Subject: Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 15:08:53 +0200

Hi Ido!

On Friday 23 March 2007, ik wrote:
> Well, I'm one of the people that never had any collage/university degree.
> Just to let you understand, I tried to learn at the open university
> (here in Israel), but my while my work didn't went bellow 90, my exams
> didn't raised above 30 ...
>

OK. Sorry to hear that. Do you know what were the reasons for you receiving 
such bad grades? You seem like a smart guy, regardless of your other faults.

> However, in my current work place (as one example), I was able in my
> first month to create a program for a customer in a subject I had no
> past knowledge or experience prior to that month.
> After the first month (although I still keep on learning the subject),
> I was able to start and explaining things to others at my work place,
> and understood better what they are talking about.
>
> I try to place my programs (that I do on my "free" time) on the
> Internet as open source projects, so many people can see what I can
> do, so you can see what I'm capable of doing without any proper
> education.

That's a good strategy.

>
> But the problem is that most places are narrow minded, and can't see
> anything, nor decide without a "proper" degree on your hands. I wish
> to remind you that such a degree cost a lot of money, but does not
> give you any real knowledge (yes, it is like anything else, arguable

Well, I felt that studying EE at the Technion gave me a lot of important 
background and knowledge. I understood for exmample, why it is a good to keep 
related information close to each other in memory or on the disk, and many 
other things. I also understood how computers work, down to the 
semiconductors' level, which is pretty useless for most higher-level 
engineers (where "higher"-level is Verilog/VHDL chip design and above) and 
learned a lot of math, computer science, electronics and to a lesser extent 
physics. It was also a very good brain exercise.

Like I said in my original essay:

http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/education/opinion-on-the-technion/

The Technion gives one mostly foundations and basic stuff. Or if it does not, 
its material can be a bit out-of-date, at least in regards to things I was 
familiar with. So I believe saying it does not teach you anything is a 
hyperbole, if not a complete overstatement of the case. Maybe it's true to 
Computer Science studies, but it's certainly not the case for Electrical 
Engineering.

One course I was impressed from was "Structure and Interpreation of Computer 
Programs":

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

It was given by the EE department (not by CS) by a professor who studied in 
MIT. I believe it and its exercises taught good programming and modular 
design, and many elements of programming languages. It's not a good 
introductory course (too abstract and impractical), but it's a good one for 
second semester or afterwards.

>
> :))
>
> Few years ago, I made an experiment that it's result where very scary
> on my hands:
> I gave the same amount of people without any university degree and
> people with a university degree to do the same "task" for a real life
> problem I had, when I wrote a program (using Perl). The result as I
> said where really scary:
>
> The people without any degree had various  solutions for the problem,
> when all of them where written in a very simple way, and wrote
> maintainable code.
>
> All the people with a computer degree solved the problem in the same
> way ! where some of them even asked for directions such as "what am I
> allowed to do, and what am I not allowed to do ?" and few other such
> questions. Where the result ended up as unmaintainable code, that did
> the job, but was inefficient code if I compare it to real life product
> that needs to be maintainable by more then one developer.

Well, I think the problem is that many people arrive at universities without 
proper experience in programming on their own. So they try to digest what the 
university teach them (in a demanding way that requires investing a lot of 
time, and often using the wrong languages, tools and platforms). One of the 
reasons I did not study CS was because I knew that I couldn't become a better 
programmer by going to a university. So it would have just been an excuse to 
learn Mathematics and to get a Bachelor degree so workplaces will like me. If 
I really wanted to learn Math then the Math department would be the way to 
go. Of course, from my experience with it, I don't think I would have 
survived there, with the "work-only-in-singles" and "exams-with-no-material" 
dogmas, which are less common in EE, CS and other engineering degrees.

Perhaps the most enlighetening diploma would be in humane studies like 
philosophy. But this has a repuatation for being the easiest diploma. Law 
also involves a lot of philosophy, but I find it boring, and redundant.

>
> In my opinion the way schools and universities teaches us, is the way
> of "mass production", where you must remember things rather then
> knowing them. 

That's not true for EE in the technion, and I believe neither for CS there. 
People there are required to understand the material. Usually, they can bring 
books, notes and calculators to the exams, and still have to think a lot.

> For example babies learn how to walk by falling all the 
> time, until they learn how to place balance to their feet, but for
> that they need their feet to get longer.
> The same is for eyes. The light arrives to our eyes come upside down,
> that is what existed up, is appearing down, and what is down appears
> above. It's our brain that rotate the image to be straight forward,
> but it does it from trial and error when we are babies.
> And I can continue to give examples for trial and errors such
> learning, but our society is using the "Prussian education system",
> where you must be a robot and remember things, rather then knowing
> them. The education system made the error as something bad, that
> claims that  people that does not understand or remember and make
> mistakes as "stupid" people, that at the end does not deserve to be
> part of the successful society.
>

This reminds me of Feynman's ciritique of the Brazilian Physics education 
system in his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You're_Joking,_Mr._Feynman!

Basically he said the books tought a lot of statements, which the students 
learned by heart (very well) but were completely unable to do anything with. 
He compared it with an educated Greek man, who grew up in Greek, where 
everyone study Ancient Greek and literature and nobody takes it seriously, to 
a place where Greek is holy. He asks a student to tell him what Socrates said 
about democracy, and the student is unable to tell him. Then he asks him to 
say the part where he said it and the student recites it in beautiful Greek.
[1]

I disagree with what you say that pure trial and error is the best way to 
learn when being more mature. I'd had to learn about self-balancing binary 
trees, hashes and other data structures, and an algorithm I came by myself 
for topological sort (or package depenedncy resolution) was shown in class a 
week later, but turned out to have a more efficient alternative. Or at high 
school I thought of a sorting algorithm and thought of insertion sort, 
instead of Quick Sort, Merge Sort or Heap Sort. As one of Nadav's signatures 
read: "Always learn from other people's mistakes. You won't have time to do 
them all yourself.". You can learn a lot from existing CS, Math and Physics 
literature.

If you invent your own wheel, you'll understand much better how a wheel works, 
and may have a slim chance of inventing a better wheel. But you may also 
invent a square wheel. So I suggest you try to think of a programming problem 
yourself, and then try to ask around or research it.

> Well I'm one of these people that the education system thinks that
> they can't read or write (not to talk about the fact that I know 4
> human languages that most of them I learned on my own).

Maybe it was just the open university. Perhaps you'd like the Technion better.

>
> So how employers can know if someone is good for work for them ? If
> you ask this question, then you don't believe in the power of open
> source.
> People that work on their own time in the subject that they suppose to
> work at, are much better candidate then the one's that only expect
> that a diploma/degree will open them a door.
> If you will look at people that do wish to learn and expand their
> minds into additional knowledge as better candidates as people that
> are close minded. So please update the way you look at things, and you
> will find a new world.
>

I agree and said so in the original article:

http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/education/opinion-on-the-technion/

Some people who did not go to university eventually earn enough expertise and 
prestige, to become successful enterpreneurs, consultants/contractors, etc. A 
good example is Randal L. Schwartz, who is the author of several Perl books, 
a Perl contributor, and who I think know Perl (and Perl technologies much 
more so) better than Larry Wall, and knows UNIX inside and out:

http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/

However, many people also regret not going to university to get a degree. And 
if you want to work in a large Research Department, you normally need a 
Ph.D., and from what I know, from very good reasons.

A Technion graduate in Electrical Engineering with an average of 70% (very 
low) is well and above the average intelligence. You cannot survive there 
without being exceptionally bright. 

One of my roommates, was very fond of logic and math riddles and was quite 
good at it ("That's what kept me through the army."), but he still found the 
studies from the third semester onward too hard. And I told him it doesn't 
get much easier. So he was bright and intelligent, but again had an issue, 
that made him unsuitable there. He may actually make a very good programmer 
or Electrical Engineer, but he won't be a Technion graduate, at least not 
probably without making himself more prepared somehow. I don't believe in 
Fatalism.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

> Ido

[1] - I often feel the same about Bible studies in Israel vs. in many 
Christian countries or by non-Israeli Jews who don't understand Hebrew. 
Israelis Jews study the Bible in its original language and writing, for 10 or 
so years, and are heavily exposed to it in the culture and literature. And we 
still speak a very similar language on a day to day basis.

Recently, a Christian British correspondant I talked with about King David 
asked if it was he who killed Goliath or it was Samson. And the "David vs. 
Goliath" paradigm is present in English as well. I have yet to see a 
translation of the Bible to English that does not mutilate it completely. 
Don't take me wrong - even a translation of the Bible to contemporary Hebrew 
will lose most of the beauty. And I've seen some good Hebrew->English or vice 
versa translations.

One of the themes on my blog is discussing the Bible, Hebrew, and Arabic and 
debunking some myths.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [email-masked]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

If it's not in my E-mail it doesn't happen. And if my E-mail is saying
one thing, and everything else says something else - E-mail will conquer.
    -- An Israeli Linuxer

---

From: "Nir Simionovich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:33:20 +0200

Hi All,

  Wow, this one even has me coming out of the bleachers, so I'll give my
2cents on the issue. I believe it is fairly easy for me to comment, as I had
studied in the Technion for a period of time, however, hadn't completed my
degree there. 

  I believe the main issue with academic studies is: academic studies gives
you structures, paradigms and most importantly - some form of order.
However, at the same time, most people become somewhat fixated to these
methodologies of problem solving, resulting in the ability to produce a
predictable result - every time. However, anything you learn in the academic
world, can be learned in a real-life scenario, just from using some form of
deductive reasoning, or just simple common sense. Some of the most complex
problems are solved with a very simple, sometimes stupidly simple, solution.

  As an employer, I can surely say that for some roles I would rather take a
person with a degree, while other roles require someone who has none. When
taking somebody to work inside a large team, I would rather take someone
with a degree, as I know that they are "programmed" to do what they are
told, and their paradigms are well known and fairly predictable. When a role
requires a somewhat of a "lone gun-man" approach, I would prefer a
non-academic background, as this approach requires "out-of-the-box"
thinking, an ability to go beyond the paradigms and in some cases, breaking
a rule or two along the way. 

  I think that there is no rule or thumb saying what is better, or
preferred. I think that one of the guys here had a signature that said: "In
a world without border, who needs gates?", so, I'll paraphrase this into:
"In a world where rules are rewritten daily, who can rely on a paradigm?"

  Just my 2c on the subject.

Nir S

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Shlomi Fish
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 3:09 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: ik; Hackers-IL
Subject: [hackers-il] Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?

Hi Ido!

That's a good strategy.

background and knowledge. I understood for exmample, why it is a good to
keep 

http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/education/opinion-on-the-tech
nion/

The Technion gives one mostly foundations and basic stuff. Or if it does
not, 

Programs":

proper experience in programming on their own. So they try to digest what
the 
university teach them (in a demanding way that requires investing a lot of 
time, and often using the wrong languages, tools and platforms). One of the 
reasons I did not study CS was because I knew that I couldn't become a
better 
programmer by going to a university. So it would have just been an excuse to

learn Mathematics and to get a Bachelor degree so workplaces will like me.
If 
I really wanted to learn Math then the Math department would be the way to 
go. Of course, from my experience with it, I don't think I would have 
survived there, with the "work-only-in-singles" and "exams-with-no-material"

That's not true for EE in the technion, and I believe neither for CS there. 
People there are required to understand the material. Usually, they can
bring 
books, notes and calculators to the exams, and still have to think a lot.

He compared it with an educated Greek man, who grew up in Greek, where 
everyone study Ancient Greek and literature and nobody takes it seriously,
to 
a place where Greek is holy. He asks a student to tell him what Socrates
said 
about democracy, and the student is unable to tell him. Then he asks him to 
say the part where he said it and the student recites it in beautiful Greek.
[1]

If you invent your own wheel, you'll understand much better how a wheel
works, 
and may have a slim chance of inventing a better wheel. But you may also 
invent a square wheel. So I suggest you try to think of a programming
problem 
yourself, and then try to ask around or research it.

> human languages that most of them I learned on my own).

Maybe it was just the open university. Perhaps you'd like the Technion
better.

http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/education/opinion-on-the-tech
nion/

Some people who did not go to university eventually earn enough expertise
and 
prestige, to become successful enterpreneurs, consultants/contractors, etc.
A 
good example is Randal L. Schwartz, who is the author of several Perl books,

However, many people also regret not going to university to get a degree.
And 
if you want to work in a large Research Department, you normally need a 
Ph.D., and from what I know, from very good reasons.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

[1] - I often feel the same about Bible studies in Israel vs. in many 
Christian countries or by non-Israeli Jews who don't understand Hebrew. 
Israelis Jews study the Bible in its original language and writing, for 10
or 
so years, and are heavily exposed to it in the culture and literature. And
we 
still speak a very similar language on a day to day basis.

will lose most of the beauty. And I've seen some good Hebrew->English or
vice 
versa translations.

debunking some myths.

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:46:35 -0700

> a rule or two along the way.

Hey Nir,

You're being very stereotypical. You're assigning properties to
people's character based on their education.

I would say that there are good people and excellent people. The good
people can benefit from higher education (by learning to treat
problems in a structured way), and the excellent people cannot be
ruined by higher education, and can sometimes benefit from it.

I can say that I have benefited from my Technion experience (I'm a CS
BA). I've learned, mostly, humility. I used to be able to just wing it
in high school, to the extent that I would read the response to my
homework from a blank page, doing it in my head as I pretended to
read. The Technion is the first place that challenged me in a major
way and taught me that winging it is not enough, that sometimes it
does pay to sit down for a moment and do structured work.

It has nothing to do with being a "lone gunman" or thinking outside
the box or bending some rules to a well-calculated pre-breakage point.
This is where you need someone excellent, regardless of education.

Being able to both think outside the box AND enjoy the benefits of
structured work is even better. What's more, higher education gives
you a common language spoken by the top people in our industry, and as
you well know, communication is sometimes as important as mad skillz.

To sum it up: The people who "do what they're told" and are programmed
with paradigms are good, and they probably benefited from higher
education. They probably made a wise choice. The people who are
excellent, might be refined by higher education but you can't take
that edge away from them.

I have a lot of examples to show you of both kinds of people,
including people we both know.

-- Arik

---

From: Micha Feigin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 14:44:23 +0200

On 24 Mar 2007 06:14:53 -0700

> > give you any real knowledge (yes, it is like anything else, arguable

It's not true that a degree gives you no real knowledge. Far from it. One of
the big problems with people who are self taught computer programmers is that a
lot of them of no notion of software engineering and  design, design by
contract, group collaboration, proper commenting etc. (the problem is that you
can finish your degree with no notion on how to turn on a computer, but that is
another issue).

Add to that the problem of having to handle possible upwards of a couple
hundred application requests a month, which requires some intermediate
filtering because interviewing and testing new applicants also costs a lot of
money (you need to pay a knowledged interviewer who could have done actual work
otherwise).

A university degree with a minimal grade gives some indication that the person
has at least minimal theoretical and practical experience, hopefully some
intelligence and the ability to learn.

Due to the amount of applicants they latch onto the one filter they have that
indicates something in order to lighten the load.

> physics. It was also a very good brain exercise.

Beside the brain exercise it does give you some background understanding that
can be useful, depending on where you end up (from personal experience, I
didn't think I'd need computer structure for being a software person but that
turned out false).

And the brain exercise can be a good thing in itself.

> Computer Science studies, but it's certainly not the case for Electrical 

It does give you the tools however to learn and _understand_ whatever tools you
later need.

> second semester or afterwards.

They just started with that course instead of pascal in TAU when I started. I
also read the book afterwards.

Its a great course about programing techniques, but I believe you need some
programing background to get the most out of it, and at least at the time they
made it more into a course on lisp instead of programing ideas.

The book is worth a read in my opinion even later on. It's got some nice ideas.

> > that needs to be maintainable by more then one developer.

My experience is usually the opposite.

> books, notes and calculators to the exams, and still have to think a lot.

From current teaching experience, a good test makes all the books, notes and
calculators redundant. Usually people who get the highest grades need the notes
at most to remember the exact formulation of the formulas.

Earlier courses may be a bit mass production, at least in michlalot, but
anything past that requires understanding.

> > part of the successful society.

There is a CS theorem that says that you can't have a methodical method to
create proofs (basic logic courses). The result is that  you teach people how
to prove things the same ways babies learn to walk or see. You show them a lot
of proofs and try to explain the logic behind them, hoping that at some point
the students will understand the ideas but be able to construct new ones by
themselves. Along the way you also try to give the tools of the trade.

I am a mathematician, but it EE and CS are somewhat similar (and I believe they
are) you rather missed the whole point of the studies.

> works, and may have a slim chance of inventing a better wheel. But you may
> also invent a square wheel. So I suggest you try to think of a programming
> problem yourself, and then try to ask around or research it.
> 

I agree, the open university is good for some people but for others it's
completely wrong. It requires very good discipline and doesn't give you as much
interaction with other students or the library,

> > are close minded. So please update the way you look at things, and you

There is a lot of very badly written open source programs out there. There is
also little way to know how much and what contribution each person made. It
also shows you know a programing language, but not other knowledge.

It is taken into account more and more these days, partly as a way for people
to gain experience in places they don't need job interviews. It is not however
treated as a sole indication due to it's limitations.

---

From: "ik_5" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:54:51 -0000

Hello Araik,

I wish to highlight from advance, that I'm not going to attack you,
and I really interested in answers (I hope you do not know what I'm
talking about) :)

As far as I know from your "CV" (I didn't really saw it), you where
head of computer science at the Technion, or something close.
Now I really respect what you are saying, but because Nir used some
quoting, I have the need to use it as well:

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the
level of thinking that created them."
    Albert Einstein

Personally (I always write about myself or on people I know from first
hand), I'm not very objective in my perspective, and I think that non
of the answers on this subject can arrive from objective point of view.

However, any such argument creates some type of stereotypical answers.
That's btw what happens also when you are looking for a job. 

Personally, I believe that the open source world gave us something
great: The ability to show the rest of the world our code, and the
ability to learn from others without the need to be part of an "elite"
group.

Personally I do not believe that things such as exams can point on
someone knowledge in a subject other then taking exams.

I do not believe that learning at a university can point something on
a person.
I know (from first hand) a person that have taken curses in order to
have an academic degree in one subject, after two years, he moved to
computer science, with points on many subjects that gave him "ptor"
for a lot of harder classes, and now he learns CS in order to be a
software engineer.
I also know from first hand, few people that dropped out of
university, and returned to finish their degree.
And last but not least I know people that have so many diplomas, but
they don't understand anything.

So I can't trust that someone can be good or excellent just because he
or she learned at the university. 
I also believe that no one is perfect (I know that I'm far from being
perfect).

But why do you believe that only someone that learned from university
can have good tools and paradigms, while others can not ?

Why did the studding at university became like religion, that only the
ones that part of that "cult" can have access to things, while people
that do wish to know, but can't handle this religion, are not deserve it ?

While I do have a lot more to say, on the subject I'll shut myself up
and I'll end up in few other quotes of my liking for this subject :)

"Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, 
Knowledge is not understanding, Understanding is not wisdom. "
    Cliff Stoll & Gary Schubert

"The only real security that a man will have in this world is a
reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability."
    Henry Ford

And last but not least:

"Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always
glorify the hunter."
    African Proverb

Ido
--
http://ik.homelinux.org/

--- In [email-masked], "Arik Baratz" <yahoo@...> wrote:
>
> On 3/24/07, Nir Simionovich <nirs@...> wrote:
>

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:08:11 +0200

> ability to learn from others without the need to be part of an "elite"

I like to point out parallels between free software and the academic world.
In both worlds, people are judged and ranked by what they publish (source
code and papers), its quantity, quality, and impact. In both worlds, people
are expected to publish their results in a way that their followers can
replicate and build on (in software, this means publish the source code,
not binaries). In both worlds, there's a lot of politics, people getting
ahead because they know the right people or were at the right place at the
right time, but ultimatively, those who really succeed are the ones who
really excell at what they do, and really had great ideas that changed the
world.

So in my opinion, nothing in the academia is more elitistic than in the
free software world. Just as graduates from one university are considered
"more desirable" than graduates from another university, so are programmers
on one project (say, the Linux kernel) often considered "more desirable"
than programmers on a different project (say, a clock applet). Just like
the academia in its hundreds of years of existance has defined several
"ranks" of people (such as students, doctors, professors, etc.), so does
the free software world, with its concepts of "committers", "maintainers",
and so on. In one medium-sized free software project I've been interested
in, there's a clear separation of one guru, several steerers, a bit more
committers, and a larger crowd of people sending patches. Ataining the
status of "committer" instead of just being a patch-sender, is highly
coveted in this project. This is not all that different from a lowly PhD
student attaining a position, becoming a professor, and so on - it's just
(for medium-sized projects) much easier.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |        Sunday, Mar 25 2007, 7 Nisan 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |A bird in the hand is safer than one
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |overhead.

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:25:41 -0700

> Hello Araik,

It's Arik, Ido.

> quoting, I have the need to use it as well:

I wasn't even close. I was an undergraduate student, I did work in the
Technion Computer Center as a student, which is not the same as the
Computer Science faculty. I did not have any role in this faculty
other than that of a student.

> of the answers on this subject can arrive from objective point of view.

That's fine, objectivism is highly overrated. We cannot be objective
merely because we live in a subjective world, the one we created for
ourselves. I can go on and on about that, though.

> ability to learn from others without the need to be part of an "elite"

Ou Contraire, mon ami. Open source coders ARE an elite group. People
who can code. The credentials you need to join the group: Be able to
code and have free time. You know how many people have that
combination? A minute percentage of the population. People who are
well fed, well clothed, well educated (not necessarily formal
education here) and don't have to worry about what they will do
tomorrow for the essentials of life.

> someone knowledge in a subject other then taking exams.

That's not entirely accurate, it depends on the exam, and the
examiner. And yes there are techniques for taking exams. I believe
that you're also missing an important subtext, an important
meta-program that stems from going to school (again, not just higher
education): The ability to get an assigned task, do it, get feedback,
learn from the feedback and do better next time.

This meta-program is, IMHO, an extremely important part in the ability
to cope with life as it is today and be successful. It's a basis to
basically everything you do. If you have a job - you're handed a task,
you perform it, and get feedback. If you're self-employed - you decide
on a task, perform it, and the success of your business is your
feedback. If you're an inventor, you create something, you realize it,
and acceptance in the market is your feedback. If you're an artist...
I can go on and on about this, you get the point.

> I do not believe that learning at a university can point something on

Are we talking about what other people think? Because I'm talking
about what's important to you as a person, for your personal
development. When I went to the Technion I went there because I wanted
to learn, definitely not because I wanted a diploma. In fact, I was an
Atudai (עתודאי) and when asked for the faculty, my first choice was
computer science. I was asked to specify a second choice which I have
left blank to the dismay of the officer who filled this form. I knew
what I wanted to learn, I couldn't care less about the diploma. (BTW
in retrospect Atuda for me was a bad thing and I don't recommend it
without careful consideration).

Regardless of that, when I interview someone I do take into account
their university degree, because I think it DOES say something about
the person. It says "the person in front of you can take up a
long-term task that lasts 3-4 years, a task which is made up from many
different challenges, some are boring and some are interesting. All in
all, that person took the challenge and completed it to a certain
degree of success". Although not having a degree does not imply that
the person is incapable of such feats, having a degree indicates that
the person has done it at least once.

> for a lot of harder classes, and now he learns CS in order to be a

Yep, I think most of the first semesters - math, physics, etc. - it's
quite a lot. It doesn't let you waive the requirement for any core CS
courses though.

> they don't understand anything.

Of course they do. They understand how to get diplomas. I'm not being
cynical, but if that is all you gained from your academic studies, I
don't think going there was such a good idea.

> or she learned at the university.

Obvious.

> I also believe that no one is perfect (I know that I'm far from being

Obvious.

> can have good tools and paradigms, while others can not ?

I'm going to read what I wrote to see how you got that impression.
Nope, I didn't say that. All I said is that it can help.

> that do wish to know, but can't handle this religion, are not deserve it ?

I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to unpack this question. You're
mentioning a lot of terms I am not sure I get the way you get.
'deserve' is a very loaded word. It means that you have the right to
something because of who you are or the work you did. So which one is
it? What are the "things" that one would deserve being a part of the
cult?

> "Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always

I like that one. Can you please explain its relevance to the topic? I
hope you don't mean what I think you mean.

-- Arik

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:42:37 +0200

Hi Arik and Ido and all!

> ourselves. I can go on and on about that, though.

Just a note. You claim that "objectivism" is highly over-rated. Do you mean 
the philosophy of Ayn Rand (also referred to as "Randianism")? Or do you mean 
plain-old "objectivity"?

In any case, I have a problem with this. As you may realise there are three 
similar but non-identical terms:

1. Unbiased.

2. Objective.

3. Neutral. Or as it is known on the Wikipedia - Neutral Point of View or 
NPOV.

They are not the same. For example, if I say "Genghis Khan performed many Evil 
acts", this is a biased statement. But it is objective because it is true.

While we are inherentely subjective to some extent, we can and should always 
try to be as objective as possible. I'm not saying we should be unbiased, 
just that we try to perceive and conceive reality as if we were not 
associated with anyone, and could always judge things objectively.

Aside from objective/subjective, there are also matters of taste, which are 
not subject to such judgement. I can consider a painting as good and another 
person may dislike it, and arguing about it is pointless.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: "ik_5" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:11:08 -0000

--- In [email-masked], "Arik Baratz" <yahoo@...> wrote:
>
> On 3/25/07, ik_5 <idokan@...> wrote:
> > Hello Araik,
> 
> It's Arik, Ido.

Sorry Arik, my bad.

> tomorrow for the essentials of life.

Actually that's wrong :) We have (in Israel) group of people that does
not know how to code, but still contribute. They translate, they write
documents and guides, they report bugs, and they help people to use
open source software. 

The thing is, that university is for rich people, that can invest all
of their time into having some sort of diploma. And the higher you go,
the harder for you is to find a job, and places such as the Technion
will also prohibit people from working while making a degree higher
then the BA (or BS etc..)

> I can go on and on about this, you get the point.

So why does â€œspill all your knowledge without interruption, at a
giving timeâ€ is the right way ? How about â€œArik, please write me a
program that calculates the sum of all the digits of PI, oh and please
submit it by tomorrowâ€  is not such a good checking to see your
knowledge, and if you can handle giving tasks on time etc.. ?

> Atudai (×¢×ª×•×"××™) and when asked for the faculty, my first choice was

So why is it so hard for you and many other people that did go the the
university that some people like to learn, but they can learn only by
doing it on their own, with trail and error ?

For example, at high-school, I found out that numbers are not
integers, but actually only wish to become integers, but they are not.
You know what caused me to understand that ?
I did not understand a subject in Algebra, and the teacher was unable
to explain to me the subject. So I started looking at the result of
things that was made using that subject, but when I tried to solve it,
I always got close answer, but not the same answer. That is if the
book written â€œ1â€, I always got something like 0.9333431 or 1.01 etc..
while the way I solved things, where the same as they thought us, but
the result was â€œalmostâ€ but not closed, so I concluded (after that few
other people checked my formulas, that found thing wrong), that you
can not have an integer value with out rounding things up.

It took me 7 years to discover that there is such actual mathematical
theories ... 
So who learned better from that experience, a person that learn the
subject at university, or a person that found out about it while
trying to understand different things ? !

> the person has done it at least once.

So the fact that I'm at the same open source project for more then 4
years (give or take, by the time I have to give something), and the
fact that I had 3 full years of service, and if tomorrow I'll raise
kids, or marry a woman, and live with them for years, it will say the
same thing ... 
So I do not understand this filter, because you have so many ways to
prove the same thing.
If you need to find a filter, please look at how the person using his
or her occupation. For example, does that person go to a computer at
home after 12-14 hours of work and continue doing something on the
computer ?
Does that person try to learn and be better, even when that is done on
that person â€œfreeâ€ time ?
Does that person have more interests then just working in specific
subject.
And I can continue giving you filters for people ... the thing is,
that the above filters are much better then  having a diploma. I know
a person that have a BS degree, but he only knows things that giving
to him by educational places, such as schools and universities, but
nothing further then that. So why would you prefer someone like this,
over someone that does not have any degree but does have good
answerers to my filters ?

> quite a lot. It doesn't let you waive the requirement for any core CS

I don't trust people that can't handle their choices ... 
What will promise you that tomorrow, that person will have a twinkle
in his eyes, and will use your place, and resources to have something
completely different then what he was needed for, and instead of doing
his job, he will do something else.

> don't think going there was such a good idea.

Then it means that having a diploma does not mean you know something
on the subjects you have learned, it means only that you know how to
get a diploma (what about buying them, or something similar ?)

> it? What are the "things" that one would deserve being a part of the

Most of this argument, is does a person that learned at the
university, is better then a person that did not, hench, he or she
gives you better filters to accept such person to work for you, or
with you.
So I still can't find an answer (that is not questionable) to why
people that learned at the university have better resources, and
acceptance, then people that have the same knowledge but got it
elsewhere ?
The only way I can understand it, is that they are part of a cult or a
religion ... because any other answer I was given until today is
highly questionable for me, and still doesn't really answer the question.

> hope you don't mean what I think you mean.

What do you think I meant ? 

Sometimes it takes years to understand a meaning of something, so
please do not take any shortcuts, because then you will not learn to
think, you will learn only to ask for an answer.

Ido

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:10:41 +0200

> acts", this is a biased statement. But it is objective because it is true.

So, you claim that objective equals true? So what, in your view, is subjective
(i.e., not objective)? Only lies?

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |        Monday, Mar 26 2007, 7 Nisan 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |If a million Shakespeares tried to write
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |together, they would write like a monkey.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:11:39 +0200

> then the BA (or BS etc..)

If your statement is true (and I have strong objections to it), it is doubly
true for free software activity. Writing free software requires either
being paid for it (which means being relatively well-off) or a lot of free
time. A poor person working his *** off and spending whatever time is left
to care for his N children, has absolutely zero chance of succeeding in the
world of free software.

> So why does “spill all your knowledge without interruption, at a
> giving time” is the right way ? How about “Arik, please write me a
> submit it by tomorrow”  is not such a good checking to see your

Of course it does, and many courses have such longer exercises in addition
to, or completely replacing, the exams. In fact, at least half of the courses
I took in my masters degree (in the Technion, Mathematics) were like this -
with no test at all. But exercises have their problems too - they take up
a lot of time (so again we're back to students needing to be supported by
some rich person :-)), they are often much harder than tests (because
teachers assume the students have all the time in the world, and have access
to books, so they can't just give an easy exercise). And of course, if the
student group is large (not the 15 people in my math courses, it becomes
almost impossible to make sure that people don't copy the exercises from
each other, so a teacher basing 100% of the grade on them needs to be
extraordinarily naive...

> doing it on their own, with trail and error ?

Because the saying goes, "Learn from other people's mistakes - you won't
live long enough to make them all on your own"... Studying in the university
is one way to learn from other people's decades (or even centuries) of
mistakes and successes. Of course there are other ways to do it - you can
just read books. Most of the CS I know (as opposed to the Math I know), I
read from books, not from frontal lectures. But how am I supposed to prove
to a skeptic that I really read all those books? This is what a degree does
for you - it's a *proof* that you studied the material, with some sort of
measure on how well the professors thought you understood the material.
Surely you could have learnt the same material other ways - but then you'll
need to figure out other ways to prove that, to a skeptical employer.

The book "Freakonomics" has an interesting section about a similar issue -
of the value people place on confirmed information (in this case, a "degree"
is just confirmation that a person learned something). As an example, he
gives the fact that a 1 day old car is sold at a price much lower than a
new car. Why? Because the buyer can't be sure why the seller is selling
the car; If he was sure that the reason is that the buyer has to suddenly
move abroad like he claimed, even a 1000 shekel saving would have been enough;
But maybe the seller is lying? Maybe there's something wrong in the car?
Not being able to confirm this information, the buyer places a lower value
on the car. Similarly, an employer often places a lower value on a applicant
without a degree - just because he cannot really confirm that the applicant
knows what he's claiming. If there are other ways to confirm this (e.g.,
previous work experience), the applicant's value goes back up.

> that the above filters are much better then  having a diploma. I know

Except, none of the filters you suggest are verifiable. If word got around
that employers liked people who program at home, every applicant will start
saying, "yes, I program 3 hours a day at home", and nobody will ever be caught
lying. You need verifiable claims (even if the employer usually won't try
to verify them). One such claim is a degree. Another is experience at
previous work. A third is experience at free software (which is "out there"
and can be looked at). I know several people who were hired for highly
lucrative and desired jobs because they had an excellent record on just one
of the three - one person with an excellent degree but no experience, a
second person with no degree and no free-software but work experience from
previous high-tech companies, and a third person with no degree and no work
experience, but a lot of free-software experience. The problem is that if
you have only one of these qualifications, you may find yourself competing
against someone with more than one. For example, if you just have free
software experience, you'll have a hard time competing with someone who has
free software experience *and* work experience *and* a degree.

> answerers to my filters ?

Of course not. In my previous job, I interviewed people, and I interviewed
many people like this, who could recite useless facts from the course they
studied the last semester, but had no interest or knowledge of what's
happening outside these courses. Obviously, we didn't pick these people.

> get a diploma (what about buying them, or something similar ?)

The hallmark of a high-reputation university is that the only way to
"get a diploma" is to learn the material. In the Technion (at least when
I studied there, over a decade ago) you couldn't get a diploma (with high
grades) by becoming a better slacker, by bribing the teachers, by cheating,
or anything of this sort. Your only way to "learn to get a diploma" is to
learn the material the professors wanted you to learn - which in my case
was a whole lot of Mathematical knowledge which the professors decided every
Mathematician needs to know. The whole process more-or-less guarantees that
anyone that finished the Mathematics degree with a high grade has to be
good at math - there's simply no other way to come across these grades.

Of course, in other universities or departments, the situation might be
different. In some fake universities, your money means more than your
studies. This is why employers don't look as highly at a graduate of
Latvia (or whatever was that fake university which was recently in the news)
as they do at a graduate of the technion.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |        Monday, Mar 26 2007, 7 Nisan 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |We are Microsoft. You will be
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |assimilated. Resistance is futile.

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 02:32:04 -0700

> the philosophy of Ayn Rand (also referred to as "Randianism")? Or do you mean

I never read Rand. I meant the indulgence in objectivity as if it is a
real thing or even possible.

> acts", this is a biased statement. But it is objective because it is true.

How is that exactly objective? If you were a Mongol living in the 13th
century, you'd think that Genghis was a great and worthy Khan. Go read
the [1] wikipedia entry.

I believe that there is nothing objective, and there are no
universals. Even 'one and one is two' is true only if you accept the
two mathematical axioms regd. natural numbers. In some reference
systems one and one is three... like in a family.

> associated with anyone, and could always judge things objectively.

IMHO, since you perceive reality through your senses alone, which are
fallible, and you further filter what you sense through your
unconscious filters, which are individual and subjective, the attempt
at objectivity is doomed to fail.

> person may dislike it, and arguing about it is pointless.

Taste is subjectivity to a personal extreme. For example, killing is
bad because the society we live in dictates it as a moral rule (and
morality is subjective but relatively uniform in a single society in a
point in time). Your painting sux because I personally think so. It's
a matter of scope.

-- Arik

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:32:35 +0200

On Monday 26 March 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2007, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Objectivity [was Re: 
[hackers-il] Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?]":
> > They are not the same. For example, if I say "Genghis Khan performed many
> > Evil acts", this is a biased statement. But it is objective because it is
> > true.
>
> So, you claim that objective equals true? So what, in your view, is
> subjective (i.e., not objective)? Only lies?

Well, not exactly. For example, I talked with someone on the IRC the other 
day, who said that ESR should be shot, because he supports the war on Iraq 
and other stuff. Well, this is subjective because ESR has done a lot for the 
community from writing the Cathedral and the Bazaar and other important 
documents, to actually writing some useful code (whose quality is not 
withstanding). And he hasn't harmed anyone in his life.

I agree that ESR does not precisely qualify as sane, or that his code may not 
be of good quality, but he is still doing important work. I'd rather have a 
lot of ugly code that works and that I can refactor and clean up later, than 
a small amount of beautiful code that only prints "Hello World".

Further, he said that Linus Torvalds was a "F**king Capitalist". Again, that 
is subjective. I think Linus Torvalds did a lot for FOSS and for the world in 
general, and should be admired and respected rather than be labeled. This was 
probably said out of some Socialist-induced resentment, or even due to 
(non-sexual) jealousy or envy.

If you and I know a girl called Sophie, and I say "I hate Sophie", then this 
is also a subjective statement. It expresses my general feeling rather than 
anything wrong with her. However, if I say "Sophie is a Liar", then this 
statement may be factual or it may be false, dependening on its truthhood. 

Saying that "Communism is good for you" is both subjective and false, because 
I'm speaking out of my general feeling, and we all know the destruction and 
badness Communism brought onto the world.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:29:31 -0700

> as they do at a graduate of the technion.

Heh. My first job ever (after graduating, I had a lot of odd jobs
before), a friend of a friend told them to call me because of a
particular interest I have shown in the Compilation and Compilers
course in the Technion. My interview was very short, it was a team
leader in a start-up. He asked me if I've studied in the Technion, and
when I answered in the affirmative he hired me.

I hope it doesn't infuriate people here. I can only say that I am more
discriminating when it comes to hiring people. Also, my job was to
write a compiler, something very few people like to do apparently, and
my interest in compilers was a factor in the decision.

-- Arik

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:31:03 -0700

> documents and guides, they report bugs, and they help people to use

Yes, I thought about the translators and tech writers after I sent the
message. So if you want to be very inclusive, then the open source
"community" which includes the coders, tech writers, translators,
users, beta testers and everyone else who participates in open source,
you're right, it's open to everyone with the aforementioned free time
(perhaps with the exception of the users who might be using it for
purposes other than helping). I hereby withdraw the definition
"elite", leaving only "people with free time".

> of their time into having some sort of diploma. And the higher you go,

Although my parents helped me considerably with my diploma, this
statement, according to the experience of many others that I've known,
is false.

> then the BA (or BS etc..)

This is false. From my experience, you can work 20% of the time in an
undergraduate degree, and from others' experience you can work more
than 60% of the time in a graduate degree. It actually gets better in
the higher degrees. And considering that higher education in Israel in
one of the universities (and I'm specifically excluding private
collages) is extremely cheap, less than 2000 NIS/month including dorms
and materials (perhaps it's more for faculties that need a lot of
materials like architecture), and there are a lot of scholarships, I
think it's very accessible to everyone. Even if you don't save enough
and have to rely on student loans, it's still doable.

The only case I've seen when the Technion actually prohibits you from
working is when you get a full scholarship (including dorms and money
for other expenses).

> knowledge, and if you can handle giving tasks on time etc.. ?

Who said it's the "right way"? No one said it's the right way. The
teacher needs to know that you've gained something in the course of
the semester, so they assign you a task. They know that to solve this
task you will need to employ some of the material covered in the
course. They estimate that to solve the task will take you x amount of
time. They can quantify your "success" by measuring how well you did
that, compared to them, and score it. It's not "the right way", but it
is "a way", which is a compromise between the necessity to evaluate a
lot of students in a short amount of time, the problem of subjectivity
when doing 1:1 evaluations, the inability of the teacher to look
inside your mind and see how much you know, etcetera. Nothing is
perfect in this world, better get used to it because complaining won't
solve it. If you can think up an alternative cost-effective
non-invasive way to do that, please suggest it.

> doing it on their own, with trail and error ?

Oh, I can feel it, I can feel it... here it comes... a quote:

"We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see
more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any
sharpness on sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but
because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size" -
Bernard of Chartres

It's not that learning by trial and error is bad for you. It's in fact
very good - no - essential. By all means continue trying and erring
and learning. It's just that, on occasion, you might want to consider
skipping some of it when other people erred and learned before.

> book written “1”, I always got something like 0.9333431 or 1.01 etc..
> the result was “almost” but not closed, so I concluded (after that few

...which brings us to the language topic. There are terms that
describe the phenomena you've learned on your own. The fact that you
don't know the name for it makes it difficult for me to understand
exactly what you're talking about (I think you're talking about limits
but I'm still not sure). When you work, you communicate with other
people. Knowing a common language by which people express those ideas
is important.

> trying to understand different things ? !

Look, I don't really want to take away from your experience. In fact I
felt that myself a lot of times, when I have "discovered" a theory
only to find out someone else has discovered it more than 500 years
ago, and even named it after themselves - the cheeky bastards. It is
good to discover them, it is also good to learn about them if you
didn't. Is one better than the other all in all? I don't know. You'll
have to convince me there.

> kids, or marry a woman, and live with them for years, it will say the

Indeed. When I interview people I obviously take it into account, and
I've given a "hire" recommendation for people without degrees. And, at
least to me, IDF military service (this is what you meant by "3 full
years of service", right?) does count as a bonus, because it indicates
that you can fit in a demanding environment and stick with it for 3
years. Unless you're like some guy I've seen who's using his 3 years
to get into as much trouble as he can and spend as much time as
possible grounded to his base.

> So I do not understand this filter, because you have so many ways to

Yes. Having a degree is one of them. It's not a filter, it's a
weighing system. At least for me it is, don't know about other people.

> home after 12-14 hours of work and continue doing something on the

This, my friend, is a serious personality disorder. Unfortunately I
share it with you. Did I mention it's 4am here?

> that person “free” time ?

Yes, it counts.

> answerers to my filters ?

I definitely wouldn't. Experience counts more than a degree. I never
argued that.

> I don't trust people that can't handle their choices ...

Okay, let's work with that. "people who change their minds are
untrustworthy". So, is it more important to stay fixed and rigid in
your preset opinion or have the flexibility to change and reinvent
yourself according to different needs?

Imagine Joe who comes to a factory and works the sprocket machine.
He's so very happy with his job and never wants to change. Now due to
cuts he's out of a job, and can't even work at the competing factory
because they don't make sprockets. In fact, the reason Joe was fired
was because he could never take over for Jim when Jim was sick because
Jim was working the cog machine and Joe wouldn't work on anything but
the sprocket machine.

I understand that you want people to be consistent, and consistency is
important, and taking consistency to an extreme will result in a lack
of flexibility. Don't you know people who enjoy different things but
are nevertheless reliable? I have changed what I do several times for
the last 7 years. I was a programmer, a designer, an architect, a
sales engineer, a professional services engineer and now I'm a
technical marketing engineer. Yes I'm in marketing, if you asked me 7
years ago I would say 'no way'.

It's like that, people change, people grow up, their preferences
change. Something new comes along, and that's that. And I rather have
someone who likes what they're doing rather than someone who hates
their job and stays because of some decision they made long ago.

> his job, he will do something else.

Nothing. If they're decent enough they'll come and say that they
decided to move on. If not, and hopefully if the hiring process is
right it doesn't happen, they'll be let go. No one wants people who
don't want to be there.

> get a diploma (what about buying them, or something similar ?)

Like I've said before, having a diploma means that the person can take
up a multi-year task and bring it to completion. Unless they buy the
diploma, in which case they'll fail really quick with me. I despise
bullshit and when people don't give me straight answers for technical
questions, they're out. As a rule of thumb, if you go out of an
interview with me either sweating or shaking, you didn't make it. I've
had those before. Sorry, I have a low BS tolerance.

> gives you better filters to accept such person to work for you, or

Define better... Having a diploma says something about you. A few
things actually. Lacking a diploma doesn't say that you lack those
things, it just means that I have to be more careful when I interview
you because I have to check whether you have them.

> acceptance, then people that have the same knowledge but got it

One answer would be - because they also speak the same language, as
discussed above. Another one is that they are capable of completing
long term tasks, also discussed above. If these can be shown
otherwise, there's no reason.

> highly questionable for me, and still doesn't really answer the question.

Oh please lay off it already. It's not a cult, it's not a religion,
it's not an elite. Go and get a degree if you want to, or don't. If
you're excellent, you won't have a problem finding a job either way.
Read about cults and religions before you invoke their names here out
of context.

> What do you think I meant ?

Well, the way I understand this proverb, it's about historical
subjectivity. It's about history subjectively preferring the winner
over the loser, because the winner gets to write history. The way I
thought you might apply it, badly, is (and I don't support this) that
university graduates are the winner and, being the elite winners, they
set the rules of the game where the non-graduates, the loser, have to
abide by these rules. Being the hunted party, the non-graduates lack
the resources to change that.

> think, you will learn only to ask for an answer.

The reason I asked you to explain it wasn't because I didn't have an
interpretation, it's because I was going to give you the benefit of
the doubt, since my interpretation shows you as a loser who can't see
beyond the feeling of being a loser, and as such will forever remain
defeated.

The reason why this world view is skewed and wrong is that you are not
the loser in this non-battle, You just chose a different path. I can
see that you are very much convinced in the righteousness of your
path, and your text reflects a lot of strong emotions, so I will make
no attempt to sway you. I'll just say the following:

Righteousness leads to blindness. Be flexible, Ido. Make a conscious
effort to put your emotions aside, for a brief moment now. Open your
eyes to the possibility that thousands of people study at the higher
eduction institutions, and at least one of them isn't stupid, and has
considered both options, and chose to go this route. I've been there,
and some of the smartest people I know have been there with me.
Perhaps some of us know what we're doing.

-- Arik

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:48:29 +0200

On Monday 26 March 2007, Arik Baratz wrote:
> > Just a note. You claim that "objectivism" is highly over-rated. Do you
> > mean the philosophy of Ayn Rand (also referred to as "Randianism")? Or do
> > you mean plain-old "objectivity"?
>

OK. :-)

> > In any case, I have a problem with this. As you may realise there are
> > three similar but non-identical terms:
> >
> > 1. Unbiased.
> >
> > 2. Objective.
> >

It is objective because it is an accurate description of the factual data. 
Genghis Khan did kill many innocent people, not because he had to, but 
because he wanted to. Maybe it seemed right to his present day Mongols, but 
it wasn't. Some mainland Chinese I talked to did not know Mao was a 
mass-murderer, but we all know he was an Evil man who killed at least 40 
million people of his own people.

To quote Neo-Tech ( http://www.neo-tech.com/orientation/ ):

<<<<<<<<<<<<<
The meaning of moral in Neo-Tech is simple and direct: Whatever is consciously 
done to help fill human biological needs is good and moral (e.g., the 
productive actions of honest people). Whatever is consciously done to harm or 
prevent the filling of human biological needs is bad and immoral (e.g., the 
destructive actions of mystics and neocheaters).

Honestly using one's reasoning nature is always beneficial and moral; 
dishonestly using one's reasoning nature is always harmful and 
immoral. ...Volitionally harmful acts always arise from mysticism -- from 
dishonesty, rationalizations, evasions, defaults.

Yet, acting on fully integrated honesty (Neo-Tech), not reason itself, is the 
basic moral act. When Genghis Khan, for example, chose to use reasoning for a 
specific military move, then in an out-of-context sense, he chose to act 
morally by protecting himself and his troops (thus filling human biological 
needs). But in the larger sense of fully integrated honesty, Khan's total 
actions were grossly immoral in choosing to use aggressive force in becoming 
a mass murderer (thus negating human biological needs). The highly 
destructive, irrational immorality of Genghis Khan's overall dictatorial 
military actions far outweighed any narrow, out-of-context "moral" 
actions. ...Genghis Khan was  enormously evil as were Stalin, Hitler, Mao, 
Castro, Pol Pot.

(I hope I'm not invoking Godwin's Law here - see 
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/godwin.html for why it may not be the 
case)

Objective is not what has a full consensus. It is what can be universally 
agreed upon by most or any sensible person (or alternatively a different 
intelligent life form similar to humans) who has all the relevant data and is 
capable of thought. If I told a tribesman in Africa about Mao, he'll probably 
agree that he's Evil. 

> universals. 

If nothing is objective neither is this statement. Thus, it is a subjective 
(or mystical or whatever) statement, that I'd rather ignore coming from you. 
If everything is subjective any argument is pointless:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Interviewer: let's do a discusssion about drug legalisation.

A: I support it.

B: I oppose.

Interviewer: well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, so let's end it 
here. Thanks for watching

(Based on the Zehu-Zeh's episode about Cable-TV).

If a parent, sibling, child or SO of mine tells me about his feelings, this is 
a subjective statement of importance to me. But the statement "The distance 
between Tel Aviv and Haifa is 100 km" is either objective/factual or simply 
false. It cannot be subjective.

> Even 'one and one is two' is true only if you accept the

2 + 2 == 5 for very large values of 2.

More seriously now, yes, I can define my own math:

http://search.cpan.org/dist/Acme-NewMath/lib/acme/newmath.pm

^^^^ Read it - it's hilarious.

And even more seriously now, 2 is commonly understood as the number following 
1 in standard arithmetics. All modern languages can express such arithmetics 
(see the large numbers mentioned in the Old Testament for example), and it 
can be written very succinctly by using Arabic numerals and the Algebraic 
notation. If I mean a different algebraic system, I should explicitly mention 
it. Otherwise, in the standard system 1+1==2, and objectively. 

If I define a system such that 1+1==3, then this is the case in its context, 
and objectively.

There's a difference between subjectivism and contextualism. 

>
> > While we are inherentely subjective to some extent, we can and should
> > always try to be as objective as possible. I'm not saying we should be
> > unbiased, just that we try to perceive and conceive reality as if we were
> > not associated with anyone, and could always judge things objectively.
>

"I'd rather be a tail for the lions, than the head of tha jackals."

I'd rather be as close to be objective as possible, then be almost completely 
subjective. Objectivity is an ideal, which can never be entirely reached. 
However, honesty is also an ideal, which can never be fully attained. And so 
is self-esteem, and happiness.

Do you claim that I should ditch honesty, self-esteem and happiness too, and 
be dishonest, feel lousy about myself, and miserable?

>
> > Aside from objective/subjective, there are also matters of taste, which
> > are not subject to such judgement. I can consider a painting as good and
> > another person may dislike it, and arguing about it is pointless.
>

Right. However, the fact that killing is bad can be easily deduced from the 
Golden Rule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity

Which is very logical, and commonly accepted. If you want to go against logic, 
and devise a system of ethics that is not based on the Golden rule, I suppose 
you can. But you might as well say that A may be not-A, and get over with it, 
as you will be able to immediately deduce any claim and its opposite.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: ik <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:12:48 +0200

OK, I will not answer most of what you have written (Even the one that you
took out of context), I dissagree with you, and I guess we will not agree on
the subject.
BTW on the "finding" of the "math" issue (and the "language" -> the fact
that I do not remember the name, does not mean that I do not know how it
called, and I only gave it an example, I do not look for a pat in the back
or something... it's just was a pure example).

Now,  I'll only answer my usage of the last quote:

In a different argument I was giving an answer such as "but the statics
shows that people that have learned at universities can learn better" (or
something like this, I'm using my memory). So Unlike you, I do not see
things as winners and losers (although the lion always loose, because it is
not a human), but the fact that you use University based information
(statistic) that does not really check the other side, but you keep on using
it... So I placed (actually more then one) mind for you to remove :)

So because I see that you are like myself (love quotes), here is a cool
quote for you to end up with:

"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create."
    Leonard I. Sweet

So I hope you take the right people with you to create your idea as a
feature,

Ido

On 3/27/07, Arik Baratz <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>   On 26 Mar 2007 02:12:08 -0700, Nadav Har'El <[email-masked]<nyh%40math.technion.ac.il>>
> wrote:
>

-- 
http://ik.homelinux.org/

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:32:28 -0700

On 3/27/07, ik <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> OK, I will not answer most of what you have written (Even the one that you took out of context), I dissagree with you, and I guess we will not agree on the subject.
> BTW on the "finding" of the "math" issue (and the "language" -> the fact that I do not remember the name, does not mean that I do not know how it called, and I only gave it an example, I do not look for a pat in the back or something... it's just was a pure example).

I just latched on to it because I wanted to make a point, meant no disrespect.

>
> In a different argument I was giving an answer such as "but the statics shows that people that have learned at universities can learn better" (or something like this, I'm using my memory). So Unlike you, I do not see things as winners and losers (although the lion always loose, because it is not a human), but the fact that you use University based information (statistic) that does not really check the other side, but you keep on using it... So I placed (actually more then one) mind for you to remove :)

Is statistics a university based information? It's scientific, and
it's taught at universities, but is it something inherent to
universities? I don't think so.

>
> So because I see that you are like myself (love quotes), here is a cool quote for you to end up with:
>

I agree.

>
> So I hope you take the right people with you to create your idea as a feature,

Me too.

 -- Arik

---

From: Tzahi Fadida <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:39:45 +0200

I don't understand why you (plural) insist on associating studying in the 
university and work. While it is the most practical reason, many (and me) 
studied for personal enrichment. I believe that any person that desires study 
should do so if he can.

-- 
Regards,
        Tzahi.
--
Tzahi Fadida
Blog: http://tzahi.blogsite.org | Home Site: http://tzahi.webhop.info
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  see at 
http://members.lycos.co.uk/my2nis/spamwarning.html

---

From: Tal Kelrich <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:56:40 +0200

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:48:29 +0200
Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > > > That's fine, objectivism is highly overrated. We cannot be
> > > > objective merely because we live in a subjective world, the one
> > > > we created for ourselves. I can go on and on about that, though.
> > >
> > > Just a note. You claim that "objectivism" is highly over-rated.
> > > Do you mean the philosophy of Ayn Rand (also referred to as
> > > "Randianism")? Or do you mean plain-old "objectivity"?
> >
> > I never read Rand. I meant the indulgence in objectivity as if it
> > is a real thing or even possible.
> >
> 
> OK. :-)
> 
> > > In any case, I have a problem with this. As you may realise there
> > > are three similar but non-identical terms:
> > >
> > > 1. Unbiased.
> > >
> > > 2. Objective.
> > >
> > > 3. Neutral. Or as it is known on the Wikipedia - Neutral Point of
> > > View or NPOV.
> > >
> > > They are not the same. For example, if I say "Genghis Khan
> > > performed many Evil acts", this is a biased statement. But it is
> > > objective because it is true.
> >
> > How is that exactly objective? If you were a Mongol living in the
> > 13th century, you'd think that Genghis was a great and worthy Khan.
> > Go read the [1] wikipedia entry.
> 
> It is objective because it is an accurate description of the factual
> data. Genghis Khan did kill many innocent people, not because he had
> to, but because he wanted to. Maybe it seemed right to his present
> day Mongols, but it wasn't. Some mainland Chinese I talked to did not
> know Mao was a mass-murderer, but we all know he was an Evil man who
> killed at least 40 million people of his own people.
> 

Define "Evil"?

-- 
Tal Kelrich
PGP fingerprint: 3EDF FCC5 60BB 4729 AB2F  CAE6 FEC1 9AAC 12B9 AA69
Key Available at: http://www.hasturkun.com/pub.txt
----
With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I
try to be a fraud and a half.
		-- Otto von Bismark
----

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:39:32 +0200

Hi Tal!

On Tuesday 27 March 2007, Tal Kelrich wrote:
> > > On 25 Mar 2007 23:42:52 -0700, Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
> > >
> > > wrote:

Quoting my previous message:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

As you can see it's even a scientific definition. In this context "evil" 
== "bad".

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:29:16 +0300

This definition is far from scientific... In fact, it looks completely broken
to me...

Is rape filling your own "biological needs" (and therefore good) or harming
someone else (and therefore bad)? What about stealing food (which fills your
own biological needs, and does not "biologically" harm the store you stole
from)? If Gingis Khan's campaign is bad in this definition (he harmed others
more than he benefited himself), what about Churchill's and Roosvelt's
campaign in WWII - after all they didn't fill their biological needs, and
millions of Germans lost theirs?

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Friday, Mar 30 2007, 11 Nisan 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |How's he gonna read that magazine rolled
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |up like that? What the ... - a fly.

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 07:07:27 -0400

> Quoting my previous message:

Bah. This definition sucks. Neo-Tech might think it's okay and you
might agree. I don't. It's using subjective terms in a "scientific"
definition. Nope, I don't buy it.

-- Arik

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:54:02 +0200

On Friday 30 March 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2007, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Re: Objectivity [was Re: 
[hackers-il] Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?]":
> > <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> > The meaning of moral in Neo-Tech is simple and direct: Whatever is
> > consciously done to help fill human biological needs is good and moral
> > (e.g., the productive actions of honest people). Whatever is consciously
> > done to harm or prevent the filling of human biological needs is bad and
> > immoral (e.g., the destructive actions of mystics and neocheaters).
> >
> >
> This definition is far from scientific... In fact, it looks completely
> broken to me...
>
> someone else (and therefore bad)? What about stealing food (which fills
> your own biological needs, and does not "biologically" harm the store you
> stole from)? If Gingis Khan's campaign is bad in this definition (he harmed
> others more than he benefited himself), what about Churchill's and
> Roosvelt's campaign in WWII - after all they didn't fill their biological
> needs, and millions of Germans lost theirs?

Hi Nadav!

Please see the rest of my quote. Please be readink, understandink and 
integratink what I'm writing.

kthx, bye.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:18:13 +0300

> definition. Nope, I don't buy it.

Why?

Show me the Proof!!!

The burden of proof is on you.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:43:48 +0300

> The burden of proof is on you.

There are several problems with this definition, and I'll mention one below,
but I have to admit it's not very fair that I "disprove" a definition based
on your very short and probably not entirely accurate explanation of it - I
didn't like it when you did that to Kant and Kirkegaard after my explanations,
and I probably shouldn't be doing this to Neo-Tech. I have to admit that I
never read anything about "Neo-Tech" except what you said on this list.

I think Arik's point was, though, that there's nothing "scientific" about
this definition. What makes this definition more "scientific" than a dozen
other definitions of ethics? For example, how is this definition of ethics
based on intention, better than a definition based on actual consequences
(aka "utilitarian" ethics)?

Anyway, the biggest flaw I see with this definition is that it relies on
a person's intentions, which are very subjective, rather than the actual
consequences of his actions, which is more objective (because everyone
sees the consequences of an action, but only the person knows his intentions).
The problem is that except in the extreme case of psychopaths (who are unable
to understand the concept of other human beings having their own lives and
wishes), most "bad" actions are somehow justified in the eyes of its doer.

If you asked a white slave-owner whether he's conciously harming his negro
slave's biological needs, he would say no: he would say that he took care of
their basic needs (minimal amount of food, clothing, shelter, etc.) and would
claim (wrongly of course, but he thought this was true) that negros are so 
privitive that left to their own devices they would be far worse off. He
would add that furthermore, without the slaves the slave-owners would go
bankrupt and starve, so that it is *freeing* the slaves which is immoral
because it would bring "biological" harm to the slave-owners.

A second problem, possibly in your short explanation and not in neo-tech
itself, is the definition of "biological needs". What are these, and why
discuss them and not the "wishes" or "will" of the person instead? A few
obvious examples: a person has the biological need to have sex. Does this make
resisting being raped an immoral act? Is stealing food moral because a
person needs to eat? Is selling real-estate for money an immoral act,
because people need to sleep somewhere and you're prevented them a place
to sleep by charging money? And what about people's non-biological needs,
like the need to be free, the need to be happy, the need not to be bored,
etc. - is it moral to violate these needs? For example, is it moral according
to your definition to keep a human in a large cage while catering for his
biological needs (giving him food, water, air, sex, etc.)? Can this defintion
explain why (or whether) it is moral to do this to a convict, but not to
"ordinary" people?

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Thursday, Apr 19 2007, 1 Iyyar 5767
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |a fine for doing well.

---

From: "Arik Baratz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 04:22:46 -0400

> The burden of proof is on you.

No it is not. In my reality this definition sucks. You may buy into
this definition, because you subscribe to some absolute truth. I
don't. We don't have to agree, and our world view is therefore
different. No proof necessary or even possible.

-- Arik

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 09:46:41 +0300

On Thursday 19 April 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 19, 2007, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Re: Objectivity [was Re: 
[hackers-il] Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?]":
> > > > consciously done to help fill human biological needs is good and
> > > > moral (e.g., the productive actions of honest people). Whatever is
> > > > consciously done to harm or prevent the filling of human biological
> > > > needs is bad and immoral (e.g., the destructive actions of mystics
> > > > and neocheaters).
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > As you can see it's even a scientific definition. In this context
> > > > "evil" == "bad".
> > >
> There are several problems with this definition, and I'll mention one
> below, but I have to admit it's not very fair that I "disprove" a
> definition based on your very short and probably not entirely accurate
> explanation of it - I didn't like it when you did that to Kant and
> Kirkegaard after my explanations, and I probably shouldn't be doing this to
> Neo-Tech. I have to admit that I never read anything about "Neo-Tech"
> except what you said on this list.
>

OK.

> sees the consequences of an action, but only the person knows his
> intentions). The problem is that except in the extreme case of psychopaths
> (who are unable to understand the concept of other human beings having
> their own lives and wishes), most "bad" actions are somehow justified in
> the eyes of its doer.

Actually no. Most evil people are well-aware that their actions are 
destructive. They never admit it, but they know it. When Mao killed 60 
million of his own people, it was not for survival.

In any case, there are several ways to look at this definition. One way is to 
say that the intention is irrelevant, and that any action that ends up as 
fullfilling human biological needs is good and moral, while any action that 
ends up detracting from human biological needs is bad and immoral.

> slave's biological needs, he would say no: he would say that he took care
> of their basic needs (minimal amount of food, clothing, shelter, etc.) and
> would claim (wrongly of course, but he thought this was true) that negros
> are so privitive that left to their own devices they would be far worse
> off. He would add that furthermore, without the slaves the slave-owners
> would go bankrupt and starve, so that it is *freeing* the slaves which is
> immoral because it would bring "biological" harm to the slave-owners.
>
> obvious examples: a person has the biological need to have sex. 

I don't think so. A person has a biological desire to have sex, but it's not a 
need. A person can go on not having sex for decades on end.

> Does this 
> make resisting being raped an immoral act? 

No, because a person has a need for the completeness of his body. As such, he 
or she has a right to resist being raped.

> Is stealing food moral because a 
> person needs to eat? 

It depends. By stealing you detract from the food owned by the other. However, 
you might need to do that if you are being exploited (e.g: Robin Hood who 
stole from the exploiters and gave to the exploited.).

> Is selling real-estate for money an immoral act, 
> because people need to sleep somewhere and you're prevented them a place to
> sleep by charging money? 

> And what about people's non-biological needs, like 
> the need to be free, the need to be happy, the need not to be bored, etc. -
> is it moral to violate these needs? 

These all descend from the biological needs or otherwise are ammoral action. 
If I insulted a person by accident, and made him unhappy, then I may have 
caused him to be able to less focus on work, and thus detract from his 
biological needs. However, this action is not unethical, and as such should 
be legal:

http://www.neo-tech.com/neotech/advantages/advantage83.html

> For example, is it moral according to 
> your definition to keep a human in a large cage while catering for his
> biological needs (giving him food, water, air, sex, etc.)? 

Well, that in turn will cause other people to have to support this (benevolent 
I assume) person, instead of this person being able to support himself. So 
it's immoral.

> Can this 
> defintion explain why (or whether) it is moral to do this to a convict, but
> not to "ordinary" people?

Actually, according to Neo-Tech, prisons are not a good way of punishment, as 
it is a huge strain on society to maintain all the prisoners.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 09:48:24 +0300

Hi Arik!

> different. No proof necessary or even possible.

If no proof is possible, then I cannot accept your claim, because it lacks any 
reasoning. So you might have well not said it.

Thanks for playing!

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish