The problem with giving billions to charity is that it is treating symptoms not causes. Lets say that the results of disease in africa are related to the on-going warfare and lack of developement in the area. Okay, what (mainly) led to this warfare? Western intervention. Why does the West get involved? Because africa sits on some of the largest reserves of raw materials on earth (see the Congo and Coltan which is pretty much feeding our lovely electronics industry).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan

Why does the west have such an appetite for these resources? Because it constantly requires growth and expansion.

Bill Gates (and Warren Buffet et al) from one hand operate the machinery of international capitalism and give us all it's horrific results, then from the other give us part of the money they made exploiting the world to fix some of the symptoms of their own actions.

You might argue that money would be better spent trying to dismantle the current political-economy and replace it with one that doesn't require most of the world to live in poverty. 

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n07/slavoj-zizek/nobody-has-to-be-vile

urgh 5 in the morning posts. <collapses> 

What ZQF says i guess...

And i've started to really appreciate the quality of most Apple stuff.

I've used pretty much every consumer operating system around (excepting amiga, though BeOS is similar some people say). And OS X easily pisses on them all - it's that good.

Jobs *was* a damn good salesman, but that's just irrelevant when one considers his amazing achievements. 

I'm interested in hearing how they would go about dismantling the current political-economy? 

Well since business interests and capital pretty much fund all major political parties, you could start by creating a new genuinely progressive political movement that might actually change things and fund it well. 

Jobs *was* a damn good salesman, but that's just irrelevant when one considers his amazing achievements.

What major achievements? The cult of celebrity that believes he personally designed all this stuff (not the massive amount of engineers employed by apple), or that without apple we'd not be living our exciting enlightened lifestyle.

Fusion energy would change the way we live. New treatments for cancer or heart disease, or some progressive politics. Creating expensive techno tablets that many people even in the developed world can't afford isn't changing dick. Are we going to mourn the person who first designed the GUI at Xerox? Surely he changed the face of technology more. (PS this invention was nicked by Apple, who then tried to sue other people nicking it :P)

Basically all this hero worship bullshit gits on my tits. Norman Borlaug didn't get this much obsession. There is a man who fucking deserved it. 

I'm pretty butthurt that I've never owned any iProducts either. 

not to devolve into Steve Jobs shit flinging, but alas, a few exceptions. ZQF, either stop being so autistic or please, please stop talking. 

Give me a fucking break. 

everyone! 

I have an iPod Touch. It refuses to connect to the wireless in my house. If I go round a friends and use it on his it kicks his PC off the router. no idea why, but giggles :) 

some diverse opinions on here. ZQF your views seem really utopian, I mean you'll discount what Gates does because it's not the best possible thing he could do in your view? Hell he could be corrupting elections, buying politicians and funding Fox News, and it would be in his interest to do so too. stevenaaus, why is it bullshit to recognize that he's doing something less evil than most people in his position do? and maybe this is utopian but I will never stop hating marketing until the day I die. 20861 seems like a good post too. first-world revolutions aren't coming. maybe when the states finally turns into a third world country and probably not even then. it's fix the system or let it get worse, doesn't seem too possible to totally replace it.
(ducks) 

We should probably take this to the politics thread, although this is the general abuse thread. 

Only judge a man when you know them personally, don't judge his media image.

Same, don't hero worship a media image. Hero worship is generally stupid. 

The problem with giving billions to charity is that it is treating symptoms not causes. Lets say that the results of disease in africa are related to the on-going warfare and lack of development in the area. Okay, what (mainly) led to this warfare? Western intervention. Why does the West get involved? Because africa sits on some of the largest reserves of raw materials on earth (see the Congo and Coltan which is pretty much feeding our lovely electronics industry).

Jeez, that is just so much crap. The standard of living for Africans in the aggregate improved immensely during the colonial period. After the West pulled out in the post war era, leftist revolutionaries took control almost everywhere and then everything went to shit.

Ethiopia before its commie revolution was the bread basket of the entire Middle Eastern region in much the same way as the Mid West is to the US. Within a decade of the commies taking over, the people do what people always do when commies take over, they starve and they die en masse.

You can only produce a functional welfare state off of an already existent accumulation of wealth, like Sweden had developed over several centuries before it did so. When you impose upon third world nations your monstrous progressive vision, you wind up with a lot of dead people.

Fortunately for the Africans, they have a large influx of developmental capital coming in from China now that is reversing the downward spiral you leftist caused with decolonization (disinvestment of capital), and that will be what ultimately improves their lives, not your stupid romanticist revolutions nor even philanthropy. 

yer not frum 'round here are ya?
This is a forum devoted to, in large part, designing surreal 3d dungeons for the game Quake. We go off topic all the time but your post makes me suspect you came across this somehow, totally aside from what we normally talk about here (the fact that I've never heard of you on this forum helps that impression along).
Now I regret encouraging this discussion along. I was kind of thinking that at least a bunch of posts means an improvement of some kind to the normal semi-comatose state of GA, but apparently not. 

and if so what's it been like?

From my google research, it seems to be the best free hoto/video sharing web service around. Picasa has a 1GB limit for free users and other sites have ads and/or limits on file upload sizes. 

All your fault! 

yer not frum 'round here are ya?

Probably not, looks like he can string a coherent argument together. We'll beat this sickness out of him given enough time. 

Neorightwing batshit made it to func. Awesome. Just what this forum needed. 

I apologise for bringing it all up at this point...

This kind of thing has been increasingly getting to me what with the current state of politics in the UK (and the US). 

ZealousQuakeFan bring beer and we forgive you :) 

now go map... I want that base map! 

I actually hate politics. To the extent I'm political I'm just a typical Swede and Social Democrat who shows up at the polls and then heads home for a shower. I love Quake and am a long time lurker. What I saw above was a lot of thoughtless, complacent nostrums, and complacency is boring. They needed a kick in the head for bringing up bullshit politics, and I think they know it. 

I'm reposting the quake article ron posted in the rage thread because I've got something to say about it and don't want to hijack that thread for it:
http://www.1up.com/features/why-quake-changed-games-forever

Particularly on page 4 there's this exchange:

Tech changes and trouble plagued Quake's early development. At one point, Carmack set up the engine so that every door in the game was stored in its own level. Romero explains, "Let's say that we build this whole space out and there's supposed to be a door that moves. Anything that's going to move had to have its own level by itself, lit up correctly, and whatever that lighting is getting put on that object has to look exactly the way it would inside of the [stage it's going into]. There's no way to replicate the lighting correctly from inside...there's no way to say, 'I'm a door sitting in a void with some lights hitting it. There's no way to match that so it looks good inside the other level too, that's just not right."

Although the point in the article is that Carmack changed this to be optional, it's worth noting that it's still the best way to make rotating objects because you can place the origin sensibly and give them direction-independent lighting. Cool article all round.