Its no mystery how they got the power to push this initiative. Education tends to be handled at the state or local levels, where a smaller group of people can have more influence. To date, their efforts to push this to the federal level have failed miserably.
Intelligent Design is not a theory in the scientific meaning of the word. A scientific theory is the best explanation that fits the evidence available, and is falsifiable. What that means is that if new evidence comes to light that disproves it, then the scientific theory can be replaced with a new theory, or modified to fit the new evidence.
Intelligent Design does not meet the requirements of a scientific theory, because it is not falsifiable. Please stop claiming that evolution is a theory using the layman's definition of the term. Also, please do not claim that intelligent design is a theory unless you have a falsifiable model which fits all the evidence in place.
It looked to me as if careysub was using the dual tools of strawmen and sarcasm to imply that terraforming would result in a bunch of corporations destroying the vibrant ecosystem on the barren planet of Mars, that environmentalists would no doubt wish to protect. I can't tell if you thought that I was responding to your post directly, or that you are reading some subtext in careysub's post that I missed.
Either way, I see careysub's sentiment reproduced ad naseum all over this thread, so I tend to take it seriously.
They pretty much already have. Its been struck down by the courts, and the high profile case in Kansas resulted in the education board being replaced. Reports overseas about our creationism problem have been greatly overstated. I still hear people over on the other side of the pond claiming that ID is taught in most US schools.
Nice strawman there. It would be nice if the corporations were mentioned in the first place. But then again, you seem to be positioning this as a "corporations are huge and greedy, and environmentalists are the champions of justice fighting them," thing, which suggests to me that you have an incredibly simple world-view, which views everything as a battle against good and evil. Life isn't a Saturday morning cartoon.
You do realize that environmentalists are partly to blame for our situation with global warming, right? They suppressed nuclear power, which is the cleanest, safest viable form of energy available to us today.
Oh and in case you missed out on whats been going on in science lately, we are surveying Mars. We have probes up there right now. Turns out there isn't much in the way of a biosphere. So about the worst that we can do is make an uninhabitable planet a bit more uninhabitable.
Since when did Slashdot turn into a luddite, hand-wringing doomsday crowd? Seems like a lot of peoples' understanding of the world is at the level of a 10 year old.
Last I checked, we had a couple probes up on Mars, and we're likely to send more up. We are surveying, and any terraforming project would be preceded by even more surveying.
What we're finding is that the planet is pretty much barren. Which means its perfect for us to futz around with. If we can make Mars work, then we can apply that learning directly to our situation on Earth.
There's never going to be a time where everything on Earth is perfect, so waiting for that means that we're never going to get anywhere. We should exercise due diligence, but we can't be so afraid of failure that we sit around wringing our hands.
So instead of using a barren, lifeless planet as a test bed for effecting large-scale environmental control, we should... use our own planet. Great idea.
I'm not sure why there's all this negativity around terraforming Mars. What is there to lose? Its not like there's little green men running around on the surface. You're protecting a hunk of rock. And the possible benefits, learning to control climate and live with a reduced environmental impact, can be applied here on earth. Its a win-win.
I guess Slashdotters buy into the Homer Simpson mentality. "Lisa, you tried and you failed. The lesson is: never try."
Everyone has a biased view, and if they're spreading FUD then that can be countered by facts. The claims of astroturfing are, by large, used to avoid responding to peoples' arguments. About half the time someone is accused of astroturfing, I find that they actually have good arguments, and the accuser can't seem to frame a halfway decent argument.
I'll also add to this point of view. I'm assuming that the OSD is generally accepted to be the official definition.
If you mark your software as Open Source, then that implies additional responsibilities on parties that wish to use modified versions of your software. The end result is that these parties may not opt to use, or pay for, your software, because you inappropriately marked your software. So its basically bad from both sides of the isle: people may turn it down because you're marketing it as open and they don't want open, or people may turn it down because you're marketing it as open and that pisses them off.
I don't like to use the term FUD, but it definitely exemplifies the U term in FUD.
Its in everyone's (well, almost everyone's) best interest to label your software appropriately to avoid confusion. The only question is whether or not the OSD is, or should be, the standard definition.
Personally, I think it should be, because they've made a compelling argument for their point. I don't think it is, yet.
I should also note that I believe that the OSI definition of Open Source is a good one, and I'd like to see it become the de-dacto official definition, a la Free Software. I also think there is more support in the community for an OSI Open Source definition than the slashdot discussion lets on.
Sorry, I didn't mean to claim that you were accusing anyone in particular. It simply concerns me that I hear the terms "shill" and "astroturfer" thrown around so easily recently. I personally believe that its harmful to discussion (Ad hominem and all).
That being said, I had no idea that the whole astroturfing industry was so large. I knew it existed, but I guess I didn't really comprehend its scope.
The argument is that he doesn't believe that OSI has the authority to define Open Source, and thus he doesn't view your definition as the official definition. In the absence of a trademark, the official definition probably defaults to whatever the community at large believes open source to be.
I remember Linus catching flak for trademarking Linux, but it looks like he's vindicated now.
Hey Mr. Perens, I don't mean to pick on you but I've seen lots of claims of astroturfing on Slashdot recently, and I'd like to say that, just because someone's views and opinions differ from your own doesn't make it astroturfing. Sometimes people just believe certain things:
Astroturfing is a term for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to AstroTurf (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate fake grassroots support.
Its been insinuated that I was an astroturfer when I just held a certain point of view. I bring this up because accusing people of astroturfing is counter-productive. I am willing to, and have, change my opinions in the face of a good argument, but being accused of being an astroturfer makes me far less likely to listen to your point of view.
As someone else pointed out, its less moving to another fight and more addressing the root causes that made his first fight necessary. There's a reason that copyright has grown to such dramatic length and scope.
I'll expand upon that and say that we should want companies that improve the world to make profit. Profit should be a way of rewarding people and companies that make our lives better. If they're rewarded for bettering the world, then they'll be more inclined to keep doing so. I agree with you: a company getting profit for doing good things is a best-case scenario.
I wouldn't say I hate her, but I don't feel like she'd be a good president. She voted for the war, and I don't think she's ever admitted that its a mistake. She supported censorship of games and music, in a true "think of the children" move. I don't know about you, but whenever a politician busts out a "think of the children" line, my trust in them plummets. It's highly suggestive to me that they're manipulative. And thats even ignoring the idea of playing fast and loose with the concept of free speech.
Additionally, I feel that she follows the polls a little too closely. Don't get me wrong, a politician being able to change their opinions and stances when they are wrong is a great thing, but what is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.
Other than that, I don't know enough about her policies to say that I "hate" her. I'd be very interested in hearing what you feel are her strong points, or good policies. I'd also be happy to hear your arguments if you feel that any of my positions are undeserved. As it stands right now, we have some other candidates who, I feel, could do the job a lot better.
As for why most people hate her, I don't know. Maybe its the powerful woman thing. A lot of people I know feel that she's manipulative. My father hates her because he claims she has a deep disrespect for the military.
The fact that the states lost, nor that the states were using "states rights" as a euphemism for expanding the influence of slavery, doesn't mean the idea is dead or bad.
I can't tell how you feel about the issue just by your post. Personally, I feel that the idea of keeping as much power as feasible at the state and local levels is a good idea. It gives people more power to influence the policies that affect them. Its easier to change that policy when you're voting against 1 million or 30 million, instead of 300 million.
A local government can *ask* the federal government for anything they like.
And? The assumption was that they should pay. Thats not how our government is supposed to work. The local government needs to take care of local issues.
I wasn't aware there was an arithmetic of ignorance.
If you think that the federal government should step in and bail local communities out for stuff like this, then you know nothing about how the USA's government is structured. The federal government was specifically designed, with explicit verbiage, to stay out of local governments' decisions. In some cases, the line is blurry, and interstate commerce has generally been used as a back-door for the federal government to influence state and local governments, but the principle still remains.
We kinda had a civil war over this kind of thing.
In summary, you are ignorant, and doubly so for calling the grand-parent an idiot.
Slashdot Mirror
Its no mystery how they got the power to push this initiative. Education tends to be handled at the state or local levels, where a smaller group of people can have more influence. To date, their efforts to push this to the federal level have failed miserably.
Intelligent Design is not a theory in the scientific meaning of the word. A scientific theory is the best explanation that fits the evidence available, and is falsifiable. What that means is that if new evidence comes to light that disproves it, then the scientific theory can be replaced with a new theory, or modified to fit the new evidence.
Intelligent Design does not meet the requirements of a scientific theory, because it is not falsifiable. Please stop claiming that evolution is a theory using the layman's definition of the term. Also, please do not claim that intelligent design is a theory unless you have a falsifiable model which fits all the evidence in place.
Well, the picture isn't all that rosy in the United Kingdom either. Thats if you want to use opinion polls.
It looked to me as if careysub was using the dual tools of strawmen and sarcasm to imply that terraforming would result in a bunch of corporations destroying the vibrant ecosystem on the barren planet of Mars, that environmentalists would no doubt wish to protect. I can't tell if you thought that I was responding to your post directly, or that you are reading some subtext in careysub's post that I missed.
Either way, I see careysub's sentiment reproduced ad naseum all over this thread, so I tend to take it seriously.
They pretty much already have. Its been struck down by the courts, and the high profile case in Kansas resulted in the education board being replaced. Reports overseas about our creationism problem have been greatly overstated. I still hear people over on the other side of the pond claiming that ID is taught in most US schools.
I didn't realize Cheney posted on Slashdot.
Nice strawman there. It would be nice if the corporations were mentioned in the first place. But then again, you seem to be positioning this as a "corporations are huge and greedy, and environmentalists are the champions of justice fighting them," thing, which suggests to me that you have an incredibly simple world-view, which views everything as a battle against good and evil. Life isn't a Saturday morning cartoon.
You do realize that environmentalists are partly to blame for our situation with global warming, right? They suppressed nuclear power, which is the cleanest, safest viable form of energy available to us today.
Oh and in case you missed out on whats been going on in science lately, we are surveying Mars. We have probes up there right now. Turns out there isn't much in the way of a biosphere. So about the worst that we can do is make an uninhabitable planet a bit more uninhabitable.
Since when did Slashdot turn into a luddite, hand-wringing doomsday crowd? Seems like a lot of peoples' understanding of the world is at the level of a 10 year old.
Last I checked, we had a couple probes up on Mars, and we're likely to send more up. We are surveying, and any terraforming project would be preceded by even more surveying.
What we're finding is that the planet is pretty much barren. Which means its perfect for us to futz around with. If we can make Mars work, then we can apply that learning directly to our situation on Earth.
There's never going to be a time where everything on Earth is perfect, so waiting for that means that we're never going to get anywhere. We should exercise due diligence, but we can't be so afraid of failure that we sit around wringing our hands.
So instead of using a barren, lifeless planet as a test bed for effecting large-scale environmental control, we should... use our own planet. Great idea.
I'm not sure why there's all this negativity around terraforming Mars. What is there to lose? Its not like there's little green men running around on the surface. You're protecting a hunk of rock. And the possible benefits, learning to control climate and live with a reduced environmental impact, can be applied here on earth. Its a win-win.
I guess Slashdotters buy into the Homer Simpson mentality. "Lisa, you tried and you failed. The lesson is: never try."
Everyone has a biased view, and if they're spreading FUD then that can be countered by facts. The claims of astroturfing are, by large, used to avoid responding to peoples' arguments. About half the time someone is accused of astroturfing, I find that they actually have good arguments, and the accuser can't seem to frame a halfway decent argument.
I'll also add to this point of view. I'm assuming that the OSD is generally accepted to be the official definition.
If you mark your software as Open Source, then that implies additional responsibilities on parties that wish to use modified versions of your software. The end result is that these parties may not opt to use, or pay for, your software, because you inappropriately marked your software. So its basically bad from both sides of the isle: people may turn it down because you're marketing it as open and they don't want open, or people may turn it down because you're marketing it as open and that pisses them off.
I don't like to use the term FUD, but it definitely exemplifies the U term in FUD.
Its in everyone's (well, almost everyone's) best interest to label your software appropriately to avoid confusion. The only question is whether or not the OSD is, or should be, the standard definition.
Personally, I think it should be, because they've made a compelling argument for their point. I don't think it is, yet.
I should also note that I believe that the OSI definition of Open Source is a good one, and I'd like to see it become the de-dacto official definition, a la Free Software. I also think there is more support in the community for an OSI Open Source definition than the slashdot discussion lets on.
That would be odd, since the FSF definately acknowledges and approves of many other free licenses, such as the BSD license.
This also pretty much falls under Microsoft's "Shared Source" definition, doesn't it?
Sorry, I didn't mean to claim that you were accusing anyone in particular. It simply concerns me that I hear the terms "shill" and "astroturfer" thrown around so easily recently. I personally believe that its harmful to discussion (Ad hominem and all).
That being said, I had no idea that the whole astroturfing industry was so large. I knew it existed, but I guess I didn't really comprehend its scope.
The argument is that he doesn't believe that OSI has the authority to define Open Source, and thus he doesn't view your definition as the official definition. In the absence of a trademark, the official definition probably defaults to whatever the community at large believes open source to be.
I remember Linus catching flak for trademarking Linux, but it looks like he's vindicated now.
Hey Mr. Perens, I don't mean to pick on you but I've seen lots of claims of astroturfing on Slashdot recently, and I'd like to say that, just because someone's views and opinions differ from your own doesn't make it astroturfing. Sometimes people just believe certain things:
Astroturfing is a term for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to AstroTurf (artificial grass) is a metaphor to indicate fake grassroots support.From the wikipedia article.
Its been insinuated that I was an astroturfer when I just held a certain point of view. I bring this up because accusing people of astroturfing is counter-productive. I am willing to, and have, change my opinions in the face of a good argument, but being accused of being an astroturfer makes me far less likely to listen to your point of view.
Mr. Perens, given that definition, what is the difference between Open Source and Free Software? I think I'm missing something obvious.
As someone else pointed out, its less moving to another fight and more addressing the root causes that made his first fight necessary. There's a reason that copyright has grown to such dramatic length and scope.
I'll expand upon that and say that we should want companies that improve the world to make profit. Profit should be a way of rewarding people and companies that make our lives better. If they're rewarded for bettering the world, then they'll be more inclined to keep doing so. I agree with you: a company getting profit for doing good things is a best-case scenario.
I wouldn't say I hate her, but I don't feel like she'd be a good president. She voted for the war, and I don't think she's ever admitted that its a mistake. She supported censorship of games and music, in a true "think of the children" move. I don't know about you, but whenever a politician busts out a "think of the children" line, my trust in them plummets. It's highly suggestive to me that they're manipulative. And thats even ignoring the idea of playing fast and loose with the concept of free speech.
Additionally, I feel that she follows the polls a little too closely. Don't get me wrong, a politician being able to change their opinions and stances when they are wrong is a great thing, but what is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.
Other than that, I don't know enough about her policies to say that I "hate" her. I'd be very interested in hearing what you feel are her strong points, or good policies. I'd also be happy to hear your arguments if you feel that any of my positions are undeserved. As it stands right now, we have some other candidates who, I feel, could do the job a lot better.
As for why most people hate her, I don't know. Maybe its the powerful woman thing. A lot of people I know feel that she's manipulative. My father hates her because he claims she has a deep disrespect for the military.
The fact that the states lost, nor that the states were using "states rights" as a euphemism for expanding the influence of slavery, doesn't mean the idea is dead or bad.
I can't tell how you feel about the issue just by your post. Personally, I feel that the idea of keeping as much power as feasible at the state and local levels is a good idea. It gives people more power to influence the policies that affect them. Its easier to change that policy when you're voting against 1 million or 30 million, instead of 300 million.
And? The assumption was that they should pay. Thats not how our government is supposed to work. The local government needs to take care of local issues.
I wasn't aware there was an arithmetic of ignorance.You do now!
If you think that the federal government should step in and bail local communities out for stuff like this, then you know nothing about how the USA's government is structured. The federal government was specifically designed, with explicit verbiage, to stay out of local governments' decisions. In some cases, the line is blurry, and interstate commerce has generally been used as a back-door for the federal government to influence state and local governments, but the principle still remains.
We kinda had a civil war over this kind of thing.
In summary, you are ignorant, and doubly so for calling the grand-parent an idiot.
I take it you've never heard of Street Fighter: The Movie?