Re: [Israel.pm] Mission Statement for a New Company based on Voluntarism-taken-to-Extreme

Hi Nadav!

Thanks for your email.

On Thursday 12 April 2007, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 04, 2007, Shlomi Fish wrote about "Re: [Israel.pm] [hackers-il] 
Mission Statement for a New Company based on Voluntarism-taken-to-Extreme":
> > If a contractor STFWes me, or even just visit my personal web-site (URL
> > at the bottom of every message I write) he'll find much more things due
> > to which to reject me:
> >
> > 1. http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/TheEnemy/ - offensive to many Arabs,
> > left-wingers, anti-Libertarians, pro-Israelis, etc.
> >
> > 2. http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/israel-pales/ - offensive to
> > right-winged Israelis, and practicall every "humanitarian" people.
>
> This is all irrelevant. No right-winged employer can realistically expect
> all his employees to be right-winged (and vice versa), unless he's a total
> fanatic. No employer that I ever worked ever for cared about my political
> position.
>
> > 3. http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/case-for-file-swapping/ -
> > offensive to all "IP-Nazis" and ultra-right-winged people.
>
> Again, irrelevant, unless you try working for RIAA - which I know you
> wouldn't want to anyway.
>
> > And there are more. I'm not optimising to make myself look good to
> > potential employers or commisioners. Instead, I'm trying to be the best
> > possible man I can be. And that means being the best possible
> > philosopher[1]. And that means speaking your mind.
>
> The philosopher Peter Singer wrote a section (quoted in his "greatest hits"
> book, "Writings on an Ethical Life") on why we should listen (on ethical
> questions) to philosophers, rather than to the ramblings of any random
> person, or a person from a different profession (e.g., a priest, doctor,
> or in your case, a programmer ;-)).
>
> One of the points he made was that it is professional philosophers who can
> devote all their time to thinking about the issues being discussed (in his
> case, ethics), and their opinions were formed after a lot of thinking, and
> are (usually) not just something they wrote down after an afternoon of
> basking in the sun. These philosophers have time not just to think, but
> also to read other people's opinions, and more importantly (as he sees it)
> - to check the facts.
>

I heavily disagree with that claim and let me explain why. I don't devote all 
my time to thinking, or all my time to programming, or all my time to writing 
essays, or whatever. However, I believe that by being eclectic in what I do, 
I can then reflect on something else I do, etc. By devising a good algorithm 
or designing a program properly, I become a more intelligent man, and this 
enables me to have better ideas for essays. Also, by writing essays and 
perfecting them according to other people's input I become a better 
programmer.

This is similar to the fact that learning a radically different and 
enlightening programming language will make you a better programmer even in 
the existing language. 

Over-specialisation is very dangerous. According to:

http://www.neo-tech.com/zero/part5.html

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
A mathematician alone, no matter how brilliant he might be, could not be a 
threat to a neocheater without the knowledge of other fields and the rest of 
the world, and without the means of achieving financial independence -- 
without a business integration. So long as those who are bright remain 
divided and "specialized", oblivious of the world, neocheaters are safe to 
exercise their "power" and use those scholars for their own advantages. This 
is what happened and what has been happening throughout the entire history of 
man. Moreover, some of those scholars turned to mysticism or neocheating and 
achieved political and/or religious prominence. The so-called 
social "intellectuals" of today are the direct offspring of those 
earlier "scholars turned neocheaters".

Research in the fields of biology and anthropology reveals that all the 
species and tribes that became extinct did so because of 
overspecialization.The current educational systems of the world, which 
originated in the neocheating strategy of ancient political powers, emphasize 
specialization, and thus endanger the continuation of the human species. 
Until today, the least specialized field, the field that requires the widest 
integration of knowledge, has been politics, where neocheaters, who have the 
least regard for knowledge, gravitate the most. Ironically and tragically, 
the fittest to survive in the mysticism-ridden world of inverted reality have 
been the least capable of surviving in reality.
>>>>>>>>>>>>

That's why I believe a man of many talents (or a so-called "Renaissance Man") 
is much better at everything he does than someone who focuses on one talent 
alone. While only other people can proclaim I am Renaissance Man, I can 
testify I am a man of many talents, and always try to write what I want.

By becoming a full time philosopher who does nothing in real-life but think 
and write, I'll lose my edge. Philosophy and insights come from experience 
and from getting your hands dirty. You need to learn in order to experiment, 
and you need to experiment in order to teach.

As much as ivory tower philosophers are respected by the Academe, I have to 
say I found more value in philosophers that are do'ers: Ayn Rand, Paul 
Graham, Joel Spolsky, Eric S. Raymond, Frank R. Wallace (the Neo-Tech guy), 
etc. Nowadays the real philosophers are essayists or often even just 
bloggers. I often found a lot of value in a Slashdot comment by an obscure 
user. 

I call myself a philosopher, because I've reached many philosophical insights. 
Every field has a philosophy attached to it. While you can write a lot of 
code, without reflecting on what you write (using philosophy, logic, etc.) 
you'll hardly be any efficient.

> So if you want to be the "best possible philosopher", you need to devote
> your time to it. Have you considered getting a degree in philosophy?
> Perhaps getting a job in philosophy (in the academia, writing books that
> will be sold, etc.?) Or at least devoting all your free time to philosophy
> (and not to other hobbies like programming)? Because if you don't, you can
> hardly become the "best possible philosopher". All you can perhaps aspire
> to is to be someone interested in philosophy (like I consider myself).
>

I could get a degree in philosophy. On the other hand, Ayn Rand "only" had a 
B.A. in History, and Frank R. Wallace has a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemsitry. So 
far it seems the non-technical degree that interests me the most is in 
ancient history of the Near East.

However, I don't see why I cannot philosophise without having a degree in 
Philsophy. Perhaps some idiot (= foolish) Philosophy Professors will me write 
me off as unprofessional (just like I was told most of them wrote off Ayn 
Rand), but I know better than to believe them. 

So Nadav, I think you have been trolled. However, trolling you was not an 
original intenion of mine.

> "Speaking your mind" doesn't make you a philosopher - it depends what you
> say, and to whom. Speaking your mind when what you have to say is not well
> thought out or stupid (and I'm not suggesting that what you say is like
> that!), or when you speak out your mind to the wrong people, can make you a
> nudnik or spammer, not a philosopher.
>

I agree that speaking my mind does not make you a philosopher. However, 
a "spammer" is someone who sends unsolicited email to a very large amount of 
people, not just posts a message on it to a small number of mailing lists or 
web-boards. I may be regarded by some as a "nudniq", but I believe my essays 
are of value, and I'm always getting input from them on my own mailing list 
of reviewers (which I'll be glad to join anyone of you), and also ask people 
to read it on the IRC.

And I think you're confusing my techniques of publicing my articles with what 
I write in the articles themselves. I consider myself a philosopher because 
I'm trying to practice that, and that's what I'm doing. Historically 
philosophers had a great deal of training and professions. You don't need to 
have a Ph.D. in Philosophy to be a philosopher just as it is well known that 
some high school (or younger) students with one year of experience in 
programming are more productive and write far better code than many people 
with a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and 10 years of experience.

While education is important, your output is what matters, not what you've 
earned. 

> > If I claim that Kant was a brilliant applied logician and
> > history's greatest practical joker, many philosophy professors will think
> > I'm talking non-sense. But I can prove that most of what he said was
> > wrong, and given his false reasoning show the problems with it. (And no,
> > I haven't read Kant yet - I was told it's incredibly inaccessible).
>
> Ah? How can you prove that somebody was wrong without reading what he
> read???
>
> I'm not saying you should read Kant's original works - I also didn't - but
> at least don't claim you can prove them wrong unless you did.

I have read many of Kant's conclusions - from you or otherwise. And I can 
prove them to be wrong based on Logic and more basic assumptions. According 
to Neo-Tech, everything of importance can be deduced from the biological 
nature of men and women (and possibly some other natural laws and facts) and 
using Logic. 

>
> > I believe in speaking my mind regardless of what the majority may think.
> > At ancient times people believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. If we
> > still believed that today, then we wouldn't have landed on the moon.
> > Similarly, many or even most people believe that illegal narcotics should
> > be illegal. This is also wrong, and I can prove it.
>
> Very well, speak your mind. I'm all for it. But like Comedians and DJs
> know, and you should too, you need to know your crowd. Feel free to preach
> smoking pot to your friends, but you wouldn't really want to do it to a
> group of angry cops you see on the street, or to a group of school children
> for that matter. Similarly, you can be 100% for free software, without
> preaching to your boss all the time. When asked, always give the
> pro-free-software answer, but when you're not asked, don't "preach". Your
> boss is paying you to do what he asked, not to preach to him. And it goes
> both ways - you're working for him because you want his money - not because
> you agree with everything he thinks.
>

I agree. In my case, I didn't preach them the Joel way or any other way until 
after I got fired. And it was not a preach, it was a general recommendation.

Like I said, people can find a lot of dirt about me on the Internet by using a 
search with "shlomif" or "shlomi fish" and some selected keywords. But I 
don't care much because keeping a perfectly good image is much harder than 
not, and most of the employers I'd love to work for wouldn't care too much 
about what I said or did not say. That's because they know it would be 
irrelevant to my job as a programmer.

> > Hopefully, I will eventually become independent by becoming an
> > essayist/blogger and a FOSS developer and consultant. This will enable me
> > to get money for doing the things I'd like to do in my free time.[3]
>
> Good luck (and I'm not saying this cynically).
>

Thanks!

> > It is possible many workplaces believe they are run in the best way
> > possible, and that employees should just shut up, be micro-managed and do
> > as they told and nothing more. However, there's no way I'd like working
> > there, even if they paid me a lot of money. And I believe clueful people
> > who are looking for consultants will be impressed that I'm familiar with
> > "Joel on Software", Paul Graham, ESR, etc. and may actually prefer me
> > over someone else.
>
> If you believe your job sucks, go out and look for a better one, but try to
> hold on to the one you have in the meanwhile - both because I supposed that
> you (like most us mortals) need the money to live, and because it's easier
> to get a job while you already have one (employers are always suspicious of
> people who got fired - it sounds like an anti-recommendation).

I actually liked my job, and in fact the news that I was fired quite 
distressed me. So I was not looking for a different one at that point, but 
rather trying to do my job in the best way possible.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      shlomif-ik1l9ssToec+JF/[email protected]
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


 
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