Are you back again for another whoopin'? Well, if you insist.
I could point out that the old "insert a lot of bravado to give the impression of superiority" is an even more tried-and-true tactic than the old "call an argument you don't like names (e.g. "whining)" but I'll leave the meta-arguing to you. Feel free to tell everyone you're winning or whatever. I'll just keep on actually arguing and let the discussion speak for itself. Unless you actually think that people reading your discussions are swayed by your bravado. "Gosh, he sounds pretty confident. He must be right!!!"
You see the word "whining" used on this site a lot used in response to sharp criticism.
What I'm more interested in seeing is "sharp criticism". So far I've yet to see you offer any. And I would define "sharp" in this context as "pointed", as in "having a point". All I have seen from you is childish assertions about what businesses owe you. When I pointed out business don't owe you squat you stopped arguing and started bragging.
I am Reagan conservative through and through.
Could have fooled me. Just goes to show you that reckless entitlement knows no political bounds.
Emo kid? Amusing! I had to look it up.
But you still act like the internet-equivalent of an emo kid. Whether you know it or not is not really relevant. In fact, if you had known what an emo kid was, maybe you would have been able to have avoided sounding like on. Now you know, and knowing's half the battle.
This is all very sad for me. You claim to be a Reagan conservative and you claim to be against 60's counter-culture. Ordinarily, I'd be on your side of most issues. The only explanation I can think of is that you bought into Reagan's rhetoric without actually understanding the content.
I haven't missed the point. You've given a con to web-based computing. I'm not saying the con doesn't exist. I'm simply saying that it's not a deal-breaker. The need for security is relative. With good 128-bit encryption, etc. these folks could get HIPAA compliant. Not only that, but they would be more secure than what a lot of companies (esp. small to medium sized) use now. This isn't secure enough for everybody - but it's secure enough for a lot.
The trouble is that people always see this as an either-or proposition. The one thing we should know about tech advances is that they don't always replace older technologies. Chat did not replace email which did not replace phones which did not replace telegraphs which did not replace letters which did not replace face-to-face contact. (Yes, email replaced telegraphs, but phones didn't - the two co-existed for a while). That's a long list of technologies - only one is really dead.
So if you're going to point out ways in which client-based computing is superior to web-based computing my point is "so what?". I can point out ways in which letters are superior to email - but that doesn't prove anything about the viability of email because email is a complement to letters, NOT a replacement.
It comes to this: unless you can point out intrinsic weaknesses in web-based computing every comparitive weakness you find is just another reason why client-based computing won't die, not a reason why web-based computing won't succeed.
If you'd been interested in understanding the point I was making rather than simply trying to "win" teh internet debatezorz you'd realize that the analogy is very apt. Sure, electricity is a public utility now, but did it start out that way? In the early years it was a private venture and had lots of bugs (like randomly giving pedestrians random jolts of electricity). And therefore it had lots of nay-sayers. (These nay-sayers, if they existed today, would be fighting the pro-electricity "fanbois" on le interweb.)
Really, if you think this is about ThinkFree you're missing the point. It's about a paradigm shift. I'm surprised that so many people who've lived through the incredible social changes of the internet, email, and personal computers fail to consider what changes may be yet to come. It's like people saying "email sucks! you can only send text! you can't sign it to verify who sent it, you can't include color, you can't send physical objects, like tickets!" Some of those criticims (inability to verify) will be solved, others (inability to send physical objects) are the reason we have email AND still have snail-mail.
It's the same with web-based computing. It's not a replacement for your stand-alone apps. It's a new service. I don't think it's perfect for everything. I can't see streaming Doom 3 to a thin client. But the advantages of web-based computing (e.g. making geography irrelevant just to name one) fundamentally distinquish web-based computing from client-based computing.
Whether or not one particular AJAX program is ready to replace Word 2003 (it's clearly not) is really beside the point. Really - you are a perfect example of someone who can't see the forest for the trees. You're so stuck on one particular example you're missing out on what's important.
I doubt it. I agree that there's no way I could convince my business to switch to this instead of MS Office. And I wouldn't want to try. But your stability and privacy concerns are entirely addressable. Companies don't refuse to use lightbulbs just because they have to depend on 3rd parties to supply the electricity, and eventually they won't refuse to use applications just because they have to depend on 3rd parties to supply the computational horsepower.
Web apps will never, in my opinion, replace all desktop apps, but there's certainly room for web apps to take a huge chunk of the market share when they mature.
That's like saying "a blackout!! that's why electricity will never replace oil/coal/wood!"
AJAX is still, in general, a nascent technology relative to industry-standard technologies. And if you're saying "web apps won't replace desktop ones soon" then I agree with you. But I don't agree that web apps won't replace desktop ones ever.
Given time to let both the internet continue to mature (the electricity grid is still more stable than the web) and to let web app companies mature, I think that web-based computing is not just possible - it's an inevitability.
Man - this is weird. I read the initial post, and I just don't see the big issue with it. I neither understand why people get so irate at slashdot nor why the slashdot folks felt the necessity to remove mod privileges from everyone who up-modded the post in question.
'Course, I wasn't around at the time. I suppose if the "I hate slashdotters" were actually obscuring real content, then getting rid of them makes sense - especially from a business standpoint. Still - kind of a bummer for people who might not have had an axe to grind at all.
Hope I don't lose my mod privileges for this. Wouldn't be the end of the world. I'd rather be modded up then mod up, but eh - what you gonna do?
I posted in hope that someone who runs the site would read it and benefit.
Isn't that just a little sanctimonious? Believe it or not businesses do not exist to serve you. A privately held business is private property. The owners can do whatever they want with it. There's no obligation whatsoever for them to treat customers kindly, respond to concerns or any thing else to make the experience more enjoyable for you, me, or anyone else.
Of course if you run a business that way, you run the chance of not making any money. For some people that's fine. Some businesses are more about hobbyism than profit.
It's not the Slashdot critisms that bother me. I'm no Slashdot fanboi. It's the attitude behind those criticisms. If you want to threaten Slashdot that if they don't shape up, then you're going to leave - do so. But don't expect to be taken seriously if your big complaint is "I don't like this". Businesses are hardly likely to be more successful by catering to everyone than they are by catering to no one.
What is worse is being a fatalistic slave to the status quo who is inexplicably compelled to offer every orifice to your corporate masters. For that you take solice in being a good capitalist. But is that behavior American?
Oh please. #rolls eyes# We're talking about the Slashdot moderation system and next thing you know we're brining fatalism, slavery, "corporate masters" and patriotism into the discussion. And all at once too! You're like the internet debate equivalent of an emo kid. How many emo kids does it take to change a light bulb? None - they just sit in the dark and cry about it. It's a joke.
On a serious note, I feel like the Slashdot owners have a formula and it's working for them. I'd love to see them ask me for advice on some changes - but making drastic changes to the moderation system at this point is a huge risk. Why take the huge risk to what is - as far as I know - a cash cow? Safer to tweak ths system than toss it out.
I think we'll have to wait for a newcomer to bring a truly new moderation system into play. I'd love to be that newcomer, but it's not priority #1 for me right now.
I'm not really one of those "been-here-since-forever" slashdotters, but I've always gotten the impression that the gods on high here at slashdot consider this their domain. Which is fine with me. They built it, they figure out how to keep it running (esp financially) so kudos to them. And their system is relatively open - I especially like that no posts get deleted. I mean, yeah - there may be some weird mod stuff going on, but at least the posts are still there.
But I think that attitude of "this is mine/ours" is what prevents the creation of a meta-section that would be about slashdot. Who wants to listen to the serfs tell you how to run the kingdom?
That's one of the biggest tensions of the internet community. Slashdot is essentially authoritarian but tries to be as open as possible, wikipedia is essentially anarchist, but ends up needing to impose authoritarian measures to survive.
Personally, I'd love to see a very much revamped system for modding at slashdot. On top of the individual things I like (e.g. the ability to agree/disagree with a post as a seperate metric from modding up or down) the thing I'd want to see the most would be transparent rules. Let everyone know what the rules are and where they stand. It would increase the credibility of the mod system, in my opinion.
Hahahahahaha. Maybe I'm missing something, but some of those guys built this place, right? Did you think that Slashdot was conceived by the internet via immaculate conception?
I'd love to see more open-ness and an open metric and stuff like that, but as long as there are people like you wandering the byways of cyberspace with this insane feeling of being entitled to every website you land on I'm not really that surprised that the creators retain (and delegate) more authority than would otherwise be optimal.
It's precisely this attitude of being entitled to stuff other people created that makes socialists so annoying.
I get modded straight into oblivion by the slashdot hivemind's defensive reflexes.
I love it when people assume that because everyone's doing it - it must be stupid. This is about as rational as saying "if everyone's doing it, it must be great!" Anti-conformity is essentially the same thing as conformity.
Maybe you're just being a troll and get modded accordingly?
"Yeah, you won't catch me tying my shoelaces like the zombie masses!!!"
Or maybe there are just more people modding now? When I first signed up for my account I got mod points all the time. I very rarely get them now. I've never really posted anything that I considered anti-slashdot, and I have no problems modding up posts I disagree with as long as I think it's something worth seeing - so I have no reason to believe it's anything other than just the workings of the algorithm.
I could whine and moan that the admins don't like me because I'm Mormon, or religious, or some of my politcal views - but that would just be random speculation.
In any case, I'm not really a fan of modding myself. If I care enough to mod, I'd rather post. When I have mod points I try to pick a topic I'm reasonably well-informed on but don't really care too much about and use them to be helpful. It really is more of a chore than anythign else, however, and I just do it to be doing my part. So if I don't get mod points as often, I'm not missing them.
The one question that should be asked here is, "Do you think that Windows advocates would be any politer or nicer if newbies were switching to their OS?"
The answer is obviously: no. First of all, there are crazies in all bunches. Second of all, whenever you get advocates of anything together there tends to be a high degree of conformity with an accompanying low tolerance of heresy (this is a common problem with organized religion and pretty much explains why I'd rather die than live in Utah) .
So the real difference is not "Windows advocates vs. Linux advocates". The real difference is the MS markets windows and regular Joes market linux. There is no company to high a marketing department to introduce the world to linux. Companies with a vested interest (like IBM) do their part on the fringes to advocate for Linux (and this is vital to its growing business acceptance) but in general if you want to switch to linux you talk to a random techie and not a marketing guy.
Windows, on the other hand, has MS behind it to ensure continuity of message, polish, etc. If you're considering the merits of Windows you may end up on some forum with a bunch of MS advocates (and if you do you're experience will be no better than it is with Linux advocates, I'd wager) but you're more likely to get your information from people educated and paid to make sure you like the experience of getting the information.
Naw, even the conservative think tanks thought promoting the Terri Shiavo thing was good politics
I don't know about good politics, but I do know about common decency. On the one hand you've got a "husband" who's already living with another woman and stands to get a 6-figure sum if they pull the plug. On the other hand you've got mom, dad, brothers and sisters willing to accept the financial burden of caring for their loved one.
Instead of just divorcing the comatose woman (if she's brain dead - then killing her isn't mercy, if she's not brain dead then killing her isn't right) her "husband" decides he'd rather cash in on the money. So he installs a couple of body guards to be sure no one can see her, pulls the plug, waits for her to croak, and then walks away with several hundred large ones.
This wasn't a family issue - it was basically medical murder for greed.
You work sounds absolutely fascinating to me. I know that some of your reassons for leaving the Mormon church must obviously have been personally, but I'm intrigued to hear what academic/intellectual problems you found. If we could start an email correspondance I would be thrilled. It's one thing to have to sort through pages of anti-Mormon propoganda (you get a lot of that on teh interweb if your name is 'theStorminMormon'), but it's quite another to run into someone who has done real research.
Besides, linguistics has been fascinating to me ever since my mission days. After studying German and ASL (American Sign Language) in high school I thought I knew what foreign languages were. But when I got sent to Hungary and had to learn Hungarian I realized how diverse language could be. German is practically the same language as English compared to Hungarian. My eyes were opened and although I haven't seriously studied another language since learning Hungarian I'm perpetually interested in all things linguistic.
I'd like to hear more about the problems you had with Mormonism before I recommend any chapters from "By the Hand of Mormon" - or any other book for that matter. I simply recommended that one because it's really the only book on the Book of Mormon that comes from a neutral press (Oxford University). No point reading some evangelical shrill or some Desseret apologist.
So, if you could send me an email (yours is not shown publicly) that'd be great. To spare you the clicking my own email is nathaniel.givens [AT] gmail. In the interests of full disclosure (and since you might notice the name of the author of By the Hand of Mormon and Google him) Terryl Givens is my father.
ok. It's possible for people that have faith to also be rational.
Oh happy day! That's really all I'm trying to get it. It fills my heart with endless joy that I've at least come to amicable terms on this topic with one fellow thinker out there in the world. I can die a happy man now. Although, "I never said that was plan A!"
As for what you say about churches - I think that it holds true for a lot of religions. I tend to believe this is more a result of human nature than religion, however. For thousands of years religions have been a concentrated resevoir of political/social/ideological power and that power has attracted some of the worst of humanity. There's no question about it - religion can bring out the worst in people.
But it can also bring out the best. I believe there are "good" religions out there (not just one!) and that there are also good reasons to have organized religions. They're kind of like family. Sometimes just being stuck with people who might not necessarily choose to associate with causes you to grow and develop in ways we would not if we only hung out with people we are attracted too. That's just one plausible explanation or the importance of not only religion - but organized religion.
I agree - this has been a good debate. I look forward to the next one!
Religion, on the other hand, offers absolute certainty,
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. My whole point is that those who offer absolute certainty in their religion are merely dogmatics. They're cheats. They're frauds. THAT type of religion is the opiate of the masses. Genuine religion does not console us with proffers of certainty. It may console us with tales (true or not) of a living God who cares about us, but it also continuously challenges us and forces us to live in intellectual tension. This whole idea that you should "take it or leave it without any evidence at all" is nonsense. Talk to anyone you know (surely you know someone like this) who is deeply spiritually religious and devout and also intelligent and open minded. Just sit down some time for a long talk about what faith means to them. I think you will be surprised (thought not necessarily convinced) by how logical and rational their faith is.
Furthermore you're committing the age-old flaw of comparing the ideal of science with the worst of religion. Science - at it's best - offers degrees of certainty. But anyone can take scientific terminology, equations, etc and use it to disquise bigotry as science. That's what eugenics was about. You would counter - quite fairly - that phrenology was a big mistake. That may be true - and it is certainly not science by the strict definition - but it was part of the scientific establishment. That absolute certainty in the superiority of one's race WAS SUBSTANTIATED BY SCIENCE. Not by real science, but by the shams that were perpetrated historically.
My only response is to use that feeling of revulsion you have when you think about people warping science into something that serves their own interests and realize that that is precisely how religious people feel when religion is warped to proffer some kind of absolute certainty to people. "Say you believe in Christ, drop a dollar in the hat, and you'll feel better!" That, in my opinion, is no more real religion than the Hitlerian propganda - in the guise of science - was real science.
I'm not advocating pointless questioning. What I'm advocating is much more subtle. All I'm saying is that people should always remember that nothing is certain. I'm not saying they need to actively question everything. I'm just saying that human hubris has been probably the single greatest cause of intellectual corruption - of scientists or religious people (or both). If we can simply remember to be humble in the face of the unknown - then we will be more open to discerning between intellectual conviction and intellectual stubborness. I actually think we can agree on this point - it's just a question of me coming down overly dramatically on the "doubt everything" side of things simply to counterbalance the overwhelming sense of unfounded certainty here on Slashdot.
2. Religious Mystery
First off, I'm not offended at all. I haven't read Dennett's new work. I was so put off by what I considered to be the critical errors of "Elbow Room" that I haven't read anything since - although I've ceratinly been interested in reading some of his non-philosophical work on neurology. But on your advice, I'll take a look at the most recent book. I mean that seriously. Let me know what the title is and I will check it out.
As far as your religious past - I'm sorry you didn't have good luck with your questions. Not to sound arrogant, but I imagine I could give you better answers than any of what your bishops were able to if it comes to intellectual questions about Mormonism. Not that I'm trying to convert you back (although I'd be lying if I said I didn't care) I always get depressed when people base their reasons for leaving the Church on the weaknesses of some its members. Mormons are as likely as anyone else to buy into the dogmatic world view, but if you actually look at the theology (e.g. teachings of Joseph Smith) and study some of the modern scholarship (e.g. Hugh Nibley) I think you'll find the answers you're looking for.
How about a trade? I read Dennett's book if you read one of my choosing. Try "By the Hand of Mormon" by Terryl Givens. If you don't want to read it, that's fine. I'll still read Dennett. But I like the trade idea better.
I do, and so does the bible, according to it God refues to prove he exists (i.e. refuses to allow himself to be detected).
What Bible did you read? Clearly not the one where Bible talks to Eve and Adam in the garden. Or reveals himself to Moses. There's nothing in the bible at all that substantiates this claim.
But he can't be detected
Again - you make this claim. The Bible does not. Neither do I. A lot of religions do not.
Beleivig in God is no more rational or logical than beleiving in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. Thor did not exist, Ra did not exist, Zeus did not exist, Apollo did not exist, Quetzalcoatl did not exist and Jesus did not exist.
You're certainly a man of your times. I'll see you on the other side, and we can chat about this.;-)
By that rationale, all religion is basically a waste of time, because it relies on believing something wholeheartedly that's fundamentally unknowable
No - all religion that you believe dogmatically is a dogmatically.
Look, this is the moment where I just step back and try to explain something that you might not have thought of before. A lot of people who are religious live in a state of intellectual tension. The moment you take it for granted that your religion is right (move to #1) the moment your religion is worthless. The moment you write off religion as impossibly false (#3) the moment you have given up on reason and science. But no one likes uncertainty - and that's exactly what living a life of faith requires.
My thesis is this: nothing in life is certain. Any philosophy that allows people to take things as certain (no matter what those things are) is worhtless. That's it. I'm not trying to tell people they have to be religious or not. I'm not arguing anyone could or should believe in God, or that it's more reasonable to believe in God. I'm just arguing that those people who believe science can give them certainty are essentially committing the same mistake as those who believe that religion can give them certainty.
Life is not about certainty - life is about learning to operate without it.
If you'd read the original posts you'd realize that one of the things I'm campaiging against is the science/religion dichotomy. I'd say #2 SHOULD be religion, but that a lot of religious people go for #1 or #3 instead (#1 for God, #3 for evolution). A lot of scientific people go for #3 for God. Both of these are equally dogmatic and therefore equally flawed.
What if the individual believes #3 not because of "blind faith", but because of the lack of evidence supporting #1 and a mountain of evidence supporting #3?
No amount of evidence can get you to #3. As long as there's ignorance and unknownn that can not be quantified you can never get to #3 by weight of evidence. That's kind of my whole point. You can only get to #3 (or #1) through either omniscience, or through some logical necessity based on something that is certain. Short of these special conditions everything is uncertain, everything is tentative, and therefore eveything is #2.
There's nothing wrong with asserting "God does not exist". It's only wrong when you mistake that assertion for logical certainty. That's the difference between someone who has convictions and an open mind and someone who has convictions and a closed mind.
To forestall the inevitable response that the distinction between #2 and #3 is a distinction without a difference, here is the difference.
According to #2 I believe provisionally that you are wrong. I'm open to being changed. I consider the possibility that you have been abducted by aliens to be a very low probability - but greater than 0.
By #3 I assert that the probability you were actually abducted by aliens is 0.
The result is that if aliens really did exist, someone from #2 could eventually be persuaded, but someone in position #3 has gone beyond the evidence at hand to dogma and therefore can never be persuaded that there are aliens. Positions 1 and 2 are fundamentally unjustified if for no other reason that that we can not be certain of ANYTHING. We should ALWAYS be in position 2 about EVERYTHING that isn't a logical imposibility (e.g. 2+2=5).
People who write off God as a logical impossibility or a proven falsehood have overstepped the bounds of evidence. They've also stepped beyond the bounds of science since "God does not exist" is no more falsifiable then "God exists".
Slashdot Mirror
hahahahaha...
Thanks. Now I don't have to post. I am anyway, however, because your post made me chuckle.
-stormin
Are you back again for another whoopin'? Well, if you insist.
I could point out that the old "insert a lot of bravado to give the impression of superiority" is an even more tried-and-true tactic than the old "call an argument you don't like names (e.g. "whining)" but I'll leave the meta-arguing to you. Feel free to tell everyone you're winning or whatever. I'll just keep on actually arguing and let the discussion speak for itself. Unless you actually think that people reading your discussions are swayed by your bravado. "Gosh, he sounds pretty confident. He must be right!!!"
You see the word "whining" used on this site a lot used in response to sharp criticism.
What I'm more interested in seeing is "sharp criticism". So far I've yet to see you offer any. And I would define "sharp" in this context as "pointed", as in "having a point". All I have seen from you is childish assertions about what businesses owe you. When I pointed out business don't owe you squat you stopped arguing and started bragging.
I am Reagan conservative through and through.
Could have fooled me. Just goes to show you that reckless entitlement knows no political bounds.
Emo kid? Amusing! I had to look it up.
But you still act like the internet-equivalent of an emo kid. Whether you know it or not is not really relevant. In fact, if you had known what an emo kid was, maybe you would have been able to have avoided sounding like on. Now you know, and knowing's half the battle.
This is all very sad for me. You claim to be a Reagan conservative and you claim to be against 60's counter-culture. Ordinarily, I'd be on your side of most issues. The only explanation I can think of is that you bought into Reagan's rhetoric without actually understanding the content.
-stormin
I haven't missed the point. You've given a con to web-based computing. I'm not saying the con doesn't exist. I'm simply saying that it's not a deal-breaker. The need for security is relative. With good 128-bit encryption, etc. these folks could get HIPAA compliant. Not only that, but they would be more secure than what a lot of companies (esp. small to medium sized) use now. This isn't secure enough for everybody - but it's secure enough for a lot.
The trouble is that people always see this as an either-or proposition. The one thing we should know about tech advances is that they don't always replace older technologies. Chat did not replace email which did not replace phones which did not replace telegraphs which did not replace letters which did not replace face-to-face contact. (Yes, email replaced telegraphs, but phones didn't - the two co-existed for a while). That's a long list of technologies - only one is really dead.
So if you're going to point out ways in which client-based computing is superior to web-based computing my point is "so what?". I can point out ways in which letters are superior to email - but that doesn't prove anything about the viability of email because email is a complement to letters, NOT a replacement.
It comes to this: unless you can point out intrinsic weaknesses in web-based computing every comparitive weakness you find is just another reason why client-based computing won't die, not a reason why web-based computing won't succeed.
-stormin
If you'd been interested in understanding the point I was making rather than simply trying to "win" teh internet debatezorz you'd realize that the analogy is very apt. Sure, electricity is a public utility now, but did it start out that way? In the early years it was a private venture and had lots of bugs (like randomly giving pedestrians random jolts of electricity). And therefore it had lots of nay-sayers. (These nay-sayers, if they existed today, would be fighting the pro-electricity "fanbois" on le interweb.)
Really, if you think this is about ThinkFree you're missing the point. It's about a paradigm shift. I'm surprised that so many people who've lived through the incredible social changes of the internet, email, and personal computers fail to consider what changes may be yet to come. It's like people saying "email sucks! you can only send text! you can't sign it to verify who sent it, you can't include color, you can't send physical objects, like tickets!" Some of those criticims (inability to verify) will be solved, others (inability to send physical objects) are the reason we have email AND still have snail-mail.
It's the same with web-based computing. It's not a replacement for your stand-alone apps. It's a new service. I don't think it's perfect for everything. I can't see streaming Doom 3 to a thin client. But the advantages of web-based computing (e.g. making geography irrelevant just to name one) fundamentally distinquish web-based computing from client-based computing.
Whether or not one particular AJAX program is ready to replace Word 2003 (it's clearly not) is really beside the point. Really - you are a perfect example of someone who can't see the forest for the trees. You're so stuck on one particular example you're missing out on what's important.
-stormin
Never?
I doubt it. I agree that there's no way I could convince my business to switch to this instead of MS Office. And I wouldn't want to try. But your stability and privacy concerns are entirely addressable. Companies don't refuse to use lightbulbs just because they have to depend on 3rd parties to supply the electricity, and eventually they won't refuse to use applications just because they have to depend on 3rd parties to supply the computational horsepower.
Web apps will never, in my opinion, replace all desktop apps, but there's certainly room for web apps to take a huge chunk of the market share when they mature.
-stormin
That's like saying "a blackout!! that's why electricity will never replace oil/coal/wood!"
AJAX is still, in general, a nascent technology relative to industry-standard technologies. And if you're saying "web apps won't replace desktop ones soon" then I agree with you. But I don't agree that web apps won't replace desktop ones ever.
Given time to let both the internet continue to mature (the electricity grid is still more stable than the web) and to let web app companies mature, I think that web-based computing is not just possible - it's an inevitability.
-stormin
Man - this is weird. I read the initial post, and I just don't see the big issue with it. I neither understand why people get so irate at slashdot nor why the slashdot folks felt the necessity to remove mod privileges from everyone who up-modded the post in question.
'Course, I wasn't around at the time. I suppose if the "I hate slashdotters" were actually obscuring real content, then getting rid of them makes sense - especially from a business standpoint. Still - kind of a bummer for people who might not have had an axe to grind at all.
Hope I don't lose my mod privileges for this. Wouldn't be the end of the world. I'd rather be modded up then mod up, but eh - what you gonna do?
-stormin
I posted in hope that someone who runs the site would read it and benefit.
Isn't that just a little sanctimonious? Believe it or not businesses do not exist to serve you. A privately held business is private property. The owners can do whatever they want with it. There's no obligation whatsoever for them to treat customers kindly, respond to concerns or any thing else to make the experience more enjoyable for you, me, or anyone else.
Of course if you run a business that way, you run the chance of not making any money. For some people that's fine. Some businesses are more about hobbyism than profit.
It's not the Slashdot critisms that bother me. I'm no Slashdot fanboi. It's the attitude behind those criticisms. If you want to threaten Slashdot that if they don't shape up, then you're going to leave - do so. But don't expect to be taken seriously if your big complaint is "I don't like this". Businesses are hardly likely to be more successful by catering to everyone than they are by catering to no one.
Simplified: constructive criticism good, whining bad.
What is worse is being a fatalistic slave to the status quo who is inexplicably compelled to offer every orifice to your corporate masters. For that you take solice in being a good capitalist. But is that behavior American?
Oh please. #rolls eyes# We're talking about the Slashdot moderation system and next thing you know we're brining fatalism, slavery, "corporate masters" and patriotism into the discussion. And all at once too! You're like the internet debate equivalent of an emo kid. How many emo kids does it take to change a light bulb? None - they just sit in the dark and cry about it. It's a joke.
On a serious note, I feel like the Slashdot owners have a formula and it's working for them. I'd love to see them ask me for advice on some changes - but making drastic changes to the moderation system at this point is a huge risk. Why take the huge risk to what is - as far as I know - a cash cow? Safer to tweak ths system than toss it out.
I think we'll have to wait for a newcomer to bring a truly new moderation system into play. I'd love to be that newcomer, but it's not priority #1 for me right now.
Anyway, cheerio. And cheer up emo kid!
-stormin
I'm not really one of those "been-here-since-forever" slashdotters, but I've always gotten the impression that the gods on high here at slashdot consider this their domain. Which is fine with me. They built it, they figure out how to keep it running (esp financially) so kudos to them. And their system is relatively open - I especially like that no posts get deleted. I mean, yeah - there may be some weird mod stuff going on, but at least the posts are still there.
But I think that attitude of "this is mine/ours" is what prevents the creation of a meta-section that would be about slashdot. Who wants to listen to the serfs tell you how to run the kingdom?
That's one of the biggest tensions of the internet community. Slashdot is essentially authoritarian but tries to be as open as possible, wikipedia is essentially anarchist, but ends up needing to impose authoritarian measures to survive.
Personally, I'd love to see a very much revamped system for modding at slashdot. On top of the individual things I like (e.g. the ability to agree/disagree with a post as a seperate metric from modding up or down) the thing I'd want to see the most would be transparent rules. Let everyone know what the rules are and where they stand. It would increase the credibility of the mod system, in my opinion.
-stormin
Ahem, it should read like this:
[flamebait]It's precisely this attitude of being entitled to stuff other people created that makes socialists so annoying.[/flamebait]
Hahahahahaha. Maybe I'm missing something, but some of those guys built this place, right? Did you think that Slashdot was conceived by the internet via immaculate conception?
I'd love to see more open-ness and an open metric and stuff like that, but as long as there are people like you wandering the byways of cyberspace with this insane feeling of being entitled to every website you land on I'm not really that surprised that the creators retain (and delegate) more authority than would otherwise be optimal.
It's precisely this attitude of being entitled to stuff other people created that makes socialists so annoying.
-stormin
I get modded straight into oblivion by the slashdot hivemind's defensive reflexes.
I love it when people assume that because everyone's doing it - it must be stupid. This is about as rational as saying "if everyone's doing it, it must be great!" Anti-conformity is essentially the same thing as conformity.
Maybe you're just being a troll and get modded accordingly?
"Yeah, you won't catch me tying my shoelaces like the zombie masses!!!"
-stormin
Or maybe there are just more people modding now? When I first signed up for my account I got mod points all the time. I very rarely get them now. I've never really posted anything that I considered anti-slashdot, and I have no problems modding up posts I disagree with as long as I think it's something worth seeing - so I have no reason to believe it's anything other than just the workings of the algorithm.
I could whine and moan that the admins don't like me because I'm Mormon, or religious, or some of my politcal views - but that would just be random speculation.
In any case, I'm not really a fan of modding myself. If I care enough to mod, I'd rather post. When I have mod points I try to pick a topic I'm reasonably well-informed on but don't really care too much about and use them to be helpful. It really is more of a chore than anythign else, however, and I just do it to be doing my part. So if I don't get mod points as often, I'm not missing them.
-stormin
Although I actually thought the snobbish argument was rather insightful, someone please mod this up as well.
And while we're at it, someone should make a latin phrase for "relying on latin phrases to sound authoritative in arguments"
-stormin
The one question that should be asked here is, "Do you think that Windows advocates would be any politer or nicer if newbies were switching to their OS?"
The answer is obviously: no. First of all, there are crazies in all bunches. Second of all, whenever you get advocates of anything together there tends to be a high degree of conformity with an accompanying low tolerance of heresy (this is a common problem with organized religion and pretty much explains why I'd rather die than live in Utah) .
So the real difference is not "Windows advocates vs. Linux advocates". The real difference is the MS markets windows and regular Joes market linux. There is no company to high a marketing department to introduce the world to linux. Companies with a vested interest (like IBM) do their part on the fringes to advocate for Linux (and this is vital to its growing business acceptance) but in general if you want to switch to linux you talk to a random techie and not a marketing guy.
Windows, on the other hand, has MS behind it to ensure continuity of message, polish, etc. If you're considering the merits of Windows you may end up on some forum with a bunch of MS advocates (and if you do you're experience will be no better than it is with Linux advocates, I'd wager) but you're more likely to get your information from people educated and paid to make sure you like the experience of getting the information.
-stormin
Naw, even the conservative think tanks thought promoting the Terri Shiavo thing was good politics
I don't know about good politics, but I do know about common decency. On the one hand you've got a "husband" who's already living with another woman and stands to get a 6-figure sum if they pull the plug. On the other hand you've got mom, dad, brothers and sisters willing to accept the financial burden of caring for their loved one.
Instead of just divorcing the comatose woman (if she's brain dead - then killing her isn't mercy, if she's not brain dead then killing her isn't right) her "husband" decides he'd rather cash in on the money. So he installs a couple of body guards to be sure no one can see her, pulls the plug, waits for her to croak, and then walks away with several hundred large ones.
This wasn't a family issue - it was basically medical murder for greed.
-stormin
You work sounds absolutely fascinating to me. I know that some of your reassons for leaving the Mormon church must obviously have been personally, but I'm intrigued to hear what academic/intellectual problems you found. If we could start an email correspondance I would be thrilled. It's one thing to have to sort through pages of anti-Mormon propoganda (you get a lot of that on teh interweb if your name is 'theStorminMormon'), but it's quite another to run into someone who has done real research.
Besides, linguistics has been fascinating to me ever since my mission days. After studying German and ASL (American Sign Language) in high school I thought I knew what foreign languages were. But when I got sent to Hungary and had to learn Hungarian I realized how diverse language could be. German is practically the same language as English compared to Hungarian. My eyes were opened and although I haven't seriously studied another language since learning Hungarian I'm perpetually interested in all things linguistic.
I'd like to hear more about the problems you had with Mormonism before I recommend any chapters from "By the Hand of Mormon" - or any other book for that matter. I simply recommended that one because it's really the only book on the Book of Mormon that comes from a neutral press (Oxford University). No point reading some evangelical shrill or some Desseret apologist.
So, if you could send me an email (yours is not shown publicly) that'd be great. To spare you the clicking my own email is nathaniel.givens [AT] gmail. In the interests of full disclosure (and since you might notice the name of the author of By the Hand of Mormon and Google him) Terryl Givens is my father.
-stormin
ok. It's possible for people that have faith to also be rational.
Oh happy day! That's really all I'm trying to get it. It fills my heart with endless joy that I've at least come to amicable terms on this topic with one fellow thinker out there in the world. I can die a happy man now. Although, "I never said that was plan A!"
As for what you say about churches - I think that it holds true for a lot of religions. I tend to believe this is more a result of human nature than religion, however. For thousands of years religions have been a concentrated resevoir of political/social/ideological power and that power has attracted some of the worst of humanity. There's no question about it - religion can bring out the worst in people.
But it can also bring out the best. I believe there are "good" religions out there (not just one!) and that there are also good reasons to have organized religions. They're kind of like family. Sometimes just being stuck with people who might not necessarily choose to associate with causes you to grow and develop in ways we would not if we only hung out with people we are attracted too. That's just one plausible explanation or the importance of not only religion - but organized religion.
I agree - this has been a good debate. I look forward to the next one!
-stormin
Religion, on the other hand, offers absolute certainty,
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. My whole point is that those who offer absolute certainty in their religion are merely dogmatics. They're cheats. They're frauds. THAT type of religion is the opiate of the masses. Genuine religion does not console us with proffers of certainty. It may console us with tales (true or not) of a living God who cares about us, but it also continuously challenges us and forces us to live in intellectual tension. This whole idea that you should "take it or leave it without any evidence at all" is nonsense. Talk to anyone you know (surely you know someone like this) who is deeply spiritually religious and devout and also intelligent and open minded. Just sit down some time for a long talk about what faith means to them. I think you will be surprised (thought not necessarily convinced) by how logical and rational their faith is.
Furthermore you're committing the age-old flaw of comparing the ideal of science with the worst of religion. Science - at it's best - offers degrees of certainty. But anyone can take scientific terminology, equations, etc and use it to disquise bigotry as science. That's what eugenics was about. You would counter - quite fairly - that phrenology was a big mistake. That may be true - and it is certainly not science by the strict definition - but it was part of the scientific establishment. That absolute certainty in the superiority of one's race WAS SUBSTANTIATED BY SCIENCE. Not by real science, but by the shams that were perpetrated historically.
My only response is to use that feeling of revulsion you have when you think about people warping science into something that serves their own interests and realize that that is precisely how religious people feel when religion is warped to proffer some kind of absolute certainty to people. "Say you believe in Christ, drop a dollar in the hat, and you'll feel better!" That, in my opinion, is no more real religion than the Hitlerian propganda - in the guise of science - was real science.
-stormin
1. Pointless Questioning
I'm not advocating pointless questioning. What I'm advocating is much more subtle. All I'm saying is that people should always remember that nothing is certain. I'm not saying they need to actively question everything. I'm just saying that human hubris has been probably the single greatest cause of intellectual corruption - of scientists or religious people (or both). If we can simply remember to be humble in the face of the unknown - then we will be more open to discerning between intellectual conviction and intellectual stubborness. I actually think we can agree on this point - it's just a question of me coming down overly dramatically on the "doubt everything" side of things simply to counterbalance the overwhelming sense of unfounded certainty here on Slashdot.
2. Religious Mystery
First off, I'm not offended at all. I haven't read Dennett's new work. I was so put off by what I considered to be the critical errors of "Elbow Room" that I haven't read anything since - although I've ceratinly been interested in reading some of his non-philosophical work on neurology. But on your advice, I'll take a look at the most recent book. I mean that seriously. Let me know what the title is and I will check it out.
As far as your religious past - I'm sorry you didn't have good luck with your questions. Not to sound arrogant, but I imagine I could give you better answers than any of what your bishops were able to if it comes to intellectual questions about Mormonism. Not that I'm trying to convert you back (although I'd be lying if I said I didn't care) I always get depressed when people base their reasons for leaving the Church on the weaknesses of some its members. Mormons are as likely as anyone else to buy into the dogmatic world view, but if you actually look at the theology (e.g. teachings of Joseph Smith) and study some of the modern scholarship (e.g. Hugh Nibley) I think you'll find the answers you're looking for.
How about a trade? I read Dennett's book if you read one of my choosing. Try "By the Hand of Mormon" by Terryl Givens. If you don't want to read it, that's fine. I'll still read Dennett. But I like the trade idea better.
-stormin
I do, and so does the bible, according to it God refues to prove he exists (i.e. refuses to allow himself to be detected).
;-)
What Bible did you read? Clearly not the one where Bible talks to Eve and Adam in the garden. Or reveals himself to Moses. There's nothing in the bible at all that substantiates this claim.
But he can't be detected
Again - you make this claim. The Bible does not. Neither do I. A lot of religions do not.
Beleivig in God is no more rational or logical than beleiving in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. Thor did not exist, Ra did not exist, Zeus did not exist, Apollo did not exist, Quetzalcoatl did not exist and Jesus did not exist.
You're certainly a man of your times. I'll see you on the other side, and we can chat about this.
I got get back to real life now.
-stormin
It's been fun, but I've got to get back to my real life.
-stormin
By that rationale, all religion is basically a waste of time, because it relies on believing something wholeheartedly that's fundamentally unknowable
No - all religion that you believe dogmatically is a dogmatically.
Look, this is the moment where I just step back and try to explain something that you might not have thought of before. A lot of people who are religious live in a state of intellectual tension. The moment you take it for granted that your religion is right (move to #1) the moment your religion is worthless. The moment you write off religion as impossibly false (#3) the moment you have given up on reason and science. But no one likes uncertainty - and that's exactly what living a life of faith requires.
My thesis is this: nothing in life is certain. Any philosophy that allows people to take things as certain (no matter what those things are) is worhtless. That's it. I'm not trying to tell people they have to be religious or not. I'm not arguing anyone could or should believe in God, or that it's more reasonable to believe in God. I'm just arguing that those people who believe science can give them certainty are essentially committing the same mistake as those who believe that religion can give them certainty.
Life is not about certainty - life is about learning to operate without it.
-stormin
If you'd read the original posts you'd realize that one of the things I'm campaiging against is the science/religion dichotomy. I'd say #2 SHOULD be religion, but that a lot of religious people go for #1 or #3 instead (#1 for God, #3 for evolution). A lot of scientific people go for #3 for God. Both of these are equally dogmatic and therefore equally flawed.
What if the individual believes #3 not because of "blind faith", but because of the lack of evidence supporting #1 and a mountain of evidence supporting #3?
No amount of evidence can get you to #3. As long as there's ignorance and unknownn that can not be quantified you can never get to #3 by weight of evidence. That's kind of my whole point. You can only get to #3 (or #1) through either omniscience, or through some logical necessity based on something that is certain. Short of these special conditions everything is uncertain, everything is tentative, and therefore eveything is #2.
There's nothing wrong with asserting "God does not exist". It's only wrong when you mistake that assertion for logical certainty. That's the difference between someone who has convictions and an open mind and someone who has convictions and a closed mind.
-stormin
To forestall the inevitable response that the distinction between #2 and #3 is a distinction without a difference, here is the difference.
According to #2 I believe provisionally that you are wrong. I'm open to being changed. I consider the possibility that you have been abducted by aliens to be a very low probability - but greater than 0.
By #3 I assert that the probability you were actually abducted by aliens is 0.
The result is that if aliens really did exist, someone from #2 could eventually be persuaded, but someone in position #3 has gone beyond the evidence at hand to dogma and therefore can never be persuaded that there are aliens. Positions 1 and 2 are fundamentally unjustified if for no other reason that that we can not be certain of ANYTHING. We should ALWAYS be in position 2 about EVERYTHING that isn't a logical imposibility (e.g. 2+2=5).
People who write off God as a logical impossibility or a proven falsehood have overstepped the bounds of evidence. They've also stepped beyond the bounds of science since "God does not exist" is no more falsifiable then "God exists".
-stormin