Paul Graham. Hero.
Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Let's call things and people the right names.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
231–240 of 286 posts
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excellent. That's a few down. I think the next one to focus on should be the Entertainment Software Association. It strikes me that, like the BSA, many of these companies would only have agreed to support some broad, generic, fight against piracy and not SOPA in particular. Let's put the pressure on them to withdraw their support. Also, the UFC might be a good target. I know Joe Rogan has spoken out against SOPA, so…
I have to wonder about the various state and local organizations on the list. Do mayors and state chief information officers really have a position on SOPA? Maybe the SOPA opposition lobbyists can reach out to these organizations and find the details of their "support", and whom these groups really represent. Then maybe tech industry types can reach into whatever state and local connections they have to have conversa…
Your best bet would probably be to get the unions to pull back support. But doing that will be hard.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Prior track record of what? God existing? Prior track record of his doing things in their life. My point wasn't the greek word, but that most people believe they have evidence of God's actions. I guess I may have overreached a bit, but I don't hear "just because" answers very often. > When they believe that they have "evidence" the answer to the question tends to be something along the lines of "I _know_ that god e…
> When they believe that they have "evidence" the answer to the question tends to be something along the lines of "I _know_ that god exists because...". Whether that's valid depends on what's in the ellipsis. Yes, it does, but I've never heard any filling-in of the ellipsis that suggests even the most remotely possible evidence for a virgin birth, resurrection, or the fact that some fatherly figure is watching over u…
If you haven't, I would recommend you read "A Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. He was a journalist and hardened atheist who came to believe in Jesus after interviewing dozens of people about historical evidence for the deity of Jesus, from a variety of angles.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally, one adopts a hypothesis specifically to prove it false, not because one is sure it is true. Even if you believe it before you run an experiment on it, you do so provisionally, without putting "faith" in it, because you know you might be forced to discard it. This is not the faith in science you are looking for.
I think that is from some unrealistic picture of a scientist that probably comes from a standardized public school science curriculum. It seems to be an "ideal" that no one lives up to, and so when otherwise-uneducated people meet real scientists who obviously don't live up to it, it probably gives "scientists" a bad name to them. This irritates me, so I shall try to state my view, which I think is a better vision. (…
Close enough to science for me. My only point to the GGP was that you don't really put any "faith" in your hypothesis until you've done some testing.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to wonder about the various state and local organizations on the list. Do mayors and state chief information officers really have a position on SOPA? Maybe the SOPA opposition lobbyists can reach out to these organizations and find the details of their "support", and whom these groups really represent. Then maybe tech industry types can reach into whatever state and local connections they have to have conversa…
Your best bet would probably be to get the unions to pull back support. But doing that will be hard.
Zero probability, for most of them, as they're employed by the movie industry. They're worried about erosion of their wage base, and (on this matter) their relationships with the studios.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#236GoDaddy no longer supports SOPA:
http://www.godaddy.com/newscenter/release-view.aspx?news_ite...
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#237" "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" " That is a brilliant point.
That's not really fair. The people who run corporations have a fiduciary responsibility. (There are of course caveats, and we can argue all day over whether or not SOPA is unconstitutional or otherwise illegal, but you get the point.) If you are a movie studio, SOPA is a great idea for your bottom line. I don't think it's fair to call everyone who is in favor of SOPA either evil or stupid, even if SOPA itself is both…
> fiduciary responsibility
"Fiduciary" derives from latin words meaning "faith" and "trust". You could reasonably rephrase it as "duty of good faith". It's just as vague as it sounds. It does not mean you have to do everything that's best for "the bottom line", either in the short or long term.
In fact, absent actions that amount to fraud or deception, or that clearly breach laws, bylaws, or contractual arrangements, it is virtually impossible for shareholders to sustain an action for breach of fiduciary duty.
Not supporting a bad law that is not in the best interests of the world is not even close to a breach of fiduciary duty as normally applies in a corporate context.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If a bunch of disciples of a religious figure claimed that he had risen from the dead, is it really the virtuous thing to accept these claims without any evidence?
No indeed, it wouldn't. But there is considerable evidence for the event, some would say overwhelming. There are multiple eyewitness accounts written by different people, sometimes using the same sources, sometimes different ones; disinterested Roman and Jewish historians make mention of it and hostile sceptics of the day mock it as offensive (which of course it is - and still is :)). At no point was this movement st…
Sorry, I was unclear. I was referring to the position of Thomas in this story, not asking the question of people now.
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When they believe that they have "evidence" the answer to the question tends to be something along the lines of "I _know_ that god exists because...". Whether that's valid depends on what's in the ellipsis. Yes, it does, but I've never heard any filling-in of the ellipsis that suggests even the most remotely possible evidence for a virgin birth, resurrection, or the fact that some fatherly figure is watching over u…
If you haven't, I would recommend you read "A Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. He was a journalist and hardened atheist who came to believe in Jesus after interviewing dozens of people about historical evidence for the deity of Jesus, from a variety of angles.
You best be joking...
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Christ
Or, more comprehensive and much more damming:
Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist? That's because the underlying assumptions are false. Being religious doesn't require one to be "clueless about rationality" and supporting SOPA doesn't requre the supporter to be clueless about technology -- they may as well hope to benefit from breaking the Internet. As every regulation (th…
Being religious doesn't require one to be "clueless about rationality" Absolutely correct. You don't have to be clueless about rationality to be religious; you can also explicitly reject rationality, even though you understand it. But if you don't reject it, then it's quite difficult to accept any of the Big Three religions and simultaneously convince yourself that you're embracing an evidence-based worldview. That's…
I've worked with brilliant and rational-when-it-comes-to-work researchers who happen to be sincerely religious.
I'd be more concerned with a scientist who happens to be convinced that he is destined to make great discoveries. (which, delusional or not, may inspire them to feats greater than otherwise). My concern would be for their intellectual honesty - the same concern caused by any strong religious or other ideological precommitment relevant to their work.