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Gratitude, Tacos, Expanding Networks, Dangerous Ideas
Firstly, enormous gratitude towards those who expressed kind words over the little incident on NYE. I am indeed blessed with extraordinary and wonderful friends. A report has been made, our injuries have been photographed and the unfortunate fools have forgotten one slight issue with attacking people in the city - cameras. There's a very good chance the entire thing is on film.
Not one to let injuries impinge on my social life,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caseopaya and I attended a fine Kerry Packer wake-cum-Taco Party hosted by rogue_scholar and dodgethis. Also had the opportunity to meet fryboy in person. An excellent night and I look forward to associating more with these bright young people. Later in the week we both had the great opportunity to visit splodgenoodes and briefly chat with tenbears
I have been having curious name resolution issues with my Red Hat/Fedora laptop. It has been very frustrating and time consuming to say the least. Actually Red Hat/Fedora as a curious distribution so I shouldn't be surprised. An odd amalgamation of the bleeding edge and conservatism. Whilst on topic, many of my half-alive boxes have been stripped and rebuilt increasing the size of the home network by another three machines; all currently running Windows 98. I am planning one Windows 98 box (lets face it, you only need one), and two FreeBSD installations. Why? Because they exist.
The Edge has come out with a "Dangerous Idea" competition (fromfraerie) "The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?
What should I choose? Jefferson's idea of confederacy of neighbourhood republics, Thomas Paine and Henry George's land tax or my own proposal of adulthood and citizenship being based on assessment of cognitive and moral reasoning?
Not one to let injuries impinge on my social life,
caseopaya and I attended a fine Kerry Packer wake-cum-Taco Party hosted by rogue_scholar and dodgethis. Also had the opportunity to meet fryboy in person. An excellent night and I look forward to associating more with these bright young people. Later in the week we both had the great opportunity to visit splodgenoodes and briefly chat with tenbearsI have been having curious name resolution issues with my Red Hat/Fedora laptop. It has been very frustrating and time consuming to say the least. Actually Red Hat/Fedora as a curious distribution so I shouldn't be surprised. An odd amalgamation of the bleeding edge and conservatism. Whilst on topic, many of my half-alive boxes have been stripped and rebuilt increasing the size of the home network by another three machines; all currently running Windows 98. I am planning one Windows 98 box (lets face it, you only need one), and two FreeBSD installations. Why? Because they exist.
The Edge has come out with a "Dangerous Idea" competition (from
fraerie) "The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?What should I choose? Jefferson's idea of confederacy of neighbourhood republics, Thomas Paine and Henry George's land tax or my own proposal of adulthood and citizenship being based on assessment of cognitive and moral reasoning?
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Well, we were both a litte asocial for a couple of days, but OK now...
Just about to go to radiology to see if I have a fractured rib..
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The doctor seems pretty convinced that it's fractured, mainly because pressure from elsewhere causes pain in the location.
There's not much that one does for fractured ribs apart from painkillers and rest.
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Random violence is a painful annoyance; there are bigger fish to fry in this world.
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I've heard of a number of attempts at implementing this (even on a small level, e.g. a literacy requirement for voting) and have yet to hear of one that didn't turn into a mechanism for massive corruption, discrimination or both. People remain people.
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That is a very good point; and of course when any social or political or even economic change is recommended there is an onus on the proposer to show how the suggestion would not be broken by such factors (so many sociaalists presume an economic system where everyone is nice to each other; yeah, right).
My initial thoughts are that seeming that we ensure licensing for say, driving (a very dangerous piece of machinery in the wrong hands) that doesn't have massive levels of corruption that it makes potential sense to expand this principle further.
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Because the Greek city states worked so well.
Thomas Paine and Henry George's land tax
Possibly a good idea. If it doesn't drive farmers out of business. (And the IT sector really messes up the theory).
my own proposal of adulthood and citizenship being based on assessment of cognitive and moral reasoning?
Jump, Jim Crow! (Being more serious, I see a massive case of both the "IQ test bias" and teaching people to lie to pass moral reasoning tests).
Dangerous ideas, indeed.
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They certainly worked very well at the time.
If it doesn't drive farmers out of business. (And the IT sector really messes up the theory).
The only farmers that would be driven out of business are those who are actually pretending to be farmers whilst in reality they're just waiting for the ideal time to sell.
Very beneficial for the IT sector. Produces high value, with low resource usage.
Hmmm... I'd never really thought in details how much IT workers could benefit from such a scheme.
Jump, Jim Crow! (Being more serious, I see a massive case of both the "IQ test bias" and teaching people to lie to pass moral reasoning tests).
I don't know whether you could "pretend" to engage in formal operations in moral reasoning. Either you take into account the rights and feelings of another person or you don't. As for IQ test bias, Carol Gilligan already took Lawrence Kohlberg to task on this; of course, Gilligan is actually a strong supporter of Kohlberg and actually saw her work as an improvement not as a rejection of the discipline of moral reasoning in developmental psychology.
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Tell that to the Helots. (I won't say the women because the whole structure was bad that way). Or to the people who died in regular confrontations between the city states. Yes, there are far worse systems - but I think we've moved past their being good systems.
(The point about Helots is that federations in such a pattern allow some groups to get away with being fairly seriously uncivilised).
Very beneficial for the IT sector. Produces high value, with low resource usage.
IT also messes up land valuations because with the Internet (or even, to a lesser extent, telephones), you don't need to be near someone for fairly close communications to take place. I spy high-rise towerblocks in the middle of almost nowhere as the consequence.
I don't know whether you could "pretend" to engage in formal operations in moral reasoning. Either you take into account the rights and feelings of another person or you don't.
And bullies are superb at taking into account the feelings of others...
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1) Ummm... The helots were under the Spartan monarchy, which most certainly wasn't a confederation of neighbourhood republics.
2) ICT is still more efficient where there is good telecommunications infrastructure which is a factor in land values.
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2: But the cost of that is falling... Also, a Land Value Tax (as opposed to a Property Tax) counts the unimproved value of the land... (Quite how this even can exist, I have no idea).
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1) Fair enough. You are quite right about this of course, and indeed there was almost a celebration of the diversity in the confederation. At least in theory one can have a confederation where membership is based on universal human rights.
2) Unimproved value is based on the rental value of a block without anything on it; thus the real value as estate agents always tell us is "location, location, location" - the value is very dependent on the surrounding infrastructure (it also includes natural resources intrinsic to the block).
I think it's very fortunate that telecommunications cost are low in proportion to other costs.
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One problem i could see with this would be the many, many people in the world who would equate moral reasoning not with taking into account the rights and feelings of another person but with obeying the will of God as they interpret it.
(Well, that and a general problem with whether it would be a 'green light' for discrimination of various sorts - eg making non-citizens of the mentally handicapped could lead to some very dark places. Dangerous ideas indeed.)
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By definition that's not reasonable; reason implies that there are testable standards.
... making non-citizens of the mentally handicapped could lead to some very dark places.
Ummm.. They already have significant legal restrictions (for example they can be removed from the Electoral Roll) based on capacity. It's the same thing really.
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"By definition that's not reasonable; reason implies that there are testable standards."
Depends who's deciding what the definition is. :)
"They already have significant legal restrictions (for example they can be removed from the Electoral Roll) based on capacity. It's the same thing really."
Dunno, i see a big conceptual difference between 'ineligible to vote' and 'non-citizen'.
I guess i'm seeing the idea of 'citizenship as a privilege' as an express ticket to creating new over- and under-classes. (Well, more than already).
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Well, as I mentioned previously using those standards as developed by Kohlberg and Gilligan.
Dunno, i see a big conceptual difference between 'ineligible to vote' and 'non-citizen'.
Conceptually the distinction is about various legal capacities. Our society assigns many legal capacities automatically on conference of arbritrary age. I question that wisdom
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Fair enough, though i feel sometimes arbitrary can be preferable to discriminatory.
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Arbritrary is a particular type of discriminatory (after all, everything discriminates - it just depends on what basis one discriminates on).
For example, there is an arbritrary rule in one state to be member of the voting public (i.e., the Vatican City) that you must be at least 80 years of age and male. This is regardless of the competence of said voter.
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I've been there a while ;-)
Most interesting there of late is Ron Edwards closing down the GNS forum. Very strange imo.
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Well, I take it you're familiar with GNS theory in game design. Well Ron has closed down the forums relating to this subject. Basically it sounds like he doesn't want to do theory any more.
And that's about as much as I know.
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It was fun, I'm glad we finally met.
:)
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It was truly excellent and I hope we can have many more such gatherings.
Is the Clash LP OK? I didn't check it for scratches etc.
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Alas, would you believe the turntable is unplugged and I'm not together enough at the moment to fix it? But it will happen, and many thanks again.
troublesome new laws in ET
President of Timor-Leste
C/o Embassy of Timor-Leste
to the United States of America
4201 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, D.C 20008
USA
Fax: +1-202 966 3205
Vienna, 12 January 2006
Your Excellency,
The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of
editors, leading journalists and media executives, is writing to
express its concern about plans to introduce a new penal code for
East Timor containing harsh criminal penalties for individuals found
guilty of defamation.
According to information provided to IPI, the Ministry of Justice
originally drafted the new penal code and, on 6 December 2005, the
Prime Minister, Mari bim Alkatiri, signed an executive decree
approving the proposed law. We understand that the new penal code is
waiting to be signed into law by Your Excellency.
The new penal code contains several harsh sections that will have a
detrimental impact on journalism within East Timor. Under Article
173, individuals face three years' imprisonment for defaming public
officials, and the code contains no limits on fines.
Moreover, Article 176 doubles the term of imprisonment, from one year
to two, where the defamation was committed through the media. Where
the defamation is both through the media and committed against
individuals performing "public, religious or political duties," the
term of imprisonment is increased to three years.
In the opinion of IPI, the new articles on criminal defamation will
stifle journalism and the free flow of information in East Timor. As
a result of the new articles, journalists will be encouraged to
practice self-censorship out of fear that they will be imprisoned for
their writing.
The articles also provide politicians with unnecessary protection at
a time when international standards, and international case law,
acknowledge that they should accept less protection and not more. IPI
would also respectfully remind Your Excellency that, perhaps more
than any other group in society, politicians have numerous
opportunities through the media and in parliament to rebut negative statements.
At a media conference discussing defamation, held in the capital Dili
on 26 August 2003, Your Excellency gave a speech in which you
reflected on whether the laws being applied in East Timor were "in
conformity with the highest norms of human rights prescribed in our
constitution and that are found in the human rights treaties that we signed."
On the subject of the Indonesian Criminal Code, containing several
articles suppressing the media, Your Excellency alluded to articles
"pertaining to criticisms against individuals occupying certain
government positions." When discussing them Your Excellency commented
that these articles "override the spirit of scrutiny and criticism."
IPI would argue that the same might also be said of the new penal
code and that, in seeking to replace the Indonesian Penal Code, the
East Timorese government is merely replacing one repressive law with another.
Your Excellency, IPI believes that the new penal code represents a
threat to freedom of the press and freedom of expression in East
Timor. With this in mind, we call upon you to refuse to sign the new
penal code until those articles related to criminal defamation are removed.
We thank you for your attention.
Yours sincerely,
Johann P. Fritz
Director
http://www.freemedia.at/Protests2006/Timor_Leste12.01.06.htm
Re: troublesome new laws in ET
Hmmmm.... This sort of thing is regrettably a trend in the country. Increasingly there are curtailments of basic liberties. One of things the government must be aware of is that liberal activists who have supported East Timor's independence will shy away from future activity if this continues.
IPI would argue that the same might also be said of the new penal code and that, in seeking to replace the Indonesian Penal Code, the East Timorese government is merely replacing one repressive law with another.
That is an excellent summary.
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Having been mugged a couple of times, though thankfully never beaten, I know what you mean about bigger fish to fry - violence is intense, but at least it passes quickly and wounds heal (most of the time). So here's hoping that all the bastards get what they deserve, whether they wear white collars or blue collars or wife-beater singlets.
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Goodness knows what you thought of us wandering in with a pair of black eyes!
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Actually I didn't notice. And I feel better about being so inattentive cos