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The Unix Philosophy

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Re: The Unix Philosophy

#71

Post by dredmorbius »

philh wrote: post #66
dredmorbius wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESR's views particularly on guns, libertarian economics and politics, and AGW, all present pretty standard cases of assuming a frame and fitting all data to that frame. Chopping, discarding, and/or fabricating data as necessary to do so. That actually directly calls into question engineering validity, as solid engineering is solidly based in reality and a realistic interpretation of facts. Also the ability to discard…

> ESR's political views call much of his work into question. Presumably this question, whatever it is, can be answered by looking at his work. Do you think ESR's technical work and technical writings fail to stand up to scrutiny?

It definitely gives me pause. ESR clearly doesn't know when he's out of his depth (classic Dunning-Krueger).

I'm not enough of a programmer to judge his programming texts, though I am enough of a sysamdin to find his Unixy sysadminish stuff generally valid.

I've found CatB itself aging poorly and question a number of the assumptions behind it, particularly as concerns anthropology. It seems shaky. Though I think the general principles behind Free Software and the open source model have their merits. Just, possibly, not quite those ESR describes.

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#72

Post by harkyns_castle »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #60
harkyns_castle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a surprise to me, I hadn't heard any of that. Not that I've followed things that closely. What I found so far is [1], in which he seems to just be doing a bit of a "show me the data" thing wrt global warming (its fairly old I guess in defense). In [2] he's definitely saying IQ is race-related, and gender related to a lesser extent, in my quick readings. I quite like that he doesn't mince his words, sugar coat…

Regarding [2]. So I guess this quote is the problem: > And the part that, if you are a decent human being and not a racist bigot, you have been dreading: American blacks average a standard deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85. [...] And yes, it’s genetic; g seems to be about 85% heritable, and recent studies of effects like regression towards the mean suggest strongly that most of the heritability i…

I think the problem is, its a bit more complicated than that.

There are a myriad of factors that might influence that IQ score, and I haven't looked at the studies. Lack of wealth/opportunity I think is definitely a factor in the healthy development of the grey matter, as is access to good education.

Long/short, not sure. I'd be surprised if the colour of your skin objectively made a difference in IQ. Same with gender. Though, if the latter is true, I would probably use it with great exuberance on certain people I know e.g. my ex.

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#73

Post by cousin_it »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #60
harkyns_castle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a surprise to me, I hadn't heard any of that. Not that I've followed things that closely. What I found so far is [1], in which he seems to just be doing a bit of a "show me the data" thing wrt global warming (its fairly old I guess in defense). In [2] he's definitely saying IQ is race-related, and gender related to a lesser extent, in my quick readings. I quite like that he doesn't mince his words, sugar coat…

Regarding [2]. So I guess this quote is the problem: > And the part that, if you are a decent human being and not a racist bigot, you have been dreading: American blacks average a standard deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85. [...] And yes, it’s genetic; g seems to be about 85% heritable, and recent studies of effects like regression towards the mean suggest strongly that most of the heritability i…

I guess everyone and every group finds certain truths uncomfortable. It's especially sad that the theory of evolution seems to make literally everyone uncomfortable.

"Of course humans and chimps have a common ancestor! We have looked at the genetic code, and found that more than 95% is shared. Give up, it's over." The right will hate you for saying that.

"Of course there is inherited variation in intelligence, no matter how you define it! Otherwise evolution, in particular evolution of intelligence, could not possibly work. Give up, it's over." The left will hate you for saying that.

"Of course our moral intuitions come from game theory, not apriori reasoning!" And now everyone hates you, both the left and the right.

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#74

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #60
harkyns_castle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a surprise to me, I hadn't heard any of that. Not that I've followed things that closely. What I found so far is [1], in which he seems to just be doing a bit of a "show me the data" thing wrt global warming (its fairly old I guess in defense). In [2] he's definitely saying IQ is race-related, and gender related to a lesser extent, in my quick readings. I quite like that he doesn't mince his words, sugar coat…

Regarding [2]. So I guess this quote is the problem: > And the part that, if you are a decent human being and not a racist bigot, you have been dreading: American blacks average a standard deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85. [...] And yes, it’s genetic; g seems to be about 85% heritable, and recent studies of effects like regression towards the mean suggest strongly that most of the heritability i…

"If it is factually true it's disingenuous to label him as a racist."

Not true. Something can be factually true but uninteresting or of no consequence; pushing that 'truth' forward as something that other should acknowledge betrays an agenda beyond just 'the search for truth'. (Note that this is not a judgement on ESR per se, just a comment on your specific point)

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#75

Post by alkonaut »

mbrock wrote: post #37
zvrba wrote: post #31

> The ‘Unix philosophy’ originated with Ken Thompson's early meditations on how to design a small but capable operating system with a clean service interface. Except that a program-to-program interface based on formatting and parsing text is anything but clean.

What do you mean by "text"?

Exactly. That's one of the biggest problems with text-only interfaces.

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#76

Post by navait »

yarou wrote: post #4
jumblesale wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really great read and did a lot to inform my approach to writing all kinds of software. It's a shame that I cringe to recommend in now due to the politics of its author.

That's really bizarre. A person's political views have no bearing on the validity or usefulness of what they write.

When they constantly mix technology and politics, yes it does matter. Open Source is a political movement, and that requires taking ESR's version of it with a grain of salt.

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#77

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26
peteretep wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are cases where the truth of the situation is put aside from a moral standpoint, which is analogous to suggesting that someone's political views could influence the reception of their engineering views.

Both exist mostly to disincentivize people from doing something immoral and/or unwanted, not to give light on the truth or false value of observations/evidence. So the question is, should one really refuse to read/recommend ESR's book because of his opinions? Frankly, this smells to me like Index Librorum Prohibitorum all over again.

Unfortunately, you can't neatly compartmentalise one aspect of an individual's life and totally separate it from the others. Sometimes, the aspects with which you happen to agree might be used to indirectly (even invisibly) support the aspects you don't. Although it's difficult to judge that, it seems a reasonable condition for exercising caution. I say this as a huge fan of TAOUP.

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#78

Post by tipiirai »

Haul4ss wrote: post #46
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's pro 'gun-rights'.

What's wrong with this? Being completely serious here, what is wrong with citizens owning firearms? I am all about reducing gun violence, but if you want to do that you have to do something to stem the tide of illegally acquired handguns in areas of concentrated poverty. That's where a lot of your gun violence comes from. The recent happenings in Charleston are unicorns. Unpredictable and very rare events that you ca…

More guns == more murder.

> “For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership,” Siegel et al. found, “firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9″ percent.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/13/2617131/largest-...

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#79

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

Haul4ss wrote: post #46
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's pro 'gun-rights'.

What's wrong with this? Being completely serious here, what is wrong with citizens owning firearms? I am all about reducing gun violence, but if you want to do that you have to do something to stem the tide of illegally acquired handguns in areas of concentrated poverty. That's where a lot of your gun violence comes from. The recent happenings in Charleston are unicorns. Unpredictable and very rare events that you ca…

I'm not sure I can say there's something absolutely wrong with it, but my opinion is that citizens shouldn't be allowed to own firearms. I live somewhere (UK) where they can't, and there is very little gun violence. That's not to say, of course, there aren't problems, but I just think - on balance - the world would be better off with fewer killing machines in it.

Re: The Unix Philosophy

#80

Post by philh »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #60
harkyns_castle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a surprise to me, I hadn't heard any of that. Not that I've followed things that closely. What I found so far is [1], in which he seems to just be doing a bit of a "show me the data" thing wrt global warming (its fairly old I guess in defense). In [2] he's definitely saying IQ is race-related, and gender related to a lesser extent, in my quick readings. I quite like that he doesn't mince his words, sugar coat…

Regarding [2]. So I guess this quote is the problem: > And the part that, if you are a decent human being and not a racist bigot, you have been dreading: American blacks average a standard deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85. [...] And yes, it’s genetic; g seems to be about 85% heritable, and recent studies of effects like regression towards the mean suggest strongly that most of the heritability i…

To clarify, I was careful not to call ESR a racist. (I was attempting to describe his positions in terms that I think he'd agree with.) And I haven't seen anyone else explicitly do so on this thread, which is good going for HN.
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