The tendency to relocate the act of creation just before the first-proposed-event is called the doctrine of the God of the Gaps. Wherever we don't know something, some religious thinkers will stick God in as a place-keeper.
Its Miguel's company, and in the free market he's free to make whatever strategic decisions he likes. If RMS doesn't like it, he can either make an equity investment in Ximian, or he can shut his cake hole.
Or, he can verbally express his concerns on the topic as one high profile member of the Free Software movement to another high profile member of the Free Software movement.
My post was not off-topic. The phrase "only Nixon can go to China" means that only a respected member of the Linux community can make observations that are skeptical of the viability of Linux on the desktop without being dismissed out of hand.
Sheesh, the cultural illiteracy of some moderaters.
Like I mentioned in another post in this thread, I think the civil rights question is complicated in that we don't have any intention of giving civil rights to animals who prove "sentient." African Gray Parrots have been demonstrated to have the real linguistic abilities of about a 3 or 4 year old (and the attitudes to match.) Elephants, chimps and cetaceans also demonstrated impressive cognitive abilities. Yet they don't get any civil rights, while, as you pointed out, a mentally retarded individual does. When we have a strategy for addressing the rights of any non-human intelligence, that's the basis for dealing with the rights of artificial intelligence.
Intelligence and morality
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Arguing A.I.
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· Score: 2
The real crux of the problem isn't identifying intelligence in terms of its functions and effects. For day to day purposes, systems can be intelligent enough to interact with, to solve problems, to deliver what we need.
The largely unspoken problem is a moral one. When do we start giving artificially intelligent systems the same sorts of rights and responsibilities that humans do? Under what circumstances would we no longer see them as tools or instruments, but as having intrinsic rights?
"Never" is a viable answer. After all, even though there's increasing evidence than animals such as chimps, dolphins, whales, elephants, and african gray parrots are effectively intelligent, there isn't widespread call to grant them rights and responsibilities - most of the language of their rights is about the preservation of species, not about freedom of agency. "When they ask for them" is another possible answer, but could lead to a situation in which we build failsafes to prevent them from ever asking for them.
Ah, advocacy groups. It's good to know that flat-earth devotees have a place to go in these difficult times.
I once used advocacy group threads as an example of resistance to Habermasian and Gricean claims about discursive cooperation in a paper I wrote for college. It's incredible how resistant to real rationality and reasonableness people can be once they get religion.
The strategic importance of Taiwan right now is such that if the MPAA started complaining about Taiwanese copyright violations in Washington, they would be cheerfully told to go merrily and directly to hell.
Fair enough. But all those people who promote capitalism should realize this: if capitalism fails to meet the needs of enough of the people, then they will restrict, regulate, or ultimate reject capitalism.
The difference is that none of us are employed as horses.
Also, I think it was Bill McDonough of the University of Virginia who, when asked about the design of "intelligent vehicles," pointed out that there exists an intelligent car that automatically avoids hazards, will refuel itself, and can find it's way back to its home without the driver: it's called a horse.
There are cases in which the profit motive creates clearly immoral behaviour. (This is not one of them.)
Assume you have a good that costs $1 to produce. Assume that there are 100 people who would purchase this good. 50 of them can afford and would pay $50 for it, the other fifty cannot afford $50 but can afford $2.
Even though you would make a profit of $100 by pricing it at $2, you make a profit of $2450 by pricing it at $50, even though you reducing the size of your customer base by half.
Now, let us assume that the good you are producing is, for example, a vaccine for a fatal disease.
There's huge advantages to DVDs that the article overlooks entirely: multiple audio tracks, multiple subtitle options. I watch films in their original languages, period. I have a huge collection of Japanese, German, French, Russian, and Spanish language DVD's, with subtitles for the ones I don't understand. I'm sure as hell not going to get that in a tape.
Whoever is thinking to bring this to the consumer market should be taken out and whipped, then relocated to the mailroom.
Eek, I shudder to think of your mastery of your second and subsequent languages. See the posts above yours - virus may have some Latinate origin, but it is as a mass noun (rather than a unit noun), only has a history in English as a unit noun, and was never pluralized in Latin.
You know, when you talk about people who don't share your fixation on what type of technology as "the masses," it sets up a problem right then and there. Perhaps they see you as part of "the masses" for, maybe, your lack of background in world literature, your political naivete, your inability to ski, your lack of a refined palate, your horrible fashion sense, your clumsy and inexperienced lovemaking abilities, your social haplessness, your low (relatively to some arbitrary number) economic status, your race, your limited language skills, your artistic tastes, your film tastes, your lack of knowledge about car repair or lighting or plumbing, your poor investments, or your lack of physical and athletic prowess. Perhaps they are spending more time worrying about how to fix *you* and improve *your* behaviours than wondering how to improve their productivity at the computer by 3%.
I know that it's just a habit of speech and thought to see oneself as part of an inner circle, to have a concentric view of society. But it's not realistic, and availing yourself of that sort of concentricity as an operative model will not produce the sort of benefits you are hoping for.
Re:They actually did something, unlike most compan
on
AvantGo Gets a Patent
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It's an impressive system, but to me it fails to me to qualify as unobvious. Given the problem that AvantGo solves, it seems to me to be a straightforward and obvious solution: it's just that they happened to be the first to stumble upon the problem.
This communistic ideal is never going to work properly if you want these companies to last...
The primary ongoing games development for Linux is largely being done for communalistic (or, at least, unprofitable) motives. John Carmack has worked to ensure that linux binaries are available for ID games simply because he likes linux, not because there's any profit to be had in it - he's made this clear again and again.
The truth is that the market, as a market, is too small to support Linux as a target platform. Perhaps appealing to the communal "by geeks, for geeks" ethic would actually be more effective than by claiming, wrongly, that there's some untapped goldmine in the Linux gaming market.
Slashdot Mirror
The tendency to relocate the act of creation just before the first-proposed-event is called the doctrine of the God of the Gaps. Wherever we don't know something, some religious thinkers will stick God in as a place-keeper.
Just like Aquaman. Pretty much useless in almost every environment.
.. because John Q. Public is, one way or another, picking up the tab.
Oh, wait, that's what he did, isn't it?
I'll happily accept the onus of an occassional lapse in orthography in lieu of an ongoing ignorance of history, politics, and culture.
Sheesh, the cultural illiteracy of some moderaters.
I like the Lain references.
Like I mentioned in another post in this thread, I think the civil rights question is complicated in that we don't have any intention of giving civil rights to animals who prove "sentient." African Gray Parrots have been demonstrated to have the real linguistic abilities of about a 3 or 4 year old (and the attitudes to match.) Elephants, chimps and cetaceans also demonstrated impressive cognitive abilities. Yet they don't get any civil rights, while, as you pointed out, a mentally retarded individual does. When we have a strategy for addressing the rights of any non-human intelligence, that's the basis for dealing with the rights of artificial intelligence.
Only Nixon can go to China.
The largely unspoken problem is a moral one. When do we start giving artificially intelligent systems the same sorts of rights and responsibilities that humans do? Under what circumstances would we no longer see them as tools or instruments, but as having intrinsic rights?
"Never" is a viable answer. After all, even though there's increasing evidence than animals such as chimps, dolphins, whales, elephants, and african gray parrots are effectively intelligent, there isn't widespread call to grant them rights and responsibilities - most of the language of their rights is about the preservation of species, not about freedom of agency. "When they ask for them" is another possible answer, but could lead to a situation in which we build failsafes to prevent them from ever asking for them.
I once used advocacy group threads as an example of resistance to Habermasian and Gricean claims about discursive cooperation in a paper I wrote for college. It's incredible how resistant to real rationality and reasonableness people can be once they get religion.
Besides, there already is a graphic, SDL-based version of nethack: Falcon's Eye.
The strategic importance of Taiwan right now is such that if the MPAA started complaining about Taiwanese copyright violations in Washington, they would be cheerfully told to go merrily and directly to hell.
Fair enough. But all those people who promote capitalism should realize this: if capitalism fails to meet the needs of enough of the people, then they will restrict, regulate, or ultimate reject capitalism.
Those of us hit by the AMD AGP bug, or who have nVidia cards, might have a different view of the legend of Linux stability.
Also, I think it was Bill McDonough of the University of Virginia who, when asked about the design of "intelligent vehicles," pointed out that there exists an intelligent car that automatically avoids hazards, will refuel itself, and can find it's way back to its home without the driver: it's called a horse.
Assume you have a good that costs $1 to produce. Assume that there are 100 people who would purchase this good. 50 of them can afford and would pay $50 for it, the other fifty cannot afford $50 but can afford $2.
Even though you would make a profit of $100 by pricing it at $2, you make a profit of $2450 by pricing it at $50, even though you reducing the size of your customer base by half.
Now, let us assume that the good you are producing is, for example, a vaccine for a fatal disease.
... either Captain Obvious or Doesn't-Get-It-Man.
Have you seen these recipes? Good grief, they look bad.
Just seeing the words "Aphex Twin" and "10 years ago" in the same sentence puts a cloud in my day.
Whoever is thinking to bring this to the consumer market should be taken out and whipped, then relocated to the mailroom.
I like to think of it as the rebirth of pictographic writing in the West. Euro-Kanji, as it were.
Eek, I shudder to think of your mastery of your second and subsequent languages. See the posts above yours - virus may have some Latinate origin, but it is as a mass noun (rather than a unit noun), only has a history in English as a unit noun, and was never pluralized in Latin.
I know that it's just a habit of speech and thought to see oneself as part of an inner circle, to have a concentric view of society. But it's not realistic, and availing yourself of that sort of concentricity as an operative model will not produce the sort of benefits you are hoping for.
It's an impressive system, but to me it fails to me to qualify as unobvious. Given the problem that AvantGo solves, it seems to me to be a straightforward and obvious solution: it's just that they happened to be the first to stumble upon the problem.
The primary ongoing games development for Linux is largely being done for communalistic (or, at least, unprofitable) motives. John Carmack has worked to ensure that linux binaries are available for ID games simply because he likes linux, not because there's any profit to be had in it - he's made this clear again and again.
The truth is that the market, as a market, is too small to support Linux as a target platform. Perhaps appealing to the communal "by geeks, for geeks" ethic would actually be more effective than by claiming, wrongly, that there's some untapped goldmine in the Linux gaming market.