The reason why we want wealth and low crime is to bring about happiness. When your pursuit of these things fail to produce more happiness, you are failing. The real purpose of a government should be to bring about the greatest happiness for their citizens and sustain their happiness. All the wealth and low crime in the world won't make a damned bit of difference if you are so miserable you throw yourself off a bridge.
You make it sound like hedonism is the obvious choice when choosing value/goals for government or individual. I can point to two philosophers off the top of my head which (and correct me if I'm wrong, please) don't follow that assumption.
Greek philosophy, from what I understand, talks of eudaimonia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudemonia, which is the pursuit of human flourishing, however you want to see that (it is commonly translated as happiness, though). Aristotle viewed it has something akin to prizing virtue in all its forms, which he then proceeded to lay out. Plato (in the Republic) saught happiness of the whole, as opposed to happiness of the individual... although happiness of the individual is supposed to follow from the the individual doing his part for the whole (420b-c).
My point is that happiness of the individual may, to some philosophies, be considered secondary to the correct alignment of virtues, or unity of the community, etc. We may not accept these priorities in modern Western societies, but their acceptance does not detract from the fact that other value systems do exist outside our own.
I am not familiar enough with the Japanese culture to determine if they prize unity (or anything like that) of the whole above the happiness of the individual (perhaps through liberty / individualism), but given my knowledge of their conformity, it wouldn't surprise me much.
Ah but interestingly... Nobody has every (AFIAK) recommended total prohibition on drugs. It would be disastrous.
Sorry, I should have made myself more clear. I wasn't referring to all drugs, but merely certain drugs; and this most definitely applies towards the public.
Advocating the prohibition of all drugs might be more analogous to prohibition of all file sharing... which would also be disastrous.
Why cant these congresscritters get it through their thick skulls that there are plenty of legitimate uses for P2P, even in a university environment.
Just to play the devil's advocate: Could it be because the supposed benefits are outweighed by the known and (currently) uncontrollable abuses (piracy)? A poor analogy might be control of drugs. Certain drugs have benefits, but the negative abuses by the public encourage total prohibition. Yes, I know it doesn't stop people from doing drugs... but I'm sure it hampers it.
Why can't it be sustained? Why is.003% of the schools budget not acceptable to run software for all of the computers? Seems pretty cheap to me considering what you get for the money.
Bill, is that you? We're all friends here Bill, you don't need to hide behind an 'Anonymous Coward' label.
After a cease and desist order, it seemed certain that Amplive's remix of Radiohead's In Rainbows would never see a official release. Fortunately, both sides have come to an agreement, and Amplive's Rainydayz Remixes is now available for download.
It almost would appear that Radiohead was acting under some kind of open music philosophy, where they are allowing alteration to their free album with neither AmpLive nor Radiohead directly profiting from the alteration. But I'm obviously just speculation as to what happened...
He has also been influencing other bands (or at least one other artist that I know) to adopt this method. Saul Williams [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_williams] collaborated with Trent on his newest album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust [http://niggytardust.com/saulwilliams/moreinfo], which was given away for free online, with the option to donate, of course.
Looks like Trent might have been testing the waters before he launched himself (so to speak), which might also be a testament to the viability of this method. If it didn't work at all for lesser known artist like Saul Williams, then I doubt Trent would be declaring this method 'the future.'
Further on the article states that the lifetime was expected to be five years, so three times, not four, but still, a spacecraft tripling its expected useful life is a strong testament to the skill of its engineers.
Who exactly makes determines the expected life of these things? Is it the scientists who are working on them? 'Cause if you want to be a glass-half-empty kind of guy, then you could say that it's a poor testament to their ability to predict expectancies, rather than to exceed them.
I'm a lazy typist, and I barely lift my fingers when I type... I wonder how this thing would register me moving my fingers about.
For instance, if I have to type the letter 't' from the standard position, then I drag my index finger from the 'f' position to the 't' position. I'm guessing this system would register that as a mouse movement.
To play the devil's advocate here, a private tracker does help reduce virus laden, mistagged, and otherwise useless crap from the site. It's like having a legit bar that sells drugs (Amsterdam), versus a sleazy guy in a back alley. The loss in anonymity provides a little bit of assurance of the product.
That's not even to mention the fact that trackers such as TPB have a lot of people who never give back for what they take. With a leeching majority you can end up with a lacking, or almost non-existent, seeding base; this makes for terrible transfer rates. Again, with the loss of anonymity, and a closed user base, you can slowly weed out those who don't contribute, and you're left with quicker transfers.
It's the United Nations who use both of these indexes to measure human well-being, not Mao. Plus the HDI was developed with the help of a diverse group, including Gustav Ranis of Yale University ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Indexrel=url2html-31644http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index>, who is US educated, and at a very expensive university.
I can agree that statistics may be subject to certain biases, but when numerous countries / academics agree upon it's usefulness, it hard to contest by simply saying, "I don't believe statistics because they may be biased."
So you are saying that at the cost of the present, you're banking on tomorrow? I understand that's one argument for a free market society, but come on, you're talking about human lives. I would rather not pay for cheaper health care with the blood of my neighbours.
I suppose this is the long running socialist vs. capitalist debate, but you really need to look at the facts... socialist-democratic societies seem to be much happier, better educated, etc. then the American free market society, bent on the idea that individual happiness is best served cold with individual self-interest.
Check out the HDI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index (America is 12th), and Poverty Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Poverty_Index (America 17th), for some, albeit contestable, evidence to my claim that socialist countries seem to be doing better off than the American self-aggrandized way of life. Plus, it would appear the United States is doing nothing more than slipping further away from those top socialist countries.
You technical types are far to narrow minded and cynsical. You should learn to enjoy life.
umm... Aren't you yourself being narrow minded here? You did a fair job of stereotyping the scientific community...
Also, before you make comments about how something improves your spelling and grammar, you should probably proofread your work. Might make your post a little less humorous.
I work for Sprint/Nextel (on the Nextel side), and I must agree that there are a LOT of billing errors. It doesn't take 4-48 hours to get a credit placed on your account, and the reps have the ability to do it immediately... there is no need to send it off to anyone.
The only reason I can think that it might be sent off is to billing research, because cust service reps aren't trained to correct reoccurring billing errors (releated to the system) permanently. A follow-up to billing research takes up to 1 billing cycle, not 48 hours.
Also, the reps in India or terribly trained. I see countless mistakes on peoples accounts, of which I have to correct, on a constant basis because of them. They outright lie to the customers, etc. This isn't indicative of all of Sprint / Nextel, though, since I work in an American call centre with generally competent people. Try asking to be transfered to the government or corporate queue, they are closer to being VIP customers, and they get the benefit of speaking to a North American.
I can also say that we get our fair share of ignorant customers. It unbelievable how many people are certain they are correct, when, in fact, they are completely wrong, and you can't convince them otherwise. Still others know they have no legit claim, but will call in and yell for hours and someone gives them a couple bucks to shut them up... these are the customers (and there are a lot of them) that I'm guessing Sprint/Nextel are trying to get rid of. If they waste 4 hours of a reps time, that's pretty well equivalent in cost to the average persons entire cell bill.
Anyway... I need to take off now to get yelled at by ignorant customers for the next 10 hours straight.
Otherwise they become superhumans and why would they want us around? Energy source?
Why would an intellectually superior thing want an intellectually inferior thing around? I dunno... compassion? companionship? diversity? Why do humans care if certain unusable animals are wiped out? I would think superior intelligence might bring cooperation and rather than subjugation. Just because we are currently exploiting everything (including each other), it does not mean that this is the intelligent thing to do.
And as for the question of why you would produce a being of superior intelligence... evolution perhaps? Progress? Have we given up on moving our species forward (in this case it would be our intellectual offspring)? Must everything we produce be a mere tool?
When you believe something strongly enough, you know it to be true.
Well I suppose we're into more a question of epistemology then, rather than a question concerning God. What are the necessary criteria that produce truth and knowledge, and such. I'm not sure I agree with your working definition, but I'll accept it.
All I ask is that you grant me the same respect and stop trying to tell me what I should be believing or that my belief system is somehow not compatible with reality.
I have not told you what to believe in, I was merely stating that alternatives exist. The way you were writing was as if you denied that. I'm Agnostic, so please don't assume everyone is out to attack your belief system.
And quite frankly, no one can prove the WHO one way or another anyhow.
Well this is my point exactly. Since you can't prove it, I'm forced to believe that you don't KNOW it. Knowing implies a some degree of certainty. I believe that you BELIEVE that God created man, but I'm also sure that you are not certain of that 'fact.' For you to state that you are 100% certain only makes me shake my head. As you've said, 'faith and intelligence are in no way mutually exclusive,' and one mark of intelligence is being open to alternatives.
Slashdot Mirror
Greek philosophy, from what I understand, talks of eudaimonia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudemonia, which is the pursuit of human flourishing, however you want to see that (it is commonly translated as happiness, though). Aristotle viewed it has something akin to prizing virtue in all its forms, which he then proceeded to lay out. Plato (in the Republic) saught happiness of the whole, as opposed to happiness of the individual... although happiness of the individual is supposed to follow from the the individual doing his part for the whole (420b-c).
My point is that happiness of the individual may, to some philosophies, be considered secondary to the correct alignment of virtues, or unity of the community, etc. We may not accept these priorities in modern Western societies, but their acceptance does not detract from the fact that other value systems do exist outside our own.
I am not familiar enough with the Japanese culture to determine if they prize unity (or anything like that) of the whole above the happiness of the individual (perhaps through liberty / individualism), but given my knowledge of their conformity, it wouldn't surprise me much.
- John
Advocating the prohibition of all drugs might be more analogous to prohibition of all file sharing... which would also be disastrous.
- John
- John
- John
Has anyone heard of any G-Bay rumours?
- John
The interesting thing about this is not only did they just released it for free, but it looks like there might have been a bit of a legal issue in which Radiohead issued a cease and desist to the group. From the article http://www.prefixmag.com/news/radiohead-amplive-remix-in-rainbows-download-ava/17248/:
It almost would appear that Radiohead was acting under some kind of open music philosophy, where they are allowing alteration to their free album with neither AmpLive nor Radiohead directly profiting from the alteration. But I'm obviously just speculation as to what happened...
Album is available for download from here: http://www.onesevensevensix.com/amplive/index.html
- John
He has also been influencing other bands (or at least one other artist that I know) to adopt this method. Saul Williams [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_williams] collaborated with Trent on his newest album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust [http://niggytardust.com/saulwilliams/moreinfo], which was given away for free online, with the option to donate, of course.
Looks like Trent might have been testing the waters before he launched himself (so to speak), which might also be a testament to the viability of this method. If it didn't work at all for lesser known artist like Saul Williams, then I doubt Trent would be declaring this method 'the future.'
- John
- John
- John
I'm a lazy typist, and I barely lift my fingers when I type... I wonder how this thing would register me moving my fingers about.
For instance, if I have to type the letter 't' from the standard position, then I drag my index finger from the 'f' position to the 't' position. I'm guessing this system would register that as a mouse movement.
- John
To play the devil's advocate here, a private tracker does help reduce virus laden, mistagged, and otherwise useless crap from the site. It's like having a legit bar that sells drugs (Amsterdam), versus a sleazy guy in a back alley. The loss in anonymity provides a little bit of assurance of the product.
That's not even to mention the fact that trackers such as TPB have a lot of people who never give back for what they take. With a leeching majority you can end up with a lacking, or almost non-existent, seeding base; this makes for terrible transfer rates. Again, with the loss of anonymity, and a closed user base, you can slowly weed out those who don't contribute, and you're left with quicker transfers.
- John
It's the United Nations who use both of these indexes to measure human well-being, not Mao. Plus the HDI was developed with the help of a diverse group, including Gustav Ranis of Yale University ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Indexrel=url2html-31644http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index>, who is US educated, and at a very expensive university.
I can agree that statistics may be subject to certain biases, but when numerous countries / academics agree upon it's usefulness, it hard to contest by simply saying, "I don't believe statistics because they may be biased."
- John
So you are saying that at the cost of the present, you're banking on tomorrow? I understand that's one argument for a free market society, but come on, you're talking about human lives. I would rather not pay for cheaper health care with the blood of my neighbours.
I suppose this is the long running socialist vs. capitalist debate, but you really need to look at the facts... socialist-democratic societies seem to be much happier, better educated, etc. then the American free market society, bent on the idea that individual happiness is best served cold with individual self-interest.
Check out the HDI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index (America is 12th), and Poverty Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Poverty_Index (America 17th), for some, albeit contestable, evidence to my claim that socialist countries seem to be doing better off than the American self-aggrandized way of life. Plus, it would appear the United States is doing nothing more than slipping further away from those top socialist countries.
- John
Also, before you make comments about how something improves your spelling and grammar, you should probably proofread your work. Might make your post a little less humorous.
- John
I work for Sprint/Nextel (on the Nextel side), and I must agree that there are a LOT of billing errors. It doesn't take 4-48 hours to get a credit placed on your account, and the reps have the ability to do it immediately... there is no need to send it off to anyone.
The only reason I can think that it might be sent off is to billing research, because cust service reps aren't trained to correct reoccurring billing errors (releated to the system) permanently. A follow-up to billing research takes up to 1 billing cycle, not 48 hours.
Also, the reps in India or terribly trained. I see countless mistakes on peoples accounts, of which I have to correct, on a constant basis because of them. They outright lie to the customers, etc. This isn't indicative of all of Sprint / Nextel, though, since I work in an American call centre with generally competent people. Try asking to be transfered to the government or corporate queue, they are closer to being VIP customers, and they get the benefit of speaking to a North American.
I can also say that we get our fair share of ignorant customers. It unbelievable how many people are certain they are correct, when, in fact, they are completely wrong, and you can't convince them otherwise. Still others know they have no legit claim, but will call in and yell for hours and someone gives them a couple bucks to shut them up... these are the customers (and there are a lot of them) that I'm guessing Sprint/Nextel are trying to get rid of. If they waste 4 hours of a reps time, that's pretty well equivalent in cost to the average persons entire cell bill.
Anyway... I need to take off now to get yelled at by ignorant customers for the next 10 hours straight.
- John
I for one welcome our new octosquid overlord jokes! You know they're coming...
- John
Sure! I assume this means you're willing to be infected with cancer for research purposes - after all, interests of the many..
Unnecessary. We've already reached that stage of scientific development where it is now possible to grow mice with breasts on their backs.
They are fun, furry, and useful.
- John
- John
And as for the question of why you would produce a being of superior intelligence... evolution perhaps? Progress? Have we given up on moving our species forward (in this case it would be our intellectual offspring)? Must everything we produce be a mere tool?
- John
The happiest man in the world, Richard Simmons, is immortal.
- John
- John
- John
Well this is my point exactly. Since you can't prove it, I'm forced to believe that you don't KNOW it. Knowing implies a some degree of certainty. I believe that you BELIEVE that God created man, but I'm also sure that you are not certain of that 'fact.' For you to state that you are 100% certain only makes me shake my head. As you've said, 'faith and intelligence are in no way mutually exclusive,' and one mark of intelligence is being open to alternatives.
- John