* Timo Tossavainen <t...@cs.uta.fi> | One must first wonder what is wrong with the system that produces these | kinds of people that commit the crimes.
what's wrong is thinking that political systems produce any kind of people. "societies don't produce people. people produce people."
if a poor person turns to crime, that only explains why he's poor, not why he's a criminal. likewise, if a poor person _demands_ that others keep him alive, that also explains why he's poor. normal human decency, however, implies that we take care of people who come to us and ask for help in a way that makes it worth our while to help them, but begging is so disgustingly demeaning that one should _never_ help beggars. this part of normal caring for other people has been destroyed by organized welfare, and people are turned into beggars because that's the only thing that works: the worst part of organized welfare is that you don't get help if you aren't sufficiently "needy". requiring people to compete with others in terms of being the most needy is a really, truly horrible thing to do to them, as any prospect of bettering your condition also means you don't "deserve" support from the organized welfare, anymore.
my take on it is that people who are allowed to think that they can _demand_ that others keep them alive and well start to think they are _deprived_ of it if others don't actually keep them alive and well, and such attitudes may well lead to criminal behavior as it already ignores the rights and needs of those who are required to care for them with nothing tangible in return, not even a thank-you. stuff like that works in a traditional family setting, where having a child is an obligation that lasts at least 18 years, but societies don't produce children in the literal sense, either, so something above and beyond nature is needed and it's important that people agree on this and appreciate it. an annoying, smelly child who demands candy from its parents in a grocery store is a different story altogether from an annoying, smelly grown-up who demands change from the same parents outside the same store, albeit for exactly the same reason.
I also keep reminding myself that what is now the Western Civilization was once made up of people much less well off than what we call "poor" today, yet somehow they managed to become one of the most affluent civilizations in human history in the course of a few hundred years. what made it happen? it sure wasn't welfare from outer space, and massive numbers of people died prematurely to make it happen. it is politically correct today to accuse Europeans of stealing all the wealth from today's poor nations, but none of these poor nations ever _had_ any massive wealth to steal to begin with. did we rob them of chances? I don't get it. chances don't come in a fixed supply, and we didn't steal _all_ of their natural resources all at once, anyway. what made Western Civilization? I don't know, but I know it wasn't a demand that somebody give us a chance and until we got it, we would sit on our asses and wait, so I don't understand why we have started to reward such demands so much.
I resisted the temptation to respond line for line. Here's a summary:
Good people will be so regardless of religion, and if religion makes some people good out of fear, that's a bonus. Evil people will find ways to justify their evil. Religion isn't necessary, other dogmas will do, and some need no rationalization at all.
It makes no sense to me to attack religion in general. It seems to me that a proselytizing atheist is trying to convince himself.
There are harmful dogmas, and some of them are religious in origin. That has little influence on how to group them.
Jerry -- Engineering is the art | Let's talk about what of making what you want | you need; you may see from things you can get. | how to do without it. ---------------------------------------------------------
Browne) wrote: >On Thu, 12 Aug 1999 23:28:32 GMT, Bruce McFarling ><e...@cc.newcastle.edu.au> wrote: >>On Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:01:05 -0400, Jerry Avins <j...@ieee.org> wrote: >>>I can only assume that sanctimony creates blindness which the >>>blind don't always like.
>> No, it's just social reference groups. People who have Bible >>drummed into them still keep forgetting that the Good Samaritan was >>someone of the `wrong' religious persuasion.
>Very good point...
>It is entirely evident that lots of "demographic groups" contain >sanctimoniously blind people, certainly *most* of them, and possibly >even *all* of them.
>That includes churches, school boards, and lots of other places.
>One of the interesting points I heard come out of the recent arguments >in Kansas over the teaching of evolution (or lack thereof) was that >there were teaching situations where there was such pointed >disagreement over the issue that it didn't even make sense to *bother* >bringing evolution up as an issue.
Sheesh, the US is really becoming backwards on this. The way I see it is that religion tells you what's on the other side of the hill; a cult tells you what's on this side of the hill, what we can see, and a philosophy gives you an interpretation of what you can see. As our knowledge increases we've raised higher on this hill, increasing our perspectives. Religions become cults as their falseness is exposed, and they either whither, run and cower under the rocks, say that what they said was there was analogy, or stand their ground and glare back at science, and there's examples of all.
Science isn't a religion itself. It's knowledge and philosophy in hand, one confirming the other. We can't see an atom, but if I said the universe was made of nanoscopic pink elephants, there would be evidence to contradict. Anything which stands on it's own, as knowledge or philosophy, is either given a support of the other half or viciously knocked down.
Spirituality does have relevance. It's important in a criminal system. If a crime is not a sin, you have problems keeping people from committing it; this up-and-coming generation has this deficiency as obvious as if one of it's arms was missing. It's also important in simply keeping people happy. But I don't think using a tattered book censored by knowledge and stuck with blood of a thousand years is good spirituality. Adopting the basically atheist (Or, rather, theologically neutral) original Jesus teachings would be better, at the least, and discarding the hype around his birth and death.
Not that christianity hasn't also done good. Who printed books for a thousand years? Not the kings and peasants, I'll tell you that. The Great Library may have burned, but if the monasteries didn't keep books up then it wouldn't have mattered if all of Hades consumed Greece or not, we would still be in the dark ages.
>If you have a situation where there's not going to be a sensible >teaching situation, what makes more sense? >a) Making the school into a battleground between people of varying > theological beliefs? or >b) Dropping the issue which, quite frankly, isn't of fundamental > importance to most of the rest of the things that could be taught, > and spend time teaching less controversial matters?
>Some battles simply aren't worth winning, as they wind up razing the >rest of the environment.
>[Try and guess *my* stance from the above...]
It's a whole mesh of issues, though; one of the things about Satan was that the first time you let him in the door, it is easier the second time. Obviously creationism is amazingly backwards and this cult front of christianity will only get more annoying as we learn more that they already knew. If you let this issue go this time, it's easier the next time until we all become socially correct and homogenously ignorant.
Christians seem to forget that this life is a test. If their beliefs aren't going to be tested, if they lead a sheltered life, it's automatic failure of the test. If their beliefs can't stand against what they hear from the devil, then their soul had already been corrupt, waiting for the correct trigger. Of course, with the later distortion of Jesus this doesn't apply as much, but if entrance to heaven only requires a stamp on your heart, then it shouldn't matter what tries to corrupt them.
I think what these groups are trying to say is that they want some time to feed lies into the shapeable young minds so that they're more impervious to reason later.
What are battles if not meant to be fought? I don't see why this universe is taken so seriously. There's certainly nothing about it that suggests it should be. Everywhere I go I see kick-me signs. But, of course, I'm a chaotic neutral and can't be reasoned with. I just see any application of sanity as completely against all of physics.
As to whether Lisp will live, hell yes. It's like humans; we're waiting for some big cataclysm to kill ourselves off with, but it'll never happen. Humanity will survive forever, and computer languages will survive until they're long past irrelevancy. BASIC is surviving. Doesn't that say EVERYthing? _BASIC_ IS SURVIVING! Should I shout it again? It's just too far beyond purpose and reason. Lisp is a good, intelligent language. It might change, but for the better, just as C is changing. Whether it becomes popular or not, why should anyone care? It's there now. Isn't the point to enjoy the language?
> On Sat, 14 Aug 1999 02:04:57 GMT, Bruce McFarling <e...@cc.newcastle.edu.au> wrote:
> >>One elegant way it has been put is that a Jewish athiest disbelieves > >>in an entirely different sort of diety than an athiest of Christian or > >>pagan upbringing.
> > Is it also that case that a Forth atheist disbelieves in an > >entirely different sort of programming paradigm than a C++ atheist?
> Does Forth have void or a false value 0 surrounded by millions > and millions of true values (all of them boiling down to the 1 true > faith)?
I thought Forth _was_ millions of true values boiling down to the one true faith! :-)
> Mistakes are always made. But it is a sign of extreme stupidity to set > up a system where it is impossible to correct mistakes. An aslternative > could be (to ensure that justice is carried out prudently) to legislate > an automatic death sentence for judge, jury, police and DAs involved > plus one randomly selected death penalty supporter every time somebody > who has been executed later is proven to be innocent. I think I could > live with that.
... > --
> Hartmann Schaffer
> It is better to fill your days with life than your life with days
How is this proposal for minimizing the number of those wrongly convicted? Make the penalties for attempted and successful crimes the same. After all, if someone deliberately shoots me in the chest, his penalty ought not depend on whether I live or die. If the gun misfires, that should be my good fortune, but not his.
When a prosecutor withholds exculpatory evidence, (s)he is trying to kill a possibly innocent person; a capital offense. When a prisecutor induces a witness to give perjured incriminating evidence, they are both culpable. At a minimum, the penalty for this kind of perjury should be what the defendant might have received if convicted. Any instance of evidence tampering by the prosecution should be automatic ground for acquittal. (I think that's what the jury decided in the O. J. Simpson case. It certainly explains the verdict.)
Jerry -- Engineering is the art | Let's talk about what of making what you want | you need; you may see from things you can get. | how to do without it. ---------------------------------------------------------
Espen Vestre wrote in message ... >Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes:
>> (someone accused me of posting "the world according to me" articles some >> time ago. since I am already accused of it, at least I deserve it now.)
>I don't know why all these waaaay off-topic articles occur in >comp.lang.lisp lately, but now that you have posted your (excellent) >article, can we please stop this discussion?
> It would take a pretty dumb national leader to approve of > assassination as a tool of international politics; that leader > immediately gets a big sign painted on their back labelled "Go ahead - > assassinate me!"
> The connection between this and: > a) Christianity, and > b) Death penalties, > is exceedingly tenuous.
No doubt about that, but we almost made a full turn and are now heading again for the not so distant vicinity of the original topic: Lisp *dying* ;-)
Benjamin
-- As an anti-spam measure I have scrambled my email address here. Remove "nospam-" and ROT13 to obtain my email address in clear text.
> Julian V. Noble wrote: > > Judaism is not primarily a belief system (although it has elements > > thereof grafted on) but a tribal/ethnic identification based on > > language, custom, rules and ancestry. Conversion to Judaism is > > not so much subscription to a credo as it is adoption into a tribe.
> > Despite there being groups like Jews for Jesus, and despite the > > fact that the original followers (ante-Paul) of Jesus were primarily Jews, > > the core beliefs of Judaism are primarily concerned with actions and > > this world, in contrast to Christianity (modern, that is) whose core > > involves faith.
> > One elegant way it has been put is that a Jewish athiest disbelieves > > in an entirely different sort of diety than an athiest of Christian or > > pagan upbringing.
> As a Jewish atheist, I can certify that at least one exists. Julian has > it correctly; being a member of that tribe isn't optional. Even if I > wanted it otherwise, there are those who would not accept that, and even > today, there are far too many who would like to think of me as raw > material for a lampshade.
> Julian is also correct about practice's being considered more important > than faith. A rabbi friend tried for years to get me to attend services > regularly, with no hint that I ought to change my beliefs. "What matters > to God is what you do, not what you believe." We remained friends > despite my disinterest. Many of my charitable contributions are to > Jewish causes, including the local synagogue. It is an important local > cultural center; I want it to be there, even while having little > personal contact and no philosophical affinity at all.
> When my Jewish acquaintances ask about religion, I tell than I am an > atheist; to Christians, I say I am a Jew. To say otherwise would seem to > many (and to me!) to be hiding something.
On 14 Aug 1999 08:37:02 +0200, s...@ii.uib.no (Stig E. Sandų) wrote:
>On Sat, 14 Aug 1999 02:04:57 GMT, Bruce McFarling <e...@cc.newcastle.edu.au> wrote:
>>>One elegant way it has been put is that a Jewish athiest disbelieves >>>in an entirely different sort of diety than an athiest of Christian or >>>pagan upbringing.
>> Is it also that case that a Forth atheist disbelieves in an >>entirely different sort of programming paradigm than a C++ atheist?
>Does Forth have void or a false value 0 surrounded by millions >and millions of true values (all of them boiling down to the 1 true >faith)?
Aha, now you are getting down to sectarian conflicts.
17. ANS Forth follows Forth-83 in having One True TRUE and One True FALSE, *but* in having thousands, and in larger systems millions, of true values.
18. Other systems have had a TRUE values which was not the One True TRRUE value, in that `` value TRUE AND '' was not guaranteed to be ``value'', and `` value TRUE OR '' was not guaranteed to be TRUE.
Here ends the reading from 2nd Booles.
( ---------- Virtually,
Bruce McFarling, Newcastle, e...@cc.newcastle.edu.au )
> * Timo Tossavainen <t...@cs.uta.fi> > | One must first wonder what is wrong with the system that produces these > | kinds of people that commit the crimes.
> what's wrong is thinking that political systems produce any kind of > people. "societies don't produce people. people produce people."
Of course you are right, but the society has a profound impact on the people that produce people; we are social animals. By system I meant the whole thing: family, education, work, etc... not a political system, which is only a part of it.
> requiring people to compete with others in terms of being the most needy > is a really, truly horrible
Who ever said that welfare should be unconditional ? There is a lot of work to do and I don't see a reason why people who are on welfare couldn't do a little work for their income. I don't like freeriders any more than you do, but they're not the reason why we shouldn't help people that are temporarily in a bad situation. I'm not qualified to make suggestions for these systems, but I firmly believe that there are better alternatives than the ones used now.
One other minor factor is that at least in the IT business people have to work overtime and everything is very much efficiency oriented; people burn out and sometimes just snap. I think there was such a case in the US just a few days ago. Everything is about competition and therefore extremely stressful. People don't give a fsck about working hours when they have to compete with each other in productivity.
> my take on it is that people who are allowed to think that they can > _demand_ that others keep them alive and well start to think they are > _deprived_ of it if others don't actually keep them alive and well, and > such attitudes may well lead to criminal behavior as it already ignores > the rights and needs of those who are required to care for them with > nothing tangible in return, not even a thank-you.
Criminal behaviour is made up of many factors. There are certain structures in communities that are more likely to "produce" people with criminal tendencies. These should be changed. I would guess that upbringing is the biggest. In some systems people who are rich to begin with have the chances and the poor don't or at least are in a considerably worse situation to begin with. Education is probably one of the deciding factors and it's is usually tied to wealth. In the nordic countries the educational system considers most people equal to begin with and that is one of the biggest reasons I like living here. At least everyone has an almost equal chance.
Burton Radons wrote: >As to whether Lisp will live, hell yes. It's like humans; we're >waiting for some big cataclysm to kill ourselves off with, but it'll >never happen. Humanity will survive forever, and computer languages >will survive until they're long past irrelevancy. BASIC is surviving. >Doesn't that say EVERYthing? _BASIC_ IS SURVIVING! Should I shout it >again? It's just too far beyond purpose and reason. Lisp is a good, >intelligent language. It might change, but for the better, just as C >is changing. Whether it becomes popular or not, why should anyone >care? It's there now. Isn't the point to enjoy the language?
Lisp (or Scheme) deserves to survive. It is one of the language *everybody* who gets an education in computer sciences, should learn. Basic, C, Pascal, Modula, Algol, Fortran... these are basically all the same language. Lisp is different. FORTH is different. Smalltalk is different. When comparing to these, you start to see how similar the other languages really are. Only when learning the alternatives, you see how narrow your view on computing really was.
>>Tom Zimmer wrote in message <37B34118.B377...@tmqaustin.com>...
>>[snip] >>>Just my thoughts,
>>Are you sure they are yours? They look suspiciously like dogma.
> All dogma was somebody's thoughts at sometime. Are you >missing a ``received'' in the sentence above?
No, I'm not concerned with whether the ideas are original (few ideas are) but whether they have been adopted on their individual merits (and are susceptible to reasoned discussion) rather than accepted as part of a "package deal".
> > > Don't know how successful the scheme was, though.
> > You tend to use up a lot of soothsayers that way, which is a strong > > argument in its favor.
> only if they are bad soothsayers (more likely to disagree with each other)... > ;-)
> -- > As an anti-spam measure I have scrambled my email address here. > Remove "nospam-" and ROT13 to obtain my email address in clear text.
... "Truth has the miraculous quality of being consistent with itself."
Walter Stuart of the N.I.H.
And maybe they had a Sythian Soothsayer's Association like the American Medical Association. Then they would have had no worry.
Jerry -- Engineering is the art | Let's talk about what of making what you want | you need; you may see from things you can get. | how to do without it. ---------------------------------------------------------
Erik Naggum wrote: > to remain a good person while being Christian is a lot harder than to > remain a good person without religious beliefs -- there's no one you can > ask forgiveness or to take responsiblity for your actions, there's no > illusion of a greater purpose that defends acts of evil and destruction > (like bombing abortion clinics or killing believers in other religions) > or to fill the void of a meaningless, wasted life, and there's no way you > can avoid being responsible for your own actions. without a forgiving > "God", your only reference is HUMAN RIGHTS, and they cannot be forfeited > or reneged because some "God" told you to.
You might have missed the news, but there was recently a war where one side bombed the other in the name of HUMAN RIGHTS. One can argue at length about this war, but it's just that human rights are a sort of religion, and even have their holy wars. It's not that a religion needs a supreme being, or such like to tell you what's right and what's wrong. Some even deliberately say that you should think yourself about that, and if you find something worthwile, teach others about it. Turns into a cult of dead philosophers pretty soon, though.
Benjamin Kowarsch wrote: > > Dogma 1. A system of teachings of religious truth as maintained by the > > Christian church or any portion of it.
> May I suggest an adjustment there please...
> "Dogma 1. A system of teachings of religious truth as *perceived* and ..."
They all assume that there is truth outside of mathematical logic. But simply, there isn't. To paraphrase the bible, we ate from the apple that let us distinguish truth and false. But as is easily visible, it's still stuck in our throat (after all, Eva didn't eat ;-), and therefore we just are under the illusion that we could. The only thing we can is to divide facts in truth and false, and be sure about the outcome, although the vast majority of questions can't be answered with a "yes" or "no".
While I don't believe in Gods or devils, I'm quite sure that this thread is directly from hell. It gets top scores on my "Troll of the year" list. Let this thread die!
Stig E. Sandų wrote: > Does Forth have void or a false value 0 surrounded by millions > and millions of true values (all of them boiling down to the 1 true > faith)?
Yes, certainly. But the one true faith is -1 instead of 1 in C++. It also shows that by negating truth, you get just another truth.
d...@nanostructure.utdallas.edu wrote: > Nah. First offence, finger. Second offence, hand. Third offence, head. > The road to civilization is not tolerating criminal behavior.
You mean people who chop off fingers, hands, and heads? Reminds me of the execution of Stoertebecker (famous pirate) in Hamburg. The executer was quite happy about chopping off the heads, so the senate was worried. The senate decided to have him executed, too. The second executer chopped of the head of the first one with a smile. One senator laid his own hands on the second executer and afterwards killed himself.
Remember: there is no right way to do wrong things.
> > > > Nah. First offence, finger. Second offence, hand. Third offence, > head. > > > > The road to civilization is not tolerating criminal behavior.
> > > This is the road to totalitarianism.
> > > "Thou shalt not kill"
> > > It amazes me how so many christian people in the states are pro death > penalty > > > even though it's against one of the most basic principles of christian > ethics.
> > Doesn't the bible also say "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" and > > specify communinal stoning to death for such offenses as adultery and > > violating the the sabbath? Christians abandoned stoning for burning at > > the stake.
> It's my understanding that that directive is more properly translated as, > "Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live."
> Larry
A better literal translation, but not better in meaning. The term refers to a poisoner of minds, a corruptor. Christians in power in formerly pagan Europe called them witches, and treated then the same way. Remember, when Saul was in trouble, he consulted the Witch of Endor. To punish him, God gave his throne to David.
Jerry
Jerry -- Engineering is the art | Let's talk about what of making what you want | you need; you may see from things you can get. | how to do without it. ---------------------------------------------------------
In article <nospam-orawnzva-1008990231210...@ppp009-max03.twics.com>,
Benjamin Kowarsch <nospam-orawn...@xntv.pbz> wrote:
>> Urm... that's all in the past, already, isn't it? So when did this >> "technological conservatism" started to creep (back) in?
>The financial world has always been very conservative. They have got a lot >of money to loose, that makes them somewhat reluctant to change as long as >things are perceived to work reasonably well.
ISTM that, to the average company, the MIS is something they have to do and have to pay for, so the potential benefit of improving the way they do things is seen as reducing the cost. This leads to conservatism, since they see better ways to do things (e.g., Common Lisp) as having a fairly small upside (reducing the cost of the MIS department) and a large downside (causing vital systems to fail).
Ideally, a software company would be less conservative, but I worked for one that seemed to consider the development division as one that they had to have and had to pay for.
This seems to imply that advances in software engineering are going to come into financial institutions from outside, probably in the form of new functionality with user customization. (Which could probably best be done in Common Lisp; it seems to be the best way to create a seamlessly extensible package.)
Bernd Paysan <bernd.pay...@gmx.de> wrote: +--------------- | Stig E. Sandų wrote: | > Does Forth have void or a false value 0 surrounded by millions | > and millions of true values (all of them boiling down to the 1 true | > faith)? | | Yes, certainly. But the one true faith is -1 instead of 1 in C++. It | also shows that by negating truth, you get just another truth. +---------------
IIRC, the BLISS language also used -1 for the one true truth.
But let's not forget the AMD Am29000 series, wherein "truth" == "negative" (or more precisely, a "1" in the most-significant bit), and the architecture specifically *didn't* define any "one true truth" other than the MSB.
[In fact, unless you read some specific processor manual *very* closely, you couldn't even find out *what* the "compare" instructions returned for that processor model. On the 29000 and 29030, they happened to return #x80000000 for true and 0 for false, but AMD reserved the right to change that...]
Though since a boolean could be converted to a full-word mask in just one more cycle, you could still get pipeline-efficient branch-free selection of alterative values. E.g., the code "(if (< a b) c d)" could be coded as the 5-cycle sequence [assuming "a"-"d" already in the registers]:
cplt t0, a, b sra t0, t0, 31 ; propagate sign bit throughout word and t1, c, t0 andn t2, d, t0 or t0, t1, t2 ; final result in t0
-Rob
----- Rob Warnock, 8L-846 r...@sgi.com Applied Networking http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/ Silicon Graphics, Inc. Phone: 650-933-1673 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy. FAX: 650-933-0511 Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
Benjamin Kowarsch wrote: > [Europe having difficulties accepting lessons from outside their own culture]
> > This is obviously errant nonsense. So I will take it with the good humour that > it was obvously > intended ;-)
> Of course I wrote this with a bit of intended sarcasm. But the intention clearly > is to provoke ourselves (I am European myself) to look into the mirror and > constantly ask "Is our model really such a bloody good idea ? May it not be > someone else has done a better job ?" This refers especially to the judgement of a > widely accepted matter applying foreign paradigms and see if the judgement then > can be upheld, possibly forcing ourselves to change paradigms.
> With an open minded spirit, which I sensed you have...
you smooth talking devil :-)
> ...I am confident you will not dispute that European thinking is quite reluctant > to accept a lesson derived from the application of a foreign paradigm.
Yup. But I have yet to meet anybody that likes to think that what they are doing in wrong.
> We have many "holy cows" and we don't like to think of them that way. We try to > convince ourselves that we are always rational. Heavy welfare systems and the > believe in the almighty state are examples of "holy cows".
I agree that these are things that need to be constantly examined and thought about. But I am not currently convinced that these need to be radically changed. 'Man is a rationalising animal, not a rational one.'
> Westerners who have lived for a long time in non-Western cultures usually come to > identify the "holy cow" syndrom as they get exposed to different paradigms.
Every culture has its "holy cows." Having a holy-cow is one of the things that makes us like we are.
Seems that the latter bit has been taken to extremes not witnessed by too many other computer languages, in the form of the Deep Space autonomous(-ish) mission.
Philip -- DISARRAY ('dis-u-Rae) n. Data structure that looks like an array, but isn't. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Philip Lijnzaad, lijnz...@ebi.ac.uk | European Bioinformatics Institute,rm A2-24 +44 (0)1223 49 4639 | Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton +44 (0)1223 49 4468 (fax) | Cambridgeshire CB10 1SD, GREAT BRITAIN PGP fingerprint: E1 03 BF 80 94 61 B6 FC 50 3D 1F 64 40 75 FB 53
> > * Timo Tossavainen <t...@cs.uta.fi> > > | One must first wonder what is wrong with the system that produces these > > | kinds of people that commit the crimes.
> > what's wrong is thinking that political systems produce any kind of > > people. "societies don't produce people. people produce people."
> Of course you are right, but the society has a profound impact on the people > that produce people; we are social animals. By system I meant the whole > thing: family, education, work, etc... not a political system, which is only > a part of it.
> > requiring people to compete with others in terms of being the most needy > > is a really, truly horrible
> Who ever said that welfare should be unconditional ? There is a lot of work > to do and I don't see a reason why people who are on welfare couldn't do a little > work for their income. I don't like freeriders any more than you do, but > they're not the reason why we shouldn't help people that are temporarily in a > bad situation. I'm not qualified to make suggestions for these systems, but I > firmly believe that there are better alternatives than the ones used now.
I'm not qualified either, but as long as we're into the off-topic silly season, I observe and suggest anyway.
A problem with need-based welfare is that one gets no assistance until all personal resources are exhausted. Then, although we provide maintenance, the means for recovery - car, enough money to stock up on bargains, a cushion for emergency medical care, etc., are gone. So even those who have not absorbed a "culture of poverty" become effectively trapped in that mode.
We might provide emergency assistance to tide people over temporary bad times, and dormatory housing and communal dining rooms fot those who can't pull themselves out within a reasonable time.
> One other minor factor is that at least in the IT business people have to > work overtime and everything is very much efficiency oriented; people burn > sometimes just snap. I think there was such a case in the US just a few days > out and ago. Everything is about competition and therefore extremely > stressful. People don't give a fsck about working hours when they have to > compete with each other in productivity.
> > my take on it is that people who are allowed to think that they can > > _demand_ that others keep them alive and well start to think they are > > _deprived_ of it if others don't actually keep them alive and well, and > > such attitudes may well lead to criminal behavior as it already ignores > > the rights and needs of those who are required to care for them with > > nothing tangible in return, not even a thank-you.
> Criminal behaviour is made up of many factors. There are certain structures in > communities that are more likely to "produce" people with criminal tendencies. > These should be changed. I would guess that upbringing is the biggest. In > some systems people who are rich to begin with have the chances and the poor > don't or at least are in a considerably worse situation to begin with. > Education is probably one of the deciding factors and it's is usually tied to > wealth. In the nordic countries the educational system considers most people > equal to begin with and that is one of the biggest reasons I like living here. > At least everyone has an almost equal chance.
> Timo
-- Engineering is the art | Let's talk about what of making what you want | you need; you may see from things you can get. | how to do without it. ---------------------------------------------------------
Marco Antoniotti <marc...@copernico.parades.rm.cnr.it> writes: > wtank...@dolphin.openprojects.net (William Tanksley) writes:
> > I thought that the nice thing about generics is that they work like defuns.
> > I suppose CLOS could have used a 'SEND' function instead of making > > messages work as functions.
> No. It could have not. Multiple dispatch is different from single > dispatch (Smalltalk *and* C++) and from overloading (C++). Obviously > it is more powerful and expressive (at a - realitively small - price > in "efficiency").
Well, SEND could always be implemented via apply in CLOS:
If you moved GFs from the function namespace to another hidden namespace, GFs as functions could be eliminated, thereby making SEND the only interface:
(defvar *message-namespace* (make-hash-table :test #'eq) "Global Namespace of 'messages'.")
(defvar *message-discriminating-functions* (make-hash-table :test #'eq) "Global Namespace of DFs.")
OTOH this SEND has next-to-nothing to do with the SEND of other message-passing-style languages, and it serves no useful purpose besides demonstrating that you can make your life more difficult if you really want to... ;)
Regs, Pierre.
-- Pierre Mai <p...@acm.org> PGP and GPG keys at your nearest Keyserver "One smaller motivation which, in part, stems from altruism is Microsoft- bashing." [Microsoft memo, see http://www.opensource.org/halloween1.html]
