tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post1396608195384499368..comments2024-03-18T17:09:55.964-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: The Right to Record PoliceDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69364167502089495072013-09-13T10:14:12.187-07:002013-09-13T10:14:12.187-07:00As far as David Brin apologizing for his comment, ...As far as David Brin apologizing for his comment, I don’t think that it is necessary, and it does not appear that John Michael Greer (the Archdruid) thinks that it is necessary either. <br />The AD thinks that David responded the way he did because they have different religious sensibilities. Here is the critical part from this week ArchDruid Report:<br /><br />“The hostilities between Christianity and contemporary atheism, like those between Christianity and Islam, are thus expressions of something like sibling rivalry. Salvation from the natural world and the human condition remains the core premise (and thus also the most important promise) of all these faiths, whether that salvation takes the supernatural form of resurrection followed by eternal life in heaven, on the one hand, or the allegedly more natural form of limitless progress, the conquest of poverty, illness, and death, and the great leap outwards to an endless future among the stars. It’s precisely the absence of those common assumptions, in turn, that makes communication so difficult across the boundary between one religious sensibility and another. The gap in understanding that reduced an intelligent man like David Brin to spluttering fury at the suggestion that salvation might not be waiting for humanity out there among the stars is exactly parallel to the one that drove normally tolerant Roman thinkers to denounce the early Christians as “enemies of the human race.” <br /><br />Still, the fact remains that to a growing number of people nowadays, promises of salvation from the natural world and the human condition—whether that salvation takes the more traditional form of eternal life in a supernatural realm or a more contemporary form decked out with spaceships and jetpacks—fail to evoke the emotional responses they get from participants in the older religious sensibility. It’s not merely that these promises no longer ring true, though in many cases that’s also an issue; it’s that they no longer have any appeal. What stirs awe and wonder in these people, rather, is a sense of belonging and of participation in the great cycles of Nature, an awareness of oneness with life that does not shrink in terror from life’s natural completion in death. What inspires them is not the hope of a final separation from the realities of nature, life, history and time, but a conscious and delighted participation in these realities—not the promise of salvation, but the reality of homecoming. “occam's comicnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77567723599890430402013-09-13T09:18:22.873-07:002013-09-13T09:18:22.873-07:00And this has just made me decide that Internet Ano...And this <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindness-weev-and-the-cult-of-the-angry-young-man" rel="nofollow">has just made me decide that Internet Anonymity needs to end</a>. Seriously, this is just wrong on so many levels. And it's their anonymity that lets them get away with it. It's so easy to call people names when you don't have to face them and their friends in person. <br /><br />I can understand the political ramifications... but let's be honest. The government will find you if they want to. You can't protect yourself forever if you're using the internet to post secrets or anti-government rhetoric. Claiming anonymity protects them just allows this subculture of hate to continue to thrive.<br /><br />Rob H., who signs his comments because he's long felt he shouldn't hide behind anonymity.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80880267298351231182013-09-13T07:21:38.521-07:002013-09-13T07:21:38.521-07:00This is a hoot:
NSA center uses Star Trek mimicry...This is a hoot:<br /><br /><a href="http://helablog.com/2013/09/congress-plays-star-trek-replica-enterprise-bridge-used-to-sell-surveillance/" rel="nofollow">NSA center uses Star Trek mimicry to sell surveillance proposals</a><br /><br /><i>When he was running the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, Alexander brought many of his future allies down to Fort Belvoir for a tour of his base of operations, a facility known as the Information Dominance Center. It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a “whoosh” sound when they slid open and closed.</i>sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40431380156534366662013-09-13T07:11:50.235-07:002013-09-13T07:11:50.235-07:00sociotard
"AD was doing the same thing, but f...sociotard<br />"AD was doing the same thing, but for the species level. His point was less that humans are short-sighted and destined for failure, and more that all species go extinct. His cynicism show in that he thinks humans will be less successful than Sharks or Crocodiles, but I think the point he was making was Dumbledore-like: species death will come to humanity, and that is right and natural. extinction will come for all species, as it ever has. And Dumbledore never struck me as a cynic."<br /><br />What a joke of an argument:<br />There's no credible reasoning given for how humanity will go extinct.<br /><br />Species evolve - which is quite different from going extinct.<br />In a very real sense, LUCA never went extinct, but lives today through the biosphere. Dinosaurs are around us right now - we just call them birds. Very few species in history actually went extinct.<br /><br /><br />Obviously, the appeal of AD's argument lies not in his reasoning (that's third rate - at best), but in the fact that he spins a story that makes the readers feel cool and superior to their fellow humans.Edit_XYZnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72582292519784307922013-09-13T05:39:54.802-07:002013-09-13T05:39:54.802-07:00"You make very good sharks, Mr. Garibaldi. We..."You make very good sharks, Mr. Garibaldi. We were pretty good sharks<br />ourselves once, but somehow, along the way, we forgot how to bite.<br />There was a time when this whole quadrant belonged to us. What are<br />we now? Twelve worlds and a thousand monuments to past glories.<br />Living off memories and stories, selling *trinkets*.<br /><br />"My god, man. We've become a tourist attraction. 'See the great<br />Centauri Republic -- open 9 to 5, Earth time.'"<br /><br />"Nice shark, .. pretty shark."<br />-- Londo to his drink in Babylon 5:"The Gathering"<br /><br />Judging by Syria, America's forgotten how to biteIanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01739671401151990700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87451069517985837192013-09-13T01:44:20.355-07:002013-09-13T01:44:20.355-07:00Just be glad it didn't substitute 'hippogr...Just be glad it didn't substitute 'hippogriff'!Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85954327899840252432013-09-12T23:19:41.300-07:002013-09-12T23:19:41.300-07:00Recall for a moment your position in the "Hum...Recall for a moment your position in the "Human Immortality" debate?<br /><br />AD was doing the same thing, but for the species level. His point was less that humans are short-sighted and destined for failure, and more that all species go extinct. His cynicism show in that he thinks humans will be less successful than Sharks or Crocodiles, but I think the point he was making was Dumbledore-like: species death will come to humanity, and that is right and natural. extinction will come for all species, as it ever has. And Dumbledore never struck me as a cynic.sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50954762743771112282013-09-12T22:26:16.568-07:002013-09-12T22:26:16.568-07:00I looked at the tenor of the responses to my comme...I looked at the tenor of the responses to my comment on the arch-druid (AD) site and realized simply that -- "life is too short" to deal with a pack of such incredibly illogical people. Amid howls about my "discourtesy" (none of which was especially harsh or unusual), almost no one addressed the core points that I raised.<br /><br />AD had:<br /><br />1) cribbed his entire scenario from Olaf Stapledon... not a bad thing, unless you fail to mention OS even once.<br /><br />2) His scenario depends entirely on the same assumption made by apocalypse junkies from revelations to Marx to Rand... that the masses are as stupid as slime molds, that across hundreds and hundreds of generations, i t is inherently impossible that a civilization might arise with an average intellect one tenth as great as that of the sagacious and mighty seer... arch-druid.<br /><br />3) I don't give a damn whether AD claims to have "worked in solar energy." His failure to notice the plummeting costs and rise of efficiency of photovoltaics is not mere oversight. Extrapolated just ten years, we'll be at a technology that might be recreated in small craft workshops, even if society collapses. In a mere semi-collapse, tens of thousands of such workshops would be making panels for villages... <br /><br />...and those panels accumulate, so the next generation builds on that power level... so that No Matter how slow the recovery, it would rise and rise. Until a society with decent birth control would be able to meet all its electricity needs and have surplus for ambitious endeavors.<br /><br />This scenario might have a flaw, but right now it looks like the baseline that cynics must deal with... and it is only one of dozens of such technological game changers that - once a threshold is passed -- would make it very hard to prevent the renaissance of industrial/scientific civilization.<br /><br />But none of this merited the admitted tone of anger in my guest posting. What merited it was the blatant tendentiousness of AD's schadenfreude Jeremiad of baleful doom. His hand-rubbing glee over the inevitability of failure for ANY potential variant of human civilization, while ignoring all of the factors that might empower a decent, positive sum society to prove him wrong...<br /><br />...while he wallows in pleasures and tools and connections that would have seemed the powers of a god. Tools and pleasures and connections that are gifts AD never earned, but received - gratis - from earlier innovators, who had to overcome their own cynics in order to take civilization where no man has gone before.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50465625493346735572013-09-12T20:07:56.433-07:002013-09-12T20:07:56.433-07:00An apology.
With the wonders of google I looked b...An apology.<br /><br />With the wonders of google I looked back and indeed David, you seem never to have used the term "Drunk Driving C student". It was a favorite phrase of a now banished fellow and in the back and forth it is easy to get mixed up.<br /><br />Also, going back those five or six years I see that your opinions - many of which I do not share - are remarkably consistent.<br /><br />Points where they are earned...<br /><br />TacitusTacitushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17007086196578740689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61504252800146969422013-09-12T18:47:11.225-07:002013-09-12T18:47:11.225-07:00In the commentary section of the Archdruid Report,...In the commentary section of the Archdruid Report, there were over 600 comments; I only found one from Dr. Brin, but there may be others. Dr. Brin and Guest may know to which exact comment Guest refers, but I'm not a regular and haven't been following along. The bits I have read so far haven't enticed me sufficiently to do an in-depth reading. Seagull posts have to have some meat to them before I devote time for a followup.<br /><br />TheMadLibrarian<br />fratle: puerile yammeringTheMadLibrariannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62276995953920567222013-09-12T15:32:32.106-07:002013-09-12T15:32:32.106-07:00Did you watch the 'debate' he had with Yud...Did you watch the 'debate' he had with Yudowsky? It was awful. Nobody actually addressed one anothers points. They all just talked past each other.<br /><br />You see a lot of that here. Brin implies that archdruid doesn't know anything about photovoltaics, archdruid actually responds to that and explains his expertise in that field. Brin never fires back.sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-49571225694138938552013-09-12T15:10:48.025-07:002013-09-12T15:10:48.025-07:00Bullpucky. Dr. Brin does respond to valid argument...Bullpucky. Dr. Brin does respond to valid arguments. But there's no need to respond to mysticism and defeatism. No matter what he said, Dr. Brin would end up considered a bully, unless he rolled over, exposed his throat, and said "you're right, I'm wrong, just kill me now."<br /><br />And even then he'd probably have hate piled on him.<br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56785023382944638632013-09-12T15:08:53.521-07:002013-09-12T15:08:53.521-07:00Oh, and the following thread on the XKCD forum is ...Oh, and the following thread on the XKCD forum is worth following for the libertarian debate. Smart people on both sides. I find myself pushing to really think about alien points of view and valid holes in arguments.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=104168&sid=87e9c61792e0b060309de6b777cca258" rel="nofollow">End Government Funding of Science?</a>sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68559587788172152302013-09-12T15:04:31.979-07:002013-09-12T15:04:31.979-07:00To be fair, it is almost exactly what David posted...To be fair, it is almost exactly what David posted in the comments section here in the last post, and those comments were in response to a link archdruid's blog on that page. I think our guest can be forgiven for not posting a link, especially as he knew David would know what post he was talking about.<br /><br />I'd also like to point out that Archdruid had some valid responses in that comments section, to which David never counter-responded. A pity. David doesn't seem to much like debate and discussion.sociotardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11697154298087412934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41793033201805194552013-09-12T14:59:57.520-07:002013-09-12T14:59:57.520-07:00Love how my auto-correct spelled "semantic.&q...Love how my auto-correct spelled "semantic." That's a laugh.matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52337987927560095602013-09-12T14:58:39.796-07:002013-09-12T14:58:39.796-07:00Salon's takedown of modern libertarianism. Ar...Salon's takedown of modern libertarianism. <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/09/12/11_questions_to_see_if_libertarians_are_hypocrites/" rel="nofollow"> Are libertarians hypocrates? </a> Some of the 11 questions are worthy, some are symantec manipulation. matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65378249136778780272013-09-12T14:56:05.348-07:002013-09-12T14:56:05.348-07:00Hate all government indeed. I'm actually regis...Hate all government indeed. I'm actually registered Libertarian (one of the rare former Democrats) and I'm dismayed at how quickly many of them used the 'hero' label for people revealing classified information. <br /><br />Government DOES have a useful purpose, but the anarchists are so loud you can't hear the rest of us. 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59697984769606765562013-09-12T13:52:11.794-07:002013-09-12T13:52:11.794-07:00g_downs: huh???
Please do us the favor of providin...g_downs: huh???<br />Please do us the favor of providing a direct link to said ill-informed commentary. It took me some searching to find, and even then I am not sure it is what you intended to point at. It doesn't seem significantly crankier than many of the other comments on that site.<br /><br />TheMadLibrarian<br />oumessf: New Middle Eastern vat-grown taste treat! Enjoy!TheMadLibrariannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68124648847137421492013-09-12T11:14:46.378-07:002013-09-12T11:14:46.378-07:00David Brin needs to apologize to John Michael Gree...David Brin needs to apologize to John Michael Greer. That stupid and insulting comment you made at last week's Archdruid report was inexcusable. Were you drunk, or are you always such as asshole?<br /><br />I've never read anything as ill-informed and frankly stupid at that site, and I've been reading it for seven years.<br /><br />You techno-weenies beat all, I swear.g downshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16331569189374553218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51920084616345192722013-09-11T22:00:20.275-07:002013-09-11T22:00:20.275-07:00Indeed. It is depressing what gets called "l...Indeed. It is depressing what gets called "libertarian" these days. Apparently it means just one thing: hate all government. hate all government, all the time. hate all government by of and for the people. Just hate all government. <br /><br />Especially hobble govt as the only force that could have let the people stand up to oligarchy.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8866447426978896872013-09-11T20:57:24.983-07:002013-09-11T20:57:24.983-07:00It should be interesting to see if this pans out i...It should be interesting to see if this pans out in the electoral cycle... be interesting to see a bunch of the current Republicans be booted out for Libertarian-leaning politicians.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/11/new-poll-shows-republicans-flocking-toward-libertarian-principles/" rel="nofollow">A new poll shows that Republicans are embracing Libertarian principles</a>. Now if only they'd embrace the one where they'd not try to regulate women's right to an abortion....Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28330776044337409522013-09-11T18:21:58.043-07:002013-09-11T18:21:58.043-07:00Sorry for multiple posts, the captcha kept saying ...Sorry for multiple posts, the captcha kept saying I got it wrong, but apparently was putting the posts through. matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62203614853024130032013-09-11T18:19:35.695-07:002013-09-11T18:19:35.695-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80557627721600774572013-09-11T18:19:21.417-07:002013-09-11T18:19:21.417-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44219543640070335922013-09-11T18:19:13.578-07:002013-09-11T18:19:13.578-07:00This is an interesting first: an Anonymous "o...This is an interesting first: an Anonymous "operation" that does not involve hacking or DDOS attacks. <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/09/11/anonymous_outs_lawmakers_ties_to_intelligence_contractors/" rel="nofollow"> Salon on new Anonymous Operation. </a> Details the support from intelligence contractors to various Senators.<br /><br />Is Anon trying to go legit? Managing a legal political awareness campaign? One to watch.matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.com