would it? Did WW1 solve whatever problem started it? And what problem was that? Did Korea and Vietnam solve the cold war? Did the first Gulf War solve the problem of Hussein? Do you think the second Gulf War will solve the problem without replacing it with a greater one?
I always blame this behavior on the large number of programmers and EEs in the audience that are trained to think discretely. It's understandable that they are uncomfortable with an analog world and shades of gray.
"Well, it's pretty silly to check what percentage of Congress is currently serving in Iraq, because they clearly have employment that precludes that."
Well, right. Then what they should have done is compared it to the percentage of the general public that has children in the military. As stated, the comparison isn't accurate and really tells us nothing. I find it unlikely that it's a 1-1 relationship between soldiers and children who are soldiers.
Maybe I've not aware of some kind of pathologically dogmatic pacifism that everyone here seems to be denouncing, but I every pacifist I've met who was older than 16 realized that violence is necessary, although extremely regrettable, on some occasions, and that a world without war was simply an ideal to strive for.
Extremist philosophies in all forms are retarded, whether we're talking abut Islamic extremism, Fundamental Christian extremism, radical environmental extremism or extremist pacifism.
Clearly, pacifism doesn't get you far in the wild. Wolves will simply eat you faster if you don't resist. However, even the anarchy of international politics has some sort of vague moral conscience, and is often sensitive to tools other than violence. If you don't believe this is true, I'd be interested in your explanation of why Ghandi was successful.
Depends. If, for instance, Norway was a very poor country, they would be primarily carnivorous, because in Norway, there's not a lot of vegetables that grow. If you need a demonstration of this, look at what the Inuit ate.
"Do you really believe there's any rational people out there who WANT war?"
Yes. Lots of people make lots of money in wars. Others are simply foolish and do not fully comprehend what war is.
I'll also ask you to reread my post and find where I advanced the idea that war is never justified. I'm not an idiot. Simply because I think that striving for a world without war is worthwhile does not mean I'm blind to current realities.
You can say that about every ideal. I strive every day to make bug-free code, but I realize it's unrealistic to expect I'll ever get there. It doesn't make the ideal any less important or valuable.
Rate of volunteerism and rate of children's volunteerism are two different statistics. I dunno if you meant something different in the last sentence, but just thought I'd be annoying and point it out.
For serious though. Simply because humans are predisposed to violence (which is still under debate by our brainy science dudes) does not imply that we should not strive for a world without war.
"the program and its derivative work will neither be modified or executed to harm any human being nor through inaction permit any human being to be harmed."
I don't get the italic part. Does the program in it's current state somehow obey the First Law? How is it supposed to know someone is in danger?
I agree up to a point. While an actual shooting war certainly makes it easier to recruit suicide bombers, as long as Muslims are generally poor and Christians are generally rich there will always exist hatred strong enough to drive that sort of behavior.
I agree wholeheartedly that the attitude is dangerous, but I believe it to be true. What it -should- do instead of setting a destructive, war-is-inevitable policy is to set a "let's try to make everyone prosperous" policy. But I'm not naive to think that'll ever pan out.;)
The problem we have fundamentally is the fact that politicians are scared to be introspective about how our foreign policy affects our popularity because they're afraid to be labeled as "nutty blame-America-first America-haters!"
I think that's partially to blame. There's also a few others: I think there's far more Jewish influence in our government than Muslim, and I think Muslim culture in general is very, very alien to Americans in general. And of course, there's all the money we make selling military equipment to Israel.
Yes, Yes, Yes, and yes. They are leaving those alone because they are not flagbearers of Western culture, as the US (sadly, I suppose) is.
And of course, US politics doesn't make things any better. But it's been stated several times by Bin Laden that his eventual aim is a worldwide Islamic Caliphate.
"But since they don't, we must draw the conclusion that the Chinese are in fact not fed up with the system."
I don't think we must draw that conclusion at all. I refer you to my post re: Cambodia above.
I am not saying that the Chinese are fed up with the system. I am saying that the fact that they have not rebelled (ahem, tiananmen square, cough) is not an indication one way or the other.
So what happened in Cambodia then? Or is it your contention that the Cambodian people as a whole thought the killing fields and torturing babies for incorrect political thought was a good idea? Because if not, they should have rebelled, right?
All cargo should be carried in a glider that is towed 500 feet behind the jet.
Say, as long as we're at it, everyone should just be carried in a train of small gliders towed behind the jet. This way a bomber will only be able to kill at most 9 other people.
ps: Boeing, if you're reading this, I get 2% of all profits, kthx.
Same deal with the Cambodians under Pol Pot. I mean, if they didn't like having their skulls stacked in neat piles, they should have left! Same deal with the Burmese. Am I right here or what? If they don't feel like overthrowing their yoke of oppression, I don't see why we should go out of our way to help them.
I know enough about planes to know that you can't open the emergency exits in a pressurized cabin. All the doors require you to pull them in an inch or so, which won't be possible with the pressure pushing them out.
As I said earlier, I really don't have any idea how much explosives it would take to punch a serious hole in an airplane though. Hopefully it's too much to swallow.
Slashdot Mirror
would it? Did WW1 solve whatever problem started it? And what problem was that? Did Korea and Vietnam solve the cold war? Did the first Gulf War solve the problem of Hussein? Do you think the second Gulf War will solve the problem without replacing it with a greater one?
I always blame this behavior on the large number of programmers and EEs in the audience that are trained to think discretely. It's understandable that they are uncomfortable with an analog world and shades of gray.
"Well, it's pretty silly to check what percentage of Congress is currently serving in Iraq, because they clearly have employment that precludes that."
Well, right. Then what they should have done is compared it to the percentage of the general public that has children in the military. As stated, the comparison isn't accurate and really tells us nothing. I find it unlikely that it's a 1-1 relationship between soldiers and children who are soldiers.
Maybe I've not aware of some kind of pathologically dogmatic pacifism that everyone here seems to be denouncing, but I every pacifist I've met who was older than 16 realized that violence is necessary, although extremely regrettable, on some occasions, and that a world without war was simply an ideal to strive for.
Extremist philosophies in all forms are retarded, whether we're talking abut Islamic extremism, Fundamental Christian extremism, radical environmental extremism or extremist pacifism.
Clearly, pacifism doesn't get you far in the wild. Wolves will simply eat you faster if you don't resist. However, even the anarchy of international politics has some sort of vague moral conscience, and is often sensitive to tools other than violence. If you don't believe this is true, I'd be interested in your explanation of why Ghandi was successful.
Depends. If, for instance, Norway was a very poor country, they would be primarily carnivorous, because in Norway, there's not a lot of vegetables that grow. If you need a demonstration of this, look at what the Inuit ate.
I thought it was pretty clear from context that he was using them as synonyms. The title of the article is "No Military Use GPL for GPU".
the phrase "for serious though" that followed my quip might have clued you in that it meant tounge-in-cheek.
"Do you really believe there's any rational people out there who WANT war?"
Yes. Lots of people make lots of money in wars. Others are simply foolish and do not fully comprehend what war is.
I'll also ask you to reread my post and find where I advanced the idea that war is never justified. I'm not an idiot. Simply because I think that striving for a world without war is worthwhile does not mean I'm blind to current realities.
yeah, ok, sure. So?
You can say that about every ideal. I strive every day to make bug-free code, but I realize it's unrealistic to expect I'll ever get there. It doesn't make the ideal any less important or valuable.
Rate of volunteerism and rate of children's volunteerism are two different statistics. I dunno if you meant something different in the last sentence, but just thought I'd be annoying and point it out.
or the US. Or any country.
"Conflict is a fact of existence"
well, sure, with that attitude.
For serious though. Simply because humans are predisposed to violence (which is still under debate by our brainy science dudes) does not imply that we should not strive for a world without war.
Yeah, I'm not real sure those guys read the book.
Also:
"the program and its derivative work will neither be modified or executed to harm any human being nor through inaction permit any human being to be harmed."
I don't get the italic part. Does the program in it's current state somehow obey the First Law? How is it supposed to know someone is in danger?
nice misspelling of carrion!
I agree wholeheartedly that the attitude is dangerous, but I believe it to be true. What it -should- do instead of setting a destructive, war-is-inevitable policy is to set a "let's try to make everyone prosperous" policy. But I'm not naive to think that'll ever pan out.
I think that's partially to blame. There's also a few others: I think there's far more Jewish influence in our government than Muslim, and I think Muslim culture in general is very, very alien to Americans in general. And of course, there's all the money we make selling military equipment to Israel.
Yes, Yes, Yes, and yes. They are leaving those alone because they are not flagbearers of Western culture, as the US (sadly, I suppose) is.
And of course, US politics doesn't make things any better. But it's been stated several times by Bin Laden that his eventual aim is a worldwide Islamic Caliphate.
"would love to use less Google as well."
... go ahead, then? No one is forcing you to use google. I'm sure ask.com wouldn't mind more hits.
uh
True enough. I guess the ones that didn't leave were just tired of carrying that big heavy skull around all the time.
"But since they don't, we must draw the conclusion that the Chinese are in fact not fed up with the system."
I don't think we must draw that conclusion at all. I refer you to my post re: Cambodia above.
I am not saying that the Chinese are fed up with the system. I am saying that the fact that they have not rebelled (ahem, tiananmen square, cough) is not an indication one way or the other.
So what happened in Cambodia then? Or is it your contention that the Cambodian people as a whole thought the killing fields and torturing babies for incorrect political thought was a good idea? Because if not, they should have rebelled, right?
I dunno man, I don't see how there could be any problem handling Chinese political refugees. I mean, how many Chinese people can there be?
All cargo should be carried in a glider that is towed 500 feet behind the jet.
Say, as long as we're at it, everyone should just be carried in a train of small gliders towed behind the jet. This way a bomber will only be able to kill at most 9 other people.
ps: Boeing, if you're reading this, I get 2% of all profits, kthx.
Same deal with the Cambodians under Pol Pot. I mean, if they didn't like having their skulls stacked in neat piles, they should have left! Same deal with the Burmese. Am I right here or what? If they don't feel like overthrowing their yoke of oppression, I don't see why we should go out of our way to help them.
I know enough about planes to know that you can't open the emergency exits in a pressurized cabin. All the doors require you to pull them in an inch or so, which won't be possible with the pressure pushing them out.
As I said earlier, I really don't have any idea how much explosives it would take to punch a serious hole in an airplane though. Hopefully it's too much to swallow.