Categories
Misc Quotes Our Society Tech Encounters

The only ideology I really despise and dislike is the kind that is about exclusion of other ones

In an interview with Argentina’s La Pagina, Linux founder Linus Torvalds shares his view of Linux ideology.

Q: What ideology has Linux?

A: I don’t think there is an ideology, and I don’t think there *should* be an ideology. And the important part of that is the “an” – I think there can be *many* ideologies.  I do it for my own reasons, other people do it for _their_ own reasons. I think the world is a complicated place, and people are interesting and complicated animals that do things for complex reasons. And that’s why I don’t think there should be “an ideology”. I think it’s really refreshing to see people working on Linux because they believe they can make the world a better place by spreading technology and making it available to people more widely – and they think that open source is a good way to do that. That’s _one_ ideology. I think it’s a great one. It isn’t really why I started doing Linux myself, but it warms my heart to see Linux used that way. But I _also_ think that it’s great to see all the commercial companies that use open source simply because it’s good for business. That’s a totally different ideology, and I think that’s a perfectly good ideology too. The world would be a _much_ worse place if we didn’t have companies doing things for money. So the only ideology I really despise and dislike is the kind that is about exclusion of other ones. I despise people whose ideology is about “the one true ideology”, and not following that particular set of moral guidelines is “evil” or “wrong”. That’s just small-minded and stupid, to me. So the important part about open source is not the ideology – it’s just that everybody can use it for their own needs and for their own reasons. The copyright license is there to keep that openness alive, and to make sure that the project doesn’t fragment into people who hide their improvements from each other and then have to re-implement each others changes – but it’s not there to enforce some ideology.

Categories
Dharma Quotes

自在神童3D动画 – 球鞋 – 108自在语

自在神童3D动画 - 球鞋 - 108自在语


108自在语
Adages of Wisdom

More animations @ http://www.wretch.cc/blog/DDM108wisdom

Categories
Dharma Encounters Dharma Quotes Our Society

Agree to Disagree – Conversations on Conversion

Agree to Disagree – Conversations on Conversion

Download e-book @ http://conversion.buddhists.sg

 

It is important to Agree to Disagree.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted the importance of maintaining racial and religious harmony through tolerance and restraint, as well as preserving the common space that all Singaporeans share.

Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng observed that amid the increase in religious proselytisation activities, security concerns are thrown up when “overzealous and self-righteous” followers engage in aggressive and insensitive propagation of their faiths.

Find out how to support Buddhists who are facing proselytism in their workplace, school or even at home, so that they can maintain their stand with compassion and wisdom.

Say “No” compassionately to religious proselytism.

~ View e-book ~

Categories
Misc Quotes

Barry Schwartz: The real crisis? We stopped being wise

TED talk – Barry Schwartz: The real crisis? We stopped being wise

Feb 2009

Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for “practical wisdom” as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.

Check out the 20 mins short video.

I find Barry’s following message especially true:

“…  as we turn increasingly to rules, rules and incentives may make things better in the short run, but they create a downward spiral that makes them worse in the long run. Moral skill is chipped away by an over reliance on rules that deprives us on the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations and moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing. And without intending it, by appealing to rules and incentives, we are engaging in a war on wisdom.”

In life, there are apparently many questions without known answers, and many situations seen as hopeless and beyond our control. When “we” can’t understand or solve these problems at our level, we tend to turn to “higher entity” for answers.

I guess it’s a lot easier for most of us to push the personal responsibility of our lives to an external entity. That way, we avoid the accountability for our own actions. Harmful actions can thus be proudly committed in the name of the “higher entity” without remorse or guilt. We stopped doing the right thing, because “right” is now fuzzy.

It’s always easier to simply believe and not question because we’ll have less work to do, less facts to verify, less concepts to learn and digest, and less cultivation to do. “Why so serious?”, some will say. Because ignorance begets suffering. We all need that wisdom beyond blind faith to start taking responsibility of our lives.

IMHO, Barry Schwartz’s secular statement above says it well, if you substitute “rules” with “dogmas” and “incentives” with concepts such as “believers will rise to heaven while non-believers suffer in hell forever”.

We need to stop creating or turning into zombies. Wisdom must take center stage. Wisdom guides all actions.