mfgreaves

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    Mike Greaves
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  1. Michael, I was as angry as you were when I first heard the news. "Murderers" was the word that (wrongly) came to my mind. Calming down over several hours, and then following Lessig's twitter feed to Swartz, I found many confused and concerning ideas. It was only a matter of time till he got in trouble with the government. Also it is wrong to suggest that the only property which he had no regard for was the JSTOR stuff. I can find no evidence of any regard for any property. I also don't agree that he was a genius. RSS is important but simple, lots of people could have invented it at 14. Thousands. It's still very sad to me.
  2. It's incredibly sad. I can't imagine his parents' pain right now. Unfortunately, from what I have read, I cannot conclude that Swartz was a good person; in fact destructively mis-guided; and it is ironic that he was persecuted by an appointee of a President whose policies he seemed to strongly support. He appears to have had no regard for property or material values, was strongly biased against American corporations and opposed any role for money in politics. His view on economics and government spending seemed to be left-of-Krugman. In fact he seemed like a classic socialist anarchist. He wanted the Democrats to spend without regard for the debt limit and for Obama to feel no power from the Tea Party or congressional Republicans. He seemed sympathetic with the Occupy movement, Assange and may have been targeted because his actions were similar to Bradley Manning's. I can't imagine too many around here would approve of these characteristics. It's too bad that so many bright, bright kids think that they know better than the whole world that came before them. And too bad that this one killed himself. Wish I could be kinder.
  3. Excellent work by Harris. I was pleasantly surprised by his reasoning; perhaps I shouldn't have been.
  4. Adam, Serious issues indeed. Also, it's amazing the kind of material that one can "produce" and actually get paid for; that there are publications which would pay for that kind of nonsense. Are the people running the NYT this stupid? ...OK, I take back the question. Mike
  5. One can only wonder if Ms. Dowd has ever used her mind for thinking. This kind of bubbling stream of evasive drivel seems to be the only thing that many on the political left can issue from their minds at all. I am too flabbergasted to try to follow it. Mike
  6. That's because I *wasn't* arguing for it's legitimacy. I was (and do) contest your assertion that the coup led to anti-western sentiment. I assert that you have it backwards: there already *was* anti-western sentiment; the US and UK feared communist influences, and that led to the CIA intervention. You are parroting the line that the coup led to anti-western feelings; and that is false. On the other hand, I am sure that it did nothing to dissipate them... Mike
  7. Well, if we are looking for the "full context", please remember what triggered the 1953 coup: The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, after a period of great difficulty and fruitless exploration (they nearly gave up on ever finding oil in Iran and had burned through their cash), finally struck oil in 1908, and single-handedly turned Iran into a major producer. Mossadegh thanked them by attempting forced nationalization of their company, with broad public support. It is probably the case that AIOC (formerly APOC, now BP) should have offered Iran a better deal by 1951. In any case, anti-western feeling led to the 1953 coup, not the other way round. Mike
  8. I want to start by saying that I appreciate that both LM and the cleric issuing the Fatwa are trying to save innocent lives. This is good. Some here have expressed doubts as to the efficacy of such declarations; I will not add to this negativity. Instead I will positively assert that Objectivist values include the Responsibility of Independent Judgement. The very essence of a Fatwa stands in diametric opposition to this value. We each have within us all that we need, to see evil for what it is, without needing some central authority to spell it out for us; or to contradict our independent conclusions. Mike
  9. Dr. Morbius, I figure they could use your help over at ARI around about now; their "monsters from the id" are getting seriously out-of-hand... ("The Forbidden Planet" is one of my old favorites too. Watch out for that "brain boost"! It's a doozy!) Mike
  10. Actually it *is hard* to end up thinking that, if you're actually thinking clearly and reading carefully. For those with muddled thinking, or knee-jerk emotional reactions, of course, reaching almost any conclusion is possible; and that is the real problem: readers who become irrational when confronted with ideas contrary to their assumed, ingrained norms. Mike
  11. Mandelbrot's greatest contribution to human knowledge was his demonstration of how great complexity can emerge from simple rules. I sometimes fear that most laymen do not get this, and are merely taken with the "trippy" imagery. The most striking example of this principle at work in nature is the human brain. The amount of digital data in our DNA, that holds all of the rules for the construction of our brains, is tiny compared to the complexity of the result. The mathematics of fractals is involved in this amazing translation. Ultimately this kind of emergent complexity is a powerful point in any scientific refutation of the need for a Creator. The primitive idea that anything that could have given rise to us, must be greater than us, is precisely backwards. In nature, complexity arises from the mud and ascends to the heavens; not the other way around. Mike
  12. I just want to say that I found Robert's post #50 to be really valuable. Thank you, Robert. Mike
  13. Very interesting profile, Karl.

    Interests/Description items overlap about

    75% with mine (the most I've ever seen).

    I guess I should flesh-out my own profile.

    Mike