An interesting viewpoint. However if we follow Darwin's theory that postulates that environment is the cause of all forms of evolution, therefore it follows that if the environment of modern day Americans is such that they need not have high level thinking skills, then does it not follow that mutated progeny would not have to have these thinking skills? Just a thought.
I expect that in a couple of days the news will be that evolution is slowly reversing... DEVO knew that in the 80s.
The name "Devo" comes "from their concept of 'de-evolution' - the idea that instead of evolving, mankind has actually regressed, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society."[1]
Read the Discussion page. There you can see what alternative viewpoints exist and how the present state of the article developed. Unfortunately, deletions are not saved.
I'm too thick skinned to be offended and your POV is appreciated.
How can you be free if a government agent tells you how to think? Don't forget apathy. Also I was involved in the recent NSW council elections and to my horror policy meant nothing. Faces did! I'm just so naive sometimes.:) Regarding schooling: Around 1975-77 the NSW Dept. Of Ed came up with Aims of Education (Primary) which basically allowed teachers to stop prescriptive teaching. This lasted till the early 90s when new curriculums changed all that. Within those 'Golden Years' there were possibilities that some teachers (many university trained) took advantage of. Those creatively inspired kids upon reaching high school fared somewhat better than the rest IMHO. Today they would be between 20 to 30, feel empowered, think laterally and associatively with a top-down view of their world. Unfortunately the public/private school sectors are becoming no different as they are both under very tough prescriptive government control. Gatto is of course correct. Many dissatisfied teachers have come to the same conclusions and left the system. Curriculum design is not the role of the teacher, but driven by economic frugality, misinformation and social control.
As an aside: Rousseau (I think) had the philosophy that if a child did not want to learn then why force them? The Jesuits knew that if you take a child to the age of 7, you can mold them to whatever you desire them to be.
Are you an active Libertarian? What role do you see an Australian Libertarian government have nationally and internationally?
Good points. It's a matter of degree I suppose. A society should look after their aged, poor etc. It's a matter of ethics and morals. You believe in that or you don't. However in a completely Libertarian society you would have no such need as every member would ensure that they provide for themselves in case times get hard. The US system principally based on charity/church organizations works ok to a point. I doubt if any form of libertarian government would confiscate personal property to pay for another's upkeep. That smacks of communism. Maybe a compromise? After all, by accepting that a portion of your tax dollar go towards public education and public health while still having the right to do as you please, could be a solution. I think there needs to be a safety net, that's all.
He points out that while the nominal US economy has been growing at a compound annual rate of 5 per cent for seven years, the liabilities of the US Government have been expanding at a compound rate of 13 per cent.
Grant wrote to clients: "In 2000, the Government was on the hook for $US29 trillion of guarantees, insurance obligations and projected future payments to Medicare and Social Security recipients. Seven years later, the grand total of such projected future obligations and payments was $US67 trillion." Even in America, this is big money, equivalent to about five times the nation's total economic output.
Grant continues: "Insofar as the promises continue to pile up faster than the domestic resources with which to redeem them, the Treasury's creditors must be at some elevated level of risk. Needing money it can't easily get through taxation, the Government must borrow it. Who will lend it, and at what cost?"
The article is a good read and compares the rise of China and the fall of the US amongst other things.
Yeah I know. I had to tag a 700 page word document for a publisher. First, I had to turn it into a text file while trying to preserve end notes (that is not fun), then every time there was an chapter heading, chapter number, indent, paragraph, quote etc, I had to add and so on. It would have been much simpler to do the damn thing in text in the first place.
People claim that 'government protection' is socialism. It's not. It's a remnant of convict colonial policy. That is that the government were the 'carers' (read wardens) of the convict settlement. There was no socialism involved. That mind set did not stop after the last boat load of convicts in the 1850s.
US Libertarianism as in the foundation of their Bill of Rights, worked hand-in-hand with the British East India Company which was a commercial enterprise and not a warden power. So libertarianism flourished under capitalism. That's why they are equated and consequently part of the problem faced by many citizens in the US. The right to be free shouldn't mean the right to be destitute. A nation can be libertarian and democratic and have government organizations in place to protect those who can't help themselves - even if they are 'personally responsible'.
So the inertia of a few hundred years of colonial mind set cannot be changed overnight. Australian Libertarianism can work here and has the ability to fix many issues just by some deregulation. Where it goes from there is anyone's guess. We look after our unemployed, single mothers, provide basic health care to all and care for our old and disabled. I like that about Australia. Why can't we have Libertarianism as well - Australian style?
The LDP as a political arm of Libertarianism wants flat taxes, smaller government and the rights of business and property owners to be unencumbered. It also promotes individual rights like possessing firearms, it's your choice to smoke cigarettes (Clubs etc) or dope at home, riding bikes without helmets and a myriad of other things all based on the right of individuals. With this comes the concept of personal responsibility. A lot of people balk at that, thinking it is wild and anarchistic to have a free-for-all mentality for anyone to be free to do anything they want. But it doesn't have to go that far that fast. Our rights are being eroded daily and no-one seems to care. A small change would be better than no change at all.
On the Effectiveness of Aluminium* Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study [mit.edu] I can't believe that they didn't coat the tinfoil hats with wax! Any paranoid knows that wax actually reflects all RF! The whole experiment has to be redone with a wax coating. I suggest dipping each hat in a vat of candle wax with one extra as a control. By the way, ear wax is not a substitute.
What makes you say it's better here than the US? Good question. Our laws are there fundamentally to protect people. We have gov and semi-gov services that protect people. Our gov looks after us. That's not the case in the US. It's a dog -eat-dog world for them. I'm not talking socialism here. It's a remnant of our history and early constitutional debate. Federation took decades before all states adopted it in 1901 because they were happy with their individual state laws. Some of these were based on Colonialism and some (like SA) weren't. If you didn't like the laws in NSW, you could move to QLD and take your chances there. Federation stuffed that particular freedom up. What the problem appears to be in Australia is creeping over-regulation. We have regulations for this or that and we can't fart without paying for a license followed by an inspection.
Australian Libertarianism would be quite different to the USA. Libertarianism can exist here whether you are left or right wing. The politics don't matter as much as the rights of citizens to do what they want in their own paddock. I'll happily set off a firecracker in my backyard if it wasn't illegal, or shoot a myna bird with a slug gun - or have more than 3 chickens in my back yard or building what I want. That's the sort of 'rights' that needs changing - at least at first. That should be easy enough to do. Same thing with the judicial system. Any libertarian change in the background of our lives will eventually permeate through to the masses. The other problem as you mention is education. People here have absolutely no idea what it is to be 'free'. They don't understand what liberty actually means. They have no idea of what 'personal responsibility' is either. All they see as liberty is what they see on US TV and that is all bad, with bad consequences. Liberty in that sense is frightening for them. So the philosophy of Libertarianism should somehow be divorced from the USA model as I don't think that USA libertarianism will work over here. Parties like the LDP, citizens rights groups, and other groups that fight for rights must be supported. The LDP (no, I'm not a member) is still very young and have a lot of work to do and baggage to drop before they'll get noticed. But they are getting there. Check this out http://www.ldp.org.au/news/Aug08newsletter.html where Ben Buckley got over 4% of the vote. Read the comments! They are enlightening. I personally think that if the philosophy of libertarianism as opposed to the politics of libertarianism starts taking hold, then the rest will follow. Becoming a republic is the first step though.
What rocks should we use? Ideas? The simplest is by practice. Just send everyone ODF docs instead of MS docs. When they complain, tell them to download OO!
Agree. By 1985-1990 you had the following companies/computers/OS (in no particular order): 1. Apple II, III Apple Lisa, Apple Mac, Apple GS 2. PC PCjr - 808x and CP/M (Z80) 3. Microbee 4. BBC 5. Commodore 6. Atari 7. TI 8. + small gaming/programming machines - forgive me if I missed any others out.
Out of all of them, IBM's PC, CP/M and Apple Macs/Lisas became the defacto standards in soho business, with the others available for home use. Wang/Sun/Dec/IBM and the rest of the Unix style mini-computers held the mainstream corporate roles. By 1988 pretty much all of them could and DID communicate to each other via direct modem link or via BBS through standard txt or binaries. The OS was not a factor because everything went through common protocols. Even as late as 1996/1997 I was still producing professional documentation on an Apple//e that was transferable to virtually any brand of computer and OS. Now I only have 2 choices: WinX, or Linux for the PC or Apple Macs. Why CP/M went down is beyond me. Why PCs with MSDOS and Windows 1 to 3.1 became a standard is also beyond me. It was ugly to use, hard to set up, crap graphics - (CGA anyone?). I don't think anyone would have willingly chosen that compared to the ease of use of other systems. Because IBM, the 'Big Blue' was so identified with 'real computing' and that 'micro-computers' were still identified as toys, IBM itself was responsible for the proliferation of the 8086 and 8088 mainstream. That forced the 'PC' and Windows onto the world which was regrettably enough to wipe out all but Apple.
Mactrope is pretty much on the ball here. He may have some issues, I really don't know, but Microsoft can make as many mistakes as they want, stuff everybody up and generally be the worst player in the field. The world is so entrenched in the MS paradigm that to them MS=Computers and Computers=MS. That's all he is saying.
Slashdot Mirror
An interesting viewpoint. However if we follow Darwin's theory that postulates that environment is the cause of all forms of evolution, therefore it follows that if the environment of modern day Americans is such that they need not have high level thinking skills, then does it not follow that mutated progeny would not have to have these thinking skills?
Just a thought.
Trousers=Pants in the UK. And yes, you can mod me informative.
Doesn't Capt'n Kirk live there now?
That's pretty damned good. Unfortunately the London road crews can't paint parallel lines all to well.
I expect that in a couple of days the news will be that evolution is slowly reversing...
DEVO knew that in the 80s.
The name "Devo" comes "from their concept of 'de-evolution' - the idea that instead of evolving, mankind has actually regressed, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society."[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devo
Now we'll ALL know if Darwin was right! :)
so who really cares if the same lame effect can be animated?
Bumper stickers and billboards.
I heard also that Microbee was used schools in Sweden. Is that correct?
Did schools eventually adopt Apple?
I forgot Apricot too! Thanks for reminding me.
FGS! What a dumb story. Light relief at best.
Of course the continents will change in the next 10 million years! Unless Armageddon comes first.
TIP: If you have any seaside property, SELL NOW!!!
you guys believe in 'facts' from a book written by people that thought the world was flat.
Prove that! There is nothing in the bible that states the world was flat.
The Flintstones also proved that aliens visited the Earth in the remote past: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gazoo.
Which sun do you mean?
Read the Discussion page. There you can see what alternative viewpoints exist and how the present state of the article developed. Unfortunately, deletions are not saved.
I'm too thick skinned to be offended and your POV is appreciated.
How can you be free if a government agent tells you how to think? :)
Don't forget apathy.
Also I was involved in the recent NSW council elections and to my horror policy meant nothing. Faces did! I'm just so naive sometimes.
Regarding schooling: Around 1975-77 the NSW Dept. Of Ed came up with Aims of Education (Primary) which basically allowed teachers to stop prescriptive teaching. This lasted till the early 90s when new curriculums changed all that. Within those 'Golden Years' there were possibilities that some teachers (many university trained) took advantage of. Those creatively inspired kids upon reaching high school fared somewhat better than the rest IMHO. Today they would be between 20 to 30, feel empowered, think laterally and associatively with a top-down view of their world. Unfortunately the public/private school sectors are becoming no different as they are both under very tough prescriptive government control. Gatto is of course correct. Many dissatisfied teachers have come to the same conclusions and left the system. Curriculum design is not the role of the teacher, but driven by economic frugality, misinformation and social control.
As an aside: Rousseau (I think) had the philosophy that if a child did not want to learn then why force them? The Jesuits knew that if you take a child to the age of 7, you can mold them to whatever you desire them to be.
Are you an active Libertarian? What role do you see an Australian Libertarian government have nationally and internationally?
Good points. It's a matter of degree I suppose. A society should look after their aged, poor etc. It's a matter of ethics and morals. You believe in that or you don't.
However in a completely Libertarian society you would have no such need as every member would ensure that they provide for themselves in case times get hard.
The US system principally based on charity/church organizations works ok to a point. I doubt if any form of libertarian government would confiscate personal property to pay for another's upkeep. That smacks of communism. Maybe a compromise? After all, by accepting that a portion of your tax dollar go towards public education and public health while still having the right to do as you please, could be a solution. I think there needs to be a safety net, that's all.
Yep. And the US has so far guaranteed $67 trillion in loans which they can't pay for!
From http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/americas-century-is-the-sun-setting-on-an-epoch/2008/10/03/1223013791575.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2
Jim Grant, publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Monitor and a perpetual pessimist on the US economy, performs this function for his clients. "No goose was ever so golden as the US economy, but that doesn't mean it's immortal," he says. "Generations of politicians have had their knives out for it."
He points out that while the nominal US economy has been growing at a compound annual rate of 5 per cent for seven years, the liabilities of the US Government have been expanding at a compound rate of 13 per cent.
Grant wrote to clients: "In 2000, the Government was on the hook for $US29 trillion of guarantees, insurance obligations and projected future payments to Medicare and Social Security recipients. Seven years later, the grand total of such projected future obligations and payments was $US67 trillion." Even in America, this is big money, equivalent to about five times the nation's total economic output.
Grant continues: "Insofar as the promises continue to pile up faster than the domestic resources with which to redeem them, the Treasury's creditors must be at some elevated level of risk. Needing money it can't easily get through taxation, the Government must borrow it. Who will lend it, and at what cost?"
The article is a good read and compares the rise of China and the fall of the US amongst other things.
Yeah I know. I had to tag a 700 page word document for a publisher. First, I had to turn it into a text file while trying to preserve end notes (that is not fun), then every time there was an chapter heading, chapter number, indent, paragraph, quote etc, I had to add and so on. It would have been much simpler to do the damn thing in text in the first place.
People claim that 'government protection' is socialism. It's not. It's a remnant of convict colonial policy. That is that the government were the 'carers' (read wardens) of the convict settlement. There was no socialism involved. That mind set did not stop after the last boat load of convicts in the 1850s.
US Libertarianism as in the foundation of their Bill of Rights, worked hand-in-hand with the British East India Company which was a commercial enterprise and not a warden power. So libertarianism flourished under capitalism. That's why they are equated and consequently part of the problem faced by many citizens in the US.
The right to be free shouldn't mean the right to be destitute. A nation can be libertarian and democratic and have government organizations in place to protect those who can't help themselves - even if they are 'personally responsible'.
So the inertia of a few hundred years of colonial mind set cannot be changed overnight. Australian Libertarianism can work here and has the ability to fix many issues just by some deregulation. Where it goes from there is anyone's guess. We look after our unemployed, single mothers, provide basic health care to all and care for our old and disabled. I like that about Australia. Why can't we have Libertarianism as well - Australian style?
The LDP as a political arm of Libertarianism wants flat taxes, smaller government and the rights of business and property owners to be unencumbered. It also promotes individual rights like possessing firearms, it's your choice to smoke cigarettes (Clubs etc) or dope at home, riding bikes without helmets and a myriad of other things all based on the right of individuals. With this comes the concept of personal responsibility.
A lot of people balk at that, thinking it is wild and anarchistic to have a free-for-all mentality for anyone to be free to do anything they want. But it doesn't have to go that far that fast. Our rights are being eroded daily and no-one seems to care. A small change would be better than no change at all.
On the Effectiveness of Aluminium* Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study [mit.edu]
I can't believe that they didn't coat the tinfoil hats with wax!
Any paranoid knows that wax actually reflects all RF!
The whole experiment has to be redone with a wax coating. I suggest dipping each hat in a vat of candle wax with one extra as a control.
By the way, ear wax is not a substitute.
*Alumimium? MIT? Shouldn't that be Aluminum???
What makes you say it's better here than the US?
Good question. Our laws are there fundamentally to protect people. We have gov and semi-gov services that protect people. Our gov looks after us. That's not the case in the US. It's a dog -eat-dog world for them.
I'm not talking socialism here. It's a remnant of our history and early constitutional debate. Federation took decades before all states adopted it in 1901 because they were happy with their individual state laws. Some of these were based on Colonialism and some (like SA) weren't. If you didn't like the laws in NSW, you could move to QLD and take your chances there. Federation stuffed that particular freedom up.
What the problem appears to be in Australia is creeping over-regulation. We have regulations for this or that and we can't fart without paying for a license followed by an inspection.
Australian Libertarianism would be quite different to the USA. Libertarianism can exist here whether you are left or right wing. The politics don't matter as much as the rights of citizens to do what they want in their own paddock. I'll happily set off a firecracker in my backyard if it wasn't illegal, or shoot a myna bird with a slug gun - or have more than 3 chickens in my back yard or building what I want. That's the sort of 'rights' that needs changing - at least at first. That should be easy enough to do. Same thing with the judicial system. Any libertarian change in the background of our lives will eventually permeate through to the masses.
The other problem as you mention is education. People here have absolutely no idea what it is to be 'free'. They don't understand what liberty actually means. They have no idea of what 'personal responsibility' is either. All they see as liberty is what they see on US TV and that is all bad, with bad consequences. Liberty in that sense is frightening for them.
So the philosophy of Libertarianism should somehow be divorced from the USA model as I don't think that USA libertarianism will work over here.
Parties like the LDP, citizens rights groups, and other groups that fight for rights must be supported. The LDP (no, I'm not a member) is still very young and have a lot of work to do and baggage to drop before they'll get noticed. But they are getting there. Check this out http://www.ldp.org.au/news/Aug08newsletter.html where Ben Buckley got over 4% of the vote. Read the comments! They are enlightening.
I personally think that if the philosophy of libertarianism as opposed to the politics of libertarianism starts taking hold, then the rest will follow. Becoming a republic is the first step though.
What rocks should we use? Ideas?
The simplest is by practice.
Just send everyone ODF docs instead of MS docs.
When they complain, tell them to download OO!
Agree. By 1985-1990 you had the following companies/computers/OS (in no particular order):
1. Apple II, III Apple Lisa, Apple Mac, Apple GS
2. PC PCjr - 808x and CP/M (Z80)
3. Microbee
4. BBC
5. Commodore
6. Atari
7. TI
8. + small gaming/programming machines - forgive me if I missed any others out.
Out of all of them, IBM's PC, CP/M and Apple Macs/Lisas became the defacto standards in soho business, with the others available for home use. //e that was transferable to virtually any brand of computer and OS.
Wang/Sun/Dec/IBM and the rest of the Unix style mini-computers held the mainstream corporate roles.
By 1988 pretty much all of them could and DID communicate to each other via direct modem link or via BBS through standard txt or binaries. The OS was not a factor because everything went through common protocols.
Even as late as 1996/1997 I was still producing professional documentation on an Apple
Now I only have 2 choices: WinX, or Linux for the PC or Apple Macs.
Why CP/M went down is beyond me. Why PCs with MSDOS and Windows 1 to 3.1 became a standard is also beyond me. It was ugly to use, hard to set up, crap graphics - (CGA anyone?). I don't think anyone would have willingly chosen that compared to the ease of use of other systems.
Because IBM, the 'Big Blue' was so identified with 'real computing' and that 'micro-computers' were still identified as toys, IBM itself was responsible for the proliferation of the 8086 and 8088 mainstream. That forced the 'PC' and Windows onto the world which was regrettably enough to wipe out all but Apple.
Great link. Somehow I feel used and abused by MS and I reckon lots of us have contributed something towards MS's rise to infamy.
Mactrope is pretty much on the ball here. He may have some issues, I really don't know, but Microsoft can make as many mistakes as they want, stuff everybody up and generally be the worst player in the field.
The world is so entrenched in the MS paradigm that to them MS=Computers and Computers=MS. That's all he is saying.
It's been a slow news week. Maybe the economic crunch is having an effect on geek news...