I think the poster neglects something very important here, that the nature of our discussions and interactions changes us. If our default level of discussion is the internet equivalent of a bar room brawl, it will tend to bring out, to accentuate, to amplify those irrational and cruel tendencies. If this becomes too widespread, it will not end well for society.

The poster refers to the "ugly facts" about human nature. If I want to discover these "ugly facts", a quick survey of Roman history will suffice. Roman legions entering a town and indiscriminately kill 300 000 men, women and children. The mad emperors Caligula, Nero and Commodus committed atrocities that would make most readers want to throw up upon reading about them. Never mind the barbarism of slavery. We humans are quite messed up. We have the potential to be good, but we also have the potential to be monsters. Does that mean that we should tolerate, nay, encourage those traits?

A while ago I saw a movie called The Cave of Forgotten Dreams. It is an exploration of 40000 year old cave paintings found in Europe. It is shot in proper 3D, and is mainly concerned with actually exploring the caves. It gave a sense of being inside the caves that I believe would otherwise be impossible. Since these caves are generally kept sealed off from visitors, this movie allowed me to visit a place that would otherwise be inaccessible. Apart from Avatar and The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, I have not seen a 3D movie that adequately makes proper use of 3D technology.

Read book in 1994. Then read MANY other books. Read Voltaire. Read Plato. Read Aristotle. Read Thucydides. Read Euripides. Read Sophocles. Read Gibbon. Read Locke. Read Chomsky. Read Adam Smith. Read Marx. Read many others. Studied history. Studied logic. Read newspapers. Watched news. Watched documentaries. Thought. Observed.

Over the last eighteen years I have learned a great deal. I have seen first hand the impact of the ideologies that I criticize. I have observed managers in companies I knew and worked for. Saw what they did. Saw at least two implement their management ideologies and almost single handedly drive their companies into the ground.

Your comment is a trite cheap shot.

Unless you are ready to give names and other verifiable information on this, I have to assume that you are full of **it. Don't make claims you can't support.

Why is this marked insightful???? It is in essence accusing without grounds PhD scientists who spend their lives studying these things with basing the entire thesis of a paper on grade school math errors. The author isn't supplying any quotations from the article supporting his assertion, other than a single number. It seems to me that the writer of this article is a peddler of misinformation. In the relatively recent past, he would be opening himself a libel suit. In the more distant past, the author would possibly in need of practicing his pistol aim and would need to find a second for his duelling appointment.

If you believe that your unreferenced quote adequately summarizes the whole of Voltaire's thought, then you are an ignorant fool. Troll.

I would argue that our current malaise is largely a product of the willingness of our intellectual elites to fall into the trap of following simplistic ideologies, of embracing technocratic processes over sense and morals. Our civilization has become a mindless machine with no real purpose, no aim. The version of capitalism that we currently embrace is a byproduct of this.

I bow before your well referenced rebuttal. You have eloquently shown the folly of the Enlightenment and have given a convincing point by point logical rebuttal to both the writings of Voltaire and John Ralston Saul's book.

Mod parent up. Great slideshow.

Amen. Read Voltaire's Bastards. I read it when it came out in the 90's, and over time I have become increasingly convinced of its accuracy. In essence, MBA's and their simplistic ideologies are driving our civilization into the ground.

Market failure indeed. Can you have true competition when by nature your industry is limited to three to five players in any particular area. This sounds more like an oligarchy than a free market. This a good argument for regulation in the public interest. In Europe they regulate their mobile providers and their rates and service are far better than ours.

The original 1987 NeXT workstation already used vector graphics (Postscript) to display virtually everything on the screen. When NeXT became OSX, they had to remove the Postscript because Adobe's licensing charges were too large.

Why don't we just admit it. Because we can't actually meet the people who post here, because we know almost nothing about their REAL background or history, we have no real way of knowing whether the poster is (a) a paid shill who makes his living posting well crafted propaganda, (b) a gullible idiot who reads and believes said propaganda or (c) a well meaning citizen who actually cares about scientific truth.

At least when I actually know someone, then they are accountable for what they say. If they say something idiotic, it will have consequences, both in personal and in professional relationships.

I'm thinking about a Lenovo T530 or perhaps something from zareason. They both have 1080p offerings for screen resolution (although with zareason, to get that resolution I'd be stuck with nVidia, since their intel graphics laptops have lower resolution.). I was wondering how well Linux deals with high resolution screens in regards to readability, font size and general appearance. I'm not even sure yet whether I will go for gnome, kde, xfce, or something else.