though the American people disagreed they couldn't be bothered to oppose the guy doing it in their names.
[1] "You the people", or course, not you personally.
"OTOH, I don't see any evidence that the Dems have any clue as to what should be done instead.:("
That's the problem. The Neocons have romped across America (and the world) unopposed for six years, and the Democrats have been unable to do more than stand idly by, flapping their hands and going "Ooooh, deary me". Kind of links in with the whole "can't even be bothered to oppose him" part, above.
Actually, at least half must be mildly in favour, or he wouldn't have got voted in for a second term, or he'd already be facing an inquest and/or impeachment over the Iraq War.
In the UK, Blair is getting a gut-kicking in the media, and Gordon Brown and his own backbenchers (members of his own party who aren't cabinet ministers) are being embarrassingly blunt and public about their desire for him to fuck off as quickly as possible.
When the American people start seriously mooting the idea of impeaching Bush, or someone has the balls to stand up and call for a vote of no confidence in the entire administration, then we'll believe "America the country" doesn't agree with Bush.
Until that day it seems reasonable to conclude that some Americans don't personally like Bush, but America the country is still busy humping his leg.
So which part of "we may need to reexamine the right to freedom of speech" was taken out of context?
This isn't Al Gore "inventing the internet" (which was a blatant misquoted fabrication).
This is a powerful figure in the ruling party publically stating that he thinks we need to reconsider the founding principle of the US democratic republic... because it's convenient to a problem that his party and his colleagues have spent six years exacerbating in the first place.
Can you explain how this is ever, in any way, in any context a good idea?
1. Was the tactic exactly the same as that both used and publically espoused by the Nazis? Yes.
2. Was there a valid reason for either the Nazis to start their invasion(s) or for the USA to invade Iraq? No, which is why the subterfuge the parent is talking about was necessary in the first place.
3. Was the survival of Nazi Germany or the present USA directly threatened by the supposed "threat" each used as a pretext to go to war? No.
Since both the Nazi party and the present US administration has used:
1. the same tactics, 2. in a similar situation to start 3. a war against someone who posed to threat to them or others
Is there really a difference, morally, between the two actions?
Note: I'm not saying the US government is morally equivalent to the Nazi party. But when you consider the two actions, and their context, could you seriously manage to defend the US actions and condemn the Nazi ones? How, exactly?
Note: Please put down the "Rah-Rah! USA! USA!" cheerleading pom-poms before replying. Obviously we know what you believe, but can you explain a valid reason why you believe it?
Funny thing - I was going to post a correction to the GP saying:
"and stop being so paranoid"
Afraid people huddle in the corner, which doesn't really offend anyone.
Paranoid people huddle in the corner and occasionally lash out for no good reason. This makes people angry with them, which feeds the paranoia more, making them lash out ever more often and ever more blindly, all the while impenetrably convinced they're in the right, and convinced that anyone who disagrees with them is in it with their persecutors.
People who are afraid just need reassurance - people who are paranoid can be self-perpetuating complete fucking arseholes.
"Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism."
"said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use... free speech to recruit and get out their message."
"Gingrich sharply criticized campaign finance laws he charged were reducing free speech"
"He also said court rulings over separation of church and state have hurt citizens' ability to express themselves and their faith."
So Newt... free speech is an evil and disasterous thing that helps terrorists.. apart from when we're using it to bribe supposedly democratically-elected representatives or using religion to corrupt the institutions of an secular democracy into a theocratic police-state?
Nice doublethink. Did nobody listening to this crap have the urge to jump up and call him out? The cognitive dissonance must have been incredible - I'm amazed his head didn't burst.
Tell me, when a powerful political figure states in public that the government may have to "reexamine" the idea of freedom of speech, the very bedrock foundation of your entire democratic republic, does that not ring a single warning bell to you?
Exactly what, out of interest, would a ruling-party politician have to say that would make you uncomfortable?
Since it's clearly not "removal of freedom of speech", "not abiding by the Geneva convention", "warrantless domestic surveillance", "institutionalised torture" or "endemic financial corruption", what would he have to do to prompt concern? Get a blowjob from an intern? Burn the american flag? Let two gay people get married?
Or, y'know, they'll talk about it a lot, make a lot of noise, Microsoft will rush out half-a-dozen new "studies" that "prove" OSS is more expensive in the long run, Microsoft will offer them preferential licensing deals and the French government will change their mind at the last minute, just like every other widely-trumpeted high-profile government switch to Linux recently.
Seriously - is anyone else bored of these "OMFG, Government X is switching to Linux!!!1!!one!" stories, inevitably followed by "Government X backs down and licenses Windows/Office" headlines a month later?
To Whom It May Concern: Either announce a switch to Linux, go through with it and provide a flagship test-case for Linux in government, or STFU and stop wasting our time with vacuous attempts to scare better licensing terms out of Microsoft. It's getting boring.
So what's that actually got to do with the discussion?
The question at hand was "should we be teaching people more computer/structured thinking skills, making interfaces ever more idiot-proof or both"?
I'm saying "both". You're saying "only make interfaces easier". What does that have to do with not having to write Perl to watch a movie file? It's a non-sequiteur.
1. You can concentrate with loud music (it's got to be loud enough to block out surrounding sounds) in your ears. Personally I can't concentrate as well with any loud noise around me as well as in silence, so this doesn't really work for me.
2. Your workplace allows headphones. In the example I gave I actually asked if I could at least wear them to get some measure of insulation from the office noise, and was told "no". It was vitally important enough for my boss to be able to shout down the length of the room and get my attention that the simple act of getting up and tapping me on the shoulder or sending me an e-mail was deemed too much hassle, or somehow demeaning to him.
It literally was that kind of work environment - preserve your Boss's ability to interrupt you at a moments' notice without any effort at all, then complain because you spend your entire work day getting interrupted and aren't as productive as they'd like.
Incidentally, this was also the Boss we suspected of ADD (or something similar) - in two years of sharing an open-plan office with him, we literally never saw him concentrate on anything for longer than two minutes without getting up, wandering around the room, asking people what they were up to, humming and hawing then going back to his desk to scowl at a piece of paper for another two minutes before going to the loo, announcing a meeting or repeating the whole process.
It was amazing - I've never met anyone before who was literally incapable of concentrating for two minutes before drifting off and doing something else. And this guy was on probably three times the salary of the people underneath him.
Please bear in mind our "native language" was initially a niche tool used for the niche task of hooting at monkeys in the next tree.
What on earth makes you think that's better than a language designed from scratch to express complicated, structured, logical concepts?
And if you're so against teaching anyone a "specialist" interface, drop your homebrew NLP interface and develop a car which takes you wherever you want to go with a simple airy wave of your hand.
People aren't good at logic, task-decomposition or spotting edge-cases. Any attempt to enable people to design complex systems without first ensuring they actually have the mental tools to understand a complex system is doomed to failure, for exactly the same reason you can't stick a burrito or a raw frozen chicken in a microwave, command it "heat!" and expect them to both come out perfectly cooked.
Like it or not, some problems are irreducibly complex. This is why you'll never see a Duplo nuclear reactor, a lego particle accelerator or a serious operating system written entirely in VB6.
"It wasn't that hard to code and can only improve with time. My wife uses it quite a bit as do my kids. Much easier than teaching them Perl just to watch some Stargate."
Nice straw-man.
You don't have to write Perl to watch Stargate, and nobody advocated that, so your "point" is moot.
You still haven't opffered a compelling argument as to why people shouldn't be taught basic computer skills and structured thinking in addition to us developing easier user-interfaces.
Slashdot Mirror
"Ah, but academia is more subtle than that. First, there's the word "serious" you use. How does one determine if it's serious?"
How about: well-reasoned, repeatable, falsifiable/verifiable, ideally conforming to Occams Razor and/or internally-consistent?
"Tenure-track professors? Well, what if it's rather difficult to get a tenure-track job as a climatologist if you don't advocate the consensus view? One would need a rather good publication record as a grad student/postdoc to do that."
Well, several people have made their names by overturning well-established ideas or finding evidence in favour of alternative theories. Einstein, for one.
I think the key point is whether your obsrvations were well-made and your explanation (however tentative) sensible.
"What happens, then, if it's difficult to get a contrarian article into a peer-reviewed journal? That's often the case, as it happens. For someone with results that cut against the grain, it can take years to break through the peer review wall, assuming you're able to keep going that long."
Here we have a dilemma:
1. Peer-review exists to select what's "good science we should listen to" out from the seething mass of "cranks, fuckwits and people with an axe to grind or agenda to push".
2. Anyone who has their paper refused because it falls into the "bad science" bucket can either:
2a. Go home, painfully reassess their speculations and "evidence" and either re-write them more carefully or realise they are, in fact a crank or shill and just give up... or
2b. Continue to claim they're right, claim they're being secretly repressed by an elite clique of conspirators, scream to the high heavens about censorship, cliques, elitism and repression, making a martyr of themselves and gaining lots of publicity for them and their pet "theory".
Which do you think is more appealing to people generally? How about the kind of people who hold badly-reasoned pet theories and write crank papers, or who are being paid to shill junk science under the guise of "impartial" research?
So, we've got a moderation system designed to weed out cranks and fuckwits... and (shock horror!) some people are being weeded out by it.
Now, I know it's not a flawless process, and I know it's terribly trendy these days to be anti-intellectual and anti-expert, and to always believe other points of view have merit, and to instinctively knee-jerk-react on the side of the oppressed minorrity bravely struggling against the tyrannical majority, but did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe the peer-review process is actually doing exactly what it's supposed to do?
And that maybe the only differences from when people didn't used to shout so loudly are:
1. Self-publishing on the internet is a lot easier than getting a paper in a peer-revieweed journal, so you hear about it more.
2. People are more instinctively anti-expert these days, so credulous people will sit and listen to the modded-down party, rather than writing them off as a crank by virtue of the fact they didn't pass the peer-review stage.
3. Cranks and fuckwits believe just as much as everyone else that everyone's point of view has merit, and feel it particularly strongly because they're the ones being "censored" (at least, in their minds)?
4. Shills, fundamentalists and the rest now have a large and powerful support network to trot out purchased "studies" that "confirm" the agendas of their corporate backers, and to publicise bullshit like Intelligent Design irrespective of how obviously it is blatant unadulterated horseshit?
"This isn't unique to climatology - I've seen other situations in which a highly charged issue that has many believers on one side can squeeze out any last dissent. At best, the standard for publishing a contrarian view is much higher"
Yes. When you want to overturn the collected, combined understanding of the entire scientific establishment, you'd be
My point remains:
What makes you think a "criminal genius" president is remotely, or in any way a good idea?
What you're basically arguing for is for someone smarter than you. Fine - vote in someone smarter than you... although good luck with that, as whole swathes of America are traditionally frightened and sneery of "intellectuals".
What I don't understand is, given you (as a country) already refuse to vote in anyone "smart", why do you think voting in someone intelligent and evil is like a good idea?
"Smart" goes without saying. "Evil" is fucking stupid, especially if they're cleverer than you.
"Evil but dumb" gives you at least a chance of keeping them in check. "Evil and cleverer than you" virtually ensures they'd be able to do whatever they wanted.
Bush is still in power, but people are trying to claim his actions don't represent what "America" really wants.
There are three possibilities
1. Actually a majority of people agree with Bush.
2. Most people disagree, but nobody has any power to change Bush's actions.
3. Most people disagree, but nobody can be bothered to change Bush's actions.
If 1 is true, then "America" agrees with what Bush and the neocons have done. Any individual Americans who wish to defend "America" from bashing by foreigners can now shut up and sit down, because while they may personally disagree, their country as a whole supports him. In this case you personally are a lovely American, but America as a country is exactly what all the USA-bashers are accusing it of.
If 2 is true, you no longer have a functioning democracy. America the country is absolved from responsibility for Bush's actions, but also now has to shut up about "Freedom" and "Democracy" and how you're exporting them to the entire benighted, unenlightened world. If 2 is true, these claims just make you (the country) both expansionist and hypocritical.
If 3 is true then America isn't a violent bully as the USA-bashers claim. It is, instead, a pathetically lazy, disgustingly self-obsessed, naval-gazing apathetic. I don't care how much work it is - if someone was threatening to shoot someone in front of me, I would personally crawl across a mile of broken glass with my flies open to stop them. Really, voting or writing a few letters isn't that big a deal, especially when there are hundreds of thousands of people being shot because America couldn't be arsed to remove Bush sooner.
It sounds like you're arguing for a combination of 1 and 3 - it's hard to oppose Bush's foreign policy, and most Americans don't really care that much if a lot of little brown people are shot, as long as their representative ensures their lives are fractionally more comfortable.
I'm being deliberately harsh, but try to see it from the point of view of an Iraqi. America the country is either:
1. Violent, aggressive and expansionist,
2. A lying hypocritical police-state, claiming democracy while engaging in the same faults as the very states they claim to "liberate".
3. So self-absorbed they'll honestly take a fractionally more affluent comfortable life for themselves, even if it means the death of your entire family.
None of these are particularly positive statements about America. All of these statements lead you to the conclusion that America is somewhere to be afraid of, and something to fight against. Statements 1 and 3 in particular are the kind of thing that could easily make you angry enough about to strap explosives to yourself.
ObCaveat: Not, obviously that I agree with these statements, and terrorism that targets innocent civilians is always and without exception unwarranted.
However... you don't get to stand idly by while your leader acts the way Bush has, and then claim that you can't stop him but you still live in a functioning democracy.
Seriously - try to find an excuse for America's actions that you think would be persuasive to the average Iraqi man-in-the-street.
You won't be able to.
What does that tell you?
"1. Yes, it is natural. Humans are natural. Unless you are supposing some fundamentalist version of creationism or other ex-nhilo origin for our species, we're basically just smart monkeys. And our use of computers is no less natural than a monkey's use of a stick or a crow's use of a rock. There's no rational basis for calling the actions or creations of human beings un-natural without recourse to superstition."
y -die-of-tuberculosis crap.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's a pet hate when people indulge in pseudo-drippy-new-age "everything should be natural man... and not, like, all the artificial, y'know... stuff that harshes up our natural buzz..." bullshit.
Unless you can draw a line around "natural" and "unnatural" and sharply distinguish the difference, shut the fuck up with your romantic, luddite, wanna-live-two-hundred-years-ago-and-most-probabl
I had a taxi driver once who found out I worked in computing, and spent an entire 30-minute ride bending my ear about how he hated "artificial stuff" and "that technology" and "liked things to be natural". He shut up fast at the end of the journey when when I enquired if he still ate his meat raw and lived in a tree.
You have spent six years failing to "keep in check" a president with the brains of a concussed chicken.
You want to elect an evil genius, on the basis that while he might be evil, the genius part would be great if you can keep him in check?
Prove your democracy's "checks and balances" can handle something as dangerous as a baby's rattle without fucking up international politics, then maybe we'll look at getting you that really handy assault rifle, mmmkay?
"Smart is smart, regardless of the subject."
Yes, but you have to ensure the subject remains "how can I best promote freedom and benefit this country and the people in it", and stop it changing to "how can I get as rich as possible, while still forcing the little people to do my bidding".
Again, if you can't do this with an unintelligible mumbling fool, you really, really don't want to elect Dr Evil and trust him to act in the common good.
Dear America,
Actually, before 9/11 you were relatively highly thought-of.
Of course the middle east (Iran, Syria, etc) disliked you, but that's because you were a useful bogeyman the governments could use to keep their own people in check (kind of how your government now uses the threat of "Eeek - t3h TerR0r1st5!!!1!!1one!").
The rest of the world actually quite liked you. Sure, you bragged incessantly about how you were the shining example of successful democracy... but to be fair you were. Sure, people good-naturedly poked fun at you for your complete lack of international understanding, but it was always respectful, because you could pretty much squish anyone else like a bug.
Since you obviously haven't worked it out, there's a useful yardstick you can measure how much you're disliked - how many countries attack you, or how much terrorism you have to put up with.
Now, at the end of last century the UK had problems with Irish terrorists. That wasn't just words, that was hate - we were getting bombings, murders and abductions on a weekly basis at times, but we kept on going and eventually negotiated a peaceful solution.
America during this period had... no foreign terrorist incidents on its soil. You weren't hated - you were just envied a bit.
Thanks to your incessant interference in the Middle East, you finally managed to anger some violent people. They committed one (large, but one) terrorist act on your soil.
This was a horrific act, and garnered sympathy from around the world. For a few weeks, you were probably more popular than you've ever been.
Unfortunately, your new-found popularity (and your own national need to always "get one back") took over. Instead of beefing up security and putting political pressure on the countries harbouring the trerrorists, you went balls-out and invaded, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process. Your media, public statements from your leaders and treatment of captives (irrespective of whether they were guilty or merely taken by mistake) managed to hurt world opinion of you massively, but you didn't care - you just kept ploughing on ahead, intent not on justice, but revenge.
You then went on invade a second country, which provably had nothing to do with the paper-thin excuse you offered. During this process you lost the remains of the symptahy the world had for you, and forced them to confront the fact that you were out-of-control, simply rampaging around in a tantrum and poking in the eye anyone who looked at your funny.
When you'd got yourself bogged down trying to hold two countries already and then publically started eyeing up Syrian and Iran, we knew you were a nutter. Sympathy went out the window and your image changed from a wronged innocent to an emotionally-unstable gunman. People stopped telling each other how awful what had happened to you was, and instead started planning how to limit the damage you could cause.
Now, since that time you've calmed down and started coming to your senses again. You've kicked out one of the leaders who caused this mess, and have reigned in the power of the rest. You're still occupying two foreign countries, and are now morally obliged to withdraw your troops without letting the whole region descend into chaos and bloodshed. This won't be easy, but having caused the problem it's your moral obligation to at least help fix it. Importantly, by doing this you can also recoup some of that lost respect that the world had for you.
We know you've had a tough time of it, and can even understand you wanting to lash out blindly because of it. Nevertheless, now you've calmed down and can look at where it's got you, it's important that you realise adults don't do that. We don't throw tantrums, we don't strike out at anyone near us - we try to respond in proportion to what was done to us, and only to the people who did it. Good luck with rebuilding Iraq, your reputation and your own half-gutted democracy.
You were never hated. You were occasionally disliked and widely envied. You made yourselves hated.
Now it's time to make make it up.
Hah, give it time. Blair's doing everything he can to move to US-style "scripted propaganda" drama rather than face actual questions from actual constituents.
But for the time being, it's sure great to see him get asked tough questions and watch him squirming.
Like it or not, voting for him is by definition an approval of his leadership.
That approval might be motivated by fear, but it's still approval.
And to the poor middle-eastern farmer who's had half his family killed and his house bombed to shit by "collateral damage", I don't think he's going to have an easy time seeing the other guy's point of view.
Especially when the other guy's a rich, comfortable, affluent westerner who keeps voting back in the guy who started the war.
But I agree with everything you said about Bush - 9/11 was a neocon wet-dream. In fact, we were watching the whole thing unfold on TV, and when the second plane hit the twin towers my housemate and I turned to each other and said "Well, Bush is in for a second term, then".
I know America is made up of individuals, and I have to say almost all of the American individuals I've ever met are wonderful, charming people.
;-)
However, we're not talking about my opinion of individual Americans, but about world opinion of the general behaviour of the American people as a whole.
(Incidentally, I am aware I sometimes hammer the point home and sound like I'm anti-american, but I'm honestly not - I'm playing, at least partially, devils advocate.
Like it or not though, your leaders are democratically elected - what they do, they do in your name.
If you disagree, that makes you a nice person. Your objection does not make your entire country a nice country.
If you were living in a dictatorship, you could reasonably claim the leader wasn't acting in the name of the American people. If the leader is elected, and can be "unelected" at any time, "the American people" are responsible for what he does.
The problem I have is that I'll say something like:
"Individual Americans" I've met are lovely, but "America the country" is an internationally-ignorant quick-to-anger bully.
People will then post "I'm an American but I don't believe in what's happening, so "America" isn't bad."
I'll then point out that they're an individual, who I've already pointed out is in all probability lovely, but that one nice person doesn't make their whole country nice.
They will then claim that their democratically-elected leader isn't acting in the way they would personally wish, with the clear implication that the majority of people also don't agree with the leader.
I point out if the majority really disagreed then the leader wouldn't have got re-elected, or would certainly have been removed by now.
They point out how hard it is to impeach someone (conveniently ignoring Clinton's near-impeachment for lying in public about a private, personal matter).
I point how, when someone's killing thousands of people in your name, "I can't be bothered to stop him" isn't a valid excuse. If the majority of the American people didn't want thousands of Iraqis killed but couldn't be arsed to register their dislike, that still makes the country "not nice".
At this point they either stop posting, take personal offence or accuse me of hating America.
Nobody's explained how a country can either approve of such actions or simply be too lazy to stop them, and still be "nice".
I had forgotten that fact when I posted.
If I've forgotten it, you can bet your arse that a poor guy living in Buttfuck, Syria has either forgotten it or never knew.
You approve your system. Your system allows Bush to be elected. Implicitly, this means you approved of Bush. I know it's very simplified logic, but it's reasonable and it's what people take away from the situation.
When the system is demonstrated not to reflect public opinion, nothing changes. This would be the "apathy" that people get upset about.
But fair point on the "with us or against us rhetoric" - maybe I should amend that to "or risk being condemned to history as supporting him"?
"Except at election time, where the American people have spoken quite loudly about their opposition to the actions of the Republican party, how would you propose that the American people take action?"
:-/
Lobby for impeachment hearings. Buttonhole your representatives. Run for office. Write letters to newspapers. There are a million ways to agitate if you believe in it.
Well done, incidentally, for giving the administration a solid nut-kicking in the midterms - I didn't give enough credit for this in my previous post.
However, if you want to reach the guy in Buttfuck, Iran who still believes the USA kills Iranian babies for fun and is considering volunteering for suicide bombing duties, well, you might have to go a bit further than just giving Bush a wedgie in the middle of his second term of office...
"Protests against the war have been happening for years, for example. Do those go ignored outside the US?"
From what I've seen of American media, they mostly go ignored inside the US, too.
For six years Bush has been able to do more or less what he wants, and that's pissed off a lot of people. A few token protests (maybe unfair, but...) don't do anything when he gets voted back in for a second term - that's what sticks in people's minds, and that's what you have to shift.
Voting the guy back in is an explicit approval of his policies - harrassing him and making him powerless while he's still in office is good, but isn't nearly as demonstrative as impeachment, a vote of no confidence or simply not voting him back in for a second term.
As it stands, Bush has won - he's had his maximum two terms in office, done exactly what he likes, and he's got away free - no jail-time, no impeachment, no embarrassment, no retraction.
"Taking away some of his power when he's heading towards the end of his presidency anyway" doesn't really stack up to that insult to the people he's affected.
Fair point - I wasn't aware even Jeb(?) had ditched GW.
It is, though, a little disingenuous to describe Blair's predicament as "some party dissent" - his own backbenchers (and even, unofficially, cabinet ministers) are openly trying to lever him out of Number 10 Downing St. His own second-in-command Gordon Brown is doing his absolute utmost to remove Blair from power short of coming out and flatly telling him to piss off.
In addition, I'd be happy if people wanted to impeach (or our equivalent) Blair for his part in the Iraq war, but given Bush lead the way and Blair was widely regarded as just doing whatever he was told, the public perception of the USA has taken much, much more of a battering than the UK has.
It's widely known that the ongoing post-9/11 fuckup in world diplomacy was mostly prompted by Bush - leaks and memos beyond count show Blair (rather pathetically) playing lap-dog and even trying to dissuade him form some of the more excessive or stupid moves. Not that this exhonerates Blair from his deserved share of nut-kicking, but it does mean the American people are going to have to go even further than the UK to convince the world their leader wasn't governing in their name.
"However, if you really want an idea of what Americans think of Bush Jr.'s presidency, you need look no further than the last election. Six months ago, only a handful of wishful thinkers thought that the Republicans might lose both the Senate and House."
:("
Fair point... but it's too little, too late. When Bush is removed from power, or investigated and punished after leaving office, then the world will believe he wasn't acting in the names of most normal Americans.
Unfortunately, we all know he's going to sit out the rest of his term as a lame-duck president, nobody's going to impeach him and by the time he's out of power it'll all be "old news" that nobody wants to rake over again by investigating.
However, when someone has done quite as much as Bush and the Neocons have, supposedly in your names, mere apathetic inaction isn't enough. The American people have to either swiftly and pro-actively either make it clear that you disapprove of his actions, or be condemned to history as supporting him.
This is exactly why many people in the Middle East hate America so much - they either believe you[1] approve of everything your leaders do, or they realise you disagree but know you're too apathetic to actually oppose them.
I think I'd be pretty pissed off if my life was going to hell... and even though the American people disagreed they couldn't be bothered to oppose the guy doing it in their names.
[1] "You the people", or course, not you personally.
"OTOH, I don't see any evidence that the Dems have any clue as to what should be done instead.
That's the problem. The Neocons have romped across America (and the world) unopposed for six years, and the Democrats have been unable to do more than stand idly by, flapping their hands and going "Ooooh, deary me". Kind of links in with the whole "can't even be bothered to oppose him" part, above.
Actually, at least half must be mildly in favour, or he wouldn't have got voted in for a second term, or he'd already be facing an inquest and/or impeachment over the Iraq War.
In the UK, Blair is getting a gut-kicking in the media, and Gordon Brown and his own backbenchers (members of his own party who aren't cabinet ministers) are being embarrassingly blunt and public about their desire for him to fuck off as quickly as possible.
When the American people start seriously mooting the idea of impeaching Bush, or someone has the balls to stand up and call for a vote of no confidence in the entire administration, then we'll believe "America the country" doesn't agree with Bush.
Until that day it seems reasonable to conclude that some Americans don't personally like Bush, but America the country is still busy humping his leg.
So which part of "we may need to reexamine the right to freedom of speech" was taken out of context?
This isn't Al Gore "inventing the internet" (which was a blatant misquoted fabrication).
This is a powerful figure in the ruling party publically stating that he thinks we need to reconsider the founding principle of the US democratic republic... because it's convenient to a problem that his party and his colleagues have spent six years exacerbating in the first place.
Can you explain how this is ever, in any way, in any context a good idea?
1. Was the tactic exactly the same as that both used and publically espoused by the Nazis? Yes.
2. Was there a valid reason for either the Nazis to start their invasion(s) or for the USA to invade Iraq? No, which is why the subterfuge the parent is talking about was necessary in the first place.
3. Was the survival of Nazi Germany or the present USA directly threatened by the supposed "threat" each used as a pretext to go to war? No.
Since both the Nazi party and the present US administration has used:
1. the same tactics,
2. in a similar situation to start
3. a war against someone who posed to threat to them or others
Is there really a difference, morally, between the two actions?
Note: I'm not saying the US government is morally equivalent to the Nazi party. But when you consider the two actions, and their context, could you seriously manage to defend the US actions and condemn the Nazi ones? How, exactly?
Note: Please put down the "Rah-Rah! USA! USA!" cheerleading pom-poms before replying. Obviously we know what you believe, but can you explain a valid reason why you believe it?
But you kind of proved my point.
So Newt... free speech is an evil and disasterous thing that helps terrorists.. apart from when we're using it to bribe supposedly democratically-elected representatives or using religion to corrupt the institutions of an secular democracy into a theocratic police-state?
Nice doublethink. Did nobody listening to this crap have the urge to jump up and call him out? The cognitive dissonance must have been incredible - I'm amazed his head didn't burst.
Tell me, when a powerful political figure states in public that the government may have to "reexamine" the idea of freedom of speech, the very bedrock foundation of your entire democratic republic, does that not ring a single warning bell to you?
Exactly what, out of interest, would a ruling-party politician have to say that would make you uncomfortable?
Since it's clearly not "removal of freedom of speech", "not abiding by the Geneva convention", "warrantless domestic surveillance", "institutionalised torture" or "endemic financial corruption", what would he have to do to prompt concern? Get a blowjob from an intern? Burn the american flag? Let two gay people get married?
Or, y'know, they'll talk about it a lot, make a lot of noise, Microsoft will rush out half-a-dozen new "studies" that "prove" OSS is more expensive in the long run, Microsoft will offer them preferential licensing deals and the French government will change their mind at the last minute, just like every other widely-trumpeted high-profile government switch to Linux recently.
Seriously - is anyone else bored of these "OMFG, Government X is switching to Linux!!!1!!one!" stories, inevitably followed by "Government X backs down and licenses Windows/Office" headlines a month later?
To Whom It May Concern: Either announce a switch to Linux, go through with it and provide a flagship test-case for Linux in government, or STFU and stop wasting our time with vacuous attempts to scare better licensing terms out of Microsoft. It's getting boring.
So what's that actually got to do with the discussion?
The question at hand was "should we be teaching people more computer/structured thinking skills, making interfaces ever more idiot-proof or both"?
I'm saying "both". You're saying "only make interfaces easier". What does that have to do with not having to write Perl to watch a movie file? It's a non-sequiteur.
That's a great solution, assuming:
1. You can concentrate with loud music (it's got to be loud enough to block out surrounding sounds) in your ears. Personally I can't concentrate as well with any loud noise around me as well as in silence, so this doesn't really work for me.
2. Your workplace allows headphones. In the example I gave I actually asked if I could at least wear them to get some measure of insulation from the office noise, and was told "no". It was vitally important enough for my boss to be able to shout down the length of the room and get my attention that the simple act of getting up and tapping me on the shoulder or sending me an e-mail was deemed too much hassle, or somehow demeaning to him.
It literally was that kind of work environment - preserve your Boss's ability to interrupt you at a moments' notice without any effort at all, then complain because you spend your entire work day getting interrupted and aren't as productive as they'd like.
Incidentally, this was also the Boss we suspected of ADD (or something similar) - in two years of sharing an open-plan office with him, we literally never saw him concentrate on anything for longer than two minutes without getting up, wandering around the room, asking people what they were up to, humming and hawing then going back to his desk to scowl at a piece of paper for another two minutes before going to the loo, announcing a meeting or repeating the whole process.
It was amazing - I've never met anyone before who was literally incapable of concentrating for two minutes before drifting off and doing something else. And this guy was on probably three times the salary of the people underneath him.
I was posting in reply to an earlier post that obviously got modded down below your personal visibility threshold.
Read the post I was actually replying to, and see if you still think the guy was joking and I was just randomly being a twat.
Slashdot really needs to sort out this particular misfeature.
Please bear in mind our "native language" was initially a niche tool used for the niche task of hooting at monkeys in the next tree.
What on earth makes you think that's better than a language designed from scratch to express complicated, structured, logical concepts?
And if you're so against teaching anyone a "specialist" interface, drop your homebrew NLP interface and develop a car which takes you wherever you want to go with a simple airy wave of your hand.
People aren't good at logic, task-decomposition or spotting edge-cases. Any attempt to enable people to design complex systems without first ensuring they actually have the mental tools to understand a complex system is doomed to failure, for exactly the same reason you can't stick a burrito or a raw frozen chicken in a microwave, command it "heat!" and expect them to both come out perfectly cooked.
Like it or not, some problems are irreducibly complex. This is why you'll never see a Duplo nuclear reactor, a lego particle accelerator or a serious operating system written entirely in VB6.
"It wasn't that hard to code and can only improve with time. My wife uses it quite a bit as do my kids. Much easier than teaching them Perl just to watch some Stargate."
Nice straw-man.
You don't have to write Perl to watch Stargate, and nobody advocated that, so your "point" is moot.
You still haven't opffered a compelling argument as to why people shouldn't be taught basic computer skills and structured thinking in addition to us developing easier user-interfaces.