Text 1305, 141 rader
Skriven 2004-10-28 13:16:40 av Gary Wiltshire (1:379/45)
   Kommentar till text 1302 av Adam Flinton (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Article on WIPO & the public good
=============================================
From: "Gary Wiltshire" <gaw@sover.net>

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:58:32 +0100, Adam Flinton
<adam_NO_@_SPAM_softfab.com> wrote:

>>> Yes there are but the concorde was crippled by external factors such
>>> as  public opposition based on noise in the US & the military utility
>>> of a  mach2+ long range high flying aircraft. The Concorde was making
>>> a very  healthy profit & the numbers of people who cross the atlantic
>>> paying  first/business class prices demonstrate the numbers involved.
>>   Noise is part of the tradeoffs which determine practicality.  I
>> remember  NO discussion of any "military" issues with the SST.
>>
>
> Why would you?

If it were as important an issue as you make it out to be I would have expected
some public discussion of the issue.
>
>>> Nope becuase there were widescale protests in the period when the
>>> production line was open wrt noise on takeoff/landing etc. The
>>> production line was then closed & it was uneconomic to re-open it.
>>   Unless a quieter SST could have been produced again that shows the
>> impracticality of the SST.
>>
>
> Concorde operated happily into London, New York etc.

And back to what I said about transatlantic flight which did not penetrate the
interior.  There was more than enough traffic to support a giant fleet of SSTs.
>
>
> The only function they share is birth control???
> Exactly what do you think their function is?

What other functions would they share besides birth control?

> Yup but you need a steady supply & then they operate on top of that,
> much like a lot of hydro-electric stations where they can simply open
> the taps just as major tv programs go into commericals.

Wrong.  In much of the country those gas-turbine powerplants ARE the main
steady supply, with additional units ready to go on line at need.

> You do but not by air because of the tight restrictions placed on air
> travel.

Ah, yes, we have secret police telling people at the airport, "You can't travel
because you're poor."

> So when in your view did "science" start?

"Science" as the word is understood by those who know what "scientific method"
means starts at about Bacon's time - Francis, not Roger.

> Yes & it is undoubtably the case that many many people practiced it long
> before it had a name. Do you think they just came across gunpowder? They
> would have noticed something & then through experiment worked out the
> relative quantities of differing constituents.

Still not scientific method and not how a scientific edifice is built. You just
end up with isolated unconnected bits of knowledge with no theoretical
frameworks to unite them.

> That is because We (the west in general) got over Christianity in
> particular.
>
> If you are a hard line Christian, even now you should not engage in
> usury.

I'm not any kind of a Christian.

> It has been underway for some time. You however simply choose to see the
> religious nutters & the comparatively few muslim countries in which they
> hold sway. I could choose American evangelists & thus note how it would
> be nice if the Americans had an elightenment of their own & stopped
> pushing creationism etc.

Those evangelists hold insufficient sway to have impeded scientific progress in
the west.  They lost that power centuries ago.  Show me the islamic countries
with burgeoning scientific progress.


> Where does this versus come from? In no way did I say versus & in no way
> did I state West & the 3'rd world.

You held up Rome/Constantinople as some sort of parallel with West/China.

> Cultures constantly appropriate ideas & models from each other & always
> have. The example of Rome & Greece shows this in that initially the
> Romans appropriated enormous amounts from the Greeks, but later it was
> the Greeks (in the form of th Eastern Roman Empire) who appropriated
> from the Romans.
>
> Then following the fall of constantinople the Romans (now the Italians)
> & indeed large chunks of the former Western Roman Empire (including
> England) then appropriated the ideas, knowledge & culture back again in
> the form of the renaissance.

So?  Both the Eastern and Western empires were part of that Western culture
I've been talking about.

>>   Actually the contribution of indian words and concepts is
>> statistically  insignificant compared to original Anglo-Saxon, Norman
>> French, Latin and  Greek.
>
> In American english that might be so. As an example you say porch & we
> say verandah.
>
> We both use mugger & thug oddly.

No, the difference is not statistically significant.

> We stole ideas from all over the place. Where did gunpowder come from?
> Where did the magnetic compass come from.

Random pieces of unconnected knowledge, and not in any connected framework that
could be called science.  China was still backward overall and was helpless
before western technology.

> What do you think the "Voyages of discovery" were about? Purely
> geographic mapping?

Land and resources.  Do you think those voyagers came here to learn science
from the American Indians?

> Rubbish. The world's cultures have interacted & learnt off each other
> since written history began. One group got bronze...they tried to hide
> how to make it but suddenly everyone could smelt bronze. Then one group
> got iron. etc.etc.etc.

You still don't get the difference between isolated bits of knowledge and the
systematic development and integration of knowledge that is "science."  The
west became dominant because of that difference.


--
Gary Wiltshire

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