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http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

did you even read what the human development index encompasses, you moron ? 'standard shitty for everyone' my ass. we are not talking about your average central european ex-communist state or the countries which got involved in right wing shit perpetrated from american corporatism like uk and france. we are talking about sweden, finland, norway et al. these top that index. these have been the 'most socialist' countries throughout last 80 years of their history. not the idiotic countries which switch in between right and left wing parties when they cannot get what they want from that or the other, and end up stepping one step back and forth.

in capitalism countries 'you can work to make your life better' ? WRONG. in capitalist countries, whomever has the most monetary power, works to make his/her life better AT THE EXPENSE OF YOURS.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html3

this is what happens in a capitalist country. 5% gets 72% of everything, INCLUDING the means to generate wealth, and the majority 85% get only a fucking 15%.

this was even before the 2008 crisis. its now worse in america.

capitalism eventually ends up as feudalism. the richer get more, including the means of wealth generation, and all the rest are obliged to do their activities on their turf. that happened in late roman republic, that happened in early medieval ages, that happened in late 19th century in america, and that will happen EVERY time you implement a dog eat dog system like capitalism. because, in a dog eat dog world, you eventually end up with one big fat dog. its a logical mechanic that cannot be averted.

Hold on, I'm not done yet.

Do you realize the top 25% pay 60% of ALL Federal revenues with just their income taxes and Social Security taxes? Yep - those evil rich pay the supermajority of all Federal revenues. Clearly not paying their fair share and waging war on everyone else...

Do you realize that the top 25% includes those making more than $77K a year. It's remarkably disingenuous (read: you are a liar) to portray them as "super rich".

The fact* is, the top 20% (not 25) owns 85% (not 60) of the wealth in the United States. Shouldn't the top 20% be paying 25% of the tax?

* See here for citations.

You should peruse some of the research topics, projects, papers, and technology transfers from MSR if you are unfamiliar with them.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/about/techtransfer/default.aspx

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/research/default.aspx

I am unable to find a similar body of material from Apple. When I type "Research" in the main search box on apple.com, I get many hits from iTunes about songs and television programs.

Searching for "Apple Research Labs" using a proper search engine, I find links to shuttered efforts. These are interesting reading in and of themselves. I've read previously that Apple had a rich legacy of HCI research, and clearly less successful products like the Newton had a fair bit of groundbreaking work that went into them.

http://mambo.ucsc.edu/psl/apple.html
(no longer exists; link to apple.com dead)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Multimedia_Lab
(no longer exists)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Group
(no longer exists)

I'd appreciate some assistance in reading more about the novel, non-product research going on at Apple. Perhaps you can help?

What:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/61650044/WTF-Happened-to-the-Constitution-The-Right-to-Privacy-in-the-Digital-Age

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/digital-age-what-heck-happened-constitution

Who:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html

"Torching cars and stealing TVs is not the solution. The shooting is just being used as an excuse by the rioters and the unhelpful people encouraging them."

Much the same is said here:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html

But, the more a society is stretched to the breaking point by bad social policy, the more likely it will break into violence. Most humans can be civilized, but only while things are going at least not too terribly badly socially. The 9/11 attacks were also the product of social problems, although in that case, by frustrated young men from Saudi Arabia who blamed the USA for supporting who they saw as their local oppressors (ironically spun as "they hate us because we are free").

But, as far as the UK, from 2007, and I doubt it has gotten better with the global recession, consider this article (sadly, no longer directly at Adbusters):
http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/167082-How-Britain-is-Eating-Its-Young
http://web.archive.org/web/20071019031111/http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/71/Generation_Fcked_How_Britain_is_Eating_Its_Young.html
"Around the nation, airtime was cleared for cathartic phone-ins, heated discussions, and a torrent of contributors that simply would not stop. As if sensing that many of the problems might in part stem from the government's unparalleled obsession with monitoring, measuring and homogenising the very children it once sought to cherish, many former Labour advisors suddenly sought to introduce daylight between their ideas and those of the heavily surveilled nanny state. Neil Lawson of the Labour think-tank Compass bleakly admitted: "Society is hollowing out, but not just in the rotting boroughs of south London. The middle classes are anxious too. Many are richer but few seem happier. Mental illness abounds. White-collar jobs are outsourced to India. Everyone looks for meaning in their lives -- but all they find is shopping."
"The reason our children's lives are the worst among economically advanced countries is because we are a poor version of the USA," he said. "So the USA comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of neo-liberalism, even with the human face that New Labour has given it, cannot stem the tide of the social recession capitalism creates.""

Does not bode well for either the UK or the USA. And when the violence starts, things tend to just get worse for everyone, with more police, more fear, less comunity, and a downward spiral that is really expensive to recover from (like in Iraq after the civil war there that started after the US invasion).

I tried really hard to find other ways forward, and I found the conceptually, but implementing them against entrenched dogma is another thing.
"Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/media/FiveInterwovenEconomies.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
"This video presents a simplified education model about socioeconomics and technological change. It discusses five interwoven economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft) and how the balance will shift with cultural changes and technological changes. It suggests that things like a basic income, better planning, improved subsistence, and an expanded gift economy can compensate in part for an exchange economy that is having problems."

The use of the word "Theft" in the title there is not intended as advocacy -- it is more to point it out as what happens w

The middle class is better off now than it was 40 years ago. The poor are better off as well.

Over the last 4 decades, consumer prices have steadily increased, while wages for many workers haven't even kept pace with inflation.

Although overall income had grown by 27% since 1979, 33% of the gains went to the top 1%. Meanwhile, the bottom 60% were making less: about 95 cents for each dollar they made in 1979.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Their income tax rate is already far higher than anyone else. In fact, those 1%ers pay 38% of all federal income tax.

I have two problems with that statement:

• That 38% number is meaningless out of context, as it doesn't take into account whether that 1% brings in more or less than 38% of all the taxable income.
• The top 1% spend less of their income on things that are taxable. Therefore, they pay less of their income in other, non-income taxes.

As a percentage of income, the top 1% pay less of their income than anyone else in the top 10%. (Source: UCSC)

Corporate backers aren't the will of the majority of Americans, they're the will of the very small minority of Americans with a large amount of wealth.

If we assume that having over 50% of the stock of a corporation pretty well determines what the corporation will do, then corporations collectively answer to at most 2-3% of the American population (see this study based on 2007 distribution, if anything stocks are more concentrated now).

What the politicians answering corporate backers rather than the will of the people means is that if 95% of the population wants a measure to pass, but the 2-3% who control major corporations want it to be defeated, it will be defeated, and vice versa. And this isn't a hypothetical: Most of the measures that Elizabeth Warren was planning for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had the support in polls of something like 85-90% favorability, and she couldn't get the job to push them through, much less make them a reality.

A mere 20% of the population controls the vast majority of wealth in this country

And pay almost all of the taxes. Half of the people in the country pay no income taxes, and many are given a tax "rebate" (on taxes they never even paid!) as a form of redistribution.

I think a healthier view is that 50% of the wealth should pay 50% of the taxes. I'd agree it would be much healthier if the top 20% didn't pay 50% of the taxes, but that means that 50% of the wealth should be owned by something that is a lot closer to 50% of the population. You'd have a society which has a much greater direct stake and control of the welfare of their country and there would be fewer social ills that come from large disparities of income.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

I don't know where you pulled your stats from, though I know I have essentially seen the same bullshit floating around for months now. Even if your numbers were anywhere close to correct (or weren't skewed to pull some middle income households into the wealthy), you are neglecting the fact that the amount of income brought in by those groups is far larger by percentage than the amount of taxes they pay. In 2000, the top 10% owned 69.8% of the wealth (it has gotten worse since). They should be paying _at least_ 70% of the taxes.

Here is one nicely collated article http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

As you realize that the top 1% of earners hold 35% of the wealth, you have to wonder why they don't want to pay their taxes.

Sure, you're pulling numbers from 2007, and so getting them wrong. In 2007 the actual distribution left the top 1% with 43% of wealth; the next 4% with 29%; the next 5% with 11%; that's the top 10% with 83% of wealth. The next 10% (80-90%ile) with 10%, and the bottom 80% with 7% of the wealth. The bottom 20% owns something like 0.1%; the 20% above the bottom owns something like 0.2%; that's the bottom 40% owning maybe 0.3%. And that's 2007. But even then, top 20% owning 83% of the wealth (and a top 20%er owns 554 times a bottom 40%er) is pretty disproportionate, and extraordinary among nations.

Since 2007 the Financial Crisis (4+ years now) deleted much of the wealth below the top tiers, but added it back to the top tiers. The richest get bailed out; the poorer lose their jobs, pensions and investments.

You're just another person picking numbers that support their totally skewed image of how wealth is distributed here. Look at that page I linked to for Figure 4, the summary of research by Norton & Airely and Johnston in 2010 showing how wrong people are about how wealth is distributed, grouped by their income and other related factors.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html
"One of the distinctive features of left activists is their willingness to go to the streets to win people to their causes and create the political pressures necessary for the social changes they advocate. Studies in social psychology and sociology support this strategy by showing there has to be a non-routine dimension to any effort toward change. It doesn't make any sense to people to say that things are terrible, but they just should vote and write letters to their elected representatives. If things are going to change, then people have to get out of their routines one way or another. There has to be social disruption. There has to be a "getting in the way of power" as one author-activist puts it. There has to be a social movement that has a shared political identity.
But case studies also show that these movements go nowhere without an electoral component, as seen with the women's suffrage movement, the industrial union movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the feminist movement, and the environmental movement. Changes in government were the end result in every case. They usually don't go far enough, but that just means the next cycle of movement activism is necessary.
Studies of social movements in the United States also show that the necessary social disruption has to be created through the principled use of strategic nonviolence. Any form of violence, whether property damage or physical battles with opponents and police, will turn off the great majority of Americans and bring down overwhelming police and military repression.
For the past 10-15 years the usefulness of an exclusive focus on nonviolence has been questioned by new activists. They do not see much use in the carefully orchestrated acts of civil disobedience to which it is often reduced, where the time and place of arrest have been negotiated beforehand with the police. They have come to see nonviolence as primarily a philosophy, a religious sentiment, or a moral renunciation of violence, or even as a New Age belief in a way to create win-win situations for all concerned if there is enough love and understanding.
However, the strategic nonviolence I am talking about is far more than that. It is a strategy for winning in conflicts where there are real differences between the adversaries, including class antagonisms. As a form of conflict, nonviolent direct action is best understood in terms of the same basic concepts that are used to understand violent (military) conflicts, because the underlying reality in both cases is the engagement in conflict over opposing perspectives and interests. Thus the phrase "strategic nonviolence," which is in fact what trade union organizers practice through strikes and what civil rights leaders employed through sit-ins, freedom rides, and boycotts. It is a form of struggle that is focused on prevailing despite the fact that the opponents -- usually a government or power elite -- have superior resources and are likely to use one or another form of violence if they think it can succeed. ..."

See also James P. Hogan's "Voyage From Yesteryear":
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
"The book has an interesting corollary. Around about the mid eighties, I received a letter notifying me that the story had been serialized in an underground Polish s.f. magazine. They hadn't exactly "stolen" it, the publishers explained, but had credited zlotys to an account in my name there, so if I ever decided to take a holiday in Poland the expenses would be covered (there was no exchange mechanism with Western currencies at that time). Then the story started surfacing in other countries of Eastern Europe, by all accounts to an enthusiastic reception. Wha

I'm not saying you don't make good points which echo G. Wiliam Domhoff somewhat who says much the same:
    http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html
"For current-day egalitarians, a commitment to the freedoms and democratic procedures won by past egalitarians can provide the primary foundation for the practice of nonviolence, although some of them also draw upon their religious values as well. This democratic commitment has the added virtue of narrowing the gap between egalitarians and mainstream liberals. In addition, a nonviolence orientation can be sustained by the knowledge that it helps to keep the egalitarian movement itself more democratic; it ensures that violence-prone dominators will not take over the movement and subvert its democratic aims. As many historical cases suggest, the most violent people soon rise to the top once the possibility of violence is introduced, and they often use their loyal followers to intimidate or kill rivals.
    Most of the people who advocate strategic nonviolence are aware that it cannot work outside of what are at least quasi-democratic contexts. It is hard to imagine that strategic nonviolence would work for slaves in ancient empires, Jews in Nazi Germany, or critics in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It did, however, play a role in the abolition of slavery in England and the United States, and the courageous activists did have a hand in the transformation of the Soviet Union. Still, dictatorships of any kind usually only fall when there are disagreements among those at or near the top, or if external challenges to the power structure give the oppressed some new openings. There are few instances where dictatorships have been overcome internally by the oppressed majority.
    But given the freedoms, civil liberties, and voting rights achieved by a long line of American egalitarians and liberals, there is no end that could be justified by violence, property destruction, or armed struggle in this country. Such actions undercut the democratic rights won by past egalitarians and play into the hands of the government, which has the power to isolate and defeat any violent movement. ..."

But, with that said, see also James P. Hogan's 1982 sci-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear", to get back to my point, amplified by another reply, about people cooperating in not cooperating:
    http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
"The book has an interesting corollary. Around about the mid eighties, I received a letter notifying me that the story had been serialized in an underground Polish s.f. magazine. They hadn't exactly "stolen" it, the publishers explained, but had credited zlotys to an account in my name there, so if I ever decided to take a holiday in Poland the expenses would be covered (there was no exchange mechanism with Western currencies at that time). Then the story started surfacing in other countries of Eastern Europe, by all accounts to an enthusiastic reception. What they liked there, apparently, was the updated "Ghandiesque" formula on how bring down an oppressive regime when it's got all the guns. And a couple of years later, they were all doing it!
    So I claim the credit. Forget all the tales you hear about the contradictions of Marxist economics, truth getting past the Iron Curtain via satellites and the Internet, Reagan's Star Wars program, and so on."

How long can most modern countries survive a general strike or even just a work slowdown? Especially one backed by local communities that look out for everyone there to see they are still fed etc.? The balance of power can shift very rapidly. But a violent opposition invites and even then is used to justify repression, as Prof. Domhoff suggests.

Wake me up when they can play Starcraft
oh wait...
http://eis.ucsc.edu/StarCraftAICompetition

Interesting points. You'd probably like Julian Simon's writings:
    http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

And this:
    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

Long term though, if we expand into space, we can get plenty of soalr power using big mylar mirrors.

And consider even this for current needs (though it perhaps questions your point on increasing energy use when better design sometimes outpaces growing demand):
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!). So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

The primary problem with our current system is externalities. If users of fossil fuels were paying the true cost of pollution, disease, defense, and risk, solar and wind would have been cheaper since the 1970s...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Still, ironically, people have known since the 1940s or so how to make safer thorium nuclear power, but it was not developer precisely because it was safer (you can't easily make bombs with it).

As for the question you pose on moving forward socially, James P. Hogan had some ideas in "Voyage From Yesteryear":
    http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
"The book has an interesting corollary. Around about the mid eighties, I received a letter notifying me that the story had been serialized in an underground Polish s.f. magazine. They hadn't exactly "stolen" it, the publishers explained, but had credited zlotys to an account in my name there, so if I ever decided to take a holiday in Poland the expenses would be covered (there was no exchange mechanism with Western currencies at that time). Then the story started surfacing in other countries of Eastern Europe, by all accounts to an enthusiastic reception. What they liked there, apparently, was the updated "Ghandiesque" formula on how bring down an oppressive regime when it's got all the guns. And a couple of years later, they were all doing it! So I claim the credit. Forget all the tales you hear about the contradictions of Marxist economics, truth getting past the Iron Curtain via satellites and the Internet, Reagan's Star Wars program, and so on."

Other ideas:
    http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science.html

a system which amasses 71% of everything on average (with good estimates) at the hands of 5% of the population, who are in power to decide what they want to do with this 71% ~ power/wealth of our civilization at their own whim.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html (it is worse in world averages)

in such a system, no population size is sustainable.

Oh please! The MacOS terminal is a PITA! You can see where Apple puts their UI design efforts.

Fine. there ARE alternatives, ya know.

BTW, that took about five seconds on Google. Maybe less.

I would say I'm amazed at the economic illiteracy of /.'ers, but it's not really a surprise given political discourse these days. I'll let the Joint Economic Committee do the talking for me.

I don't really get your point. You link to an explicitly Republican website with a report form 1996 extolling the virtues of the Reagan tax cuts. (FYI, Reagan's one of Reagan's "tax cuts" offset the lowering of income taxes with a major increase in corporate taxes).

The other thing is, the chunks you have quoted from the report tell us nothing since they do not include any information about how income distribution has changed over time. A reduction in upper tax brackets followed by an increase in tax receipts from upper income taxpayers doesn't mean one was caused by the other - that is a classic post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. In fact, the concentration of of wealth in just the top 1% of households increased significantly from 1983 to 1995 (source)

I'm not saying undoing all of Reagan's tax policy would solve all our problems, but lifting a chunk out of a Republican memo doesn't really tell us anything, either.

You should read up about how non-progressive the US tax system is. Income tax is only one type of tax being paid. A good source is at http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html.

We have to normalize data across the years since you could define the "middle class" as a group of people that make somewhere around the average wage for the US. I have somewhat of a broader definition in that because the wealth distribution has been heavily shifted from something like a logarithm to something like an exponential function over the last 70 years the middle class is being diluted in with everyone else while the wealthy are getting super wealthy. If you factor in the fact that over the last 30 years the cumulative growth in the top 1 percent's salaries are somewhere around 253 percent, and the middle 40 percent hits somewhere around 5 percent we are barely keeping up with inflation. Its on the verge of a middle class squeeze. Factor in perpetually rising bankruptcies and the fact that more often than not its bankruptcy of the not-rich its not to hard to see qualitatively that there is a problem. If you look at the following link you will see that its pretty clear what I mean. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html . Unless you define the top 10 percent of all Americans the middle class things look pretty bad.

cost-reduction is a downward spiral. while everyone tries to maximize profits, they minimize costs. this means lower wages. this means lower spending. the need to economize.

hypothetically capitalism would provide dissemination of the profits gained to public through shareholdership. but, inevitably, the ownership of the means concentrate on less and less hands, due to nature of profit mechanism - those who profit more through having more ownership in means of production, increasingly gain the power to obtain more percentage ownership of the means of production. this leads to consolidation. it reflects on all fields of life, from running of corporations (internet consolidating in the hands of a few big guys anyone ?) to income distribution and resulting spending

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

as you can see, 1% of america owns 53% of income and wealth, approximately. top 5% including that 1%, owns a whopping 72%.

bottom 85% people, who would be the target of all these innovations and speed as consumers, get only 15%.

naturally as you can see, suddenly speed becomes something that is very low on their agenda. they need to economize. you wouldnt want to fly at supersonic sounds by paying a few grants, while getting only 15% of the pie.

inevitable result of ownership and capitalism mechanics. the more, increasingly gets more and becomes an ever-shrinking group of people, while the masses get less and less and the numbers that get less grows.

trying to scare people into digging in their feet and becoming schizophrenic ?

in a world where top 1% gets 52% of all wealth generated, top 5% including that 1% gets a whopping 72%, and bottom 85% - practically everyone - gets only 15%, there is a lot you need to do before you ever need to get to the point of trying to scare people into savings.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

and no - the top 5% had not come to grabbing that much of everything by 'saving'. you cant get 72% of everything, by saving. it can quite easily be said that, this crowd has no concept of 'saving' at all, while skiing behind their 7th yacht ...

making 80% of your population slaver away for minimum wage, while top 1% of the population gets 50% or more without even working ? and the top 5% get 72% ?

WILLINGLY ?

at least, exploitation in libya is obvious, and even in that case there isnt that bad an income distribution among rich and poor.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Anonymous Coward wrote: "The US economy ("What's yours is mine. What's mine is mine.");"

Thanks, AC, as that is insightful. I've thought on and off about related issues, but you put it very succinctly.

In general, the issue you raise is the economy of "imperialism", or "theft", or "parasitism", or perhaps, to some degree depending on the circumstances, "rent".

For example on "rent" being tricky, the "enclosure" acts in the past take land away from native people and then sometimes rent it or other land back to them, and feudal estates and castles also had aspects of that (where castles were used as military fortresses to enforce "rents" from the locals). Much (but not all) of the way material wealth is distributed in our post-industrial society still links back to a degree to feudalism and who was a (land) lord or child of a lord back then. Still, rent in a slippery issue because it gets at the issue of "ownership", and ultimately ownership of the land or materials taken from it has a strong component of "finders keepers" and "might makes right" (beyond any other social negotiation). There is a degree of exchange in rental transactions too, for the upkeep of property, or for taking on risk related to the market. A lot of it has to do with the social consequences and who got privileged access to resources and why and what other options there are in terms of a level playing field. See also:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/
http://rushkoff.com/books/life-incorporated/

One can fit imperialism, theft, and parasitism into the other four categories, but it is a stretch. For example:
* Imperialism includes subsisting off of other people's land and other people's labor (including through both physical slavery and wage slavery), rather than taking resources from the land around you and doing the work yourself.
* Imperialism gives gifts of stolen or misappropriated goods (including misdirected taxes) to the friends and enforcers of empire.
* Imperialism generally has a strong planning component (like the US "Defense" budget is up to around $1,2 trillion dollars annually or more when you include everything including interest and future obligations, which is approaching 10% of the US economy, and it sets the tone for economies around the globe).
* Imperialism generally offers an "exchange" in terms of "protection", like the Mafia, so, if you give imperialists what they demand, they promise to not hurt you very much in other ways.

Now, there are shades of gray in all this (one reason I tend to say these economies are "interwoven"). For example, planning is often backed up by some kind of penalty, such as imprisonment for not paying taxes or social ostracism for not cooperating. Gift economies have some aspect of exchange, in the sense that those why give a lot in them tend to get social status. Often what is exchanges is something that someone collected from the environment in a subsistence way. And so on.

So, I might add a fifth item then that is more like:

* The theft economy ("What is yours is mine because I can take it with relative impunity because I am more powerful in some important way.")

Or maybe it needs some pithy example ("Give me that or I'll break your legs.") Although that misuses the notion of "giving" and a "gift".

Where more "powerful" may mean bigger, stronger, faster, cleverer, more informed, more socially connected, sneakier, more deceptive, meaner, better at propaganda, readier access to weapons, and so on. However, power in a society can still shift as what matters shifts (being personally bigger and stronger does not mean as much now as it did in the past, where the bankers and speculators are able to hire armed guards as they have a strong control of propaganda apparatus). Related:
"The Mythology of Wealth"

"Seriously, how much "design" goes into a technology that has been around for 30+ years. You take a platter, mount it on a spindle, spin it, send the data through the same IO standard that has been around for 10 years. What f*cking design is involved? Hard drives ARE obsolete, they do not become obsolete after 3 - 6 months of design. If I open a hard drive in 2011, it looks exactly the same as one in 1990."

LOL! If I open up a microprocessor from 1985 it looks a lot like a microprocessor from 2011!
Funny thing, one works with a 20MHz clock and the other one works with a 2.5GHz clock. Do you want me to itemize all the other differences as well?

Lets see the list is huge, heres some reading for you:
http://www.disktrend.com/pdf/portrpkg.pdf
Thats from the perspective of the box, not what goes on inside of it.

Recording head technology:
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/classes/cmps129/Winter03/papers/grochowski-trends.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_read-and-write_head

Vertical recording:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recording

Read channel technology:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4169625/Hard-disk-drive-read-channels--a-must-for-perpendicular-recording

The list of things in servo mechanisms, ECC methods, magnetic media, read channels, spindle controls, embedded servo methods, read/write heads, plated recording media, Viterbi detection vs peak detection, signal processing, PRML channels, etc, etc are huge.

http://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~charlie/3body/ not sure about "scottish reel," but there are some amazing orbits on that page. Check out "8 on a daisy."

Apparently it's all perfectly wonderful that existing race, gender, and class privilege translates to better access to technology, access to private schooling, growing up in the language/culture of the middle and upper classes, and other determinants of financial success. That way we know that the most deserving can do the most highly paid and socially valued work like engineering new ways to kill people, marketing/branding/manipulating public opinion, speculating on the markets and draining value from the real economy, managing and controlling workers, further entrenching the legal power of corporations in the courts, etc. The most genetically fit earn big bucks and everyone who is poor is there because they are lazy and stupid and do socially valueless work like teaching, manufacturing, transportation, food-service, etc. This is the Economist; what do you expect?

All this talk about the unfairness of socialist redistribution is rather absurd as well. Capitalism involves the most massive redistribution of wealth ever--redistribution from those who produce value (workers) to the ownership class (capitalists) (and their professional techno-managerial class lackeys). An economy under workers self management that allowed everyone to receive the product of their own labor would be vastly more fair than our current state-corporate oligarchy.

For some more illuminating data on inequality, check out Dumhoff.

So if you added corporate taxes to the top 5% then you are talking 71.7% of revenues in 2009. It would 67.7% of revenues in 2010. So it would appear to me that the "rich" in this country are paying significantly more than half of the cash needed/used for the government to run.

Okay, but the rich happen to control far more than half of the country's wealth and earn more than half of the income in the country. Specifically, in 2006, the top 20% of earners made 61.4% of the income, and in 2007 the top 20% controlled 85.1% of the wealth. Source. So, the tax burden placed on the rich is completely fair. If anything they should be taxed more at the high end.

of course, that is if you take open source as 'the strongest dominates', and the distribution and sharing of wealth as something that comes of worse than middle ages

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

in middle ages, 33% of the produce from land went to serfs, 33% to church, 33% to lord. that was the law and was observed everywhere more or less.

currently, top 5% of america gets 72% of everything, whereas bottom 85% gets only 15%. that is BEYOND medieval.

not to mention that alan greenspan, the foremost priest of that church have come up in front of senate committee and confessed that 'free market' did not work, openly, and clearly, saying he was wrong. yet, here you are, selling it to us again.

excuse me, but you are selling bullshit. sell it elsewhere.

and did that 'constitutional' model help ANY of the bullshit we have experienced in the last decade ? ranging from soldiers shooting at students to monsanto killing entire agriculture ? AND on top of it, these being called freedom and economic prosperity ?

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

despite the distribution of income has become worse than the disparage in between medieval serf, and baron in middle ages. (33% serf, 33% church, 33% lord).

excuse me, but you seem to come off sounding like a right wing nutjob. using the word 'constitution' to excuse all kinds of bullshit.

Having programmed an AI for that same competition, I can assure you that nobody should be surprised an AI can beat a human.

Turns out the AI didn't and can't. From a different article on the tournament:
The showcase game of the competition was a bot versus human match. In the exhibition match, =DoGo=, a World Cyber Games 2001 competitor played against the top ranking bot of the competition. The result was an exciting man versus machine match highlighting the state of the art in real-time strategy game AI.

While the expert player was capable of defeating the top performing bots in the competition, the results are quite encouraging. Read on for complete results.

Even the original article noted that the AI 'victory' against their human pro was the result of the human player artificially altering their play to build only a single unit they wanted to test out(Goliaths).

That was the wrong link to the result. For a better summary go here.

Having programmed an AI for that same competition, I can assure you that nobody should be surprised an AI can beat a human.

You can find a list of the rules to the competition here. One thing to notice is that there are some glitches that are permitted. Having an AI that can control and make decisions for each individual unit almost at the same time (not really at the same time, the AI still has to go through steps and issue commands sequentially, but it's so fast it might as well be same time) means the AI has a HUUUGE leg up on even the best Starcraft pros whose actions per minute only range in the few hundreds.

All you need to beat a human is to program in strategies that just need the speed of an AI to execute

And if you want to watch some good micro-managment, on that website you can view the final matches between AIs in each tournament here.

Having programmed an AI for that same competition, I can assure you that nobody should be surprised an AI can beat a human.

You can find a list of the rules to the competition here. One thing to notice is that there are some glitches that are permitted. Having an AI that can control and make decisions for each individual unit almost at the same time (not really at the same time, the AI still has to go through steps and issue commands sequentially, but it's so fast it might as well be same time) means the AI has a HUUUGE leg up on even the best Starcraft pros whose actions per minute only range in the few hundreds.

All you need to beat a human is to program in strategies that just need the speed of an AI to execute

And if you want to watch some good micro-managment, on that website you can view the final matches between AIs in each tournament here.

Citation needed.

The first one I found said that in 2007 the top 1% owned 36% of the country's net wealth, and 42% of its financial wealth (subtract out primary residence values).

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

sounds socialist to you. what you need is more 'jobs' (somehow, NEVER come) and 'less regulation/encumberances on corporations', which were there in the last decades.

and now we have a global credit SCAM, from which finance may never recover. there are even 'less jobs', because it is much easier to make money over money and (investment tools). and the top 7% of your society has 72% of everything (including income) whereas bottom 80% has to do with 15%

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

the bullshit you propose, does NOT work. thats that.

The noxious neighbor should never have been noxious in the first place. If you can not create a profitable business without making others pay for part of the cost, such as cleaning up pollution, you have no right to be in business at all.

The other replier brought up the term for this, coming to the nuisance. The principle is basically that you shouldn't have legal remedy, if you come to an externality which you should have anticipated (even one that hasn't arrived yet, such as an industrial plant under construction) rather than the converse.

The idea that, sans laws prohibiting it, pollution is acceptable, is simply ludicrous. Harm was done, regardless of the laws at the time. That harm must be rectified.

"Harm was done." Note that in most cases of regulated pollution, harm has never been demonstrated. A threshold is established at which harm cannot occur (which can be far, far lower than the level at which harm can occur, particularly if for the instance of pollution, there's a limited or no pathway for the pollution to enter humans) and penalties are applied past that point.

The idea that people "create" externalities is also ludicrous. They exist whether people define them or not. When you profit, but someone else must pay part of the cost, that is a negative externality, regardless of how you define it under the law. Similarly, when you do something that everyone profits from, but you are not rewarded sufficiently, that is a positive externality.

It's also a fact that it occurs as described in the "coming to the nuisance" article. As to claiming that externalities exist absolutely, that is incorrect. Value does not have an objective value else there would be no externality in the first place (since everyone would value the full costs and benefits of an activity the same). The obvious point of disagreement would be in valuing cost of an externality by the perpetrator and the victim.

As of 2007 the top 20% of American households have 80% if the wealth. Of this the top 1% had 34% of the wealth and the other 19% had 50%, leaving roughly %15 for the rest. In human terms if you split $100 among 100 people, on person would have $34 and 80 people would average around $0.19. The pattern of the fewest having the most repeats, so the group averaging 19 cents each will have a lot more people with 1 cent or less and a few having more then the average.

This is not a recipe for a world leading economy, or even a viable country. It is poison to democracy. The long term prospects are not good for the US.

Lets see :

In countries which control free speech directly, such laws are created. Its blunt, direct, you know what it is and there is no mistaking what it is.

In countries like usa, you are told you have free speech. But your free speech is only as free as the money/means you have -> you can blabber to your friends, family, close circle, or people in your locale about everything. But, for your free speech to actually matter, you would need to reach millions of people. And, you cant do that unless you have enough money, or means. The moment you get the funds/means to actually talk to millions of people, you become a threat, unless what you say goes to the liking of the system. And then you are silenced, very much in the way wikileaks is being silenced -> with excuses, financial pressure, indirect pressure.

Of course, even the above is a grand, grand assumption -> fat chance that you will actually be able to reach millions of people, even if you have the money. 3-4 corporations dominate news and 'opinion making', and if they dont give you airtime, you wont reach anyone. The only chance is to reach people through internet, and you are seeing how hard they are trying to censor it, and get it under corporate control through any means possible. So that, the same pattern in publishing and news broadcasting will be there too -> everything in the hands of few megacorps, everything private, and supposedly free ; only the VERY rich can talk, if allowed. Since, one cannot become VERY rich, or, create a news channel that would cater to hundreds of millions without complying with the system and hierarchy, all threats become averted.

But, in countries like china, other places, your free speech DIRECTLY has an effect. everything hinges on opinions of people -> not the money people has to exercise their freedoms. You can reach anyone, and you can change minds, if you are let speak freely.

To sum it in short :

In usa, you are told you have freedom, but practicing them requires money. You are only free as much as you have money.

In the other way, you dont have freedom. But, practicing anything you have does not require money.

one might err in that, 'as long as you are free to earn money, you can practice your freedom'. that is incorrect.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

this is the recent data about situation in usa. 80% of population only get 15% of income. basically, 80% of 300 million, basically 240 million people, are not in a position to exercise their freedoms. had it been possible, there would be at least any kind of different political or social situation due to these people 'becoming rich' and practicing their freedoms.

if, the chances of someone making it from the bottom to even middle ranks, is lower than a medieval peasant making it to a measly knighthood, it means 'you are free to try it' means 'you are free to try it, but fat chance you will make it'.

I'm hoping for more of a gradual non-violent evolution into these changes over the next twenty to thirty years, myself:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html

But, with all the ironies of people using these technologies of abundance to produce super fancy weapons like military robots to fight over percieved scaricty, it is worriesome. Rather than military robots to enforce a social order based on gettign peopel to worl like robots, why not just build robots to do any work people don't want to do voluntarily in the first place?

If it was a "revolution", think of it on the order of women getting the right to vote in the USA,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dPF0SGh_PQ
or the UK outlawing slavery (with compensation to the owners and little violence, prompted by the Quakers, compared to the bloodbath in the USA over that),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism#Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833
or the "computer revolution",
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521#
and so on.

I'm not disagreeing though with your point that the potential is there for great violence -- and not just in the streets, but also abortions, domestic violence, suicides, and so on. How can we prevent that?

I'm trying in my own nutty way to recruit the global intelligence community to help with a peaceful changeover. :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/76207-8319

But ultimately, some sort of change will happen regardless:
http://www.blessedunrest.com/
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Still, it might happen with less bloodshed if more people got involved sooner and understood the basic issues better.
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

The USA already spends about US$800 a citizen a year between schooling, social security, and welfare. Why not just scrap all those programs and give every citizen a check for US$800 a month as a basic income? A family of four could then just about scrape by somewhere rural, and given all their spare time, and they could homeschool or purchase tutoring or private school lessons. Public school buildings could be turned into library-like learing centers. Teachers could become private tutors or just live frugally off their basic income. People would have more free time to help their elderly neighbors, too, like bringing over stuff from their gardens, even if old people got less than their current amount. And so on. Probably this would fly best with seniors if just everyone got the current social security amounts though (no one wants to get less), which might mean more taxes.

And the USA already spends more for Medicare and Medicad per capita than other countries need to cover their entire population with better results, so health care could be extended to all with some better management and a focus on better diet, curing vitamin D deficiency, and building healthier "BlueZones" infrastructure, which would all save sick care costs, making single payer he

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html
http://www.bluezones.com/
http://books.google.com/books?id=hM_JDjq6V-kC
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/depression.shtml
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

See also my comment here on how it's all about our social paradigm:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1883960&cid=34448172

..there has been an "astounding" 36.1% drop in the wealth (marketable assets) of the median household since the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. By contrast, the wealth of the top 1% of households dropped by far less: just 11.1%.

Wikipedia has informations dated 2001, but with a later note mentioning the same trend.

dont talk about knowing jack shit.

standard of living and distribution of income are two irrelevant concepts.

standard of living changes with technology and times, and is not dependent on distribution of income.

currently, average american lives in far better standards than a medieval serf. but, s/he gets FAR less than the economy, than a mere medieval serf got in middle ages :

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

therefore, a medieval serf's standard of living, COMPARED to the max standard of living in middle ages, comes much higher than the standard of living of an average american, compared to the max standard of living currently.

you need to brush up on your statistics knowledge. the one which does not exist, that is.

Except that the capital gains rate was cut, and the wealthy tend to have a significant portion of their wealth in investments. In many cases, the highest earners pay a fraction (percent-wise) of what normal people pay, because they have shifted most of their income from a traditional paycheck to stock options.

There is a reason the CEO of Google has a $1/year salary.

I'm sure that's what the _filthy_ rich tell themselves from time to time :).

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010).

see now, we are all free to vote, free to become candidates, right ? right. but, it takes phenomenal amounts of finances to make yourself known, right ? riiiight. so, in case you dont have a big media conglomerate you own, you need to find cash somewhere. even then, even if you find the cash, big media companies, who can reach the voters you want, may not allow you to give ads in their networks or give you air time, in case your policies and ideas dont suit them. ooook, right. so, that makes it so that, you can not get elected EVEN if you have the money. you need to either own a big media conglomerate, or, get one behind your back.

and the result is what ? in the capitalist system, your freedom goes only as far as your cash goes. can anyone define that as being 'free' ?

for any idiot who would venture down the path that is 'you can make cash', i would like to remind the 2004 statistic of income and wealth distribution in u.s. that comes up as 7% top of society owning 72% of the pie, and bottom 80% having to do with 15%. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

actually its much worse, top 1% has 52% or so of the pie.

and that basically means, 1% of the american nation is ruling over the rest, despite all being 'free'. and anyone's chances of getting into that 1%, without being born into that class, is, practically nil. even our much applauded tech stars are not in that segment. serfs in middle ages had more chance to be made a baron due to bravery in the wars they were conscripted to fight in for their lord.

If you look at the numbers, the vast majority of MONEY is being made by a small minority of the people (I don't think a minority can be vast, so I won't exactly parallel your statement here). As of 2007, 15% of the US population owned 85% of the country's wealth; the top 1% owned 34.6% of the country's wealth. But you look at financial wealth (eg, subtract your house's value), the top 1% owned 42.7% of the country's financial wealth.

[Edward N. Wolff, New York University: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html%5D

It's a little bit worse globally -- the top 10% control 83% of the world's wealth... the top 1% control 43% of the world's wealth. Worse, but only a little bit.

And these are 2007 figures. It's worse now.

So basically, the bottom 85% of the country is sharing 15% of the wealth. Any question, now, about why some of these people aren't taxed -- the don't make enough to be taxed. No one's paying taxes on the first $20,000 or so of income (varies by your household/dependencies)... not you, not me, not Warren Buffett. We all get that same tax break... so stop complaining about poor people not paying taxes. What's disturbing is that I'm paying a higher percentage of my income in taxes than Warren Buffett is, despite his being in that 1% (and 0.1%, etc) exclusive club.