Retitled: Modern philosophers are full of it!

[Asher]

Originally posted by GePap
And yet, not computers, anymore than a piston, being a critical part of any engine is an internal combustion engine in itself.

Is basic logic that difficult for you, really?

See, its this simple:

Transistor =/ computer

Wow. Deep.

It's called a semantic argument on your behalf.

On a small scale, the use of transistors alone made it possible. It was immediately clear that this was inadequate for mass adoption, and hence Bell Labs' crucial research into computers. The global telecommunications industry is available to the general public because of computers. It's simply an inarguable fact for anyone with the most basic understanding of how telephone networks function.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Az
philosophy troll

Which one?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Asher

The average automobile has dozens of computers.

And yet, they are not needed. That is what so seem so utterly unable to understand. The average car also has a radio and an air conditioning unit. That does not mean either of those are crucial to the basic function of cars. In fact, cars existed, and made thier most important contributions to changing makind long before computers became a regula part of cars, which at the most is something going back to the 1970's, if not the 1980's.

Can you show a quantitative change in the performance of cars of such a degree that it becomes a qualitative change in the relation of people and cars due to the introduction of computers into modern cars?

How can I argue about the importance of computers when the person on the other side has clearly demonstrated their agenda of bias and general stupidity?

You don't even understand the word "databases", let alone the importance of data, let alone the importance of information.

There are some people that just aren't worth the time to explain something to if you know in you're heart they're too stupid or too stubborn to understand.

You're very much correct that this is pathetic, that someone arguing about "dadabases" and the future of artificial life has such a primitive understanding of computer and modern information and its value to society.

You porve yourself a coward yet again. Good show.

At least I know being able to write an actual arguement is not part of the curriculum for computer scientists.

[Kuciwalker]

Gepap's ignorance of how telephone's function is beautifully illustrated by the fact that he thought all you needed for a cross-country phone call was for the wires to be in place

[Asher]

GePap, you've lost pretty badly.

Lick your wounds and go back to reading by candlelight.

You've been owned so many times and then you subtly change your arguments to try to avoid it. That doesn't work here buddy.

You can't say you won't find computers in Congolese Jungles, but you will find automobiles. When confronted with the well-known fact about computers being in automobiles (another example of the pervasiveness of computers), you respond that "but they're not needed!" -- for the millionth time in this thread demonstrating just how little you know about what you pretend to know.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
You porve yourself a coward yet again. Good show.

At least I know being able to write an actual arguement is not part of the curriculum for computer scientists.

Any real argument by a computer scientist would be light-years beyond you. You don't have the math.

(Neither do I at this point, but I'm a hell of a lot closer than you )

[KrazyHorse]

Gepap's ignorance of how telephone's function is beautifully illustrated by the fact that he thought all you needed for a cross-country phone call was for the wires to be in place

Sure. You can transmit a weak electrical pulse across 4000 miles without amplification and no significant degradation, right?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Asher

It's called a semantic argument on your behalf.

On a small scale, the use of transistors alone made it possible. It was immediately clear that this was inadequate for mass adoption, and hence Bell Labs' crucial research into computers. The global telecommunications industry is available to the general public because of computers. It's simply an inarguable fact for anyone with the most basic understanding of how telephone networks function.

And we return, yet again, to the quantitative, qualitative question.

Here you go, one piece of evidence that computing power made such a quantitative change in the efficiency of telephone networks that it meant a true qualitative change in the way people interacted with others in their lives.

The only worthwhile post you have made in a while, and almost totallyy free of insults. How refreshing.

[KrazyHorse]

The transistor is by far the most significant innovation of the last 100 years. Vacuum tubes were expensive, hard-to-maintain beasties which blew with an annoying frequency. Solid-state devices revolutionised the world.

[GePap]

Its fun to see the science geeks get together and chat amongst themselves, trying to make it seem they have a clue.



So I am still waiting for any of you to make an arguement worth **** talking about just HOW the improved movement of data has made such a huge difference to the lives of humanity. To make it easier, ignore the 2 billion people who barely have access to electricity, and concentrate on the people in the rich countries.

See, making things easy for you guys.

[Asher]

Originally posted by GePap
And we return, yet again, to the quantitative, qualitative question.

Here you go, one piece of evidence that computing power made such a quantitative change in the efficiency of telephone networks that it meant a true qualitative change in the way people interacted with others in their lives.

The only worthwhile post you have made in a while, and almost totallyy free of insults. How refreshing.

I never saw you as someone who defended the practice of making some technologies available only to the elite of society.

I personally think a technology is as good as useless if it's not accessible by humanity. Then again, I'm one of these idealists that doesn't believe that the societal elite should be the only ones to have access to such quality-of-life improving technologies.

It's interesting that you seem to differ, but only because that's the corner you backed yourself into.

It should also be blatantly obvious that a tiny, hard to maintain communications network is not nearly as useful or important as a massive communications network. The value in the communications network is the people and the network itself, so its size is clearly important.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The Cold War was due to computers

[Agathon]

This is funny.

Asher and Kuci are arguing that the humanities and philosophy are useless, yet here they are getting slapped around in the last page or so by GePap, who is giving an excellent example of the sort of broad based knowledge and critical thinking skills that an education in the humanities is supposed to give a person.

[Kuciwalker]

Agathon, there's one good thing about you: your sarcasm is excellent.

[Odin]

Poor, poor GePap. To him, if it hasn't reached poor, 3rd world peasants, it's not important. Let me guess, you think the printing press was unimportant because most of the world was illiterate 500 years ago? After all, it was "just" a communications improvement, like the Internet.