Slashdot Mirror

okay...
first link:
https://www.infoplease.com/us/...
just look at the bit between 1850 to 1900... the numbers go up.

This is the consumer price index
https://www.minneapolisfed.org...

Here is a book that goes through US wages from colonial times to 1928 or so:
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/...

Go through it. No offense to you... but the idea you're pushing is wrong and you need to shine the light of objectivity on it. If you double down after it was proven wrong... well, that is on you.

Don't be that guy. Look over the information and then concede.

How is it in the 70s anybody could buy every form of weapon, including fully automatic, and the homicide rate is much higher now than its ever been

The homicide rate in the US peaked in 1980. The current homicide rate is about the same as 1950.

https://www.infoplease.com/us/...

So, the homicide rate was about double the current homicide rate when that M16 was available "side by side".

Nope, it's called the Red Sea because it's red, because of algae. https://www.infoplease.com/ask...

Right. And why did the original poster go back 1000 years. The correct time period to go back to is pre-computer. Call it 1940.

So, what was the life expectancy in 1940 vs 2018?

Turns out it was 62.9 vs 78.7. So more like 80% of today's.

Based on how I feel at 61 today, I'd settle for a 1940 life expectancy. Quality of Life after 60 is over-imagined.

And when was the last school shooting in France? 2017 happened 1 with 4 injured, the one before that was 2012 ... 4 dead.

Interesting list: https://www.infoplease.com/us/...

Shootings every month, sometimes more than once a month in the US ... and you think more die in France, ha ha ha ha.

Most housing units in California are "single unit, unattached", AKA "houses". Apartment dwellers are a minority.

The majority of people don't have garages.

60.3% of US residents live in single family homes.

Whether or not all of these have garages specifically is immaterial, they have a dedicated place to park (and charge) their car.

So there are around 100K schools in US.. Schools spend about $12K/student/year, retrofit of each locker room should be doable for a simular one time fee. I would rate this as quite doable if public sensibilities have changed and this brings everyone comfort and greater focus on studies rather than students getting into fights after criticizing each others anatomic development.

Researchers say that 74% of these abusive listings were for local businesses in the U.S. and India, mainly in pockets around certain local hotspots, especially in large metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Houston, or Los Angeles.

I am sure one of these large metro areas is in India, why else would they include India in the countries list? 35 cities in India with population more than 1 million. Top 50 cities in USA

Would it still be "Great" Britain if it was just England and Wales?

That would require some massive civil engineering.

Let me break it down for you:

1. Great Britain is an island. There are three countrylets (nobody has a better word for them) on the island: England, Wales, and Scotland.

2. It's part of a group of islands known as the "British Isles" that also includes Ireland, the Isle of Man, Great Britain, and some other smaller islands.

3. The island of Ireland has two countries on it: Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

4. The United Kingdom consists of the three countrylets on Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

See here:

http://www.infoplease.com/uk/l...

If you're "British", you're from that area. Nobody knows. If you're Welsh, you're from Wales. They're really particular about that. They're not "English" - those folks are from England. The Scottish are from Scotland, the Irish are from Ireland. And note that many of the Irish are "Scots-Irish" having moved there from Scotland.

If you digested all of that, look up "City of London" sometime. Yes, it's different than "London". Well, it's *part* of London.

It was determined during the late 1980's and early 1990's that an artificially lowered prime rate would spur the economy better than a "normal" or "fair" prime rate.

What? Rates were pretty high in the late 80s and early 90s, in 1990 the average prime rate was over 10%. (source) It's hard to pay off the mortgage on your $300,000 house when the first $30k goes to interest each year.

1) Lowered mortgage interest. People who are in debt can afford to stay in debt. Banks love this because they basically own you if you're in debt to them.

On the other hand, people can afford to pay off their mortgage because they aren't paying so much in interest. Banks don't own you just because you decided to take their money. Nobody forces you to take a mortgage, if you want to save up or get private loans to finance your home nobody is stopping you.

2) Lowered savings interest. People who aren't in debt are getting screwed. Banks love this because it encourages everyone else to spend themselves into slavery to the banks.

Spend themselves into slavery? Why would they spend themselves into slavery (and why would they be slaves to the bank if they aren't in debt?) just because fixed-income instruments aren't giving a good return? Wouldn't prudent people just reallocate their savings to other investments, like real estate or stocks?

Look, most of the large banks are pretty evil and do some incredibly shady shit but for the most part lending money to consumers isn't on that list. If you want to rail against the banks, at least educate yourself on the more egregious shenanigans they have pulled instead of whining about having to pay back money that YOU chose to borrow or claim to be a slave to the bank because you have no debt.

US Population by race.

I guess Cuba beating you in the achieved infant death rate is not evidence enough: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

Business owners should not be forced into providing business to anyone. We surrendered an important freedom back in the 1960s in exchange for temporary (feeling of) fairness — and still do not have either.

Once you step away from liberty, you lose...

Uh-huh. Let's say the SJWs ascend to political and economic supremacy, and in a fit of vengeful pique declare you and yours to be the new underclass. Your "liberty" would let them throw you and yours into the gutter by refusing to let you participate in the economy. This is, of course, exactly what happened to the black people in the past and why the Civil Rights Act was written to take your precious "liberty". I suppose you think losing the ability to own slaves was also some horrid blow to "liberty"? You're only sanguine about the ability to boot the weirdos from society because you don't see the possiblity of being declared weird, subhuman and inferior and facing exile or serfdom as a result.

The SJW's who say "A private company isn't obligated to respect your civil rights" whenever some social site censors "hate speech" see no irony at all in the fact that this is the exact same argument that restaurants and landlords used in the 1960's to exclude minorities.

Whether SJWs see the irony or not, both groups were/are correct:

• Private company is not (legally) obligated to protect your (well, yours it is, but not that of other people) freedom of speech
• Business owners should not be forced into providing business to anyone. We surrendered an important freedom back in the 1960s in exchange for temporary (feeling of) fairness — and still do not have either.

Once you step away from liberty, you lose...

How does a half-assed establishment manage to be 100% ass?

If it's U.S.-based, by running articles that support the Democratic Party.

If a winning Presidential candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the counting of electoral votes in Congress and the inauguration, the Vice President elect will become President, according to Section 3 of the 20th Amendment.

So, either way...

You're full of shit.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

The number was higher in 1950 than in 1940 and higher again in 1960. It has grown steadily for a hundred years.

"As low as mid 1980s" meaning within a FEW PERCENT.

The difference between 10% and 6% U-3 unemployment is only a few percent. It is also the difference between 2000 25-54 participation and today's numbers. A few percentage points can be a big deal.

For Gods sake you people act like everything is falling apart. We are still at historical highs.

Almost every metric of societal advancement is going to be at historical highs if you compare it to the last 100 years. If you start comparing things to the last 30 years, which is far more relevant to our modern economy, we are nowhere near a "high".

That is explained easily by the fact that more women have chosen to drop out of the workforce to raise children, people are staying in college longer, and the tail end of the baby boomers retiring.

I agree these are most of the reasons, but all of these are bad from an economic point of view. The only one I could quickly find strong statistics on was stay at home mothers. The number of stay at home mothers has risen from 4.3 million to 5.4 million in the past 15 years. That is about 25% of the decrease in our workforce. But the number of mothers who stay at home because they cannot find a job has risen from about 200 thousand to 1.1 million. So 90% of those new stay at home mothers are not doing it by choice, but because of a weaker economy. I would not be surprised if the rise in 25+ year old college students and sub-54 year old retirees is also 90% people who feel forced to and not those who want to.

source
source

...yet the groups seemed very healthy indeed.

Life expectancy of these groups is what? Infant mortality?
On the flip side I typically sleep about seven hours and my life expectancy is 67 according to http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

According to http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

Chinese are apparently first when it comes to native speakers. What data distinguishes whether someone can speak it as a second language and what level of language knowledge does the person have to know to be counted to speak that language?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...
77% of US households own a washing machine. I've never met an American who does laundry in the bathtub as in many other countries I've visited around the world. I'd guess that the remaining 23% use a laundromat. This little piece of automation has saved hundreds of billions of hours of labor that were put to more useful pursuits (like watching tv).
Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine

I agree with your conclusion but not your reasoning. Try this on for size:

The comparison with bees stings is misleading a BS statistic because they're comparing deaths per entire population rather than deaths per vulnerable population. A farmer in the middle of Oklahoma has a pretty low chance of being eaten by a shark but he has a shot at being a bee fatality. Therefore he's skewing that stat in the shark's favor for someone who is considering whether a beach is more risky than staying home with the bees.

Vulnerable-to-bee means anyone who is outside anywhere in any of the US's 3.8 million square miles. On a daily basis, this is pretty close to the entire population.

Vulnerable-to-shark means anyone who is in the water at or near an ocean, which translates to an area of about 88,633 square miles (source). Practically speaking, this is orders of magnitude less than the entire population otherwise the entire interior of the US would be abandoned.

The banks already own literally multiple homes for every homeless man, woman, and child in the USA

Interesting figure. Where'd you get it?

It looks like Amnesty International: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Coincidentally, there are 116M housing units in the US, median size say 4-5 rooms. If you had one person per room in every house, we could house everyone easily--318 million people in the US vs. 464M rooms. But the market isn't doing that.

http://www.infoplease.com/us/c...

In div by zero, why is the zero considered an error? It may be a valid measurement.

I've looked at a bunch of useful formulas, and can't find a single one where replacing ANY variable value with 0 would be wrong.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/...
https://quizlet.com/3796199/ph...

I haven't reviewed _all_ formulas, of course, and there might be places in code where disasters (or nonsensical results) might happen. Can anyone give me just one, please?

I'm not sure who you think I am, but I'm not aware that I'm doing anything with/for/against the "will of the people". You do realise we're posting on Slashdot, right? Are you having one of your delusions where you're a member of the secret world council again?

With just a brief checking of facts, it appears that you are flat out wrong about "much of Europe abolished the death penalty as part of European integration". Have a look at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html/ for the official banning of the death penalty by country.

You seem to have a strange, paranoid view of Europeans, so I'd guess that you've never travelled very much. I'd recommend going to other countries as travel really does broaden the mind and gives you a better perspective. (You also learn that people are really the same everywhere and cultural stereotypes are just that - stereotypes).

They do have easily bribable politicians, apparently Uber has deeper pockets than the individual taxi operations.

The article was pure-navel-gazing for the BBC.

The term "meteorology" was coined in Ancient Greece. The science of meteorology was studied in Ancient Greece and probably in many older ancient civilizations like India or China under other names.

Weather is such an important and life-threatening phenomenon, you can bet that there were warning systems in place in small fishing villages and/or over large territories.

One of the earliest scientific approaches to weather prediction occurred around 300 B.C.E., documented in Aristotle's work, "Meteorologica." The ancient Greeks invented the term meteorology, which means the study of atmospheric disturbances or meteors. Aristotle tried to explain the weather through the interaction of earth, fire, air, and water. His pupil Theophrastus really went to work and wrote the ultimate weather text The Book of Signs, which contained a collection of weather lore and forecast signs. Amazingly it served as the definitive weather book for 2,000 years! (What if they're still reading this 2,000 years from now?)

Theophrastus's weather lore included colors of the sky, rings and halos, and even sound. Hippocrates—also known as "the Father of Medicine"—was also very much involved with the weather. His work On Airs, Waters, and Places became a medical classic, linking good health with favorable weather conditions. The opening of his work begins with the advice that those who wish to investigate medicine must first begin with an understanding of seasons and weather.

Weather forecasting advanced little from these ancient times to the Renaissance. Then beginning in the fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci designed an instrument for measuring humidity called a hygrometer. Later Galileo Galilei invented the thermometer and his student Evangelista Torricelli came up with the barometer for measuring air pressure. With these tools, people could monitor the atmosphere. Then Sir Isaac Newton derived the physics and mathematics that accurately described the atmosphere. Newton's work on motion remains The Book of Signs of modern meteorology. To this day, his principles form the foundation of all computer analyses and predictions.

Read more: Weather: Forecasting from the Beginning http://www.infoplease.com/cig/...

Native Americans didn't live long enough for tooth decay to be a serious problem, so your point is kind of moot.

All too often, when discussing the many chronic diseases (diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, many cancers, and yes, dental caries) that appeared to be mostly absent in hunter-gatherer populations but are rampant among 'civilized' populations, many people dismiss such observations by rationalizing that because these populations had much lower life expectancy *at birth* then therefore *nobody* in those populations lived long enough to develop these diseases.

But that is clearly not the case. Look at the data for life expectancy by age for the US from 1850-2011. Yes, life expectancy at birth was nearly half what it is now but the gap narrows considerably if you survived past 20. That is to say, most of the increase in life expectancy at birth comes from curing the childhood illnesses from which many died very young. And while far fewer people lived to 90-100 than now, living into the 70s-80s was not exactly uncommon.

Also, note that the link you provided shows that life expectancy at birth dropped significantly as hunter-gatherers progressed towards agriculture. The archeological evidence suggests that as early cultures adopted agriculture they became smaller in stature, had many more dental issues, and likely died younger overall. Jared Diamond details the evidence in his well-known book, Guns Germs and Steel.

It is also well documented that the doctors like Albert Schweitzer who treated the dwindling number of remaining hunter-gatherer populations in the late 19th/early 20th centuries observed very few cases of the "chronic diseases of civilization" as they came to be known, even among the oldest people in those communities, and far lower rates than could be explained by "they just don't live long enough." Yet soon after adopting western diets and/or lifestyles, they would develop these illnesses at similar rates as western populations.

So I guess only if you ignore the vast amount of evidence that counters the "didn't live long enough" hypothesis, the question might be moot, otherwise maybe you should keep your mind open to alternative explanations.

People do bad things all the time, and yes its important to remember and rationalize Eg.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot...

Indeed! We have literally _twice_ as many humans today as in the 1960's.

        http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

The improvements in ecological efforts are overwhelmed by population growth and increasing industrialization of large populations.

Have a look at https://www.afsp.org/understan...

It is US not UK, but you would expect to see a massive shift in the youth rates, which... just are not there.

Your citation is from an advocacy organization, that is doing some serious cherry picking. They conveniently start their graphs at the year 2000 in order to leave out the significant declines in teenage suicide rates that occurred in the late 1990s. Here is a chart the covers many decades, for many age groups. Summary: Suicide rates for teens 15-19 went from 11/100k in 1990 to 7.5/100k in 2010 (the last year available). There was less change for other age ranges. These data are also for the US, not the UK.

Nothing but more theory and anecdote.

"You can reduce the rate of suicide in the United States ... if fewer people had guns in their homes ..."

Total nonsense. The number of households with firearms has been on a multi-decade downward trend:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the...

Meanwhile, the suicide rate per 100k people has been quite stable at 10-15 per 100k over the last 60 years:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

So where's the evidence that fewer gun-owning households means a lower suicide rate?
The ONLY consistently documented relationship between firearms and suicide is this:

"Some methods have a case fatality rate as low as 1 or 2 percent ... with a gun, it's closer to 85 or 90 percent."

True and I'm sure that in their so-called "study", the 10-15% of people who survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound regret it and claim it was an impulsive act, but that's hardly "proof" that access to firearms was a causal factor in suicide attempts.

This also raises the important question of how many people really want to die and how many are just desperate for attention. The "cry for help" suicide is a well known and documented fact. If you slice your wrists perpendicular to the length of the arm, you're either incompetent or you don't really want to commit suicide. Fire a 12 gauge shotgun in your mouth and there's zero doubt that you're genuinely trying to kill yourself.

Note also that the USA is #30 worldwide in suicide rate, far behind many countries with strict gun control laws. Take Japan for example with a rate of 20.7/100k.

This is just a bunch of leftist academics trying to further the gun control agenda without real evidence. Gun control groups like Michael Bloomberg's astroturf "Everytown" are actually pushing laws requiring that all firearms in private homes be locked up ... where they will be useless for defense. And imagine police getting search warrants and breaking down your door because someone saw a gun on your nightstand? Insanity..

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

"Funding for science under Republic administration's has been historically higher than other Democrats."

Perhaps you don't understand that the Administrations do not set the budget and that Congress controls the purse strings. While the White House can ask for whatever it wants in a budget, Congress gets to do whatever they want and then send it back to the president to sign or veto.

You giving credit to President Bush for things he didn't do...

Firstly I am not making that claim noted astrophysicist and cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson did, I only quoted his answer he gave to a question on politics and science funding.

Secondly I am, contrary to your claim, well aware of who makes the budget, but you sir seem to be unaware of your resent political history, so lets look at the congressional make-up during Bush’s tenure in office shall we.

2001–2003 Senate - Democrats 50 Republicans 50 Independent 0 - House - Democrats 212 Republicans 221 Independent 2
2003–2005 Senate - Democrats 48 Republicans 51 Independent 1 - House - Democrats 205 Republicans 229 Independent 1
2005–2007 Senate - Democrats 44 Republicans 55 Independent 1 - House - Democrats 202 Republicans 231 Independent 1 Vacant 1
2007–2009 Senate - Democrats 49 Republicans 49 Independent 2 - House - Democrats 233 Republicans 198 Independent 0 Vacant 4
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

For all but one year of Bush's presidency both the House and the Senate were controlled by the Republicans. So the party that increased funding of NASA, NIH, and Nation Science Foundation was the Republicans as they controlled the budget for 7 out of 8 years.

If you wish to educate us all, the least you could do is have a passing knowledge in the subject.

I suggest that when you want to attack someone for not knowing their basic civics that you youself know what you are talking about.

This isn't much, but it does have U.S. in 1850.... http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

....then Sony would be liable to the victim and victims family because Sony either knew or should have known that the controversy caused by the movie would excite DPRK loyalists into committing such an act of violence.

And that lawsuit would be gently brushed aside by Sony's legal team. Heck, they'd probably send in their youngest intern to handle the distraction.

In 1952: "The Court reverses its position on movies in Burstyn v. Wilson, asserting that "liberty of expression by means of motion pictures is guaranteed by the 1st and 14th Amendments."(citation)

The reason the Interview was pulled out of theaters is because the distributors didn't want to see the lucrative Christmas boxoffice affected by people avoiding theaters due to these threats. Annie and Night at the Museum are expected to sell far more tickets than the Interview and the theater chains didn't want to see those profits reduced. As for why Paramount prohibited these screenings of Team America, well, they're probably worried they'll fall into North Korea's crosshairs and get hacked, etc. Damn cowards.

If they're pulling The Interview to increase profits, then it's just common sense and the executives are doing their jobs correctly.
Your reasoning for pulling The Interview applies equally to showing Team America, if you think about it.
And, I'm willing to bet a beer that you are correct.
But I disagree that bravery/cowardly enters into it in any way.

....then Sony would be liable to the victim and victims family because Sony either knew or should have known that the controversy caused by the movie would excite DPRK loyalists into committing such an act of violence.

And that lawsuit would be gently brushed aside by Sony's legal team. Heck, they'd probably send in their youngest intern to handle the distraction.

In 1952: "The Court reverses its position on movies in Burstyn v. Wilson, asserting that "liberty of expression by means of motion pictures is guaranteed by the 1st and 14th Amendments."(citation)

The reason the Interview was pulled out of theaters is because the distributors didn't want to see the lucrative Christmas boxoffice affected by people avoiding theaters due to these threats. Annie and Night at the Museum are expected to sell far more tickets than the Interview and the theater chains didn't want to see those profits reduced. As for why Paramount prohibited these screenings of Team America, well, they're probably worried they'll fall into North Korea's crosshairs and get hacked, etc. Damn cowards.

Only in the most technical way.

Not quite. His air-defenses kept targeting our planes. A few of our personnel remained unaccounted for, and, most importantly, he continued to balance his obligation to account for all weapons of mass destruction with his desire to keep the neighbors afraid of him. These are the words of UN inspector Blix (a man rather disapproving of GWB):

“Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it.”

The above quote is from 2003 — 11 years after all of the disarmament was supposed to be finished per the original cease-fire.

Whether or not the full-scale resumption of hostilities was a good idea all things considered, it was certainly justified...

name a failure [of Obama -mi]

How about ISIS rising shortly after the US withdrew its forces? That's what Panetta is talking about in TFA — that the withdrawal was premature. Other failures include Libya (where a turned-around dictator was killed anyway throwing the country into chaos and making turning future despots that much harder), the "Arab spring", the lifting (instead of tightening) of Bush's sanctions against Russia (which encouraged it to invade Ukraine) — to name just a few...

Small changes by those who use the most (China, India, US, Canada in that order) would do most of that.

Where the heck did you get that list?

If you are talking per-capita, China and India don't belong. If you are talking overall, Canada doesn't belong.

Ok, I'll stop being lazy and look it up:

Top 5 per-capita energy consumers:
Iceland
Qatar
Trinidad and Tobago
Kuwait
Luxembourg

Top 5 overall energy consumers:
United States
China
Russia
Japan
India

And would it not be much more fair to look at per-capita numbers? i.e. stop harping on China/India, start worrying about Europe / NA

I got an idea. Let's make a post about it on /. and let the relationship geniuses there tell us what's wrong with it. :P

It's a dating site. If you don't come back and pay them/look at ads, they die. Of course it's broken. It's supposed to be. Look at these numbers. Much different from 1970, before dating sites came along and ruined everything. The "dating" sites are ensuring all you ever do is have bad dates. If you get luck and find a partner, you're the exception, not the rule.

Vast areas of Earth remain unpopulated. In no particular order:

• American Midwest

Uh, no, it's not, actually. In fact, as of the 2010 Census, the Midwestern states had higher combined populations than the Northwestern states.

Belief vs reality.

I found another source that put the average at 2700 in 2009. So saying a 2400 sq ft home is huge is like saying, "My six-inch penis is huge".

It is, if you are measuring the radius.

I found another source that put the average at 2700 in 2009. So saying a 2400 sq ft home is huge is like saying, "My six-inch penis is huge".

http://www.infoplease.com/worl...

For example:

"The school day in France typically runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a half day on Saturday, although students do not attend school on Wednesday or Sunday. Lunch is a two-hour break for public school students. Students usually attend school from ages 6 to 18. The average number of students per class is 23. Uniforms are not required, but religious dress of any kind is banned. The school year for this country in the northern hemisphere stretches from August to June, and is divided into four seven-week terms, with one to two weeks of vacation in between."

Part of a consideration for any school year is the parent's work schedule and child care.

Earth/Luna is a binary planet by the criteria.

It's not. The center of gravity is under Earth's surface.

Most significantly, Luna's orbit is never convex with respect to the Sun.

The Moon's orbit is convex.

It isn't that people didn't live long lives, it is that the average or median age of death was lower. Of course social security was implemented in 1935 not 1800, but the numbers may actually surprise you.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

That should give you some interesting comparisons.

Yeah, don't think so. I suggest this chart: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

The age of mortality for non-infants (those living past age 10) has increased by 20-25 years, a 50% increase in life expectancy, in the past century. Even if you look at "adults", or those who make it to age 20, there is still a 17-23 year increase. Again, a 50% increase in longevity for adults.

pretty sweet to be in a politically connected union and have no ambitions other than riding your current job into a fully-paid retirement at age 55.

This used to be called "middle class."
You're so far divorced from the way things used to be, that now it's some kind of offense for people to retire while they still have their health.

Not sure where you get that idea. "The way things used to be" when the Social Security Act of 1935 was passed was that you retired at age 60, while life expectancy at birth was about 60.* These figures have now diverged so that the retirement age is 65, but life expectancy is 78. If anything, the fully-paid retirement age should be increased to about 70, not decreased to 55.

* There are all sorts of arguments you can make based on the life expectancy distribution curve not being the same shape then as now. Viewed in terms most favorable to earlier retirement, a male who reached retirement in 1935 could expect to live another 15 years. A male who reaches retirement today can expect to live another 18 years. But even under that best-case viewpoint, the retirement age still has not kept pace with increases in life expectancy.

The only argument for lowering the retirement age to 55 is that productivity gains mean that people have to work less to satisfy their necessities. Unfortunately, most people aren't content with only having their basic necessities met in retirement. They want to buy an RV and go traveling, or vacation in the Bahamas, or watch their big screen HDTV. Things that were absolute luxuries in 1935. Couple that with increased competition for resources (primarily space for housing - the population is 2.5x what it was in 1935), and I suspect the productivity gains since 1935 are spent on increased expectations of what you can do once retired, rather than lowering the retirement age.

The NSA could admit that they break the law every day of the week, murder Americans on american soil, steal millions of dollars, destroy companies and even the entire economy, and do you know what will happen?

Absolutely nothing.

A bit over the top but most clandestine operations carried out by our government usually wind up the same way. Anybody remember "Iran-Contra", "Bay of Pigs" or "Guatemala?" Other than the Watergate conspirators, nobody ever really did hard time for any of those.

They believe they are above the law. And heck, most of the legislative branch believes they are above the law. The judicial and executive branches are more than willing to look the other way, so as a result, the NSA gets a free pass to do whatever they want.

Because.... national security... and boogyman terrorists... and something, something mumble mumble. Whatever the fear flavor of the week is. 1984 was an instruction manual.

The legislative branch has been a puppet of both political parties as long as anybody can remember. We'd like to think that judges are impartial and only interpret the evidence and the laws and administer decisions in an unbiased way. To a large extent that's why we have an appeals process that allows other judges to review the rulings or proceedings of lower courts. Ultimately that winds up in the Supreme Court in some cases. All of these courts however are bound by laws and the constitution all of which are under the perusal of the third branch, the legislative branch meaning congress. So when you have legislation that's not "clear" a judge will use his/her discretion and rule on what's known or how they feel, those judges are considered "activist" and are frowned upon by whichever party isn't in the majority. But you'll never change that just like you'll never be able to prove a pubic hair was on a can of coke. In the case where the law is clear however a judge does have to follow the law if the plaintiffs or prosecution have proven their case and despite what we do think about judges, most take their role solemly and with great respect for the laws they have to apply to cases. The problem with the FISA system and the laws around it, it's been too easy for the DOJ to yell "National Security" and the lower court judge has to yield to federal law. The problem with FISA, which was established by congress, is that it has no public review and the judges are appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice, again not an open or vetted process by any stretch of the imagination. To solve this we have to abolish the FISA court and start to allow "Sealed Proceedings" to occur in Federal Court where evidence could compromise national security is locked out of public view but the case still proceeds.

Also remember this, you have no constitutional right to privacy. You have a right to your home, a right to free speech, a right to have guns, a right against self incrimination but nowhere does the constitution say that you have a right to not having your communications, your movements and your transactions with third parties monitored.