Research into Telomerase sounds like its got potential, but its still a special case example of generic research. I would like to know what research work is being done (or even just considered for funding?) into using new full genome sequencing, to carry out widespread comparative studies of hundreds (and even thousands) of older people who are in their 90s and older. Their genetic code may show many possibly important sections of DNA, which we can find computationally and then highlight these areas for deeper study. Its an additional broad brush approach so to speak, (extending this painting analogy, what I mean is we need to use more than just a small paintbrush to do the job. We also need to start broadly painting with buckets of paint thrown at the wall, to give us more starting points for more research).
Full genome comparisons of hundreds of very old peoples DNA seems like a good new milestone to set for the genome research, now the milestone of sequencing full genomes has been achieved. This research will obviously need refinement over time, but as the numbers of genomes to compare increases into many thousands of peoples DNA, we should be able to refine areas of interest.
Some people appear to have more robust genomes than others. It makes sense to study the oldest peoples genomes, to learn from their ability to withstand genetic damage from the environment. (It also makes sense to do massive comparative studies of the full genomes of people with all forms of cancers, to workout if there's also opposing patterns, which reduce the chances of old age. So by comparing the old age group with the cancer groups, we could computationally learn important areas which maybe susceptible to damage, plus learn areas of DNA that could be helped to prevent (and treat) cancers).
"But at least the copyright holders can sit down and relax for the next 100 years"
They can only relax for a few months, because ISPs still need to allow some access through their systems. So all that is needed, is to create ways to translate data into whatever form they do allow, so it gets through their system and then translate it back on the other side. The ISPs are just a barrier/bridge to the Internet, so no matter what new walls they create for data, new ways can be found to get data past their control. (Its not the ideal solution and not the most optimal solution, but unfortunately, as we live in a world where some people are determined to control others, then everyone else has no choice).
Unfortunately a minority of people, seek power over others and they are obsessed with finding new ways to control other people (for their own gain), but what they fail to realize, is their acts of control create a pressure for change away from their control. The power seekers throughout history have tried to create a bias in their favor, but it never lasts.
Given the way things are going, in a few years, its going to be 10's of millions of automated wiretaps, in every country regardless of political party. These wiretaps will then feed into automatic data formatting transcriptions of all data of whatever form (on phones and Internet) about anything that is said and done. Then the formatted transcriptions will feed into automatic profiling systems to work out overall types of views on subjects. Then anyone expressing any views of any political or other ideologically different opinions will be automatically placed on watch lists. Then anything the governments want to do, will be able to refer to the watch lists, to workout what sort of person they are dealing with.
So any dealings with government will be biased by the watch lists. For example, try to set up a business and it turns out you were critical of the current government, ah sorry, no business grant for you. Try to ask for a grant to help with your house or anything else, ah sorry, no grant for you. But then, if you have don't nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry away. But the problem is, who defines what is wrong?
People who seek power over others want the power to dictate the rules by how others live. That is power, but that underlying nature of power has always opposed democracy and freedom. (Power seekers don't want fairness, they after all, want to dictate the rules and have the power to dictate rules). But democracy cannot truly exist when the ones in power know the views of the voters. Its the principle of the secret vote, which prevents political manipulation of the voters to try to get them to vote in a certain ways. The more we move towards vast automated profiling, the more we undermined democracy, freedom and fairness.
So a time of 10's of thousands of wiretaps is nothing compared with where we are going, especially as the 10s of thousands were mostly targeted against criminal gangs, whereas the 10s of millions will be mostly innocent of any crime. Then again, expressing any view different from the ones in power, is considered a crime by some people who want others to follow what they tell them.
Researchers have already shown its possible to profile people from what they say. Its not long before we will have automated transcriptions of data into a form that's easy to profile. So give it a few years, almost everyone worldwide is going to be "wiretapped/watched" in everything they do. Where they drive, where they travel on buses, trains and planes. What they buy. What friends they have (phone and email records) and what views their friends have. What news papers they buy. What they say on the phone to everyone. What they say in emails. The news website articles they read. (Combined with the profiles of the people who write the news articles, which gives an automated measure of their views). They will also know what Internet streamed TV shows you watch, including any political documentaries, especially ones critical of the current government. They will know everything you like and dislike and it will be cataloged and listed and readily available of use in political campaigns.
But that's just the beginning. Once you can profile individuals, you can extend that to profile groups of people. For example, profile the kinds of people working for a company. Workout what sort of views they hold. Workout if a company, is the sort of company the current government wants to help or wants to hold back?. That in turn will put pressure on employers to refer to the profile watch lists, to avoid employing anyone who could give their company a bad image to the current government.
I don't see how democracy, freedom and fairness is going to survive in such a world?. But I suspect and fear the unfairness is going to build up to a point where it forces large numbers of people to stand up to their governments and we will be back to the bad old days of political revolutions, only this time, the watch lists will prevent anyone standing up to any government until things get really bad. So much for progress, democracy, freedom and fairness. All we seem to be doing, is repeating the mistakes of the past, but this time, automating the processes involved.
"inside the Earth"... If thats what they mean, (I assumed they made a mistake, but if that is literally what they mean), "inside the Earth", then that totally *assumes* every possible Group collision merger, whatever it creates, will *always* result into something that *cannot* react with anything else, *in anyway*. Thats a massive series of assumptions.
Also just thinking narrowly only for the moment about it only creating some black hole like particle, also still *assumes* our current maths are right about even just some predicted black hole stlye particle. All these assumptions show very narrow thinking. We don't know enough about the universe to make so many assumptions its safe. We are letting our desire to learn more blind us to the very real serious possible risks associated with the research.
As for "I believe that it would pass harmlessly through the nucleus in most cases."... That assumes (A) our theories are correct and (B) the "in most cases" shows that even you don't think it will *always* fail to interact.
The history of science is littered with examples of how people found things we didn't expect. Thats fine and good for most discoveries in science, but that principle cannot be applied to ever higher energy particle physics when we clearly don't know enough about what we are experimenting with and what possible things can do wrong. There is the very real potential for very serious dangers in this kind of research. If one experiment killed one person, then ok, its sad for them, their family and friends etc.. but the world continues.. life goes on. Even if 1000 people were killed by the experiment, its a horrific mistake, but the human race will still continue and be able to learn from the mistakes. But we are talking about an experiment that has the risk of killing everyone on Earth. We cannot learn by literally a trial and error process, when we are betting everyones life on the experiment being, we assume, 100% safe. We therefore need to be extremely careful and so far we are not showing enough questioning of the safety of the experiment and what possible ways it can cause serious problems (to say the least).
"But the event you postulate is extremely improbable in any case because of that tiny collision cross-section."
Given the age of the universe, that's exactly how natural rare occurances of group mergers could help account for some fraction of the mass of the universe, yet it would also explain why we don't percieve it occuring much in our very small human lifetime, time scales. But even though its likely rare in nature, in such a powerful particle accelerator as the LHC, its going to happen a lot more frequently.
"It would still have such a tiny collision cross-section that it could orbit inside the Earth for a billion years without growing to perceptible size."
Occuring in Earth orbit isn't a problem, even if it lasted and stayed stable for even thousands of years. But for it to occur on Earth, surrounded by so much mass on Earth, it would have a huge amount of mass to rapidly interact with. If such an event occured, there's no way to contain it and no time to learn how to contain it. We therefore cannot risk anything going wrong. So not risking things we can perceive going wrong and even more importantly, things we cannot yet imagine going wrong. (That's part of the problem, we are moving into ever more dangerous territory, the further we start to experiment with ever higher energies, yet we are using these experiments to learn how it behaves. That's fundamentally flawed thinking, because if there is anything that could go wrong, we will eventually find it, with that kind of thinking).
Any assumption we know enough to experiment with ever higher energies is foolish at best and dangerous at worst. If there is even just one way it can go badly wrong, thats it, the end of the planet and all humans. It really is the most important experiment in human history, because its vital it doesn't go wrong in any way, or it could be the last experiment. I want to learn as much as anyone, but I'm not prepared to bet everything on that one experiment and that one goal of learning the answers.
Which opens up the question, what if the LHC doesn't give us the answers we expect and so we aim to build even bigger than the LHC. At what point is too big? At what point do we say this could be too dangerous?.
I really want to learn from the LHC, like so many people, but I'm playing devils advocate because that's what we must all do with something as serious as this experiment. But what keeps concerning me, is I keep seeing the desire to learn bias some peoples judgment. With any other experiment, no problem. With this experiement, we have to be absolutely sure of what we are doing and currently we are most certainly not considering all possible events. Group particle collision mergers is just one example of where they are clearly not considering all events.
"haven't accounted for 96% of the energy and mass of the universe in their current model."
They also haven't accounted for all possible group particle mergers and interactions in the LHC. Unlike nature, in a particle accelerator they have groups of high energy particles moving in close proximity. In nature, we have lone high energy particles. We don't know what we can create in group collision mergers of high energy particles and even though these are rare compared with single particle interactions, they can still occur. Even if a black hole like particle was briefly formed and then hit by another particle or two or twenty, then what?. The point is, we simply don't know whats possible, but its very likely to be a different situation than simply a lone particle able to break down. If a group collision merger occured in nature, it would most likely be very rarely occuring, but it could be enough to help account for some fraction of the mass of the universe. We simply don't know, but we do know that in a particle accelerator, its going to happen a lot more often than in nature and we don't know what kinds of reactions group high energy mergers could cause.
While its (mostly) safe to assume single high energy particles are not going to be a problem, as they happen relatively often in nature, we cannot say the same for multiple collsion mergers and all possible interactions of multiple particles, as we simply do not know for sure. The current various theories are not proof its safe and the fact we cannot account for so much energy and mass in the universe is a very good reason to suspect our theories are wrong.
Also the fact they are building the LHC is proof in itself that they build it to learn, so they don't currently know for sure. Also for all their planning, even that magnet failure showed their theories and multi-million dollar design plans about how the machine should function can still go wrong. Humans make mistakes. Thats fine, we all accept that, but making a mistake with the LHC could potentially be the most serious mistake in human history.
What concerns me is their intense desire to learn is going to bias their judgment. (I know my desire to learn has biased my judgment from time to time), but this is the most important experiment in human history, so its vital it doesn't go wrong in any way, or it could be the last experiment.
"Pretty typical attitude in the industry I'd say."
Its unfortunately typical of a lot of bosses, regardless of the industry. Many bosses will arragantly use others, but don't want to give anything back (for fear of giving others a helping hand, as they may well end up being a competitor. So in their mind, its better to keep others down. They take, but don't give back. Its why they don't like open source, (when they have to compete with it), as its a threat to their way of treating others, as much as a threat to their products).
From the summary, "Why do we need closed vehicles? We do"
Yeah they do, as they want to control whats on their products, so they can charge whatever they like for them and if we don't like it, tough, as we will not get a choice, as they will prevent us having a choice, as they control whats on their products.... Great, typical arragant control of others. Yet again they show their need to control others, is at the centre of how they think. Without control, people will not accept being treated like this and they know it. The world would be so much better, without this minority of arragant control freaks seeking to control where ever they can. Yet they want us to just accept it?... yeah right. The more open, the better.
Legal action strong enough to totally stop them is unlikely, as the power seekers who run a lot of countries unfortunately seem to be rushing towards building their own Big Brother, so as they make the rules, they choose whats considered legal. So they simply need to change the laws, which is what they keep doing. It seems nearly every week now we are getting ever more stories of new grabs for information and/or power over people. At this rate, 2008 should go down in history as the start of a Worldwide Big Brother.
Its ironic that our so called free countries appear to be building Big Brother as fast, if not faster than other countries. Maybe we just have better technology. Its also ironic that the war on terrorists is a war against people who wish to force others into their point of view. Yet now the people already in power are seeking to clamp down and hold control over everyone. Its like all of us who don't seek power are caught up in a power struggle between the different groups of power seekers who do seek to impose their views on everyone.
I guess the ones in power in some way fear some lost of power, as it can't be just about protecting us. Its got to be about seeking more power, which is what they do thoughout their political lives and all of us who don't seek power are not going to be heard by them. Especially as most people don't seem to even see how much harm can be done with so much power and no way to tell them they are behaving unfairly. They are becoming like a machine which is loosing its feedback mechanism and so running towards ever more extremes.
"Except it is much much more complicated than that. Read up on transposons, recombination, the entire field of epigenetics (I personally find methylation to be fascinating), etc. There are an entire range of factors and functions that make it impossible to reliably extrapolate biology from DNA sequencing alone."
First, I am not implying its easy. Second I didn't say DNA sequencing alone. Both of these points are your assumptions. What I was saying is that its not impossible to learn to understand the brain. "impossible" is a very strong word and we are making progress.
Also for example, transposons appear to be almost like DNA versions of a macro. That doesn't change the fact that DNA is some form of encoded stream of data. Every lifeform has a silghtly different version of the data, but that doesn't make it impossible to work out how it functions.
I find it exciting that as genome sequencing becomes ever cheaper, we will get ever more sequences of data to compare. This included learning to understand non-human genome sequencings. Genome sequencing isn't the final answer. As I said before, we still need to learn to disassemble and even code new genetic sequences, but genome sequencing is going to open up a vast amount of automated data. Gaining that data will in turn allow even more advances.
"brain is probably impossible to 'reverse-engineer"
Humans are formed from the coding in DNA so therefore the function of a brain is also contained with DNA. Therefore in time, it can be entirely understood.
Up until now its hugely expensive and time consuming to sequence just one human. But one human is still only a point sample. When we get to even just $100 for sequencing a genome, its going to be possible to routinely sequence large numbers of people and so we will be able to cross reference everyone with every disorder they may suffer.
That's going to allow us to automate finding a lot of information about the genome. We don't need to entirely disassemble the DNA code to understand parts of it. We need to learn to disassemble it in time, but we will be able to find out a lot about it by statistical means.
But what I thinks is even more exciting is when we get to say $1 per genome. Then its possible (and cost effective) to do tens of thousands of repeat sequences of the same person to workout statistical probabilities of environmentally caused genetic damage. So for example find out if chemicals really are that safe etc.. Thats going to be yet another leap forward in progress.
If we work out what affects DNA, its not only going to help stop damage to the genome, it may also help automate finding ways to alter and help people with genetic disorders, plus learn new ways to prevent and control more diseases.
"They are however responding very well to the electroshock therapy and strong drugs to help them adjust to society."
That's the news according to the Ministry of Love. However the Ministry of Truth has decided that in this case, 85% is the same as 100%. Therefore hence forth, all news needs to be written as 100% of Chinese Likes Censorship.
Your failure to recognise this has been reported to the Thought Police, and room 101 is being prepared for your arrival.
You also forgot the "I for one welcome etc.." quote. But then again, in this case, its brain would be so slow, we would all have died of old age, long before it would finally be able to think up its first great chess move, in how to take control of the Earth.
Still, it would be EMP proof, so although its slow, its hard to stop with impressive high tech scifi looking energy weapons... well apart from it stopping due to rust or a spanner in the works etc..
"The government has no authority to take a cut of anything they wish" and "0% of zero & all that"
They make the rules. They choose what to tax and they choose what rules to change. But this is a far bigger issue that just music downloading. They are saying they want to add a tax on downloading specific data. That would create a hell of a precedent. It opens a situation that in the long term, is far wider than just music downloads.
Up until now, countries already have tax on downloading arbitrary data, as that's effectively part of the cost of using an ISP etc... But taxing specific data, thats very different. For a start, its going to need literally a Big Brother system to monitor it all. As they need to log and then workout a charge for each and every form of data.
Also who then works out how much to charge for each form of data?... Plus over time, they can then add new forms of data to the taxable list. Plus once its taxed, they can then choose to change the taxes over time.
Also what competitive disadvantage does that create for Californians against other countries not using such a system?... As they will then be leaking money away in more taxes, which other countries don't need to pay for the same information.
In a global economy, such short sighted state imposed profiteering for extra tax money, is going to create a competitive disadvantage for even being based in California.
Then to appear to counter this competitive disadvantage, they can then waste millions more setting up schemes where small businesses and students get some of their data at reduced tax rates etc.. But it will fail to cover all costs incurred, as they cannot create tax breaks of sufficient detail, to cover every new startup or student situation. Plus at the same time, other government departments undermine them, as they are working on dreaming up new forms of data tax, they want to add to the list of taxable forms of data.
While some countries most likely will follow America into this new hole they are trying to dig for themselves, they will open up yet another competitive advantage for other countries who don't adopt such a system.
It shows incredible shortsightedness. They are focused on short term profits from taxes with ignorance of the wider extra costs and implications and disadvantages and on top of that, will need to spend a fortune on building a Big Brother system to manage it all.
And if they choose to build Big Brother, so much for Land Of The Free?
The more I hear, the more I am sadly convinced that Big Brother is becoming inevitable, given the kinds of personalities involved in corporations and some positions of power.
"So you establish a reasonable period of monopoly that's tax-free. Say, for the first 5 or 7 or even 10 years a copyright is tax-free"
That won't work. Inventors can often work for a very long time. A decade or two to get their idea to market. (Inventors also often have limited time and money to start a company and so startup is a slow hard process. Building a business often takes many years. While the news sometimes has cases where people invent something, then quickly earn big money, thats not the norm. Often people have to work a very long time on a project, before they finally see success). Also how can such a time scale limit even be policed?... it can't, without a lot more bureaucracy. So that then also adds a great deal more bureaucracy, thats going to add additional costs and waste yet more time dealing with it all. Plus there can be dozens and often hundreds of individual bits of IP within a product. Thats a lot to keep track and so a lot more tracking costs to deal with it.
(And thats before we even get into people wanting to hold IP on software routines and techniques, as a big program could contain 1000s of routines each considered as their own IP).
... all this, simply to get some free stuff via P2P networks, (and then have to deal with a lot of red tape bureaucracy and government tracking of who gets what IP when, where, and how, attached to it... and they will continue to want to track it)?... its not worth it.
And as for... "Copyright law doesn't have broad coverage, trolls or rewards for gaming the system"
Yeah it doesn't yet!... "Yet" is the point. As soon as you add a tax to IP, it will also make trolls and gaming of the system possible as well. They will want to hold an IP to sell it to someone else. Wherever there's money to be made off other people, someone will be trolling or trying to game that system.
"able to count on some excellent tools" and from one of the parent posts "Microsoft would never have been happy about it because it would further erode their lock-in."
also from the article link http://www.royalidea.com/site/?q=node/12 we get this section...
"The aim of UNG is to write complete GNU-like tools and frameworks that will be completely compatible with existing GNU software and standards. These tools will run natively on Vista. This means that software written for the GNU environment will be able to compile and run on Vista with little or no modifications. Major software currently running on GNU/Linux will be able to run natively on Vista."
Microsoft's strategy revolves around the idea of lock in. Looking at this from the point of view of lock in, it then sounds like Microsoft is trying to find a way to get GNU code over onto Vista. If you can't beat them, then assimilate anything useful they have... like some excellent tools. That way, you get some good and free applications, sitting on top of your proprietary OS. Plus maybe even help remove, some of the reasons some corporate (non-technical) bosses of companies would think their staff would want Linux. "Why both, its got the same apps on Vista?".
While Microsoft controls the OS, they hold the foundations upon which all their competitors try to build a living. They are not going to give that up, but any company switching to Linux is a problem for them. So this is another chess move to try to reduce corporate customers moving towards Linux. Loosing corporate customers is what Microsoft really fears. Big customers moving away from Windows sends out a message to other big customers to act in a similar way. Microsoft wants to prevent this slide, especially as more cheaper embedded systems are very likely in the near future and a lot of them are likely to be using Linux.
e.g. News such as 10 billion ARM CPU sales isn't going to help Microsoft as much as its going to help grow Linux support, as a lot of ARM CPUs are using embedded Linux. Add to this the number of other CPUs using embedded forms of Linux, then industry support for Linux is growing faster than just on desktop machines. Microsoft needs to move to either block or reduce this, to help maintain their OS lock-in.
e.g. http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2207797/arm-hits-billion-processor
Its also the case that if IP was taxed, then owning IP would carry an on going cost associated with it. That would act against entrepreneurs, as they would find it harder to hold onto their ideas, and so harder to get started, as holding onto their ideas would carry an ongoing cost. (For MegaCorp that's not a problem, as they have the money to dominate, so this change would help them dominate more... great so even less chance to escape their control of our inventions and them earning the majority of the profits from our ideas). (Its also the argument why the huge costs of often needing multiple patents work against individuals who work to invent something new, but for MegaCorps its not an issue). This IP tax would be creating another tax holding the small guys back, while MegaCorp's wouldn't feel it. Also the Venture Capital people would love it, as it would give them even more power to exploit the small guy inventors. So this tax would hold back a lot of inventors.
While to idea of an IP tax on the surface may sound appealing to some people, in some situations, its however got wider repercussions and its going to be gamed by people with money.
"A truly privacy-free world would be better for the person in question"
That's true only in a utopian world of total equality. But it has two major problems. First the world doesn't work like that, its got a hierarchy. Secondly, a lot of people in power would consider this kind of open, flat, everyone equal, utopian world, as their idea of a dystopia, not a utopia. They want power. They don't want it flat and open. They want to be higher up than others. They want to be the centre of attention. They want more money than others. They want more power than others.
So that kind of totally open world is a scifi only utopian world, that cannot ever exist in a world that has some people who also seek power and that will never change. Plus these people who seek power ultimately make the rules, so they will not allow it to go that far, where everyone becomes equal.
Political ideologies are ultimately driven by the psychology of personality types, as with all human patterns of behaviour. These personality types will continue to exist, regardless of how technology evolves in the future. So the personality types will shape what technology is allowed or disallowed and how it is used.
I am sadly convinced however that Big Brother in becoming inevitable. Too many people want the power it gives over others. Its becoming a scramble for who can grab as much of that new power faster than others. The examples of Google's chess moves show this to be true. Google's "do no harm" PR smoke screen marketing theme is sounding more hollow, every new move Google makes. Their goal is to become some kind of marketing version of Big Brother, but with the total knowledge they are building up, they will also have immense political power as well. Google data mine everything they have. Each new chess move of Google reminds me of the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Google is becoming Big Brother. Yet few people seem to be able to see its slowly happening.
So I think the question is becoming not if we will have a Big Brother, but what the form of that Big Brother will take. Google definitely are becoming a marketing Big Brother and others are racing to try to grab some of what Google are grabbing for themselves. Then again, its not simply just marketing products. Marketing of anything can be helped with market research. So selling ideas just as selling products is still selling. So marketing a product or marketing a political ideology using these kinds of new technologies is going to happen, regardless of what that ideology the people want to market. The more market research that can be grabbed, the more power it gives to the people with that knowledge
Knowledge mining is the new gold rush and with it brings power over others. Its the nature of the game. But that has existed in some form, for centuries. But now we have the ability to monitor and mine everything people are interested in and what their thoughts are when they for example post emails etc... Not only that, the Internet is a growing database of these ideas on blogs etc... Give it say another decade or two and imagine what kinds of data mining can be done on archived data, to work out what people think thought out their lives.
"trusted third party" and the parent comment about "Fortunately, this sort of activity is illegal in Canada"
"This sort of activity is illegal" (currently)... the point is, if a government wants to redefine what is allowed, they simply change the rules to allow it in some way. As for trust, in general, marketing people cannot be trusted.
Google's marketing argument to a government is likely to include the idea that Google are using its own computers, so it saves the government money, while still giving the government control. The small print however, is that a marketing company would have direct access to everyone's details and they will do data mining on it.
Google's "do no harm" PR smoke screen marketing theme is sounding more hollow, every new move Google makes. Their goal is to become some kind of marketing version of Big Brother, but with the total knowledge they are building up, they will also have immense political power as well. Google data mine everything they have. They are not holding medical records for free. They will do some data mining on them.
Each new chess move of Google reminds me of the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Google is becoming Big Brother. Yet few people seem to be able to see its slowly happening.
Don't worry, its dead... as in an Ex-Toad... he's not restin', so you can't wake him up... This Toad is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e' rests in peace! If they hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'history! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-TOAD!!
... I thought this would be better than saying something about "I for one" etc..;)
Re:You need to clarify your question
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Ethics In IT
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"For a company to survive it is sometimes necessary to make decisions that aren't beneficial to some people in the company"
That's what some bosses tell us. While there are times a company can be in trouble, in reality some bosses are sometimes more concerned with their share price. We have got into a world where some companies want to return a greater profit each year and this idea becomes more important to them, than providing a steady living for people. Its not just about company survival, as some bosses say. Some bosses would sooner loose staff that take a pay cut and some would even laugh at having the power to do so. You need to recognise the kinds of personality that can dominate in business. Its not always as clear cut as they say.
Not all bosses are like this just as not all companies are like this, but some are. The subject of ethics isn't as absolute as it would at first appear, but to work with these kinds of people, you need to see what some people are capable of doing and in big business such as IT, there are a lot of these kinds of people.
Re:You need to clarify your question
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Ethics In IT
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Yes unfortunately there are many high up bosses who go beyond even NPD. (Its an interesting sliding scale, as even NPD's lack a great deal of empathy. The higher up in this form of disorder, the more they lack empathy... but often the more they perfect their image of being a good confident even moral person... this suppression of empathy towards others is ironically why we have a world with such extreme behaviours... even terrorists fit high up on this scale, as their self-righteousness blinds them from the horror of their actions. Scary world we live in thanks to these kinds of people. Thankfully most people in the world are not like them).
The whole subject of ethics in IT needs to be considered in a wider context with the ethics/morality of the other staff that make up the companies. Also even the whole of society and even at a given time in history affect interpretations of ethics. Each aspect of the context, can vary the interpretation.
The irony is most employees are far more trusting people than bosses or sales people. If we were more distrusting, we would seek out and learn to spot more examples of the gaps in what the bosses say, compared with what they do, and therefore be less easy to be exploited by some bosses. Its why some people are not called "business minded". What some bosses are actually describing as business minded, is a behaviour that is at times so twisted and lacking empathy, that I don't want to be like them. But I want to be successful in business, so it helps to learn to understand their behaviours, because once you learn to see these personality types, it gives a way of predicting their behaviours. Once you learn to see these personality types, its actually far easier to deal with them.
Ethics in big business like IT is a fascinating subject, as even their way of interpreting the law is at times different from most people. To most people (I hope!) the law is an uncrossable line. A solid boundary of ethical and moral behaviour. But to big business, I have been shocked at times at how the law is treated at times more like for example, the rules in Formula 1 racing cars, where they can twist and exploit the definitions of the law to suit themselves and how the government plays the same games back at them. For example government will say something like, "if you big company A do that now, to get around this law, then next time around, when we alter the wording of the laws, we will make it tighter still on you and all companies like you, so don't get around this law now". Its all political power biasing. The law at that level, isn't an absolute line, the way most of us interpret it. That kind of thinking in big business, I find, really puts the ethical worries of programmers into perspective.
Re:You need to clarify your question
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Ethics In IT
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· Score: 5, Insightful
You also have to add in the ethics of other departments within a company. I've found often to my surprise, the ethics of sales people & marketing people are at times very different from that of programmers and other workers in a company.
Many sales people are not scientifically minded people. I'm a programmer and I worked in one company where the programmers were on one side of a desk divider and the other side had the sales people. We were killing ourselves laughing at then kinds of statements sale people were making about the products we were creating!. Often it wasn't based on fact at all. Ignorance or ethics?... call it what you will, but to a sales person, its also part of the game they play.
They talk with complete conviction on a subject and it sounds like they know what they are saying (to anyone who doesn't know the subject), but with programmers I've found we often add disclaimers, because we see there are gaps in our knowledge and gaps in areas where we want to carry out more tests etc... Sales people's eyes often glaze over and they loose interest after telling them details for more than a few seconds. They don't what to know the details. They want to push a certain version of the truth (to me that's not truth at all and its ethically wrong, yet to sales people, its part of their way of communicating).
Also the ethics of high up bosses are often even worse than sales people. But they often do have one personality trait that helps them deal with sales people, as bosses I have found are often very distrustful people, even though on the surface they give a good image of confidence, deep down they show their insecurity and distrust of others. (Many even have recognisable personality disorders like NPD). They approach dealing with others, in a very different way to e.g. how programmers would work together.
The whole subject of ethics especially in big business like IT is very subjective depending on what people you ask.
"I suspect that Australian or American beer was poured in"
I don't think beer is required for reproduction of life (other than at times human reproduction), but from tests carried out in my fridge, I can confirm life can spontaneously arisen within ice.
Slashdot Mirror
Research into Telomerase sounds like its got potential, but its still a special case example of generic research. I would like to know what research work is being done (or even just considered for funding?) into using new full genome sequencing, to carry out widespread comparative studies of hundreds (and even thousands) of older people who are in their 90s and older. Their genetic code may show many possibly important sections of DNA, which we can find computationally and then highlight these areas for deeper study. Its an additional broad brush approach so to speak, (extending this painting analogy, what I mean is we need to use more than just a small paintbrush to do the job. We also need to start broadly painting with buckets of paint thrown at the wall, to give us more starting points for more research).
Full genome comparisons of hundreds of very old peoples DNA seems like a good new milestone to set for the genome research, now the milestone of sequencing full genomes has been achieved. This research will obviously need refinement over time, but as the numbers of genomes to compare increases into many thousands of peoples DNA, we should be able to refine areas of interest.
Some people appear to have more robust genomes than others. It makes sense to study the oldest peoples genomes, to learn from their ability to withstand genetic damage from the environment. (It also makes sense to do massive comparative studies of the full genomes of people with all forms of cancers, to workout if there's also opposing patterns, which reduce the chances of old age. So by comparing the old age group with the cancer groups, we could computationally learn important areas which maybe susceptible to damage, plus learn areas of DNA that could be helped to prevent (and treat) cancers).
"But at least the copyright holders can sit down and relax for the next 100 years"
They can only relax for a few months, because ISPs still need to allow some access through their systems. So all that is needed, is to create ways to translate data into whatever form they do allow, so it gets through their system and then translate it back on the other side. The ISPs are just a barrier/bridge to the Internet, so no matter what new walls they create for data, new ways can be found to get data past their control. (Its not the ideal solution and not the most optimal solution, but unfortunately, as we live in a world where some people are determined to control others, then everyone else has no choice).
Unfortunately a minority of people, seek power over others and they are obsessed with finding new ways to control other people (for their own gain), but what they fail to realize, is their acts of control create a pressure for change away from their control. The power seekers throughout history have tried to create a bias in their favor, but it never lasts.
"10's of thousands of wiretaps"
Given the way things are going, in a few years, its going to be 10's of millions of automated wiretaps, in every country regardless of political party. These wiretaps will then feed into automatic data formatting transcriptions of all data of whatever form (on phones and Internet) about anything that is said and done. Then the formatted transcriptions will feed into automatic profiling systems to work out overall types of views on subjects. Then anyone expressing any views of any political or other ideologically different opinions will be automatically placed on watch lists. Then anything the governments want to do, will be able to refer to the watch lists, to workout what sort of person they are dealing with.
So any dealings with government will be biased by the watch lists. For example, try to set up a business and it turns out you were critical of the current government, ah sorry, no business grant for you. Try to ask for a grant to help with your house or anything else, ah sorry, no grant for you. But then, if you have don't nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry away. But the problem is, who defines what is wrong?
People who seek power over others want the power to dictate the rules by how others live. That is power, but that underlying nature of power has always opposed democracy and freedom. (Power seekers don't want fairness, they after all, want to dictate the rules and have the power to dictate rules). But democracy cannot truly exist when the ones in power know the views of the voters. Its the principle of the secret vote, which prevents political manipulation of the voters to try to get them to vote in a certain ways. The more we move towards vast automated profiling, the more we undermined democracy, freedom and fairness.
So a time of 10's of thousands of wiretaps is nothing compared with where we are going, especially as the 10s of thousands were mostly targeted against criminal gangs, whereas the 10s of millions will be mostly innocent of any crime. Then again, expressing any view different from the ones in power, is considered a crime by some people who want others to follow what they tell them.
Researchers have already shown its possible to profile people from what they say. Its not long before we will have automated transcriptions of data into a form that's easy to profile. So give it a few years, almost everyone worldwide is going to be "wiretapped/watched" in everything they do. Where they drive, where they travel on buses, trains and planes. What they buy. What friends they have (phone and email records) and what views their friends have. What news papers they buy. What they say on the phone to everyone. What they say in emails. The news website articles they read. (Combined with the profiles of the people who write the news articles, which gives an automated measure of their views). They will also know what Internet streamed TV shows you watch, including any political documentaries, especially ones critical of the current government. They will know everything you like and dislike and it will be cataloged and listed and readily available of use in political campaigns.
But that's just the beginning. Once you can profile individuals, you can extend that to profile groups of people. For example, profile the kinds of people working for a company. Workout what sort of views they hold. Workout if a company, is the sort of company the current government wants to help or wants to hold back?. That in turn will put pressure on employers to refer to the profile watch lists, to avoid employing anyone who could give their company a bad image to the current government.
I don't see how democracy, freedom and fairness is going to survive in such a world?. But I suspect and fear the unfairness is going to build up to a point where it forces large numbers of people to stand up to their governments and we will be back to the bad old days of political revolutions, only this time, the watch lists will prevent anyone standing up to any government until things get really bad. So much for progress, democracy, freedom and fairness. All we seem to be doing, is repeating the mistakes of the past, but this time, automating the processes involved.
"inside the Earth" ... If thats what they mean, (I assumed they made a mistake, but if that is literally what they mean), "inside the Earth", then that totally *assumes* every possible Group collision merger, whatever it creates, will *always* result into something that *cannot* react with anything else, *in anyway*. Thats a massive series of assumptions.
... That assumes (A) our theories are correct and (B) the "in most cases" shows that even you don't think it will *always* fail to interact.
Also just thinking narrowly only for the moment about it only creating some black hole like particle, also still *assumes* our current maths are right about even just some predicted black hole stlye particle. All these assumptions show very narrow thinking. We don't know enough about the universe to make so many assumptions its safe. We are letting our desire to learn more blind us to the very real serious possible risks associated with the research.
As for "I believe that it would pass harmlessly through the nucleus in most cases."
The history of science is littered with examples of how people found things we didn't expect. Thats fine and good for most discoveries in science, but that principle cannot be applied to ever higher energy particle physics when we clearly don't know enough about what we are experimenting with and what possible things can do wrong. There is the very real potential for very serious dangers in this kind of research. If one experiment killed one person, then ok, its sad for them, their family and friends etc.. but the world continues.. life goes on. Even if 1000 people were killed by the experiment, its a horrific mistake, but the human race will still continue and be able to learn from the mistakes. But we are talking about an experiment that has the risk of killing everyone on Earth. We cannot learn by literally a trial and error process, when we are betting everyones life on the experiment being, we assume, 100% safe. We therefore need to be extremely careful and so far we are not showing enough questioning of the safety of the experiment and what possible ways it can cause serious problems (to say the least).
"But the event you postulate is extremely improbable in any case because of that tiny collision cross-section."
Given the age of the universe, that's exactly how natural rare occurances of group mergers could help account for some fraction of the mass of the universe, yet it would also explain why we don't percieve it occuring much in our very small human lifetime, time scales. But even though its likely rare in nature, in such a powerful particle accelerator as the LHC, its going to happen a lot more frequently.
"It would still have such a tiny collision cross-section that it could orbit inside the Earth for a billion years without growing to perceptible size."
Occuring in Earth orbit isn't a problem, even if it lasted and stayed stable for even thousands of years. But for it to occur on Earth, surrounded by so much mass on Earth, it would have a huge amount of mass to rapidly interact with. If such an event occured, there's no way to contain it and no time to learn how to contain it. We therefore cannot risk anything going wrong. So not risking things we can perceive going wrong and even more importantly, things we cannot yet imagine going wrong. (That's part of the problem, we are moving into ever more dangerous territory, the further we start to experiment with ever higher energies, yet we are using these experiments to learn how it behaves. That's fundamentally flawed thinking, because if there is anything that could go wrong, we will eventually find it, with that kind of thinking).
Any assumption we know enough to experiment with ever higher energies is foolish at best and dangerous at worst. If there is even just one way it can go badly wrong, thats it, the end of the planet and all humans. It really is the most important experiment in human history, because its vital it doesn't go wrong in any way, or it could be the last experiment. I want to learn as much as anyone, but I'm not prepared to bet everything on that one experiment and that one goal of learning the answers.
Which opens up the question, what if the LHC doesn't give us the answers we expect and so we aim to build even bigger than the LHC. At what point is too big? At what point do we say this could be too dangerous?.
I really want to learn from the LHC, like so many people, but I'm playing devils advocate because that's what we must all do with something as serious as this experiment. But what keeps concerning me, is I keep seeing the desire to learn bias some peoples judgment. With any other experiment, no problem. With this experiement, we have to be absolutely sure of what we are doing and currently we are most certainly not considering all possible events. Group particle collision mergers is just one example of where they are clearly not considering all events.
"haven't accounted for 96% of the energy and mass of the universe in their current model."
They also haven't accounted for all possible group particle mergers and interactions in the LHC. Unlike nature, in a particle accelerator they have groups of high energy particles moving in close proximity. In nature, we have lone high energy particles. We don't know what we can create in group collision mergers of high energy particles and even though these are rare compared with single particle interactions, they can still occur. Even if a black hole like particle was briefly formed and then hit by another particle or two or twenty, then what?. The point is, we simply don't know whats possible, but its very likely to be a different situation than simply a lone particle able to break down. If a group collision merger occured in nature, it would most likely be very rarely occuring, but it could be enough to help account for some fraction of the mass of the universe. We simply don't know, but we do know that in a particle accelerator, its going to happen a lot more often than in nature and we don't know what kinds of reactions group high energy mergers could cause.
While its (mostly) safe to assume single high energy particles are not going to be a problem, as they happen relatively often in nature, we cannot say the same for multiple collsion mergers and all possible interactions of multiple particles, as we simply do not know for sure. The current various theories are not proof its safe and the fact we cannot account for so much energy and mass in the universe is a very good reason to suspect our theories are wrong.
Also the fact they are building the LHC is proof in itself that they build it to learn, so they don't currently know for sure. Also for all their planning, even that magnet failure showed their theories and multi-million dollar design plans about how the machine should function can still go wrong. Humans make mistakes. Thats fine, we all accept that, but making a mistake with the LHC could potentially be the most serious mistake in human history.
What concerns me is their intense desire to learn is going to bias their judgment. (I know my desire to learn has biased my judgment from time to time), but this is the most important experiment in human history, so its vital it doesn't go wrong in any way, or it could be the last experiment.
"Pretty typical attitude in the industry I'd say."
... Great, typical arragant control of others. Yet again they show their need to control others, is at the centre of how they think. Without control, people will not accept being treated like this and they know it. The world would be so much better, without this minority of arragant control freaks seeking to control where ever they can. Yet they want us to just accept it? ... yeah right. The more open, the better.
Its unfortunately typical of a lot of bosses, regardless of the industry. Many bosses will arragantly use others, but don't want to give anything back (for fear of giving others a helping hand, as they may well end up being a competitor. So in their mind, its better to keep others down. They take, but don't give back. Its why they don't like open source, (when they have to compete with it), as its a threat to their way of treating others, as much as a threat to their products).
From the summary, "Why do we need closed vehicles? We do"
Yeah they do, as they want to control whats on their products, so they can charge whatever they like for them and if we don't like it, tough, as we will not get a choice, as they will prevent us having a choice, as they control whats on their products.
"realistically lead to legal action against BT"
Legal action strong enough to totally stop them is unlikely, as the power seekers who run a lot of countries unfortunately seem to be rushing towards building their own Big Brother, so as they make the rules, they choose whats considered legal. So they simply need to change the laws, which is what they keep doing. It seems nearly every week now we are getting ever more stories of new grabs for information and/or power over people. At this rate, 2008 should go down in history as the start of a Worldwide Big Brother.
Its ironic that our so called free countries appear to be building Big Brother as fast, if not faster than other countries. Maybe we just have better technology. Its also ironic that the war on terrorists is a war against people who wish to force others into their point of view. Yet now the people already in power are seeking to clamp down and hold control over everyone. Its like all of us who don't seek power are caught up in a power struggle between the different groups of power seekers who do seek to impose their views on everyone.
I guess the ones in power in some way fear some lost of power, as it can't be just about protecting us. Its got to be about seeking more power, which is what they do thoughout their political lives and all of us who don't seek power are not going to be heard by them. Especially as most people don't seem to even see how much harm can be done with so much power and no way to tell them they are behaving unfairly. They are becoming like a machine which is loosing its feedback mechanism and so running towards ever more extremes.
"Except it is much much more complicated than that. Read up on transposons, recombination, the entire field of epigenetics (I personally find methylation to be fascinating), etc. There are an entire range of factors and functions that make it impossible to reliably extrapolate biology from DNA sequencing alone."
First, I am not implying its easy. Second I didn't say DNA sequencing alone. Both of these points are your assumptions. What I was saying is that its not impossible to learn to understand the brain. "impossible" is a very strong word and we are making progress.
Also for example, transposons appear to be almost like DNA versions of a macro. That doesn't change the fact that DNA is some form of encoded stream of data. Every lifeform has a silghtly different version of the data, but that doesn't make it impossible to work out how it functions.
I find it exciting that as genome sequencing becomes ever cheaper, we will get ever more sequences of data to compare. This included learning to understand non-human genome sequencings. Genome sequencing isn't the final answer. As I said before, we still need to learn to disassemble and even code new genetic sequences, but genome sequencing is going to open up a vast amount of automated data. Gaining that data will in turn allow even more advances.
"brain is probably impossible to 'reverse-engineer"
Humans are formed from the coding in DNA so therefore the function of a brain is also contained with DNA. Therefore in time, it can be entirely understood.
The thing I find interesting is the rapid rate of progress in learning to sequence DNA.
e.g. http://www.fiercebioresearcher.com/story/biotechs-use-nanotech-in-pursuit-of-100-sequencing-bill/2008-04-22
Up until now its hugely expensive and time consuming to sequence just one human. But one human is still only a point sample. When we get to even just $100 for sequencing a genome, its going to be possible to routinely sequence large numbers of people and so we will be able to cross reference everyone with every disorder they may suffer.
That's going to allow us to automate finding a lot of information about the genome. We don't need to entirely disassemble the DNA code to understand parts of it. We need to learn to disassemble it in time, but we will be able to find out a lot about it by statistical means.
But what I thinks is even more exciting is when we get to say $1 per genome. Then its possible (and cost effective) to do tens of thousands of repeat sequences of the same person to workout statistical probabilities of environmentally caused genetic damage. So for example find out if chemicals really are that safe etc.. Thats going to be yet another leap forward in progress.
If we work out what affects DNA, its not only going to help stop damage to the genome, it may also help automate finding ways to alter and help people with genetic disorders, plus learn new ways to prevent and control more diseases.
"They are however responding very well to the electroshock therapy and strong drugs to help them adjust to society."
That's the news according to the Ministry of Love. However the Ministry of Truth has decided that in this case, 85% is the same as 100%. Therefore hence forth, all news needs to be written as 100% of Chinese Likes Censorship.
Your failure to recognise this has been reported to the Thought Police, and room 101 is being prepared for your arrival.
You also forgot the "I for one welcome etc.." quote. But then again, in this case, its brain would be so slow, we would all have died of old age, long before it would finally be able to think up its first great chess move, in how to take control of the Earth.
... well apart from it stopping due to rust or a spanner in the works etc..
Still, it would be EMP proof, so although its slow, its hard to stop with impressive high tech scifi looking energy weapons
"The government has no authority to take a cut of anything they wish" and "0% of zero & all that"
... Plus over time, they can then add new forms of data to the taxable list. Plus once its taxed, they can then choose to change the taxes over time.
... As they will then be leaking money away in more taxes, which other countries don't need to pay for the same information.
... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=465072&cid=22544268
They make the rules. They choose what to tax and they choose what rules to change. But this is a far bigger issue that just music downloading. They are saying they want to add a tax on downloading specific data. That would create a hell of a precedent. It opens a situation that in the long term, is far wider than just music downloads.
Up until now, countries already have tax on downloading arbitrary data, as that's effectively part of the cost of using an ISP etc... But taxing specific data, thats very different. For a start, its going to need literally a Big Brother system to monitor it all. As they need to log and then workout a charge for each and every form of data.
Also who then works out how much to charge for each form of data?
Also what competitive disadvantage does that create for Californians against other countries not using such a system?
In a global economy, such short sighted state imposed profiteering for extra tax money, is going to create a competitive disadvantage for even being based in California.
Then to appear to counter this competitive disadvantage, they can then waste millions more setting up schemes where small businesses and students get some of their data at reduced tax rates etc.. But it will fail to cover all costs incurred, as they cannot create tax breaks of sufficient detail, to cover every new startup or student situation. Plus at the same time, other government departments undermine them, as they are working on dreaming up new forms of data tax, they want to add to the list of taxable forms of data.
While some countries most likely will follow America into this new hole they are trying to dig for themselves, they will open up yet another competitive advantage for other countries who don't adopt such a system.
It shows incredible shortsightedness. They are focused on short term profits from taxes with ignorance of the wider extra costs and implications and disadvantages and on top of that, will need to spend a fortune on building a Big Brother system to manage it all.
And if they choose to build Big Brother, so much for Land Of The Free?
The more I hear, the more I am sadly convinced that Big Brother is becoming inevitable, given the kinds of personalities involved in corporations and some positions of power.
For example
"Maybe we could use them to dispose of fission waste and CO2"
... then I can make my own Black Holes at home!
They could sell the Black Holes they make in their gift shop, so everyone can have a Black Hole waste disposable system at home.
I can't wait for the LHC Gift Shop to start selling Small Hadron Colliders
"We can clone mice. We can cure mice cancer. We can put them into suspended animation"
... Its not just the rats of NIMH, Douglas Adams was right about the mice!
Looks like we can do more for mice, than for humans
"So you establish a reasonable period of monopoly that's tax-free. Say, for the first 5 or 7 or even 10 years a copyright is tax-free"
... it can't, without a lot more bureaucracy. So that then also adds a great deal more bureaucracy, thats going to add additional costs and waste yet more time dealing with it all. Plus there can be dozens and often hundreds of individual bits of IP within a product. Thats a lot to keep track and so a lot more tracking costs to deal with it.
... all this, simply to get some free stuff via P2P networks, (and then have to deal with a lot of red tape bureaucracy and government tracking of who gets what IP when, where, and how, attached to it ... and they will continue to want to track it)? ... its not worth it.
... "Copyright law doesn't have broad coverage, trolls or rewards for gaming the system" ... "Yet" is the point. As soon as you add a tax to IP, it will also make trolls and gaming of the system possible as well. They will want to hold an IP to sell it to someone else. Wherever there's money to be made off other people, someone will be trolling or trying to game that system.
That won't work. Inventors can often work for a very long time. A decade or two to get their idea to market. (Inventors also often have limited time and money to start a company and so startup is a slow hard process. Building a business often takes many years. While the news sometimes has cases where people invent something, then quickly earn big money, thats not the norm. Often people have to work a very long time on a project, before they finally see success). Also how can such a time scale limit even be policed?
(And thats before we even get into people wanting to hold IP on software routines and techniques, as a big program could contain 1000s of routines each considered as their own IP).
And as for
Yeah it doesn't yet!
"able to count on some excellent tools" and from one of the parent posts "Microsoft would never have been happy about it because it would further erode their lock-in."
... like some excellent tools. That way, you get some good and free applications, sitting on top of your proprietary OS. Plus maybe even help remove, some of the reasons some corporate (non-technical) bosses of companies would think their staff would want Linux. "Why both, its got the same apps on Vista?".
also from the article link http://www.royalidea.com/site/?q=node/12 we get this section...
"The aim of UNG is to write complete GNU-like tools and frameworks that will be completely compatible with existing GNU software and standards. These tools will run natively on Vista. This means that software written for the GNU environment will be able to compile and run on Vista with little or no modifications. Major software currently running on GNU/Linux will be able to run natively on Vista."
Microsoft's strategy revolves around the idea of lock in. Looking at this from the point of view of lock in, it then sounds like Microsoft is trying to find a way to get GNU code over onto Vista. If you can't beat them, then assimilate anything useful they have
While Microsoft controls the OS, they hold the foundations upon which all their competitors try to build a living. They are not going to give that up, but any company switching to Linux is a problem for them. So this is another chess move to try to reduce corporate customers moving towards Linux. Loosing corporate customers is what Microsoft really fears. Big customers moving away from Windows sends out a message to other big customers to act in a similar way. Microsoft wants to prevent this slide, especially as more cheaper embedded systems are very likely in the near future and a lot of them are likely to be using Linux.
e.g. News such as 10 billion ARM CPU sales isn't going to help Microsoft as much as its going to help grow Linux support, as a lot of ARM CPUs are using embedded Linux. Add to this the number of other CPUs using embedded forms of Linux, then industry support for Linux is growing faster than just on desktop machines. Microsoft needs to move to either block or reduce this, to help maintain their OS lock-in.
e.g. http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2207797/arm-hits-billion-processor
Its also the case that if IP was taxed, then owning IP would carry an on going cost associated with it. That would act against entrepreneurs, as they would find it harder to hold onto their ideas, and so harder to get started, as holding onto their ideas would carry an ongoing cost. (For MegaCorp that's not a problem, as they have the money to dominate, so this change would help them dominate more ... great so even less chance to escape their control of our inventions and them earning the majority of the profits from our ideas). (Its also the argument why the huge costs of often needing multiple patents work against individuals who work to invent something new, but for MegaCorps its not an issue). This IP tax would be creating another tax holding the small guys back, while MegaCorp's wouldn't feel it. Also the Venture Capital people would love it, as it would give them even more power to exploit the small guy inventors. So this tax would hold back a lot of inventors.
While to idea of an IP tax on the surface may sound appealing to some people, in some situations, its however got wider repercussions and its going to be gamed by people with money.
"A truly privacy-free world would be better for the person in question"
That's true only in a utopian world of total equality. But it has two major problems. First the world doesn't work like that, its got a hierarchy. Secondly, a lot of people in power would consider this kind of open, flat, everyone equal, utopian world, as their idea of a dystopia, not a utopia. They want power. They don't want it flat and open. They want to be higher up than others. They want to be the centre of attention. They want more money than others. They want more power than others.
So that kind of totally open world is a scifi only utopian world, that cannot ever exist in a world that has some people who also seek power and that will never change. Plus these people who seek power ultimately make the rules, so they will not allow it to go that far, where everyone becomes equal.
Political ideologies are ultimately driven by the psychology of personality types, as with all human patterns of behaviour. These personality types will continue to exist, regardless of how technology evolves in the future. So the personality types will shape what technology is allowed or disallowed and how it is used.
I am sadly convinced however that Big Brother in becoming inevitable. Too many people want the power it gives over others. Its becoming a scramble for who can grab as much of that new power faster than others. The examples of Google's chess moves show this to be true. Google's "do no harm" PR smoke screen marketing theme is sounding more hollow, every new move Google makes. Their goal is to become some kind of marketing version of Big Brother, but with the total knowledge they are building up, they will also have immense political power as well. Google data mine everything they have. Each new chess move of Google reminds me of the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Google is becoming Big Brother. Yet few people seem to be able to see its slowly happening.
Given the kinds of personalities that can easily dominate in corporations, its hardly surprising.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=448546&cid=22377974
So I think the question is becoming not if we will have a Big Brother, but what the form of that Big Brother will take. Google definitely are becoming a marketing Big Brother and others are racing to try to grab some of what Google are grabbing for themselves. Then again, its not simply just marketing products. Marketing of anything can be helped with market research. So selling ideas just as selling products is still selling. So marketing a product or marketing a political ideology using these kinds of new technologies is going to happen, regardless of what that ideology the people want to market. The more market research that can be grabbed, the more power it gives to the people with that knowledge
Knowledge mining is the new gold rush and with it brings power over others. Its the nature of the game. But that has existed in some form, for centuries. But now we have the ability to monitor and mine everything people are interested in and what their thoughts are when they for example post emails etc... Not only that, the Internet is a growing database of these ideas on blogs etc... Give it say another decade or two and imagine what kinds of data mining can be done on archived data, to work out what people think thought out their lives.
Its like the old saying, "Knowledge is power".
"trusted third party" and the parent comment about "Fortunately, this sort of activity is illegal in Canada"
... the point is, if a government wants to redefine what is allowed, they simply change the rules to allow it in some way. As for trust, in general, marketing people cannot be trusted.
...
... their ethics are definitely not what I would trust...
"This sort of activity is illegal" (currently)
Google's marketing argument to a government is likely to include the idea that Google are using its own computers, so it saves the government money, while still giving the government control. The small print however, is that a marketing company would have direct access to everyone's details and they will do data mining on it.
Google's "do no harm" PR smoke screen marketing theme is sounding more hollow, every new move Google makes. Their goal is to become some kind of marketing version of Big Brother, but with the total knowledge they are building up, they will also have immense political power as well. Google data mine everything they have. They are not holding medical records for free. They will do some data mining on them.
Each new chess move of Google reminds me of the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Google is becoming Big Brother. Yet few people seem to be able to see its slowly happening.
This Hospital data move is like Googles Knol idea, its yet another facet of their move towards Big Brother
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=389296&cid=21697432
and as for trusting marketing people
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=448546&cid=22377974
"I for one etc..."
... as in an Ex-Toad ... he's not restin', so you can't wake him up ... This Toad is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e' rests in peace! If they hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'history! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-TOAD!!
... I thought this would be better than saying something about "I for one" etc.. ;)
Don't worry, its dead
"For a company to survive it is sometimes necessary to make decisions that aren't beneficial to some people in the company"
That's what some bosses tell us. While there are times a company can be in trouble, in reality some bosses are sometimes more concerned with their share price. We have got into a world where some companies want to return a greater profit each year and this idea becomes more important to them, than providing a steady living for people. Its not just about company survival, as some bosses say. Some bosses would sooner loose staff that take a pay cut and some would even laugh at having the power to do so. You need to recognise the kinds of personality that can dominate in business. Its not always as clear cut as they say.
Not all bosses are like this just as not all companies are like this, but some are. The subject of ethics isn't as absolute as it would at first appear, but to work with these kinds of people, you need to see what some people are capable of doing and in big business such as IT, there are a lot of these kinds of people.
Yes unfortunately there are many high up bosses who go beyond even NPD. (Its an interesting sliding scale, as even NPD's lack a great deal of empathy. The higher up in this form of disorder, the more they lack empathy ... but often the more they perfect their image of being a good confident even moral person ... this suppression of empathy towards others is ironically why we have a world with such extreme behaviours ... even terrorists fit high up on this scale, as their self-righteousness blinds them from the horror of their actions. Scary world we live in thanks to these kinds of people. Thankfully most people in the world are not like them).
The whole subject of ethics in IT needs to be considered in a wider context with the ethics/morality of the other staff that make up the companies. Also even the whole of society and even at a given time in history affect interpretations of ethics. Each aspect of the context, can vary the interpretation.
The irony is most employees are far more trusting people than bosses or sales people. If we were more distrusting, we would seek out and learn to spot more examples of the gaps in what the bosses say, compared with what they do, and therefore be less easy to be exploited by some bosses. Its why some people are not called "business minded". What some bosses are actually describing as business minded, is a behaviour that is at times so twisted and lacking empathy, that I don't want to be like them. But I want to be successful in business, so it helps to learn to understand their behaviours, because once you learn to see these personality types, it gives a way of predicting their behaviours. Once you learn to see these personality types, its actually far easier to deal with them.
Ethics in big business like IT is a fascinating subject, as even their way of interpreting the law is at times different from most people. To most people (I hope!) the law is an uncrossable line. A solid boundary of ethical and moral behaviour. But to big business, I have been shocked at times at how the law is treated at times more like for example, the rules in Formula 1 racing cars, where they can twist and exploit the definitions of the law to suit themselves and how the government plays the same games back at them. For example government will say something like, "if you big company A do that now, to get around this law, then next time around, when we alter the wording of the laws, we will make it tighter still on you and all companies like you, so don't get around this law now". Its all political power biasing. The law at that level, isn't an absolute line, the way most of us interpret it. That kind of thinking in big business, I find, really puts the ethical worries of programmers into perspective.
You also have to add in the ethics of other departments within a company. I've found often to my surprise, the ethics of sales people & marketing people are at times very different from that of programmers and other workers in a company.
... call it what you will, but to a sales person, its also part of the game they play.
Many sales people are not scientifically minded people. I'm a programmer and I worked in one company where the programmers were on one side of a desk divider and the other side had the sales people. We were killing ourselves laughing at then kinds of statements sale people were making about the products we were creating!. Often it wasn't based on fact at all. Ignorance or ethics?
They talk with complete conviction on a subject and it sounds like they know what they are saying (to anyone who doesn't know the subject), but with programmers I've found we often add disclaimers, because we see there are gaps in our knowledge and gaps in areas where we want to carry out more tests etc... Sales people's eyes often glaze over and they loose interest after telling them details for more than a few seconds. They don't what to know the details. They want to push a certain version of the truth (to me that's not truth at all and its ethically wrong, yet to sales people, its part of their way of communicating).
Also the ethics of high up bosses are often even worse than sales people. But they often do have one personality trait that helps them deal with sales people, as bosses I have found are often very distrustful people, even though on the surface they give a good image of confidence, deep down they show their insecurity and distrust of others. (Many even have recognisable personality disorders like NPD). They approach dealing with others, in a very different way to e.g. how programmers would work together.
The whole subject of ethics especially in big business like IT is very subjective depending on what people you ask.
"I suspect that Australian or American beer was poured in"
I don't think beer is required for reproduction of life (other than at times human reproduction), but from tests carried out in my fridge, I can confirm life can spontaneously arisen within ice.