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John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

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Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#271

Post by true_religion »

ISL wrote: post #193
galacticpony wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What later changed my mind was the realization that our society is a human one, and that humanity has a huge spectrum of experience. A group of physicists may not understand something about the world that others do. Furthermore, any select group of citizens will differ in belief somewhat from the interests of society at large." Why the hell would that realization change your mind? For society at large, that "huge sp…

As an example for the first point: Fewer-than-average professional scientists have known the desperation of poverty nor the devastation wrought by broken homes, disability, or crimes of passion. Scientists may be somewhat better prepared to find facts in a case, but may have diminished sensitivity to both the motivation for a crime and for the impact of a verdict. An educated, reasoning, and principled jury pool shou…

True but its' a jury of your peers. If you are an impoverished individual who only took to crime to feed your family, then a jury of your peers would be people from your neighborhood who are similarly poor.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#272

Post by true_religion »

notahacker wrote: post #132
afthonos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole (original) point though. Historically, people would be taken away from people who had known them all their lives, be accused of something fantastical, and be condemned on the strength of he-said, she-said. In the specific case of the USA, a big complaint of colonists is that they would be whisked back to England for trial ("For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transpor…

Historically, English juries have ranged from 12 people selected by the defendant to swear his innocence to 12 people claiming to have knowledge of the crime charged with investigating it. There's a reason that we've abandoned the pretence that preconceived opinions about a person's likelihood of committing the crime (and significant potential to gain or lose from returning a particular verdict) are an improvement in…

> There's a reason that we've abandoned the pretence that preconceived opinions about a person's likelihood of committing the crime

What is the reason?

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#273

Post by vacri »

xamuel wrote: post #142
ISL wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once espoused a similar opinion, but have since changed my mind. I'm a physicist, and once expressed to a judge I had met on the trail that I wished I could be judged by my academic peers. It was my belief that they would be more receptive to logical argument, understanding in their analysis, and more committed to fundamental principles. The judge was visibly surprised, but said little. What later changed my mind w…

>The judge was visibly surprised I would be too. What you said is rather arrogant. If you had based it on their having specific physics knowledge, that would be one thing. But to say that logic and reasoning is the exclusive realm of academia---that's very insulting to a lot of people.

> But to say that logic and reasoning is the exclusive realm of academia

How does "more receptive to logical argument, understanding in their analysis, and more committed to fundamental principles" transmutate into "exclusive realm"?

Like it or not, academics are better at critical thinking than others. Not perfect, but better. It's something they practice frequently in the course of their careers. Being insulted by that is like being insulted because someone says that mechanics are better at manipulating components than others.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#274

Post by vacri »

arethuza wrote: post #166
justinlaster wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insulting. But doesn't make it any less true or false. To presume that your average joe has bothered to play in the realm of academic, diligent logic and reason is a mistake. I am not saying you need to go into a university, I'm not claiming a piece of paper will lend you credibility in this regard. It's about the time and effort that people spend practicing these subjects. How many people do you know outside of STEM…

Do we have evidence that STEMers are paragons of logical reasonable minded virtue outside of their particular domains?

'Perfect' is the enemy of 'good'. Why does someone have to be a paragon to be considered better at the given task?

My friend is a foodie, but isn't a michelin-starred chef; does that mean that her cooking abilities and mine (= read instructions on packet) are equivalent?

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#275

Post by vacri »

wfo wrote: post #261
justinlaster wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insulting. But doesn't make it any less true or false. To presume that your average joe has bothered to play in the realm of academic, diligent logic and reason is a mistake. I am not saying you need to go into a university, I'm not claiming a piece of paper will lend you credibility in this regard. It's about the time and effort that people spend practicing these subjects. How many people do you know outside of STEM…

I've seen a lot of STEM people go on thinking they are kings of logic, reason, even correct thought. All the others in the world are lesser beings, humanities scum who don't understand what /reason/ is, or anything about SCIENCE. I hope your degree in the arts was good career-prep for the rest of your life preparing coffee for me and my fellow engineers, peasant! Then they write books like this https://en.wikipedia.o…

Quite a chip on your shoulder there. And the irony is that you ping others for deciding who is the king of correct thought, while kingmaking yourself.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#276

Post by cdevs »

I'm still surprised Facebook still has Facebook.com/somescript.php style links unless it's not as simple as it looks in the url. I know there's about 4 layers of loadbalance/cache and layers of that in data centers but any idea about the framework or code design?

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#277

Post by dilemma »

justinlaster wrote: post #154
xamuel wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The judge was visibly surprised I would be too. What you said is rather arrogant. If you had based it on their having specific physics knowledge, that would be one thing. But to say that logic and reasoning is the exclusive realm of academia---that's very insulting to a lot of people.

Insulting. But doesn't make it any less true or false. To presume that your average joe has bothered to play in the realm of academic, diligent logic and reason is a mistake. I am not saying you need to go into a university, I'm not claiming a piece of paper will lend you credibility in this regard. It's about the time and effort that people spend practicing these subjects. How many people do you know outside of STEM…

>But doesn't make it any less true or false. To presume that your average joe has bothered to play in the realm of academic, diligent logic and reason is a mistake.

To presume that your average academic has is likewise a mistake.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#278

Post by njharman »

addisonj wrote: post #10

I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…

Peers doesn't mean people "like" you, with your same knowledge. It means people with the same level of authority as you, which these days is none at all. Members of your society with no vested interests other than justice.

It means you aren't judged by the police, the judge, other parts of government, etc.

It's not perfect, probably just the least imperfect option.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#279

Post by njharman »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #265
794CD01 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's more than Zenimax owns not only the code Carmack wrote while he was there, but also the design on which that code was based. If there were literal design documents written up, I think we would all agree that is clearly true. When the designs are all in one person's head, it becomes gray enough to take to court.

Only the verbatim design documents are copyrighted. The ideas in them are protected as free speech.

Things don't need to be "protected" to be free. Free is the natural legal state. There has to be laws passed to grant monopolies. Hence why copyright, patent, etc are laws.

And "ideas" aren't a protected form of free speech.

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