Oh! This may account for my confusion. I had thought we were protected from all such suits because of Canadian privacy laws, but perhaps it's just something specific about music in our copyright legislation that protects just from music suits. Thanks for the info!
CmdrTaco: If a disproportionate number of people of race X committed crimes or were not going through higher education (for whatever reason), would it be okay to add in comments to summaries which mention "Your race-X friends might be more interested in the armed robberies which can be more easily performed with this high-tech weapon." or "Your race-X friends might not be able to appreciate this cool advance in materials science which will allow faster processors soon (which we, with our good educations, are able to understand and appreciate), but maybe they'll be interested in the pretty graphics this new development enables!"? I understand that there's nothing wrong with appreciating gymnastics so the analogy to my first (armed robberies) example may not appear to hold, but there is certainly an implication that gymnastics is 'not a real sport' (maybe it is, maybe it isn't... that's not relevant to my argument here), and thus there is something wrong with those who like/appreciate it... and thus the analogy holds when we are considering not the value of those who like gymnastics but the likely implication (of CmdrTaco) regarding the value of those who like gymnastics. And regarding my second analogy: Whatever the reason for differences in interests in the two sexes (biological, or environmental (eg, privilege, encouragement)), why not make fun of people who like something (gymnastics or pretty graphics) only if (a) the thing they like is somehow stupid to like, and (b) (nearly) every member of that group likes the (stupid) thing in question? For example, if I want to make fun of people who like monster car truck races in a post about some tech advance which will both change the efficiency of fuel-efficient cars and will also impact some aspect of monster truck races (where, say, the impact is both relevant to the tech advance, but also something which I hope/think is considered stupid by the readers), would it be acceptable to make a comment at the end of a post saying something like "But men may be more interested in [insert something I'm implying it's stupid to find interesting and is in the area of monster truck races?". I don't know. Maybe you think it's okay. But I believe that's based on an emotion that depends on the fact that on slashdot, most people will be resistant to being sexist against men, because people are more likely to be (a) rational, (b) caring about social/moral issues, (c) men... and you know this. And thus, even those who are neither very _rational_ nor _caring_ about what's right/wrong (either factually or morally) when it comes to social issues (I'm sure there are some readers on slashdot who are like this), are likely to be men. And history has shown that people without properties (a) and (b) are likely to be prejudiced against those not in their own group, regardless of whether the group in question actually picks out the qualities which are sufficient for determining superiority over those outside the group.
Thankfully for me, I find that (at least highly-modded) posters on slashdot seem to have properties (a) and (b) in spades, and thus although for one depressing moment I felt not at home on slashdot, I felt at home again, after reading some posters' responses. Thank-you to those of you (especially to the men, who have nothing to gain from being outraged at sexism against women (except living in a more just society!)). Please know that I have, in the past, admonished my feminazi friends from being sexist assholes on matter of principle too. (I no longer do this because I've learned to choose better friends).
There are two kinds of science articles I read on Wikipedia (and I go to Wikipedia alot): 1. Articles in a science related to my research field, and 2. Articles in some other science. In the case of articles in my field (quantum gravity), I have read up on topics that (a) I am enough of an expert to make minor edits, if necessary, and (b) I hardly know anything about but need to understand - usually quickly - in order to get on with the task of understanding of some more-important-to-my-thesis-work concept.
In all three of these cases (1a, 1b, and 2), Wikipedia has, in all cases (no exaggeration) been (i) far better pedagogically in giving me an introduction to the concept than by far the majority of review articles which would help introduce me to the concept or topic, and (ii) although good textbooks generally give a much more thorough intro to the topic/concept better in terms of the amount of time I need to spend to get a good introduction to the concept/topic than textbooks, if I don't have enough time to read the best textbook which contains good info on the concept/topic. (Although, perhaps obviously, (iii) far less helpful than my supervisor per unit time, in helping me to understand some new concept/topic).
When I haven't had the much background on the topic (1b and 2), the little introductory blurb at the beginning always gave me an intuitive and very rough understanding of the concept. Clicking the links of the terms in the introductory blurb with which I was insufficiently familiar gave me far smoother understanding. And then reading the more in-depth explanations gave me as good an understanding that I can imagine getting (and more than I would have hoped to get before Wikipedia came into my life) per unit word I read on Wikipedia in my attempt to understand the concept. It is generally only after reading the Wikipedia article that I try to read review papers and texts on whatever it is I need to know (and then only if I need more than a rudimenary understanding). I went to the mitochondria and the epigenetics articles that the author disparages, and I have little background in biology (i.e., Biology 101 and Organic Chemistry in undergrad), and I seriously don't understand what the author finds so difficult about them.
Honestly, I think the root of the author's complaint may just be due to the fact that science is hard . It takes a lot of time to understand a single concept. Other fields (e.g., history, literary criticism) are about inherently more complex topics and sciences (especially physics) are about much, much simpler systems. As a result, it has been possible to develop individual concepts in science much more deeply than in non-scientific fields; in which (non-science) researchers are able to deal with a breadth that no scientist (except the odd person like the unbelievably broadly- and deeply- educated von Neumann) is able to reach.
Thus, whereas it is possible to read up on a small topic/concept more quickly in a non-scientific field and have a decent understanding of it, it takes much longer to do the same for a concept/topic in science. (And researchers in non-scientific fields are thereby required to have knowledge of many more topics/concepts in their fields than scientists do).
Furthermore, the complaint that at least one poster made regarding the use of complex mathematical equations in WP entries in topics in physics(such as Kepler's laws and photons) is insufficiently grounded for the following reason: Both of these posts give the highly mathematical description after giving only as much of a description of each in plain English, as is reasonably possible, and yet informative at the same time. Anyone who likes can choose to read only the parts written in English. I myself find that there are occasions when I only have time for the plain-English descriptions, and there is nothing wrong with reading only that. Anyone who wants to know more can read t
Thanks to your suggestion
What needs to happen is for Internet radio stations to turn to independent labels. Consumers will buy the music they hear. ,
DigitAl56K, I wrote the following email to Pandora, believed by most people I know to be the best internet radio station they know of.
I sent it to suggest-music@pandora.com . It really could have a fantastic effect if others could write them similar emails.
Hello to the person receiving this email,
I'm sure you get a large number of emails beginning with "I LOVE Pandora". Well, I _LOVE_ Pandora. I just cannot believe how good it is. There is a great deal I could say regarding what makes it so unbelievably great, but I'm fairly sure you've heard it all before. So, I will simply get to the reason I am writing this email:
A. I am wondering whether it would be possible for Pandora to:
(1) include more independent artists,
(2) if it is possible for Pandora to label songs being played which are not part of the group of companies represented by the RIAA as "independent" when they show up, and
(3) whether it is possible for the listener to request music which is _only_ non-RIAA/independent to be played on their radio stations.
B. The reason I ask this is:
(1) I like to purchase music that I am somewhat familiar with already, and the main way I do this is after hearing a song several times on the radio: When a song which starts to play on the radio starts to get me excited and happy, then I make a mental note to purchase that song.
(2) I hate the regular radio, and hate it even more since I started listening to Pandora, since the contrast between the goodness of the two has reinforced my strong dislike of nearly all regular radio.
(3) I, and - as you will see if you ever read sites like slashdot.org or gizmodo.com - many, many other ordinary people _HATE_ the RIAA and have refused to purchase music from them. Seeing them destroy or significantly damage lives with little or no care, to see them do this with flimsy evidence against those who they threaten to take to court, and to see how little they pay but a very small percentage of the musicians who create the music that they "own", is enough to make the stomach of very many people turn. After years of reading the horrible actions of the RIAA many of us can no longer buy their music in good conscience. Proof of the existence of a builiding mass movement against the companies represented by the RIAA may be found from reading the comments posted on these sites by the readers of these sites. (Gizmodo has declared this the month of boycotting the RIAA).
(4) I love good music, and love to purchase music so long as a large enough percentage of the profits go to the musicians who produce them, and so long as the distributors (e.g. Pandora) get a reasonable percentage of the profits and so long as the companies involved behave in a socially responsible way (I have never heard anything bad about Pandora). Accordingly, I would very much like to be able to purchase independent music through Pandora.
Due to B1-B4 above, it would make it easier for me to purchase music easily if I could see non-RIAA music clearly labeled as "nonRIAA" or "independent" beside the music that is currently playing on Pandora. The only reason people purchase RIAA music is that they are made familiar with it due to their songs being played on the radio. Since my main inlet of music-listening is Pandora, familiarity is determined completely by what Pandora plays.
C. I read an alarming piece of news on Slashdot today. I am wondering how this affects you. (You do not have to reply if you're busy, but I was horrified that your great product might disappear or the profit on your incredible product would be so greatly reduced as it seems it might soon be). I post it below, complete with links, together with some comments made by early readers of the post. The post is called "New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio", and is found at: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/04/09 30245
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Part of the reason for the difference is that the cost of living in the home countries of the immigrants is so little compared to that in the U.S.. Accordingly, they know that if they suffer through the job for just a few years, they can own their own house back in their home contries, or they know the large impact their few dollars will make when a large chunk of it is sent back to their mothers, siblings, partners. American workers don't have that incentive at $6/hr.
I've always, or at least since I was a wee lass, wanted to live in a community of kind and intelligent folk with whom I could talk to about physics, mathematics, philosophy, politics, economics, etc.. I was starved not just for intellectual stimulation, though (for I could always get that from books): I craved living amongst people with whom I could talk about these things. I wanted to be able to pass them on the sidewalk as I walked to the park, and then sit in the park, reading a book, and sometimes talk with them there about what I learned, what they learned, and what I didn't understand. Now that I'm addicted to coffee, I dream of living in a place where the general population is so highly educated and, importantly, interested in various topics, that there will be interesting conversations going on around me, that I could join if I so desired. The desire was thus both a highly intellectual craving and a highly social one. I needed both the intellectual stimulation and the social experience of hanging out with others, striving towards a common goal (of figuring out bits of the Truth and making the world a better place).
But the social element, I find, cannot yet be satisfied by online communities (such as the seriously enjoyable Slashdot). I still need to be able to "see" the people I'm speaking with, even whilst we just sit around while reading quietly and independently. There is something about "seeing" the person in front of me that is necessary to fulfil whatever it is that the primitive part of my brain requires to be satisfied, socially. (It doesn't have to be what they really look like in real life, of course - it merely needs to be a fairly consistent image through time).
Worse yet, the people with whom I would want to live in a "kind and intelligent community" are very rare folk. It is very unlikely that I will ever meet enough of them to comprise a "community", let alone know enough of them living in the same town or city to satisfy my social desire. A large enough city near a university or high-tech area would do it but the cost of living in those cities is prohibitively expensive for many people. This is where an online 3D world can do for me what the internet has, to a very large, but still insufficient, extent, done.
And I can't be the only one! There must be others, with different interests than my own, who crave a combination of interaction with people with similar interests and also need more of a social feel that one can't sufficiently derive from present-day "2D" online communities. I can imagine a community of knitters (seriously - I know a few people who love knitting and get together to knit; a task made difficult because scheduling the 1 hr/wk of knitting they aim for is difficult when is trying to balance teaching, research, and family, at the same time) who would love to get together online in a "room" with "comfortable couches" and "nice decor" and show each other the cool new knits (is that the word?) they've just mastered. It would be great for them if there was a place they could just "drop in" to do this whenever they have time, just as my partner likes to drop in on his (and my) friends (from real life) on Guild Wars when he feels like gaming and a little company. Currently, the only interest that is greatly catered to in the 3D world is the gaming world (I know there are other interests, like buying clothes and building houses that are also catered to), so that those who like gaming and social interaction have a place (eg, WOW or GuildWars) to go. But what about the knitter who loves knitting and also has a strong social element to their desires? What about someone with a desire to sit around in a virtual library in the "physics section" of the library on comfortable couches, and talk about whether what they just read in a book about toposes has anything to do with what they just read in a paper on quantum gravity, and who needs a frequent strongly social element to their discussions? A 3D world
Yes, I agree (tho I don't know two of them), and I have one more to add: I can't even imagine anyone writing anything that could replace Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler anytime soon or perhaps ever. So I _very_ strongly recommend Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler. Many of the Dover books are also very good for math and physics, for both undergraduate and graduate learning, as Dover takes the very best of the copyrighted works (the classics) no longer being printed (for some reason I do not understand), and buys them out. As a result, the list held by Dover is already a very good list for learning at least math and physics and even history of physics. I don't know any other areas, but I wouldn't be surprised if this holds of other (non -physics or -math) academic areas as well.
Seriously, though... the problem is the hourly salary _compared_with_ their cost of living. Their hourly salary is so little, that _even_with_ working 60 hrs/wk they live several people to a room, and have, I suspect, unreasonably little in terms of possessions. No one is saying that they should earn as much as we do in the West, for then - you're right - their standard of living would be extremely high, given their cost of living. However, _given_their_cost_of_living_, does it really seem to you that they are making a reasonable salary, especially given how much profit is likely being made on each ipod? Thus, although their cost of living is much less than ours, their salaries do not adequately make up for this happy circumstance.
The fact is that the people would not starve - as long as their salaries are sufficiently less than their Western counterparts, corporations will continue to use them. If the minimum amount that corporations could pay people to work in their factories for were higher, they would still employ them, because someone has to make their products (eg ipods).
Corporations who are making a reasonable profit can choose to pay their employees more. The minimum they have to pay them, is enough to actually be alive and healthy enough to work (so they only have to give them enough money to hand over to those who have the food and shelter they need to keep living). It takes a fight (e.g. unionization) to earn more than that when labor market conditions (or the law) do not force it upon corporations.
You're right that when market conditions are sufficiently bad for labourers, _individual_ labourers are willing to take a job rather than starve (or whatever the other option is), but this does not mean that if the minimum conditions were raised for the worst-paid labourers across the board, that companies would stop hiring them. They still need the labourers - they will just pay them as little as possible.
Now, asking for an increase in minimum wage for the worst-paid in the world is asking too much all at once (barring the use of international legislation) - I can't see it happening, due to the power discrepancy between the set of all labourers in the world and the set of all of those people who profit from paying labourers as little as possible. I just wanted to point out that the reasoning involved in your comment is flawed - the same number of people would starve in either case, because the companies need labourers in any case.
What you claim to be a cause of warfare, is, I think, one of the causes.
However, it is not likely the case that the resulting wealth is _simply_ a sign to women that one's progeny will be successful. There are additional evolutionary benefits to the wealth (such as the _actual_ survival of one's progeny). More than this, though, there are many behaviours that result from the process of evolution that do not in themselves further one's evolutionary advantage. Thus, the acquisition of wealth can have causes which have no evolutionary advantage (although of course, the main cause is likely evolutionary).
The main reason for my response, however, is that (1) I agree with you that if the reason that people desire wealth is to get women in order to gain evolutionary advantage, then it's extremely unlikely that women will ever have the requisite drive to get equality with men when it comes to attaining wealth. However, (2) it is hard to believe that women do not care as much about wealth as men do, and (3) it is also hard to believe that - given the fact that physical strength is no longer required to attain wealth (food, land, etc.) in Western (and most other) nations - it is not to an evolutionary advantage for a woman to try to attain wealth herself.
The soundness of your reasoning rests on whether the coding for wealth-acquisition is strongly linked to the sex chromosomes; or whether all humans have a drive for wealth (linked to other chromosomes), and simply seek the best means possible for wealth aquisition. In the latter case, women would seek wealth by any means necessary, including long-term mating with men, if that was the only means available to her for sufficiently great wealth-acquition. But also in this latter case, women would seek wealth in the same way men do, if strength (and other possible external factors, such as discrimination) is not a fundamental requirement for sufficiently great wealth-acquisition in her situation.
I'm not sure, though, where this desire for wealth-acquisition is located. If it's strongly sex-linked, then you're (mostly) right. But if it's not, then you're wrong. The only way to know is to see how strongly women's drive for wealth (through working for the wealth) ranks against men's drive, and I think that it's not clear that men are the clear winners here. It's true that there are less women in the highest-paid ranks of the workforce, but it is also true that this situation is changing, in conjunction with the change in our society's increasing acceptance of women in these roles.
Not eating meat is not a luxury - eating meat is a luxury. How could you possibly think otherwise? The poor of the world are the ones who are least able to eat meat, because meat is a luxury. In particular, it is a luxury afforded by the ability to sacrifice the total number of calories one could get if one ate the food which was fed to the animal to be eaten, over the course of that animal's lifetime.
Also, you've completely misrepresented veganism. What is in common amongst vegans is _not_ the belief that one should never eat meat, not even if one is going to die otherwise. There are, of course, vegans who think that one should never eat meat, even if one will otherwise die. What is in common is that one should never eat meat when one has a more humane option.
I, too, am not a vegan, but it hurts to see the view or the associated economics misrepresented with so much apparent disregard.
After reading slashdot voraciously for nearly the past year, yet being too lazy to sign up to post comments even when I had a fairly strong desire to, this post made me finally overcome my inertia, just to say that your response is extremely insightful aeoo, and thank you for it!
Slashdot Mirror
Thank-you very, very much for your work. I appreciate it a huge amount.
Thanks for this! It's very helpful. :)
Oh! This may account for my confusion. I had thought we were protected from all such suits because of Canadian privacy laws, but perhaps it's just something specific about music in our copyright legislation that protects just from music suits. Thanks for the info!
Thanks for your answer! It's much appreciated. :)
CmdrTaco: If a disproportionate number of people of race X committed crimes or were not going through higher education (for whatever reason), would it be okay to add in comments to summaries which mention "Your race-X friends might be more interested in the armed robberies which can be more easily performed with this high-tech weapon." or "Your race-X friends might not be able to appreciate this cool advance in materials science which will allow faster processors soon (which we, with our good educations, are able to understand and appreciate), but maybe they'll be interested in the pretty graphics this new development enables!"? I understand that there's nothing wrong with appreciating gymnastics so the analogy to my first (armed robberies) example may not appear to hold, but there is certainly an implication that gymnastics is 'not a real sport' (maybe it is, maybe it isn't... that's not relevant to my argument here), and thus there is something wrong with those who like/appreciate it... and thus the analogy holds when we are considering not the value of those who like gymnastics but the likely implication (of CmdrTaco) regarding the value of those who like gymnastics. And regarding my second analogy: Whatever the reason for differences in interests in the two sexes (biological, or environmental (eg, privilege, encouragement)), why not make fun of people who like something (gymnastics or pretty graphics) only if (a) the thing they like is somehow stupid to like, and (b) (nearly) every member of that group likes the (stupid) thing in question? For example, if I want to make fun of people who like monster car truck races in a post about some tech advance which will both change the efficiency of fuel-efficient cars and will also impact some aspect of monster truck races (where, say, the impact is both relevant to the tech advance, but also something which I hope/think is considered stupid by the readers), would it be acceptable to make a comment at the end of a post saying something like "But men may be more interested in [insert something I'm implying it's stupid to find interesting and is in the area of monster truck races?". I don't know. Maybe you think it's okay. But I believe that's based on an emotion that depends on the fact that on slashdot, most people will be resistant to being sexist against men, because people are more likely to be (a) rational, (b) caring about social/moral issues, (c) men... and you know this. And thus, even those who are neither very _rational_ nor _caring_ about what's right/wrong (either factually or morally) when it comes to social issues (I'm sure there are some readers on slashdot who are like this), are likely to be men. And history has shown that people without properties (a) and (b) are likely to be prejudiced against those not in their own group, regardless of whether the group in question actually picks out the qualities which are sufficient for determining superiority over those outside the group.
Thankfully for me, I find that (at least highly-modded) posters on slashdot seem to have properties (a) and (b) in spades, and thus although for one depressing moment I felt not at home on slashdot, I felt at home again, after reading some posters' responses. Thank-you to those of you (especially to the men, who have nothing to gain from being outraged at sexism against women (except living in a more just society!)). Please know that I have, in the past, admonished my feminazi friends from being sexist assholes on matter of principle too. (I no longer do this because I've learned to choose better friends).
I liked your use of "usen't". (No, I'm not kidding). I've been tempted to use it before myself. :)
There are two kinds of science articles I read on Wikipedia (and I go to Wikipedia alot): 1. Articles in a science related to my research field, and 2. Articles in some other science. In the case of articles in my field (quantum gravity), I have read up on topics that (a) I am enough of an expert to make minor edits, if necessary, and (b) I hardly know anything about but need to understand - usually quickly - in order to get on with the task of understanding of some more-important-to-my-thesis-work concept.
In all three of these cases (1a, 1b, and 2), Wikipedia has, in all cases (no exaggeration) been (i) far better pedagogically in giving me an introduction to the concept than by far the majority of review articles which would help introduce me to the concept or topic, and (ii) although good textbooks generally give a much more thorough intro to the topic/concept better in terms of the amount of time I need to spend to get a good introduction to the concept/topic than textbooks, if I don't have enough time to read the best textbook which contains good info on the concept/topic. (Although, perhaps obviously, (iii) far less helpful than my supervisor per unit time, in helping me to understand some new concept/topic).
When I haven't had the much background on the topic (1b and 2), the little introductory blurb at the beginning always gave me an intuitive and very rough understanding of the concept. Clicking the links of the terms in the introductory blurb with which I was insufficiently familiar gave me far smoother understanding. And then reading the more in-depth explanations gave me as good an understanding that I can imagine getting (and more than I would have hoped to get before Wikipedia came into my life) per unit word I read on Wikipedia in my attempt to understand the concept. It is generally only after reading the Wikipedia article that I try to read review papers and texts on whatever it is I need to know (and then only if I need more than a rudimenary understanding). I went to the mitochondria and the epigenetics articles that the author disparages, and I have little background in biology (i.e., Biology 101 and Organic Chemistry in undergrad), and I seriously don't understand what the author finds so difficult about them.
Honestly, I think the root of the author's complaint may just be due to the fact that science is hard . It takes a lot of time to understand a single concept. Other fields (e.g., history, literary criticism) are about inherently more complex topics and sciences (especially physics) are about much, much simpler systems. As a result, it has been possible to develop individual concepts in science much more deeply than in non-scientific fields; in which (non-science) researchers are able to deal with a breadth that no scientist (except the odd person like the unbelievably broadly- and deeply- educated von Neumann) is able to reach.
Thus, whereas it is possible to read up on a small topic/concept more quickly in a non-scientific field and have a decent understanding of it, it takes much longer to do the same for a concept/topic in science. (And researchers in non-scientific fields are thereby required to have knowledge of many more topics/concepts in their fields than scientists do).
Furthermore, the complaint that at least one poster made regarding the use of complex mathematical equations in WP entries in topics in physics(such as Kepler's laws and photons) is insufficiently grounded for the following reason: Both of these posts give the highly mathematical description after giving only as much of a description of each in plain English, as is reasonably possible, and yet informative at the same time. Anyone who likes can choose to read only the parts written in English. I myself find that there are occasions when I only have time for the plain-English descriptions, and there is nothing wrong with reading only that. Anyone who wants to know more can read t
I sent it to suggest-music@pandora.com . It really could have a fantastic effect if others could write them similar emails.
Part of the reason for the difference is that the cost of living in the home countries of the immigrants is so little compared to that in the U.S.. Accordingly, they know that if they suffer through the job for just a few years, they can own their own house back in their home contries, or they know the large impact their few dollars will make when a large chunk of it is sent back to their mothers, siblings, partners. American workers don't have that incentive at $6/hr.
I've always, or at least since I was a wee lass, wanted to live in a community of kind and intelligent folk with whom I could talk to about physics, mathematics, philosophy, politics, economics, etc.. I was starved not just for intellectual stimulation, though (for I could always get that from books): I craved living amongst people with whom I could talk about these things. I wanted to be able to pass them on the sidewalk as I walked to the park, and then sit in the park, reading a book, and sometimes talk with them there about what I learned, what they learned, and what I didn't understand. Now that I'm addicted to coffee, I dream of living in a place where the general population is so highly educated and, importantly, interested in various topics, that there will be interesting conversations going on around me, that I could join if I so desired. The desire was thus both a highly intellectual craving and a highly social one. I needed both the intellectual stimulation and the social experience of hanging out with others, striving towards a common goal (of figuring out bits of the Truth and making the world a better place).
But the social element, I find, cannot yet be satisfied by online communities (such as the seriously enjoyable Slashdot). I still need to be able to "see" the people I'm speaking with, even whilst we just sit around while reading quietly and independently. There is something about "seeing" the person in front of me that is necessary to fulfil whatever it is that the primitive part of my brain requires to be satisfied, socially. (It doesn't have to be what they really look like in real life, of course - it merely needs to be a fairly consistent image through time).
Worse yet, the people with whom I would want to live in a "kind and intelligent community" are very rare folk. It is very unlikely that I will ever meet enough of them to comprise a "community", let alone know enough of them living in the same town or city to satisfy my social desire. A large enough city near a university or high-tech area would do it but the cost of living in those cities is prohibitively expensive for many people. This is where an online 3D world can do for me what the internet has, to a very large, but still insufficient, extent, done.
And I can't be the only one! There must be others, with different interests than my own, who crave a combination of interaction with people with similar interests and also need more of a social feel that one can't sufficiently derive from present-day "2D" online communities. I can imagine a community of knitters (seriously - I know a few people who love knitting and get together to knit; a task made difficult because scheduling the 1 hr/wk of knitting they aim for is difficult when is trying to balance teaching, research, and family, at the same time) who would love to get together online in a "room" with "comfortable couches" and "nice decor" and show each other the cool new knits (is that the word?) they've just mastered. It would be great for them if there was a place they could just "drop in" to do this whenever they have time, just as my partner likes to drop in on his (and my) friends (from real life) on Guild Wars when he feels like gaming and a little company. Currently, the only interest that is greatly catered to in the 3D world is the gaming world (I know there are other interests, like buying clothes and building houses that are also catered to), so that those who like gaming and social interaction have a place (eg, WOW or GuildWars) to go. But what about the knitter who loves knitting and also has a strong social element to their desires? What about someone with a desire to sit around in a virtual library in the "physics section" of the library on comfortable couches, and talk about whether what they just read in a book about toposes has anything to do with what they just read in a paper on quantum gravity, and who needs a frequent strongly social element to their discussions? A 3D world
Yes, I agree (tho I don't know two of them), and I have one more to add: I can't even imagine anyone writing anything that could replace Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler anytime soon or perhaps ever. So I _very_ strongly recommend Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler. Many of the Dover books are also very good for math and physics, for both undergraduate and graduate learning, as Dover takes the very best of the copyrighted works (the classics) no longer being printed (for some reason I do not understand), and buys them out. As a result, the list held by Dover is already a very good list for learning at least math and physics and even history of physics. I don't know any other areas, but I wouldn't be surprised if this holds of other (non -physics or -math) academic areas as well.
Seriously, though... the problem is the hourly salary _compared_with_ their cost of living. Their hourly salary is so little, that _even_with_ working 60 hrs/wk they live several people to a room, and have, I suspect, unreasonably little in terms of possessions. No one is saying that they should earn as much as we do in the West, for then - you're right - their standard of living would be extremely high, given their cost of living. However, _given_their_cost_of_living_, does it really seem to you that they are making a reasonable salary, especially given how much profit is likely being made on each ipod? Thus, although their cost of living is much less than ours, their salaries do not adequately make up for this happy circumstance.
The fact is that the people would not starve - as long as their salaries are sufficiently less than their Western counterparts, corporations will continue to use them. If the minimum amount that corporations could pay people to work in their factories for were higher, they would still employ them, because someone has to make their products (eg ipods). Corporations who are making a reasonable profit can choose to pay their employees more. The minimum they have to pay them, is enough to actually be alive and healthy enough to work (so they only have to give them enough money to hand over to those who have the food and shelter they need to keep living). It takes a fight (e.g. unionization) to earn more than that when labor market conditions (or the law) do not force it upon corporations. You're right that when market conditions are sufficiently bad for labourers, _individual_ labourers are willing to take a job rather than starve (or whatever the other option is), but this does not mean that if the minimum conditions were raised for the worst-paid labourers across the board, that companies would stop hiring them. They still need the labourers - they will just pay them as little as possible. Now, asking for an increase in minimum wage for the worst-paid in the world is asking too much all at once (barring the use of international legislation) - I can't see it happening, due to the power discrepancy between the set of all labourers in the world and the set of all of those people who profit from paying labourers as little as possible. I just wanted to point out that the reasoning involved in your comment is flawed - the same number of people would starve in either case, because the companies need labourers in any case.
What you claim to be a cause of warfare, is, I think, one of the causes. However, it is not likely the case that the resulting wealth is _simply_ a sign to women that one's progeny will be successful. There are additional evolutionary benefits to the wealth (such as the _actual_ survival of one's progeny). More than this, though, there are many behaviours that result from the process of evolution that do not in themselves further one's evolutionary advantage. Thus, the acquisition of wealth can have causes which have no evolutionary advantage (although of course, the main cause is likely evolutionary). The main reason for my response, however, is that (1) I agree with you that if the reason that people desire wealth is to get women in order to gain evolutionary advantage, then it's extremely unlikely that women will ever have the requisite drive to get equality with men when it comes to attaining wealth. However, (2) it is hard to believe that women do not care as much about wealth as men do, and (3) it is also hard to believe that - given the fact that physical strength is no longer required to attain wealth (food, land, etc.) in Western (and most other) nations - it is not to an evolutionary advantage for a woman to try to attain wealth herself. The soundness of your reasoning rests on whether the coding for wealth-acquisition is strongly linked to the sex chromosomes; or whether all humans have a drive for wealth (linked to other chromosomes), and simply seek the best means possible for wealth aquisition. In the latter case, women would seek wealth by any means necessary, including long-term mating with men, if that was the only means available to her for sufficiently great wealth-acquition. But also in this latter case, women would seek wealth in the same way men do, if strength (and other possible external factors, such as discrimination) is not a fundamental requirement for sufficiently great wealth-acquisition in her situation. I'm not sure, though, where this desire for wealth-acquisition is located. If it's strongly sex-linked, then you're (mostly) right. But if it's not, then you're wrong. The only way to know is to see how strongly women's drive for wealth (through working for the wealth) ranks against men's drive, and I think that it's not clear that men are the clear winners here. It's true that there are less women in the highest-paid ranks of the workforce, but it is also true that this situation is changing, in conjunction with the change in our society's increasing acceptance of women in these roles.
Not eating meat is not a luxury - eating meat is a luxury. How could you possibly think otherwise? The poor of the world are the ones who are least able to eat meat, because meat is a luxury. In particular, it is a luxury afforded by the ability to sacrifice the total number of calories one could get if one ate the food which was fed to the animal to be eaten, over the course of that animal's lifetime. Also, you've completely misrepresented veganism. What is in common amongst vegans is _not_ the belief that one should never eat meat, not even if one is going to die otherwise. There are, of course, vegans who think that one should never eat meat, even if one will otherwise die. What is in common is that one should never eat meat when one has a more humane option. I, too, am not a vegan, but it hurts to see the view or the associated economics misrepresented with so much apparent disregard.
After reading slashdot voraciously for nearly the past year, yet being too lazy to sign up to post comments even when I had a fairly strong desire to, this post made me finally overcome my inertia, just to say that your response is extremely insightful aeoo, and thank you for it!