Obama '08?

nimh wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Dude asked a reasonable question. WTF is analog supposed to mean here? (I can think of no way that analog is superior to digital)

Digital: everything is either 1 or 0... following the association from there, looking at the world in a digital fashion would be seeing everything in terms of black and white, us vs them, good guys or bad guys, and never a way between can be seen. Makes for much strident rhetorics, little skill at diplomacy, and all too quickly seeing war as the only solution.

And ... it sets up a reasonable question about whether he would be willing to negotiate with everyone.

engineer wrote:

In summation, I understood the analogy and thought is was used correctly.

I understood the analogy as nimh described, but I am unclear what it means in real world application. Where does Obama draw the line?

Or, in an analog world, is there a necessity to draw any lines?

So you admit that beyond the analog spectrum, the final decision always ends up digital, yea or nay. It seems to me the analogy is a flop. I think your analog analogy only illustrates a reluctance to make a decision, or recognize the reality of yes or no, right or wrong, etc.

So to begin to drive your car, do you turn the key on, or only part of the way on, or partly off?

OCCOM BILL wrote:

nimh wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Dude asked a reasonable question. WTF is analog supposed to mean here? (I can think of no way that analog is superior to digital)

Digital: everything is either 1 or 0... following the association from there, looking at the world in a digital fashion would be seeing everything in terms of black and white, us vs them, good guys or bad guys, and never a way between can be seen. Makes for much strident rhetorics, little skill at diplomacy, and all too quickly seeing war as the only solution.

Thanks for the explanation. It is a rather silly analogy when you consider analog is an imprecise science that has all but been replaced by the infinitely more consistent digital format. When I think of analog; I think outdated tapes and VCR cassettes as opposed to CD, DVD and now solid state technologies. Even the early "Laser Disk" players were far superior to analog.

I was the originator of the analog v. digital analogy in this thread; and I must say that Engineer has hit the nail on the head.

Imagine trying to fly a plane, or drive a car, with a digital controller. It would be entirely difficult to do. Attempting to run our foreign policy in a digital manner has been a failure, and it is a silly way to look at an Analog world.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

nimh wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Dude asked a reasonable question. WTF is analog supposed to mean here? (I can think of no way that analog is superior to digital)

Digital: everything is either 1 or 0... following the association from there, looking at the world in a digital fashion would be seeing everything in terms of black and white, us vs them, good guys or bad guys, and never a way between can be seen. Makes for much strident rhetorics, little skill at diplomacy, and all too quickly seeing war as the only solution.

Thanks for the explanation. It is a rather silly analogy when you consider analog is an imprecise science that has all but been replaced by the infinitely more consistent digital format. When I think of analog; I think outdated tapes and VCR cassettes as opposed to CD, DVD and now solid state technologies. Even the early "Laser Disk" players were far superior to analog.

I was the originator of the analog v. digital analogy in this thread; and I must say that Engineer has hit the nail on the head.

Imagine trying to fly a plane, or drive a car, with a digital controller. It would be entirely difficult to do. Attempting to run our foreign policy in a digital manner has been a failure, and it is a silly way to look at an Analog world.

Cycloptichorn

I agree that Cyclo originated this analogy here. I was mystified by it back then and I am even more mystified by the ensuing conversation. While I agree that refusing to meet with and dialogue with an enemy as some kind of enduring principle is foolish in the extreme, I just don't see any analogue-to-digital metaphor here that either fits the A-D facts or makes any sense. A principled refusal to meet with an enemy is an unnecessarily rigid policy in a world in which flexibility on this and like matters is generally advisable, but that's as far as I would go in all this. The rest appears to be just nonsense.

Most of the aircraft flying today have both digital autopilots and, more significantly, digital devices that process all of the analogue inputs of the pilot (all the time), adding additional information about the aircraft's flight dynamics and structural limits, to achieve vastly improved performance.

Digital signal processing is NOT inherently more accurate than analogue. It is however more easily and cheaply done in many applications, and with smaller and lighter devices. There is a known relationship between the errors attendant to a finite digital representation of a signal's value in a digital processor and the number of wavelengths accurately represented by an analogue one performing the same function. Analogue to digital (and the reverse) is easily done and commonplace in the design of things we use every day.

In many applications it has been long assumed that, for the machine-human interface analogue input & output devices are inherently superior. However that assumption is being increasingly tested as new digital input/output devices come into use in a wide variety of applications - including, prominently your TV remote.

okie wrote:

So to begin to drive your car, do you turn the key on, or only part of the way on, or partly off?

wtf does that have to do with anything? You've gone so far away from the original analogy in an effort to salvage your argument that it's not even recognizable any longer.

Not that you're even right there. A key is an analog device, as there is more then one possible position for it to be in - off, on, and accessory.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

okie wrote:

So to begin to drive your car, do you turn the key on, or only part of the way on, or partly off?

wtf does that have to do with anything? You've gone so far away from the original analogy in an effort to salvage your argument that it's not even recognizable any longer.

Not that you're even right there. A key is an analog device, as there is more then one possible position for it to be in - off, on, and accessory.

Cycloptichorn

I think the analogy is not entirely accurate, cyclops. I totally understand your point, but my point is that decisons must be made. The first decision to drive a car is analogous to digital, you either turn the key or you do the opposite, you do nothing, 1 or 0. And you admit that if negotiations ultimately fail, then war is sometimes the only option. Life and death is not analog, you are either alive or dead, and so you choose to live or you do nothing and let somebody kill you if that is their mission.

This is interesting insofar as you and others of your political bent see almost everything in shades of gray, not black and white, and Obama fits that mindset almost perfectly, hence he finds the popularity among a large segment of modern culture. This is a fascinating debate, especially while I am reading his book, which confirms the tendency not to take a firm postion on much of anything.

I've never heard of a coroner declaring somebody partly dead.

Your analogy is completely incorrect.

"Digital" is an inaccurate metaphor for the mindset Cycloptichorn was describing and opposing. The accurate metaphor would be "digital and incapable of handling more than a single bit". Big difference!

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Your analogy is completely incorrect.

Yes, but so is yours. Let me repeat myself:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

"Digital" is an inaccurate metaphor for the mindset Cycloptichorn was describing and opposing. The accurate metaphor would be "digital and incapable of handling more than a single bit". Big difference!

Your disagreement with Okie is empty.

"Digital" is an inaccurate metaphor for the mindset Cycloptichorn was describing and opposing. The accurate metaphor would be "digital and incapable of handling more than a single bit". Big difference!

And ... it sets up a reasonable question about whether he would be willing to negotiate with everyone.

Not that you're even right there. A key is an analog device, as there is more then one possible position for it to be in - off, on, and accessory.

so north korea is just dipping our pigtails in the inkwell?