Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
On 7/17/2012 9:47 PM, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote: [Despite my better judgement I'm going to respond to this even though it is seriously off-topic.] in all likelihood, the topic will probably end pretty soon anyways. don't really know how much more can really be said on this particular subject anyways. but, yeah, probably this topic has gone on long enough. On 17/07/12 17:18, BGB wrote: an issue though is that society will not tend to see a person as they are as a person, but will rather tend to see a person in terms of a particular set of stereotypes. "Society" doesn't "see people as" anything. We do live in/with a culture where stereotyping is commonplace, but the metonymy of letting the society stand for the people in it is inappropriate here, because it is individual people who *choose* to see other people in terms of stereotypes, or choose not to do so. You're also way too pessimistic about the extent to which most reasonably well-educated people in practice permit cultural stereotypes to override independent thought. Most people are perfectly capable of recognizing stereotypes -- even if they sometimes need a little prompting -- and understanding what is wrong with them. a big factor here is how well one person knows another. stereotypes and generalizations are a much larger part of the interaction process when dealing with people who are either strangers or casual acquaintances. if the person is known by much more than a name and a face and a few other bits of general information, yes, then maybe they will take a little more time to be a little more understanding. I speak from experience: it is entirely possible to live your life in a way that is quite opposed to many of those cultural stereotypes that you've expressed concerning sexuality, gender expression, employment, reproductive choices, etc., and still be accepted as a matter of course by the vast majority of people. As for the people who don't accept that, *it's they're fault* that they don't get it. No excuses of the form "society made me think that way". I think it depends some on the cultural specifics as well, since how well something may go over may depend a lot on where a person is, and who they are interacting with. if a person is located somewhere where these things are fairly common and generally considered acceptable (for example: California), it may go over a lot easier with people than somewhere where it is less commonly accepted (for example: Arkansas or Alabama or similar). likewise, it may go over a bit easier with people who are generally more accepting of these forms of lifestyle (such as more non-religious / secular type people), than it will with people who are generally less accepting of these behaviors (say, people with a more conservative leaning). (I would prefer not go too much more into this, since yeah, here generally isn't really the place for all this.). ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
[Despite my better judgement I'm going to respond to this even though it is seriously off-topic.] On 17/07/12 17:18, BGB wrote: > an issue though is that society will not tend to see a person as they are as > a person, but > will rather tend to see a person in terms of a particular set of stereotypes. "Society" doesn't "see people as" anything. We do live in/with a culture where stereotyping is commonplace, but the metonymy of letting the society stand for the people in it is inappropriate here, because it is individual people who *choose* to see other people in terms of stereotypes, or choose not to do so. You're also way too pessimistic about the extent to which most reasonably well-educated people in practice permit cultural stereotypes to override independent thought. Most people are perfectly capable of recognizing stereotypes -- even if they sometimes need a little prompting -- and understanding what is wrong with them. I speak from experience: it is entirely possible to live your life in a way that is quite opposed to many of those cultural stereotypes that you've expressed concerning sexuality, gender expression, employment, reproductive choices, etc., and still be accepted as a matter of course by the vast majority of people. As for the people who don't accept that, *it's they're fault* that they don't get it. No excuses of the form "society made me think that way". -- David-Sarah Hopwood ⚥ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
BGB writes:
>> Well it's clear that it's not their best interest to do that: only about
>> 40% males reproduce in this setup.
>
> it is in the best interest of those who are successful.
>
> if a person works in their own best interests, it may benefit
> themselves, but this is not to say that it necessarily benefits
> everyone.
>
> I suspect though that the modern reproductive statistics are probably
> a bit better than this though, given that general survival and
> mate-finding are probably a bit more balanced in modern times (as well
> as most westernized societies holding negative views on things like
> polygamy, which were also a lot more common in past societies as well,
> ...).
I don't think so. It could change if parental genetic tests were done
systematically. On the other hand, in the USA a lot of black women
still have children without counting on a supporting father, so if
genetic tests were done systematically (with the removal of support of
the woman and child from the deceived husband), that would just
generalize the single-mother phenomenon to the whole society, I'm
afraid.
> I don't personally believe that the genders are all that different in
> terms of how they behave, nor necessarily in terms of relative
> ability, but may differ more in terms of what they look for, for
> example, due to things like societal expectations and similar.
Yes, they're nowdays fundamentally different, because of the selection
that has been made naturally, because of the differences between man and
woman.
> but, likely, societal expectations is the hard one.
> very possibly, much of the current media may actually serve to make
> this problem worse.
>> I learn programming languages basically by reading the reference, and by
>> exploring the construction of programs from the language rules.
>>
>
> this is more of an "advanced" strategy though, as-in, probably
> something used by someone generally already familiar with the general
> topic.
That's how I learned my first programming language and programming,
given that at the time there weren't any program to copy from! It was
even before programs for micro-computers were pulished in journals.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.
___
fonc mailing list
fonc@vpri.org
http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
On 7/17/2012 8:56 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: BGB writes: but you can't really afford a house without a job, and can't have a job without a car (so that the person can travel between their job and their house). Job is an invention of the Industrial era. AFAIK, our great great grand parents had houses. yes, but OTOH, they probably also didn't have things like utility bills and property tax. the only real way to eliminate some sort of need for income would involve also eliminating the need to pay bills and taxes. however, the big issue, is if this would be any better than, say, a free-market capitalist system, or vs, say, the current mixed-economy system. I don't really think it is about gender role or stereotypes, but rather it is more basic: people mostly operate in terms of the pursuit of their best personal interests. Ok. so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and will choose females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be faithful, would they make a good parent, ...). Well it's clear that it's not their best interest to do that: only about 40% males reproduce in this setup. it is in the best interest of those who are successful. if a person works in their own best interests, it may benefit themselves, but this is not to say that it necessarily benefits everyone. I suspect though that the modern reproductive statistics are probably a bit better than this though, given that general survival and mate-finding are probably a bit more balanced in modern times (as well as most westernized societies holding negative views on things like polygamy, which were also a lot more common in past societies as well, ...). in this case, then society works as a sort of sorting algorithm, with "better" mates generally ending up together (rich business man with trophy wife), and worse mates ending up together (poor looser with a promiscuous or otherwise undesirable wife). And this is also the problem, not only for persons, but for society: the sorting is done on criteria that are bad. Perhaps they were good to survive in the savanah, but they're clearly an impediment to develop a safe technological society. whether or not it is "good" or not is a separate issue, but this is largely how the society seems to work from what I can tell. similarly not everyone equal in terms of abilities, or of various factors of desirability, ... the result then is usually that people with higher desirability tend to end up together, and those with lower desirability tend to end up with whoever is left over (though, it seems to take a bit longer, as many people also tend to try to "aim high", and will often reject those of similar social standing). for example, there are also many females who basically end up remaining alone waiting for some "Mr. Right" to come along, but if the bar is set to high, no one will ever come along who is "good enough" for them. I don't personally believe that the genders are all that different in terms of how they behave, nor necessarily in terms of relative ability, but may differ more in terms of what they look for, for example, due to things like societal expectations and similar. but, likely, societal expectations is the hard one. very possibly, much of the current media may actually serve to make this problem worse. Well, perhaps. This is not my way to learn how to program (once really) or to learn a new programming language. dunno, I learned originally partly by hacking on pre-existing codebases, and by cobbling things together and seeing what all did and did not work (and was later partly followed by looking at code and writing functionally similar mock-ups, ...). some years later, I started writing a lot more of my own code, which largely displaced the use of cobbled-together code. from what I have seen in code written by others, this sort of cobbling seems to be a fairly common development process for newbies. I learn programming languages basically by reading the reference, and by exploring the construction of programs from the language rules. this is more of an "advanced" strategy though, as-in, probably something used by someone generally already familiar with the general topic. ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
BGB writes:
> likewise, many people who aren't really programmers, but are just
> trying to get something done, probably aren't really going to take a
> formal approach to learning programming, but are more likely going to
> try to find code fragments off the internet they can cobble together
> to make something that basically works.
There's a lot of literature explaining that human are naturally
programmers: we're all able to planify a process.
What we're not all capable of, is to give an obsessive attention to all
the details needed to planify a unforgiving computer process.
What we programmers can try to provide, is a forgiving computer system,
that people can program, but which is safe and smart enough to do it
right without the need of ultra-precise input.
There are already things like "programming" a robot by example, or
creating programs by giving to the system a natural language story.
> sometimes, it takes a while to really make the transition, from being
> someone who wrote a lot of what they had by cobbling and imitation, to
> being someone who really understands how it all actually works.
Right. Just like the general public wouldn't be able to build a car,
but can still use one.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.
___
fonc mailing list
fonc@vpri.org
http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
On 7/17/2012 11:12 AM, Loup Vaillant wrote: Pascal J. Bourguignon a écrit : BGB writes: dunno, I learned originally partly by hacking on pre-existing codebases, and by cobbling things together and seeing what all did and did not work (and was later partly followed by looking at code and writing functionally similar mock-ups, ...). some years later, I started writing a lot more of my own code, which largely displaced the use of cobbled-together code. from what I have seen in code written by others, this sort of cobbling seems to be a fairly common development process for newbies. I learn programming languages basically by reading the reference, and by exploring the construction of programs from the language rules. When I started learning programming on my TI82 palmtop in high school, I started by copying programs verbatim. Then, I gradually started to do more and more from scratch. Like BGB. But when I learn a new language now, I do read the reference (if any), and construct programs from the language rules. Like Pascal. Maybe there's two kinds of beginners: beginners in programming itself, and beginners in a programming language. yep. likewise, many people who aren't really programmers, but are just trying to get something done, probably aren't really going to take a formal approach to learning programming, but are more likely going to try to find code fragments off the internet they can cobble together to make something that basically works. sometimes, it takes a while to really make the transition, from being someone who wrote a lot of what they had by cobbling and imitation, to being someone who really understands how it all actually works. Loup. ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
On 7/17/2012 9:04 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: David-Sarah Hopwood writes: On 17/07/12 02:15, BGB wrote: so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and will choose females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be faithful, would they make a good parent, ...). meanwhile, females would judge a male based primarily on their income, possessions, assurance of continued support, ... not that it is necessarily that way, as roles could be reversed (the female holds a job), or mutual (both hold jobs). at least one person needs to hold a job though, and by default, this is the social role for a male (in the alternate case, usually the female is considerably older, which has a secondary limiting factor in that females have a viable reproductive span that is considerably shorter than that for males, meaning that the older-working-female scenario is much less likely to result in offspring, ...). in this case, then society works as a sort of sorting algorithm, with "better" mates generally ending up together (rich business man with trophy wife), and worse mates ending up together (poor looser with a promiscuous or otherwise undesirable wife). Way to go combining sexist, classist, ageist, heteronormative, cisnormative, ableist (re: fertility) and polyphobic (equating multiple partners with undesirability) assumptions, all in the space of four paragraphs. I'm not going to explain in detail why these are offensive assumptions, because that is not why I read a mailing list that is supposed to be about the "Fundamentals of New Computing". Please stick to that topic. It is, but it is the reality, and the reason of most of our problems too. And it's not by putting an onus on the expression of these choices that you will repress them: they come from the deepest, our genes and the genetic selection that has been applied on them for millena. My point here being that what's needed is a change in how selection of reproductive partners is done, and obviously, I'm not considering doing it based on money or political power. Of course, I have none of either :-) yeah. don't think that this is me saying that everything "should" operate this way, rather that, at least from my observations, this is largely how it does already. (whether it is good or bad then is a separate and independent issue). the issue with a person going outside the norm may not necessarily be that it is bad or wrong for them to do so, but that it may risk putting them at a social disadvantage. in the original context, it was in relation to a person trying to maximize their own pursuit of self-interest, which would tend to probably overlap somewhat with adherence to societal norms. granted, that is not to say, for example, that everything I do is socially advantageous: for example, being a programmer / "computer nerd" carries its own set of social stigmas and negative stereotypes (and in many ways I still hold minority views on things, ...). an issue though is that society will not tend to see a person as they are as a person, but will rather tend to see a person in terms of a particular set of stereotypes. And yes, it's perfectly on-topic, if you consider how science and technology developments are directed. Most of our computing technology has been created for war. yes. Or said otherwise, why do you think this kind of refundation project hasn't the same kind of resources allocated to the commercial or military projects? I am not entirely sure I understand the question here. if you mean, why don't people go and try to remake society in a different form? well, I guess that would be a hard one. about as soon as people start trying to push for any major social changes, there is likely to be a large amount of resistance and backlash. it is much like, if you have one person pushing for "progressive" ideals, you will end up with another pushing for "conservative" ideals, typically with relatively little net change. (so, sort of a societal equal-and-opposite effect). (by "progressive" and "conservative" here, I don't necessarily mean them exactly as they are used in current US politics, but more "in general"). there will be changes though in a direction where nearly everyone agrees that this is the direction they want to go, but people fighting or trying to impose their ideals on the other side is not really a good solution. people really don't like having their personal freedoms and choices being hindered, or having their personal ideals and values torn away simply because this is how someone else feels things "should" be (the problem is that "promoting" something for one person also tends to come at the cost of "imposing" it on someone else). a better question would be: what sort of things have come up where nearly everyone has agreed and ended up going along with it? people don't as often think as much about these ones, since the
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
Pascal J. Bourguignon a écrit : BGB writes: dunno, I learned originally partly by hacking on pre-existing codebases, and by cobbling things together and seeing what all did and did not work (and was later partly followed by looking at code and writing functionally similar mock-ups, ...). some years later, I started writing a lot more of my own code, which largely displaced the use of cobbled-together code. from what I have seen in code written by others, this sort of cobbling seems to be a fairly common development process for newbies. I learn programming languages basically by reading the reference, and by exploring the construction of programs from the language rules. When I started learning programming on my TI82 palmtop in high school, I started by copying programs verbatim. Then, I gradually started to do more and more from scratch. Like BGB. But when I learn a new language now, I do read the reference (if any), and construct programs from the language rules. Like Pascal. Maybe there's two kinds of beginners: beginners in programming itself, and beginners in a programming language. Loup. ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
David-Sarah Hopwood writes:
> On 17/07/12 02:15, BGB wrote:
>> so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money, ... and
>> will choose
>> females based mostly how useful they are to themselves (will they be
>> faithful, would they
>> make a good parent, ...).
>>
>> meanwhile, females would judge a male based primarily on their income,
>> possessions,
>> assurance of continued support, ...
>>
>> not that it is necessarily that way, as roles could be reversed (the female
>> holds a job),
>> or mutual (both hold jobs). at least one person needs to hold a job though,
>> and by
>> default, this is the social role for a male (in the alternate case, usually
>> the female is
>> considerably older, which has a secondary limiting factor in that females
>> have a viable
>> reproductive span that is considerably shorter than that for males, meaning
>> that the
>> older-working-female scenario is much less likely to result in offspring,
>> ...).
>>
>> in this case, then society works as a sort of sorting algorithm, with
>> "better" mates
>> generally ending up together (rich business man with trophy wife), and worse
>> mates ending
>> up together (poor looser with a promiscuous or otherwise undesirable wife).
>
> Way to go combining sexist, classist, ageist, heteronormative, cisnormative,
> ableist
> (re: fertility) and polyphobic (equating multiple partners with
> undesirability)
> assumptions, all in the space of four paragraphs. I'm not going to explain in
> detail
> why these are offensive assumptions, because that is not why I read a mailing
> list
> that is supposed to be about the "Fundamentals of New Computing". Please
> stick to
> that topic.
It is, but it is the reality, and the reason of most of our problems
too. And it's not by putting an onus on the expression of these choices
that you will repress them: they come from the deepest, our genes and
the genetic selection that has been applied on them for millena.
My point here being that what's needed is a change in how selection of
reproductive partners is done, and obviously, I'm not considering doing
it based on money or political power. Of course, I have none of either
:-)
And yes, it's perfectly on-topic, if you consider how science and
technology developments are directed. Most of our computing technology
has been created for war.
Or said otherwise, why do you think this kind of refundation project
hasn't the same kind of resources allocated to the commercial or
military projects?
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.
___
fonc mailing list
fonc@vpri.org
http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
BGB writes:
> but you can't really afford a house without a job, and can't have a
> job without a car (so that the person can travel between their job and
> their house).
Job is an invention of the Industrial era. AFAIK, our great great grand
parents had houses.
> I don't really think it is about gender role or stereotypes, but
> rather it is more basic:
> people mostly operate in terms of the pursuit of their best personal
> interests.
Ok.
> so, typically, males work towards having a job, getting lots money,
> ... and will choose females based mostly how useful they are to
> themselves (will they be faithful, would they make a good parent,
> ...).
Well it's clear that it's not their best interest to do that: only about
40% males reproduce in this setup.
> in this case, then society works as a sort of sorting algorithm, with
> "better" mates generally ending up together (rich business man with
> trophy wife), and worse mates ending up together (poor looser with a
> promiscuous or otherwise undesirable wife).
And this is also the problem, not only for persons, but for society: the
sorting is done on criteria that are bad. Perhaps they were good to
survive in the savanah, but they're clearly an impediment to develop a
safe technological society.
>> Well, perhaps. This is not my way to learn how to program (once really)
>> or to learn a new programming language.
>
> dunno, I learned originally partly by hacking on pre-existing
> codebases, and by cobbling things together and seeing what all did and
> did not work (and was later partly followed by looking at code and
> writing functionally similar mock-ups, ...).
>
> some years later, I started writing a lot more of my own code, which
> largely displaced the use of cobbled-together code.
>
> from what I have seen in code written by others, this sort of cobbling
> seems to be a fairly common development process for newbies.
I learn programming languages basically by reading the reference, and by
exploring the construction of programs from the language rules.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.
___
fonc mailing list
fonc@vpri.org
http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] Historical lessons to escape the current sorry state of personal computing?
BGB a écrit : people need to live their lives, and to do this, they need a job and money (and a house, car, ...). As individuals, in our current society, yes. We can strive for other solutions, however. A analogy with computing would be to say people need an http//html browser to search the Internet. Yes they do, but if we had chosen different standard (and the STEPS project here hinted at simpler and superior alternatives), then http//html would be ludicrous. I don't want to argue about the specifics of jobs, money, and society. Just pointing out that it can be useful to tell instrumental goals from fundamental ones. Get a job? Instrumental to get money, except if you enjoy it. Get money? Instrumental to represent the amount of wealth you "should" control. Having fun? This is one of the fundamental ones. Once a goal is identified as instrumental, giving it up becomes thinkable. It may still be a bad idea, but at least you expand your solution space. Loup. ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
