--- Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Absolutely true, but I wonder if 500 years from now,
> we'll seem to our
> descendants like slaves to corporations in the sense
> that we see our
> medieval ancestors as slaves to popes and kings.
> Recognizing that the best
> is far from perfect means greater tolerance and
> encouragement of
> alternatives. The great danger, I believe, is the
> same one that
> environmentalists see in a loss of biodiversity --
> we lose problem-solving
> ability, a degree of collective intelligence, as the
> diversity of things
> like energy sources either dwindles or fails to
> reach an appropriate level.
> I think this is just the argument made about Windows
> and the more I consider
> it, the more correct it seems. For quite a while,
> I've thought Microsoft
> should be punished more for its inhibition of
> collaboration (by trying to
> corrupt the Java standard, as just one example) than
> its anti-competitive
> behavior. I hope it's clear that those are all the
> same sort of things.
>
I share your feelings about M$, believe me.* My
friends with MCSE's wish I would shut up about them
for 5 seconds. =) I look on them as a symptom, not a
cause. They're feeding off of the masses' ignorance.
Everyone will sooner or later come to realize that
they're being led around by their noses, hypnotized by
all of the shiney pretty buttons. Call it a mass
education. Everyone will come to their senses,
hopefully soon, and demand quality and reliability
instead of golly-gee-whizness.
I think comparing that to scientific advancement is an
apples to oranges deal. The money spewing masses
don't understand the laws of physics, they don't use
the scientific method, they don't look at statistics.
I think you'll find that the driving force behind real
advancement is still the smart people who think up
things like the internal combustion engine and
integrated circuits. The projects that veer off into
the wrong direction due to bad management are in the
minority.
<snip>
> Agreed, but only in the name of diversity of
> solutions. Faced with the
> unknown long-term effects of fossil fuels, inventing
> a great diversity of
> alternatives would seem to be in our interests.
> However, only a very, very
> speculative market-based argument would let one
> reach that conclusion. Our
> system seems to be concentrating power (no pun
> intended) in a relatively
> small number of big energy corporations, and I think
> it inarguable that the
> result is less innovation.
>
I see a bit of concentration of *power* too, but you
have to remember that just because researching cold
fusion and solar power and wind power is difficult, by
no means has it stopped. A great deal of basic
research is conducted by non-profit organizations and
universities- it's certainly not dominated by those
who have the gold. Dan, could you give us some idea
about how our 'research points' are allocated?
dean
* just today my friend was telling me about a small
client he got going with a couple of nice, reliable
freeBSD boxes. Given the choice, all we use MS for is
the NT PDC, file services, and maybe the mail server
after we lock it up tight behind a freeBSD firewall.
We're stuck with it on the desktop, of course. ::sigh::
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