Re:C'mon, wrong answer
on
Why We Fight
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· Score: 1
When resources are scarce, we usually don't attack our own societies, we attack those next to us.
I take it you've never studied the Soviet Purges in the 1930's? Or the French Revolution or Germany after 1933 for that matter... Societies tend to attack themselves first and after they run out of enemies from within then attack other nations.
Re:Education decaying into retold legends of glory
on
Why We Fight
·
· Score: 1
All I'm saying is that every society suffers from shallow, mindless, compassionless culture that is often defended (here) as harmless. Now the fruits are falling off the tree in larger numbers (Columbine). The game industry needs to find a book somewhere (SOMEWHERE) and realize what exists outside a gun's barrel... what the consequences are for asking everyone to enjoy being a Barbarian for an hour. Rome falls
In truth or rather reality (because truth is a big gray area), given the choice of dictator or emperor or feuer or supreme chancellor or what have you is that you will decide your own morality rather than what other people believe in.
The more powerful you become the less morality comes into play. You could simply kill a hundred thousand persons with your signature as simply as you could squash a bug.
God won't come down and tell you that you are wrong, so the only persons that can tell an all powerful person he is wrong is himself or someone else at the barrel of a gun.
Chances are he won't up and change his mind about his wrong doings. Either an assassin or a nation with an opposing army will have to wrest that away from him.
I don't care who you are and what your moral upbringing has molded you into. If you pick a person off the street and hand him absolute power, he will be corrupted absolutely because it the easier route than trying to hold on to morals.
People don't want restrictions because if you restrict someone with morals then in affect you limit their free will. What is life without free will? Inability to choose from right or wrong. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, it is easier to choose the wrong choice because it is easier to deal with. On the bright side, if you are all powerful then you get to dictate history and you get to decide what is right and wrong.
Moral relativity and cultural relativism is alive and well in the 21st century where the winners decide what history is and who is evil and who is saintly. If you deny it, then you might as well gouge your own eyes out and be blind for the rest of your life.
Don't discount Nietzsche, he was right about a lot of things that people are afraid of to know as the truth. And god agrees with him...
Anyway... the only golden rule I aknowledge is "He who has the gold, makes the rules"
A better way to put the rule would be "He who has the gold, tends to influence the rules because everyone wants his gold. If he is an ass about it, someone will do something to take his gold like kill him or make a rule that he has to give them their gold".
You could use some sort of jamming device to block all RFID tags in a small area, but if the store can't read the RFID tag they'll have to do the equivalent of "Price check on aisle 5!", which will reveal the actual price of the item, thus nullifying all of your efforts.
Unless of course the cashier is in cahoots with you.
When I worked retail I was told by a manager that most store theft is commonly thought to be employees rather than customers, but harder to catch because they will ring up items for their friends at different prices or not at all.
Secondly, employees have access to the tools that remove the security devices.
Of course he might of just been paranoid of his employees.
I mean if humans got a right to live, have these not?
Well, when they form a highly industrialized society capable of waging war on mankind, then they can have their say on whether or not they taste good with A1 sauce.
IMHO, the problem is two-fold. If they do their jobs well, the Security Department is essentially invisible as things hum along.
That is why you do your job poorly or at least let certain things "happen".
On a phone conversation at MegaCorp
Boss: Why are all my emails missing? Security Advisor: Ummm... *randonly punches keys on keyboard* Looks like you were hacked! Boss: Oh noes! Why didn't you stop this! Security Advisor: We could have if you gave us a purchase order for a new device I've been wanting. Boss: Um... Ok... I... Security Advisor: The PO is on the left hand of your desk.... Sign it and hand it to the mail boy that just knocked on your office door. Boss: What knock? *hears knock on door* Oh... *signs paper and hands it off* Well... Huh? My emails are back. Security Advisor: Hackers thrawted again! No need to thank me! Boss: Umm...
In the area of expert knowledge "elitism", (or, rather, professionalism) is a good thing. The fact is, there are less people who actually know about something, then those who think they know something.
But what if all the professionals were incompetant to begin with? Or rather... Who is to say you are an expert? PHD does not make one an expert by default. Especially when we are talking about all the thousands of odd topic wiki articles about pop culture and non-scientific/non-historic articles. (you know like Star Trek)
If you want real professional articles then go get them from their sources or buy a scientific journal. If you want general or common knowledge then wiki it.
This disaster happened simply because there was no proper control designed into the process. Thiings are noe getting better on Wikipedia
I think that was the point of Wikipedia. Otherwise, you loose the effort of the collective even though there is a few bad apples that make a lot of noise.
People don't like control and the lack of the ability to censor (perhaps correct would be the better word), but in order for everyone to participate, it requires the least amount of content control as possible.
Otherwise people will leave in droves declaring that wikipedia has been taking over by people with an agenda.
What I am not sure is the career future of these children of the future.
Well they can learn how to flameware with Greeks on the net about the name of the country and learn how to avoid getting shot by Serbs by playing Quake.
He wants damages? With a defective product, the company isn't liable for anything beyond replacing it, unless there's some signed contract prior to purchase in which the manufacturer guarantees certain things.
Maybe all the mental anguish of waiting in line for 60 hours, fist fighting, begging, crying, and then bribing the store clerks to get his copy only to find out that it didn't work when he got home.
But seriously, after putting up with all that and finding you won't be getting a replacement until after January would make a few people go over the edge. If Microsoft is to blame, then it is for overhyping a product they knew had a shortage. People have won lawsuits over less...
Why do we seem to think it's wrong for them to monitor how their subscribers use their service?
Well, what kind of wrong?
Legally: They are most likley in the right. Morally: A bit more gray, but no one is going to proverbial hell over this nor do most people care. Courteous: I'd say they are in the wrong on this part. It is a bit rude of Microsoft to monitor this and let others do as well without your permission.
Remember a company has to be in right of all three of these if they want to run a business, keep the media on their side, and keep customers.
Three Mile Island was nearly catastrophic. And radiation did leave the plant during the accident.
If you look at it in a global view, I would suspect more people die of lung related diseases from coal and fossil fuel emmissions on a yearly basis than ever died of 3MI, Chernobyl, and all nuclear releated accidents put together.
I'm not supporting one over the other or even advocating nuclear power, but you have to remember sometimes that if a disaster or worse case scenario looks worse on paper or in people's minds or in actuality (like 3MI or Chernobyl), it is generally the more mundane that tends to be more unhealthy or causes more deaths.
Kind of like deaths related to cars vs deaths related to plane crashes but I'm breaking my own rules about analogies here (well this isn't internet related).
Around 13th and South Street in Philadelphia. There is a tatoo shop that usually has grafitti on the side and while bar hopping I noticed it.
Three chracters using a psp with different thinks like licking a psp on a stick or using is at a paddle ball.
I thought perhaps the artist was just being over zealous over a pop statement about his personal psp and his friends, but perhaps it was one of these paid adds.
When I am in Compusa or various other electronics stores, and I need to compare I simply ignore products that have have rebates simply because I just don't want to mess with the simple act of mailing.
Call it lazy or what not, but the main goal of rebates is to make money off lazy people who buy it and just can't get the will to mail it in.
So I take this laziness one step further... My mind doesn't want to do the math of the list price vs the retail price so I just look at the products that don't have them.
I went to a gaming convention and was amazed all the old gear of companies that went bankrupt I had forgotten about. I was alost tempted to buy a 3D0 but I realized that the only game there I liked was Syndicate and Horde.
I played Doom, read porn, watched violent anime, listed to vulgar heavy metal (alternative I suppose is the better term for the mid 90's) music when I was an early teen. Hell... One of my earlier memories as a child before I was a teen was watching Scar Face.
As a late 20 something, I turned out fairly well adjusted especially towards the opposite sex and successful career compared to many people who were sheltered growing up.
From personal experience, I don't think any of the above have a negative affect on young teens at all... Perhaps it is a needed experience to grow up to as an outlet towards teen frustrations. I think my experience with darker things led me to be more educated about sex, drugs, and violence in the real world or at least know how to seperate fantasy from reality.
You know the more I think about it, if I wasn't playing video games or being anti-social on the computer, I might have been actually doing drugs and having sex as a kid resulting in teen pregnacy because I didn't have anything else better to do. Makes me look like a looser then, but now I have no regrets now since my life turned out pretty good.
To sum it up, kids needs an emotional outlet. Let them have it or they will find their own.
I think that falls under pursuit of happiness, or do you think it fair that people should not be able to live by making music or writing books?
People or corporations?
Corporations aren't sentient beings and therefore could never obtain happiness. People on the other hand...
Besides copyrights do not need to be done away with, but rather reformed so that the indivdual has the right to be named as an author of work of art, but not so that they can force others to give up their property rights of what they already own or have purchased.
And copyrights need to be tied directly to the individual author. When the author dies the work should be sent to public domain and not held by a corporation for the next 1,000 years. If they want their children to inherit the rights, then well... Their children need to do something more constructive with their lives and generate their own works.
Remember it was to "encourage arts and sciences", not to stiffle it.
Slashdot Mirror
When resources are scarce, we usually don't attack our own societies, we attack those next to us.
I take it you've never studied the Soviet Purges in the 1930's? Or the French Revolution or Germany after 1933 for that matter... Societies tend to attack themselves first and after they run out of enemies from within then attack other nations.
All I'm saying is that every society suffers from shallow, mindless, compassionless culture that is often defended (here) as harmless. Now the fruits are falling off the tree in larger numbers (Columbine). The game industry needs to find a book somewhere (SOMEWHERE) and realize what exists outside a gun's barrel... what the consequences are for asking everyone to enjoy being a Barbarian for an hour. Rome falls
In truth or rather reality (because truth is a big gray area), given the choice of dictator or emperor or feuer or supreme chancellor or what have you is that you will decide your own morality rather than what other people believe in.
The more powerful you become the less morality comes into play. You could simply kill a hundred thousand persons with your signature as simply as you could squash a bug.
God won't come down and tell you that you are wrong, so the only persons that can tell an all powerful person he is wrong is himself or someone else at the barrel of a gun.
Chances are he won't up and change his mind about his wrong doings. Either an assassin or a nation with an opposing army will have to wrest that away from him.
I don't care who you are and what your moral upbringing has molded you into. If you pick a person off the street and hand him absolute power, he will be corrupted absolutely because it the easier route than trying to hold on to morals.
People don't want restrictions because if you restrict someone with morals then in affect you limit their free will. What is life without free will? Inability to choose from right or wrong. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, it is easier to choose the wrong choice because it is easier to deal with. On the bright side, if you are all powerful then you get to dictate history and you get to decide what is right and wrong.
Moral relativity and cultural relativism is alive and well in the 21st century where the winners decide what history is and who is evil and who is saintly. If you deny it, then you might as well gouge your own eyes out and be blind for the rest of your life.
Don't discount Nietzsche, he was right about a lot of things that people are afraid of to know as the truth. And god agrees with him...
Anyway... the only golden rule I aknowledge is "He who has the gold, makes the rules"
A better way to put the rule would be "He who has the gold, tends to influence the rules because everyone wants his gold. If he is an ass about it, someone will do something to take his gold like kill him or make a rule that he has to give them their gold".
Hence, that is how the golden rule really works.
You could use some sort of jamming device to block all RFID tags in a small area, but if the store can't read the RFID tag they'll have to do the equivalent of "Price check on aisle 5!", which will reveal the actual price of the item, thus nullifying all of your efforts.
Unless of course the cashier is in cahoots with you.
When I worked retail I was told by a manager that most store theft is commonly thought to be employees rather than customers, but harder to catch because they will ring up items for their friends at different prices or not at all.
Secondly, employees have access to the tools that remove the security devices.
Of course he might of just been paranoid of his employees.
I mean if humans got a right to live, have these not?
Well, when they form a highly industrialized society capable of waging war on mankind, then they can have their say on whether or not they taste good with A1 sauce.
Why are folks so obsessed with literally reinventing the wheel?
So they can patent it.
IMHO, the problem is two-fold. If they do their jobs well, the Security Department is essentially invisible as things hum along.
That is why you do your job poorly or at least let certain things "happen".
On a phone conversation at MegaCorp
Boss: Why are all my emails missing?
Security Advisor: Ummm... *randonly punches keys on keyboard* Looks like you were hacked!
Boss: Oh noes! Why didn't you stop this!
Security Advisor: We could have if you gave us a purchase order for a new device I've been wanting.
Boss: Um... Ok... I...
Security Advisor: The PO is on the left hand of your desk.... Sign it and hand it to the mail boy that just knocked on your office door.
Boss: What knock? *hears knock on door* Oh... *signs paper and hands it off* Well... Huh? My emails are back.
Security Advisor: Hackers thrawted again! No need to thank me!
Boss: Umm...
In the area of expert knowledge "elitism", (or, rather, professionalism) is a good thing. The fact is, there are less people who actually know about something, then those who think they know something.
But what if all the professionals were incompetant to begin with? Or rather... Who is to say you are an expert? PHD does not make one an expert by default. Especially when we are talking about all the thousands of odd topic wiki articles about pop culture and non-scientific/non-historic articles. (you know like Star Trek)
If you want real professional articles then go get them from their sources or buy a scientific journal. If you want general or common knowledge then wiki it.
This disaster happened simply because there was no proper control designed into the process. Thiings are noe getting better on Wikipedia
I think that was the point of Wikipedia. Otherwise, you loose the effort of the collective even though there is a few bad apples that make a lot of noise.
People don't like control and the lack of the ability to censor (perhaps correct would be the better word), but in order for everyone to participate, it requires the least amount of content control as possible.
Otherwise people will leave in droves declaring that wikipedia has been taking over by people with an agenda.
What I am not sure is the career future of these children of the future.
Well they can learn how to flameware with Greeks on the net about the name of the country and learn how to avoid getting shot by Serbs by playing Quake.
I thought a planet must be illuminated by light from a star, and not emitting light itself?
It can reflect light from stars.
He wants damages? With a defective product, the company isn't liable for anything beyond replacing it, unless there's some signed contract prior to purchase in which the manufacturer guarantees certain things.
Maybe all the mental anguish of waiting in line for 60 hours, fist fighting, begging, crying, and then bribing the store clerks to get his copy only to find out that it didn't work when he got home.
But seriously, after putting up with all that and finding you won't be getting a replacement until after January would make a few people go over the edge. If Microsoft is to blame, then it is for overhyping a product they knew had a shortage. People have won lawsuits over less...
Studies show that commissioned studies tend to show results that the commissioning party wanted to see as the results.
Why do we seem to think it's wrong for them to monitor how their subscribers use their service?
Well, what kind of wrong?
Legally: They are most likley in the right.
Morally: A bit more gray, but no one is going to proverbial hell over this nor do most people care.
Courteous: I'd say they are in the wrong on this part. It is a bit rude of Microsoft to monitor this and let others do as well without your permission.
Remember a company has to be in right of all three of these if they want to run a business, keep the media on their side, and keep customers.
At least we get to witness the fall of this state, and later joke upon it when they know better over tea and strumpets.
My suggestion is to start learning Catonese and Mandarin.
But first Intel or AMD will have to design a CPU that will get a geek laid.
I don't know when that will be, but I suspect it will involve AI and a real doll.
Three Mile Island was nearly catastrophic. And radiation did leave the plant during the accident.
If you look at it in a global view, I would suspect more people die of lung related diseases from coal and fossil fuel emmissions on a yearly basis than ever died of 3MI, Chernobyl, and all nuclear releated accidents put together.
I'm not supporting one over the other or even advocating nuclear power, but you have to remember sometimes that if a disaster or worse case scenario looks worse on paper or in people's minds or in actuality (like 3MI or Chernobyl), it is generally the more mundane that tends to be more unhealthy or causes more deaths.
Kind of like deaths related to cars vs deaths related to plane crashes but I'm breaking my own rules about analogies here (well this isn't internet related).
Around 13th and South Street in Philadelphia. There is a tatoo shop that usually has grafitti on the side and while bar hopping I noticed it.
Three chracters using a psp with different thinks like licking a psp on a stick or using is at a paddle ball.
I thought perhaps the artist was just being over zealous over a pop statement about his personal psp and his friends, but perhaps it was one of these paid adds.
When I am in Compusa or various other electronics stores, and I need to compare I simply ignore products that have have rebates simply because I just don't want to mess with the simple act of mailing.
Call it lazy or what not, but the main goal of rebates is to make money off lazy people who buy it and just can't get the will to mail it in.
So I take this laziness one step further... My mind doesn't want to do the math of the list price vs the retail price so I just look at the products that don't have them.
I went to a gaming convention and was amazed all the old gear of companies that went bankrupt I had forgotten about. I was alost tempted to buy a 3D0 but I realized that the only game there I liked was Syndicate and Horde.
Another fine example of "it doesn't matter how many problems get fixed, we'll be here to bitch about it anyway"
Well if we didn't bitch, they'd never fix it! So if they never fixed it, we'd have to bitch!
It's a vicious cycle...
I played Doom, read porn, watched violent anime, listed to vulgar heavy metal (alternative I suppose is the better term for the mid 90's) music when I was an early teen. Hell... One of my earlier memories as a child before I was a teen was watching Scar Face.
As a late 20 something, I turned out fairly well adjusted especially towards the opposite sex and successful career compared to many people who were sheltered growing up.
From personal experience, I don't think any of the above have a negative affect on young teens at all... Perhaps it is a needed experience to grow up to as an outlet towards teen frustrations. I think my experience with darker things led me to be more educated about sex, drugs, and violence in the real world or at least know how to seperate fantasy from reality.
You know the more I think about it, if I wasn't playing video games or being anti-social on the computer, I might have been actually doing drugs and having sex as a kid resulting in teen pregnacy because I didn't have anything else better to do. Makes me look like a looser then, but now I have no regrets now since my life turned out pretty good.
To sum it up, kids needs an emotional outlet. Let them have it or they will find their own.
Even if RIAA is evil, that doesn't mean that they're wrong.
Wrong does not always mean illegal. Legal does not always mean right.
I think that falls under pursuit of happiness, or do you think it fair that people should not be able to live by making music or writing books?
People or corporations?
Corporations aren't sentient beings and therefore could never obtain happiness. People on the other hand...
Besides copyrights do not need to be done away with, but rather reformed so that the indivdual has the right to be named as an author of work of art, but not so that they can force others to give up their property rights of what they already own or have purchased.
And copyrights need to be tied directly to the individual author. When the author dies the work should be sent to public domain and not held by a corporation for the next 1,000 years. If they want their children to inherit the rights, then well... Their children need to do something more constructive with their lives and generate their own works.
Remember it was to "encourage arts and sciences", not to stiffle it.
To quote Aeon Flux:
"We won, so we must be right?"