GNU CLISP 2.32 released
Sam Steingold
Release 2.32 (2003-12-29) fixes many bugs
and adds some new features; NEWS appended.
More information on <http://clisp.cons.org>.
Download CLISP 2.32 from <http://sf.net/clisp>.
2.32 (2003-12-29)
=================
User visible changes
--------------------
* WRITE-BYTE-SEQUENCE now accepts :NO-HANG keyword argument.
Thanks to Don Cohen <don-sou...@isis.cs3-inc.com>.
* Support files larger than 2 GB or 4 GB on platforms with LFS
(Large File Support).
* New module berkeley-db interfaces to
<http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/api_c/dbt_class.html>
and allows working the Berkeley DB databases.
See <http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes.html#berkeley-db> for details.
* New module pcre interfaces to <http://www.pcre.org/> and
makes Perl Compatible Regular Expressions available in CLISP.
See <http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes.html#pcre> for details.
* Module syscalls now exports function POSIX:STAT-VFS.
See <http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes.html#syscalls> for details.
* When the system C library provides a wildcard (fnmatch) implementation,
it is used instead of the GNU wildcard distributed with CLISP
when the CLISP wildcard module is built.
* Prompt is now fully customizable by the user.
CUSTOM:*PROMPT* is replaced with 5 variables.
See <http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes.html#prompt> for details.
* Readline is now used properly on Cygwin/X11.
* Command line interface: the initial verbosity level is controlled
by the pair of mutually canceling options -q/-v.
See <http://clisp.cons.org/clisp.html#opt-verbose> for details.
--
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running w2k
<http://www.camera.org> <http://www.iris.org.il> <http://www.memri.org/>
<http://www.mideasttruth.com/> <http://www.honestreporting.com>
ace
news:ed53d366.03123...@posting.google.com...
Great!
Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
Johannes Groedem
> Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
I'm assuming you know that you can easily choose not to have it
displayed. For example, start clisp with the -q-option, or save a new
image with ext:saveinitmem with a quiet-argument of not-NIL.
Or are you worried about The Great Jewish Conspiracy? The source is
there for your perusal, you know. Let us know if you find anything
conspiratorial, will you?
HTH. HAND.
--
Johannes Groedem <OpenPGP: 5055654C>
Joe Marshall
> * "ace" <n...@spam.aol>:
>
>> Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
>
> I'm assuming you know that you can easily choose not to have it
> displayed. For example, start clisp with the -q-option, or save a new
> image with ext:saveinitmem with a quiet-argument of not-NIL.
>
> Or are you worried about The Great Jewish Conspiracy? The source is
> there for your perusal, you know. Let us know if you find anything
> conspiratorial, will you?
As far as I can tell, there is no link from
www.internationaljewishconspiracy.com to clisp.
--
~jrm
ace
"Johannes Groedem" <joh...@ifi.uio.no> wrote in message
news:lzwu8cv...@unity.copyleft.no...
> * "ace" <n...@spam.aol>:
>
> > Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
>
> I'm assuming you know that you can easily choose not to have it
> displayed. For example, start clisp with the -q-option, or save a new
> image with ext:saveinitmem with a quiet-argument of not-NIL.
Do they have an option for a crecent, budda, or crucifix banner?
> Or are you worried about The Great Jewish Conspiracy? The source is
> there for your perusal, you know. Let us know if you find anything
> conspiratorial, will you?
Are you worried about "The Great 'Everybody Believes in the Great Jewish
Conspiracy' Conspiracy"? Your reactive-tone would seem to indicate it.
Let me know when you guys decide to ditch the religious overtones.
-- "enlightened" without a menorah
David Golden
> Let me know when you guys decide to ditch the religious overtones.
>
For chrissake, it's another minor human symbol. The way those work is
pretty simple, though apparently lots of people don't understand it. For
starters, the very fact you want it gone gives it a lot of its power.
Ironically, you're protecting the symbolism by granting the symbol
significance sufficient to merit its removal, like the way the
symbolism of the swaztika is preserved by people frothing at the
mouth in indignation when it appears instead of going "oh, I remember seeing
that in history classes, the nazis used it, right? What losers those nazis
were, eh?"
GODWINS LAW ERROR
RESTARTS:
[0] Move the fuck on!
Billy O'Connor
Arthur Gold
Billy O'Connor
> Make that:
>
> http://sf.net/projects/clisp
>
Nice.
RUN-ALL-TESTS: grand total: 0 errors out of 8,696 tests
I see that there's a TODO item at Savannah to list the missing ANSI
features of clisp, is that still needed?
Edi Weitz
> Arthur Gold <arti...@austin.rr.com> writes:
>
> I see that there's a TODO item at Savannah to list the missing ANSI
> features of clisp, is that still needed?
I seem to remember that at least ANSI-compliant pretty-printing
support is still missing. As well as some CLOS stuff.
Cheers,
Edi.
Johannes Groedem
> Do they have an option for a crecent, budda, or crucifix banner?
As I pointed out, you have access to the source, so there's nothing
stopping you. You could even fork a buddhist CLISP if you wanted.
(Good luck with that.)
> Let me know when you guys decide to ditch the religious overtones.
I'm an atheist myself, and I would rather not have religious symbols
in Lisps I use, but I'm not one of the authors, so it's really not up
to me.
Sam Steingold
> Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
<http://clisp.cons.org/faq.html#menorah>
--
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running w2k
<http://www.camera.org> <http://www.iris.org.il> <http://www.memri.org/>
<http://www.mideasttruth.com/> <http://www.honestreporting.com>
If you're beeing passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.
Ivan Boldyrev
> You could even fork a buddhist CLISP if you wanted.
> (Good luck with that.)
(loop (princ "OM MANI PADME HUM "))
See headers also :)
--
Ivan Boldyrev
| recursion, n:
| See recursion
Gareth McCaughan
> > * ace <a...@fcnz.nby> [2003-12-31 14:20:08 -0700]:
> > Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
>
> <http://clisp.cons.org/faq.html#menorah>
I have only one quarrel with the menorah: it's too big. I don't
want that verbose a banner at startup time :-). (Yes, I know
about -q.)
Incidentally, the FAQ answer points to a Usenet article
by someone expressing worry that Jews have hidden special
secret bugs inside Emacs to cause trouble for Arabs ...
but, um, isn't it obviously a (rather tasteless) joke?
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
Joe Marshall
> I'm an atheist myself, and I would rather not have religious symbols
> in Lisps I use, but I'm not one of the authors, so it's really not up
> to me.
I'm pretty sick of the cross used for addition and the crescents used
for grouping.
Kaz Kylheku
> Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
No, but they are busy with a special port of CLISP to take advantage
of some interfaces in the BSD operating system:
mybsdbox:$ clisp
, ,
/( )` ooooo o ooooooo ooooo ooooo
\ \___ / | 8 8 8 8 8 o 8 8
/- _ `-/ ' 8 8 8 8 8 8
(/\/ \ \ /\ 8 8 8 ooooo 8oooo
/ / | ` \ 8 8 8 8 8
O O ) / | 8 o 8 8 o 8 8
`-^--'`< ' ooooo 8oooooo ooo8ooo ooooo 8
(_.) _ ) /
`==)-----. `.___/` / o ooooo ooooo oooooo
`==)---. | `-----' / o 8 8 8 o 8 8
`==)--. | | __ / __ \ o 8 8 8 8 8 8
`==)--+=+=+O)))==) \) /==== oooo8oo 8oooo ooooo 8 8
`==)--' | |`--' `.__,' \ 8 8 8 8 8 8
`==)----' | | | 8 8 8 o 8 8 8
`==)-----' \ / 8 ooooo ooooo oooooo
______( (_ / \______
,' ,-----' | \
`--{__________) \/
Copyright (c) Bruno Haible, Michael Stoll 1992, 1993
Copyright (c) Bruno Haible, Marcus Daniels 1994-1997
Copyright (c) Bruno Haible, Pierpaolo Bernardi, Sam Steingold 1998
Copyright (c) Bruno Haible, Sam Steingold 1999-2003
[1]>
Stefan Scholl
Marco Antoniotti
Joe Marshall wrote:
Do you object to the dollar sign used as variable indicator? :)
Cheers
--
Marco
Joe Marshall
I'll render unto Ceasar, etc. etc.
Dare I point out the obvious feminine imagry in the empty list?
()
--
~jrm
Fred Gilham
k...@ashi.footprints.net (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
Ooohhh, garrgh, urrch, mnnmnmn...
Brothers and sisters, give me an amen!
<amen>
I can't hear you!
<AMEN!>
Now, let me tell you, the Looord told me,
<preach it!>
Yes the Loooord told me,
<Amen!>
He told me that the antichrist would come! Can I get an amen?
<AMEN!>
Yes, the antichrist will come in your lifetime!
<Lord help us!> <Save us Lord!>
Yes, he will come, and he will be evil, evil incarnate!
<Oooh my Lord!>
He will come as an angel of light! Well, maybe not exactly an angel
of light, but maybe more like a woodchuck of light. Or maybe his name
will be Chuck. That's it! He will come as Chuck!
<Save us, Lord!>
He will come bearing a Menorah! That's where the light comes from.
<No, Lord>
He will come on your tee-shirts!
<No, Lord!>
He will come on your coffee mugs!
<No, Lord! Not our coffee mugs!>
He will come as a paperweight!
<No, Lord!>
He will come as a plush-toy!
<Save us, Lord! Save our children, Lord!>
He will come preaching peace, love, and rdist!
<Lord help us!>
He will come in your computers!
<Save us Lord!>
He will come in your computer's source code!
<No! No, Lord! Save us!>
He will come!
<Save us!>
He will come with a lisp!
<Amen!>
He will come with many lisps!
<Praise the Lord! Preach it!>
The "Gates" of hell will not stop him!
<Amen! Oh, Lord! Thank you Lord!>
He will burst their balloon!
<Thank you Lord! Amen!>
He will swat the fly from Redmond!
<Praise the Lord! Amen! Thank you, Lord!>
He will swat the bug let in through the Windows!
<Amen! Amen! Thank you, Lord!>
He will roast the penguin!
<Amen! Praise the Lord!>
So what's so bad about this guy again?
--
Fred Gilham gil...@csl.sri.com
In the course of making code more readable, performance was
accidentally improved by about 20%. --- From BRL 2.1.23 release notes
Mark Watson
When I get some time, I look forward to trying out the
berkeley-db interface.
-Mark
tal...@noshpam.lbl.government
non-Jews mistakenly believe that the Menorah is a religious symbol. It
might have been in antiquity, but there isn't a single instance in any
practice of modern Judaism that makes use of the Menorah. Non-Jews
might be mistaking the seven-branched candelabra with the
nine-branched candelabra of the Jewish holiday of Hannukah, called the
Chanukiah.
The only remaining symbolism for the Jewish people in modern times
with the Menorah is as a symbol of the Jewish people, or Jewish
nation, before it was dispersed by the Roman expulsions of circa 70
A.D.
So, if one had a problem with the Menorah as a symbol of the Jewish
people of antiquity being used as the symbol of CLISP, I would imagine
that one would also object to the Apache web-server being named after
a tribe of Native Americans.
B'Shalom,
~Tomer Altman
On Jan 1, 2004 at 11:56am, Sam Steingold wrote:
sds >Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 11:56:31 -0500
sds >From: Sam Steingold <s...@gnu.org>
sds >To: ace <n...@spam.aol>
sds >Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
sds >Subject: Re: GNU CLISP 2.32 released
sds >
sds >> * ace <a...@fcnz.nby> [2003-12-31 14:20:08 -0700]:
sds >> Did you guys ever get around to removing the menorah?
sds >
sds ><http://clisp.cons.org/faq.html#menorah>
sds >
sds >
Kaz Kylheku
> So, if one had a problem with the Menorah as a symbol of the Jewish
> people of antiquity being used as the symbol of CLISP, I would imagine
> that one would also object to the Apache web-server being named after
> a tribe of Native Americans.
Except that it's not: it's called that because it started as a bunch
of patches to the NCSA web server, and was referred to a ``A Patchy
Server''.
Billy O'Connor
tal...@noshpam.lbl.government
kaz >Date: 6 Jan 2004 19:30:19 -0800
kaz >From: Kaz Kylheku <k...@ashi.footprints.net>
kaz >Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
kaz >Subject: Re: GNU CLISP 2.32 released
kaz >
kaz >tal...@noshpam.lbl.government wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.44.04010...@thar.lbl.gov>...
kaz >> So, if one had a problem with the Menorah as a symbol of the Jewish
kaz >> people of antiquity being used as the symbol of CLISP, I would imagine
kaz >> that one would also object to the Apache web-server being named after
kaz >> a tribe of Native Americans.
kaz >
kaz >Except that it's not: it's called that because it started as a bunch
kaz >of patches to the NCSA web server, and was referred to a ``A Patchy
kaz >Server''.
I'm aware of the play-on-words that the developers of the Apache
Project used in naming their adaptation of the NCSA web server. But
it's irrespective of their pun; it's named "Apache", which is
*exactly* how the Native American tribe is known. My point was that
just the same way that the CLISP symbol whimsically incorporated, so
was the term "Apache" for a webserver. Both are symbols which are
indicative of particular cultural groups.
~Tomer Altman
Rob Warnock
| k...@ashi.footprints.net (Kaz Kylheku) writes:
| >> a tribe of Native Americans.
| >
| > Except that it's not: it's called that because it started as a bunch
| > of patches to the NCSA web server, and was referred to a ``A Patchy
| > Server''.
|
| True.
|
| Wonder what the feather is for. :-|
It's a visible symbol of the backronym.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
Stefan Scholl
> it's irrespective of their pun; it's named "Apache", which is
> *exactly* how the Native American tribe is known. My point was that
> just the same way that the CLISP symbol whimsically incorporated, so
> was the term "Apache" for a webserver. Both are symbols which are
> indicative of particular cultural groups.
The Apache project doesn't have political statements in the FAQ. Or
radical political statements on the web pages of the main
developers.
CLISP is not neutral enough to be widely used.
Karl A. Krueger
What, exactly, would you be risking by using software whose authors do
not self-censor or silence their political or religious views?
--
Karl A. Krueger <kkru...@example.edu>
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Email address is spamtrapped. s/example/whoi/
"Outlook not so good." -- Magic 8-Ball Software Reviews
Michael Livshin
> What, exactly, would you be risking by using software whose authors
> do not self-censor or silence their political or religious views?
it the same logic that leads to banning religious symbols in public
schools. it seems to be a fundamental European psychological, er,
peculiarity.
--
I think people have a moral obligation to spell "deontic" correctly.
-- Erik Naggum, in comp.lang.lisp
Matthias
> "Karl A. Krueger" <kkru...@example.edu> writes:
>
> > What, exactly, would you be risking by using software whose authors
> > do not self-censor or silence their political or religious views?
>
> it the same logic that leads to banning religious symbols in public
> schools. it seems to be a fundamental European psychological, er,
> peculiarity.
Yep. The philosophy behind is called "enlightenment". You might want
to check it up: It's actually interesting.
Michael Livshin
> Yep. The philosophy behind is called "enlightenment". You might
> want to check it up: It's actually interesting.
I know about enlightenment, I'm just having trouble using the words
"enlightenment" and "intolerance" in the same sentence.
hth,
--m
--
The journey of a thousand miles begins with an open parenthesis.
-- Rainer Joswig
james anderson
Michael Livshin wrote:
>
> "Karl A. Krueger" <kkru...@example.edu> writes:
>
> > What, exactly, would you be risking by using software whose authors
> > do not self-censor or silence their political or religious views?
>
> it the same logic that leads to banning religious symbols in public
> schools. it seems to be a fundamental European psychological, er,
> peculiarity.
if you would like this statement to make sense, you will need to explain what
"banning religious symbols in public schools" was intended to mean. i know of
one case - kopftuecher.germany, with respect to which the logic of a blanket
statement is difficult to follow. are there others?
...
David Golden
> Yep. The philosophy behind is called "enlightenment". You might want
> to check it up: It's actually interesting.
As an enlightened european, I'd much rather they (re)started teaching a
decent level of compulsory trivia (grammar, logic, rhetoric) in all primary
schools (and NOT reserving the powers of critical thought for a privileged
few in gymnasia or the like) than banning silly symbols. They're only
empowering symbola by banning them, they could be immunising the population
against religion instead. But a trivially educated populace is a difficult
to control populace - terrible if propaganda^Wadvertising stopped working
on people, eh?
Michael Livshin
> Michael Livshin wrote:
>
>> it the same logic that leads to banning religious symbols in public
>> schools. it seems to be a fundamental European psychological, er,
>> peculiarity.
>
> if you would like this statement to make sense, you will need to
> explain what "banning religious symbols in public schools" was
> intended to mean. i know of one case - kopftuecher.germany, with
> respect to which the logic of a blanket statement is difficult to
> follow. are there others?
I thought the French headscarf debacle is all over the news. perhaps
I'm wrong.
--
Indentation?! -- I will show you how to indent when I indent your
skull!
-- Klingon Programmer
Gareth McCaughan
There's nothing particularly enlightened about banning
religious symbols in public schools, and there are plenty
of Europeans who realise this. (Me, for instance.)
tal...@noshpam.lbl.government
stesch >The Apache project doesn't have political statements in the FAQ. Or
stesch >radical political statements on the web pages of the main
stesch >developers.
Oh, so I guess you ardently refuse to use any GNU Project software,
right? Have you ever surfed over to Richard M. Stallman's personal
webpages? Or is your definition of 'radical' selective to those who
don't share your views?
There's plenty of commonly-used Open Source software that has ample
political content on their site. All cryptographic websites come to
mind. So are you only using ftp & telnet?
It's silly to boycott software due to the personal beliefs of the
developers. Or is freedom of speech too enlightened of a principle?
Your remark about their FAQ is also uncalled for. FAQ content is
dictated by the author's wish to respond to remarks and questions they
get often. So if people start harrassing them with political
questions/remarks, you can bet that the FAQ will eventually get that
kind of content.
~Tomer Altman
Matthias
[First, I apologize for this long and off-topic post. People who are
interested in Lisp can safely ignore it.]
As for the schools (esp. the students), I agree. But I think it was a
cultural advancement ultimately based on the ideas of enlightenment
not to "pollute" ones professional communication (as a politician, as
a software developer, as author, etc) with religious or ideological
views.
This has nothing to do with self-censorship. It has something to do
with respecting that others' beliefs are different. There is no
problem with a person wearing a religious or political symbol on her
clothes: There is someone expressing her beliefs and if I have
questions or concerns about it I can go and ask.
But if I advertise my beliefs in every text editor, every compiler,
every business letter, every political speech I write people can not
come to me immediately and ask me about it. It might even be hard for
them to avoid my propaganda. Maybe they start advertising /their/
views in their professional communication.
If everyone plasters the world with their symbols [1] it soon won't be
possible any more to have a decent professional conversation [2].
Worst of all: This advertisement won't lead to a better understanding
of each other.
So I am glad that most professionals realize: There are spaces where,
e.g., explicit [3] religious communication is important and there are
other spaces where it's best left away. For my taste, a text editor
and a speech about national security would belong in the latter group.
----
[1] I sometimes ask myself if the perception of symbols is different
with Europeans and Americans. We certainly behave differently (in
Germany certain (mostly Nazi-)symbols must not be displayed in public;
on the other hand Germans do not understand Americans' affection for
their flag). I haven't come conclusions in this regard yet.
[2] Note that Americans are much better trained in screening out
advertisement than are Europeans (but we are catching up!).
[3] Some might argue that if you are religious /all/ you communication
is affected by this. This is not what I mean here.
Pascal Costanza
Matthias wrote:
> [1] I sometimes ask myself if the perception of symbols is different
> with Europeans and Americans. We certainly behave differently (in
> Germany certain (mostly Nazi-)symbols must not be displayed in public;
> on the other hand Germans do not understand Americans' affection for
> their flag). I haven't come conclusions in this regard yet.
In Europe, the Christian churches have had, and still have to a certain
extent, a lot of economic and therefore political power over centuries.
AFAIK, this is by far not the case in the US. I guess this is why
Europeans react more sensitive to the confusion of religious and secular
issues.
I find the apparently wide-spread religiousness of US americans very
strange.
Pascal
--
Tyler: "How's that working out for you?"
Jack: "Great."
Tyler: "Keep it up, then."
Thien-Thi Nguyen
> Yep. The philosophy behind is called "enlightenment". You
> might want to check it up: It's actually interesting.
t is a symbol, made w/ orthogonal strokes,
and also a value, at least to interpretive folks.
standing in contrast to nil, so non-scurrilous
(though not constant -- see srfi-50 archives, o ye curious).
would bearing these marks be considered religious?
poor ignorants opiated by elite prestidigitists?
what society could be built from such strange concepts?
what machine could be smelt by taking such wrong steps?
putrescence offends but those so enraged
are lightened by climbing other walls of their cage?
lets just hope three motos aren't circling your head;
if the supports go, you're not only smelly, you're dead.
thi
Espen Vestre
> I find the apparently wide-spread religiousness of US americans very
> strange.
The US is very different from most of Europe (and even Cananda, but in
especially Germany and Scandinavia) wrt. to religious/secular
values. Only Ireland is quite close to the US.
There's an interesting sociological paper on the topic here:
http://wvs.isr.umich.edu/papers/modern.shtml
--
(espen)
Greg Menke
> Matthias wrote:
>
> > [1] I sometimes ask myself if the perception of symbols is different
> > with Europeans and Americans. We certainly behave differently (in
> > Germany certain (mostly Nazi-)symbols must not be displayed in public;
> > on the other hand Germans do not understand Americans' affection for
> > their flag). I haven't come conclusions in this regard yet.
>
> In Europe, the Christian churches have had, and still have to a
> certain extent, a lot of economic and therefore political power over
> centuries. AFAIK, this is by far not the case in the US. I guess this
> is why Europeans react more sensitive to the confusion of religious
> and secular issues.
>
> I find the apparently wide-spread religiousness of US americans very
> strange.
>
We're in large part a fundamentalist country, though perhaps somewhat
more tolerant of variety than others. We do seem to be slightly
insane right now, but hopefully will calm down a little before too
much longer.
Gregm
Bulent Murtezaoglu
[absolutely no Lisp content]
>>>>> "M" == Matthias <n...@spam.pls> writes:
[...]
M> [First, I apologize for this long and off-topic post. People
M> who are interested in Lisp can safely ignore it.]
M> As for the schools (esp. the students), I agree.
Actually I think it is far more problemmatic for public (by which I
mean state administered) schools. It is not clear that the secular
state would be happy if women showed up for school bare-breasted for
religious reasons for example. Or to take it to the other extreme,
if students refused instruction by the opposite sex for religious
reasons. I suspect while the current problem with headscarves and
such can be conveniently labelled and dealt with as a 'religious
symbol' issue, it is far from clear how state institutions should deal
with unusual yet victimless behaviour that arises not from expression
of individual free thought but from conformity to an out-of-mainstream
culture. Having big religions in the picture just clouds the issue.
The politically expedient solutions asserting seemingly OK principles
might actually be harmful and admit clear-cut counterexamples (think
cults as one extreme for example).
And the problem does not stop with just public schools, if there are
laws requiring that kids attend school then the state will need to
legislate what is/isn't an acceptable school. Can kids go to cult
schools? If not, is the state in the business of dicerning
theological nuances between cult and religion? It does not stop at
'symbols' is my point, and just saying 'symbols are fine' evades the
larger issue.
M> But I think
M> it was a cultural advancement ultimately based on the ideas of
M> enlightenment not to "pollute" ones professional communication
M> (as a politician, as a software developer, as author, etc) with
M> religious or ideological views.
I think this case is far easier as there is no state coersion. Market
forces can take care of this to an extent. In clisp's case people are
getting upset about a symbol on a piece of software that comes
basically as a gift. I think that is misguided. Had they actually
had the software developed under contract they could have had a 'no
religious symbol' clause in the contract or they could have voted with
their wallet for pre-packaged for-money clisp. This is a non-problem,
or at least not a as hard a problem as the headscarf issue.
M> This has nothing to do with self-censorship. It has something
M> to do with respecting that others' beliefs are different.
M> There is no problem with a person wearing a religious or
M> political symbol on her clothes: There is someone expressing
M> her beliefs and if I have questions or concerns about it I can
M> go and ask.
Yes, and it seems clisp has a FAQ on this.
M> But if I advertise my beliefs in every text editor, every
M> compiler, every business letter, every political speech I write
M> people can not come to me immediately and ask me about it. It
M> might even be hard for them to avoid my propaganda. Maybe they
M> start advertising /their/ views in their professional
M> communication. [...]
At least as far as web/usenet/free software goes, they most certainly do.
For example, there are .sig's here that talk about class war, a gazillion
sites had/have various ribbon icons for various causes, sites get blacked
out in protest of proposed legislation etc. etc. It seems we differ on
where the professional line is.
cheers,
BM
Bulent Murtezaoglu
[absolutely no Lisp content]
>>>>> "M" == Matthias <n...@spam.pls> writes:
[...]
M> [First, I apologize for this long and off-topic post. People
M> who are interested in Lisp can safely ignore it.]
M> As for the schools (esp. the students), I agree.
Actually I think it is far more problematic for public (by which I
mean state administered) schools. It is not clear that the secular
state would be happy if women showed up for school bare-breasted for
religious reasons for example. Or to take it to the other extreme,
if students refused instruction by the opposite sex for religious
reasons. I suspect while the current problem with headscarves and
such can be conveniently labelled and dealt with as a 'religious
symbol' issue, it is far from clear how state institutions should deal
with unusual yet victimless behaviour that arises not from expression
of individual free thought but from conformity to an out-of-mainstream
culture. Having big religions in the picture just clouds the issue.
The politically expedient solutions asserting seemingly OK principles
might actually be harmful and admit clear-cut counterexamples (think
cults as one extreme for example).
And the problem does not stop with just public schools, if there are
laws requiring that kids attend school then the state will need to
legislate what is/isn't an acceptable school. Can kids go to cult
schools? If not, is the state in the business of discerning
theological nuances between cult and religion? It does not stop at
'symbols' is my point, and just saying 'symbols are fine' evades the
larger issue.
M> But I think
M> it was a cultural advancement ultimately based on the ideas of
M> enlightenment not to "pollute" ones professional communication
M> (as a politician, as a software developer, as author, etc) with
M> religious or ideological views.
I think this case is far easier as there is no state coercion. Market
forces can take care of this to an extent. In clisp's case people are
getting upset about a symbol on a piece of software that comes
basically as a gift. I think that is misguided. Had they actually
had the software developed under contract they could have had a 'no
religious symbol' clause in the contract or they could have voted with
their wallet for pre-packaged for-money clisp. This is a non-problem,
or at least not a as hard a problem as the headscarf issue.
M> This has nothing to do with self-censorship. It has something
M> to do with respecting that others' beliefs are different.
M> There is no problem with a person wearing a religious or
M> political symbol on her clothes: There is someone expressing
M> her beliefs and if I have questions or concerns about it I can
M> go and ask.
Yes, and it seems clisp has a FAQ on this.
M> But if I advertise my beliefs in every text editor, every
M> compiler, every business letter, every political speech I write
M> people can not come to me immediately and ask me about it. It
M> might even be hard for them to avoid my propaganda. Maybe they
M> start advertising /their/ views in their professional
M> communication. [...]
At least as far as web/usenet/free software goes, they most certainly do.
For example, there are .sigs here that talk about class war, a gazillion
Espen Vestre
> We're in large part a fundamentalist country, though perhaps somewhat
> more tolerant of variety than others.
Well, I think (or at least I hope) that most well-educated europeans
know that you aren't _all_ like your Attorney General ;-)
--
(espen)
Joe Marshall
> Actually I think it is far more problematic for public (by which I
> mean state administered) schools. It is not clear that the secular
> state would be happy if women showed up for school bare-breasted for
> religious reasons for example.
I certainly wouldn't object. In fact, any reason whatsoever would be
ok by me.
Ray Dillinger
>
> I find the apparently wide-spread religiousness of US americans very
> strange.
>
You have to remember that a major theme in American history has
been that we are (As Bill Murray put it) a nation of people who
"got kicked out of every respectable country in the world."
Lots of them got kicked out for religious reasons. You've got the
puritan migration very early, The russian mennonite migration at
when the Tsars were initiating their first pogroms, the hutterite
and dukaburr migrations, jews who fled here to escape european
prejudice in the 1830's and then more jews who came here as
refugees before, during and after WWII, Irish catholics (and
protestants) who came here to get away from the troubles, and it
goes on.
Another thing we've had in America that's different from in Europe
is ... Land. For most of our history, it has been possible for
some wild-eyed fanatics to head out into the wilderness and found
their own community. In a way, that's what the puritans were doing
at the very beginning. The Oneida and Shaker communities couldn't
have existed in Europe, and anything like the Mormon colonization
of Utah would have been completely impossible. The hippie communes
of the '60s and '70s were, socially at least, a sort of religious
movement. To this day, you still get little bands of people (people
who are functionally if not necessarily overtly religious in their
ability to believe in utopias and perfected societies) setting up
attempted utopias in the middle of arid boondocks where land is $20
an acre and water is $.50 a gallon. Most leave ghost towns, but
some wind up figuring out new ways of doing things, develop the
area usefully and grow into thriving communities. The thing is,
most of the land in america was harsh boondocks at one time, and
people didn't tend to go out there if they fit into regular society.
So, between founder effect, and the fact that most of the new
territory has been developed mostly by the disaffected, ideologues,
and misfits whose descendants are still the major population of
those areas, I can't really be very surprised that religion in
America is fairly strong, and of a different underlying makeup
than religion in Europe.
Bear
Pascal Costanza
Espen Vestre wrote:
> The US is very different from most of Europe (and even Cananda, but in
> especially Germany and Scandinavia) wrt. to religious/secular
> values. Only Ireland is quite close to the US.
>
> There's an interesting sociological paper on the topic here:
> http://wvs.isr.umich.edu/papers/modern.shtml
Thanks for the link!
Stefan Scholl
> It's silly to boycott software due to the personal beliefs of the
> developers. Or is freedom of speech too enlightened of a principle?
By the way: I have installed GNU CLISP on 4 systems. 2 my own, 1
leased, and 1 workstation at work.
Geoffrey S. Knauth
> find the apparently wide-spread religiousness of US americans very
> strange.
As a Christian and an American, and I hope still an open-minded person,
it seems that the assertion of fundamentalist and/or conservative
Christianity in current American politics is driven by the need in
America to confront evil. During the Cold War, the evil foe was the
USSR and communism, which was commonly described as "godless."
Now that godless communism is gone, the foe for many is godless
secularism. Though I believe in God, it troubles me that a person who
does not believe in God must fear the influence of people who insist one
must believe or be unworthy of respect. When people are thus pressured
to believe, I don't think it's a faith God would believe.
--
Geoffrey S. Knauth | http://knauth.org/gsk
David Golden
> Only Ireland is quite close to the US.
>
Though not all that close, the christianity in the US seems far more
fundamentalist in nature.
At least >60% of our population believes in evolution, apparently <35% of
people in the US do. [1]
[1] http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_comp.htm
Gareth McCaughan
>>> Michael Livshin <use...@cmm.kakpryg.net> writes:
>>>
>>>> it the same logic that leads to banning religious symbols in public
>>>> schools. it seems to be a fundamental European psychological, er,
>>>> peculiarity.
>>>
>>> Yep. The philosophy behind is called "enlightenment". You might want
>>> to check it up: It's actually interesting.
>>
>> There's nothing particularly enlightened about banning
>> religious symbols in public schools, and there are plenty
>> of Europeans who realise this. (Me, for instance.)
>
> [First, I apologize for this long and off-topic post. People who are
> interested in Lisp can safely ignore it.]
I'm interested in Lisp, but I probably shouldn't ignore it as it's
a reply to something I wrote. I think you meant people who are *only*
interested in Lisp :-).
> As for the schools (esp. the students), I agree.
Oh, right. Then I must have completely mistaken the tone
of your original "The philosophy behind it is called ..."
comment, which I took to be implying that banning religious
symbols in public schools is simply an instance of
enlightenment, and that anyone who doesn't see this
is ignorant and needs to learn more :-).
> But I think it was
> a cultural advancement ultimately based on the ideas of enlightenment
> not to "pollute" ones professional communication (as a politician, as
> a software developer, as author, etc) with religious or ideological
> views.
Well, I believe that one's professional communication should
generally be kept free of irrelevancies, and that politics
and religion are usually (from the professional standpoint)
irrelevancies. But I still don't think religious symbols
should be banned in schools, and I think banning them is
fundamentally *unenlightened*, and amounts to imposing one
particular ideology (an anti-religious rather than a religious
one) on people. Banning them is just about exactly as good
or as bad as enforcing them.
It's not clear to me, incidentally, that religion is irrelevant
to politics in anything like the same way as it is irrelevant
to software development. In a representative democracy, voters
are (in principle) voting for the *candidate* as well as the
party; so anything that has a profound effect on how the candidate
thinks and acts is somewhat relevant.
> But if I advertise my beliefs in every text editor, every compiler,
> every business letter, every political speech I write people can not
> come to me immediately and ask me about it. It might even be hard for
> them to avoid my propaganda. Maybe they start advertising /their/
> views in their professional communication.
I broadly agree, but this seems overstated to me.
Kaz Kylheku
> Lots of them got kicked out for religious reasons. You've got the
> puritan migration very early, The russian mennonite migration at
> when the Tsars were initiating their first pogroms, the hutterite
> and dukaburr migrations, jews who fled here to escape european
That would be ``doukhobor''. :)
Pascal Costanza
Gareth McCaughan wrote:
> I still don't think religious symbols
> should be banned in schools, and I think banning them is
> fundamentally *unenlightened*, and amounts to imposing one
> particular ideology (an anti-religious rather than a religious
> one) on people. Banning them is just about exactly as good
> or as bad as enforcing them.
Schools are run by the state, and the state should in general represent
itself neutral wrt religious issues, IHMO. I guess the only two ways to
go in principle are either allow all kinds of religious symbols, or else
disallow any. Of course, this should include atheist symbols as well.
Of course, these are superficial issues. The important thing is how the
people involved behave towards other people, not what symbols they carry
around.
And this is a reasoning that should also be taken into account wrt to
religious symbols displayed in the context of software. The fact that
CLISP displays a Jewish symbol doesn't tell me anything at all about
whether its authors are tolerant or not. Vice versa, if you think that
it definitely indicates intolerant behavior, then you're pretty much
intolerant yourself, I guess.
Tyro
> >
> > I find the apparently wide-spread religiousness of US americans very
> > strange.
> >
>
> You have to remember that a major theme in American history has
> been that we are (As Bill Murray put it) a nation of people who
> "got kicked out of every respectable country in the world."
>
> Lots of them got kicked out for religious reasons. You've got the
> puritan migration very early, The russian mennonite migration at
>
Your information about the mennonites is not quite correct.
Originally, the mennonites fled *to* Russia from many catholic and
protestant countires. For example, there was a noticable immigration
of mennonites from Germany to Russia. The mennonites were persecuted
in Germany because they refused to serve in the army for religious
reasons. In Russia, however, they were freed from the military
service. Because in 1762 Russian queen Ekaterina II passed a decree
that releaved Russian mennonites from the obligatory military service.
The real persecution of the mennonites in Russia began after 1920. The
persecution was initiated by the new communist government.
What other "pogroms" did Russian Tsars came up with? If you have in
mind the pogroms in Ukraine, then I have to dissappoint you. They have
nothing to do with Russian Tsars. The only substantial religious
persecution in pre-communist Russia that I can think of concerned the
so-called Old Believers who broke away from the Russian Orthodox
Church beacuse of the disagreements with the reforms in the church.
They never fled in large numbers to America but ran to Siberia instead
and formed their settlements there.
Hartmann Schaffer
Gareth McCaughan <gareth.m...@pobox.com> writes:
> ...
> But I still don't think religious symbols
> should be banned in schools, and I think banning them is
> fundamentally *unenlightened*, and amounts to imposing one
> particular ideology (an anti-religious rather than a religious
> one) on people.
apart from some islamophobic tendencies behind the head scarf ban, it
supposedly is also meant to head off a reported tendency among
conservative islamic parents to force their daughters the wear the
head scarfs against their will
> ...
hs
--
Not everything that counts can be counted,
not everything that can be counted counts.
A. Einstein
Paul Foley
> Gareth McCaughan wrote:
>> I still don't think religious symbols
>> should be banned in schools, and I think banning them is
>> fundamentally *unenlightened*, and amounts to imposing one
>> particular ideology (an anti-religious rather than a religious
>> one) on people. Banning them is just about exactly as good
>> or as bad as enforcing them.
> Schools are run by the state, and the state should in general
> represent itself neutral wrt religious issues, IHMO. I guess the only
> two ways to go in principle are either allow all kinds of religious
> symbols, or else disallow any. Of course, this should include atheist
> symbols as well.
There's another, and much better, solution: get the "state" out of the
business of running schools.
--
Democracy is the view that the public know what they want, and deserve to
get it good and hard. -- H. L. Mencken
(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))
Gareth McCaughan
> In article <878ykg6...@g.mccaughan.ntlworld.com>,
> Gareth McCaughan <gareth.m...@pobox.com> writes:
> > ...
> > But I still don't think religious symbols
> > should be banned in schools, and I think banning them is
> > fundamentally *unenlightened*, and amounts to imposing one
> > particular ideology (an anti-religious rather than a religious
> > one) on people.
>
> apart from some islamophobic tendencies behind the head scarf ban,
> it supposedly is also meant to head off a reported tendency among
> conservative islamic parents to force their daughters to wear the
> head scarfs against their will.
If I have to choose between conservative Islamic parents
forcing their (presumably not conservative Islamic) children
to wear headscarves, and an atheist state forcing someone
else's (in some cases conservative Islamic) children *not*
to wear headscarves, then I'll go for the former every time,
on two different grounds: (1) making someone not do something
that they consider a religious requirement is worse than
making them do something inconvenient; (2) it's less bad
for a child to be forced to do something by their parents
than by the state, if it's the same thing in both cases.
(It may not strictly be correct to call the state "atheist",
but it seems to me that when it starts forbidding people
to exercise their religion in ways that don't hurt anyone
else, it's gone beyond "not religious" to "anti-religious".)
Gareth McCaughan
> Gareth McCaughan wrote:
>
> > I still don't think religious symbols
> > should be banned in schools, and I think banning them is
> > fundamentally *unenlightened*, and amounts to imposing one
> > particular ideology (an anti-religious rather than a religious
> > one) on people. Banning them is just about exactly as good
> > or as bad as enforcing them.
>
> Schools are run by the state, and the state should in general
> represent itself neutral wrt religious issues, IHMO. I guess the only
> two ways to go in principle are either allow all kinds of religious
> symbols, or else disallow any. Of course, this should include atheist
> symbols as well.
Right. There might be other compromises that make sense in
practice; for instance, maybe some religious or anti-religious
symbols are offensive to some people, and ones that (e.g.) are
offensive to many more people than they are helpful for *might*
properly be discouraged or even forbidden. I can't see how a
headscarf could come into that category.
> Of course, these are superficial issues. The important thing is how
> the people involved behave towards other people, not what symbols they
> carry around.
Right. But the symbols are important to some people, which is
why it's not in general reasonable to forbid them.
> And this is a reasoning that should also be taken into account wrt to
> religious symbols displayed in the context of software. The fact that
> CLISP displays a Jewish symbol doesn't tell me anything at all about
> whether its authors are tolerant or not. Vice versa, if you think that
> it definitely indicates intolerant behavior, then you're pretty much
> intolerant yourself, I guess.
I am inclined to agree. And, as someone mentioned, the menorah
is *not* in fact a religious symbol but a cultural one. It's
not so much as if a program written by Christians displayed
a cross, or one written by Buddhists a prayer wheel; but as if
a program written by English people displayed a nice hot cup
of tea, or one written by Canadians displayed a maple leaf.
Like, er, the symbolic mathematics package called Maple; I
don't recall ever hearing anyone object to *that*. So why
should a Jewish cultural symbol be less acceptable than a
Canadian one, eh? :-|
Tyro
Aha! The Doukhobors! Well, I have to point out that the Doukhobors
went to Canada and this happened at the end of the 19th century. Thus,
I fail to grasp how the Doukhobors are related to life in the U.S..
If you are interested in the Doukhobors' movement, you may visit the
page about it at <http://www.doukhobor-homepage.com/history_who.html>
or another one at <http://www.doukhobor-homepage.com/history_timeline.html>.
Pascal Costanza
Gareth McCaughan wrote:
> Pascal Costanza <cost...@web.de> writes:
>>Schools are run by the state, and the state should in general
>>represent itself neutral wrt religious issues, IHMO. I guess the only
>>two ways to go in principle are either allow all kinds of religious
>>symbols, or else disallow any. Of course, this should include atheist
>>symbols as well.
>
>
> Right. There might be other compromises that make sense in
> practice; for instance, maybe some religious or anti-religious
> symbols are offensive to some people, and ones that (e.g.) are
> offensive to many more people than they are helpful for *might*
> properly be discouraged or even forbidden. I can't see how a
> headscarf could come into that category.
It seems to me that headscarves are foremostly not symbols, but rather
acts of discrimination against women. But that's just my personal opinion.
Tim Bradshaw
> Oh, so I guess you ardently refuse to use any GNU Project software,
> right? Have you ever surfed over to Richard M. Stallman's personal
> webpages? Or is your definition of 'radical' selective to those who
> don't share your views?
Well, over the past couple of years I've certainly decided that I'd
kind of like not to use much OSS if I could avoid it because for many
people it clearly is some kind of religion, and I don't like being
involved with cults, especially ones that do as much damage to
people's minds as this one. I wish I'd seen this 10 years earlier, in
fact.
--tim
Bulent Murtezaoglu
>>>>> "PC" == Pascal Costanza <cost...@web.de> writes:
[...]
PC> It seems to me that headscarves are foremostly not symbols,
PC> but rather acts of discrimination against women. But that's
PC> just my personal opinion. [...]
They are not 'act's of discrimination, unless you are willing to
assume self discrimination is a meaningful way to talk about it. That
particular strain of faith dictates (BTW w/o clear guidance from
scriptures AFAIK) that it is sinful for women to display their hair in
mixed company of strangers. So yes, the headscarf is more than a
symbol. Those women are just complying with what they believe to be a
rule from up above that only applies to women. That's why I brought
up the breast example. (ie men can go around 'topless' w/o legal
consequences whereas, at least in the US, women can't). The main
question, I think, is what kind of out-of-mainstream but victimless
behaviour can be tolerated by the state in free societies. All this
is muddied by covert militancy, family pressure, xenophobia, hypocrisy
and lack of backbone in all sides but that's nothing new of course.
Now the real fun begins when you observe that out-of-mainstream but
victimless behaviour might well be _not_ wearing a headscarf in
predominantly Muslim societies.
cheers,
BM
Raffael Cavallaro
> What other "pogroms" did Russian Tsars came up with? If you have in
> mind the pogroms in Ukraine, then I have to dissappoint you. They have
> nothing to do with Russian Tsars.
There were pogroms in southern Russia against the Jews in the late
19th century:
<http://books.cambridge.org/0521405327.htm> links to a monograph about
these entitled _Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History_. Note
that the first wave of pogroms in Russia took place from 1881-1884,
when the Tsar was still in control (i.e., long *before* the Communist
Revolution).
Moreover, since Ukraine was under the political control of Russia and
the Tsar at the time of the 19th century Ukrainian pogroms, (in fact,
Russia outlawed the use of the Ukranian language during this period),
and the authorities not only did nothing to stop the pogroms, but
sometimes encouraged or instigated them, then we can say that the
anti-Jewish pogroms formed a pattern of the Tsar's domestic policy.
Raffael Cavallaro
raf...@mediaone.net (Raffael Cavallaro) wrote:
> monograph
That should be "collection of articles" not monograph
Raffael Cavallaro
> There's another, and much better, solution: get the "state" out of the
> business of running schools.
Although I agree that the "state" shouldn't be doing the actual
administration, because of its tendencies toward inefficiency and
bureaucratic bloat, the "state" does have two important roles IMHO.
1. Funding of education through tax revenues, else the only schools
will be for the children of the relatively wealthy, or those funded by
inherently intellectually biased organizations like churches.
2. The establishment of standards, else total local autonomy will lead
to such intellectual biases as creationism being taught as a science
(it is not).
Björn Lindberg
> > And this is a reasoning that should also be taken into account wrt to
> > religious symbols displayed in the context of software. The fact that
> > CLISP displays a Jewish symbol doesn't tell me anything at all about
> > whether its authors are tolerant or not. Vice versa, if you think that
> > it definitely indicates intolerant behavior, then you're pretty much
> > intolerant yourself, I guess.
>
> I am inclined to agree. And, as someone mentioned, the menorah
> is *not* in fact a religious symbol but a cultural one. It's
> not so much as if a program written by Christians displayed
> a cross, or one written by Buddhists a prayer wheel; but as if
> a program written by English people displayed a nice hot cup
> of tea, or one written by Canadians displayed a maple leaf.
> Like, er, the symbolic mathematics package called Maple; I
> don't recall ever hearing anyone object to *that*. So why
> should a Jewish cultural symbol be less acceptable than a
> Canadian one, eh? :-|
I don't think people in general are aware that the menorah is "just" a
cultural symbol. And if most people associate it with the religion, it
*is* a religious symbol to them. So I am not sure that your comparison
to a maple leaf is very accurate.
Björn
Mario S. Mommer
raf...@mediaone.net (Raffael Cavallaro) writes:
> Paul Foley <s...@below.invalid> wrote in message
news:<m2k740a...@mycroft.actrix.gen.nz>...
> > There's another, and much better, solution: get the "state" out of the
> > business of running schools.
>
> Although I agree that the "state" shouldn't be doing the actual
> administration, because of its tendencies toward inefficiency and
> bureaucratic bloat, the "state" does have two important roles IMHO.
>
> 1. Funding of education through tax revenues, else the only schools
> will be for the children of the relatively wealthy, or those funded by
> inherently intellectually biased organizations like churches.
If the state runs the administration, it often does it inefficiently,
I agree. If it deals with private companies, it tends to make very bad
deals for the taxpayer and the public (witness the German highway toll
disaster). The cause seems to be corruption.
I think it is a good thing when the state provides an education system
essentially for free. If it is not of good quality, it should be
improved. IMO it should not be privatized.
> 2. The establishment of standards, else total local autonomy will lead
> to such intellectual biases as creationism being taught as a science
> (it is not).
I agree. It is really bad to have a majority of people believing this
or worse crap.
Mario S. Mommer
> I don't think people in general are aware that the menorah is "just" a
> cultural symbol. And if most people associate it with the religion, it
> *is* a religious symbol to them. So I am not sure that your comparison
> to a maple leaf is very accurate.
In any case, I really really wonder why people have something against
the menorah appearing in the CLisp startup banner.
What's the problem? Is it radioactive or what?
Bulent Murtezaoglu
MSM> raf...@mediaone.net (Raffael Cavallaro) writes:
[...]
>> 2. The establishment of standards, else total local autonomy
>> will lead to such intellectual biases as creationism being
>> taught as a science (it is not).
MSM> I agree. It is really bad to have a majority of people
MSM> believing this or worse crap. [...]
On the other hand, if the majority of the people _do_ believe it,
letting the state dictate curricula _will_, in a democracy, lead to
kids being taught that 'crap.' This happens today actually with
'official history.' The implicit assumption in RC's point is that
large enough crowds are somehow saner or more benign than small ones.
I see no reason to believe that. (Of course it can also be argued that
if the majority or a large enough minority goes completely insane, all
bets are off anyway.) All OT, all IMHO.
cheers,
BM
Cor Gest
Begin of a quotation from a message written by an mere-mortal named:
Mario S. Mommer <m_mo...@yahoo.com>:
Not much , but some narrow minded people object to a picture of
(defun dinnertable-athmosphere-enhancing-object ())
Well, have I news for them: clisp is open-source-code you know.
If you dislike whatever is in it , get the source and axe anything
you do not like out of it and replace it with any dirty or nice picture
of a neighbour, your SO (M/F), your cat or someone you _do_ love,
recompile the bugger and be a happy traveller ever after.
For the source-hacking-challenged: alias clisp='clisp -q' will also do
the job in the utmost nicest possible of ways.
(yes, I obviously did read the manual ... )
cor
--
If you are quickly offended , STOP reading offensive messages , Like ABOVE.
The Worlds best understood IM-appliance...........Avtomat Kalashnikov AK-47
NO !! I Will NOT Fix Your Computer http://www.geekgrrrl.nl
Raffael Cavallaro
Bulent Murtezaoglu <b...@acm.org> wrote:
> The implicit assumption in RC's point is that
> large enough crowds are somehow saner or more benign than small ones.
> I see no reason to believe that.
Neither do I, but that is not the implicit assumption. The alternative,
assumption, and one that comports with real world experience, is that
when policy is set at a national level, it is more likely to be
influenced heavily by the most competent people in the relevant field,
because the larger pool upon which we draw is more likely to contain
real experts, as well as loonies with an axe to grind. Policy makers can
see the difference between the two, and they give much greater weight to
the real experts.
If policy is set at the local level, it is more likely to be influenced
heavily by stong local biases, because local school boards might not
have any world renouned evolutionary biologists serving on them, but
they're quite likely to have a handfull of creationist ignoramuses. This
is why creationism is essentially invisible at the level of say, the
NSF, while it is pushed quite heavily by many local school boards in
certain parts of the US.
David Golden
> that do as much damage to people's minds as this one [OSS]
> I wish I'd seen this 10 years earlier, in fact.
>
Nothing compared to the damage the recent intellectual "property"
(yeah right...) cult is doing to society right now, as far as
I'm concerned. Fucking infofascists.
Gareth McCaughan
[I said:]
>> I am inclined to agree. And, as someone mentioned, the menorah
>> is *not* in fact a religious symbol but a cultural one. It's
>> not so much as if a program written by Christians displayed
>> a cross, or one written by Buddhists a prayer wheel; but as if
>> a program written by English people displayed a nice hot cup
>> of tea, or one written by Canadians displayed a maple leaf.
>> Like, er, the symbolic mathematics package called Maple; I
>> don't recall ever hearing anyone object to *that*. So why
>> should a Jewish cultural symbol be less acceptable than a
>> Canadian one, eh? :-|
>
> I don't think people in general are aware that the menorah is "just" a
> cultural symbol. And if most people associate it with the religion, it
> *is* a religious symbol to them. So I am not sure that your comparison
> to a maple leaf is very accurate.
If it's not used as a religious symbol by the people who use it
as a symbol, then it is not a religious symbol. The fact that
some ill-informed people wrongly think of it as one is neither
here nor there. There would be nothing wrong with Maple using
a maple leaf in its logo even if there were a lot of people
who wrongly thought the maple leaf was used as a symbol by
some weird Canadian religious cult. (I suppose it might be
a foolish move, since it might reduce sales or something, but
it certainly wouldn't become a piece of religious propaganda
just because some people wrongly think of the symbol as
religious.)
Paul Foley
> Paul Foley <s...@below.invalid> wrote in message news:<m2k740a...@mycroft.actrix.gen.nz>...
>> There's another, and much better, solution: get the "state" out of the
>> business of running schools.
> Although I agree that the "state" shouldn't be doing the actual
> administration, because of its tendencies toward inefficiency and
> bureaucratic bloat, the "state" does have two important roles IMHO.
> 1. Funding of education through tax revenues, else the only schools
> will be for the children of the relatively wealthy, or those funded by
> inherently intellectually biased organizations like churches.
They shouldn't be funding schools either. Even if you don't disagree
on principle with taxing some people to pay for stuff for other
people, inevitably if the government funds something they have control
over it: you can't separate "funding" and "administration" like that.
> 2. The establishment of standards, else total local autonomy will lead
> to such intellectual biases as creationism being taught as a science
> (it is not).
Or "computer science", to which the same argument applies!? :-)
But setting standards is exactly the kind of control I mean. There
won't be masses of schools teaching such rubbish, and the "market"
knows how to take care of any that do, but it's none of the
governments -- or your -- business. Just don't enrol your kids there.
--
You have been evaluated. You have a negative reference count. Prepare
to be garbage collected. Persistence is futile. -- Erik Naggum
Joe Marshall
> Paul Foley <s...@below.invalid> wrote in message news:<m2k740a...@mycroft.actrix.gen.nz>...
>> There's another, and much better, solution: get the "state" out of the
>> business of running schools.
>
> Although I agree that the "state" shouldn't be doing the actual
> administration, because of its tendencies toward inefficiency and
> bureaucratic bloat, the "state" does have two important roles IMHO.
>
> 1. Funding of education through tax revenues, else the only schools
> will be for the children of the relatively wealthy, or those funded by
> inherently intellectually biased organizations like churches.
Taxes already fund education, yet schools in wealthy neighborhoods
perform better than schools in poor neighborhoods.
> 2. The establishment of standards, else total local autonomy will lead
> to such intellectual biases as creationism being taught as a science
> (it is not).
The Kansas Board of Education was a state-wide body, not local.
--
~jrm
Gareth McCaughan
> But setting standards is exactly the kind of control I mean. There
> won't be masses of schools teaching such rubbish, and the "market"
> knows how to take care of any that do, but it's none of the
> governments -- or your -- business. Just don't enrol your kids there.
The market demonstrably doesn't know everything (else there
would be more billionaires running Lisp companies...), and
in particular I see no reason to believe that it knows how
to distinguish reliably between good education and bad.
"Just don't enrol your kids there": good advice, but I very
strongly disagree with the implication that the only way
bad schooling affects you is if your children are subjected
to it. A few years down the line, it can affect the whole
society you live in. If other people's children are taught
creationism in school, then a few years later they may be
the ones whose protests persuade a local museum to stop
exhibiting dinosaurs, so that your children can't go and
see them. Or the ones who won't let *their* children go
to any school that doesn't teach creationism, driving the
ones where your children teach biology out of business.
Education is full of externalities.
Gareth McCaughan
[Raffael Cavallaro:]
>> 1. Funding of education through tax revenues, else the only schools
>> will be for the children of the relatively wealthy, or those funded
>> by inherently intellectually biased organizations like churches.
[Joe:]
> Taxes already fund education, yet schools in wealthy neighborhoods
> perform better than schools in poor neighborhoods.
I'm feeling dim; isn't that a non-sequitur? Raffael didn't
claim that state education eliminates all educational
differences.
Christophe Rhodes
> [schools teaching untrue stuff]
> and the "market" knows how to take care of any that do
Is that proven? My understanding was that a perfectly fluid market
responded to the requirements of the majority. Is it clear that the
majority knows the difference between science and creationism?
Christophe
--
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/ +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
(defvar b "~&Just another Lisp hacker~%") (pprint #36rJesusCollegeCambridge)
Joe Marshall
Raffael was implying that funding of education through tax revenues
was necessary to supply schools to those that are not relatively
wealthy. I admit that I assumed that the purpose of these schools is
education rather than simply keeping custody of children during
daytime hours. In other words, it isn't the physical building that is
of importance, but rather the education. In this case, Raffael is
implying that tax revenues are a prerequisite for educating those that
are not relatively wealthy.
I was pointing out that tax revenues do not seem to have much effect
on education, even when those revenues are spent on education.
First, Raffael should make a persuasive case that state-sponsored
schools are an effective means of educating the populace. *Then* we
can argue about whether they are a reasonable means. Finally, we
could argue about how to pay for them, assuming we get that far.
--
~jrm
Hartmann Schaffer
> forcing their (presumably not conservative Islamic) children
> to wear headscarves, and an atheist state forcing someone
> else's (in some cases conservative Islamic) children *not*
> to wear headscarves, then I'll go for the former every time,
frankly, this is a choice i'm not willing to accept. forcing sombody
to (not) do something against his will is a bad thing, and i see no
difference whether the force is exercised by the state, parents, or
bosses (note that i don't say that it always has a bad effect)
> on two different grounds: (1) making someone not do something
> that they consider a religious requirement is worse than
> making them do something inconvenient; (2) it's less bad
> for a child to be forced to do something by their parents
> than by the state, if it's the same thing in both cases.
>
> (It may not strictly be correct to call the state "atheist",
> but it seems to me that when it starts forbidding people
> to exercise their religion in ways that don't hurt anyone
> else, it's gone beyond "not religious" to "anti-religious".)
just some background about this religious symbol controversy: there
was a public opinion outcry (not sure whether it was groundswell or
manufactured) that demanded that the headscarf be banned (i'm pretty
sure that the reason wasn't that much concern about the poor girls
that were forced to wear them against their will but outrage against
those bloofdy forreners that dared carry on in a way that was not
traditional to the outcriers). muslims pointed out that for them it
was unconstitutional freligious discrimination, because lots of
christian symbols could be seen without causing complaints. since
this didn't stop the request to ban the islamic symbols, the french
government decided to ban all religious symbols (otherwise any ban
would have been thrown out in the courts). i guess you can call this
democracy in action
the situation in germany is slightly different, and much more
hypocritical. in most german states schools are (or were when i lived
there; in some states you couldn't even graduate from high school if
you got bad marks in religion) by law christian or even confessional
schools, with officially sanctioned crucifixes on the class room walls
and mandatory religious instruction and school prayers. it is exactly
the same states that are at the forefront of the ban-the-headscarf
movement
Edi Weitz
> the situation in germany is slightly different, and much more
> hypocritical. in most german states schools are (or were when i
> lived there; in some states you couldn't even graduate from high
> school if you got bad marks in religion) by law christian or even
> confessional schools, with officially sanctioned crucifixes on the
> class room walls and mandatory religious instruction and school
> prayers.
Most German schools? Pardon me, are we talking about the same Germany?
I graduated from high school in 1984 and I never saw a crucifix on the
wall, I never had religious instruction in school (neither mandatory
nor free), and there was no single school subject that was deemed
important enough to prevent people from graduating if they had bad
marks in it as long as their overall score was good enough. This was
one of two public high schools in town (in Lower Saxony) and the other
one wasn't different.
Most schools in Germany are public schools and I'd be /very/ surprised
if there was one where you couldn't graduate with bad marks in
religion.
> it is exactly the same states that are at the forefront of the
> ban-the-headscarf movement
What "ban-the-headscarf movement"? The situation in France is in fact
different but in Germany it was/is about a teacher in a public school
who insisted on wearing a headscarf in front of her class while the
head of the school demanded her to take it off. This went to court and
recently the highest German court decided that she can keep the
headscarf until the federal states ("Bundesländer") provide clear
rules as to what is allowed for teachers and what not.
Mind you, this is about a teacher in a public school. If she were
teaching in a private school or if she were working as an architect or
journalist or whatever the whole thing wouldn't have happened at
all. Also, nobody here is trying to prevent school girls from wearing
head scarfs.
Edi.
Gareth McCaughan
> In article <87wu803y...@g.mccaughan.ntlworld.com>,
> Gareth McCaughan <gareth.m...@pobox.com> writes:
> > ...
> > If I have to choose between conservative Islamic parents
> > forcing their (presumably not conservative Islamic) children
> > to wear headscarves, and an atheist state forcing someone
> > else's (in some cases conservative Islamic) children *not*
> > to wear headscarves, then I'll go for the former every time,
>
> frankly, this is a choice i'm not willing to accept. forcing sombody
> to (not) do something against his will is a bad thing, and i see no
> difference whether the force is exercised by the state, parents, or
> bosses (note that i don't say that it always has a bad effect)
I think it makes a very considerable difference who's doing it,
and also what they're being forced to do. But, in any case,
I don't see how you can avoid one or other of those things
happening. (In fact, both of them will probably happen to
some extent; but if you're making the laws then you can
trade them off against each other a bit.) There *will* be
parents who want to make their children wear headscarves.
Apparently the only thing the state can do to prevent children
being made to wear headscarves against their will is to ban
them outright in schools. Seems like you have that choice.
You can decline to choose, but that's just the same as
choosing the status quo.
> just some background about this religious symbol controversy: there
> was a public opinion outcry (not sure whether it was groundswell or
> manufactured) that demanded that the headscarf be banned (i'm pretty
> sure that the reason wasn't that much concern about the poor girls
> that were forced to wear them against their will but outrage against
> those bloofdy forreners that dared carry on in a way that was not
> traditional to the outcriers). muslims pointed out that for them it
> was unconstitutional religious discrimination, because lots of
> christian symbols could be seen without causing complaints. since
> this didn't stop the request to ban the islamic symbols, the french
> government decided to ban all religious symbols (otherwise any ban
> would have been thrown out in the courts). i guess you can call this
> democracy in action
No, I call it insane.
> the situation in germany is slightly different, and much more
> hypocritical. in most german states schools are (or were when i lived
> there; in some states you couldn't even graduate from high school if
> you got bad marks in religion) by law christian or even confessional
> schools, with officially sanctioned crucifixes on the class room walls
> and mandatory religious instruction and school prayers. it is exactly
> the same states that are at the forefront of the ban-the-headscarf
> movement
That's bad too.
Gareth McCaughan
>> [Raffael Cavallaro:]
>>>> 1. Funding of education through tax revenues, else the only schools
>>>> will be for the children of the relatively wealthy, or those funded
>>>> by inherently intellectually biased organizations like churches.
>>
>> [Joe:]
>>> Taxes already fund education, yet schools in wealthy neighborhoods
>>> perform better than schools in poor neighborhoods.
>>
>> I'm feeling dim; isn't that a non-sequitur? Raffael didn't
>> claim that state education eliminates all educational
>> differences.
>
> Raffael was implying that funding of education through tax revenues
> was necessary to supply schools to those that are not relatively
> wealthy. I admit that I assumed that the purpose of these schools is
> education rather than simply keeping custody of children during
> daytime hours. In other words, it isn't the physical building that is
> of importance, but rather the education. In this case, Raffael is
> implying that tax revenues are a prerequisite for educating those that
> are not relatively wealthy.
Right: that's how I understood him too.
> I was pointing out that tax revenues do not seem to have much effect
> on education, even when those revenues are spent on education.
I'm feeling dim again. It looked to me like what you said was
not that they don't have much effect, but only that they don't
have enough effect to make up for whatever other factors are
at work.
> First, Raffael should make a persuasive case that state-sponsored
> schools are an effective means of educating the populace. *Then* we
> can argue about whether they are a reasonable means. Finally, we
> could argue about how to pay for them, assuming we get that far.
No. First, you should make a persuasive case that Raffael needs
to make a persuasive case that state-sponsored schools are an
effective means of educating the populace. Why should schools
become ineffective merely because the state is paying for them?
(If what you're claiming is only that state-sponsored schools
don't do a perfect job, or don't do as good a job as private
schools could if the same pupils were sent to them, or something,
then doubtless you're right, but I don't see the relevance.)
Raffael Cavallaro
Paul Foley <s...@below.invalid> wrote:
> There
> won't be masses of schools teaching such rubbish, and the "market"
> knows how to take care of any that do, but it's none of the
> governments -- or your -- business.
The "market" is neither omniscient, nor infallible, and *requires*
standards and regulation. As a simple reductio ad absurdum of the strict
"free market" position, if the "market" were the only factor operating,
and there were *no* regulations of trade, slavery would still be legal -
after all, as long as there is a "demand," (there are, in fact, many
places where people are still bought and sold into bondage, so yes,
there is a "market demand" for human captives) the "market" should be
allowed to provide it, right?
We regulate markets to ensure that supply and demand are not the *only*
forces driving *certain* markets. In the case of education (or human
labor), there are, as has been noted by others, undesirable outcomes,
such as most or all schools teaching creationism instead of real
science, (or the emergence of open markets for the buying and selling of
human beings) which the "market" might well choose, but which, for the
good of everyone, the "market" must not be allowed to choose.
Believing in the infallibility of the "market" is simply an abdication
of one's moral and civic responsibility.
Kenny Tilton
this bullshit thread on what was starting to become a fairly respectable
computer language (Lisp, remember?) newsgroup? Enough already. You all
are making comp.lang.lisp look like a home for nutcases. Take a hike to
alt.crap, will you plz?
kt
--
http://tilton-technology.com
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Your Project Here! http://alu.cliki.net/Industry%20Application
Paul Foley
> In article <m27jzzb...@mycroft.actrix.gen.nz>,
> Paul Foley <s...@below.invalid> wrote:
>> There
>> won't be masses of schools teaching such rubbish, and the "market"
>> knows how to take care of any that do, but it's none of the
>> governments -- or your -- business.
> The "market" is neither omniscient, nor infallible, and *requires*
> standards and regulation. As a simple reductio ad absurdum of the strict
> "free market" position, if the "market" were the only factor operating,
> and there were *no* regulations of trade, slavery would still be legal -
Non-sequitur. You're assuming, for reasons I can't begin to imagine,
that slavery _itself_ is OK (never mind the slave _trade_). Nobody
says murder and theft and kidnapping are OK just because they support
free markets.
[But if you assume kidnapping people is perfectly fine, why would it
be so wrong to sell those kidnappees to someone else?]
> after all, as long as there is a "demand," (there are, in fact, many
> places where people are still bought and sold into bondage, so yes,
> there is a "market demand" for human captives) the "market" should be
> allowed to provide it, right?
More fallacious nonsense. There is no market for slaves in a truly
free marketplace -- slaves are expensive:
(a) First, you have to kidnap them -- presumably there'll be a fight
about that. Expense.
(b) Second, you have to be able to hold on to them -- unless the
government steps in to help with that, stopping them escaping is
going to be something of an act. More expense.
(c) Slaves don't want to work for you. They're going to be as
minimally productive as they can get away with. Still more
expense.
It's far cheaper to hire willing workers for a proper wage: you don't
risk being killed in the act of trying to take them from their homes,
they don't run away if you're not watching, so you don't need to
employ guards, and they'll be far more productive.
> labor), there are, as has been noted by others, undesirable outcomes,
> such as most or all schools teaching creationism instead of real
> science, (or the emergence of open markets for the buying and selling of
> human beings)
There are already (more-or-less-)open markets for the buying and
selling of human beings. Just look at the "employment" section of
your favourite newspaper!
Oooh, how awful -- I guess we'd better have the government put a stop
to /that/ immediately! :-)
--
Quid enim est stultius quam incerta pro certis habere, falsa pro veris?
-- Cicero
Raffael Cavallaro
(sorry, Kenny). If you can't see that markets require regulation to
prevent the truly unscrupulous actors in those markets from wreaking
havok in any number of ways, then there is no point in continuing to
discuss this with you. You seem to be suffering from a sort of
absolutism which is a simple logical fallacy - "if free markets are
generally good," (I agree, they *are* generally good) "then a completely
unfettered market would be *great!!*" The conclusion does not follow as
a logical necessity from the antecedent. Moreover, the empirical
evidence of both history and the present world in which we live is ample
proof that markets left *completely* unregulated can, and do, lead to
truly unspeakable horrors, and untold misery for millions of our fellow
human beings.
In article <m2isjj9...@mycroft.actrix.gen.nz>,
Paul Foley <s...@below.invalid> wrote:
> More fallacious nonsense. There is no market for slaves in a truly
> free marketplace -- slaves are expensive:
You are quite simply factually *wrong* here. Slaves are quite
profitable, and *more* so than paid workers because the only cost is
minimal food, which is less than the cost of wages, and allowing them to
sleep on the floor of the workplace, in the fields, or in existing
barracks.
See:
<http://www.iabolish.com/index.htm> (The American Anti-Slavery group)
and links, especially.:
<http://www.iabolish.com/today/background/worldwide-evil.htm>
>
> (a) First, you have to kidnap them -- presumably there'll be a fight
> about that. Expense.
Or simply lure them with the false promise of a paying job, and then
hold them against their will once they are on your territory. Small
expense to keep them there if you are armed and they are not. Just lock
them in the workshop at night. This is how it works in the real world.
Since overseers are necessary anyway, you simply make sure that they are
armed, a small, fixed cost, which is repaid many times over by the
thousands of dollars of unpaid wages.
>
> (b) Second, you have to be able to hold on to them -- unless the
> government steps in to help with that, stopping them escaping is
> going to be something of an act. More expense.
Not if you hobble them, or shackle them, or torture those caught
escaping as a deterrent, or if, as above, you have guns and they don't.
>
> (c) Slaves don't want to work for you. They're going to be as
> minimally productive as they can get away with.
Unless you threaten them with torture or mutilation, both common
practices, then they usually submit and work, especially when you just
burned the girl next to them with a cigarette for refusing to "service"
a customer, or beat the next guy bloody with your rifle butt for not
cutting sugar cane fast enough.
> Still more expense.
Armed enforcers are not much more expensive than ordinary workplace
overseers or supervisors. Any difference in cost is repaid many times
over by the wages you don't have to pay your slave labor force and
instead keep as profit.
Slavery exists *because* it is profitable, and because the "free market"
is not prevented from "satifying the demand" for it. A completely
unregulated "free market" is a loose cannon. Markets need to be
regulated so that certain *extremely* undesirable outcomes cannot be
chosen by the market.
The complete illegality of slavery is a government regulation of an
*existing* market - mostly effective, but sadly, not completely
effective. From a purely econmic perspective, other types of regulation
- the illegality of producing a car without seat belts, or the
illegality of running a private school that fails to meet government
educational standards, differ in degree, not kind. It is still the
government interceding in a market in order to ensure that a certain
undesirable range of outcomes cannot be chosen by the market.
This is as it should be. Markets *need* regulation, or those with
sufficient wealth, and insufficient moral scruples, will be free to make
markets in things that we as a community consider unaccepatable, such as
forced child prostitution, slavery, the sale of alcohol to minors, or
the manufacture of passenger cars without seat belts.
Rayiner Hashem
> to (not) do something against his will is a bad thing, and i see no
> difference whether the force is exercised by the state, parents, or
> bosses (note that i don't say that it always has a bad effect)
>
not not forbid their teenage daughter from wearing skirts that are too
short? Or their teenage son from wearing "wife-beater" shirts? How
about forcing them to do their homework? Forcing them to go to school
in the morning?
When they are 18, children can do what they want. Until then, it is
assumed that parents (within particular parameters of the law) can
make better decisions for the child, and can indeed force them to do
things that are against their will.
Tim Josling
>
> When they are 18, children can do what they want. Until then, it is
> assumed that parents (within particular parameters of the law) can
> make better decisions for the child, and can indeed force them to do
> things that are against their will.
I hope you never have children or if you do, you take a less extreme view.
If children have been told what to do until 18 years old, they will be
in terrible shape to negotiate the adult world.
In many cases even if the adult will make a better decision than the
child, it is better to let the child decide because then they can learn
from their decision.
Perhaps you could spend the money better than a child, but giving a
child pocket money allows them to learn that money is finite, that
giving in to temptation now has consequences later, that being able to
do arithmetic is useful, and to learn how to exercise self discipline.
Naturally there are some things that the parents need to trump, but
these become rarer and rarer over time. If you think you can force a 17
year old to do much at all, you are being very optimistic.
Some parents do not know how to allow their children to grow up.
Tim Josling
Tim Bradshaw
> Nothing compared to the damage the recent intellectual "property"
> (yeah right...) cult is doing to society right now, as far as
> I'm concerned. Fucking infofascists.
While I'd hardly condone some of the things that are being done by the
entertainment industry, I think that, as usual, what is happening is
not very well understood. What's *actually* happening, I tink, is
that there is a monopoly (probably technically a cartel) which is
acting in the standard way that monopolies do to screw the users.
This is just the same as in the SW industry of course. If there
wasn't an effective monopoly then there wouldn't be all this IPR
weirdness going on. But no-one has what it takes to break up the
monopoly, it seems.
Of course, as part owner of a small software & training company I know
how important IPR is. I guess that makes me a fascist: I'd better go
out and get a nice uniform and order some gas chambers right away.
--tim
Paul Foley
> a logical necessity from the antecedent. Moreover, the empirical
> evidence of both history and the present world in which we live is ample
> proof that markets left *completely* unregulated can, and do, lead to
> truly unspeakable horrors, and untold misery for millions of our fellow
> human beings.
Oh, you have proof of this, do you? When and where, precisely, have
markets been "left *completely* unregulated", to provide this proof?
And what "unspeakable horrors" resulted?
>> More fallacious nonsense. There is no market for slaves in a truly
>> free marketplace -- slaves are expensive:
> You are quite simply factually *wrong* here. Slaves are quite
> profitable, and *more* so than paid workers because the only cost is
> minimal food, which is less than the cost of wages, and allowing them to
> sleep on the floor of the workplace, in the fields, or in existing
> barracks.
If the government is willing to round up runaway slaves, punish people
who help escaping slaves, etc., (or at least look the other way as
your private enforcers do that), and not throw you in jail for
kidnapping, and you can live with an unskilled and inefficient
workforce, then of *course* slaves are cheap. But that's *not* a free
market -- I'm perfectly well aware that government involvement (in
anything) makes for a really crappy situation all around!
> See:
> <http://www.iabolish.com/index.htm> (The American Anti-Slavery group)
> and links, especially.:
> <http://www.iabolish.com/today/background/worldwide-evil.htm>
Yes, of course, this is all about *government-imposed* slavery.
Nothing even vaguely resembling free markets around here. Most of
Africa's run by Marxists and other psychopaths, y'know.
[it's also worth noting that this site includes "child labor" (not
necessarily unpaid) under the heading of "slavery"]
>> (a) First, you have to kidnap them -- presumably there'll be a fight
>> about that. Expense.
> Or simply lure them with the false promise of a paying job, and then
> hold them against their will once they are on your territory. Small
That's called kidnapping. Whether you snatch someone from their bed
or "lure" them somehow, it's still kidnapping. And if you do that,
someone should shoot you. Or at least lock you in a cage for the rest
of your life, but it'd be cheaper to just shoot you. What on earth
does that have to do with controls on markets?
>> (b) Second, you have to be able to hold on to them -- unless the
>> government steps in to help with that, stopping them escaping is
>> going to be something of an act. More expense.
> Not if you hobble them, or shackle them, or torture those caught
> escaping as a deterrent, or if, as above, you have guns and they don't.
Yes, because hobbled and shackled and tortured and terrified and
half-starved workers are *so* much more productive!
[Go back to your iabolish.com and read how slavery doesn't affect the
price of the carpets the slaves are making -- if carpet makers who pay
their workers don't have higher costs, what does that tell you?
Surely, if slavery is so cheap, slave-made carpets must cost a tiny
fraction of what carpets made by paid workers cost, no? And that's
*with* government support. It'd be more expensive to keep the slaves
if the government had any interest in prosecuting the slave-keepers,
and then slave-made carpets would cost *more*. QED]
> Slavery exists *because* it is profitable, and because the "free market"
> is not prevented from "satifying the demand" for it. A completely
There is no free market. Slavery exists because *government
interference in the market* causes it to exist.
> The complete illegality of slavery is a government regulation of an
> *existing* market - mostly effective, but sadly, not completely
"Slavery" doesn't need to be illegal. If "kidnapping" is illegal,
slavery is illegal by transitivity. This has absolutely *nothing* to
do with markets, free or otherwise.
[Again, I'll recommend http://www.mises.org/econsense/econsense.asp]
Joe Marshall
> Joe Marshall wrote:
>
>> I was pointing out that tax revenues do not seem to have much effect
>> on education, even when those revenues are spent on education.
>
> I'm feeling dim again. It looked to me like what you said was
> not that they don't have much effect, but only that they don't
> have enough effect to make up for whatever other factors are
> at work.
Let me put it this way. I see no evidence that increased tax revenues
lead to better education.
>> First, Raffael should make a persuasive case that state-sponsored
>> schools are an effective means of educating the populace. *Then* we
>> can argue about whether they are a reasonable means. Finally, we
>> could argue about how to pay for them, assuming we get that far.
>
> No. First, you should make a persuasive case that Raffael needs
> to make a persuasive case that state-sponsored schools are an
> effective means of educating the populace. Why should schools
> become ineffective merely because the state is paying for them?
Are schools effective?
--
~jrm
Gareth McCaughan
>>> I was pointing out that tax revenues do not seem to have much effect
>>> on education, even when those revenues are spent on education.
>>
>> I'm feeling dim again. It looked to me like what you said was
>> not that they don't have much effect, but only that they don't
>> have enough effect to make up for whatever other factors are
>> at work.
>
> Let me put it this way. I see no evidence that increased tax revenues
> lead to better education.
This again seems not to be an answer to the point actually
at issue. The difference between a situation where the state
funds some schools and one where the state doesn't is not
one of revenue, but one of spending. What evidence have you
looked at that would indicate whether or not the difference
between the state spending nothing on education and the state
spending however much typical present-day states do on
education leads to better education?
>>> First, Raffael should make a persuasive case that state-sponsored
>>> schools are an effective means of educating the populace. *Then* we
>>> can argue about whether they are a reasonable means. Finally, we
>>> could argue about how to pay for them, assuming we get that far.
>>
>> No. First, you should make a persuasive case that Raffael needs
>> to make a persuasive case that state-sponsored schools are an
>> effective means of educating the populace. Why should schools
>> become ineffective merely because the state is paying for them?
>
> Are schools effective?
They certainly do something. (More than, e.g., just keeping
children out of their parents' way.) They certainly aren't
perfect, whatever "perfect" might mean in this context. If
you think they do no good at all, then perhaps you'd like to
explain why.
Matthew Danish
> "Slavery" doesn't need to be illegal. If "kidnapping" is illegal,
> slavery is illegal by transitivity.
Just try explaining transitivity to a typical politician or dictator.
--
; Matthew Danish <mda...@andrew.cmu.edu>
; OpenPGP public key: C24B6010 on keyring.debian.org
; Signed or encrypted mail welcome.
; "There is no dark side of the moon really; matter of fact, it's all dark."
Joe Marshall
> Joe Marshall wrote:
>>
>> Are schools effective?
>
> They certainly do something. (More than, e.g., just keeping
> children out of their parents' way.) They certainly aren't
> perfect, whatever "perfect" might mean in this context. If
> you think they do no good at all, then perhaps you'd like to
> explain why.
I am deeply skeptical about about the benefits of government-sponsored
mass schooling. Of course this will make me appear as a loonie, but
what else is new.
Government-sponsored mass schooling is a relatively new phenomenon.
It was introduced in Europe in the 1800s. There appears to be no
dearth of intelligent people prior to that time, nor a staggering
increase since then.
The US spends a huge amount per pupil on government-sponsored schools
(behind Austria and Switzerland), yet is generally known to be
sub-par.
--
~jrm
Coby Beck
"Tim Josling" <tej_at_melbpc....@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:btr23s$kso$1...@possum.melbpc.org.au...
> Rayiner Hashem wrote:
> >
> > When they are 18, children can do what they want. Until then, it is
> > assumed that parents (within particular parameters of the law) can
> > make better decisions for the child, and can indeed force them to do
> > things that are against their will.
>
> I hope you never have children or if you do, you take a less extreme view.
>
I think you are trying to hard to find disagreement.
[snip]
> Naturally there are some things that the parents need to trump, but
> these become rarer and rarer over time.
See? ;)
I agree with everything you say, but would even extend what Rayiner said to
possibly past 18 to whatever time they they are living on their own
(possibly younger than 18 too). Of course you must judiciously choose your
battles of will for reasons you explained well in what I snipped above...
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
Gareth McCaughan
>>> Are schools effective?
>>
>> They certainly do something. (More than, e.g., just keeping
>> children out of their parents' way.) They certainly aren't
>> perfect, whatever "perfect" might mean in this context. If
>> you think they do no good at all, then perhaps you'd like to
>> explain why.
>
> I am deeply skeptical about about the benefits of government-sponsored
> mass schooling. Of course this will make me appear as a loonie, but
> what else is new.
You're welcome to be skeptical. I was hoping for some reasons,
that's all :-). (And no, I don't think you're a loony.)
> Government-sponsored mass schooling is a relatively new phenomenon.
> It was introduced in Europe in the 1800s. There appears to be no
> dearth of intelligent people prior to that time, nor a staggering
> increase since then.
It's very unclear to me how we could tell; there are
too many other complicating factors.
One of the things government-sponsored mass schooling
was supposed to achieve was the extension of education
to those who aren't wealthy. It would be interesting
to look at the distribution, among "intelligent people",
of rich and poor, before and after the introduction of
state schooling.
> The US spends a huge amount per pupil on government-sponsored schools
> (behind Austria and Switzerland), yet is generally known to be
> sub-par.
You mean the US's state education is worse than other
countries' state education? That may very well be true,
but doesn't have any bearing on the question whether
state-funded education is a good thing.
If, on the other hand, you mean that US education
as a whole is worse than other countries', then you
might be right but that again doesn't have any
bearing on the question unless the other countries
in question don't have state-funded schools.
The US is also phenomenally successful in most of
what appear to be its national goals -- being the
biggest power in trade, war and technology. It looks
as if the US school system does what's being asked
of it.
Rayiner Hashem
pretty much let me run rampent, and it worked out well enough.
However, I contend that parents must have the right to force children
to do things against their will. There is no one-size-fits-all
approach to parenting. Some children respond very well to
near-complete freedom. Other children respond better to discipline. It
is a parent's job to judge what approach is better for their child,
and follow that approach.
The original poster implied that forcing someone to do something
against their will was always a bad thing. This is clearly not the
case. I have seen several children whose lax parents condemmed them to
dropping out of school and getting involved with unsavory people. You
cannot argue that it would have been a worse thing if their parents
had forced them to stay in school, and controlled who they made
friends with.
You didn't answer my question. Should parents be able to force their
children to do things important to their welfare? If a child does not
have the personal responsibility to do their homework, then the
parents must force them. Nothing good can come of giving people
freedom when they are not ready for it.
Coby Beck
"Hartmann Schaffer" <h...@heaven.nirvananet> wrote in message
news:w72Mb.260$KS4....@newscontent-01.sprint.ca...
> In article <87wu803y...@g.mccaughan.ntlworld.com>,
> Gareth McCaughan <gareth.m...@pobox.com> writes:
> > ...
> > If I have to choose between conservative Islamic parents
> > forcing their (presumably not conservative Islamic) children
> > to wear headscarves, and an atheist state forcing someone
> > else's (in some cases conservative Islamic) children *not*
> > to wear headscarves, then I'll go for the former every time,
>
> frankly, this is a choice i'm not willing to accept. forcing sombody
> to (not) do something against his will is a bad thing, and i see no
> difference whether the force is exercised by the state, parents, or
> bosses (note that i don't say that it always has a bad effect)
There are very few X's such that a statement that "X is bad" is complete by
itself and true.
Parent to 3 year old - "Do not pinch the cat"
Gov't to convicted murderer - "Stay in jail"
Boss to Employee - "Stop grabbing your secretary's ass"
I must reject your unqualified statement that it is bad for anyone to force
anyone else to do anything. And I do believe that to be a reasonable
paraphrase os your completely unqulified statement above. Perhaps there are
a few assumptions in there I don't intuit...?
Freedom is not the simplistic and naively simple thing today's typical
rhetoric assumes.
Coby Beck
"Tim Bradshaw" <t...@cley.com> wrote in message
news:ey3vfni...@lostwithiel.cley.com...
>
> Of course, as part owner of a small software & training company I know
> how important IPR is. I guess that makes me a fascist: I'd better go
> out and get a nice uniform and order some gas chambers right away.
Please! You think we don't know about your fleet of Black Helicopters? And
the Ninjas? Don't take us for such fools.