Pat Farrell wrote: On the open Interstate, most of the speed limits are way too low and serve mostly as revenue collection for the local communities.
There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors
Pat Farrell wrote:They waste time. Modern cars can safely cruise at much faster speeds than many states allow. 80 or 90 is easy, but the limits are often 65.
There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors
Karthik Shiraly wrote: is jumping red signals once the cops have left their traffic posts.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
fred rosenberger wrote:I honestly don't know the answer to this, but are American highways designed for cars to be travelling at 90 mph? Are the on/off ramps long enough to let people accelerate to the appropriate speed safely? are the turns gradual enough? Are people eating, drinking, applying makeup, shaving, texting, talking on the phone, or even changing their clothes while driving?
Paul Anilprem wrote:
Life, in general, itself is tough in India. As they say, there is too much "maara-maari" (translation : fight for everything). Let alone driving. Everone is basically trying to make ends meets and driving is one of the many opportunities where we are able to cut corners with instant reward but uncertain (albiet sever) punishment.
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:
Paul Anilprem wrote:
Life, in general, itself is tough in India. As they say, there is too much "maara-maari" (translation : fight for everything). Let alone driving. Everone is basically trying to make ends meets and driving is one of the many opportunities where we are able to cut corners with instant reward but uncertain (albiet sever) punishment.
That's a cyclical argument. You are not following the rules because you have to fight for everything. but you have to fight for everything because everyone else is not following the rules. If everyone followed the rules, you wouldn't have to fight for everything. It's kind of stupid how everyone in India is trying so hard to get ahead that they are dragging everyone behind. It's not just roads. I took my wife, son , mom and dad for a vacation. Now, my dad is paralyzed on the right side and walks slowly. We were in the hotel, and we had finished the buffet and we were waiting at the elevators to go upto the room. The elevator doors opened, and because my dad is slow we generally walk slow. 3 women with kids came from the buffet. Didn;t even see that there are other people waiting for the elevator and cut us off and filled the elevator. I was so frickin mad. They are in a vacation, ok. Everyone there is on a vacation. There is no real rush. You are not late for work. Elevators are not in short supply. You wait the elevator comes back in 2 mins. You can afford a room at a 4 star hotel, so you are supossedly part of the Indian class that is educated and all enlightened and shit. But, the attitude of doing maara-maari:- That I get mine and fuck the other person who was here before me or is invalid or disadvantaged is so ingrained into the Indian mindset that they do it without thinking about it.
It was not just this. I spent most of my vacation being annoyed at people who are doing maara-maari. Starting from the airport, people push you to get to the baggage belt even though their bags are not there yet. DOing maara-maari is not going to make your bags appear faster. They behave like my cats do when they are expecting food. This is not civilized behavior. This is not how humans are suppossed to behave. You cooperate and everyone comes out on top. You push people and they push other people and pretty soon everyone is pushing each other and patting themsleves on their back on how great they were at pushing that 65 year old man who can barely walk! That is not something to be proud of!
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Paul Anilprem wrote:Laws can't and won't work in such situation.
Pat Farrell wrote:
Paul Anilprem wrote:Laws can't and won't work in such situation.
You have it backwards. First you have a social consensus, then you write laws and people follow them.
You don't write a law and expect the people to follow it just because its a law or because there is a policeman watching right now.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Paul Anilprem wrote:I don't think there can be any social consensus at this stage of competition other than every man for himself. That's exactly what happens at the doors of walmart on thanksgiving.
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:Right, decent people don't follow laws because there is a law, or there is policeman standing nearby. Decent people follow the law because the law just happens to be decent thing to do. Cooperative behavior is the foundation of all civilized behavior. Without voluntary cooperation, we don;t have a society
If you have majority of people in a society who not only engage in non-cooperative behavior, but also are proud of how good they are at getting theirs, then you have a big problem in society You are fundamentally undermining everything that humans have worked for for the past 80K years. It;s nothing to do with the amount of resources. Resources are always going to be limited. Human need is always going to be unlimited. It doesn't matter how rich the country is. You always want more. Civilized behavior is curtailing your natural instinct to get as much as you want so you can share equally. Civilized behavior is recognizing that the person next to you might have a need that is greater than yours.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Pat Farrell wrote:
Paul Anilprem wrote:I don't think there can be any social consensus at this stage of competition other than every man for himself. That's exactly what happens at the doors of walmart on thanksgiving.
No civilized man goes to WalMart on the day after Thanksgiving. Its idiotic, and people will get hurt, they do every year.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Pat Farrell wrote:I reject your claim that laws keep people in check.
Pat Farrell wrote:
I mean that folks who got shopping on Thanksgiving Friday are looking for a fight. That is not my definition of civilized.
I am so civilized that I do 99% of my shopping using Amazon Prime. I rarely go to any shopping center ever, let alone on the Lions vs Christians day.
But people do go to WalMart for that sale. Do you mean that they are "civilized" on other days but "uncivilized" on that day? Or they are basically uncivilized people kept in check by the law on other days.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Paul Anilprem wrote: Or they are basically uncivilized people kept in check by the law on other days.
Pat Farrell wrote:Claim that laws keep people "in check" below
Paul Anilprem wrote: Or they are basically uncivilized people kept in check by the law on other days.
But people do go to WalMart for that sale. Do you mean that they are "civilized" on other days but "uncivilized" on that day? Or they are basically uncivilized people kept in check by the law on other days?.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Pat Farrell wrote:I reject your claim that laws keep people in check.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
J. Kevin Robbins wrote:Interesting discussion. I'm going to posit another theory just for fun. People are not civilized. What we call "civilized" is a very thin and very fragile veneer subject to collapse at a moments notice. It's a social contract that people will adhere to only for as long as it benefits them personally. Watch the food supply collapse and the grocery stores empty out and see how long our civilization lasts. In about 3 days people will be killing each other for any food available. In about two weeks they will be killing and eating each other.
People are largely motivated by two things; fear and greed. When either of those things outweighs the benefits of maintaining the contract of civility, the civility goes out the window. It doesn't matter if you are talking about road rage, starving survivors after hurricane Katrina, or riots in the streets. Their fear or greed becomes paramount and any semblance of civilization disappears. Shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving are looking for a bargain, a $150 television or whatever, and their greed shows them for what they really are; uncivilized savages with a "me first and me only" attitude.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Paul Anilprem wrote:
Isn't that another way of saying civility depends on availability of resources?
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
Paul Anilprem wrote:
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:Right, decent people don't follow laws because there is a law, or there is policeman standing nearby. Decent people follow the law because the law just happens to be decent thing to do. Cooperative behavior is the foundation of all civilized behavior. Without voluntary cooperation, we don;t have a society
If you have majority of people in a society who not only engage in non-cooperative behavior, but also are proud of how good they are at getting theirs, then you have a big problem in society You are fundamentally undermining everything that humans have worked for for the past 80K years. It;s nothing to do with the amount of resources. Resources are always going to be limited. Human need is always going to be unlimited. It doesn't matter how rich the country is. You always want more. Civilized behavior is curtailing your natural instinct to get as much as you want so you can share equally. Civilized behavior is recognizing that the person next to you might have a need that is greater than yours.
I am just saying that it is not possible in reality when there is a severe resource crunch. This is not a question of being proud of it or not. It is just the way it is. People don't become "uncivilized" just for the heck of it. It has everything to do with the availability of resources as is shown by the walmart example above.
Indeed, one of the motivations for not violating speed limits too flagrantly is my selfish and greedy unwillingness to contribute towards the public good via traffic fines, or to help lighten the load of other auto-insurance customers by providing a larger share of the insurance company revenue.Pat Farrell wrote: On the open Interstate, most of the speed limits are way too low and serve mostly as revenue collection for the local communities.
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:
Paul Anilprem wrote:
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:Right, decent people don't follow laws because there is a law, or there is policeman standing nearby. Decent people follow the law because the law just happens to be decent thing to do. Cooperative behavior is the foundation of all civilized behavior. Without voluntary cooperation, we don;t have a society
If you have majority of people in a society who not only engage in non-cooperative behavior, but also are proud of how good they are at getting theirs, then you have a big problem in society You are fundamentally undermining everything that humans have worked for for the past 80K years. It;s nothing to do with the amount of resources. Resources are always going to be limited. Human need is always going to be unlimited. It doesn't matter how rich the country is. You always want more. Civilized behavior is curtailing your natural instinct to get as much as you want so you can share equally. Civilized behavior is recognizing that the person next to you might have a need that is greater than yours.
I am just saying that it is not possible in reality when there is a severe resource crunch. This is not a question of being proud of it or not. It is just the way it is. People don't become "uncivilized" just for the heck of it. It has everything to do with the availability of resources as is shown by the walmart example above.
No that's not true. People is resource crunches behave more cooperatively than when they have resources. The perfect example is look at any local train in Bombay. People in Second class compartment behave a lot more cooperatively than in first class compartment. People are packed like sardines in the second class compartment. First class compartments are full but atleast you have breathing room. If you try to get inside a second class compartment they will make place for you. They will let you slide in. They will give you that one inch of foot and hand space so you can hang on. If you look like you are going to fall of, they even hold you. If you are inside the train and you have to get off the train, they will figure out a way for you to slide by, even if it means that they might face some personal uncomfort. In the first class apartment, that is full of "supposedly" middle class managers, they will actively stand in ways that will block you from entering. They will scowl at you if you ask them to move so you can get to the door
A second class compartment in any Bombay train is much more civilized than a first class compartment in the same train. There's no policeman in the second class compartment. There is no law that says that you have to let people in and out of the train. People come up with ad-hoc rules and everyone follows them. People do the decent thing because they all know they are in the train together.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Pat Farrell wrote: Humans naturally travel at speeds that they feel are "correct".
There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:Paul, you made the claim that selfish behavior only happens because of resource crunch. I am merely disproving that claim .
Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:
I gave you one example where there is higher cooperative behavior inspite of shortage of resource. There are countless examples of this in Indian society. I've been a poor student in Bombay, came to America and gone back frequently as a stinking rich American. I've lived in a world where I would come into contact with the working class going back and forth between college, and now when I go back I behave like a typical Seth, going to nice restaurants, travelling by taxis, etc. I've seen instances of selfish behavior in both worlds, however, overall the poorer classes behave more civilized in India than the middle class. The poorer class has much severe resource crunches. People in my class, my cousins, their friends have this attitude "I've worked hard, so I'm going to grab life by both hands, even if it means I'm going to grab it from someone who is disadvantaged as me". The claim that resource crunches lead to selfish behavior is incorrect.
My parents' generation put all their hopes in our generation. They got our generation educated in the hopes that education will lift the Indian society up. They forgot to teach us how to be good citizens. Really, that's literally true. When have you heard any school curriculum talk about good citizenship. Never, right? It didn;t even cross your mind that school should teach good citizenship, right? In the US, OTH, the first thing they teach in kindergarten and pre-K is to share. Next thing they teach is how to ask nicely. That comes before everything else. People of my generation and class have turned out to be selfless gits who need to learn to respect an invalid person who is trying to get into an elevator.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
J. Kevin Robbins wrote:
Paul Anilprem wrote:
Isn't that another way of saying civility depends on availability of resources?
I'm not sure it's that simple. Certainly a shortage of resources can lead to a breakdown, but there are also times when people have pulled together and treated each other civilly in spite of a lack of resources, and times when resource-rich societies because very uncivilized.
I think anonymity also plays into it. It's easier to be uncivilized to a stranger than someone who is a member of ones own family/clan/tribe. Perhaps the size and anonymity of our modern society has made the situation worse, that is, made our civilization more fragile.
Enthuware - Best Mock Exams and Questions for Oracle Java Certifications
Quality Guaranteed - Pass or Full Refund!
Pat Farrell wrote:
In parts of Washington DC, there are a lot of people who run red lights. It makes me shudder, its so dangerous.
That is the competition for resources. I think that due to the presence of cut throat competition for meagre resources at every walk and stage of life, our mindset has become like that.
I'm not sure it's that simple. Certainly a shortage of resources can lead to a breakdown, but there are also times when people have pulled together and treated each other civilly in spite of a lack of resources, and times when resource-rich societies because very uncivilized.