All new MacPros are quads!!

[pdxindy]

Too much babble from me, though. It comes down to this: a logician must be able to propose a counter-example. The INSTANT a counter-example causes the premise to fail, the argument is won.

BONES' premise: "Legal does not mean right."

Since you disagree, your premise must be: "Legal means right." Any other premise would mean that BONES' statement is already correct.

There are many countries in the world in which you are guilty until proven innocent. An official, even a corrupt one, charges you with a crime, and you rot in jail and might even be executed, because the "justice" system is not concerned with giving you a fair trial. This follows their legal system (ie. laws) perfectly. Yet, you and I know that it's just not "right."

So, I have presented a case in which Legal does not mean right. The argument is won. Straight up. The fact that Legal and "right" CAN coincide sometimes (often, if we're lucky!) is irrelevant.

Voila!

Greg

Which just goes to show that logic argument is no measure of life.

Bones, because of his bias against Apple, singles them out for criticism of a practice that is standard business practice, and indeed engaged in by the OS company Bones chooses to support. That has nothing to do with moral or right, that is just trying opportunistically to win an argument.

Microsoft is just about the last computer company you can hold up as a measure of ethical behavior.

[egbert]

Legal means right to me, simply because we cannot define what is right for anybody else except for ourselves IMO. The law defines what is right to us because we have to have a consensus on what we define as right. Therefore we can come to the conclusion that something is right, but there is always room for disagreement.

Every day people resolve potential conflicts by queueing in an orderly way at a counter or in a Doctor's waiting room, taking turns or by giving first shot at a parking spot to the person who has been sitting with their indicator on waiting for the spot to be vacated.

These situations are not really controlled by law - if somebody takes a parking space that you think by rights is yours you cannot really sue them or have them arrested. However, unbiased onlookers would be quite clear that the interloper did the wrong thing. The law is a more heavy handed application of social convention but it is not the only form of regulation or behaviour. It is also clearly not the determining factor in deciding right or wrong - otherwise how would legislators know what to do when drafting a law? They surely weigh up what they think are right and wrong when setting down codes in legislation.

As far as business and morals - one "sinful" thing that was punished by the Christian church for more than a millenium was Usury - lending money or goods and expecting to have them more than repaid. Eg - I lend you a sack of grain. If I demand more than that as payment of the debt I am a usurer and am subject to punishment. This was codified - not just a loose custom.

Capitalism, banks etc - these all depend on systematic violation of this now unobserved law of human relations. Modern capitalism is only a few hundred years old - it may look like the natural order of all things but it was not ever thus.

[BombJack]

I thought we were talking about the machines anyway.

I don't like Macs because they're to expensive for what you get. I would like one, just so I can be "cool" and have backlit keys on my lappie. but I won't because their too expensive.

It all really depends on what makes up your parameters for being better.

I would say that on most points, PCs win the argument over which is better.

eg, Price, Cost Effectiveness, Upgradeability, customization, available software etc.
Macs win compariably fewer points - eg Logic, Looks, some functionality.

At the moment I'm in the PC camp because I asses machines on their merits, not on what I am conditioned to think.
I don't buy into the "mac is better technology" or "it uses a better OS" because it doesn't in my opinion.

I have spoken to many people about this subject, and I am in agreement with some that Macs as a platform probably don't have that long to go. The fact that they now use the same components as everyone else means that people will more and more draw comparisons between the macs and pcs, and due to PCs lower price point for similar technology, it will win out. The only future in the long term that macs will have is either to market themselves as uber PCs much in the way as say Ferrari, or whoever does with cars, or they will need to become more aligned with the majority of PCs in price. I can't see this happening though, because it would result in a reduction of the unique selling points that buying a mac has...

[lex_strooder]

BombJack, here is some link (some bias, some not) about your price point.

http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33576

http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootout ... t3200.html

http://www.macworld.com/2006/08/feature ... /index.php

[BombJack]

The first link is quite interesting. The thing is though, are the Dell's ready to have a bit of a fall in price? Do the price of Apples fluctuate as much as the Dell's?

This is only for 1 type of machine though - are the slightly lower prices for Apples in like for like obvious across the board?
There is a big difference in 1 year warranty and 3 yrs too, and they haven't even thought about factoring in that "small" point into their equation.

It would be interesting to see if things will change here - ie the DEll AMD partnership, Intel/Apple.
Personally I can't see how Apple can sell their gimmicky machines on a like for like basis cheaper than Dell would (in the longer term) considering the costs of manufacture.

I keep on going back to the backlit keyboard thing on the Macs. Compared to a standard PC laptop with comparable parts, how much do the backlit keys add to the cost of the machine? I can't see how they will be able to incorporate all these sort of things for the same price as Dell for example because Dell probably manufacture a hell of a lot more machines than Mac do. Unless of course Apple can source the saem components at a much cheaper price. This doubtful though because Apple don't sell that many computers. The economies of scale just don't add up...

[BombJack]

Looking at the 2nd link, there appears to be no contest. I would buy the Apple I think....

[BombJack]

Lex - you do provide food for thought here. If this was a trend that was to continue with other machines Apple produce, I would def have to rethink. The MacPros have only just been released so you can't make a true comparision for now.

Look at the AMD chips. The Core2duo has just blown all the AMD athlons out the water. Amd resultantly have halved almost across the board the price of their chips to try and induce some kind of price war (which looks doomed to fail...)
Maybe Dell will do something similar...

[machinesworking]

There should only be one right, it should be an absolute. You can have as many shades of grey as you want but they will all be shades of wrong. And your dictionary definition takes it up the arse. Moral and ethical are two sides of the same coin, you cannot be one without also being the other. Moral simply refers to belief, where ethical refers to action. You can be a moral persoon without ever showing it but you can only be judged as ethical by your actions.

OK you do not get to define words according to your own interpretation of them without using any dictionary at all, and calling a particular dictionary explanation wrong. That's simply too loose with the english language.
your interpretation isn't wrong, it's simply not founded on anything but your own interpretation.
Sure, moral refers to belief, rigid belief, based in part on christian interpretation of the law, biblical and judicial. Sure you can use the term moral to define a person nowadays who doesn't hold any religious beliefs in the strictest sense, but the term and ideal of morality is based on the christian fundamentalist concept of right and wrong, heaven and hell, good and bad etc.

Your statement about "shades of wrong" explains why you piss off so many people, you're very self righteous. You actually believe that your interpretation of reality is "right", you at least in a public forum, never question yourself, and tend to ignore any information that goes against your concepts of "right".

So your boss making more than you is wrong?

It is if he's doing it solely at my expense.

That's using somebody to your advantage, but in return they believe they have the better deal. I fail to see that as exploitation.

That is very different to taking advantage of someone, don't you think? OTOH, a pimp makng money off a drug-addicted prostitute is taking advantage of someone else's situation for their own ends.

Almost every situation involving two people has two sides. The conventional interpretation of a pimp is that he's just a leach, but generally they tend to be as drugged out as the whore that works for them, who in tern is in need of protection from the violence that is possible from the the john. A whore isn't going to want a nice, sweet boy as a pimp, but somebody capable of putting another man in the hospital if he deserves it. That of course leeds to the stories of pimps that are only out to exploit their whores, violent people tend to be violent, and selfish by nature. A whore isn't neccessarily going to have a realistic view of men in general as well. The sad truth is they deserve each other IMO.
It's a variation on this story.... a girl tells me that every guy she dates has beat on her, is it that she is just unlucky, or is she looking to find those guys that are as messed up mentally as she? I think she's to blame, the fact is you can go into any society and find screwed up men, when you keep running into the same situation over and over again, you are looking for it. It doesn't make the guy any less of an asshole, but you would be a fool I think, to ignore that the girl is forcing the hand of chance.

See my post above to lunch money on my views on your interpretation of what is right. I simply do not see you as being the end all of ethical behavior.

That's because you want to have wiggle room. You're too big a coward to set a standard and maintain it regardless of temptation. That's why religions have the concept of forgiveness. Pah!

Temptation, what the f**k is that? Is that what you call the holes in your logic that tempt you when exposed by others? I don't get your point there? You're using a christian model of reality at the core, truth, temptation, right, wrong, moral, etc... all the high concepts of conventional reality as brought to you by the church. There is no right and wrong in the animal kingdom, period, it's our interpretation of reality that brings that concept into existence. Unless of course you believe in a god.
You're in a sad state of affairs if you think it's perfectly reasonable to call someone a coward when they tell you you do NOT hold the key to the concept of truth. Must be weird to be at war with reality.
One thing I think you don't get it is that I have an ethical code. You on the other hand have a moral one. You believe that you're concept of reality is what is the TRUTH, I recognize that I might be mistaken, I'm open to that possibility.
BTW I have no concept of forgiveness, I always condemn the action I deem to be wrong.
Whether I think the person responsible is capable of change, or has shown me that they have changed, is a separate matter entirely.

All this shit comes down to what you were exposed to growing up. My father was a blue collar intellectual with heavy buddhist eastern leaning in his thinking. I was introduced to the idea that it's quite possible that christian ideals of right and wrong are at the core of the west's screwed up morality. I think that some parts of that philosophy are great and really accurate, and I think that people have used other parts to justify their own lack of ethics. I think personally that some things are absolutes, but it's rare. Again, true objectivity is hard to come by.
Basically I tolerate views other than my own because I recognize that I'm only capable of seeing reality through my own filter.
I don't mind your opinions on things simply because to me, you at least have an opinion that I believe you gave critical thinking to before you voiced it. I don't have to agree with you, to think you have obviously done some homework comparatively to those who just spout popular jingoistic phrases without thinking.

[lex_strooder]

The MacPros have only just been released so you can't make a true comparision for now.

We have to wait and see what the market will do, hopefully they all do price drops or special deals to deal with the new contender

Look at the AMD chips. The Core2duo has just blown all the AMD athlons out the water. Amd resultantly have halved almost across the board the price of their chips to try and induce some kind of price war (which looks doomed to fail...)
Maybe Dell will do something similar...

i think AMD will have something up their sleeves, and thats all good for us consumers

[Lunch Money]

Which just goes to show that logic argument is no measure of life.

No one lives their lives according to logic. You'd find that I am one of the most emotionally-motivated people you're likely to encounter. I don't make decisions based on "logic" but rather on what feels right. That's irrelevant, however, to a debate. There's a time and a place for emotion, which is most of the rest of my life. And there's a time and a place for logic, which is when evaluating and making judgements about a particular position that is rooted in facts or assertions.

<shrug>

If, on the other hand, that's a clever way of saying I have no life, I can only disagree.

Greg

[Lunch Money]

Sure that all works, if you think of the world as binary, no shades of grey, just either or.

Being able to follow a set of premises through to conclusion isn't the same as living in a binary world. You're jumping to a conclusion. All of it works because... all of it works. Y'know, it's really tricky to debate with people who have no formal background in it. I can't teach you Philosophy 101 in one thread.

You're assuming I believe as you do, or that the people of that country should believe as you do, or that I believe that "right" for you, and the rest of society, is something that can be defined by my subjective interpretation of it.

No, I'm assuming that as people with a fairly similar culture, we share similar definitions of what morality is. "Right" is related to morality and therefore open to interpretation, but that's my point ENTIRELY. Legal does not define "right," it defines law. A law is a law. Laws are put in place precisely to get around the dilemna of morality influencing decisions regarding how a society operates. It's irrelevant whether some laws are moral and others are not. It's irrelevant that some judges are moral and others are not. The law is objective unto itself. As soon as you start talking about "right" and "wrong," you are no longer talking about law, but about morals. That being the case, the statement "Legal is right" can never be correct.

Legal means right to me, simply because we cannot define what is right for anybody else except for ourselves IMO. The law defines what is right to us because we have to have a consensus on what we define as right. Therefore we can come to the conclusion that something is right, but there is always room for disagreement.

No, right in the first sentence you have already jumped from Legal to Moral. If you accept your own premise, "Legal means right to me," then you MUST accept that every single law in the world (not just in your country) is moral. I suspect you don't believe that, particularly since many of those laws will contradict one another. "Innocent until proven guilty" (which is "right" under your premise because it is a law) and "Guilty until proven innocent" (which is "right" under your premise because it is a law). Those two (and countless others) cannot co-exist in a moral code because they contradict one another.

So, I'll have to assume that what you mean is, "Legal is right, but only in my country or similar countries, because I share those values." But you're still actually talking about morals. What you are saying is that the laws do a good job of codifying your beliefs. Laws can be encompassed by your sense of morals, but they cannot be equal. Your premise makes them equal and analogous.

And the other point I made that somehow got sidestepped... even if the above paragraph's rephrasing of your premise "Legal is right, but only in my country or similar...." still doesn't work because you would have to assume that you believe every single law in that country/region. The minute there is a law that makes you say, "Waitasec... that just isn't right..." then you've proven my point. Can you HONESTLY say that you believe every single law of your country?

That official believes that they are doing the right thing by killing that person, they believe their interpretation of what is right.

Well, no. Officials often believe that they are doing their job, regardless of moral implications. You don't have to believe something is "right" in order to do it. People do amoral things all the time. More often than they do moral things, I would argue.

Politics prove over and over that people have different opinions about what is right and wrong.

Well, yeah. Morality is ONLY an individual thing. Morals are entirely personal. It's a real mistake believing that any particular doctrine (be it a religious one or a legal one) can ever codify the morals of a body of people. That's another reason law simply cannot define "right." It's like you're making my points for me.

Basically, I believe that the law is the interpretation of what is right that you can hold any individual or organization up to the scrutiny of with the most amount of objectivity you can. the law being the consensus on what is right at the time.

You can believe all you want, but that doesn't make it so. Law isn't an interpretation of morals, but a set of rules by which a society chooses or is forced to live. A dictatorship can create a set of laws that are entirely without ethics and which the majority of their population does not believe is "right," and then enforce those laws with a military state, trying transgressors by a corrupt tribunal. Since that can and has happened in the world, your belief is an ill-founded one and a case of incorrect definition.

Other than that it's subjective opinion. Objectivity is hard to come by IMO.

Fairly impossible.

I don't have to disagree with Bones's ideas on a subject to disagree with the conclusion. I can have the same opinion about the reasons he comes to the conclusion 'legal doesn't mean right' without thinking that his conclusion makes sense.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you emphasizing that you disagree not only with his premises but also the conclusion? Heck, I don't have enough time (surprisingly!) to go through his own premises... I'm on my own tangent here and am only addressing the conclusion. The conclusion, "legal doesn't mean right" is an accurate and true statement, and simply cannot be refuted. You have no choice but to think it makes sense. Well, which brings me back to the point at the beginning of the post-- if you don't know how to use the tools of syllogism and counter-example, or if you don't understand logical fallacies like "begging the question", "slippery slope", or "ad populem" (the main one you're guilty of here) then it'd be pretty much impossible for me to convince you, using the language I'm using. It's analogous to stating a fact in Swahili and you not understanding it as a fact because you don't speak the language.

Now, I should make it clear that the last bit of the above paragraph isn't meant to be an insult. I'd be surprised if a single of my true friends, most of whom are extremely intelligent and who I have the highest respect for, have those tools at their disposal, either. It's simply not emphasized at the university level for most people these days. Much to my dismay. It'd be like my friend Scott explaining Astrophysics to me in purely scientific and mathematical terms. As long as he's using that specialized vocabulary and knowledge base, it'll be hard for me to keep up though I can certainly fake my way through for a while.

Greg

[BONES]

Look at the AMD chips. The Core2duo has just blown all the AMD athlons out the water.

Actually, in a practical sense the Core2duo is perhaps slightly better. With their new pricing the VFM award still goes easily to AMD. There are plenty of comparisons around to see for yourself. I'm definitely sticking with AMD as its just a matter of time before they are back on top. Its like new cars over here; Ford and GM are in a constant struggle with the top selling large sedans and the're always out of sync. Ford came out with an all-new model a coupel of years ago and had the best Australian built car for a while but GM are launching their next generation car next week so the crown will stay with them for a few years. In the long run you just choose what you want at the time. My new mobo is Socket Am-2 so I'm confident that It will eventually be able to house a CPU that is better than Core 2 Duo, its just a matter of time.

[geekboy]

@ BONES

I can see that you are trying to limit your point to "Australian-built" cars, but GM and Ford cars both suck so much that the metaphor alone makes it clearer why you are happily pro-PC: A buck saved is a buck saved, no matter the sacrifice.

PCs are the equivalent of GM and Ford cars. Macs are more analagous to Japanese or European cars -- superior in almost every way.

[egbert]

@ BONES

I can see that you are trying to limit your point to "Australian-built" cars, but GM and Ford cars both suck so much that the metaphor alone makes it clearer why you are happily pro-PC: A buck saved is a buck saved, no matter the sacrifice.

PCs are the equivalent of GM and Ford cars. Macs are more analagous to Japanese or European cars -- superior in almost every way.

I love it!

I had been thinking that what we needed was that old chestnut the Car Analogy!

I wrote the paste below and then didn't send it. Enjoy
___________________
Come to think of it - what has been missing from these threads of late is that marvellous rhetorical football - the "car analogy".

Now that the move over to Intel is complete I think we can say without equivocation that the best fits are the Lexus/Toyota Vs Runabout/custom job.

As any car nut will tell you, a Lexus is precisely a Toyota under the skin - it just comes with different skin and a bigger pricetag. The Mac is now unarguably a Lexus. It is a Toyota (generic PC made in Asia) with a few fancy (largely cosmetic) features and a higher pricetag (despite the contention on this point TCO is going to be higher IMO).

By analogy, the PC market in general consists mostly of the equivalents of fleet cars and surburban runabouts. However, there are plenty of customised, sport and heavy duty vehicles from a great diversity of manufacturers and many custom built from parts. People who for some reason care about these things can express their individuality or cater to their particular needs by selecting specialized forms or building/modifying to create custom rigs.

It seems many Mac users absorb Apple's marketing and believe they are expressing their individuality by using a Mac. In fact they are expressing some geek in Cupertino's individuality. All of these "vehicles" get you from A to B so from a functional point of view there is usually no good reason to care particularly what anyone else drives (or what shoes they wear) but a great many people do.

Let the games begin!

[machinesworking]

Being able to follow a set of premises through to conclusion isn't the same as living in a binary world. You're jumping to a conclusion. All of it works because... all of it works. Y'know, it's really tricky to debate with people who have no formal background in it. I can't teach you Philosophy 101 in one thread.

Greg, I'm not insulting your intelligence, please refrain from doing so to mine. I'm only going to address this once, though later on in this post you go off again about what a swell logician you are compared to us meager mortals. You admitted to being an emotional person in general, well, the worst offense to me in an argument, or debate is bringing in emotional BS, IE patronizing behavior. I'm not here to "win", and if you are, then let it go man, you won. Do you feel better now?
I thought you appreciated my possibly different opinion than yours, and were interested in knowing why I thought the way I did, but if you simply feel the need to debate me endlessly in order to stroke your ego, then please, drop it.

No, I'm assuming that as people with a fairly similar culture, we share similar definitions of what morality is. "Right" is related to morality and therefore open to interpretation, but that's my point ENTIRELY. Legal does not define "right," it defines law. A law is a law. Laws are put in place precisely to get around the dilemna of morality influencing decisions regarding how a society operates. It's irrelevant whether some laws are moral and others are not. It's irrelevant that some judges are moral and others are not. The law is objective unto itself. As soon as you start talking about "right" and "wrong," you are no longer talking about law, but about morals. That being the case, the statement "Legal is right" can never be correct.

We don't share the same definition of morality, I've already gone over that. Morality does not equal right IMO, and you know that. You're arguing the same point you did last time, and I'm telling you that it's a matter of your interpretation of right =morality VS my separation of the two words. We're at an impasse. I believe that the law, quite like morality and ethics is the subjective interpretation of what is right and wrong. You believe that the law is objective by nature, and seem to believe that right can be defined by our western cultural definitions of what is true and good etc. ?

No, right in the first sentence you have already jumped from Legal to Moral. If you accept your own premise, "Legal means right to me," then you MUST accept that every single law in the world (not just in your country) is moral. I suspect you don't believe that, particularly since many of those laws will contradict one another. "Innocent until proven guilty" (which is "right" under your premise because it is a law) and "Guilty until proven innocent" (which is "right" under your premise because it is a law). Those two (and countless others) cannot co-exist in a moral code because they contradict one another.

You assume I think highly of moral codes, to me again morality is the subjective views of right and wrong of individuals /society made into the word of god or natural law etc. You assume that there is a way for mankind to define what is right, and BAM, we're done, it's finished. law isn't right because there is a quantifiable "right" it's right simply because there is no other method I can think of in terms of behavior codes etc. to define it without it being absolutely subjective.
I seriously can't understand why you cannot follow that? I'm not defining right as something that is an absolute, but as a word we use to describe what our society believes (laws and customs) and what we believe personally. If it's what our society believes, but we do not, then it makes TOTAL SENSE to use the personal when stating that belief. "In this case, to me, legal doesn't mean right."

So, I'll have to assume that what you mean is, "Legal is right, but only in my country or similar countries, because I share those values." But you're still actually talking about morals. What you are saying is that the laws do a good job of codifying your beliefs. Laws can be encompassed by your sense of morals, but they cannot be equal. Your premise makes them equal and analogous.

And the other point I made that somehow got sidestepped... even if the above paragraph's rephrasing of your premise "Legal is right, but only in my country or similar...." still doesn't work because you would have to assume that you believe every single law in that country/region. The minute there is a law that makes you say, "Waitasec... that just isn't right..." then you've proven my point. Can you HONESTLY say that you believe every single law of your country?

No of course not, I would say, "To me, the fact that pot is illegal and alcohol is not is ridiculous!", I wouldn't say, " The fact that alcohol is legal and pot is not is ridiculous". One statement recognizes that your view of the law is opinion, the other states your view as fact.

Well, no. Officials often believe that they are doing their job, regardless of moral implications. You don't have to believe something is "right" in order to do it. People do amoral things all the time. More often than they do moral things, I would argue.

You're argument was that an official personally decided the fate of an individual with no trial, In that case, either they or the people above them would at some point in the chain, be convinced that killing that person was the right thing to do. Saddam believes he held his country together through his iron rule, for instance. that was my point, that even people in dictatorships believe that they are doing the right thing.

[
Well, yeah. Morality is ONLY an individual thing. Morals are entirely personal. It's a real mistake believing that any particular doctrine (be it a religious one or a legal one) can ever codify the morals of a body of people. That's another reason law simply cannot define "right." It's like you're making my points for me.

Once again, morality=right in your world, not mine..

You can believe all you want, but that doesn't make it so. Law isn't an interpretation of morals, but a set of rules by which a society chooses or is forced to live.

Rules huh? what kind of rules? Rules of behavior maybe? What a society or individual deems right and wrong codes of behavior maybe?

I don't have to disagree with Bones's ideas on a subject to disagree with the conclusion. I can have the same opinion about the reasons he comes to the conclusion 'legal doesn't mean right' without thinking that his conclusion makes sense........

.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you emphasizing that you disagree not only with his premises but also the conclusion? Heck, I don't have enough time (surprisingly!) to go through his own premises... I'm on my own tangent here and am only addressing the conclusion. The conclusion, "legal doesn't mean right" is an accurate and true statement, and simply cannot be refuted. You have no choice but to think it makes sense.

Like I said, I think it's a subjective statement based on his opinion about a particular conversation. The arguments he gave were valid, as is for him, his conclusions, but I disagree with his using that sentence, not based on whether or not he felt that way, but rather on whether or not it was truthful for all of us. He was using it to state opinion as fact.
My point was and is, that the law, to me, is the only way for individuals in a debate about a possibly hurtful business move (or any other behavioral based disagreement), to define what is right without it being totally subjective.
You disagree, fine, and you ask me why I disagree with that conclusion, great! I like conversations discussing personal philosophies, but I'm a little tired of debates where there is no sense that people are looking for understanding, but rather only to win. You have to by now, know why I came to that conclusion... like I said I'm not here to "win" in this case, but simply to explain my philosophy.