unless there's a nuclear holocaust or some other kind of global disaster that destroys all records of the past, it's unlikely that these scenerios of pandemic technological amnesia could occur. new technology is often built with foundations in older technology, so just because new digital mediums or data formats for information storage are developed doesn't mean that old media formats will simply be lost forever.
and the way that technology develops and progresses is always with increasing complexity. so even if we lose all the documentation and records on an old media format, it shouldn't be too difficult to derive the architecture/specs for older media formats from modern digital mediums, which are likely built upon those older and more simplistic architectures. it's kinda like when you're in advanced calculus and one day someone asks you to help them with a basic algebra problem. even though it's probably been a while since you've solved that sort of problem, because you've moved onto more advanced maths, it shouldn't be difficult for you to recall how to solve those types of relatively simple math because you had to learn those basic concepts in order to get to the higher up maths.
aside from that, people tend to migrate vital/critical information from older storage mediums to newer ones as they are developed. look at the music industry for example. with the advent of CD's, people didn't just toss out all music that was recorded during the era of vinyls, 8-tracks, or tape-cassettes. as long as human society maintains this level of common sense, this digital Dark Age scenario is unlikely to happen.
they didn't just buy a license to include non-GPLed MySQL. IIRC, the article reported the announcement of an extensive business partnership between the two companies.
they announced that MySQL and SCO would be establishing a joint certification process for OpenServer 6, which will include training and certification for MySQL. so it's not as simple as SCO just buying a license of MySQL. they are also working together on many business aspects of the two companies, including sales, marketing, training, and business development.
you're totally right. i'm currently living with a medium to low income family in chicago right now. they've got 2 and a half working adults supporting a 4 person household, and they've just gotten on debt arbitration to avoid bunkruptcy. why? because my friend's mom is terminally ill.
she has a very rare uncurable blood disease and has had to have several operations and in the past few years has been at the hospital more often than home. health insurance runs out eventually(one of the shortcomings of privatized healthcare), and our state-funded health plans just aren't adequately funded. so they're going broke. on top of that, because my friend's mother is on heavy medication and is not very mobile and she's home by herself most of the time. someone who has had a morphine pump implanted and is heavily medicated(dilaudids and other powerful drugs) cannot always think straight. and under heavy stress and depression her behavior is even more irradic.
so these unsolicited callers call her all day and sign her up for credit cards she can't be trusted to use sensibly and ends up signing up for a bunch of life-insurance policies she can't afford and shouldn't be signing up for, and she's also developed a compulsive shopping disorder due to her mental state. telemarketers capitalize on individuals like this--older individuals who are easy to con out of their money when you present your product in a very enticing way. these are pensions and insruance plans that are being looted.
telemarketers/door to door insurance salesmen, like drug dealers, aren't just making money at the expense of their customers. they're taking directly out of the mouths of babies/children whose parents are prone to compulsive behaviors. one drug dealer i know atleast has realized this, he's in his mid twenties, has done time for his actions, and has cleaned up. most telemarketing companies, scammers, etc. will never be punished for their actions and will never feel any guilt about their business methods.
i think it'd be interesting to see someone actual provide some of these counter-arguments against chomskyan linguistics, but so far it seems all those opposed to his views can summon are ad hominem/red herring arguments with little factual support.
i don't know much about linguistics, but from what i gather, he proposed that there were universal linguistical rules/constructs that underly all human languages. so wouldn't this unaided translation alogorithm only strengthen that notion by providing a unifying formula that can interpret all languages through common structural/syntactical underpinnings?
idiomatic expressions are exceptions to the rule, so they typically have to be hardcoded into the translator to be effectively implemented.
but if that isn't an idiomatic expression, then perhaps there just isn't an equivalent tense or part of speach in english to translate it to--i think german has some parts of speach that are not found in english as well.
if the latter is the case, then the algorithm should be able to pick up on it and extrapolate the meaning of such sentences into a different sentence structure with a similar meaning.
Yes, there are no free lunches so let's do these experiments on human test subjects, not those of other species--i mean, the results would be much more directly applicable to human medicine, right?
I understand that sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils, but that doesn't mean that cruel actions are always justifiable and necessary. Otherwise, you could just as easily justify slavery, and other forms of exploitation that one may gain from.
why would PETA denounce the use of this medical technology in humans?
they might be opposed to using animals to develope the technology, but using already-developed technology on humans wouldn't hurt animals so it doesn't make any sense for animal rights activists to protest against it.
"Mr Ebell declined, saying he had four children to put through university and did not want to take risks."
eh, so this guy's willing to wager the future of our environment and the future of mankind by defending the pollution-causing industries' claims that global warming is a haox, but he's not willing to wager £5,000 of his own money? yea, that makes sense...
Guevara lead insurrections to free the indigenous peoples of South America. Sure people were harmed or killed, but the racist/classist system that he tried to help overthrow was exploiting/killing/harming much more people. Revolution is seen as the only option for desperate marginalized people. If the privileged classes of society had remedied the social problems in each of their respective countries through their democratic imperative, then a violent revolution would not have been necessary. But they didn't, they continued to exploit and marginalize the poor instead.
Guevara didn't start insurgencies for his own personal gain. Saying that simply because he imprisoned people and killed people in war that he is akin to Hitler is like saying that U.S. involvement in WWII is just as criminal and unethical as what the Nazis did.
If you ask the editors of The Economist, Bush administration, or the rich minority of Venezuela what they think of Hugo Chavez, they'd likely say that he is also a ruthless dictator. But to the majority of the underprivileged Venezuelan population which had been living in poverty and oppression for the most part of the last 5 centuries, Chavez is the first democratically elected president they've had. He's a dictator to the rich, but a liberator for the poor. Che is undoubtly loathed by those who benefited from the status quo he overthrew, but to most people in South America he was a hero.
Proto-socialist communism failed in Eastern Europe and Asia for many reasons, but it certainly wasn't because ideological communism fails to take corruption into account whereas capitalism does. Capitalism encourages each individual to selfishly pursue their own interests--and that's pretty much what Soviet and other communist leaders did. The reason why this kind of corruption was able to take place in high level government was because the early communists sought political change before cultural change, therefore they had to resort to subjecting the majority of the population to the communist ideals with a heavy-handed rule rather than democratic means. There's no inherent reason why a communist democracy would have any more corruption than a capitalist democracy.
From a capitalist's perspective communism is excessively idealistic because it assumes that people can cooperate with each other to achieve common ends and act out of altruism instead of selfishness. This may very well be true in a capitalist culture because people are taught, and even encouraged, to be selfish and indifferent to the needs of others. But these are consequences of culture, and not necessarily something true to human nature.
One false assumption that capitalism makes that socialism/communism does not is that there exists equality of opportunity. People equivocate democracy and freedom from oppression/discrimination to equality of opportunity. But any rational human being would realize that freedom of opportunity doesn't exist, and never will. Some people are born into well-off families, and others into poverty. Some individuals are born more intelligent than others. Some individuals suffer more misfortunes than others. The fact is, capitalism justifies selfishness based on premises that don't exist in reality, and that's why most developed nations have adopted socialist policies in education, healthcare, and other areas of public policy.
I'm assuming a city as progressive as SF already has a few food shelters, halfway homes, salvation armies, and other service organizations that do food/clothes drives and distribute these necessities to the poor. And by low-income residents I don't think the article is talking about bums on the street, but rather low-income families that can make ends meet, but to whom broadband (or any kind of) internet access is a luxury they can't afford.
Having free WiFi access just might motivate more people to buy a cheap home computer with a WiFi card and take advantage of the technological resource. To me, this is important, as I'm a strong believer that education and knowledge empower people, and the internet has simply become an indespensible technology to the modern man by putting a previously unfathomable amount of information at your very fingertips.
Personally, I've taught myself most of what I know today through the information available on internet. This includes how to use Photoshop, HTML/DHTML, Javascript, PHP, Perl, MySQL, and other skills that I wouldn't have had it not been for the internet. And you know what? All this information was availabe to me for free--except for the cost of internet access. I've probably read much more information via electronic texts(Project Gutenberg), online articles(Znet, Indymedia, Slashdot, Devshed, Everything2, etc.), e-mail correspondences, forums, etc. than I have through printed materials. If this information had not been accessible to me for free, I probably would not have gotten back into reading for pleasure, I would not have the job skills that I survive on today, and I would not have discovered my passion for intellectual pursuit, art, and philosophy had it not been for the internet.
Sure, a lot of people probably get by just fine without internet access at home, but I think anything that facilitates the free flow of information and can give people easier access to information is a good thing.
your logic is specious at best. the extinction of one species does not equate to the preservation of another species, and vice versa. that's why most environmentalists try to preserve bio-diversity not overwhelm an ecosystem with a few particular species so that everything else gets killed. biodiversity = genetic diversity = more chances of us learning/benefiting from other species of organisms.
"The purpose of science is the search for fact. Science is the study of the natural world. Religion and philosophy are there to provide commentary on and understanding of the human condition. From that perspective, they have nothing to do with each other and should not be mixed."
Please don't categorize philosophy along with religion. One is based on logos, the latter on mythos. Without philosophy, there would be no empirical science as we know it. It's philosophy which led people to the idea that knowledge could be better discerned through logical deduction and reason rather than supernatural explainations and mythological anecdotes. Philosophy supercedes science and a lot of modern schools of knowledge imho. Empirical science has its roots in empiricism. Formal logic, and the basis of a lot of mathematics are rooted in philosophy. Even political science, though not a hard science, has its roots in ethics and political philosophy.
this is why i think there should be a greater emphasis in primary education on philosophy. without understanding the rules and common fallacies of logic, one can be easily mislead by specious arguments. this is why charismatic political pundits and demagogues are able to manipulate/decieve the masses with fallacious arguments. but with the growing trends of anti-intellectualism in the states, i don't think the necessary reforms will come any time soon.
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed."
--Herman Melville
crack is usually more of a yellowish off-white color, and you don't get disappointed as much as you just get extremely paranoid and shitty feeling on the come-down. you won't want to knife your dealer cuz you'll probably need to smoke another rock every 20-30 mintues to avoid the crash. but in the end those $3-4 rocks will cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on how long you binge for.
macs are more like cocaine(pure cocaine is a shiny irredescent white). it's all about the image and glamour, not really the actual utility. it's overpriced and people do it to be trendy. you'd get much more bang for your buck with meth or heroin but those drugs aren't associated with class and wealth.
maybe some people can't spend $700 for a laptop. maybe they were trying to encourage people to whom computers are a luxury far out of their reach to take interest in a powerful learning device. maybe this should be a sign that there is a huge disparity in living standards and opportunities in america. even if they gave away those laptops for free it wouldn't be a complete waste since the kids who recieve them could probably benefit from them greatly as computers are excellent learning aids and probably a resource few of those people would otherwise have access to.
how will honest votes get ruled out? unless more dishonest votes are put into the system than honest ones, spammers will still have low trustworthiness for non-spam files, and honest users will have high trustworthiness for them. the sytem groups people who vote similarly, so even if the RIAA floods the system with dishonest votes, it won't likely affect honest users who will calculate their vote influence with a low trustworthiness metric.
what kind of family values are liberals eroding? most of the time when conservatives bring up "family values" they're talking about censorship and blaming crime on videogames or the media, or they're espousing their disatisfaction at the growing acceptance of homosexuality.
and most people in peta, or are affiliated with peta are not extremists--atleast not to my knowledge, and i've been involved with probably more animal rights campaigns than most people who criticize these groups. peta is about disseminating information and raising awareness of animal cruelty, but the media only picks up extreme and very rare campaigns such as people pouring blood on super models, or vandalizing businesses that are inhumane towards animals--this is not what 99% of animal rights activists do. these are just the things that sensationalist journalists like to pick up.
do you think the muchkrackers, the progressives of the 20's, the civil rights activists, the abolitionists, the founding fathers were liberal or conservative for their time? a conservative is by definition one which is trying to uphold the current status quo. there are too many things to be changed in society to justify conservativism.
--years ahead of U.S. as far as cultural/social development. for instance: universal healthcare, socialized higher education, the eradication of poverty in nearly all developed nations, etc.
so, yes, the right of the US today may be the left of the US 50 years ago(but more accurately, the moderates of today are the left of 50 years ago), but that's only because our society and our culture has progressed in many ways since then--towards the left--including the right. this just goes to show that progressives/liberals will always be pushing society forward while reactionaries/conservatives continue to resist progress. saying that the right of the US today is the left of the US 50 years ago doesn't really discredit the left, because the right of the US today is still much less backwards than the right of the US 50 years ago.
I agree with you on most points, but I think it's worth mentioning that various "social networking" sites like xanga, myspace, thefacebook, findapix, etc. aren't necessarily trying to replace real social-interaction with a technologically facilitated ersatz substitute. i consider sites like findapix or thefacebook to be social networking sites because these online communities introduce me to people whom i could potentially decide to meet up with in real life. now, most people i talk to on these sites i won't actually meet in person, but the motivation behind the site is still to connect people who would otherwise never have known each other.
these sites would be much more effective imho in encouraging "real" social interaction if our society weren't so consumed with a kind of anti-social paranoia. we would probably meet more of the people we only know online if we weren't so afraid of each other. the media has portrayed the internet as lurking with pedophiles, serial killers, and rapists, thus we subconsciously dismiss any notions of actually getting to know the people we talk to online beyond what technology is able to facilitate.
i will admit that i used to be very anti-social, and i would go into chatrooms for hours to pseudo-socialize with people because i was too inept to do so in real life. but now that i'm much more self-confident, i use the internet for very different purposes. i use IM to talk to friends i can't talk to in person because they go to school in a different state. i still dislike conversations over IM or telephone, but i make use of it when it's the only option. and through many messageboards and online communities, i've actually made friends that i now hang out with in real life rather than just talk to online. the ratio of pseudo-friendships to real-friendships will always be very high, but that's true with real life as well. some people you will socialize with at a party, but never really get to know, and others you will build life-long bonds with.
What exactly are you quoting? You seem to think that because Indymedia is a hub for independent journalists that their reporting automatically has less journalistic integrity than say CNN or the Times. Most of the news being reported on indymedia isn't posted anonymously, and if it is posted anonymously, most people have enough common sense to be skeptical of its accuracy. The point of indymedia is to provide journalistic diversity because people should always have access to a variety of news sources so they can do fact-checks themselves instead of just assuming that what's on CNN or the Times is accurate and unbiased, when it's often not the case.
Allowing people to post anonymously does not somehow take away from the integrity of the majority of the news posts which aren't anonymous. Similarly, attatching a name to every news article does not ensure that those news article will be more accurate. How often does times or CNN cite anonymous sources for their news? Does allowing a few anonymous news articles to be posted harm the public more than suppressing journalistic diversity and preventing people from doing fact-checks themselves or being able to access reporting on the same issue from varied perspectives?
is Marijuana. It's been done this way for decades and the results have been spectacular, or so I'm told. Not only that, Cannabis is one of the most tenacious plants out there and will outlive almost any other plant in the harshes conditions.
I say the ESA should establish a large pot plantation on Mars. They could harvest the crop every 3-6 months and with the revenue they generate from the bud, they'll have enough money for the next launch. Now, all they have to worry about is looking out for those Martian potheads...
Slashdot Mirror
unless there's a nuclear holocaust or some other kind of global disaster that destroys all records of the past, it's unlikely that these scenerios of pandemic technological amnesia could occur. new technology is often built with foundations in older technology, so just because new digital mediums or data formats for information storage are developed doesn't mean that old media formats will simply be lost forever.
and the way that technology develops and progresses is always with increasing complexity. so even if we lose all the documentation and records on an old media format, it shouldn't be too difficult to derive the architecture/specs for older media formats from modern digital mediums, which are likely built upon those older and more simplistic architectures. it's kinda like when you're in advanced calculus and one day someone asks you to help them with a basic algebra problem. even though it's probably been a while since you've solved that sort of problem, because you've moved onto more advanced maths, it shouldn't be difficult for you to recall how to solve those types of relatively simple math because you had to learn those basic concepts in order to get to the higher up maths.
aside from that, people tend to migrate vital/critical information from older storage mediums to newer ones as they are developed. look at the music industry for example. with the advent of CD's, people didn't just toss out all music that was recorded during the era of vinyls, 8-tracks, or tape-cassettes. as long as human society maintains this level of common sense, this digital Dark Age scenario is unlikely to happen.
they didn't just buy a license to include non-GPLed MySQL. IIRC, the article reported the announcement of an extensive business partnership between the two companies.
they announced that MySQL and SCO would be establishing a joint certification process for OpenServer 6, which will include training and certification for MySQL. so it's not as simple as SCO just buying a license of MySQL. they are also working together on many business aspects of the two companies, including sales, marketing, training, and business development.
you're totally right. i'm currently living with a medium to low income family in chicago right now. they've got 2 and a half working adults supporting a 4 person household, and they've just gotten on debt arbitration to avoid bunkruptcy. why? because my friend's mom is terminally ill.
she has a very rare uncurable blood disease and has had to have several operations and in the past few years has been at the hospital more often than home. health insurance runs out eventually(one of the shortcomings of privatized healthcare), and our state-funded health plans just aren't adequately funded. so they're going broke. on top of that, because my friend's mother is on heavy medication and is not very mobile and she's home by herself most of the time. someone who has had a morphine pump implanted and is heavily medicated(dilaudids and other powerful drugs) cannot always think straight. and under heavy stress and depression her behavior is even more irradic.
so these unsolicited callers call her all day and sign her up for credit cards she can't be trusted to use sensibly and ends up signing up for a bunch of life-insurance policies she can't afford and shouldn't be signing up for, and she's also developed a compulsive shopping disorder due to her mental state. telemarketers capitalize on individuals like this--older individuals who are easy to con out of their money when you present your product in a very enticing way. these are pensions and insruance plans that are being looted.
telemarketers/door to door insurance salesmen, like drug dealers, aren't just making money at the expense of their customers. they're taking directly out of the mouths of babies/children whose parents are prone to compulsive behaviors. one drug dealer i know atleast has realized this, he's in his mid twenties, has done time for his actions, and has cleaned up. most telemarketing companies, scammers, etc. will never be punished for their actions and will never feel any guilt about their business methods.
i think it'd be interesting to see someone actual provide some of these counter-arguments against chomskyan linguistics, but so far it seems all those opposed to his views can summon are ad hominem/red herring arguments with little factual support.
maybe the algorithm is the language module?
i don't know much about linguistics, but from what i gather, he proposed that there were universal linguistical rules/constructs that underly all human languages. so wouldn't this unaided translation alogorithm only strengthen that notion by providing a unifying formula that can interpret all languages through common structural/syntactical underpinnings?
idiomatic expressions are exceptions to the rule, so they typically have to be hardcoded into the translator to be effectively implemented.
but if that isn't an idiomatic expression, then perhaps there just isn't an equivalent tense or part of speach in english to translate it to--i think german has some parts of speach that are not found in english as well.
if the latter is the case, then the algorithm should be able to pick up on it and extrapolate the meaning of such sentences into a different sentence structure with a similar meaning.
Yes, there are no free lunches so let's do these experiments on human test subjects, not those of other species--i mean, the results would be much more directly applicable to human medicine, right?
I understand that sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils, but that doesn't mean that cruel actions are always justifiable and necessary. Otherwise, you could just as easily justify slavery, and other forms of exploitation that one may gain from.
why would PETA denounce the use of this medical technology in humans?
they might be opposed to using animals to develope the technology, but using already-developed technology on humans wouldn't hurt animals so it doesn't make any sense for animal rights activists to protest against it.
"Mr Ebell declined, saying he had four children to put through university and did not want to take risks."
eh, so this guy's willing to wager the future of our environment and the future of mankind by defending the pollution-causing industries' claims that global warming is a haox, but he's not willing to wager £5,000 of his own money? yea, that makes sense...Guevara lead insurrections to free the indigenous peoples of South America. Sure people were harmed or killed, but the racist/classist system that he tried to help overthrow was exploiting/killing/harming much more people. Revolution is seen as the only option for desperate marginalized people. If the privileged classes of society had remedied the social problems in each of their respective countries through their democratic imperative, then a violent revolution would not have been necessary. But they didn't, they continued to exploit and marginalize the poor instead.
Guevara didn't start insurgencies for his own personal gain. Saying that simply because he imprisoned people and killed people in war that he is akin to Hitler is like saying that U.S. involvement in WWII is just as criminal and unethical as what the Nazis did.
If you ask the editors of The Economist, Bush administration, or the rich minority of Venezuela what they think of Hugo Chavez, they'd likely say that he is also a ruthless dictator. But to the majority of the underprivileged Venezuelan population which had been living in poverty and oppression for the most part of the last 5 centuries, Chavez is the first democratically elected president they've had. He's a dictator to the rich, but a liberator for the poor. Che is undoubtly loathed by those who benefited from the status quo he overthrew, but to most people in South America he was a hero.
Proto-socialist communism failed in Eastern Europe and Asia for many reasons, but it certainly wasn't because ideological communism fails to take corruption into account whereas capitalism does. Capitalism encourages each individual to selfishly pursue their own interests--and that's pretty much what Soviet and other communist leaders did. The reason why this kind of corruption was able to take place in high level government was because the early communists sought political change before cultural change, therefore they had to resort to subjecting the majority of the population to the communist ideals with a heavy-handed rule rather than democratic means. There's no inherent reason why a communist democracy would have any more corruption than a capitalist democracy.
From a capitalist's perspective communism is excessively idealistic because it assumes that people can cooperate with each other to achieve common ends and act out of altruism instead of selfishness. This may very well be true in a capitalist culture because people are taught, and even encouraged, to be selfish and indifferent to the needs of others. But these are consequences of culture, and not necessarily something true to human nature.
One false assumption that capitalism makes that socialism/communism does not is that there exists equality of opportunity. People equivocate democracy and freedom from oppression/discrimination to equality of opportunity. But any rational human being would realize that freedom of opportunity doesn't exist, and never will. Some people are born into well-off families, and others into poverty. Some individuals are born more intelligent than others. Some individuals suffer more misfortunes than others. The fact is, capitalism justifies selfishness based on premises that don't exist in reality, and that's why most developed nations have adopted socialist policies in education, healthcare, and other areas of public policy.
I'm assuming a city as progressive as SF already has a few food shelters, halfway homes, salvation armies, and other service organizations that do food/clothes drives and distribute these necessities to the poor. And by low-income residents I don't think the article is talking about bums on the street, but rather low-income families that can make ends meet, but to whom broadband (or any kind of) internet access is a luxury they can't afford.
Having free WiFi access just might motivate more people to buy a cheap home computer with a WiFi card and take advantage of the technological resource. To me, this is important, as I'm a strong believer that education and knowledge empower people, and the internet has simply become an indespensible technology to the modern man by putting a previously unfathomable amount of information at your very fingertips.
Personally, I've taught myself most of what I know today through the information available on internet. This includes how to use Photoshop, HTML/DHTML, Javascript, PHP, Perl, MySQL, and other skills that I wouldn't have had it not been for the internet. And you know what? All this information was availabe to me for free--except for the cost of internet access. I've probably read much more information via electronic texts(Project Gutenberg), online articles(Znet, Indymedia, Slashdot, Devshed, Everything2, etc.), e-mail correspondences, forums, etc. than I have through printed materials. If this information had not been accessible to me for free, I probably would not have gotten back into reading for pleasure, I would not have the job skills that I survive on today, and I would not have discovered my passion for intellectual pursuit, art, and philosophy had it not been for the internet.
Sure, a lot of people probably get by just fine without internet access at home, but I think anything that facilitates the free flow of information and can give people easier access to information is a good thing.
your logic is specious at best. the extinction of one species does not equate to the preservation of another species, and vice versa. that's why most environmentalists try to preserve bio-diversity not overwhelm an ecosystem with a few particular species so that everything else gets killed. biodiversity = genetic diversity = more chances of us learning/benefiting from other species of organisms.
"The purpose of science is the search for fact. Science is the study of the natural world. Religion and philosophy are there to provide commentary on and understanding of the human condition. From that perspective, they have nothing to do with each other and should not be mixed."
Please don't categorize philosophy along with religion. One is based on logos, the latter on mythos. Without philosophy, there would be no empirical science as we know it. It's philosophy which led people to the idea that knowledge could be better discerned through logical deduction and reason rather than supernatural explainations and mythological anecdotes. Philosophy supercedes science and a lot of modern schools of knowledge imho. Empirical science has its roots in empiricism. Formal logic, and the basis of a lot of mathematics are rooted in philosophy. Even political science, though not a hard science, has its roots in ethics and political philosophy.
this is why i think there should be a greater emphasis in primary education on philosophy. without understanding the rules and common fallacies of logic, one can be easily mislead by specious arguments. this is why charismatic political pundits and demagogues are able to manipulate/decieve the masses with fallacious arguments. but with the growing trends of anti-intellectualism in the states, i don't think the necessary reforms will come any time soon.
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed."
--Herman Melville
what exactly qualifies as extra-russian? do you have to murder a few thousand chechnyans and piss vodka or something?
crack is usually more of a yellowish off-white color, and you don't get disappointed as much as you just get extremely paranoid and shitty feeling on the come-down. you won't want to knife your dealer cuz you'll probably need to smoke another rock every 20-30 mintues to avoid the crash. but in the end those $3-4 rocks will cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on how long you binge for.
macs are more like cocaine(pure cocaine is a shiny irredescent white). it's all about the image and glamour, not really the actual utility. it's overpriced and people do it to be trendy. you'd get much more bang for your buck with meth or heroin but those drugs aren't associated with class and wealth.
maybe some people can't spend $700 for a laptop. maybe they were trying to encourage people to whom computers are a luxury far out of their reach to take interest in a powerful learning device. maybe this should be a sign that there is a huge disparity in living standards and opportunities in america. even if they gave away those laptops for free it wouldn't be a complete waste since the kids who recieve them could probably benefit from them greatly as computers are excellent learning aids and probably a resource few of those people would otherwise have access to.
how will honest votes get ruled out? unless more dishonest votes are put into the system than honest ones, spammers will still have low trustworthiness for non-spam files, and honest users will have high trustworthiness for them. the sytem groups people who vote similarly, so even if the RIAA floods the system with dishonest votes, it won't likely affect honest users who will calculate their vote influence with a low trustworthiness metric.
don't worry, i'm sure Locus Solus will put out a line of male sex androids so that women will have something to do on a Friday night as well.
however, if this kind of social(or anti-social?) trend gains popularity, i don't know what's going to happen to japan's already aging population.
what kind of family values are liberals eroding? most of the time when conservatives bring up "family values" they're talking about censorship and blaming crime on videogames or the media, or they're espousing their disatisfaction at the growing acceptance of homosexuality.
and most people in peta, or are affiliated with peta are not extremists--atleast not to my knowledge, and i've been involved with probably more animal rights campaigns than most people who criticize these groups. peta is about disseminating information and raising awareness of animal cruelty, but the media only picks up extreme and very rare campaigns such as people pouring blood on super models, or vandalizing businesses that are inhumane towards animals--this is not what 99% of animal rights activists do. these are just the things that sensationalist journalists like to pick up.
do you think the muchkrackers, the progressives of the 20's, the civil rights activists, the abolitionists, the founding fathers were liberal or conservative for their time? a conservative is by definition one which is trying to uphold the current status quo. there are too many things to be changed in society to justify conservativism.
--years ahead of U.S. as far as cultural/social development. for instance: universal healthcare, socialized higher education, the eradication of poverty in nearly all developed nations, etc.
so, yes, the right of the US today may be the left of the US 50 years ago(but more accurately, the moderates of today are the left of 50 years ago), but that's only because our society and our culture has progressed in many ways since then--towards the left--including the right. this just goes to show that progressives/liberals will always be pushing society forward while reactionaries/conservatives continue to resist progress. saying that the right of the US today is the left of the US 50 years ago doesn't really discredit the left, because the right of the US today is still much less backwards than the right of the US 50 years ago.
I agree with you on most points, but I think it's worth mentioning that various "social networking" sites like xanga, myspace, thefacebook, findapix, etc. aren't necessarily trying to replace real social-interaction with a technologically facilitated ersatz substitute. i consider sites like findapix or thefacebook to be social networking sites because these online communities introduce me to people whom i could potentially decide to meet up with in real life. now, most people i talk to on these sites i won't actually meet in person, but the motivation behind the site is still to connect people who would otherwise never have known each other.
these sites would be much more effective imho in encouraging "real" social interaction if our society weren't so consumed with a kind of anti-social paranoia. we would probably meet more of the people we only know online if we weren't so afraid of each other. the media has portrayed the internet as lurking with pedophiles, serial killers, and rapists, thus we subconsciously dismiss any notions of actually getting to know the people we talk to online beyond what technology is able to facilitate.
i will admit that i used to be very anti-social, and i would go into chatrooms for hours to pseudo-socialize with people because i was too inept to do so in real life. but now that i'm much more self-confident, i use the internet for very different purposes. i use IM to talk to friends i can't talk to in person because they go to school in a different state. i still dislike conversations over IM or telephone, but i make use of it when it's the only option. and through many messageboards and online communities, i've actually made friends that i now hang out with in real life rather than just talk to online. the ratio of pseudo-friendships to real-friendships will always be very high, but that's true with real life as well. some people you will socialize with at a party, but never really get to know, and others you will build life-long bonds with.
that's just my 2 cents.
What exactly are you quoting? You seem to think that because Indymedia is a hub for independent journalists that their reporting automatically has less journalistic integrity than say CNN or the Times. Most of the news being reported on indymedia isn't posted anonymously, and if it is posted anonymously, most people have enough common sense to be skeptical of its accuracy. The point of indymedia is to provide journalistic diversity because people should always have access to a variety of news sources so they can do fact-checks themselves instead of just assuming that what's on CNN or the Times is accurate and unbiased, when it's often not the case.
Allowing people to post anonymously does not somehow take away from the integrity of the majority of the news posts which aren't anonymous. Similarly, attatching a name to every news article does not ensure that those news article will be more accurate. How often does times or CNN cite anonymous sources for their news? Does allowing a few anonymous news articles to be posted harm the public more than suppressing journalistic diversity and preventing people from doing fact-checks themselves or being able to access reporting on the same issue from varied perspectives?
is Marijuana. It's been done this way for decades and the results have been spectacular, or so I'm told. Not only that, Cannabis is one of the most tenacious plants out there and will outlive almost any other plant in the harshes conditions.
I say the ESA should establish a large pot plantation on Mars. They could harvest the crop every 3-6 months and with the revenue they generate from the bud, they'll have enough money for the next launch. Now, all they have to worry about is looking out for those Martian potheads...