Skylab72
-
Posts
138 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
4
Posts posted by Skylab72
-
-
Yes, I see the pattern. I suppose everyone should drive a Lexus, maybe even a Tesla. The latest model is really cool, and they're definitely "available".
I'm busted. I drive a Mercedes, and ride a BMW.
-
Fixed. Thanks for taking SkyLab's rationalization far enough that even he won't be able to avoid recognizing it now.
Yes, it is. Without government interference, Hank Rearden would've gained a monopoly on steel manufacturing, Galt on energy, and Dagny Taggart already had a monopoly on transportation in several areas.
The monopoly he held is proof that he was unmatched.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for BG. Just one single point relative to MSFT vs DOJ. The subject of the case was the "browser wars". I personally documented and provided to my employer at the time and they in turn to an involved attorney, evidence that MS-IE programmatically prevented the down load of three specific browsers. In my book that is FRAUD, totally apart from any malfeasance found via antitrust. It is MY computer and I have the sole right to say what it is to be used for. MSFT has repeatedly and persistently stolen the work of my machine running on my electricity, to perform tasks I did not and would not approve, and in this specific case while REFUSING to do a task I gave the command to do. That is fraud.
-
Certainly. And none of this is to say that either he or MSFT hasn't done good and useful things. It's just an individual with no apparent integrity. As Steve Jobs once put it, the man has no taste. He does exactly what is necessary to make money, no more, no less. Sometimes that requires building a good product. Sometimes it doesn't.
Indeed, from the lexicon of AR novels, he seems to have a "second handers" taste and a "second handers" integrity.
-
I'm gonna stop reading now. You declare that you don't consider him your inferior, but in the next sentence you imply that you don't hold him in much esteem (as you do "some of his friends"). You have also made it abundantly clear that you do hold yourself in high esteem (don't take this the wrong way: from what you wrote about your career, you're right to hold yourself in high esteem - just not higher than Bill Gates).
So you do consider him your inferior, but you won't admit it straight up, because it's not a position you can actually defend.
Your responses sound more to me like you never started reading. I have no need to defend a position to someone whose mind is closed, and who seems to prefer being a bully.
-
For anyone who criticizes Bill Gates for DOS and for Windows, on the grounds that technically-superior products were already possible at the time those were sold, I have this question: do you criticize Henry Ford for the Model-T? Do you criticize McDonald's for their sandwiches? If not, why not?
Not just already possible, already available. People did not chose them either because they were already familiar with a similar MS product or when that was not the case, they were unaware or unconvinced the alternative product was superior. Anyway, some alternatives were not...
Well actually, I do. The model-T was mediocre engineering even for the time. But it's shortcomings became 'lovable quirks' as it's popularity grew. Please remember that Henry's contribution to the auto industry was not the cars that he built. It was the manufacturing methods.
And yes even McDonald's. I have not eaten one of their sandwiches since the sign in front of store#4 in Cahokia, Ill rolled over to 500,000 sold. Hopefully you can tell that was a while back. "Acceptable mediocrity" is not my thing in hamburgers, particularly considering McDonald's documented nutritional failings. At least they are working on that last part. McDonald's innovation was not product, but marketing. Do you see a pattern?
-
I have heard every possible critique of Microsoft's products there is, already. So I'm not really interested in another rundown.
When I talk to a critic who was also his competitor, I'm more interested in such a critic addressing the other side: why has he not crushed Microsoft with a superior product? Why has Microsoft won, despite all its faults?
You say that the industry would've been just fine without Bill Gates. In other words, the world didn't really need Bill Gates. If that's true, why did it rely on him so much? More importantly, why didn't the world rely on others, like yourself, just as much?
When I first read your response Nicky, I thought you were joking. Then the follow on material showed me you were serious, so I will deal with your opener later.
First, I must assert that you misquote me. I never said "his products have no value". Such an assertion is clearly untrue. The value of a piece of executable code is it's ability to satisfy some need, or set of needs, computer users may have. People who voluntarily pay their hard earned money for MSFT software clearly find value in it.
You then go on to assume I at some point I was in 'direct competition' with Bill Gates. That to is just not the case. Consumer software for personal computers never attracted my attention professionally. The 'tech revolution' was a candy store for me, and I 'competed' in multiple areas, all quite profitably. Before Mr. Gates came on the scene I had been assimilated by the 'military industrial complex' and before 'Windows' was a viable product, I was busy producing the code that allowed so-called 'smart bombs' to fly down the exhaust stack of a designated target. By the time I chose to abandon the MIC, and return to 'private industry', I chose the telecom industry for market trend reasons. Seven years before Gates and the MSFT crew discovered they needed to 'compete' relative to the internet, we built out the infrastructure the nascent internet needed to explode into public consciousness, why would I care to 'compete' with someone lagging my focus by a decade?
Again you assume I consider Mr. Gates my inferior. I do not. I consider him a younger contemporary in the computer business who happens to be very successful financially. Some of his friends I hold in high enough esteem to personally be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. My ONLY point is that from an O'ist ethical point of view Mr. Gates, does not, has not, and unfortunately may never, measure up to even the most modest of standards.
You noted my assertion the industry would have done fine without the Gates factor, and asked, why did it wind up using so much MSFT product (relying on him). Good question. In several posts I have alluded to the one stroke of brilliance that assured the success of MSFT, and that is Mr. Gates saw, understood, and figured out how to take advantage of a market phenomenon I call "The demand stickiness of familiarity in software". I use that phrase to denote the preference all computer users have for the software with which, they are familiar. Learning how to use new software in the twentieth century, was often a chore. That fact seriously skews the demand for any given software product among all those already familiar with it's behavior. Bill is the world champion at turning that concept into cash. I tip my hat.
Now for the think before you speak department:
You say, "I have heard every possible critique of Microsoft's products there is, already. So I'm not really interested in another rundown."
Oh, Really!?!
I offer civil conversation about facts and you reply in essence, 'don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up'. Did no one ever teach you the old saw about the similarity between a mind and a parachute? Both are ONLY useful when they are open.
Then you begin a sentence with, "If your ambition was to beat those who are your inferiors (as it should be)".
My my, enjoy playing the bully do you?
Frankly I have no such desire. My inferiors get along fine with a little help from me when I am so inclined, and the rest of the time they are pretty much on their own. When I compete it is largely in-class, and I have run in some impressive classes. Did not always win, but my losses were more instructive than the wins. And I always played by O'ist ethics.
-
Who *does* live up to Objectivist ideals these days? Bill Gates should not be condemned by Objectivists using the very industry he had such a huge hand in creating. That's absurd.
Good question. No one. The guys at SUN came as close as anyone I know of. But even there...
Your statement sounds reasonable, though I can imagine an O'ist who could object on moral grounds, but tolerate MSFT for pragmatic reasons.
I my self agree with you to the point, that I compute in a Microsoft free environment, and I tolerate the MSFT influence in the server space for similar pragmatic reasons. I do blacklist IIS servers as I become aware of them, however. This forum is hosted by 1&1 and I am familiar with their stack. They indulge MSFT centric customers as one must in that market, but their admins are talented at keeping objectionable MSFT behaviour in check.
-
I can't think of any "perfect" future capitalism in which things like Bill Gates wouldn't happen. That would be Capitalism the UNIMAGINABLE Ideal :-).
While any company with revenues north of a $billion these days has inevitably used the government in some form or another, MSFT had been pretty clean. There might be a 100 page debate somewhere on this site about the ideal IP laws and what that might have done to MSFT, but it's its certainly debatable.
Bill Gates might have been just about everything Howard Roark was not, but every possible free market one might ever imagine very much gives rise to him and his ilk.
Anyhow, my point about him being "unpleasant" was not about his personality (of which I haven't the faintest clue). What is unpleasant is the entire phenomenon of Bill Gates. We might wish that didn't happen in the same way we'd wish our dogs wouldn't slobber, but you take the bad with the good. Bill Gates is the bad.
Interesting thought, but I can imagine a "perfect" future capitalist that would not need to keep things like Bill Gates from happening. Such a "perfect" system would however, give victims of business malfeasance some hope of reasonable recourse for their injury.
I agree, strictly from the viewpoint of leveraging government power for profitability, MSFT never really tried that approach. Moreover the whole IP debate, does as you say, have a complexity that invites debate. Reasonable observers can and do have differing opinions. Additionally I would suggest that it would be hard to describe a market system that, a priori, tried to prevent the rise of unethical tradesmen, as free. Once unethical behavior is detected however, it behoves a moral system to offer recourse to the victims.
Where I would caution you is the blanket characterization of Mr. Gates as 'bad'. As with any individual whose total impact has been multiplied to such an enormous scale, both the good and the bad are amplified. We all have our virtues and our vices. Like you I have had periods where Mr. Gates vices gave me a really bad attitude toward him, but the damage is done, and I honestly think very little additional harm will be forthcoming from MSFT.
-
He built an entire industry almost singlehandedly with his own vision and acumen. I've read accounts of him being highly intelligent and shrewd in person. Most Objectivists correctly acknowledge those things while at the same time criticizing him for later betraying the principles which originally made him great.
May I suggest the industry he had such a powerful impact on would have done quite nicely without him. There were thousands of us laboring to bring compute power to the masses, and the one unique contribution of Mr Gates, while both brilliant and shrewd, did not 'define' the industry. I have never denigrated his intelligence, nor his business acumen, nor the power of the juggernaut of Redmond. I suggest ONLY that as an O'ist model he is lacking.
-
The "principles which made him great" was an absolute dedication to extreme, immediate pragmatism. In a young industry filled with visionaries who wanted to make great and interesting things while they made a lot of money, Bill Gates ran circles around them by focusing exclusively on the latter. Most people are proud of their own craft, and have pride in what they do. Some, like Gates, only have pride in how much money they make and see those others as easy fodder.
You can't be against defecation and still be in favor of life--it's a natural result of a body's function. In the same way you can't be against Bill Gates and everything he represents qua capitalism.
But his existence is unpleasant.
Bill Gates is NOT representative of Capitalism qua capitalism. He is representative of capitalism as practiced in the USA in the latter half of the twentieth century. Capitalism is an UNKNOWN ideal. The result of his existence is unpleasant, he himself is quite personable when he wants to be.
-
Have you created anything I'm using right now to talk to you?
I don't care about anything you mentioned. Not his intelligence, not his words, not his behavior, not his legacy or supposed moral stance, not the way he spends his money, not even his firm's "ascendancy in the American market place". Words are cheap, especially the kind that just repeat something someone else already said, his money is his to spend, his moral stance, short of being a criminal (which he isn't), is his business not mine.
The only thing I care about is what his firm created that I find of value. That's the reason why I regard him highly, nothing else. That's the only reason I have to care about any stranger.
Well Nicky, if you are using a Microsoft platform for this interchange then no, I have not 'created' anything you are using to talk right now. I am on a Unix platform. On this side I admin the whole stack, and do have bits of my own code enabling this conversation. But that is not the point.
We agree in essence then on everything, his money is his to use as he sees fit, and I have no call to nor do I desire to affect Mr Gates in any way. My only exception would be our evaluation of the value of the product(s) of Microsoft. I have no desire to ignite software religious wars on a philosophical forum, so suffice it to say my opinions of Microsoft derive from fifty plus years as a computer science professional. They are based in code review, objective performance tests, real world utilization, and dealing with the consequences of using Microsoft products in both large and small shops over a thirty year period. I stand by those opinions and am willing to discuss them only if you are willing to discuss facts and be civil.
My point here is simply that from an objectivist ethical point of view, Mr Gates and the company he founded, both leave a great deal to be desired should an O'ist want to use them as a model for behavior.
BTW perjury is criminal. Have you read the transcript of Mr Gates testimony during Microsoft v DOJ? Better yet have you watched the video?
-
I have long failed to understand why O'ists seem to have a tendency to laud Bill Gates. From my perspective as, an O'ist since 1961, a computer science professional since 1969, and the son of a capitalist who started ran and sold three businesses, I have always found him to be a poor example at best, and reprehensible at worst.
None of that is to imply the man is not highly intelligent. Nor do I fail to understand that he understood one key principle in economics of the software industry, both well enough, and far enough before anyone else, to assure his and his firm's ascendancy in the American market place.
However, his behavior, his words, and his legacy are all of one moral stance, a looter, not at all similar to a moral O'ist.
-
Yeah, I said it. I think irrationalism is crazy.
-
The OP reminds me of discussions of mental health I read in a Psyc course some time back. There was a distinction drawn between two basically different types of mental illness. Neurosis on the one hand, defined as perceiving reality reasonably well, but reacting to those perceptions in inappropriate ways. While the other, Psychosis, was defined as failing to perceive reality with consistency or failing to perceive reality accurately yet responding reasonably rationally to that which is perceived.
The approach one takes with people who make these outlandish (to an O'ist) assertions depends on your best judgment of which of these two categories best fits them. That said I would refer you to JASKN's warning above, mental illness can be very intractable. However in the GROSSEST of oversimplifications, comfort the neurotic and protect them from the people who abused them into this behaviour, and gently confront the behaviours that are self destructive first. Then for the psychotic, cajole them into believing you are an ally, then carefully present bifurcating choices where both alternatives are more realistic than their default position, until they loose/forget their way back to the psychotic state. Good luck.
-
Awww, come on guys. This kind of discussion goes with the turf in philosophical circles.
Witness:
If Hegel had written the whole of his logic and then said, in the preface or some other place, that it was merely an experiment in thought in which he had even begged the question in many places, then he would certainly have been the greatest thinker who had ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.
— Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 1844)
How is that for a 'citation'...
BTW RailRoad Man, does this quote give you another way to view Hume?
-
As I know almost nothing about this subject, I'm curious: what is the "objectivist" consensus on GW?
There is no consensus. The science is indeterminate.
-
Doubtful. It is not likely the author of Das Kapital would recant his life's work. He died in 1883, living in the industrial slums of London, the only place from which he was not expelled. Resulting largely to his choice of living in squalor, four of his seven children died before reaching adulthood. He lived by his principles, and his children died by them.
He did not recant, he just issued a loud 'You misunderstood'.
-
Please, tell me what is so ambiguous about my comment on "Man must live for the state?" I am Russian and fluent in Russian, and I was also born in the U.S.S.R. and know its history. I said only what I knew. Now, if you found a contradiction in my post, please show it. Also, I have not read Marx, but I really want to. The problem is that there is so much to read and learn and just not enough time. I still haven't finished reading all of Ayn Rand yet. Thank you for your recommendation, though. It's on my list now
Did Marx change his views at the end of his life?Ambiguous is the phrase 'the state'. Man must NOT live for any state but a rigorously constrained one. Your most common contradictions (more than I care to address) are conflations of concepts that do not easily mix. Yes Karl Marx's 1884 manuscript opens with a stinging indictment of his followers. He goes on to expose several misapplications of his methods. By the end I was sad for the man, both because he never finished the manuscript, and because he felt so misunderstood.
Your characterization of Objectivism as black&white is a misunderstanding as well. I see in Objectivists, a deep understanding of the shades of grey. It is a source of much discussion, the reason for this forum in fact. I like to say 'the devil is in the details'. However, we are trying to point out that we have some FUNDAMENTAL metaphysical premises, that we will NOT compromise. Stubbornly challenging those on this forum usually results in deterioration of civil discussion.
-
BkGrnd Protest
Family includes Jew, Cath, Protest, Buddhst, NewAge, plus a few Athest, Agnost, Nostic, some of which sort of overlap...
We do have lively arguments.
-
I'm confused again.
Confused and finding the majority of these posts rediculous, hypocritical, and completely ungenuine.It isn't possible to be religious and an Objectivist. It simply isn't possible.
Only those who answered Atheist could potentially be an Objectivist, currently less than 1 out of 4. Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who defined it as inherantely against the supernatural, including the belief that God exists. Therefore if you are not an Atheist, you cannot be an Objectivist, pure and simple.
Second, if you did believe in God, then you would have to conceed that the existence of God could place a requirement upon man to live for something other than himself, i.e. God. Certainly God's rational self-interest would be more important than our own rational self-interest since he would be the creator of the entire universe. His purposes might include caring about other servants of His and altruism would raise its ugly head. That concession would change and destroy so much of the assumptions of the Objectivist worldview as to cease to be Objectivist.
So for the bulk of you who claimed to be Objectivist and something other than Atheist, conceed that you are mistaken and can't be both.
OH NO, OP asked for Background NOT current status...
-
Sorry Skylab, but Ilya doesn't believe in identity.or definition.
So I see.
-
"Man must live for the state" is taken from We the Living. This is what Ayn Rand saw during the hard, anarchic transitional time when the U.S.S.R. was only forming. I remember that those posters in Russian actually said: "Ты должен жить для страны." This literally translates to "You should live for the country." So, should is hardened to must by Ayn Rand, and the state is misinterpreted by Objectivists to mean the government instead of the country.
As to "Man must live for himself" being a truism, that is exactly right. More than that, it was a covert (obvious) truism that was already meant by that statement "Man must live for the state" in its original meaning.
That, sir, is an excellent example of 'double-think'. You twist your own words, and have clearly never read Marx last manuscript.
-
Forget about Marxism. That integration will not work. What I am trying to integrate Objectivism with is Society. So far, I have no idea what the future global and unified society will be called. Let's just call it Society then with a capital letter. Socialism and Communism do not work and did not match Marxist theory of history. History worked out differently once we got to capitalism. What's next after capitalism - that's the new question.
Progress of sorts... Unfortunately we have not yet gotten to capitalism. It would be a great candidate for what is next, though the probability still seems low. Ilya, may I assume you have not ever read Marx's 1894 manuscript? This thread is frustrating to read. It sounds like a conversation between the architects of the Tower of Babel.
-
On another tangent: "Shadow Government" is an interesting concept that, as yet, has too many definitions to be useful in civil conversation. It can refer to anything from Russian Oligarchs, to the Tri-Lateral Commission, to 'the corporate elite', to an Hierarchy of Ancient Adepts. Please let us define our arbitrary groupings of players by their real properties, not by their presumed function.
Bill Gates becomes a Philanthropist
in Current Events
Posted
Do not mean to say that. I only demand value for value, McD does not make the cut for me, but thousands consume happily. Not an issue.
Precisely! That is why businesses who defraud the the less affluent are all the more heinous.