Linux-Advocacy Digest #974, Volume #28 Thu, 7 Sep 00 11:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: how large corporations test on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Stefaan A
Eeckels)
Re: [OT] Public v. Private Schools ("Stuart Fox")
Re: [OT] Public v. Private Schools ("Stuart Fox")
Re: ZDNet reviews W2K server; I think you'll be surprised.... ("Stuart Fox")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Crossposted-To:
comp.infosystems.gis,comp.infosystems.www.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: how large corporations test on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 16:34:09 +0200
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Phillip Lord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>>>>> "Stefaan" == Stefaan A Eeckels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> >> The twin studies that I have seen have never been terribly
> >> convincing. I will still with perhaps....
> Stefaan> They're not too obviously statistical nonsense as some of
> Stefaan> the other articles I read.
>
> I am sure that you know the history of twin studies however,
> from the early eugenicist origins onwards. I would want to read the
> literature very carefully before I accepted the results.
I know.
>
> >> Trisomies produce large scale pathological changes throughout
> >> the body. I am not sure that you can extrapolate from this to
> >> general human behaviour. Also its not clear why a behaviour
> >> results from the trisomy.
> Stefaan> My reasoning is as follows: 1. Trisomy is a genetic defect.
> Stefaan> 2. It causes a number of differences, both physical and in
> Stefaan> the behaviour. 3. These differences are sufficiently
> Stefaan> similar (even WRT behaviour) between trisomiacs to suggest
> Stefaan> that the genetic defect is a direct cause for the observed
> Stefaan> behaviour. Thus there seems to be prima facie evidence
> Stefaan> that specific genetic differences can cause specific
> Stefaan> behaviour differences, obviously moderated by the other
> Stefaan> factors affecting behaviour.
>
> There is only one common trisomy, namely Downs. As it produces
> mental retardation which causes most of the behavioural
> alterations. There are two other trisomies (16 and 12 I think, but
> don't quote me!) which occur, although much less commonly than
> Downs. [Actually its seems likely that all the possible trisomies
> occur, but only these three produce live births].
IIRC, two out of every three fertilizations never implant.
> Interestingly both
> of these conditions produce a syndrome which is remarkably like a
> severe form of Downs, despite the obvious point that the involve none
> of the same genes. Which is kind of my point. The changes that we see
> are the result of a large scale disturbance rather than a specific
> change resulting in behavioural changes.
We've strayed far from the original these, which was that
genes "program" humans to be selfless. Thinking a bit more
about that, I stumbled on a paper by Trivers ("The evolution
of reciprocal atruism", Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57),
which Richard might be interested in.
>
> Stefaan> Obviously not. We don't even know if there is a gene
> Stefaan> (combination) directly responsible for criminal behaviour,
> Stefaan> and I don't believe it would matter if there were. It might
> Stefaan> well be (add salt as required) that there is a gene
> Stefaan> favouring foul language, but unless one is afflicted with
> Stefaan> Turret's, having a more pronounced tendency towards using
> Stefaan> foul langauge simply requires a bit more self control.
>
> In both of these cases if we posit a gene for criminal
> behaviour, we have to accept that criminality is defined by the
> society.
It's obvious that at all moments of history, a number of people
do not behave according to the rules of the family/community/
society, whatever these rules might be. Not all of them are
benevolent reformers. Chimps also know rogue males, so I guess
that a tendency not to play by the rules is probably genetically
determined (and to a degree beneficial :-).
> There was a great program on the radio recently about people
> with disabilities. It consisted of a series of one to one interviews
> with people who had some disability and how they had coped with it (or
> not coped with it). The last one of the series was the most
> fascinating. They interviewed a woman who outwardly was black, despite
> having white parents (they did tests and they really were her
> parents). But being black is not a disability surely? The problem was
> that her parents were Afrikaaner, and apartheid was in full swing. Her
> skin colour may have been due to a genetic mutation, but it was
> society which turned it into a disability. It was a recurrent theme
> throughout the program. Societies attitudes are often more of a
> barrier to a wheelchair, than a flight of stairs.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Having lived in South Africa
myself, I can imagine that in certain sections of the population
this would be a major problem.
> >> So for instance we can ask "how much of the variability in the
> >> height of the population is due to genetic variation?". Sensible
> >> question. However "how much of a person's height is caused by the
> >> genes and how much by the environment", is just
> >> meaningless. Without their genes a person has no height, and
> >> without their environment they have no height.
> Stefaan> We know that the height of a person is determined by the
> Stefaan> genes, and can be influenced by the ennvironment.
>
> We know that the some of the variation in height is
> genetically determined. Different thing.
You bring in populations again. I'm talking about individuals.
I'm saying genes encode a person's tallness (sic) potential
is genetically determined, as is strenght, or endurance.
There's no way nutrition, training and prayers can
turn a burly sprinter into a long-distance runner.
> Stefaan> In other words, a supportive environment will allow the
> Stefaan> potential to be fully realized, etc.
>
> This is wrong. The genes do not provide a potential beyond
> which the individual can not go.
I think the pygmies will disagree.
> Again "how much of a persons height
> is genetically determined" is not a meaningful question.
Only to the point that we cannot give an answer. Nonetheless,
this does not mean that tall parents don't have taller children than
not-so-tall parents, even if both families get equal nourishment.
> Stefaan> I don't want to be rude, but your second question is just
> Stefaan> silly. A human 6 feet tall could be the result of a genetic
> Stefaan> disposition to average size maximized by an excellent
> Stefaan> environment, or a giant stunted by famine. But this does
> Stefaan> not mean that tallness is not encoded in the genes.
>
> No my second question is not silly its meaningless as I said
> in that paragraph. Its the question that you seem to be asking which
> is why I made it explicit.
Only I did not ask that question. I mainly noticed that genes
encode tendencies towards certain behaviour, and not force
creatures to behave in a particular way. Given two identical
sets of circumstances, two different creatures do not necessarily
behave in the same way.
> >> No its very very important why we prefer some people to
> >> others. I have heard enumerable bigots justify their position by
> >> resort to the same sort of inalienable biology that you are
> >> using. "Its just nature that we hate blacks and gays". I know
> >> that you are not doing this, but this is where I think your
> >> reasoning leads.
> Stefaan> You cannot wish away reality because you don't like
> Stefaan> it.
>
>
> We don't know reality. You can make judgements from the
> basis of your own society and define them as reality all you like, but
> that does not make them so.
But ignoring human behaviour that occurs consistently in all
societies because it leads to a conclusion you don't like is
not very productive either.
> Stefaan> When you ask your toddler why it doesn't want to play with
> Stefaan> the child of your best friend, it'll reply "because I don't
> Stefaan> like him".
>
> But they will rarely answer "I don't like him because he is
> black", or "he is the wrong social class". These things are taught to
> children at an early age, they are not inborn.
But that's not the point! What is important is that even without
a (n obvious) reason, children do classify people. Later, they'll
find _any_ reason not to like certain others (and given a different
education, they might even have like those they now dislike), but
they will like certain people, and dislike others.
Look at Northern Ireland: Protestants vs Catholics. Look at
South Africa (before 1991): no white cared a hoot about you being
protestant or catholic or mormon, as long as you weren't black,
you were white. The lines of demarcation differ, but we draw lines.
And if there's no genuine reason, we'll invent one (like Man City
and Man United).
> I would like to see a better society, and a classless society
> and I think that its possible. This does not mean that everyone will
> go around with spreading peace and love, being nice to everyone
> else. Some people will still hate each other. Is this not obvious? It
> is the structured society where the few have enormous power over the
> majority that is the problem, and not the fact that some people do not
> like some others.
And I think that the dream of a classless society is just that,
a dream. All societies we've ever studied have some form of
decision making hierarchies (as I said, even the !Kung San have).
A classless society will not by magic make people stop making
their own little classes of people, or stop them wanting to leave
their possessions to their children. What we can try to do, as,
unlike our cousins the chimps, we're less at the mercy of our
nature, compensate as society for the less desirable behaviour
we carry in ourselves.
Saying that society is responsible is a cop-out. We, all humans,
are responsible. We should not, and cannot wait for someone or
something to change the world for us, we need to do it ourselves,
all of us, and we need to start _now_.
> Stefaan> It would seem to me that any group of people would,
> Stefaan> whatever the circumstances, quickly adopt a hierarchical
> Stefaan> structure. In effect, even the !Kung San have a
> Stefaan> decision-making hierarchy in their groups.
>
> There have been many societies in the past, and there will be
> many in the future. They have a whole number of different ways of
> making decisions. The one that we have accepted is that those with
> wealth get to make all the decisions, which includes who to dispense
> resources. Obviously this includes ensuring that they remain wealthy.
I think our current approach (to let the wealthy and the powerful
play economic games and cushion the majority from the worst effects
of their antics) is vastly superior to the model where they played
war games with the majority in the role of cannon fodder.
This is not to say there's not a long way to go.
>
> I think that it is possible for a society based around a
> democracy is possible. We have made some steps towards it in the
> past. It is possible that we can make more steps towards it in the
> future.
Amen to that.
Thanks for listening.
--
Stefaan
--
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
------------------------------
From: "Stuart Fox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Public v. Private Schools
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 15:51:04 +0100
"Joe R." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Aaron R. Kulkis"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >
> > It is the HIGHT OF ARROGANCE to consider that man has even a noticable
> > impact on climate,
>
> And the height of lunacy to refuse to consider it.
>
Joe, I think you may be on to something here...
------------------------------
From: "Stuart Fox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Public v. Private Schools
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 16:00:41 +0100
"Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> It is the HIGHT OF ARROGANCE to consider that man has even a noticable
> impact on climate,
It is the height of arrogance to consider that we don't. It is exactly this
arrogance that means we have such a problem with pollution now.
------------------------------
From: "Stuart Fox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: ZDNet reviews W2K server; I think you'll be surprised....
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 16:05:20 +0100
"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Said Stuart Fox in alt.destroy.microsoft;
> >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >> Said Stuart Fox in alt.destroy.microsoft;
> >>
> >> What you didn't do was explain why you would need to do that at all to
> >> begin with. Why aren't you just using the existing DNS
> >> infrastructure?
> >>
> >The second post or so quoted from the article where they mentioned they
> >didn't want you screwing with the existing DNS infrastructure.
>
> No, I meant, why are you *using* the existing DNS infrastructure,
> instead of *screwing* with it? IOW, what is the reason for using an
> illegal name, for example?
Make up your mind. First you ask why I aren't using it, then you ask why I
am using it?
>
> [...]
> >My recommendation would change depending on the circumstances.
>
> Yes, we know how to cover our ass, too. We also know how to make
> recommendations that aren't stupid. Particularly in the last few years,
> we've learned that recommending that, regardless of the circumstances,
> it is best to avoid Microsoft crap, is the honest thing to do.
Feeling schizophrenic today Max? We? Have you got a mouse in your pocket?
>
> [...]
> >Indeed. There's one caveat, which I wasn't aware of until today
> >(thanks Craig) that you have to turn off invalid host name checking in
> >BIND, as the AD DNS entries comply to a new RFC than the BIND DNS does
> >(specifically - it uses the "_" character - not allowed in the old RFC,
> >and binary character is allowed in the new RFC. RFC numbers are in
> >another post, I'm away from my desk and can't be bothered looking them
> >up again.)
>
> I've posted on another thread why this argument seems entirely
> fallacious. This 'new RFC' is, to begin with, only a proposed standard,
> and considering it was published in 1997, it doesn't seem to be 'gaining
> support'. Most of the DNS world is content to be a name resolution
> service, it seems, and most of the clarifications it makes are geared
> towards alternative uses of the DNS protocol. This would include, of
> course, such things as Active Directory. Making it all the more odd
> that Microsoft would choose an illegal convention, at least according to
> the vast number of implementations, if not an explicit restriction in
> the RFC. This 'new RFC' does not remove any prohibition against using
> an underscore at all. It does not address that issue, noting merely
> that a hostname is a string of alphanumeric characters. I'm not at all
> sure where using the underscore at all, or in the first character, is
> forbidden, though I've spent a few minutes try to track it down
> somewhere.
>
> "Node labels which use
> special characters, leading digits, etc., are likely to break older
> software which depends on more restrictive choices."
>
> That text occurred in RFC 1034, and the following in RFC 952:
>
> 1. A "name" (Net, Host, Gateway, or Domain name) is a text string up
> to 24 characters drawn from the alphabet (A-Z), digits (0-9), minus
> sign (-), and period (.).
>
> It is apparent that the use of the underscore as a leading character, or
> any character, does not break DNS itself at all, as DNS is a 'general
> database', not just a hostname resolution system.
It is apparent that the use of the underscore is not permitted in *any*
place in a hostname.
Which is the point of the updated RFC, to permit *any* character to be used
as part of a service locator record.
"Occasionally it is assumed that the Domain Name System serves only
the purpose of mapping Internet host names to data, and mapping
Internet addresses to host names. This is not correct, the DNS is a
general (if somewhat limited) hierarchical database, and can store
almost any kind of data, for almost any purpose."
i.e no longer just hostnames.
" The DNS itself places only one restriction on the particular labels
that can be used to identify resource records. That one restriction
relates to the length of the label and the full name. The length of
any one label is limited to between 1 and 63 octets. A full domain
name is limited to 255 octets (including the separators). The zero
length full name is defined as representing the root of the DNS tree,
and is typically written and displayed as ".". Those restrictions
aside, any binary string whatever can be used as the label of any
resource record."
>Still the use of DNS
> which Microsoft implements with AD is, in fact, to provide hostname
> resolution and other related services; they are not implementing AD *on*
> DNS, but using it as a locator system. The vagueness of whether DNS
> allows underscores, or hostnames allow underscores, are two different
> things, but the end result is the same.
A locator system - which is exactly what DNS is designed for yes?
>
> A) Microsoft is practicing purposeful interoperability, again
Debatable. Why they chose to use _ldap_ instead of just ldap (or even
msldap) is a bit of a mystery to me, perhaps to ensure that there would be
no possible conflict with valid hostnames, who knows.
> B) Stuart Fox is making assumptions about Internet standards
I haven't assumed anything.
>
> [...]
> >> It would still make perfect sense to implement a sub-domain, as you
> >> indicated, as that will further minimize the damage that would/will
> >> occur when AD starts 'dynamically' updating things and then starts
> >> failing rather rudely and screwing up the network. That would be
> >> typical behavior for one of these anti-competitive little jobbies.
> >> Microsoft doesn't seem interested in building stuff that works; just
> >> stuff that sells. When you're a monopoly, that's all you need.
> >>
> >They did it before they were a monopoly, and it still sold. Guess
> >consumers just aren't that smart.
>
> Your blatant insult to all Microsoft customers (who, I'd have to agree,
> deserve it at this point) aside, Microsoft has never worried about
> customers, only market share. They have *always* monopolized, since
> their very first day in business. Is it any wonder that their modern
> software is just such utterly amazingly bad crap?
>
Explain to me exactly how you can monopolize without, um, being a monopoly?
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.advocacy) via:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
******************************
