Thursday, December 16, 2004
defense - of computers, biological systems, whatever - as parasitic
answer: no, but dang anyway. oh - what am i talking about ? this:
i actually scan for spyware every couple weeks on my laptop, using four - ! - different programs. they each seem to catch thngs the others miss. good thing viruses, etc. aren't like this. what the hell ? seems there's no preventing them from loading, and even the memory resident stuff misses things. not to mention taking up all kinds of system resources. good thing pcs are more powerful. remember that periodic discussion about "what are we going to do with all that computing power?" ? well, most of it goes towards keeping out the mean nasties. i think this box spends like 90% of its (non-idle) cpu time scannning for viruses. and think of all the firewall packet handling. the disk io. as i've seen mentioned every now and then, the things that suck the most resources from our systems are the "protection" things themselves - which makes them parasitic and viral in their own way. but it seems necessary.
extrapolating, most of our systems will be in a continuous battle for survival, with a vanishingly small amount left over to actually accomplish work. sounds like society, or biology, to me. think of all the crap that has grown up and around the basic dna propagating machinery. all that we are is the result of an arms race, and otherwise superfluous. and our ("our") systems will be no different.
the need to untangle nastier power ambitions from otherwise valuable relgious adn poliotcal groups
God has graciously granted America a reprieve from the agenda of paganism
that's a solid discussion. nothing new however. one observation: it's time we start making a distinction between "religion", and whatever it is that those idiots are trying to do. need some new terms, etc. because it _is_ different. it is also different from the political right, from republicans, and from conservatism, although they have become closely associated. yet that association stems from this very lack of conceptual distinction machinery. given the proper tools and worldview and vocabulary, we'd be more likely to adddress these issues to our mutual satisfaction. how do we run the insane folks out of town without ticking off these co-opted associated groups ? by separating them. which is exactly the opposite of what the insane folks want. as one comment pointed out, that's been their agenda all along, to confuse and identify their agenda with otherwise unrelated groups so that those groups will then feel obligated to supprt those agendas. unfortunately, that comment didn't make the necessary distinction, it used the republicans as "they".
it occurred to me long ago, while watching a small group of protesters outside a planned parenthood clinic, that there was power in this religion-associated gullibility. i even found myelf thinking that i could probably think of ways to use this to my advantage. now if i, a relative innocent in these matters, could come up with that out of the blue, imagine what the nastier types have been doing all along.
i actually attempted to talk to one of those protesters. impossible. it was like their eyes were glazed over. it seemed they had no concept of being approached and talked with, person to person. they couldn't focus. like they were on auto or something. i've gotten similar reactions from jesus-freaks, krishna, whatever.
then again, i'm probably considered "evil" by those types. a potentially corrupting influence best avoided, "don't try to recruit that one", oh no. good thing, i guess. yet strength of mind can result in aloneness.
y'know, last fall, the last time i talked to a conservative christian friend, i described to him my latest thinking about things like the nature of "god", and other views on reality. an intellectual exercise with me. a _passionate_ intellectual exercise, but "only" intellectual, nonetheless. i haven't heard from him since. this sort of behavior is alluded to in one comment in that thread. and that is the shame of it all, the intolerance bred by these machinations. all while "they" do whatever the hell they want.
so, we need to develop the words and concepts to untangle this nastiness woven by "that" group, the one that we will be giving a name to. they are apolitical and dangerous, and they seem to have co-opted our religious countrymen, among others, and are now in the process of trying to co-opt our nation. i feel sad for these co-opted religious citizens, and for our loss. there is - was - much value in those segments of society, but it has been corrupted. paradoxically - ironicly? - , it seems that those who consider themselves "saved" are most in peril, and in need of true saving. and those left to do the saving have little experience with those concepts and metaphors. so the evil is more insidious yet.
I am of the growing opinion that religion *must* be taught in schools. Aggressively and completely. It has played a important historic role in the development of modern society.
Much like feudalism should be taught - so we don't make the same mistakes. "Here is what people believed, some people still do this today" is a perfectly valid and truthful education. For feudalism, show the modern warlords of Africa and the resulting famines, show the royalty of France and the beautiful courts. Turn to religion and show modern creationism with all the problems the belief has and show the glorious Sistine chapel and the beauty of the ceiling. In such education you are advocating neither a feudal society or a particular religion, but rather showing how they affected us and what they produce.
Education is about teaching children how to think and then giving them knowledge. Teach them how to think critically and show them how we got to where we are. Let them decide: if you have presented a full view of our modern world and the history that got us to where we are... *and* have taught them the tools to think and research, they will come to their own beliefs. Hopefully these beliefs will not mirror ours - hopefully their beliefs will be a little better. We will have then hoisted them a bit higher to become the giants upon whose shoulders *their* children will stand.
i agree, that one blog item you quoted is right on the money. kinda obvious, isn't it ? and it hurts no one. [note: i had twelve years of catholic education.]
much of that "co-opting established institutions" process (their reputation, their worldview, whatever) would be psychological warfare 101, and i think is covered in machiavelli as well. old stuff. unfortunately, religious types by their nature tend to be sheepier than others, and they got knocked off first. it would have been any weakest group, just happened to be them. but reason and information is a powerful weapon against such things. yet they won't necessarily stand up against the sheer mass of the arrayed co-opted armies against thought. i don't necessarily want to convert conservatives, religous, etc. to any particular way of thinking. i do however want to free them from that yet unnamed influence. that needs to get nailed down solidly, and that is one thing that group knows is their achilles heel, and so they have erected defenses against that sort of identification, and against the sort of critical thinking that can make such distinctions and strip them of their dupes.
that's one reason the election bothered me. people reacted to black & white messages instead of the inherent complexities. yup, that was bush v. kerry. they managed to convince even many rational people that kerry's ability to distinguish and willingness to deal with complexity was a liability - a flip-floppiness. comfort zones, indeed.
more on information modes on the web
Wikinews And The Growing Wikimedia Empire
i doubt "wiki news" will work well. wiki history, maybe. and why are people mistaking streams of consciousness (a la blogs) for news ? trying to be linear and nonlinear at the same time and in the same dimension ? good luck. good list of links in that article. y'know, i've never seen an author rating/reputation engine used in a wiki. i wonder why. of course, reps are somewhat problematic as well, in a number of ways. never mind trustworthiness. how does one account for misapplied reputations (like physicists writing on religion). or the conservatism affect (as in, those with reps tend to be the holder of established ideas, it's in the nature of a rep system).