God said "Let there be light", and Whoof! there was a universe.
Simple isn't it?
Well, simple until you start asking things like: what exactly do you mean by light? and how long did the "whoof!" take? and what form exactly did the universe take? and what are the characteristics of this God person?
As much as they make my brain hurt, quantum mechanics, relativity & the many metaphysical theories of the cosmos are MUCH simpler than trying to deal with the "simple" scenario that having a god requires:-)
For #2, I've always been of the opinion that "removal of the unfit" was more appropriate than "survival of the fittest". Somehow, the latter phrase seems to have been made more popular.
Question: when the legal use of the words & the common sense understanding of the words diverge, then doesn't it make sense to renormalize the "legal definitions" of those words to fit common sense again? Or is that too much like common sense?
there has to be some mechanism to allow creative people rewards from the market.
It's called provided a desired good or service at a price the market is willing to pay. If people aren't willing to pay what you're charging, then your good or service isn't worth what you thought it was.
Getting special laws passed to force people to pay more than they would otherwise is called greed.
If patents were used in the way intended in all cases,
There is no way to "use" patents that will not be abused. The bottom-line, fundamental nature of patents is to discourage innovation. Society should abandon the entire concept of patents & come up with some other mechanism of encouraging innovation.
nother way companies use patents is as a defensive weapon, right? "If you sue me for violating your patent, I'll sue you for violating mine."
Pretty useless strategy if the people suing you don't actually do anything other than sue people for patent violations, and are therefore not violating any of your patents. Unless you somehow manage to get a patent on suing people for patent violations.
I think you are placing far too much trust in the good intentions of _all_ of the law enforcement agents who might have access to that data.
Even if just out of sheer probability, the easier you make it for a system to be abused, especially without the ability to detect the abuse or identify & punish the abusers, you _will_ see the system being abused. In a more practical sense, such a system will more likely attract the type of people who would like to abuse its power.
Abuse of such a system is practically an inevitability, and anyone who pushes such a system is encouraging a police state of the worst sort. Even the most ambitious terrorists could only dream of the sheer amount of damage that a tolitarian government could inflict on its own citizens.
Actually, it's interesting - in a few kids I've observed, there is so much useless advertising hitting them all the time, they've learned how to ignore all but the "coolest" ads (and they like to watch those mainly for the artistry), and the really blatant stuff seems to annoy them.
They've also become really good at figuring out when their parents or siblings are trying to manipulate them emotionally - perhaps these skills are related.
Do you think there are an army of green men reviewing every connection all the time?
It's called "data mining", and is one of the stated reasons _why_ they want all that information to be stored in perpetuity.
"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" (I'm sure I have that quote slightly wrong, but the gist of it should be the same.) Joseph McCarthy would have creamed his slacks if he had been able to violate the civil liberties of his enemies with the same impunity that our current law enforcement can.
Who knows how J. Edgar Hoover would've used such powers, considering how he abused the powers that he already had.
We've got a great deal of historical evidence demonstrating that giving law enforcement too much unauditable power _will_ inevitably give rise to abuse. Why should we keep on committing the same historical mistakes over and over?
Steam engines usually need to be supplied with water.
Even before internal combustion engines took over, many steam engines had closed circulatory systems and only needed additional water if they were "leaking". Your concerns are a little misplaced.
More than likely they are smarter/harder workers, and have a real passion for their work(the later is probably much more important than the former).
Depending on how far they go in college, they also get exposed to a lot of interesting research ideas & access to equipment that they might not have had available if they didn't go to college.
College isn't necessarily just a sheepskin-producer and/or meat-market. It is actually possible to learn a few useful things in college (at least if you're paying attention & not wasted all the time).
Not really - once someone has demonstrated themselves to be a moron, then their opinion is not entitled to any respect. If they _also_ demonstrate themselves to be an asshole, then _they_ aren't entitled to any respect.
There is, of course, the final combination of someone who is an asshole but whose opinion is still worthy of respect - you can respect the opinion without respecting the person:-)
All the people I hear of in my daily life who claim to speak as an "authority" in their religion.
Because someone that is acting in all ways as a good christian does not denounce someone else publicly enough you feel that you have the right to judge them?
If they aren't publicly expressing disapproval of the behavior of their own self-proclaimed leaders that is violating their own code of ethics, then they are condoning the hypocrisy of those leaders, and they bear some responsibility for the continuation of that behavior.
As far as my "qualifications" of judgement are concerned, who else's judgement should I use & trust besides my own when deciding whether a "leader" is following an ethical course? Yours?
The ultimate judgement for myself about other people will _always_ be made by myself, the same way _everyone_ has to make a judgement about the integrity of their leaders, even if that decision is just to believe anything those leaders tell them. Some people "choose" to ignore or deny any evidence of hypocrisy or wrongdoing, and will support those so-called leaders with cult-like fervor. I prefer not to defer such important judgements to anyone else's opinion except for myself.
You judge "Christians" based on the actions of some people that call themselves leaders.
I judge "Christians" based on the actions & words of people who claim to represent "Christians", and by the non-actions and non-words of the people who do not deny that those "leaders" are representing them. I also judge any other faith by the same criteria (which is one of the reasons why I chose to be agnostic rather than converting to some other faith).
Christians are under attack even hear on Slashdot.
As the bumpersticker goes, "Please God, save me from your followers!"
If the current high-profile Christian leadership were following the standards of humbleness & compassion that I remember learning in Sunday school (does _anyone_ remember the Golden Rule?!), I'd be much more inclined to feel empathy for them.
With the current examples (from both the "leadership" and the cult-like follower-fanatics) of arrogance, hypocrisy and desired-to-ram-their-views down other peoples' throats, either through laws, litigation and in some cases intimidation, I've gone agnostic and feel more empathy toward anyone trying to bitch-slap such *holes than toward the "poor, persecuted Christians". Even the "quiet" Christians (the ones who actually follow the "gentle" Scriptural path) piss me off right now, since I don't hear them denouncing the sheer hypocrisy of the idiots who are currently claiming to be representing them.
The current so-called Christian leadership is Christianity's own worst enemy, and they've done damage to their cause that it will take generations to get out of peoples' minds (assuming that such damage can ever be fixed).
Do the writers of the software have a right to make money?
Yes.
Common misconception. They have the right to sell their product, like any other business on the planet. If they can't make a living with their business model, then they'll eventually go out of business. That's the natural result of a free market.
Nobody has the "right to make money", although a lot of greedy people seem to think they are the exception.
Many of the founding fathers were very skeptical about _any_ form of "intellectual property" protection (see writings of Thomas Jefferson), and the brief clause that the Constitution has about such things was considered to be more of a social/economic experiment than a fundamental feature of the new government structure.
As far as "200 years of history" is concerned, if you actually read about the social/economic development factors of the United States, one of the big reasons that the U.S. became such an economic powerhouse during the Industrial Revolution is because the entrepreneurs in the U.S. unabashedly stole every industrial secret they could ship overseas from Europe, against European protests, and even as the U.S. paid lip service to "IP protection". If the U.S. had faithfully "played nice" with the European laws about IP protection, it is highly probable that it wouldn't be anywhere near as economically powerful as it is today.
Of course, now the situation is reversed - Asian countries like China are stealing any kind of advancement they can get their hands on from the U.S. & other "modern" countries, while the U.S. just sits and whines about "intellectual property" instead of fixing up its education/training/research systems to try and keep its technological advantange over its competitors. Unless the U.S. public gets its head out of its collective butt & realises that they actually have to WORK & _truly_ innovate to compete instead of relying on passing laws to suppress competition, the U.S. is rapidly becoming another has-been superpower.
That's kind of the reasoning I was follownig, although I was primarily poking fun at the simplistic, brutal idea of the poster who I was responding to.
It was no reflection on me. It was the system. I took no offence, harbored no grudge. It was what it was.
You might not take personal offense, but I doubt you felt like respecting the judgement of the people who were enforcing such a stupid system.
Cutting off the access of soembody who was laid off or fired is one thing - isolating someone who has in good conscience given advance notice is stupid, whether it's due to a "system" or not.
Dunno about the teens that you associate with, but most of the teens I've met lately seem to be wholly incompetent in physical construction skills. They're either sports or computer/gaming oriented, but shop classes seem to have been an alien land to them when they were being educated.
pparently her brain continued developing normally in the absence of intellectual stimulation in the dark attic.
More likely her brain development occured rapidly _after_ being rescued that she was able to catch up with her peers within two years. The links you pointed to say that she was freed when she was 6 years old - at that age, there's still plenty of brain "elasticity" to show good improvement into her adulthood.
It's hard to say how intelligent she could have been if she had received excellent mental stimulation from her infanthood, however. She could have possibly been much more intelligent than her peers.
Even the strictest of libertarians will agree that it's better to have a system in place that gives such people something productive to do.
Also, brain development won't occur if people aren't _challenged_ to think. While genes might dictate a "maximum intelligence level", even the best genes won't get a chance to kick in if proper mental stimulation isn't provided while the kid is growing up. Even after reaching full brain growth, constant mental stimulation keeps existing neurons from disappearing & to continue developing & strengthening connections.
Any economic system which doesn't provide a way for someone who might be marginally competent to improve themselves will guarantee a large economic underclass desperate for survival and a willingness to do almost anything to anybody that their limited imaginations can show them (probably based on TV & movies) to achieve that.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, simple until you start asking things like: what exactly do you mean by light? and how long did the "whoof!" take? and what form exactly did the universe take? and what are the characteristics of this God person?
As much as they make my brain hurt, quantum mechanics, relativity & the many metaphysical theories of the cosmos are MUCH simpler than trying to deal with the "simple" scenario that having a god requires :-)
For #2, I've always been of the opinion that "removal of the unfit" was more appropriate than "survival of the fittest". Somehow, the latter phrase seems to have been made more popular.
Question: when the legal use of the words & the common sense understanding of the words diverge, then doesn't it make sense to renormalize the "legal definitions" of those words to fit common sense again? Or is that too much like common sense?
It's called provided a desired good or service at a price the market is willing to pay. If people aren't willing to pay what you're charging, then your good or service isn't worth what you thought it was.
Getting special laws passed to force people to pay more than they would otherwise is called greed.
There is no way to "use" patents that will not be abused. The bottom-line, fundamental nature of patents is to discourage innovation. Society should abandon the entire concept of patents & come up with some other mechanism of encouraging innovation.
Pretty useless strategy if the people suing you don't actually do anything other than sue people for patent violations, and are therefore not violating any of your patents. Unless you somehow manage to get a patent on suing people for patent violations.
I think you are placing far too much trust in the good intentions of _all_ of the law enforcement agents who might have access to that data.
Even if just out of sheer probability, the easier you make it for a system to be abused, especially without the ability to detect the abuse or identify & punish the abusers, you _will_ see the system being abused. In a more practical sense, such a system will more likely attract the type of people who would like to abuse its power.
Abuse of such a system is practically an inevitability, and anyone who pushes such a system is encouraging a police state of the worst sort. Even the most ambitious terrorists could only dream of the sheer amount of damage that a tolitarian government could inflict on its own citizens.
Actually, it's interesting - in a few kids I've observed, there is so much useless advertising hitting them all the time, they've learned how to ignore all but the "coolest" ads (and they like to watch those mainly for the artistry), and the really blatant stuff seems to annoy them.
They've also become really good at figuring out when their parents or siblings are trying to manipulate them emotionally - perhaps these skills are related.
It's called "data mining", and is one of the stated reasons _why_ they want all that information to be stored in perpetuity.
"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" (I'm sure I have that quote slightly wrong, but the gist of it should be the same.) Joseph McCarthy would have creamed his slacks if he had been able to violate the civil liberties of his enemies with the same impunity that our current law enforcement can.
Who knows how J. Edgar Hoover would've used such powers, considering how he abused the powers that he already had.
We've got a great deal of historical evidence demonstrating that giving law enforcement too much unauditable power _will_ inevitably give rise to abuse. Why should we keep on committing the same historical mistakes over and over?
Even before internal combustion engines took over, many steam engines had closed circulatory systems and only needed additional water if they were "leaking". Your concerns are a little misplaced.
Depending on how far they go in college, they also get exposed to a lot of interesting research ideas & access to equipment that they might not have had available if they didn't go to college.
College isn't necessarily just a sheepskin-producer and/or meat-market. It is actually possible to learn a few useful things in college (at least if you're paying attention & not wasted all the time).
Not really - once someone has demonstrated themselves to be a moron, then their opinion is not entitled to any respect. If they _also_ demonstrate themselves to be an asshole, then _they_ aren't entitled to any respect.
:-)
There is, of course, the final combination of someone who is an asshole but whose opinion is still worthy of respect - you can respect the opinion without respecting the person
All the people I hear of in my daily life who claim to speak as an "authority" in their religion.
If they aren't publicly expressing disapproval of the behavior of their own self-proclaimed leaders that is violating their own code of ethics, then they are condoning the hypocrisy of those leaders, and they bear some responsibility for the continuation of that behavior.
As far as my "qualifications" of judgement are concerned, who else's judgement should I use & trust besides my own when deciding whether a "leader" is following an ethical course? Yours?
The ultimate judgement for myself about other people will _always_ be made by myself, the same way _everyone_ has to make a judgement about the integrity of their leaders, even if that decision is just to believe anything those leaders tell them. Some people "choose" to ignore or deny any evidence of hypocrisy or wrongdoing, and will support those so-called leaders with cult-like fervor. I prefer not to defer such important judgements to anyone else's opinion except for myself.
I judge "Christians" based on the actions & words of people who claim to represent "Christians", and by the non-actions and non-words of the people who do not deny that those "leaders" are representing them. I also judge any other faith by the same criteria (which is one of the reasons why I chose to be agnostic rather than converting to some other faith).
As the bumpersticker goes, "Please God, save me from your followers!"
If the current high-profile Christian leadership were following the standards of humbleness & compassion that I remember learning in Sunday school (does _anyone_ remember the Golden Rule?!), I'd be much more inclined to feel empathy for them.
With the current examples (from both the "leadership" and the cult-like follower-fanatics) of arrogance, hypocrisy and desired-to-ram-their-views down other peoples' throats, either through laws, litigation and in some cases intimidation, I've gone agnostic and feel more empathy toward anyone trying to bitch-slap such *holes than toward the "poor, persecuted Christians". Even the "quiet" Christians (the ones who actually follow the "gentle" Scriptural path) piss me off right now, since I don't hear them denouncing the sheer hypocrisy of the idiots who are currently claiming to be representing them.
The current so-called Christian leadership is Christianity's own worst enemy, and they've done damage to their cause that it will take generations to get out of peoples' minds (assuming that such damage can ever be fixed).
Common misconception. They have the right to sell their product, like any other business on the planet. If they can't make a living with their business model, then they'll eventually go out of business. That's the natural result of a free market.
Nobody has the "right to make money", although a lot of greedy people seem to think they are the exception.
I've heard more about issues with Word documents (from various versions of Word) in Word than OpenOffice, but YMMV.
Only if that student isn't a moron.
That might actually improve what my lawn looks like right now...
Many of the founding fathers were very skeptical about _any_ form of "intellectual property" protection (see writings of Thomas Jefferson), and the brief clause that the Constitution has about such things was considered to be more of a social/economic experiment than a fundamental feature of the new government structure.
As far as "200 years of history" is concerned, if you actually read about the social/economic development factors of the United States, one of the big reasons that the U.S. became such an economic powerhouse during the Industrial Revolution is because the entrepreneurs in the U.S. unabashedly stole every industrial secret they could ship overseas from Europe, against European protests, and even as the U.S. paid lip service to "IP protection". If the U.S. had faithfully "played nice" with the European laws about IP protection, it is highly probable that it wouldn't be anywhere near as economically powerful as it is today.
Of course, now the situation is reversed - Asian countries like China are stealing any kind of advancement they can get their hands on from the U.S. & other "modern" countries, while the U.S. just sits and whines about "intellectual property" instead of fixing up its education/training/research systems to try and keep its technological advantange over its competitors. Unless the U.S. public gets its head out of its collective butt & realises that they actually have to WORK & _truly_ innovate to compete instead of relying on passing laws to suppress competition, the U.S. is rapidly becoming another has-been superpower.
No, I have to keep on telling HER that.
(Sadly, not completely joking.)
That's kind of the reasoning I was follownig, although I was primarily poking fun at the simplistic, brutal idea of the poster who I was responding to.
You might not take personal offense, but I doubt you felt like respecting the judgement of the people who were enforcing such a stupid system.
Cutting off the access of soembody who was laid off or fired is one thing - isolating someone who has in good conscience given advance notice is stupid, whether it's due to a "system" or not.
Dunno about the teens that you associate with, but most of the teens I've met lately seem to be wholly incompetent in physical construction skills. They're either sports or computer/gaming oriented, but shop classes seem to have been an alien land to them when they were being educated.
More likely her brain development occured rapidly _after_ being rescued that she was able to catch up with her peers within two years. The links you pointed to say that she was freed when she was 6 years old - at that age, there's still plenty of brain "elasticity" to show good improvement into her adulthood.
It's hard to say how intelligent she could have been if she had received excellent mental stimulation from her infanthood, however. She could have possibly been much more intelligent than her peers.
Also, brain development won't occur if people aren't _challenged_ to think. While genes might dictate a "maximum intelligence level", even the best genes won't get a chance to kick in if proper mental stimulation isn't provided while the kid is growing up. Even after reaching full brain growth, constant mental stimulation keeps existing neurons from disappearing & to continue developing & strengthening connections.
Any economic system which doesn't provide a way for someone who might be marginally competent to improve themselves will guarantee a large economic underclass desperate for survival and a willingness to do almost anything to anybody that their limited imaginations can show them (probably based on TV & movies) to achieve that.