Putting the effort into being a real person with a well-rounded life is lot more effort than either a) blaming it on Aspergers, b) whining that INTJ makes it impossible, or c) becoming a libertarian so you can justify being a selfish loner as a rational choice. Or all three.

Adequacy was a lot of fun when we were running it... it was a good idea to end though IMO, there's nothing worse than something great slowly devolving to the point where you end up hating it. I've not seen anything quite like it around in terms of the range and style of stuff. Going through the headcheese archive on the site brings back memories - it's basically every post by every troll account we had on /. during 2001, I'd forgotten half the accounts I had, and some of my personal favourites :)

Ha, that's a good one, could have made a lovely article just out of that gem over on adequacy.org back in the day :)

The original comment of yours I replied to made the point that free speech on its own wasn't sufficient for protest against government, and required firearms to back it up. I made the point that whether or not the populace is armed does not seem to have much to do with whether or not protests, civil wars and rebellions seem to occur, in part because the government is always going to be bigger and better armed than any individual, and whether the individual is armed or not doesn't do much to change that imbalance. Your last post seems to concur with this and argue against an armed populace as being a counter to a suppressive government.

I'm aware of the circumstances leading up to the Gulf War, but I'm not sure how that makes your point. There have been revolutions in countries with guns, and those without, and in countries with free speech, and those without, and I can't think of any revolution where there hasn't been an arms imbalance to start with, whether no guns vs. guns or guns vs. chemical weapons and tanks. Being armed doesn't seem to be a necessary condition for revolution to occur, nor a firm indicator of its success once begun.

I define it the same as you.

However, I know we disagree on what we mean by "rights", and I'm fairly sure we disagree on whether freedom is something all on its own, or just one particular desirable quality for a society which should be balanced against other goals.

That's where we could spend a dozen posts talking past each other and getting nowhere :)

No, just that my definition of freedom differs from yours. Not even libertarians believe in absolute freedom; different people just draw the line at different places, and prize different aspects of freedom.

And yet all those millions of Iraqis with AK-47s didn't change anything in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Maybe your analysis is a little lacking?

They also limit individual operations to Dunbar's number of people, which is likely a large reason for their success - people operate as and feel part of a social unit, and so you minimise feelings of disassociation and free-loading.

I hadn't claimed in the first place that the fault with all Cisco's; my point was that there was blame to go round on both sides.

Easy tiger, it's not the end of the world to be wrong.

You're not making a $24 million proposal either; the fact that no records exist of these meetings on either side and even more so the spec was hashed out in just two days with no consultation of the parties the proposal was for all scream collusion. Your analogy of the architect is close, but even then you'd still be foolish not to have any record of what you asked for in the first place (did you really just recite what you wanted from your head, having made no notes at all?), and in the WV situation it's confused by multiple people and bureaucracy being involved, with all the plausible deniability that entails.

How does any of that show he thought the music of his time was a stinking cesspool of shit as you put it? He started composing as a child and had studied with numerous composers of the day including Haydn by the time he was 20. A couple of years later Wikipedia says "Over the next few years, Beethoven responded to the widespread feeling that he was a successor to the recently deceased Mozart by studying that master's work and writing works with a distinctly Mozartean flavor".

Hmm, sounds like being inspired by a giant in his field to go further, rather than any urge to "replace the stinking cesspools of shit that sully the world, and replace it with beauty".

He certainly may have been cantankerous and touchy, but many great people are, and your own quote gives another good reason - being in constant pain from his abdomen. You also missed the tinnitus he had from his early 20s which made conversations difficult for him. All your quote says is that later in life he supported the Enlightenment and opposed Napoleon. What does that have to do with his career as a composer?

So I see no evidence in favour of your point... I don't usually expect this sort of hyperbole from your points either, they're usually very reasonable.

Passionately wanting to change your field is not the same as having a "dystopian view of the present", which is just a ridiculous blanket statement. Is that better?

Passion is an unreasonable and demanding need to replace the stinking cesspools of shit that sully the world, and replace it with beauty.

Yes, I'm sure Beethoven looked at the music of Mozart and Haydn and thought "These stinking cesspools of shit sully the world!", and that was why he was passionate about his music. It couldn't be that the beauty of their music inspired him to create his own beauty. "On the shoulders of giants" and all that, not "Wading out of the cesspool".

Oh it certainly looks very plausible that there was corruption somewhere in the State Office of Technology (not Homeland Security) - there was no tender, and they should never have accepted the bid - but the Cisco engineer in question can't produce any documentation that backs up his claims that he was just following the spec he'd been given by the state. Given this documentation would exonerate him, it seems telling that he can't provide it - specifications for a $24 million bid don't just go missing...

The second link in the article is much better than the first, there's plenty of irregularties all round, the report blames both sides of the deal for failings.

There are plenty of people who are passionate about the field they are in, but have little interest in the world outside of it. True polymaths are exceedingly rare and getting more so as knowledge increases and specialises. Wanting to change your field is not the same as a "dystopian view of the present", which is just a ridiculous blanket statement.