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Comment Re:Meanwhile over in Congress (Score 1) 311

False assumption.

Back on topic... What morality? Yours? Mine? If we all take responsibility for our own morality, whose to judge which morality is better or more succinct or rational? It seems like a meaningless statement without some external measure. But whose to agree on the external measure? And even when agreed to... whose to enforce the measure?

Comment Re:Meanwhile over in Congress (Score 1) 311

Yes, but your long run isn't all that long and it's easy enough to promote good behavior while carefully doing whatever you need to get what you want out of life. Evolved limitations that restrict you should be challenged, use your mind to overcome your own weakness whenever possible. Evolution is just to slow and big... it may have given you something to start with that worked generally for humans thousands of years ago, but that's just a general starting point... why accept that, why not pursue whatever you specifically find enjoyable? People have all sorts of natural hard-wired limitations they suppress and train out of themselves... we just don't like to acknowledge that empathy and overeating may be equally worthy of trying to suppress.

Comment Re:Meanwhile over in Congress (Score 1) 311

Responses:
1) Yes, absolutely you should behave in such a way that other perceive you to be trustworthy... until it suits you to not be.

2) I think this is potentially an inborn weakness in many people... similar to eating disorders... you want people to think you're thin so you behave totally irrationally and harm yourself... being perceived as "good" is useful, but if you tie yourself up in what other people think of you then you end up handing over your satisfaction to others which is a risky proposition. Avoid it at all costs, work to minimize those emotions if possible.

3) I agree... you'd want everyone else to follow the rules, be nice, fair, etc... but why play along when you have the opportunity to gain more than you might lose?

Comment Re:Meanwhile over in Congress (Score 1) 311

Humans have an amazing capability to identify basic limitations and use their minds to overcome those limitations. True compassion, real felt regret, or the stress of empathizing with someone else's pain can limit your ability to achieve personal satisfaction. So to the extent possible, why wouldn't you train these things out of yourself as best as possible. Sure, you'd want to be able to fake them... they serve a wonderful social purpose... but when the opportunity arose to greatly further yourself it'd be just lazy or weak to not have tried to achieve that.

Comment Re:Meanwhile over in Congress (Score 1) 311

Evolutionary traits should have little bearing on your decision making other to accept certain starting points. You only have one life to live and you have fortunately evolved a mind to be able to make decisions beyond what your evolved capabilities might entail. For example, you can choose not to accept a failing heart and seek out a heart transplant. You can choose to drive a car created by other minds in order to overcome your very limited speed and stamina. Why would uncontrolled cooperation be any different, sure you need to cooperate with people to maximize your opportunities, but when that gets in the way you're just giving in to an evolutionary limitation.

You can of course choose to be irrational, or just accept it. It's lazy, but people are very lazy and it generally serves those who aren't quite well.

Comment Re:Meanwhile over in Congress (Score 1) 311

I have never understood this type of statement... "I find it worrying that people only behave ethically out of fear of having to answer to some "higher power".

Morality is based on power, always. It's God, or god, or social, or individual, or psychological, or whatever... but it's always power. If there is no power over me then why would I do anything other then behave in a way that brings me pleasure? I might say "behave ethically" but why would I actually do so, other then possibly fear of some power punishing me for my actions?

Comment Copy your reviews; then tell them to fuck off (Score 1) 675

Make copies of your reviews and other feedback. Then politely tell them you will be leaving on the date you originally notified them.

Also, you may want to make posts on Glassdoor.com, jobvent.com or other sites that allow you to anonymously provide feedback on the employee experience with specific companies.

Hardware Hacking

A 3D Printer On Every Desktop? 426

holy_calamity writes "Two Cornell researchers have designed an open source 3D printer that costs just $2,400. The self-assembly kit is part of what they call the Fab@Home project — they hope it will spark development of rapid prototyping for the consumer market in the same way the Altair 8800 did for personal computing in seventies." Here is a video showing a completed machine constructing a silicone bulb (16-MB WMV).
Update: 01/10 04:02 GMT by KD : The developers of this kit are at Cornell, not Carnegie Mellon University as the original post erroneously stated.

Microsoft Gets Help From NSA for Vista Security 233

An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Microsoft received help from the National Security Agency in protecting the Vista operating system from worms and viruses. The Agency aimed to help as many people as they could, and chose to assist Vista with good reason: the OS still has a 90 percent lock on the PC market, with some 600 million Vista users expected by 2010. From the article: 'The Redmond, Wash., software maker declined to be specific about the contributions the NSA made to secure the Windows operating system ... Microsoft said this is not the first time it has sought help from the NSA. For about four years, Microsoft has tapped the spy agency for security expertise in reviewing its operating systems, including the Windows XP consumer version and the Windows Server 2003 for corporate customers.'"

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