Re-word the future free essay sample

Faking a smile to mask my ambivalence, I approached a boy sitting alone in the over-crowded cafeteria. I never interacted with a handicapped person before and I didn’t know what to expect. Before my lips could form a greeting Mikey interjected, â€Å"Hi! I can’t wait to have fun with my new buddy.† Stunned by his articulate welcome, he eradicated my stereotypical expectation of the mentally-challenged. Eager to converse, Mikey’s untainted curiosity exposed an engaging dialogue; however, as we entered the hallway our conversation diminished. With each step, his apprehension intensified. The gregarious boy I met twenty minutes ago vanished. Sheepishly reaching for my hand, I subtly ignored his gesture in fear of committing social suicide. Before I could question his change in character I recognized the cause of his recoil. Insensitive cliques of gossipers shouted ominous comments that echoed through the halls, â€Å"Who’s the retarded kid? Did you l ose a bet?† I can’t say this was an epiphany, but it was a transformative moment. We will write a custom essay sample on Re-word the future or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I reflected on its tactless utilization and disparaging effects. Firmly gripping Mikey’s hand we navigated through a swarm of students ignorant to the power of their own words. Retard, a corruption of the word retarded, is a painful stereotype forced upon the mentally-challenged. These six letters plague those battling intellectual disabilities. Said with the intention to insult, retard mocks a handicapped individual’s desire to be accepted in society. They are teased because they can’t comprehend at a pace society deems fit, yet ridiculers ignore the diligence the mentally-handicapped exert to accomplish simple actions that most take for granted. Society distorts the innocuous definition into a pejorative comment that implies insignificance. This way of mocking a friend’s stupidity is hate speech. In an attempt to justify their ignorance, many feel the mentally-handicapped are incapable of deciphering odious comments against them. This populace fails t o realize that the handicapped are more alike than different. They laugh just as loud, dream just as big and smile just as bright as the rest of us; consequently, their pain is just as real. Racial slurs and biased insults have emotional impacts; â€Å"retarded† is no different. Mikey’s reclusive retreat demonstrates that even charismatic individuals can be intimidated by disparaging comments. Millions worldwide guiltily utilize this terminology everyday. Television host, Chelsea Handler, broadens this malignant speech weekly when an estimated 900,000 viewers tune in to her program. Former White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, contributed to this dehumanization by calling opponents of â€Å"Obama-care† â€Å"retards†. Dehumanizing language has the power to stigmatize those with cognitive and developmental disabilities. It is of paramount importance that the label retard is eradicated from the dictionary as well as our minds. The mentally-challenged are more than just a word; they are a part of our community. Society has made great strides in eliminating many forms of hate speech; for Mikey’s sake it is time to spread a new â€Å"r-word†: respect. We may not be able to re-write the past, but we can re-word the future.

The Benefits of the Holocaust for the Jews essays

The Benefits of the Holocaust for the Jews essays The Benefits of the Holocaust for the Jews The Holocaust and the murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi Germany during World War II was and is till now one of the few genocide attempts, which were precisely organized and planned for total annihilation of the Jews. Many other plans such as this one were attempted before, taking as an example by Alexander the Great, but first: the idea never occurred to Alexanders mind. Why? Because the technology of his time did not make such a thought conceivable (Cargas, 132). So, ethnic violence has not been uncommon in world history, but the Holocaust stands out as the only systematic effort by a modern government to destroy an entire people. Not only Jews were killed by the Nazis but also Slavs, Gypsies, Polish intelligentsia, resistance fighters from all the nations, German opponents of Nazism, homosexuals, Habitual criminals, and the anti-social such as beggars, vagrants, and hawkers. Every Jewish community in occupied Europe suffered losses during the Holocaust sole ly because of the fanatic Nazi belief that they were the carriers of a genetic inheritance that threatened German and Christian values. But how was Adolf Hitler able to convince the German population of his fanatic ideas, how did all this started, and who is responsible for the Holocaust? Hostility between Christians and Jews is ancient, but the anti-Semitic bias was [increasing] everywhere in Germany before and especially after the First World War(Cargas, 16). In the late 19th century many Germans came to see the Jew as the symbol of all they feared: the big city, international finance, secularism, big business, liberalism, and the erosion of traditional ways of life. German nationalism, which was conservative and ethnic, intensified the hostility toward Jews, who were not thought to be part of the German Volk. After World War I, when Germany faced po...

Public of international trade law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Public of international trade law - Essay Example Despite the perceived freedom of global grade, there are still a lot of laws that needs to be complied with. These, of course, are governmental in proportion. These meant bulks of products that pass through territorial boundaries as well as impact on fuel consumption, transported delivery, as well as mass distribution and consumption of goods. The integration of economies also led for the need to streamline laws and regulations in international manner. The attempt to improve the international trade system for the last century was the establishment of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT. For without a governing body, conflicts will surely arise. The GATT, however, was seen to be problematic. It is why a new body was established, which was the World Trade Organization, and with it, a dispute settlement and resolution systems that established as well as oversee issues and challenges brought forth between aggrieved and respondent countries as well as their trading partners where inequality was perceived. This paper will try to discuss extensively the need for reform, if any that should be made on the WTO dispute settlement system. ... The functions of WTO includes administration of trade agreements, serve as a forum for trade negotiations, handle trade disputes, monitor national trade policies, assist and train developing countries, and cooperate with other international organizations2. It claims to have â€Å"helped to create a strong and prosperous international trading system, thereby contributing to unprecedented global economic growth,†3. Today, there are 153 country members and 117 of these are developing countries. It has a Secretariat with about 700 staff led by the WTO Director-General. The Director General stated that â€Å"decisions in the WTO are generally taken by consensus of the entire membership† although it has its own institutional body - the Ministerial Conference and the General Council which is the WTO’s highest-level decision-making body 4. By doing its work, the WTO proposed that national markets opened to â€Å"international trade, with justifiable exceptions or with a dequate flexibilities, will encourage and contribute to sustainable development, raise people's welfare, reduce poverty, and foster peace and stability. At the same time, such market opening must be accompanied by sound domestic and international policies that contribute to economic growth and development according to each member's needs and aspirations†5. Dispute Settlement The WTO resolves trade misunderstanding under the Dispute Settlement Understanding. The DSU facilitates smooth trade flows and member countries bring their cases to WTO once their rights under the agreements were violated. While decisions were made by so-called independent experts, these experts were appointed and their judgment is usually based on interpretations of the agreements

Argumentative paper on why Gun Control law should stay the way it is Essay

Argumentative paper on why Gun Control law should stay the way it is - Essay Example Many may argue that this will lead to an increase in the occurrence of such cases but on the contrary, if the students are taught how to handle the arms such as guns responsibly, they ought to access and carry them for their safety (Valdez, Angela & Ferguson 2012). This means that if students are allowed to own and carry their guns to their respective campuses, they will feel secure and comfortably learn. Another rampant case is that of sexual harassment (Bjorklund & Ruth 2013). This does not happen to the female gender only but also the male gender. When an individual fall a victim to such a case, it becomes easier to defend one-self when having a gun and also the know-how to handle it without basically killing the attacker. A student who has a gun, when he or she is attacked can put minor injuries on the attacker so as to scare him or her away. By doing this, students will be able to protect themselves against murder and any other illicit

Nursing Research Criteria Qualitative Study Paper

Nursing Criteria Qualitative Study - Research Paper Example According to the authors, hand hygiene is paramount in controlling the cross infection and its associated ill effects such as development of antibiotic resistance and high morbidity rate. In a qualitative research, the authors demonstrate using focus group discussion (FGDs) and data collected from 530- bedded rural teaching hospital in India (Joshi et al., 2012). The literature review was done using current sources that revealed three major strategies have been recommended insofar to minimize healthcare infections which include: campaigns to generate awareness of significance of hand hygiene, to increase commitment in the course of improving adherence in hand hygiene and testing the implementation of the hand hygiene (Joshi et al., 2012). Further study was done if identify if the strategies are in practice. Interestingly, a retrospective research was done to using old sources to determine the practice of hand hygiene in the old times and if the prevalence of the cross infection was consistent with adherence. One of the old source that was used in retrospect in the literature review is that of Pittet that examined on the adherence and its effect which established that the cross infection due to poor hand hygiene was very high hence need of coming with modality of redressing the threat (Joshi et al., 2012). Additionally, the author did a very thoughtful evaluation was done on the literature review that indicated where the strength existed and the weakness of the review.

Definition And Types Of Social Capital

Definition And Types Of Social Capital Social capital is the the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition (Bourdieu 1983: 249). Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities, having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of a social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure (Coleman 1994: 302). Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called civic virtue. The difference is that social capital calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a sense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital (Putnam 2000: 19). Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a societys social interactions Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society it is the glue that holds them together (The World Bank 1999). According to John Field, the fundamental of social capital is that relationship matters. It helps people to commit themselves to people in the community. It eventually becomes a shared set of values, virtues and expectation within society as a whole. However, Robert Putman (1993; 2000) is the person who launched social capital which focused on research and policy discussions. The World Bank also chose social capital as a useful organising idea. They argue that increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable (The World Bank 1999). In this piece we explore the idea of social capital and the contribution by voluntary clubs to social capital. Types of Social Capital There are three types of social capital: bonding social capital, bridging social capital and linking social capital. Bonding social capital refers to the links between like-minded people, or the reinforcement of homogeneity. (Schuller, Baron, Field, 2000) Bonding Social Capital indicates ties between people in similar situation. It can be your neighbours, friends or even family. (Woolcock 2001: 13-4). Bridging social capital can be referred as building of connections between heterogeneous groups, which are likely to be more fragile, but more likely also to foster social inclusion. (Schuller, Baron, Field, 2000) Bridging social capital covers distant ties of like persons, such as workmates and fast friends. (Woolcock 2001: 13-4) Linking social capital, which reaches out to unlike people in dissimilar situations, such as those who are entirely outside of the community, thus enabling members to leverage a far wider range of resources than are available in the community. (Woolcock 2001: 13-4) The discussion of social capital is credited to three main theorists namely Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam. Bourdieu stated that there are three kind of capitals, but for this paper we only look at Social Capital. Bourdieu provides a concise definition of social capital by stating: social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resource which is linked to the possession of a durable network of more of less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition (p. 249). Field and Wynne said that people access other forms of capital through social capital. In sporting circumstances, Bourdieu gives an example of golf clubs where individuals network to facilitate business, a social practice that is not available to all members of a community given the exclusive nature of many golf clubs (Field, 2003; Wynne, 1999). According to Coleman, social capital is not a single body. It is a structure which facilitates certain action, which has positive outcome; otherwise it would not have been possible. Coleman, through his research, found out that the level of school drop-out rate had reduced due to parental investment and family social capital. Coleman, in this context defines social capital as a set of resources that are available in family relation which is important for social development of the child. These resources differ from person to person and an advantage to children to develop their human capital. (Coleman, 1994, cited in Coalter, 2007, p. 541) According to Putman, social capital is not just a public good but is for the public good. Putnam states that, bonding social capital are when people of the same community, with similar values associate together to achieve shared goals. They tend to reinforce restricted identities and are homogenous group. Putman also says that this kind of association have some negative points as they tend to exclude outsiders. Exclusion of outsiders here means that a football club will have a tendency to include supporters and players from a same background. They would try to exclude those who are not from the same background. On the other hand bridging social capital is heterogeneous in nature. Heterogeneity of social connections promotes linkage with different type of people. Bridging social capital however, has the potential to forge connections. People with same as well as from different background can connect within the community or outside the community (Narayan Cassidy, 2001). We can thus see that people who are connected through bridging social capital have a wider range of associates. They also got more opportunities. Therefore Bridging social capital is very important to enhance social inclusion and to develop communitys ability. Sports Volunteers: The Real Active Citizens? Sports Clubs are career for the expression of active citizenship through volunteering. Volunteers are more important than any other thing in a club or a sporting organization (Nichols, et al., 2004). Clubs provide an opportunity which helps the community by contributing to social capital through social interaction (Coalter, 2007; Long, 2008; Weed et al., 2005). The volunteers share their values, a reflection of the society where their expressions of collective values are encouraged, which is a positive contribution towards society. As Coalter (2007) points out the diffuse and contested nature of social capital is central to the social regeneration/social inclusion agenda (p. 159). The volunteers have a potential contribution to rebuild the social capital. Sport England (1999, p8) stresses volunteering as activity which is fundamental to the development of democratic society. It helps in contributing towards their public life and develops their communities. Consequently such policies are as much concerned with the instrumental use of sport for purposes of community development as they are in simply developing sport in the community (Coalter and Allison, 1996). The key policy message here is that the potentially positive benefits of sport are not only to be obtained via participation involvement in the organisation and provision of opportunities for sport and physical recreation can assist in the development of self-esteem and a series of transferable skills a view of volunteering as active citizenship.

Engineering Technology: Revolutionized Essay -- Engineering

Advance, advance is the key word when describing the human race to prove that we are the superior race. Ever since the discovery of technology we have linked our minds together for the persistence of progress to modify the aspects all around us for the better. It’s amazing that a simple interest in the beginning will change everything down to a distinct thought. History has proven that the steps forward in technology within engineering have grown larger and are concluded at a more rapid rate and with in the last twenty years. Such a large amount has improved so rapid as cities grow and technology advances, engineering is moving along with the tide. Engineers that grow and see their world of work improve every day because of certain advances in technology all depending on their field. This how engineering features evolved into what they are today from with in the last two decades; and how the change will continue to advance as modern Technology embraces a post modern era. Engineering has existed since the earliest times of culture and perhaps is one of the older lines of labor on earth (the earliest invention of engineering goes back as early as the invention of the wheel). It’s extraordinary that we came so far since the discovery of the wheel, the technology that has been accomplished today just engulfs the minds of people. Everyday modern technology is taken over the minds of people and they continue to adapt to the modern changes with in the ever changing society. Through centuries there are trails left by ancient engineering and has differed from our technology today. Through the ancient era there has been astounding and un-answering feats of engineering. Like the great pyramids of Egypt and the great coliseums of Rome. The... ...his hands dirty and a female does not (a great example would be the nuclear 1950’s era of the stay at home mom and the 9-5 dad). A main point to why females are not the ones going out and doing the labor is the perception of being feminine. Here’s a quote that shows how much soul they take in their work. â€Å"Engineering is the professional art of applying science to the optimum conversion of natural resources to the benefit of man†. (smith) Works Cited †¢ Scott, Henry. "Engineering Quotes." BrainyQuotes. N.p., 01 Jan 2010. Web. 26 Mar 2010. . †¢ "engineering." 15. 4. Chicago: Britanica, 1986. Print †¢ "Engineering." encyclopedia Britanica. Britanica, 2010. Web. . †¢ "Engineering and Natural Science managers." Ocupational Outlook Handbook. Indianapolas: U.S. Department of Labor, 2005. Print.

Has the Impact of 9/11 Been Baneful or Beneficial?

2013-02-0108 Bilal Syed Critical Issues in Pakistan’s foreign policy 13th October 2012 Has the impact of 9/11 been baneful or beneficial to Pakistan’s security environment? Analyze. The second year of the new millennium was witness to an event which might have perhaps altered the geo-political structure of the world and gave birth to a whole new phenomenon, one, which has been directing foreign policy affairs of the world for almost a decade now.This event comprised the four terrorist attacks on United States soil, on September the eleventh, 2001, in which hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers of the world trade centre, the Pentagon and one fell short of its target in Shanksfield Pennsylvania. These events gave birth to the â€Å"war on terror†, which has not only affected the United States but a lot of other countries as well, especially Pakistan, who had a prominent geo strategic location in the vicinity of the battle grounds for this war. This war has h ad both positive and negative effects on the security and general stability of Pakistan.This essay will try to discern these effects and establish whether in the long run, the impact of 9/11 has been baneful or beneficial to Pakistan’s security environment. Firstly, the positive impacts of the war on terror will be considered. Since the perpetrators of the attacks were considered to be hiding in Afghanistan, all the surrounding countries in the region became important strategic partners of the United States and its allies. Pakistan, perhaps the most influential since it had a long history of dealing with the Taliban and had in depth knowledge of the terrain and surrounding area.Chairperson, Department of Political Science, the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Professor Razia Musarrat claims that â€Å"Pakistan’s geographical location, its nearness with Afghanistan, its close relations with the Taliban regime, its deep knowledge of the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, a nd its history of Cold War alliance made Pakistan obviously the most important strategic asset for the United States. † Pakistan offered its support to the United States including airbases and military intelligence to help eradicate the terrorist elements present in Afghanistan. As a result over the years Pakistan has received military ssistance and aid from the United States, helping in brining military and technological advancements to the country. It is important to note that at the time of these attacks, Pakistan was in isolation at the world stage due to sanctions imposed on it, after it carried out nuclear tests in 1998. India too was facing the same sanctions, but having a stronger economy meant that it managed to survive this dry spell comparatively more easily than Pakistan. Pakistan on the other hand was suffering from the consequences of these sanctions and the war on terror surprisingly came as a relief.Pakistan has been given economic assistance of almost ten bill ion dollars over a period of ten years as its ties with the waste slowly improved. This aid rescued its stagnant economy and ensured that Pakistan’s economic woes were overcome, a change, very welcome for the Musharraf regime. Thirdly, post 9/11, South Asia became the centre of the World’s attention. A senior political analyst notes, that â€Å"with the presence of two nuclear power friends, and an Al-Qaeda-strewn Afghanistan, South Asia assumed a strategic status in American eyes. The rebirth of South Asia prominence was not limited to America, rather for whole the world.There was a long chain of Heads of States, and highest officials visiting the region every alternative day were evidence of long term strategic interests of the US in the region. † This new found attention allowed internationally isolated Pakistan and India back into the main stream of world politics and bolstered the image of the country in the eyes of the world, as a nation that was against t errorism. A somewhat debateable positive outcome, but one that could be true is that this war against terrorism helped to control the spread of militancy in the country.Former foreign minister of Pakistan, Mr Abdul Sattar argues that, â€Å"another significant benefit of the post-9/11 policy has been containment of the baneful influence of extremists and militants. † Had the war on terror not been targeted against organizations like Al-Qaeda, they might have consolidated their positions in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continued to follow their own agenda’s. The post 9/11 policy helped to contain this spread of ideology but unfortunately could not eliminate it from society completely. Another major impact of the war on terror, it can be argued, is that it led to stability in the region.The main cause of instability in the region over the years has been hostile Pakistan, India relations. Three major wars and countless other incidents aimed at undermining the other countr y, have soured an already messy divorce. The acquisition of nuclear warheads by both states coupled with the Kashmir issue, have caused this region to become highly volatile. This was also the case post 9/11, when after an attack on the Indian parliament in December of 2001, India mobilized its military forces on a large scale against Pakistan.Pakistan too responded and both armies stood face to face with each other opposite the international borders. There was a very serious threat of an outbreak of nuclear war and alarm bells started ringing in the international arena. Eventually it was the presence of the United States in the region which helped diffuse the highly volatile situation. The threat of nuclear war, coupled with the fear that a Pakistan-India war would be harmful to the war on terror, meant that the United Sates put in a full hearted effort to ease tensions.This was eventually the case and stability was brought to the region again. These are some of the positive outcom es to the war on terror for Pakistan. But there have been dreadful negative consequences for the country as well. Firstly, just like it can be argued that just like US presence brought stability to the region; it also brought a lot of instability. This is evident from the impact of the war on Afghanistan, where Prof. Dr. Razia Musarrat argues, that the â€Å"Taliban government had been successful to restore a kind of stability in Afghanistan for the first time after a very long period of unrest.America, by ripping to pieces the Taliban regime, once again pushed Afghanistan into a new phase of insurgency and civil war. This unstable and troubled situation will not remain confined within the Afghan borders; rather will soon spread into the neighbouring states. We can see for ourselves that the unrest and turbulence in Afghanistan has leaked out into Pakistan. † This has been a cause of great concern for Pakistan, because the Afghani brand of militancy and extremism has seeped i n the country and has started rearing its ugly head against the state.Secondly, Pakistan had friendly relations with the Taliban prior to the American offensive. So much so that they were considered supporters of the Taliban, a notion which caused concern to other surrounding countries like India. But after the war, the northern alliance came into power and the resulting Afghan government did not have a favourable view of Pakistan. India on the other hand took advantage of this and firmly established itself in Afghanistan. It became the largest regional donor of aid to Afghanistan in the post war period.Strong relations with Afghanistan could very beneficial for Indian foreign policy since Afghanistan shares such a large border with Pakistan. Having strong relations with a hostile neighbour’s neighbour is a strategically strong move and puts Pakistan in a delicate situation. Also, India could have easy access to Central Asia via Afghanistan, which could give it access to thei r abundant natural resources and open other cheaper trading avenues. India would not have to be dependent on Pakistan for access to Central Asia, which might come across as another blow to Pakistan.Another cause of concern for Pakistan, at the political level, was constant Indian pressure that Pakistan provided a safe haven for terrorists. India took advantage of American presence in the region and looked at this as an opportunity to further one of its foreign policy goals, that is, to ensure that Pakistan was strongly implicated in harbouring terrorists under its roof. The case for this argument was of course Pakistan’s close relations with the Taliban and the fact that Pakistan was a big supporter of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.Secondly India had claimed time and again that Pakistan uses terrorist groups to promote their foreign policy agenda’s. They claimed that the Pakistani intelligence cell, the ISI, with the blessings of the government equipped, trained an d infiltrated militants into Kashmir. This was a very serious claim considering Pakistan was a nuclear state which endorsed state sponsored terrorism. The Indian government hoped that the United States would finally understand India’s point of view and become an ally of India against Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism. Indian security agencies hope that the terrorist attack in New York on Tuesday will see the United States put pressure on Pakistan to extradite Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Chhota Shakeel and others, who masterminded the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in March 1993. † Domestically, Pakistan has had to pay a very heavy price for the part it has played in the war. There has been a huge increase in the number of terrorist and militant organizations in the country after the war.Following the events of the 2001-2002 standoff between Pakistan and India, Musharraf, pledged to crack down on the militant organizations working in the country. They were obvio usly not willing to go easily and put up resistance by targeting government and security establishments. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed as result of suicide attacks and the whole country was gripped in a constant state of fear. The law and order situation got so wore that the president himself narrowly survived two bold attempts on his life.The backlash was the worst in the north western region, for the people divided by international borders shared the same strong bonds of ethnicity and culture. Taking cue from the Taliban of Afghanistan, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan became an active anti-state terrorist organization comprised of mostly Pashtoons, just like the Afghani Taliban. It is responsible for carrying out hundreds of terrorist attacks on state owned institutions and civilians as well. They were perhaps behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and one of the biggest causes for instability in the Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa province.The situation became too bad to be i gnored and the Pakistan military launched a full scale military operation in which thousands of troops were involved to deal with this menace. Even though millions of rupees and a lot of soldiers were lost in the operation, the operation was unsuccessful and the Taliban continue living in the mountains of the Waziristan region, albeit as outlaws and vigilantes. This religious extremist ideology, unfortunately, is not only confined to Pakistan’s western provinces. This menace has slowly started spreading in the comparatively more peaceful Punjab and Sindh provinces as well.The society is slowly becoming more polarised on the issue of whether Pakistan should keep on fighting America’s war. Others however believe this is a war for Pakistan’s own survival. Whatever the case is, the country has been gripped in a constant state of fear and gloom. Notions of national cohesiveness and unity are fast withering away as the Pashtoon and Baloch communities claim they have f elt the brunt of the war on terror, a notion that is true considering the drone attacks that are carried out in their homelands.A 2012 report on the security situation of 2011 in Pakistan puts the matter in better perspective. â€Å"While  FATA  continued to reel under the impact of terrorism, there was no respite from terror in  KP  as well. Sindh continued to experience a more  centralized pattern  of violence in and around Karachi. However, the extension of the influence of armed extremist political, ethnic, sectarian and criminal groups in the city, and the chances of violence spreading to other areas of the Province, could not be ruled out. † Overall the costs of this war on terror have been staggering for Pakistan.The costs, in terms of monetary terms, political terms, social terms and most importantly loss of life are so huge, that Pakistan is still reeling from the blow. The report mentioned earlier, gives an idea regarding the losses sustained by Pakistan . â€Å"Pakistan’s continuing engagement with the production and export of Islamist extremism and terrorism continued to produce a bloody blowback at home, with a total of at least 6,142 persons, including of 2,797 militants, 2,580 civilians and 765 Security Forces (SFs) personnel killed in 2011.However, even this worrying total constituted an improvement of 17. 75 per cent over the preceding year. 7,435 persons, including 5,170 militants, 1,796 civilians and 469 SF personnel, had been killed in 2010. † Secondly, the war has almost dried up foreign investment in Pakistan, as no one is willing to come here considering the prevailing security situation and the unstable political scenario.The economy is in shambles as a major chunk of the budget goes to the army and less and less is spent on the people. It is true that Pakistan is getting aid from outside, but it cannot just rely on aid to survive in the future. A major energy crisis has added to the woes of the country a nd caused great distress to the public. Anti American sentiments are now at an all time high and the country looks forward to the day it does not have to deal with these issues any more.As former foreign minister Abdul Sattar says, â€Å"So colossal have been the human and material ravages our country has suffered during the last decade that no sensitive citizen can but wish Pakistan had followed a different course, one that might have saved our country and people from the nightmare in which we are still trapped. † If the positive and negative outcomes of the post 9/11 policy are weighed against each other, it can be concluded that it has been overall more baneful than beneficial to the country.Yes, the policy allowed Pakistan to come back into the main stream of international politics and yes, it caused an influx of foreign aid into the country which rescued a stagnant economy, but at what cost? The material costs of thousands of dollars or the cost of human life, to which a value cannot be assigned, have been tremendous. The country is gripped by a war that is ravaging its socio-political fabric. The economy is once again in shambles and the country stands on the brink of bankruptcy.The more alarming thought is that, the war on terror is still not over and its consequences keep haunting the country. Once the coalition troops leave Afghanistan, the whole region will be locked in a geo-political struggle for supremacy and with major players like hostile India involved, the odds do not look good for Pakistan. Works Cited: Balakrishnan, S. â€Å"India Hopes US Will Now Pressurise Pak. †Ã‚  The Times Of India. N. p. , 2001. Web. 14 Oct. 2012. . â€Å"Pakistan Assessment 2012.   South Asia Terrorism Portal. N. p. , n. d. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. . Musarrat, Prof. Dr. Razia. â€Å"US WAR ON TERRORISM AND ITS IMPACT ON SOUTH ASIA. † Thesis. University of the Punjab, n. d. Http://pu. edu. pk. University of the Punjab. Web. http://pu. edu. pk/images/ journal/pols/Currentissue-pdf/RAZIA. pdf Sattar, Abdul. â€Å"REVISIT TO POST-9/11 POLICY. †Ã‚  Criterion-Quarterly  7. 1 (2012): n. pag. Criterion-quarterly. com. 2012. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. .

Why Software Should Be Free

Why Software Should Be Free by Richard Stallman (Version of April 24, 1992) Introduction The existence of software inevitably raises the question of how decisions about its use should be made. For example, suppose one individual who has a copy of a program meets another who would like a copy. It is possible for them to copy the program; who should decide whether this is done? The individuals involved? Or another party, called the â€Å"owner†? Software developers typically consider these questions on the assumption that the criterion for the answer is to maximize developers' profits.The political power of business has led to the government adoption of both this criterion and the answer proposed by the developers: that the program has an owner, typically a corporation associated with its development. I would like to consider the same question using a different criterion: the prosperity and freedom of the public in general. This answer cannot be decided by current law–the law should conform to ethics, not the other way around. Nor does current practice decide this question, although it may suggest possible answers.The only way to judge is to see who is helped and who is hurt by recognizing owners of software, why, and how much. In other words, we should perform a cost-benefit analysis on behalf of society as a whole, taking account of individual freedom as well as production of material goods. In this essay, I will describe the effects of having owners, and show that the results are detrimental. My conclusion is that programmers have the duty to encourage others to share, redistribute, study, and improve the software we write: in other words, to write â€Å"free† software. 1) How Owners Justify Their Power Those who benefit from the current system where programs are property offer two arguments in support of their claims to own programs: the emotional argument and the economic argument. The emotional argument goes like this: â€Å"I put my s weat, my heart, my soul into this program. It comes from me, it's mine! † This argument does not require serious refutation. The feeling of attachment is one that programmers can cultivate when it suits them; it is not inevitable. Consider, for example, how willingly the same programmers sually sign over all rights to a large corporation for a salary; the emotional attachment mysteriously vanishes. By contrast, consider the great artists and artisans of medieval times, who didn't even sign their names to their work. To them, the name of the artist was not important. What mattered was that the work was done–and the purpose it would serve. This view prevailed for hundreds of years. The economic argument goes like this: â€Å"I want to get rich (usually described inaccurately as `making a living'), and if you don't allow me to get rich by programming, then I won't program.Everyone else is like me, so nobody will ever program. And then you'll be stuck with no programs at a ll! † This threat is usually veiled as friendly advice from the wise. I'll explain later why this threat is a bluff. First I want to address an implicit assumption that is more visible in another formulation of the argument. This formulation starts by comparing the social utility of a proprietary program with that of no program, and then concludes that proprietary software development is, on the whole, beneficial, and should be encouraged.The fallacy here is in comparing only two outcomes–proprietary software vs. no software–and assuming there are no other possibilities. Given a system of software copyright, software development is usually linked with the existence of an owner who controls the software's use. As long as this linkage exists, we are often faced with the choice of proprietary software or none. However, this linkage is not inherent or inevitable; it is a consequence of the specific social/legal policy decision that we are questioning: the decision to have owners.To formulate the choice as between proprietary software vs. no software is begging the question. The Argument against Having Owners The question at hand is, â€Å"Should development of software be linked with having owners to restrict the use of it? † In order to decide this, we have to judge the effect on society of each of those two activities independently: the effect of developing the software (regardless of its terms of distribution), and the effect of restricting its use (assuming the software has been developed).If one of these activities is helpful and the other is harmful, we would be better off dropping the linkage and doing only the helpful one. To put it another way, if restricting the distribution of a program already developed is harmful to society overall, then an ethical software developer will reject the option of doing so. To determine the effect of restricting sharing, we need to compare the value to society of a restricted (i. e. , proprietary ) program with that of the same program, available to everyone. This means comparing two possible worlds.This analysis also addresses the simple counterargument sometimes made that â€Å"the benefit to the neighbor of giving him or her a copy of a program is cancelled by the harm done to the owner. † This counterargument assumes that the harm and the benefit are equal in magnitude. The analysis involves comparing these magnitudes, and shows that the benefit is much greater. To elucidate this argument, let's apply it in another area: road construction. It would be possible to fund the construction of all roads with tolls.This would entail having toll booths at all street corners. Such a system would provide a great incentive to improve roads. It would also have the virtue of causing the users of any given road to pay for that road. However, a toll booth is an artificial obstruction to smooth driving-artificial, because it is not a consequence of how roads or cars work. Compari ng free roads and toll roads by their usefulness, we find that (all else being equal) roads without toll booths are cheaper to construct, cheaper to run, safer, and more efficient to use. 2) In a poor country, tolls may make the roads unavailable to many citizens. The roads without toll booths thus offer more benefit to society at less cost; they are preferable for society. Therefore, society should choose to fund roads in another way, not by means of toll booths. Use of roads, once built, should be free. When the advocates of toll booths propose them as merely a way of raising funds, they distort the choice that is available. Toll booths do raise funds, but they do something else as well: in effect, they degrade the road.The toll road is not as good as the free road; giving us more or technically superior roads may not be an improvement if this means substituting toll roads for free roads. Of course, the construction of a free road does cost money, which the public must somehow pay . However, this does not imply the inevitability of toll booths. We who must in either case pay will get more value for our money by buying a free road. I am not saying that a toll road is worse than no road at all. That would be true if the toll were so great that hardly anyone used the road–but this is an unlikely policy for a toll collector.However, as long as the toll booths cause significant waste and inconvenience, it is better to raise the funds in a less obstructive fashion. To apply the same argument to software development, I will now show that having â€Å"toll booths† for useful software programs costs society dearly: it makes the programs more expensive to construct, more expensive to distribute, and less satisfying and efficient to use. It will follow that program construction should be encouraged in some other way. Then I will go on to explain other methods of encouraging and (to the extent actually necessary) funding software development.The Harm Done b y Obstructing Software Consider for a moment that a program has been developed, and any necessary payments for its development have been made; now society must choose either to make it proprietary or allow free sharing and use. Assume that the existence of the program and its availability is a desirable thing. (3) Restrictions on the distribution and modification of the program cannot facilitate its use. They can only interfere. So the effect can only be negative. But how much? And what kind? Three different levels of material harm come from such obstruction: †¢ †¢ †¢ Fewer people use the program.None of the users can adapt or fix the program. Other developers cannot learn from the program, or base new work on it. Each level of material harm has a concomitant form of psychosocial harm. This refers to the effect that people's decisions have on their subsequent feelings, attitudes, and predispositions. These changes in people's ways of thinking will then have a further effect on their relationships with their fellow citizens, and can have material consequences. The three levels of material harm waste part of the value that the program could contribute, but they cannot reduce it to zero.If they waste nearly all the value of the program, then writing the program harms society by at most the effort that went into writing the program. Arguably a program that is profitable to sell must provide some net direct material benefit. However, taking account of the concomitant psychosocial harm, there is no limit to the harm that proprietary software development can do. Obstructing Use of Programs The first level of harm impedes the simple use of a program. A copy of a program has nearly zero marginal cost (and you can pay this cost by doing the work yourself), so in a free market, it would have nearly zero price.A license fee is a significant disincentive to use the program. If a widely-useful program is proprietary, far fewer people will use it. It is easy t o show that the total contribution of a program to society is reduced by assigning an owner to it. Each potential user of the program, faced with the need to pay to use it, may choose to pay, or may forego use of the program. When a user chooses to pay, this is a zero-sum transfer of wealth between two parties. But each time someone chooses to forego use of the program, this harms that person without benefitting anyone. The sum of negative numbers and zeros must be negative.But this does not reduce the amount of work it takes to develop the program. As a result, the efficiency of the whole process, in delivered user satisfaction per hour of work, is reduced. This reflects a crucial difference between copies of programs and cars, chairs, or sandwiches. There is no copying machine for material objects outside of science fiction. But programs are easy to copy; anyone can produce as many copies as are wanted, with very little effort. This isn't true for material objects because matter i s conserved: each new copy has to be built from raw materials in the same way that the first copy was built.With material objects, a disincentive to use them makes sense, because fewer objects bought means less raw material and work needed to make them. It's true that there is usually also a startup cost, a development cost, which is spread over the production run. But as long as the marginal cost of production is significant, adding a share of the development cost does not make a qualitative difference. And it does not require restrictions on the freedom of ordinary users. However, imposing a price on something that would otherwise be free is a qualitative change.A centrally-imposed fee for software distribution becomes a powerful disincentive. What's more, central production as now practiced is inefficient even as a means of delivering copies of software. This system involves enclosing physical disks or tapes in superfluous packaging, shipping large numbers of them around the worl d, and storing them for sale. This cost is presented as an expense of doing business; in truth, it is part of the waste caused by having owners. Damaging Social Cohesion Suppose that both you and your neighbor would find it useful to run a certain program.In ethical concern for your neighbor, you should feel that proper handling of the situation will enable both of you to use it. A proposal to permit only one of you to use the program, while restraining the other, is divisive; neither you nor your neighbor should find it acceptable. Signing a typical software license agreement means betraying your neighbor: â€Å"I promise to deprive my neighbor of this program so that I can have a copy for myself. † People who make such choices feel internal psychological pressure to justify them, by downgrading the importance of helping one's neighbors–thus public spirit suffers.This is psychosocial harm associated with the material harm of discouraging use of the program. Many users unconsciously recognize the wrong of refusing to share, so they decide to ignore the licenses and laws, and share programs anyway. But they often feel guilty about doing so. They know that they must break the laws in order to be good neighbors, but they still consider the laws authoritative, and they conclude that being a good neighbor (which they are) is naughty or shameful. That is also a kind of psychosocial harm, but one can escape it by deciding that these licenses and laws have no moral force.Programmers also suffer psychosocial harm knowing that many users will not be allowed to use their work. This leads to an attitude of cynicism or denial. A programmer may describe enthusiastically the work that he finds technically exciting; then when asked, â€Å"Will I be permitted to use it? †, his face falls, and he admits the answer is no. To avoid feeling discouraged, he either ignores this fact most of the time or adopts a cynical stance designed to minimize the importance of it. Since the age of Reagan, the greatest scarcity in the United States is not technical innovation, but rather the willingness to work together for the public good.It makes no sense to encourage the former at the expense of the latter. Obstructing Custom Adaptation of Programs The second level of material harm is the inability to adapt programs. The ease of modification of software is one of its great advantages over older technology. But most commercially available software isn't available for modification, even after you buy it. It's available for you to take it or leave it, as a black box–that is all. A program that you can run consists of a series of numbers whose meaning is obscure. No one, not even a good programmer, can easily change the numbers o make the program do something different. Programmers normally work with the â€Å"source code† for a program, which is written in a programming language such as Fortran or C. It uses names to designate the data bei ng used and the parts of the program, and it represents operations with symbols such as `+' for addition and `-‘ for subtraction. It is designed to help programmers read and change programs. Here is an example; a program to calculate the distance between two points in a plane: float distance (p0, p1) struct point p0, p1; { float xdist = p1. x – p0. x; float ydist = p1. y – p0. ; return sqrt (xdist * xdist + ydist * ydist); } Here is the same program in executable form, on the computer I normally use: 1314258944 1411907592 -234880989 1644167167 572518958 -232267772 -231844736 -234879837 -3214848 -803143692 -231844864 2159150 -234879966 1090581031 1314803317 1634862 1420296208 -232295424 1962942495 Source code is useful (at least potentially) to every user of a program. But most users are not allowed to have copies of the source code. Usually the source code for a proprietary program is kept secret by the owner, lest anybody else learn something from it.Users recei ve only the files of incomprehensible numbers that the computer will execute. This means that only the program's owner can change the program. A friend once told me of working as a programmer in a bank for about six months, writing a program similar to something that was commercially available. She believed that if she could have gotten source code for that commercially available program, it could easily have been adapted to their needs. The bank was willing to pay for this, but was not permitted to–the source code was a secret.So she had to do six months of make-work, work that counts in the GNP but was actually waste. The MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) received a graphics printer as a gift from Xerox around 1977. It was run by free software to which we added many convenient features. For example, the software would notify a user immediately on completion of a print job. Whenever the printer had trouble, such as a paper jam or running out of paper, the software wou ld immediately notify all users who had print jobs queued. These features facilitated smooth operation.Later Xerox gave the AI Lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so we couldn't add any of our favorite features. We could arrange to send a notification when a print job was sent to the dedicated computer, but not when the job was actually printed (and the delay was usually considerable). There was no way to find out when the job was actually printed; you could only guess. And no one was informed when there was a paper jam, so the printer often went for an hour without being fixed.The system programmers at the AI Lab were capable of fixing such problems, probably as capable as the original authors of the program. Xerox was uninterested in fixing them, and chose to prevent us, so we were forced to accept the problems. They were never fixed. Most good programmers have experienced th is frustration. The bank could afford to solve the problem by writing a new program from scratch, but a typical user, no matter how skilled, can only give up. Giving up causes psychosocial harm–to the spirit of self-reliance. It is demoralizing to live in a house that you cannot rearrange to suit your needs.It leads to resignation and discouragement, which can spread to affect other aspects of one's life. People who feel this way are unhappy and do not do good work. Imagine what it would be like if recipes were hoarded in the same fashion as software. You might say, â€Å"How do I change this recipe to take out the salt? † and the great chef would respond, â€Å"How dare you insult my recipe, the child of my brain and my palate, by trying to tamper with it? You don't have the judgment to change my recipe and make it work right! † â€Å"But my doctor says I'm not supposed to eat salt! What can I do? Will you take out the salt for me? ‘ â€Å"I would be gl ad to do that; my fee is only $50,000. † Since the owner has a monopoly on changes, the fee tends to be large. â€Å"However, right now I don't have time. I am busy with a commission to design a new recipe for ship's biscuit for the Navy Department. I might get around to you in about two years. † Obstructing Software Development The third level of material harm affects software development. Software development used to be an evolutionary process, where a person would take an existing program and rewrite parts of it for one new feature, and then another person would rewrite parts to add nother feature; in some cases, this continued over a period of twenty years. Meanwhile, parts of the program would be â€Å"cannibalized† to form the beginnings of other programs. The existence of owners prevents this kind of evolution, making it necessary to start from scratch when developing a program. It also prevents new practitioners from studying existing programs to learn us eful techniques or even how large programs can be structured. Owners also obstruct education. I have met bright students in computer science who have never seen the source code of a large program.They may be good at writing small programs, but they can't begin to learn the different skills of writing large ones if they can't see how others have done it. In any intellectual field, one can reach greater heights by standing on the shoulders of others. But that is no longer generally allowed in the software field–you can only stand on the shoulders of the other people in your own company. The associated psychosocial harm affects the spirit of scientific cooperation, which used to be so strong that scientists would cooperate even when their countries were at war.In this spirit, Japanese oceanographers abandoning their lab on an island in the Pacific carefully preserved their work for the invading U. S. Marines, and left a note asking them to take good care of it. Conflict for prof it has destroyed what international conflict spared. Nowadays scientists in many fields don't publish enough in their papers to enable others to replicate the experiment. They publish only enough to let readers marvel at how much they were able to do. This is certainly true in computer science, where the source code for the programs reported on is usually secret.It Does Not Matter How Sharing Is Restricted I have been discussing the effects of preventing people from copying, changing, and building on a program. I have not specified how this obstruction is carried out, because that doesn't affect the conclusion. Whether it is done by copy protection, or copyright, or licenses, or encryption, or ROM cards, or hardware serial numbers, if it succeeds in preventing use, it does harm. Users do consider some of these methods more obnoxious than others. I suggest that the methods most hated are those that accomplish their objective.Software Should be Free I have shown how ownership of a pro gram–the power to restrict changing or copying it–is obstructive. Its negative effects are widespread and important. It follows that society shouldn't have owners for programs. Another way to understand this is that what society needs is free software, and proprietary software is a poor substitute. Encouraging the substitute is not a rational way to get what we need. Vaclav Havel has advised us to â€Å"Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. ‘ A business making proprietary software stands a chance of success in its own narrow terms, but it is not what is good for society. Why People Will Develop Software If we eliminate copyright as a means of encouraging people to develop software, at first less software will be developed, but that software will be more useful. It is not clear whether the overall delivered user satisfaction will be less; but if it is, or if we wish to increase it anyway, there are other ways to en courage development, just as there are ways besides toll booths to raise money for streets.Before I talk about how that can be done, first I want to question how much artificial encouragement is truly necessary. Programming is Fun There are some lines of work that few will enter except for money; road construction, for example. There are other fields of study and art in which there is little chance to become rich, which people enter for their fascination or their perceived value to society. Examples include mathematical logic, classical music, and archaeology; and political organizing among working people.People compete, more sadly than bitterly, for the few funded positions available, none of which is funded very well. They may even pay for the chance to work in the field, if they can afford to. Such a field can transform itself overnight if it begins to offer the possibility of getting rich. When one worker gets rich, others demand the same opportunity. Soon all may demand large s ums of money for doing what they used to do for pleasure. When another couple of years go by, everyone connected with the field will deride the idea that work would be done in the field without large financial returns.They will advise social planners to ensure that these returns are possible, prescribing special privileges, powers, and monopolies as necessary to do so. This change happened in the field of computer programming in the past decade. Fifteen years ago, there were articles on â€Å"computer addiction†: users were â€Å"onlining† and had hundred-dollar-a-week habits. It was generally understood that people frequently loved programming enough to break up their marriages. Today, it is generally understood that no one would program except for a high rate of pay.People have forgotten what they knew fifteen years ago. When it is true at a given time that most people will work in a certain field only for high pay, it need not remain true. The dynamic of change can run in reverse, if society provides an impetus. If we take away the possibility of great wealth, then after a while, when the people have readjusted their attitudes, they will once again be eager to work in the field for the joy of accomplishment. The question, â€Å"How can we pay programmers? † becomes an easier question when we realize that it's not a matter of paying them a fortune.A mere living is easier to raise. Funding Free Software Institutions that pay programmers do not have to be software houses. Many other institutions already exist that can do this. Hardware manufacturers find it essential to support software development even if they cannot control the use of the software. In 1970, much of their software was free because they did not consider restricting it. Today, their increasing willingness to join consortiums shows their realization that owning the software is not what is really important for them.Universities conduct many programming projects. Today they of ten sell the results, but in the 1970s they did not. Is there any doubt that universities would develop free software if they were not allowed to sell software? These projects could be supported by the same government contracts and grants that now support proprietary software development. It is common today for university researchers to get grants to develop a system, develop it nearly to the point of completion and call that â€Å"finished†, and then start companies where they really finish the project and make it usable.Sometimes they declare the unfinished version â€Å"free†; if they are thoroughly corrupt, they instead get an exclusive license from the university. This is not a secret; it is openly admitted by everyone concerned. Yet if the researchers were not exposed to the temptation to do these things, they would still do their research. Programmers writing free software can make their living by selling services related to the software. I have been hired to po rt the GNU C compiler to new hardware, and to make user-interface extensions to GNU Emacs. (I offer these improvements to the public once they are done. I also teach classes for which I am paid. I am not alone in working this way; there is now a successful, growing corporation which does no other kind of work. Several other companies also provide commercial support for the free software of the GNU system. This is the beginning of the independent software support industry–an industry that could become quite large if free software becomes prevalent. It provides users with an option generally unavailable for proprietary software, except to the very wealthy. New institutions such as the Free Software Foundation can also fund programmers.Most of the Foundation's funds come from users buying tapes through the mail. The software on the tapes is free, which means that every user has the freedom to copy it and change it, but many nonetheless pay to get copies. (Recall that â€Å"free software† refers to freedom, not to price. ) Some users who already have a copy order tapes as a way of making a contribution they feel we deserve. The Foundation also receives sizable donations from computer manufacturers. The Free Software Foundation is a charity, and its income is spent on hiring as many programmers as possible.If it had been set up as a business, distributing the same free software to the public for the same fee, it would now provide a very good living for its founder. Because the Foundation is a charity, programmers often work for the Foundation for half of what they could make elsewhere. They do this because we are free of bureaucracy, and because they feel satisfaction in knowing that their work will not be obstructed from use. Most of all, they do it because programming is fun. In addition, volunteers have written many useful programs for us. (Even technical writers have begun to volunteer. This confirms that programming is among the most fascinating of all fields, along with music and art. We don't have to fear that no one will want to program. What Do Users Owe to Developers? There is a good reason for users of software to feel a moral obligation to contribute to its support. Developers of free software are contributing to the users' activities, and it is both fair and in the long-term interest of the users to give them funds to continue. However, this does not apply to proprietary software developers, since obstructionism deserves a punishment rather than reward. We thus have a paradox: the developer of useful software is entitled to the support of the users, but any attempt to turn this moral obligation into a requirement destroys the basis for the obligation. A developer can either deserve a reward or demand it, but not both. I believe that an ethical developer faced with this paradox must act so as to deserve the reward, but should also entreat the users for voluntary donations. Eventually the users will learn to support d evelopers without coercion, just as they have learned to support public radio and television stations.What Is Software Productivity? If software were free, there would still be programmers, but perhaps fewer of them. Would this be bad for society? Not necessarily. Today the advanced nations have fewer farmers than in 1900, but we do not think this is bad for society, because the few deliver more food to the consumers than the many used to do. We call this improved productivity. Free software would require far fewer programmers to satisfy the demand, because of increased software productivity at all levels: †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Wider use of each program that is developed.The ability to adapt existing programs for customization instead of starting from scratch. Better education of programmers. The elimination of duplicate development effort. Those who object to cooperation claiming it would result in the employment of fewer programmers are actually objecting to increased pr oductivity. Yet these people usually accept the widely-held belief that the software industry needs increased productivity. How is this? â€Å"Software productivity† can mean two different things: the overall productivity of all software development, or the productivity of individual projects.Overall productivity is what society would like to improve, and the most straightforward way to do this is to eliminate the artificial obstacles to cooperation which reduce it. But researchers who study the field of â€Å"software productivity† focus only on the second, limited, sense of the term, where improvement requires difficult technological advances. Is Competition Inevitable? Is it inevitable that people will try to compete, to surpass their rivals in society? Perhaps it is. But competition itself is not harmful; the harmful thing is combat. There are many ways to compete.Competition can consist of trying to achieve ever more, to outdo what others have done. For example, i n the old days, there was competition among programming wizards–competition for who could make the computer do the most amazing thing, or for who could make the shortest or fastest program for a given task. This kind of competition can benefit everyone, as long as the spirit of good sportsmanship is maintained. Constructive competition is enough competition to motivate people to great efforts. A number of people are competing to be the first to have visited all the countries on Earth; some even spend fortunes trying to do this.But they do not bribe ship captains to strand their rivals on desert islands. They are content to let the best person win. Competition becomes combat when the competitors begin trying to impede each other instead of advancing themselves–when â€Å"Let the best person win† gives way to â€Å"Let me win, best or not. † Proprietary software is harmful, not because it is a form of competition, but because it is a form of combat among th e citizens of our society. Competition in business is not necessarily combat. For example, when two grocery stores compete, their entire effort is to improve their own operations, not to sabotage the rival.But this does not demonstrate a special commitment to business ethics; rather, there is little scope for combat in this line of business short of physical violence. Not all areas of business share this characteristic. Withholding information that could help everyone advance is a form of combat. Business ideology does not prepare people to resist the temptation to combat the competition. Some forms of combat have been banned with anti-trust laws, truth in advertising laws, and so on, but rather than generalizing this to a principled rejection of combat in general, executives invent other forms of combat which are not specifically prohibited.Society's resources are squandered on the economic equivalent of factional civil war. â€Å"Why Don't You Move to Russia? † In the Unite d States, any advocate of other than the most extreme form of laissezfaire selfishness has often heard this accusation. For example, it is leveled against the supporters of a national health care system, such as is found in all the other industrialized nations of the free world. It is leveled against the advocates of public support for the arts, also universal in advanced nations. The idea that citizens have any obligation to the public good is identified in America with Communism.But how similar are these ideas? Communism as was practiced in the Soviet Union was a system of central control where all activity was regimented, supposedly for the common good, but actually for the sake of the members of the Communist party. And where copying equipment was closely guarded to prevent illegal copying. The American system of software copyright exercises central control over distribution of a program, and guards copying equipment with automatic copying-protection schemes to prevent illegal c opying.By contrast, I am working to build a system where people are free to decide their own actions; in particular, free to help their neighbors, and free to alter and improve the tools which they use in their daily lives. A system based on voluntary cooperation and on decentralization. Thus, if we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists. The Question of Premises I make the assumption in this paper that a user of software is no less important than an author, or even an author's employer.In other words, their interests and needs have equal weight, when we decide which course of action is best. This premise is not universally accepted. Many maintain that an author's employer is fundamentally more important than anyone else. They say, for example, that the purpose of having owners of software is to give the author's employer the advantage he deserves–regardless of how this may affect the public. It is no use trying to prove or disprove these premises. Proof requires shared premises. So most of what I have to say is addressed only to those who share the premises I use, or at least are interested in what their consequences are.For those who believe that the owners are more important than everyone else, this paper is simply irrelevant. But why would a large number of Americans accept a premise that elevates certain people in importance above everyone else? Partly because of the belief that this premise is part of the legal traditions of American society. Some people feel that doubting the premise means challenging the basis of society. It is important for these people to know that this premise is not part of our legal tradition. It never has been. Thus, the Constitution says that the purpose of copyright is to â€Å"promote the progress of science and the useful arts. ‘ The Supreme Court has elaborated on this, stating in `Fox Film vs. Doyal' that â€Å"The sole interest of the Un ited States and the primary object in conferring the [copyright] monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors. † We are not required to agree with the Constitution or the Supreme Court. (At one time, they both condoned slavery. ) So their positions do not disprove the owner supremacy premise. But I hope that the awareness that this is a radical right-wing assumption rather than a traditionally recognized one will weaken its appeal.Conclusion We like to think that our society encourages helping your neighbor; but each time we reward someone for obstructionism, or admire them for the wealth they have gained in this way, we are sending the opposite message. Software hoarding is one form of our general willingness to disregard the welfare of society for personal gain. We can trace this disregard from Ronald Reagan to Jim Bakker, from Ivan Boesky to Exxon, from failing banks to failing schools. We can measure it with the size of the homeless population and the prison population.The antisocial spirit feeds on itself, because the more we see that other people will not help us, the more it seems futile to help them. Thus society decays into a jungle. If we don't want to live in a jungle, we must change our attitudes. We must start sending the message that a good citizen is one who cooperates when appropriate, not one who is successful at taking from others. I hope that the free software movement will contribute to this: at least in one area, we will replace the jungle with a more efficient system which encourages and runs on voluntary cooperation. Footnotes 1.The word â€Å"free† in â€Å"free software† refers to freedom, not to price; the price paid for a copy of a free program may be zero, or small, or (rarely) quite large. 2. The issues of pollution and traffic congestion do not alter this conclusion. If we wish to make driving more expensive to discourage driving in general, it is disadvantageous to do t his using toll booths, which contribute to both pollution and congestion. A tax on gasoline is much better. Likewise, a desire to enhance safety by limiting maximum speed is not relevant; a free-access road enhances the average speed by avoiding stops and delays, for any given speed limit. . One might regard a particular computer program as a harmful thing that should not be available at all, like the Lotus Marketplace database of personal information, which was withdrawn from sale due to public disapproval. Most of what I say does not apply to this case, but it makes little sense to argue for having an owner on the grounds that the owner will make the program less available. The owner will not make it completely unavailable, as one would wish in the case of a program whose use is considered destructive.

Upton Sinclair Quotes

Upton Sinclair Quotes Born in 1878, Upton Sinclair is a renowned American author. A prolific writer and a Pulitzer-prize winner, Sinclairs work was rooted in and driven by his strong political convictions in socialism. This is evident in the novel that he is most famous for, The Jungle, which inspired the Meat Inspection Act. The book, based on his experiences with Chicagos meatpacking industry, is highly critical of capitalism. Here are 10 left-leaning quotes from Upton Sinclair on his work and his political views. After reading these, youll understand why Sinclair was seen as an inspirational but also provocative figure and why President Theodore Roosevelt, who was president at the time The Jungle  was published, found the writer a nuisance.   Relationship With Money It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon  his  not understanding it. The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery. Fascism is capitalism plus murder. I aimed at the publics heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.- Regarding The Jungle The rich people not only had all the money, they had all the chance to get more; they had all the  knowledge  and the power, and so the poor man was down, and he had to stay down.-  The Jungle Mans Flaws Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian  ancestry,  and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be  harmless,  when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence?-   Profits of Religion It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence. Activism You dont have to be satisfied with America as you find it. You can change it. I didnt like the way I found America some sixty years ago, and Ive been trying to change it ever since. Societal Cynicism   Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters. The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country- from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.- The Jungle

The effect of enzyme concentration on enzyme activity Essay

The effect of enzyme concentration on enzyme activity - Essay Example the more the molecules available, more reaction takes place. This is expressed in units of molarity. In the following experiment, the aim was to determine the effect on the rate of reaction by varying the quantity of the enzyme on the reaction process by measuring a physically/visually perceptible change in colour. A milk protein, Casein was used which is subject to breakdown by the action of a protease enzyme. The idea was to vary the concentration of the protease enzyme in a constant volume of the milk sample and measure the reaction time by the end point, taken as the time taken for the clearing up of the solution. Values for various concentrations were obtained and the results evaluated. The dependent variables in the experiment were the concentration of the milk solution and the enzyme dilutions and the independent variables were visual time measurement, temperature and the degree of mixing the two solutions. Equal volumes of a protease solution and the milk sample (5 cm3) were placed in different test tubes (TT1 & TT2). Milk solution was prepared by dissolving 5 g of milk powder in 100 ml of water. Contents from both tubes were mixed together and the stop watch started. The mixture test tube was placed in front of a white paper marked with a cross and the time measured up to the point when the cross was visible through the solution. This gave the time interval for the disappearance of the substrate and so the time values for the reaction were expressed as a function of 1/T. It is very clear from the above table as well as graph that with the successive decrease in the concentration of the enzyme, it took more time for the solution to clear up indicating that the amount of enzyme influenced the rate of the reaction. This confirms the fact that more the number of enzyme molecules available, the faster will be the rate of the reaction. As a corollary of this result, it can be hypothesized from the result that when more molecules of both the

Are women full citizens If not, what might they require in order to Essay

Are women full citizens If not, what might they require in order to become so - Essay Example Feminist women scholars have been time and again pointed out by fuming mass of religious men as heretic and rebels who need to be stopped before they overtake the society with their cunning charms. An example of this is the unusual act of Dr. Amina Wadud who in an attempt to garner the Muslim women’s rights to full citizenship and to be an active participant in the ritual of public player, made the decision to lead men and women during prayer in New York City causing huge uproar from the Muslim scholars. She was labeled as a highly hostile and controversial scholar by Muslim men around the world which suggests that access to rights equivalent to men is an ongoing battle for women. However, this is not an issue confined to the Muslim society because many Jewish women holding Tefillah groups and eager to play the role of active participants in the formal ritual of Jewish prayers have also been vigorously criticized and unappreciated in the Jewish world. This shows that constitut ional culture in the US has encouraged the Muslim and Jewish women to explore their religious law and â€Å"open it to principles of gender equality†.... However, this is not an issue confined to the Muslim society because many Jewish women holding Tefillah groups and eager to play the role of active participants in the formal ritual of Jewish prayers have also been vigorously criticized and unappreciated in the Jewish world. This shows that constitutional culture in the US has encouraged the Muslim and Jewish women to explore their religious law and â€Å"open it to principles of gender equality† (Lahav 2009). It is absolutely horrid that many acts of these women who anxiously struggle for full citizenship are met with giant waves of mercilessness and evil plots both in the religious communities and contemporary settings. Women’s liberation and citizenship is not just an issue of the conservative states because research also cites that â€Å"contemporary American cities actually contain many injustices† (Young 2011: 13). Research literature suggests that throughout most of human history, women from different clas ses, ethnicities, races, and religions were and continue to be denied state citizenship due to multiple reasons. Within UK, â€Å"the dominance of a Catholic ideology firmly placing women in the home† (Thane & Breitenbach 2010: 3) led to male dominance and exclusion of women as full citizens until the 1960s. However, movements like the right-to-work movement beginning in the twentieth century coupled with changes in the Western capitalism and the trends of multinational corporations have effectively worked to bring down many formal barriers and have ended this exclusion in many societies. Still, citizenship is one of many social practices in which gender segregation is â€Å"ancient and stubbornly persistent† (Friedman 2005: 4). Not only the political rights