Root of the Issue

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pelmut
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Re: Root of the Issue

Post by pelmut »

crfriend wrote:... I'm fascinated by the second component of your statement. Can you provide a citation for that so I might sate my curiosity? I didn't know the cancer of corporate psychopathy went back that far....
I wish I could but I have been wracking my brains to remember where I came across it. I think it was a modern comment on historic events and may have come from a radio programme. It stuck because it seemed such an apt description of way large companies abuse their resources to smash all competitors, regardless of the merits of their products.
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Tor
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Re: Root of the Issue

Post by Tor »

WWII was the first major war with that level of access to technology - on both (or all) sides. It just so happened that one side was the per capita per annum most deadly direct mass-murdering regime of the 20th century. Everything I've ever heard says the Germans were excellent engineers and mechanics, so I rather doubt than a refusal by IBM to sell them machines would have made a significant difference. Either the Germans would have bought them through less scrupulous channels, or they would have duplicated the machines and built them themselves. Might have slowed them down a little, but without harder evidence I'm not prepared to believe something like that would have stopped them in a meaningful way. Maybe they would have taken away a few tank designers (to build clones of IBM machines) and had fewer tank designs out there to service and therefore had an easier time keeping tanks running with fewer incompatible designs out there, and killed more people that way.
human@world# ask_question --recursive "By what legitimate authority?"
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crfriend
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Re: Root of the Issue

Post by crfriend »

It's worth noting here that in the 1920s, computers as we know them now simply did not exist. The technology in use at the time consisted of tabulating machines which could do some limited amount of arithmetic, but all the storage, intermediary and end-product, was on cards (or punched tape). This was fairly simple technology which any competent engineer could reverse-engineer and duplicate. The first general-purpose computer wasn't completed until 1941 -- in Germany -- and wasn't even electronic, it was electromechanical using relays as the active elements. The United States was late to the game and didn't have a working general-purpose machine until very late in the 1940s (ENIAC doesn't count as it (1) wasn't a general-purpose machine and (2) wasn't easily programmable).

What the allegation does speak to, albeit indirectly, is the inherent danger that some of these "vital statistics" have in the face of a hostile power. And sometimes that hostile power is internal to the country in question. Some records shouldn't be kept. Period.
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Tor
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Re: Root of the Issue

Post by Tor »

Carl, that was my recollection, but I don't have enough dates living in my head to state the ease of reverse engineering with authority. Thanks.
crfriend wrote:What the allegation does speak to, albeit indirectly, is the inherent danger that some of these "vital statistics" have in the face of a hostile power. And sometimes that hostile power is internal to the country in question. Some records shouldn't be kept. Period.
You have just put in much better words what I was trying to say all along. At times my clarity of wording is marred by excessive circumlocution.
human@world# ask_question --recursive "By what legitimate authority?"
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Sinned
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Re: Root of the Issue

Post by Sinned »

We had one banker Fred the Shred who had his knighthood removed. Now that's what I call justice. :!:
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hoborob
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Re: Root of the Issue

Post by hoborob »

In reality it doesn't matter who has done what. In the end Death is an equal opportunity killer, and nothing that has been "gained" while you are alive goes with you. We all entered this world naked and penniless, naked and penniless we will leave it. To make an old quite correct, "He dies with the most toys, still dies." If you believe as I do you will then stand before your maker and you will give a full account of and answer for every action you have made while alive. Then judgement will be passed and teh books balanced for those you have harmed and those you have helped. Those that have chased the almighty dollar to the exclusion of all else will find that they did it for nothing as everything acheivement they accomplished will be taken away from them and given to the ones that should have had that to begin with. The point is that they may think and believe that they are getting away with murder here but will find that is what they receive when they answer before their maker. So let them win now for in the end they will lose.

Now if you don't believe as I do then even so you still do not take anything with you so in the end you still lose. So what's the real difference, Everything you gain here comes to naught when you die so let them have their little victories since they still lose in the end anyway.
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