It's from monkeylimit, not my personal Twitter. I should dissociate that, since FriendFeed accumulates *all* Twitter accounts as just "on Twitter". - Chris Anthony
I know. We were all shocked with how the school is handling this. I hope we can spread the word on this. - Tris Hussey
I hope that asking this isn't crossing a line, but where in Indiana is this happening? I'm in Richmond (on the Ohio border), and very curious; I may be (long story) about to put a child into the Wayne County educational system. - Chris Anthony
@Chris, I will try to find out for you. Gayla's posts may have more information. - Tris Hussey
Serious lack of common sense from a school admin, typical. - Christian Burns
depends on the person I'm im'ing with. but I usually say something like: "thanks for chatting ttyl", or "got to run, ttyl" or "ciao sucka". - Ginger Makela
Most of the time I just let the conversation die; If I'm chatting with someone 99% of the time they are asking me (or I am asking them) a programming related question. We ask, discuss, solve, and then usually get so wrapped up in something else that the conversation stops. I chat less and less these days and use email more and more. Chat is usually too disruptive for me. - Benjamin Golub
I think it depends more on the formal vs informal aspect. Usually I end it with a simple "later." - Colby Olson
just start talking crazy talk at them and they'll usually drop off. Tell them that you've just drank an entire bottle of Wild Turkey and are getting ready to get naked and will they be available for the next four hours? Use lots of all caps and exclamation marks and just start typing weird animal sounds. - Thomas Hawk
-30- Only works with journalists though. ;) - Jack Carlson
task manager. kill the IM process. stay off IM for 3 weeks. when you see your co-converser in public, tell them that the feds came and took your laptop, and have been posing as you ever since. - Chris Hollander
It's hard sometimes, ppl just don't want to finish up. Usually I say that I've got to go, and that's no lying because I usually do have to get back to doing work - Duncan Riley
Depends on what kind of conversation it is and why you want to end it. - Chris Anthony
LOL I wondered what that was all about, TH. Now I know I should just turn around and walk away.... - Jeremy Brooks
Though seriously, normally the conversation just dies out. If not, a "bye" or "later" - Jeremy Brooks
There is no protocol for ending IM- if I am chatting and if something comes up - i just leave the chat window open and continue with what I need to do. That is, if the IM is not a professional service chat. The Best bet is to type in bbl /ttyl - Peter Dawson
I usually end with "The boss says I have to stop chatting and start working now :( " - Mat
Thanks for all for feedback. Jason, re ending the thread - if we follow the linkedin model, then I can end the thread by choosing the best answer. I've just drank an entire bottle of Wild Turkey... - Ontario Emperor
Because of the time-difference (I hope), most threads seem to end with a comment from me, so I would suggest the ettiquette for ending a FF thread is to just get up and walk away as soon as you see my name! Oh, hang on... - Slippy Lane
“A long-standing request - FriendFeed needs the ability to hide selected blogs, yet still allow visibility of other blogs. As of now, you either have to hide all of the blogs of a person, or not hide any of them.”
This sounds like a very useful and necessary feature - Mike Doeff
How would it be if, FriendFeed gives you list of checkboxes when you click on "Subscribe to <person>" which allows you to select items you want to subscribe to!! Afterall, If the contact is already follwed in twitter, I would not want to subscribe to his twitter feed on FF as well!! or, say I dont care what he diggs, I should be able to uncheck that item and should be done! - Jigar Mehta
Jigar, when you Hide an item, you get a message saying "See options for hiding other items like this". When you click that message, you're given the option to hide all entries from that service by that user, or all entries from that service altogether, with the option of not hiding entries that have likes or comments. Unfortunately, the "blog" category is a catch-all, and FriendFeed treats all blog feeds as the same feed for the purposes of hiding entries. - Chris Anthony
this is especially relevant as people with more than one language need otherwise to go for two accounts on friendfeed so you are not getting for example my german content. - Nicole Simon
Ontario, this feature has gotten a lot of attention and has been added to our list. - Ross Miller
Thanks for working on this. In the meantime, I have mitigated my specific issue by streaming my last.fm recently played tracks to a separate room, http://friendfeed.com/rooms/la... - Ontario Emperor
YEP... this is a good one...thanks Ontario!! :-) - Susan Beebe
@Ross, not enough yet, we'll keep workin on it ;) - Tim Hoeck
Doesn't bother me. Once the comment thread gets too large, FriendFeed hides them with the link that says "Show [N] more comments". - Hutch Carpenter
This is the worst thing about FriendFeed. I want to be able to see FriendFeed items the way +I+ want to see them. I'd love to be able to query FriendFeed's database and say something like: <<Show all items in reverse chronilogical view>><<show only items with two or more comments>>AND<<show only items with one like or more>>AND<<remove any items that have Louis Gray in them>> - Robert Scoble
@Hutch, Yes, I agree it groups too many comments and just shows first two and last three in the list! But still, that way too, I have to look at 5th comment.. and naturally my eyes goes to first comment first! There's something called Natural User Interface Design!! - Jigar Mehta
via bTT
I prefer the chronological order. It would be obnoxious to have to scroll to the bottom of a new thread and read up. That said, some customization, as Robert suggests, would be nice. - Chris Anthony
Right, if you are looking at the item for the first time, it will be somewhat odd to read comments in reverse order.. but for FF worms, the other way is good.. Anyways, Robert's suggestion is better.. FF should be flexible to let user decide how it publishes the RSS or renders the page.. - Jigar Mehta
via bTT
Mandalay Bay in Vegas - guilty as well. - Michael Pardee
All of the convention hotels near Peachtree Center in ATL charge that, and they also seem to have major downtime during cons. - Dana Franks
via twhirl
most full service hotels charge that - Jeff Quinton
In Japan over the last 2 weeks, the $20-22/night hostels in Tokyo and Osaka had free WiFi. Of the 7 $150-$400 hotels, 4 charged $10-11/day for internet, 2 had free internet, and 1 had no internet. Oh...none of $150-$400 hotels had WiFi (just Ethernet), whereas the hostels had multiple networks to cover all the floors. In our first $250 hotel, couldn't even get the paid Ethernet to work in my room! - Mitchell Tsai
Some US 4* hotels offer free WiFi ONLY in the lobbies, whereas in-room internet costs $10-20/day. Occasionally I pop over to a nearby hotel lobby to leach the free internet. If I'm going to pay $10, I'd rather have a drink or appetizer in a hotel lobby with my internet :-) --- Scott: Hampton Inns also usually have free breakfast & parking. They are a good value. - Mitchell Tsai
you have obviously not seen what the european hotels charge... - Loic Le Meur
via twhirl
It's a shame they charge at all... Free wifi should be the standard, included in the room rate... They don't charge separately for electricity and water either... Internet is as important as that... My hotel decisions are usually heavily influenced by free wifi or not... - Steven Pelsmaekers
Steven: How about $3-$8 water? $40-50 parking in downtown SF? - Mitchell Tsai
It's a matter of whether the hotel sees it as a draw, I suspect. The low-end hotels are willing to throw in whatever it takes to get you to pay the room rate; the high-end hotels are willing to bet that you're either used to and *expecting* to pay for everything you touch, or you're a businessperson on expense. The way to fight back is to make it a dealbreaker. "I'm sorry, I'd be staying at your hotel but you don't offer free wireless." - Chris Anthony
Steven, do you tell the hotels that you're making the decision on that criterion? They can't change the behavior if they don't know its effect. - Chris Anthony
I do admit I generally don't tell them... I figure my vote isn't likely to influence their policies, but you have a good point, of course... As for charging for parking, I see that more as charging for you for the room, and charging a 'room' for your vehicle... It makes more sense, as it is an expensive commodity, especially in bigger cities where space is at a premium (price)... The water you are referring to is bottled water, fair enough if they charge for that... I was talking about bathroom useage. - Steven Pelsmaekers
That is absurd and offensive, honestly. I'd rather pay $50 a month for wireless broadband and be anywhere I want to be. - Clay Newton
What I find funny is that all of the expensive hotels charge for internet, but stay at a cheap hotel and you get decent wireless internet for free. Rip off. - Jon Erickson
via twhirl
@Everyone Do you think that the Internet has become a hotel commodity that should be free everywhere one goes like water or clean towels? - Simon
Simon: I think the current situation is ok - free some places, hotels competing, some 4* hotels doing free Internet in Lobbies only. -- US hotels will spoil you. Some places in the world are BYOTP (toilet paper) and BYOT (towels). - Mitchell Tsai
@Mitchell Tsai I guess it all depends on the competition in the area as to the service provided. I find it odd that in my mind I expect to be able to access the Internet wherever I am. I guess I am spoiled by my Blackberry and widely available free wifi (all over the place here in California). - Simon
Seeing things like this really make me appreciate being able to tether my phone to a laptop and get an acceptable, temporary connection. One of the area hospitals charges $6/day for internet on their wall mounted TVs, and I thought that was ridiculous. I can't imagine paying $14/day for it. Ouch. - Bob
$14.95/Day for 8meg in StL @ my Hilton but there is free wi-fi in the public areas as well as free access to pc's, internet, and laptop stations in our business center and lobby. Yes, it is a negotiating tool with larger clients. - Mathew A. Koeneker
Most australian wifi providers charge closer to $14/hour. Normal hotel internet rates here are around $25/day. 14/day sounds excellent to me. - James Polley
I think this has less to do with how much *you* are willing to pay and a lot more to do with what your average business traveler's *company* is willing to pay to keep their employee connected. Larger hotels have connections with local conventions/seminars which businesses send employees to... the wifi in the hotel is like the popcorn in the movie theater. - jeremiah
“I read my FF messages via RSS, and while my RSS feed includes my item, I don't get a refresh or popular items, mine or anyone elses. Would it be possible to fold into the main feed, or create a seperate feed for, items that have gained lots of comments/likes/etc?”
A separate feed, I hope, or at least an opt-in addition to the main feed. Otherwise, a good idea. (I can even see someone subscribing *only* to the popular RSS.) - Chris Anthony
that wouldn't work well fiscally speaking for facebook... which itself has yet to prove profit revenue. but it sure would help twitter's tech problem. twitter is great with PR, but bad with technology and administration - ⓃⓄⒶⒽ ⒹⒶⓋⒾⒹ ⓈⒾⓂⓄⓃ
they can acquire Twitter or Digg if they want. I just hope they don't acquire FF. - Thomas Hawk
It would help them to agglomerate further user data, as with FriendFeed especially, almost all web activity of its users could be accessed via facebook which would make them hold on to the web identity of the users. - Martin Spindler
someone should acquire Twitter some help, in a big way...B-) - Shawn L. Morrissey
um, acquisitions will only ruin good services- if facebook wants to get better, then they need to make changes to their services that reflect the leading edge of social services, so that they can get leap the gap. - Nathan Eckenrode
friendfeed makes business sense, others are just show......via feedalizr - bvs
facebook buying digg, don't see how that would help - Dobromir Hadzhiev
who knows, a few years down the line and friendfeed makes a bid on facebook!...via feedalizr - bvs
It's fascinating to see the chunks that sites break users into, though. For things like Education and Ethnicity, I can see why you'd want to granularize the demographic reporting (in other words, give people select drop-downs or radio buttons) - but why not have a text box for age, so that you're not locked into unchanging, artificial categories? It'd yield much more interesting results! (I speak, for what it's worth, as a data analyst; it's much easier to figure out age's relationship to other data when you have the actual age!) - Chris Anthony
I'm in the 65+ category. When do I start getting more phishing attacks asking for my bank info? They're still trying to sell me Cialis. - Jonathan Leavitt
It gets worse -- wait until you start getting offered the senior discounts... - Chuck Lawson
OUCH! I turn 40 this year... crap, thanks for the reminder! augh! - Susan Beebe
Chris, demographics can break you into age groups without too much of a problem. There's something that 18-25 year-olds are that 25-54 year olds aren't, or there's something that 18-49 year olds are that 50+ year olds aren't. So for the owner of the service or advertiser only really cares that you belong in one of those groups: there's no need to support any more granularity, either in the data structure for that person or in the interface. - Mark Trapp
I too turn 35 this year. I'll be bumped to the next range. - Morton Fox
What I said applies mainly to advertising value. I'm sure there are other uses for having more granularity, but most people who are asking your age are after your advertising demo. - Mark Trapp
Mark, you've answered your own question. It's not that you need the granularity for the final groupings - it's that you need the granularity to figure out what the final groupings should be! These sites are asking for broad answers like they already know the answers - but then why are they looking for demographics in the first place? (Besides which, 18-25 is, bluntly, too broad. It encompasses both the people who just graduated from high school and the people who just graduated from college... - Chris Anthony
...and those groups can have wildly different interests. "18-21" and "21-25" would be better, but then why not just ask for age and be done with it?) - Chris Anthony
I don't mean to say that the groupings don't have merit; in fact, I use age grouping all the time in my analysis. But I have the actual two-digit age available too, so that I can redefine my age groups if I need to. (Say 25-34 and 35-44 don't yield interesting results, but for some reason 20-29 and 30-39 do; or perhaps instead of grouping I want to see how incremental age affects response rates over time...) Raw age also allows the analyst to more effectively use future data without having to ask again... - Chris Anthony
...since, if I know that a person was 24 when they signed up, I can tell that they're going to be 25 a year later when they're still using the site. By asking for groupings, you lose that ability. (Actually, better yet would be to ask for birth dates, since you can derive age from that *and* send a "happy birthday" note to the user. :) - Chris Anthony
Welcome to the club! @yuvi - Thanks for rubbing it in! :) - Mike Reynolds
Chris, good points. I wonder if there are some superficial privacy reasons: people are comfortable giving an age range, but not as comfortable giving an exact age. - Mark Trapp
Your age as a user on a website is nobody else's business really if you are over 21. Most people ask for it and then do nothing with the information. - Pete Gilbert
via Alert Thingy
Pete, you may not want to give it up, but there is definite value for an advertiser and a marketer to know your age, or what age demo you're in. an 18-25 year old has completely different purchasing patterns than a 54+. - Mark Trapp
Perhaps "what age do you act?" would be more appropriate, both for marketers and consumers. - Thomas Brox Røst
Pete, that's why many data collectors have adopted an "I'd rather not say" option. (I've heard people say that doing that invalidates the data, but I have yet to hear a compelling argument as to why that would be so.) If you're not comfortable giving the information, don't. Nothing's mandatory on the web. - Chris Anthony
thanks for that reminder. as if my grey hair wasn't enough. but yeah, it's about the attitude more than the age. cliche, but true. - Cee Bee
Thanks everyone :-) If all goes well I might be making a trip out to Vegas soon for an interview. Not sure how it works for them though yet. - Andrew Dobrow
Are you gonna blog about the interview? I always like to hear how others do their interviews... it's very hard to identify good people. - Kenneth LeFebvre
Andrew - best of luck to you on the Zappos interview results! :-) - Susan Beebe
So was it a shoe-in or are they going to give you the boot? - Louis Gray
Gunning for the $1000, or will you stay on after the training? - Kevin Fox
Louis, I'm not sure, I just hope I didn't come off as much of a heel. - Andrew Dobrow
Tried the AIR apps and like Twhirl the best, but they were all slow. Now, just using the FF RSS feed, which is surprisingly functional. Still need to go to the web interface to post, though. - Benjamin Kudria
I tried Twhirl but you couldn't hide with it and that's mandatory for me. I just browse FF from the web or sometimes my iPhone. - Thomas Hawk
Trying out Feedalizr at the moment but I dislike how it 'spaces' out the text when writing a comment. Will be trying Alert Thingy as soon as it finishes downloading, but I'm pretty much set on just using the web interface.. it's just so nice, and usable....via feedalizr - Timothy Neilen
so yeah feedalizr uses the audio output on my kona card.... random! - Drew Lucas
I like twhirl. It's a good thing RAM is cheap these days though. - Jeff Brewster
Mostly Alert Thingy, but I've tried Feedalizr a few times too - Bob
What's with all of these Adobe AIR readers? It's slower than just refreshing the page, and it's not as usable. - Eric Florenzano
Technically I'm using Twhirl, though only for the last day or two. Twhirl just jumped around, too, while I was writing this comment. It's an annoying bug. - Voyagerfan5761
via twhirl
Tried all of them but gravitating back to the web and FFtogo: I like the layout and hide feature but hate the pale grey text, sigh nothing is perfect. - Sally Church
Feedalizr - the most elegant app out there. Smallest footprint. Clean. - Michael
Tried Twhirl for a while but find myself nearly always coming back to the web interface. - Erik Dafforn
Twhirl, but like others have said, I just can't seem to stay away from the web. - Sharon Bray-McPherson
When I see an upgrade posted I'll fire up Feedalizer, AlertThingy, or Snackr. Watch it flash, blink, and sputter and kill it until the next update. - Ashton
I'm registered on Digg, but I don't use it. Maybe if I had the/a bookmarklet I'd use it more, but I forget to look for the symbol when I'm browsing, and I don't go to the digg site when I can avoid it... - Chris Anthony
eeling that the Digg users are a younger crowd, not so much the same alpha-geek types, but a little more mainstream. I think Alex Albrecht is a good example of the type ;) - Robert Kloosterhuis
via twhirl
I almost never use Digg. There's nothing useful for me there, and the discussion is beyond horrible. 13 yr olds perhaps - Deepak
I class digg with myspace; places I never want to go. - Neil Saunders
I'll do what's easiest. Digg if "Digg This" button is there. Share on Reader. Bookmark. Like on Friendfeed etc. - Andrew Smith
Yeh, don't use Digg at all these days, since it's usually full of rubbish. Also I got scared off Digg after crossing paths with an Apple fanboy/troll ... was all too stressful and provides no benefit. - Andrew Perry
Has anyone figured out the purpose of FriendFeed rooms? Digg replacement? Seems too cumbersome. - Thomas Crampton
via twhirl
Thomas Crampton??? wew you are on Friendfeed? cool! - Loic Le Meur
occasionally, there is something interesting on digg...but, usually, it's old news or national enquirer material. Digg posts are typically pretty easy to spot: all caps with a sprinkle of spelling and grammatical errors. - mike
Digg became unreliable as it became more popular, so alot of people left. Its not a social news site anymore, the method for getting on the front page is just having the most outlandish headline, so I guess it became MSM - Cains
Digg is now preceived as too late-adopter and non-techy. I sort of agree but can't rationalize it completely. - Kamath ॐ
via twhirl
I rarely use Digg any more. I find the hassle of checking whether something has been dugg already tedious. Hint to Digg...If it's been dugg already...just put it down as a digg...don't bother with all this "are you sure" business. I'm too busy for that. - Chris Nixon
Chris, that's a great idea! Can't believe they didn't think of it yet. It would make things so much easier. - Raoul Pop
I use the Shareaholic button for FF and it will show you if the item is dugg, how many diggs, and number of comments, clicking on it will either submit a new item (if it is new) or bring you to the page that already exists. - cmiper
Now why couldn't Digg implement that functionality? Must be too busy downing beers and putting together podcasts... :-) - Raoul Pop
Not sure Raoul, but it seems that Digg suffer from half-completed features, they just got around to making the comments somewhat usable last week. Reddit let's you know with one click if the item has been submitted before, you either get the form to fill in to post, or you get the page with the item as it is posted already. Seems simple enough? - cmiper
I have almost stopped using Digg, despite really getting into it at the beginning. Since joining FF, I actually read more stuff on Digg. Weird. - ha3rvey
Yeah - I haven't really used Digg in months. Its utility wore off soon after it went out of private beta. - Tad, Fool
The commenting system on Digg has very little worth. The market is all largely kids it seems anyway :( Haven't tried Mixx yet. Maybe I should... - CannonGod
via twhirl
it attracts a new crowd of hardcore fans. The digg crowd have been around a long time now, the FF crowd is newer. - AJCann
via twhirl
It's stories like this that make me wish that the "Like" feature here were named something else. Horrifying that things like this can still happen in the world. - Chris Anthony
Yes, I do. I look at my occasionally grouchy, sullen pre-teen daughter who spent three weeks in the NICU when she was born, and I know I would do anything for her. I think about the time when another student's mother was bothering my daughter at school. I told her that if she ever spoke to my little girl again, nothing on earth could keep me away from her. Her eyes went HUGE. I sat there in the principal's office, folding my hands together to stop the shaking. This story doesn't fit in my head. - ha3rvey
yes, this was from a couple weeks ago. his pride is so hard to understand. - edythe
"With or without [religion] you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion." --Steven Weinberg - Tanath
At first, from the headline, I thought it was a sarcastic title written by the mother of the Meiers girl. This isn't just hard to understand - it's impossible. The evil at work in the middle east is clearly a perversion of what was intended originally of their religion (at least I hope it is - I'm not a Muslim scholar). This sort of thing makes me absolutely sick. There is something truly rotten in the culture that created this. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Tanath: that quote could spur a good heated discussion all on its own. To succinctly rephrase, I'd say that for good people to *support* evil things, it takes religion. Many of the evil things done in religion's name over the years (things like this and the Crusades) were perpetrated by evil folks, but supported by folks with Good Intentions (by which the way to hell is paved). - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Saw this a couple weeks ago, but it's still horrible. - Voyagerfan5761
I don't think you can say that the whole of the middle east is wrong. There are entire swaths of middle eastern areas where this isn't happening. In the places that are, though, there is clearly a cultural infection, and I shy away from laying it completely at the feet of religion, that is making it OK to be downright evil. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
@Tanath: by that same token, other absurdities become rational, as well: selfless giving, karma, forgiveness, unconditional love. (I knew this discussion would sprial out). Religion, I think, can act as a megaphone for the prevalent cultural leanings of people. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
@Mark: Selflessness, forgiveness, etc., are hardly absurd or irrational. I recommend you read The Selfish Gene, The Evolution of Cooperation, and The Origins of Virtue. Religion, as with everything, has its positives and negatives, but as the quote I cited points out, good people will generally be good & bad people will generally be bad with or without religion. But with religion there are certain unnecessary costs. - Tanath
@Tanath: I disagree on all counts. From a secular perspective, selfishness is genetic (caveman protect what mine, my wife, my cave, my job at bedrock quarry). From a Christian perspective, selfishness is genetic (we inherited sin from Adam and Eve). Depending on how you look at it, religion can serve as an exertion of peer pressure that forces not-so-good people to behave nicely so they can be accepted (secular view), or forces evil people to convert to a good way of doing stuff (Christian view). - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
For further reading on that perspective, pick up any book on worldview analysis by Dr. Ben Knoebles, or The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (for a truly absurd abstraction of being 'good' while actually being good by secular measures). You read those, I'll read your reccomendations, and we'll meet back and discuss. :) - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
i would tend to agree that at least selflessness and unconditional love fall under some rubric of absurdity and/or non-innate. not that I don't think they are worthy ways of thinking and living. - edythe
@Mark I'll add them to the list, but I've already given this a decent amount of thought. Selfishness and altruism both have a genetic basis, and peer pressure exists with or without religion. It is common for people to think that love/altruism/selflessness is absurd or irrational, but that is ignorance. Read the books I mentioned. They should change your perspective. - Tanath
Well, as for me, I am often wrong about many things. I have no idea if selflessness has a genetic basis, but I would certainly be open to the idea. Tanath, how do you feel about Objectivism? (Not baiting, actually curious.) - edythe
That makes two of us. :P Selflessness/altruism does have a genetic basis. See "The Selfish Gene." What kind of objectivism are you talking about? - Tanath
the Ayn Rand-ian kind. :) that being selfish is what we should strive for. many econ types are big fans. Allan Greenspan, for instance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... - edythe
Ayn has an odd perspective on things. I've always viewed greed not as an ideal, economically, but a certainty due to the nature of humanity (and why capitalism almost always trumps less free economies in wealth generation). - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
I view greed as a dangerous force, like fire, that can be harnessed for good if we're careful. - Amit Patel
@edythe: The Ayn-Randian kind has a few merits, but on the whole, I can't agree with it. Being selfish is not what one should strive for. - Tanath
I am wondering how to stitch/thread together all the comments that happen onto a common thread for myself - e.g the topic hit me here first - http://friendfeed.com/e/13de5f... - Peter Dawson
@Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins: Ayn Rand's philosophy has nothing to do with greed. - Ole Begemann
@Ole, it does have to do with selfishness, which many equate. - Tanath
@Tanath: true, it does have to do with selfishness, but how can one equate selfishness with greed? Quoting from Wikipedia: "Greed is the selfish desire for or pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others." Compare that with Ayn Rand about her "ideal man", also quoted from Wikipedia: "The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life." - Ole Begemann
Exactly the same reason I can't date :( (Won't be killed - just emotionally tortured) - Yuvi (has IRL friends!)
Ole: To me, that's just playing a semantic game. 90% of the time, selfishness and greed are interchangeable. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
@Tanath: I re-read the chapter on Memes from Dawkin's the Selfish Gene. It seems to me that the concept of memes and cultural pressure contradicts your quote's assertion that it takes religion to make good people do evil things. By the theory of memes and cultural pressure, it seems that all it takes is *society* to make good people do evil things. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
"With or without [religion] you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion." Soooooo *without* religion, how do you decide which ones are the good people? ;-) - Karim
@Mark: Religion *is* a meme, & culture is made of memes. I was pointing to The Selfish Gene not for the meme part, but to substantiate the genetic basis for morality, including altruism. You're right though, it's not just religion. I think the sentiment in the quote can be generalized. And technically, without society there is no good/evil. Those concepts only apply to behaviours & interactions in a social context. I agree with the quote in that religion can and does lead good people to do evil. - Tanath
@Karim: Morals and philosophies of ethics predate religion. And I would argue that religious ethics are not superior. Also, as Dawkins points out, how do you decide which parts of your holy book are the good parts? Why do you ignore the bad parts? ;-) - Tanath
Tanath, ah, but you didn't answer my question :-) You see, the guy who savagely murdered his daughter thought he was *good.* He said "God is blessing him" for killing his child. Now, in a religious context, you can say the deed was evil (wrong religion), or mistaken (he interpreted his religion wrong), or good (he did the right thing). But without religion, how can Weinberg make a convincing (non-arbitrary) argument for calling him good or evil? What makes Weinberg right and that whole culture wrong? - Karim
@Yuvi: :D ! The "how equivalent are greed & selfishness" debate is a good one. At first glance they seem, if not synonymous, closely related, but I can also think of counterexamples @Amit Patel: great statement. - edythe
@Karim: Well there are any number of systems/philosophies of ethics to choose from. Personally, I'm a consequentialist. The guy who thought he was doing right by killing his daughter is obviously wrong, under pretty much any ethical system, except the religious. His claim that "God is blessing him" is not something that can be substantiated. And hell, even if it could be, I'd argue that that is not sufficient justification. You ask how you can justify moral/ethical claims without religion. See next comment. - Tanath
@Karim: I filled up my previous comment space (to the last character), so had to make a new one. Again, I would point to the various systems/philosophies of ethics & morality. Many of them predate religion. Different ethical systems will give you different answers. As I said, I'm a consequentialist. I would say it's wrong because of the consequences of his actions. You raise the point of differing cultures, but clearly some cultures' ethics are better than others. - Tanath
I think it's funny that here Colin is talking about Rob La Gesse in a place that Rob doesn't control. Good account of what happened tonight. - Robert Scoble
It's obviously just by way of example in order to illustrate a point but we have always been able to speak about things where there is not control by the subject - places like FF just bring the issue to the fore. FF is still a young service so will constantly need to rethink the way they do certain things but I feel the focus has been on getting stuff IN so much that there has been little thougt about allowing stuff OUT. - Colin Walker
