Text 1319, 278 rader
Skriven 2004-10-29 10:50:36 av Adam Flinton (1:379/45)
   Kommentar till text 1305 av Gary Wiltshire (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Article on WIPO & the public good
=============================================
From: Adam Flinton <adam_NO_@_SPAM_softfab.com>

Gary Wiltshire wrote:
> 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.
>

That is simply untrue. Matters such as that very rarely rise to the public
view.

There are a number of other similar matters which have never risen to the
public view wrt a variety of UK produced goods.

Sometimes the other country involved raises the matter publicly, but on the
whole they are kept on a strict gov to gov basis.

e.g. reasonably recently the UK crippled the Israeli airforce & forced the
retirement of the F4 phantom by refusing to allow the supply of martin baker
ejection seats.

The discussion were on a gov to gov basis until the Israelis went public to try
& get US pressure placed on the UK.

There are a number of other similar events which have never made it to the
public as it would imply an impugning of that foreign gov which may not be
helpfull to the foreign office if made publicly.

>>
>>>> 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.
>

By the time the public had got used to Concorde, the prodction line was closed
& it would have been un-economic (outside of a mil context) to re-open the
line.


>>
>>
>> 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."
>

No it's a matter of countries being judged as containing large numbers of poor
rather than individuals.

Someone coming from a range of countries into the US & UK are assumed to be
economic migrants unless proven differently. I used to have to get Russians
into the UK to view factories etc & in the 90'es, the assumption by the home
office was that they would abscond & go to work illegally. I used to have stand
up rows with the home office/visa department of the British Embassy in Moscow &
it was purley the chance that I happened to know Jack Straw who was then the
Home Secretary which helped to change their attitude & indeed the standing
advice to the visa dept.


>> 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.
>

& Bacon was trying to improve upon chinese tech i.e. gunpowder.


>> 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 not true. The underlying framework was there if fallacious & involved
earth elements, fire elements, water elements etc.

Aristotle for example made the first real start of classifying animals by
group.


>> 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.
>

I was not saying you were.

>> 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.

Now. They did until reasonably recently. One need only look at Darwin & the
Origin of Species to see that. Smith & his classification of rocks was very
loath to make public the concept of rate of sedimentation giving an age to
rocks which far exceeded the biblical idea of the date of creation.

> They lost that power centuries ago.

Maybe a century ago. in the 1800'es the power was still there & was still very
much a real factor.

>  Show me the
> islamic countries with burgeoning scientific progress.
>

Malaysia, Pakistan. Most muslim countries were however colonised until at least
the 1940'es & some (e.g. the FSU muslim countries) until the 1990'es.


>
>> 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.
>

China is not the third world. It may be part of it, but then show me the great
scientific progress which has come out of Luxembourg which is part of the West.

If you wish to compare East to west then you could compare Japan to the US as
well as China to the US.

>> 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.
>

By the time the Eastern Empire was alone, the "Western Culture" consisted of
disaparate cultures such as the Anglo-saxon, franks, goths etc where the only
common factor was possibly the Church of Rome.


>>>   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.
>

Yes it is. You have to remember that there are 2 waves of Indian words entering
english english, the colonial period & the post war period where for instance
the majority population of Bradford is South Asian & ditto Leicester, large
parts of London etc & as such we have lots of Indian subcontinental words in
very common useage.



>> 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.
>

Only from the late 1800'es onward till 1949 where a large degree of the
helplessness was caused by internal division & collapse of an old imperial
system.


>> 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?
>

Certainly to bring back things "new to science" whether the potato, tobacco,
indian corn etc.

>> 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.
>
>

I suspect you have limited knowledge of the greeks & for instance their
systematic development & integration of knowledge, for example geometry.

I suggest you examine Euclid as a starter for 10.

Here is a link to help:

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/toc.html

Adam

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