Well, considering that it seems most people are beginning to forget what communist Russia was like, what Nazi Germany was like, what the holocaust was like (and it wasn't just Jews, although they certainly bore quite a bit of it, it seems)...
It seems that we are tending to brainwash young folk to believe a certain thing about society and people (generally, we're good people, and society is good, and we can all reach peace and happiness if everyone just "gets along." And don't criticize me, either). When certain historical incidents don't match up with that general, nice-feeling idea - such as the holocaust, communist Russia, the Berlin Wall, wars in general, communist China, and many-many-many other bad things that have happened... the tendency seems to be to dismiss those incidents at strange, or consider those people to be somehow... I don't know, less-highly evolved or something?
In other words, we're beginning to forget the past, because it "doesn't make sense" with what we want to think about ourselves.
Sorta like that electrical-shock game show that they did in France recently? the test, that is... people were "outraged" that the game show made them act that way. Because they KNEW they wouldn't have done those things if it wasn't for the peer pressure and game show situation and all that, but a psychological phenomena occurred where they did it even though they didn't want to!... right. In my book, being willing to do something due to peer pressure means you don't really think it's all that bad to begin with.
But apparently, we think SO highly of ourselves and think we're above these sorts of bad behaviors, and thus - when shown that that is not true - we blame it on something else. Like... "society" ("peer pressure" or the "game show" or whatever). Psychologically scarring? Sure. It should be. It should make people realize that they are capable of very bad behavior, and need to remember that and guard against going along with it, just because other people are telling them to.
They're just using a more laid back way to say "stuff".
That's not more "laid back." "stuff" would be laid back. They're using a derogatory word instead of a generic word. "Stuff My Dad Says" just implies you're going to talk about things your dad says. The current title implies that it's referring to stupid, ironic, moronic, etc., things.
I'd rather argue about the fathers-are-bumbling-idiots thing than the profanity thing, personally. No wonder no kid wants to be a good father, fathers are just moronic imbeciles that enforce rules for no reason at all and say the stupidest things! It's much easier to just have sex and kids without doing the whole father thing.
My argument was that I refuse to call someone a great human being based on their accomplishments. There have been a lot of awful, horrible, brutal people beings that had a lot of great accomplishments. And there have been a lot of really great men and women that did not accomplish a lot. I personally respect the latter a lot more than the former... but regardless, they're different measures of a [wo]man.:)
[without them] we don't have culture or civilization.
No, you're wrong; without them we don't have some art or architecture. Culture is not something created by a bunch of ostentatious geniuses. In fact, look at what most people enjoy about other cultures/countries: food, dress, dances, the language, the people, and the landscape. None of those came from geniuses. Those are things that everyday people do. I would argue that these geniuses come OUT of a culture (i.e., the culture produces them) not create it.
Also, you seem to think it's impossible to have a genius be a good person. I'll use a favorite composer of mine as an example: ever heard of Mendelssohn? He was in the 19th century. He was a genius (a "Mozart"). Interestingly enough, Wagner tried to get people to not listen to him... because Wagner hated Jews, and Mendelssohn was a Jew. He didn't think Mendelssohn could produce great art because Mendelssohn was a Jew. Wagner had some great music, but he was a pretty rotten guy, he was racist, and he fit right in with Nazi Germany. You'd rather have him then a bunch of nice, ordinary people?
My attitude: give people credit for what they deserve credit for, and not ignore faults for accomplishments - nor vice versa.
By the way, those amazing Pyramids came out of incredibly brutal slavery. A lot of innocent people were forced to die for those Pyramids. A lot worse than the blacks in America/England. I'd rather not ignore that. I'd rather people learn from that.
If we ignore the achievements of men because of their supposed shortfallings in other areas, then nobody is a great man, and what exactly does that say about society?
As another poster said... the truth.
I'm not ignoring the achievements of anyone. I don't honestly know about MT's character as a father/husband, so I can't really comment on that specifically; I have read his writings, enjoyed them, and found them very observant, astute, and insightful. If he was not good to his family and friends, however, I'm not going to ignore that because he wrote well.
Someone I am more familiar with would be Richard Wagner. He was a "horrible person," it seems, and yet a great composer. I acknowledge his compositional genius, while maintaining that I would not want to set him up as a role model for anyone. I'm not going to fall into the trap of downplaying his music because of his character, but I'm not going to fall into the trap of downplaying his character shortcomings because he was a great composer. And frankly, if he had sacrificed some of his art for the sake of those he loved, I would have a lot of respect for him. I value human life and relationships more than art (or literature, etc), I guess.
Perhaps he wasn't a great father/husband, but it certainly doesn't sound like he created enough harm to outway his literary and intellectual accomplishments.
They are completely different measures. You can't outweigh good character with bad literature or bad character with good literature, and I refuse to call someone a great man because of his literature just as I would refuse to call someone a great writer because of his character.
How about this. Hans Reiser was a great programmer. He was not a great husband. I will not call him a great man because of his programming, and I will not call him a bad programmer because of his character flaws (... murder...). He was - to my knowledge - a great programmer and a rather horrible husband.
Great men contribute great things to humanity as a whole, while good men provide for their friends and families.
IMO, that's not a good measure. If "good" means you were good to your family and friends, and "great" means you didn't care about your family/friends but contributed to humanity... I would read that as putting a greater emphasis on generic humanity than your family and friends.
And yet, if more people were "good" - in this respect, as another poster commented - then we would glean little from "great" men. If more men were good fathers and husbands, we would not need so many efforts to fix what bad men ruin - families, friends, relationships, children, households, etc.
The fact that many people view "greatness" apart from their lives and value that greatness more than the "average" thing of being good to your family, neighbors, friends, etc.... well, maybe that's why so many kids don't seem to value it, either? We've basically been telling them that while being good to your family/friends is nice and all, truly great people are willing to sacrifice them. And by "sacrifice," I don't mean they don't start a family or have friends, I mean they start a family, have friends, but don't care about them.
I respect someone much more for their character - which comes out in their actions to their family and friends - than for their intellect.
Why would I talk about a good mother or good wife when the subject was Mark Twain, who obviously would not fall into either category?
If your definition of "sexist" would be "does not mention women when talking about men," you've got problems.:)
Yes, women have a huge role in the family. I am not arguing that they don't. I was simply commenting on how people do or should measure men... I made no reference to how people do or should measure women. Am I really required to mention something about women every time I mention something about men, simply to not "downplay" them?
There are plenty of good husbands and good fathers in this world. There are very few writers of his calibre however. Saying that he was only a great man on the surface because he wasn't a great family man is like saying Alan Turing wasn't all that great because he was rubbish at water polo*.
Not really. I know very few people that measure a man's greatness based on his water polo skills. But if you're not a good husband and father to the people you promised to be a good husband and father to, then you have lost a significant amount of respect from me.
If we said he was a "great writer," that's fine. But calling him a great man because of his writing is not merited, unless as a society, we actually want to ignore "humanity" faults in a person because of his literary work. Personally, I'd much rather have a great guy (great "man") as my neighbor than a great writer.
With all that said, I don't know much about him as a person, so I don't know if the original claim is true or not:)
Or is this similar to what I hear from the other side: stay far away from anything having to do with Linux, you'll always end up not being able to do what you want to do in the end.
What if some people like the other site that you, and perhaps even a majority of people, don't like/think it doesn't do as good a job?
For example: Facebook. A lot of people like Facebook. What if a newcomer came along that was better but "didn't do it as well" (read: it doesn't have FarmVille!!!!)... it comes up for a purge vote and 70% (those that use Farmville) vote that it's useless, 25% don't care, and 5% (Slashdot users) think it's better because of privacy reasons and because it is opensource.
I don't like that idea.:)
Personally, things like Yelp seem to offer a better alternative... sort of allowing [buzzword] crowd-sourcing [/buzzword] to "fix" certain aspects of the Internet while not at all hampering individual people from starting their own thing.
The study consisted of 169 Cornell psychology undergraduates, who were classified as either rational or emotional decision-makers through an online survey. They were then given case studies of defendants, complete with a photograph and profile, were read jury instructions and listened to the cases' closing arguments.
In serious cases with strong evidence, there was little difference in the conviction rate between attractive and unattractive defendants. But in more minor cases, with ambiguous evidence, jurors were more biased toward the good-looking.
So the study was of 169 people who were classified by taking an online survey. They were then given mock juries.
Interesting point: what is attractive and unattractive? Were the mock-jury members ASKED if the defendant was unattractive?...
Perhaps there is a correlation of attractive/unattractive-ness with other traits which were what the jury members were *actually* basing their decision on?
Seems to me that anytime you start saying people decided something because of X, you are stepping into a very, very big domain. I'm not sure 169 psychology undergraduates is much of a study in this area. Especially when coupled with such strongly backed things like online surveys and a mock trial...
Maybe they knew they were doing case studies? It's a lot easier to judge a person based on their looks when that person is actually just a 2D photograph than when that person is actually a live human being in front of you.
Hum. That's a good point, I hadn't thought of it that way before.
In general, I don't think FB is doing anything wrong necessarily. I don't know all of what their doing, of course. And, in general, privacy settings are your own things to choose, and you agree to various terms. Everyone just checks the I Accept box, clicks submit, and then complains when something they accepted happens:)
Anyways. Interesting thought about the "privacy market."
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not trying to anthropomorphize, actually. I know it's a theory of a natural process, not any sort of intelligence, will, etc.
And I agre,e it shouldn't be used to moralize actions, and that is how things like eugenics get proposed, and that's exactly what I don't want.
So, the subsequent question - where does the morality part come from?
So, since most people adhere to evolutionary theories - isn't killing off of species by other species part of evolution?
Well, considering that it seems most people are beginning to forget what communist Russia was like, what Nazi Germany was like, what the holocaust was like (and it wasn't just Jews, although they certainly bore quite a bit of it, it seems)...
It seems that we are tending to brainwash young folk to believe a certain thing about society and people (generally, we're good people, and society is good, and we can all reach peace and happiness if everyone just "gets along." And don't criticize me, either). When certain historical incidents don't match up with that general, nice-feeling idea - such as the holocaust, communist Russia, the Berlin Wall, wars in general, communist China, and many-many-many other bad things that have happened... the tendency seems to be to dismiss those incidents at strange, or consider those people to be somehow ... I don't know, less-highly evolved or something?
In other words, we're beginning to forget the past, because it "doesn't make sense" with what we want to think about ourselves.
Sorta like that electrical-shock game show that they did in France recently? the test, that is... people were "outraged" that the game show made them act that way. Because they KNEW they wouldn't have done those things if it wasn't for the peer pressure and game show situation and all that, but a psychological phenomena occurred where they did it even though they didn't want to! ... right. In my book, being willing to do something due to peer pressure means you don't really think it's all that bad to begin with.
But apparently, we think SO highly of ourselves and think we're above these sorts of bad behaviors, and thus - when shown that that is not true - we blame it on something else. Like ... "society" ("peer pressure" or the "game show" or whatever). Psychologically scarring? Sure. It should be. It should make people realize that they are capable of very bad behavior, and need to remember that and guard against going along with it, just because other people are telling them to.
It will loop. They'll just have to keep count of how many times it looped...
I have to agree that Mint is a pretty easy to use distro. I had no idea the founder was Irish. :)
They're just using a more laid back way to say "stuff".
That's not more "laid back." "stuff" would be laid back. They're using a derogatory word instead of a generic word. "Stuff My Dad Says" just implies you're going to talk about things your dad says. The current title implies that it's referring to stupid, ironic, moronic, etc., things.
I'd rather argue about the fathers-are-bumbling-idiots thing than the profanity thing, personally. No wonder no kid wants to be a good father, fathers are just moronic imbeciles that enforce rules for no reason at all and say the stupidest things! It's much easier to just have sex and kids without doing the whole father thing.
I agree, it shouldn't be either/or.
My argument was that I refuse to call someone a great human being based on their accomplishments. There have been a lot of awful, horrible, brutal people beings that had a lot of great accomplishments. And there have been a lot of really great men and women that did not accomplish a lot. I personally respect the latter a lot more than the former... but regardless, they're different measures of a [wo]man. :)
[without them] we don't have culture or civilization.
No, you're wrong; without them we don't have some art or architecture. Culture is not something created by a bunch of ostentatious geniuses. In fact, look at what most people enjoy about other cultures/countries: food, dress, dances, the language, the people, and the landscape. None of those came from geniuses. Those are things that everyday people do. I would argue that these geniuses come OUT of a culture (i.e., the culture produces them) not create it.
Also, you seem to think it's impossible to have a genius be a good person. I'll use a favorite composer of mine as an example: ever heard of Mendelssohn? He was in the 19th century. He was a genius (a "Mozart"). Interestingly enough, Wagner tried to get people to not listen to him ... because Wagner hated Jews, and Mendelssohn was a Jew. He didn't think Mendelssohn could produce great art because Mendelssohn was a Jew. Wagner had some great music, but he was a pretty rotten guy, he was racist, and he fit right in with Nazi Germany. You'd rather have him then a bunch of nice, ordinary people?
My attitude: give people credit for what they deserve credit for, and not ignore faults for accomplishments - nor vice versa.
By the way, those amazing Pyramids came out of incredibly brutal slavery. A lot of innocent people were forced to die for those Pyramids. A lot worse than the blacks in America/England. I'd rather not ignore that. I'd rather people learn from that.
It floats somewhere between here and the moon, in other words. ;)
Oops. I didn't mean to post anonymously. Hehe.
If we ignore the achievements of men because of their supposed shortfallings in other areas, then nobody is a great man, and what exactly does that say about society?
As another poster said... the truth.
I'm not ignoring the achievements of anyone. I don't honestly know about MT's character as a father/husband, so I can't really comment on that specifically; I have read his writings, enjoyed them, and found them very observant, astute, and insightful. If he was not good to his family and friends, however, I'm not going to ignore that because he wrote well.
Someone I am more familiar with would be Richard Wagner. He was a "horrible person," it seems, and yet a great composer. I acknowledge his compositional genius, while maintaining that I would not want to set him up as a role model for anyone. I'm not going to fall into the trap of downplaying his music because of his character, but I'm not going to fall into the trap of downplaying his character shortcomings because he was a great composer. And frankly, if he had sacrificed some of his art for the sake of those he loved, I would have a lot of respect for him. I value human life and relationships more than art (or literature, etc), I guess.
Perhaps he wasn't a great father/husband, but it certainly doesn't sound like he created enough harm to outway his literary and intellectual accomplishments.
They are completely different measures. You can't outweigh good character with bad literature or bad character with good literature, and I refuse to call someone a great man because of his literature just as I would refuse to call someone a great writer because of his character.
How about this. Hans Reiser was a great programmer. He was not a great husband. I will not call him a great man because of his programming, and I will not call him a bad programmer because of his character flaws (... murder ...). He was - to my knowledge - a great programmer and a rather horrible husband.
Great men contribute great things to humanity as a whole, while good men provide for their friends and families.
IMO, that's not a good measure. If "good" means you were good to your family and friends, and "great" means you didn't care about your family/friends but contributed to humanity ... I would read that as putting a greater emphasis on generic humanity than your family and friends.
And yet, if more people were "good" - in this respect, as another poster commented - then we would glean little from "great" men. If more men were good fathers and husbands, we would not need so many efforts to fix what bad men ruin - families, friends, relationships, children, households, etc.
The fact that many people view "greatness" apart from their lives and value that greatness more than the "average" thing of being good to your family, neighbors, friends, etc.... well, maybe that's why so many kids don't seem to value it, either? We've basically been telling them that while being good to your family/friends is nice and all, truly great people are willing to sacrifice them. And by "sacrifice," I don't mean they don't start a family or have friends, I mean they start a family, have friends, but don't care about them.
I respect someone much more for their character - which comes out in their actions to their family and friends - than for their intellect.
Why would I talk about a good mother or good wife when the subject was Mark Twain, who obviously would not fall into either category?
If your definition of "sexist" would be "does not mention women when talking about men," you've got problems. :)
Yes, women have a huge role in the family. I am not arguing that they don't. I was simply commenting on how people do or should measure men... I made no reference to how people do or should measure women. Am I really required to mention something about women every time I mention something about men, simply to not "downplay" them?
There are plenty of good husbands and good fathers in this world. There are very few writers of his calibre however. Saying that he was only a great man on the surface because he wasn't a great family man is like saying Alan Turing wasn't all that great because he was rubbish at water polo*.
Not really. I know very few people that measure a man's greatness based on his water polo skills. But if you're not a good husband and father to the people you promised to be a good husband and father to, then you have lost a significant amount of respect from me.
If we said he was a "great writer," that's fine. But calling him a great man because of his writing is not merited, unless as a society, we actually want to ignore "humanity" faults in a person because of his literary work. Personally, I'd much rather have a great guy (great "man") as my neighbor than a great writer.
With all that said, I don't know much about him as a person, so I don't know if the original claim is true or not :)
The estimates of 20,000-50,000 seem a lot more realistic
It seems most of the estimates are kinda just thrown out there.
And who is still saying 5k barrels a day?
And apparently, more recently, they aren't siphoning ~5k/day anymore.
Because the media is reporting them probably at roughly the 5th grade level so that the typical reader can understand it..
Or because the media IS at a 5th grade level.
;)
Or, because stopping a well is relatively 5th grade-ish, since that age group likes blowing things up?
No, but they frequently kill off entire people...
you always end up paying dearly in the end.
I haven't yet. When does "always" happen?
Or is this similar to what I hear from the other side: stay far away from anything having to do with Linux, you'll always end up not being able to do what you want to do in the end.
(or have trouble configuring, or whatever).
Clearly you are a troll. Your anecdotal, uncited evidence was obviously inferior to the parent's anecdotal, uncited evidence. ;)
What if some people like the other site that you, and perhaps even a majority of people, don't like/think it doesn't do as good a job?
For example: Facebook. A lot of people like Facebook. What if a newcomer came along that was better but "didn't do it as well" (read: it doesn't have FarmVille!!!!) ... it comes up for a purge vote and 70% (those that use Farmville) vote that it's useless, 25% don't care, and 5% (Slashdot users) think it's better because of privacy reasons and because it is opensource.
I don't like that idea. :)
Personally, things like Yelp seem to offer a better alternative... sort of allowing [buzzword] crowd-sourcing [/buzzword] to "fix" certain aspects of the Internet while not at all hampering individual people from starting their own thing.
They got free lawsuits!
The moral is: if you cause enough bad publicity for a company, you get free stuff.
2) articles about apple loosing stuff
Bah, just as I was going to submit my article about Apple untying its shoes....
Well...
The study consisted of 169 Cornell psychology undergraduates, who were classified as either rational or emotional decision-makers through an online survey. They were then given case studies of defendants, complete with a photograph and profile, were read jury instructions and listened to the cases' closing arguments.
In serious cases with strong evidence, there was little difference in the conviction rate between attractive and unattractive defendants. But in more minor cases, with ambiguous evidence, jurors were more biased toward the good-looking.
So the study was of 169 people who were classified by taking an online survey. They were then given mock juries.
Interesting point: what is attractive and unattractive? Were the mock-jury members ASKED if the defendant was unattractive? ...
Perhaps there is a correlation of attractive/unattractive-ness with other traits which were what the jury members were *actually* basing their decision on?
Seems to me that anytime you start saying people decided something because of X, you are stepping into a very, very big domain. I'm not sure 169 psychology undergraduates is much of a study in this area. Especially when coupled with such strongly backed things like online surveys and a mock trial...
Maybe they knew they were doing case studies? It's a lot easier to judge a person based on their looks when that person is actually just a 2D photograph than when that person is actually a live human being in front of you.
Hum. That's a good point, I hadn't thought of it that way before.
In general, I don't think FB is doing anything wrong necessarily. I don't know all of what their doing, of course. And, in general, privacy settings are your own things to choose, and you agree to various terms. Everyone just checks the I Accept box, clicks submit, and then complains when something they accepted happens :)
Anyways. Interesting thought about the "privacy market."