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Comment Re:I think this is a good idea. (Score 4, Informative) 282

I am a linux sysadmin, and many of the packages required for desktop use not only don't apply to me, but are pretty well useless. I would love to see a distribution where any dependency on X11 was not only stripped out - but *compiled* out. I would love to see a distribution where systemd was not getting its mitts into everything.

It's called gentoo.

Comment Re:False. (Score 1) 227

My experience (no science here, only personal encounters) is there are 2 types of racists, and both are wrong but not in the same way.

Racist theorists think we can achieve a better optimum in a society by removing bad elements. The idea is, if you remove the low values, the mean goes up. They completely fail at understanding the benefits of stochastic exploration in something as complex as a society. If evolution is so performing good it is also because of the stochastic exploration it uses introducing mutations or crossing-over.

Racists people are just mediocre guys that need to be proud of something. Now, since they never achieved something in their live, they turn onto something they did nothing for, like their country or the color of their skin. That's the old "I'm better than you", from people that in reality aren't, but cannot stand that fact. Misplaced pride, or something like that.

Comment Re:False. (Score 1) 227

You miss the point. It is obvious that based on genetic criteria, people are not physically equal. Some run faster, some spring higher while others are better at abstraction or emotions. That it is not uniformly distributed among ethnicities is completely irrelevant, and hopefully you'll understand why.

The way we have to consider equality among men is by definition, like an axiom. That way, we can build rules that are much more interesting than the ones where all men are not equal. In particular, it gives you much more liberty, for we consider our society to be above arbitrariness and randomness.

Let's face it, no one chooses where, when and from whom he/she is born, it's either arbitrary (depending on whether you believe in some cosmic plan) or random. The consequences of that is that you are born with a limited amount of possibilities. Now, we can either shorten these possibilities by exploiting this arbitrariness/randomness - it's the "brave new world" scenario where you have to fit that gamma role you were born for -, or we can enlarge them by deciding not to take it into account and state that all human beings are equal. We choose the later since the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It is a great choice based on logical reasoning rather than obsolete bigotry, because it takes into account its consequences. It is a choice that puts forward our capacity (as a species) to think, plan and build, which is by far our greatest ability. But it also as practical advantages for our societies, like a good mix of robustness, resilience and adaptability.

Comment Re:A shift in economic metrics (Score 1) 509

People do not want to work less. If it were the case, we would see massive political propositions in that sense, which is not what we observe.

In France, the legal work duration is 35h/w (remeber the crappy commercial by cadillac), and people do not like it. Sarkozy was elected on the leitmotiv "work more, earn more", and proposed a system for taxes free overtime. Hollande reintroduced the taxes, and people got mad and angry. Every single week, you can hear some french politician saying we need to move back to 40h/w, and you never hear someone proposing to lower at maybe 32h/w or even below 30h/w - such proposition would not be highly impopular.

Basically, people want more, even if it's pointless and even if it 's harmful for the entire society. Stupidity? Tragedy of the anticommons.

Comment Re:Most humans couldn't pass that test (Score 1) 285

The most ridicule part being "must not be able to explain how". That doesn't even make sense for humans! If you ask artists, they'll tell you what their influences are, if you ask critics, they'll tell you why this particular piece of art was made this way and not in a completely different manner.

Fun fact: any program with yet unseen bugs that make their behavior totally unexplainable to their developers has passed the test. That gives you either an idea of the soundness of this crap, or a deep insight of what type of failure humankind is.

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