Re: Insurrectionist covers
--- Justin Guyett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2004-12-11T08:10:27-0500, Steve Thompson wrote: [snip] This is what happens when one picks up ideas from people who present them second-hand (or at even greater distances from their origin) and who do not make proper footnotes. That's just a symptom of the problem that there's no clear line past which ideas must be cited. How infrequently do you have to see an idea in print, and how novel must it be, before a citation is appropriate? Depends, I suppose, on a number of factors. Ideas are a continuum. Plagiarism is an artificial notion constructed as a result of the need to measure individuals' progress in higher education, as well as to protect intellectual property (which didn't really exist before the invention of the printing press). People used to have scribes copy books. They were treated as tomes of knowledge, not as property. Now that they are property, people have more books than ever before, and are reading them less carefully than ever before. Well, previously there was more importance put towards knowledge, and less on making money with same. Today the emphasis is somewhat different. Even Dawkins and Hobbes picked up ideas and used them without explicit citation. Hobbes didn't arrive at his conception of the State of Nature in a void. He got those ideas in reaction against Greek history, Descartes, and several other people. Everybody does that, or at least those who create knowledge either as a process of study and synthesis, or as a result of original research. Some ideas are prevalent to the extent that it is obvious as to their origin. Ideally, someone who presents an idea as his or her own will take some pains to indicate the fact, and will distinguish their sources by way of appropriate references. Which brings up an interesting thought relating to entropy. Does it matter whether a prior author breaks up a subject into N pieces, proving N-1 pieces unworkable but leaving the last unaddressed? Someone who Now you're talking about SLAC. takes those ideas and writes a defense of the last piece might be copying the prior author's ideas, even though they were not written anywhere. Intellectual property and ideas are often traceable directly, but sometimes they are not. Requiring citations for ideas often results in incorrect citations or citations to secondary or tertiary (or worse) sources. Theft of IP is a complicated endeavour these days. Hijacking that thought a bit, lack of citations is one of my pet peeves. Me too. Nobody makes proper footnotes or citations these days; it's particularly noticeable in quote collections. There are fake quotes from the founders floating around, as well as fake quotes from Marcus Aurelius (Times are bad; children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.) as well as from all sorts of other historical figures. Opinion: It seems there is a new trend towards guild-like protection of scientific and scientific-like diciplines. People who like the idea of guilds are working towards making participation contingent upon membership. Membership may eventually only be granted to individuals who submit to arbitrary rules. And note that I am not referring to ethical restrictions in this instance. Ethics -- good ones that dicate a minimum of racism and like discrimination, for instance -- are becoming somehwat rare. Regards, Steve __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Re: Insurrectionist covers
--- R.W. (Bob) Erickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Thompson wrote: [take back the night] Yep, the state fights to preserve its life while the people suffer their own. The mistake of top down thinking lies in the inability to really model large populations with rules, too much of the action happens at the fine grained level of every day staying alive. Actually, there's a false dichotomy there, but the misconception is so common that nobody notices it. When change comes, it will happen as the cummulative effects of millions of stuborn folk who subvert excessive authourity, 'cause they need to. Perhaps not. It may be that enough people are not too inconvenienced by the way things are today (and tomorrow). Only people on the margins will be affected in that scenario, which is largely insignificant to the perpetuation of the corrupt state. Right? As the state tries to squeeze more gold out of the untaxed ecconomy ordinary people will swarm to new work-arounds And so it goes. --bob cpunks write scripts And code. Can't forget the code. Regards, Steve __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Insurrectionist covers
Steve Thompson wrote: --- R.W. (Bob) Erickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Thompson wrote: [assholes] You tell them, Steve I believe I just did. Insanity is a great cover for an insurectionist! I suppose it could be, although I am give to belive that residents of the White Room Hotel may only carry out insurection in the program room, and even then only while under direct adult supervision. I have been told that this makes the task somewhat more difficult, what with the sometimes necessity of colouring outside the lines on the page (so to speak). Regards, Steve __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca Yes, you have a point there.I guess a better cover would be as local coordinator of Neighborhood Watch --bob
Re: Insurrectionist covers
--- Justin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2004-12-10T15:50:22-0500, Steve Thompson wrote: [snip] state's personality, the state has the right, nay, obligation to preserve its identity unchanged. (Isn't this pretty much polysci 101 material?) Not typically. The idea that the state has its own identity is obvious, because it has a name -- the state. It is clearly an atomic entity, in the same sense as a beehive or ant colony (to borrow unapologetically from R. Dawkins). However, discussion of the state as an singular entity that acts to preserve itself is typically delayed until study of Leviathan. Then it's expanded when studying Kant's theory of International Relations. This is what happens when one picks up ideas from people who present them second-hand (or at even greater distances from their origin) and who do not make proper footnotes. Those are typically 2nd-year courses, at a minimum. IR is typically 3rd or 4th year, but Leviathan is discussed in any number of classes, just not polysci 101. My bad. Regards, Steve __ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
Re: Insurrectionist covers
On 2004-12-10T15:50:22-0500, Steve Thompson wrote: --- R.W. (Bob) Erickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Thompson wrote: --- R.W. (Bob) Erickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [Colouring outside the lines] Yes, you have a point there.I guess a better cover would be as local coordinator of Neighborhood Watch c.f. Take back the night, et. cetera. (And put it where?) Anyhow, isn't insurrection illegal or something? ISTR reading about the natural right of the corrupt state to exist unconditionally, and it's obligation to crush any question of change for any reason. The structure of the state in fact defines its identity as a 'person'; and since changeing the state structure could be viewed as the murder of the state's personality, the state has the right, nay, obligation to preserve its identity unchanged. (Isn't this pretty much polysci 101 material?) Not typically. The idea that the state has its own identity is obvious, because it has a name -- the state. It is clearly an atomic entity, in the same sense as a beehive or ant colony (to borrow unapologetically from R. Dawkins). However, discussion of the state as an singular entity that acts to preserve itself is typically delayed until study of Leviathan. Then it's expanded when studying Kant's theory of International Relations. Those are typically 2nd-year courses, at a minimum. IR is typically 3rd or 4th year, but Leviathan is discussed in any number of classes, just not polysci 101.