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Mac Users More Liberal Than Windows Users
adeelarshad82 writes "A recent survey conducted on 400,000 people — in which 52% of respondents were self-described PC (Windows) people, 25% were Mac users and 23% were neither — showed that Mac users are more politically liberal than their PC-using counterparts. 58% of Mac users were 'liberal,' as compared to 38% of PC users. Amongst other things, the survey also indicated that Mac users were, on average, more urban, younger and more educated than PC users, which could potentially be a contributing factor toward being more liberal."
Oh god, conservative vs. liberal with ((mac vs pc) vs linux) on an Easter Sunday.......I'm gonna go steal eggs from kids or something.
Seriously, who the fuck cares?
being liberal is a good thing?
That's odd because Apple corporation isn't very liberal compared to it's PC counterparts. Of course they are all responsible for terrible manufacturing practices in China and all around the world.
There is at least one notorious outlier.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Mac User
Older
More conservative than anything you've ever heard on radio or seen elected to office anywhere
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Link to CNN story:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/22/mac.pc.users/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Unfortunately, pointing out that Mac users are more educated than PC users, while true, seems like flamebait to many. People don't generally want to know what is reality - they want data that confirms what they *want* to think. This is a perfect example of many people rejecting data that doesn't fit their biases.
Of course Mac users are more liberal (or rather tend to have more liberal traits), it's a younger, "hipper" crowd for the most part, doing more "liberal-arts" type work with them as well, graphic design and all.
What does it matter? Not at all. Hell, Rush Dopefiend Limbaugh uses Mac Pros and loves them to the point of blogging about it.
I find these kinds of comparisons between "liberals" and "conservatives" distasteful. For me, what my political leanings might be are about making the world better in the little way that I can as a person who can vote. They're not about sitting around and deciding I am "an X" and comparing my lifestyle etc to "the Ys" in order to find differences, feel that I'm superior, blah blah blah. Would it be too much to ask for "liberals" and "conservatives" to try to focus on finding things had in common and little less trying to find things that different from one another?
What's next, Fox News viewers are more conservative than PBS viewers?
Christ. What a waste of time. A self selecting young, predominantly urban, affluent, middle class, college educated demographic is generally more liberal than the rest of the population? Well, I for one, am shocked.
No, not really. What would be more interesting is in looking at what the distribution for those attitudes looks like. I'd guess Mac users would represent a classic bell curve while PC users would have a much less predictable pattern. But then I wouldn't expect the people who do this kind of "research" have any interest beyond trolling in the first place. No questions about conformity or deference to authority either. That'd be an interesting outcome...
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Conservative (not to be confused with republicans, religious folk, or the other things that they statically are) are people who prefer that status quo. PC are the status quo for a computer purchase. If you are going to switch to a Mac, then you realize that you want to change.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's not surprising at all. Here, am I talking politics or electronics?
"Just spend enough to make it work. What's the most common solution? Let's do that."
"I want to spend as much money as necessary to get what I'm told is the best and shiniest system possible."
Then there are the Linux libertarians: disgusted by the major parties, trying hard (sometimes too hard) not to become cynical about their tiny minority. "Of course it's a viable solution! People will get it someday..."
No. Yes (provided you are only interested in Americans). Don't know.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I had suspected for a long time that Windows PC's were easier to use than Macs - now we find out you actually even need a college education and a higher IQ to use one....
lol......
52% Windows users * 38% liberal among PC users=19.76% of sample population are liberal PC users. 25% OSX users * 25% liberal among OSX users=14.5% of sample population are liberal OSX users.
They omitted the Mac Liberals also leaned towards Nazism.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Young hip trendy people more likely to own macs. Young hip trendy people more likely to be liberal.
A common cause is pretty obvious here.
you're using the question mark sign incorrectly, it's for questions.
Educated = more money and probably more liberal. Young = more susceptible to fads. and.. they bought a Mac. What a surprise.
No. You made that up. It's not in the article. It's your perception.
LINUX users are Communists so THERE! Fuck liberals those bourgeois wankers.
UNITE with the Campaign for a Free Internet because today, our future begins with tomorrow!
What is this, the Fox News forums?
Sent from my CR-48
Except "urban" doesn't mean "black," unless you're trying to get away with saying "black people" in a context where you know it's wrong and unacceptable. Like if you were trying to get away with saying "black people commit more crimes," you might say "urban populations commit more crime." Urban means "lives in the city."
urban as in being a city dweller and not a ghetto dweller.
If I had mod points left, I'd give some to you.
I wonder what percentage of mac users pay for their own machines. Almost everyone I've ever known with a Mac got it from their parents.Once they have a job and their own money the problem of spending $500 or $1500 on a core i5 laptop comes to light.
Which wars did Obama put us into?
I would imagine Mac users are also...
More likely to be stoned on Medical Marijuana because it helps their "Headaches"
More likely to collect welfare and have more babies just to collect more
More likely to ignore debt and keep spending more.
See I can swap it around on you. (I tried to leave out being Gay just because the Mac already has that reputation, and homosexuality really isn't an aspect to liberalism, nor should it be perceived as a negative trait.)
Any Extreme Side can be just as stupid, greedy, lazy and misinformed as the other.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Otherwise Western Europe would have more Mac users on average than the U.S...
52% of respondents were self-described PC (Windows) people, 25% were Mac users and 23% were neither
So Linux has a 23% marker share? Is it that year already?
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
I would expect higher incidence of homosexuality among mac users to contribute to this? Possibly in a statistically significant numbers?
If you are so desperate to pull, why don't you post your name, address and a photo?
I love the term "more educated". Without strict definition, it is completely useless. How is it measured?
I have several dozen friends and associates who only have a high-school diploma, but are far "more educated" than many (most) who have masters degrees. They are self-educated, but still have a far larger body of knowledge, and integration of that knowledge.
"more educated", as popularly used, has -zero- to do with intelligence. It has everything to do with opportunity, privilege, and money. Congratulations, wealthy folk are more likely to own Macs. They are also more likely to own a Rolex or drive an over-priced car. Sometimes the things they purchase truly are of higher quality or are inherently better. Sometimes the pricing is solely based on exclusivity and perceived status, and the product is inferior.
BTW, I have a master's degree. I spent 10 years working full-time and self-educating, but needed to "check the box" for employment opportunities later in life. A complete waste of time and money, other than it opened some employment doors.
Anyone who worries about what OS a bunch of random strangers are using needs a new hobby.
Therefore all terrorists use Macs.
Therfore all liberals are terrorists.
Q.E.D.
Remember, Libya isn't a war it is a justifiable liberal cause to tinker in another countries civil war. The US has only spent over a billion USD so far.
Liberals love pretentious things. It's because they believe they're better than you, and know better than you. :-P
*flaming mackeral* on my trolling line.
Libya...
You might not call it a war. But I am sure the people we're dropping hundreds of bombs are call it one.
You are asking a bigot to think. Now stop that!
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Firstly, the sample refers to Hunch users only. This is not a general population sample and should not be applied to the general population. While they failed to spell out the implications of this important bit of context, Hunch did at least disclose prominently that the survey was of Hunch users, unlike PC Mag which seemed to reluctantly mention it once. The Slashdot summary however ignores it completely and thus implies reference to the general population.
Almost a quarter of those who actually responded described themselves as neither PC or Mac. The sample is stratified and the terms "PC user" and "Mac user" no longer exist, you only have the (markedly different) categories of "self-described PC people", "self-described Mac people" and "neither". To their credit TFA not only discloses this, in the header no less, but makes it a theme of the infographic. PC Mag seems to mention it once then forget. The Slashdot summary, however, appears not to have even noticed that there is any distinction:
52% of respondents were self-described PC (Windows) people, 25% were Mac users and 23% were neither
These aren't relevant to each other, it's like a random collection of figures that add to 100% by coincidence. Or... Hmm. Subby appears to be promoting a Pro-Mac bias but perhaps this is really a subtle dig, intentionally implying the terms "Mac users" and "self-described Mac people" are one and the same? Have I had my own humour fail and underestimated the summary?
There's some rather odd statistical presentation. For example "PC people are 33% more likely than Mac people to say that two random people are more different than alike". 33% looks like a big difference, but "more likely" is relative and says nothing about significance: the same figure is arrived at when 8 of the 202k PC people say that and only 3 of the 97k Mac people do (0.000040% is 33% more than 0.000026%). Why have they not simply said the full result, the almost ubiquitous way to present the result of a binary question? Any time you see statistics presented this way alarm bells should ring because it's a great way to grossly over-emphasise trivial things.
Noted that there is no control group, no attempt to compare survey results with statistics of the general population simply in order to gauge reliability. This is despite the generally accepted view that questionnaires are utter horse shit and anyway Hunch isn't exactly a reliable scientific source.
With the Hunch infographic, none of the above matters because the whole thing is presented as slightly tongue-in-cheek entertainment. Unlike PC Mag or the Slashdot summary which appears to take it quite seriously.
thanks
I don't know ifyou follow, say, Brad Delong's blog, but the economists at the PhD level can't seem to agree that 2+2=4, which suggests that at least half of em (genereous here) don't know what they are talking about.
interested in your opinion: I always assumed they use all that math cause (a) people with math get paid more and get more respect, and (b) others can't criticize em - I mean, how many people are gonna have an opionion on heteroscedastic trends in blah blah blah.....
Libertarian is a form of right wing extremism, Liberalism is middle-left.
Viewed from continental Europe, the US liberals look exactly like the standard right here. The US Republicans (without the Tea Party loonies) would be considered extreme right in Europe. Even though even the European extreme right takes universal health care for granted.
I'm not sure if there is any party in Europe defending the Libertarian ideology of destroying government (and let mega corporations rule over anything they aren't already).
The sky is blue and water is wet.
Liberal by which definition? American or European? AFAIK liberal in USA means "socialist" while in the rest of the world liberal means someone who likes freedom.
Ah, another common misconception... 'homosexuals' are much more conservative than the stereotype would lead you to believe..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Once again researchers have a head up their ass by looking for correlations while ignoring causation, and then presenting the correlation in the wrong order. Don't they know that people never see the distinction and assume that the correlation translates to causation as presented? An OS is not going to influence your political views, but your political views may influence your choice of OS. If you are going to imply causation, may as well imply the right one.
It would have been more appropriate to state that of the 308000 people polled, 44% were liberal and 56% were conservative. Of the liberals, 58% used a PC, 42% used a Mac. Of the conservatives, 75% used a PC, 25% used a Mac. A much more informative correlation, don't you think?
Self-declared or generally admitted (to oneself) homosexuality, probably. Other than that... who knows.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Interesting coincidence. My company just fired a Machead graphic designer because of an attendance problem. The little Leninist wouldn't buy a car. He said he wouldn't be coerced into buying one. But then he complained about the price of a cab. Plonk.
an ill wind that blows no good
Governments are in bed with corporations already, you need to limit the power of government to make it not worthwhile to corrupt its members to do favors, otherwise corporations will always perceive that spending money on politicians has an extremely good ROI.
And yes, there are such parties in Europe. In Poland there are 2 with a total support of 1-2%.
These 2 parties are usually considered loonies because libertarianism offends average person's beliefs too much and they will never enter the parliament. They are marginalized/misrepresented in mainstream media and on top of that in elections there is a high pass filter in place (5% for parties, 7% for coalitions) supposedly to make parliament more stable. In reality this causes progressing americanization of politics where weaker parties are left out or even fold while few big ones rise to even greater prominence and new fresh people/ideas can't enter the parliament. Now we have 2 major parties (1 sorta spineless fake liberal with 40-50% support, 1 sorta xenophobic wacko religious socialist at about 20-30%) that play the game plus few smaller ones to act as a filler in coalitions (fork of the wacko one, postcomunists and countryside farmers).
And what's your opinion about the troll article in itself? Yeah, guessed so.
I'm with you. In the US removing government power is one of the few ways to remove corporate power. Corporations own the politicians and staff the agencies that regulate the corporations.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Rush Limbaugh is actually a conservative who stayed with Mac through the lean years (1990s). I know because I was forced to listen to him on a daily basis when I worked for one of his affiliates back then. *heh* :)
I'm none of those things. I'm over 40, conservative, and far from "urban". I had a IIc when I was in my teens, and a few years ago I switched to a Macbook Pro from Linux. Prior to that I was a big OS/2 guy. Been in IT for 17 years as well.
Thanks for the hate-speech. Now back in your mom's basement before she finds you've broken your court order again.
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Troll. Get a clue, and a life before posting your stupidity.
I write for a website which covers a lot of Apple news in its coverage, so I do see that leaning; by definition, if you're knowingly going against the mainstream by getting a Mac, you're probably willing to change the status quo elsewhere.
However, one day the site got this absolutely indignant feedback e-mail from a Mac user complaining about Apple. You see, Apple had the audacity to endorse a No vote on California's Prop 8. How dare this company support the freedom of sexual orientation and 'assault' family values! It was making this reader and his wife question their choice of platform.
Never mind that it's a San Francisco Bay area company. Whose logo was a rainbow-hued apple for half of its history. Whose slogan was "Think Different" for several years. It just goes to show that even conservatives will lean towards Apple... if just in spite of themselves.
Why is this on /.? I thought this was "News for Nerds," not "Flamebait for Nerds" or - as it overwhelmingly seems to be as of late - "Junk Marketing for Mac Fans".
This is just terrible, useless, mindless crap, and everyone involved in getting this to appear on the front page should be ashamed of themselves. I hear CNN and the Daily Mail have some openings.
Once again, I find a connection between my politics and my preferred desktop operating system: both are completely ignored in mainstream media and in most surveys.
That is so f**ing stupid.
If you weaken the (at least semi-democratically elected) govenrment, there's nothing left to exercise power
EXCEPT the corporate oligarchs.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Is being promiscuous something bad?
For me, no. For my PC, yes.
Have gnu, will travel.
Strangely, I've allways had the feeling that mac users were more liberal than windows users. I guess this study confirms it.
Hmm. Our local (Bellevue, WA) Starbucks are trending toward 'hillbilly'. The hip coffee shops (where I'm sitting now) tend to be the independent ones, with their own atmosphere, coffee blends and decor.
Have gnu, will travel.
Several prominent conservative politicians are avid Mac users and have been for decades. That Apple targets the urban, college educated (and presumably less cash strapped or less debt conscious) consumer is not surprise. Since the original Macintosh, Apple has always been a niche computer maker. The iPod and the iPhone are the company's only successful forays into the common consumer market.
I say it all boils down to personal preferences and how much cash you're wiling to spend on the machine. The current versions of each OS have narrowed the interface differences quite a bit, although OS X has the advantage of consistency over decades where Windows has changed in meaningful (to the consumer) ways with every version.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
Calling somebody that uses a Mac more educated is wrong.
So what does that make me?
(probably anarchist since I think most politicians should be given long prison terms)
"Get away with"? Since when did simple facts become something one needs to "get away with"? Racism isn't stating facts, racism is attributing those facts to some genetic component instead of the actual causes like poverty and cultural/social issues.
Sadly, you're probably right. Everyone's so quick to jump up and down showing how non-racist they are they'll take any statement they can as racist because, by extension, pointing out how horribly racist everyone else is shows how non-racist you are these days.
> Like if you were trying to get away with saying "black people commit more crimes," you might say "urban populations commit more crime." Urban means "lives in the city."
Urban doesn't mean black even then, unless someone doesn't speak English. The formal definition applies.
Urban people commit more crime because of simple math. More people closer together means more opportunities for crime, and a city means more laws.
I agree the statement "black people commit more crimes" is unacceptable, almost as a rule, due to the ambiguity inherent in the sentence. In addition, there is a perceived racism in the statement "black people commit more crimes," bolstered in legitimacy by a combination of factors: (1) black people are arrested disproportionately. For example, NYC spends ~$100M on arrests, largely of young black men, of people with small quantities of pot. However, studies show that white people use pot much more than black people do. (2) People of lower socioeconomic status commit more visible crimes, and they are disproportionately black, so saying black people implicitly creates a tenuous causal connection between "black people" and "crimes" in your statement. (3) On a related vein, "black people commit more crimes" is ambiguous. It could be either an empirical statement about the current state of affairs, or a truism. If the latter, it would be highly problematic for our entire notion of egalitarianism, and would be racist (even if racist with an empirical basis). (4) Even if true as a statement of the past, the statement would still be problematic because people will look to it as justification for racism--when we generalize, we give ammunition to people who hate others based on their affiliation or skin color or religion or political party. (Okay, the latter might be okay if it's the Nazis.)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Mac users spend 50% more for the same hardware... "But it just works" -Hipster McGee
no because The Atari St and Amiga also had gui's and the Amiga OS pissed all over macs untill OS10 - you know with actual multitasking.
Oddly, even the poorest US citizen has access to food, shelter, and far better health care than you do. So really your little diatribe falls a little flat.
Bull. You need to drive around the country side and take a look. Most of rural America looks no better than rural Mexico. Fortunately for our society we have centers of non-third-world trailer park dwellers known as "cities" and with these we still hold a little clout with the rest of the world.
"Get away with"? Since when did simple facts become something one needs to "get away with"? Racism isn't stating facts, racism is attributing those facts to some genetic component instead of the actual causes like poverty and cultural/social issues.
Sadly, you're probably right. Everyone's so quick to jump up and down showing how non-racist they are they'll take any statement they can as racist because, by extension, pointing out how horribly racist everyone else is shows how non-racist you are these days.
Racism isn't even ascribing the facts to genetics. Racism is ascribing the attribute to all members of the group without discrimination. It could, for example, be a fact that black people commit more crimes. It could be a fact that they do so due to a genetic inclination. But if I judge an honest black person to be a criminal because he's black, that's racism, because there are (clearly) exceptions to these 'rules'.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
there's nothing left to exercise power
EXCEPT the corporate oligars.
FTFY.
Sincerely,
Glenn Beck
Homosexuality isn't correlated with the liberal/conservative spectrum. The only difference is that liberal homosexuals tend to be open about it. Conservative homosexuals tend to try to hide it from their wives and fellow church-goers.
I used to work at apple, 75% of my colleagues were gay. ... not that there's anything wrong with that.
It went down to 74% after you quit?
>>No. Just no.
probably written on a mac
Indeed "urban" IS code for "black" which may not work in this context because "black" is not code for "computer owner."
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I count it and the US should have been out within a week seeing how we were supposed to just be starting it and handing it over. But still that's 1. Iraq and Afganistan are two. So Obama didn't put the US into more wars than we had during the Bush era. Even if you say we're in three he didn't put us into two of them so his implication that Obama is more of a warmonger would be wrong. Obama's problem is he doesn't do much of anything at least not before it's too late.
I don't like the Libya conflict. Mainly because the US should have been out by now and we've already pissing away loads of money in Iraq and Afganistan. However it's highly ironic that Republicans feel they can complain about Libya after Bush dragged us into a arguably illegal war that has done absolutely nothing for the US other than put us into debt and give us a war so embarrassing that Vietnam looks awesome in comparison. They still have a fuckton of apologising to do before they can criticise anyone else's war decisions.
I live in rural Arkansas, and you're full of shit.
I can drive down the road to Zinc, which is probably the nastiest, stereotypically hillbilly town you'll ever see. The poorest there live in run-down trailer houses, have three or four vehicles in the front yard in various states of repair, and they all have 30+ inch flatscreens on the wall. They are poor because of the choices they make, not because of lack of opportunity or ability.
Now, go do the same in rural Mexico. You'll see people living in dwelling constructed of native materials, with no electricity, running water, or sanitation. Further, there is near zero opportunity for them to improve their situation, short of move to another area with no financial support.
Seriously suggesting that "poor in America" is equivalent to "poor in Mexico" is so far from reality it's laughable. Try stepping outside your bias sometime, and see the real world for what it is.
Learn about Photography Basics.
perhaps you speak some truth, but:
I would imagine Mac users are also...
More likely to passionately believe that Obama is the Messiah.
More likely to scoff at people who don't have the right $150 jeans from Abercrombie.
More likely to be overpriveleged spoiled children of rich parents.
In short, more likely to be young self hating white democrat socialist surrender monkeys?
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Someone who gets it. Government is the seat of coercive power - allowing it to grow unchecked gives companies incentive to develop and wield influence over it.
Learn about Photography Basics.
100K (did they really get that many?) is an absolutely enormous sample size. Most of our electoral polls (you know, the ones that have a significant impact on our political outcomes) are based on a couple of thousand people polled.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
That is a crock of shit. I live in the Ozarks, which with Appalachia, constitute friggin' poor. I've also been in Mexico. Huge difference.
"... centers of non-third-world trailer park dwellers known as "cities"
Never mind. I see you simply see rural as same. Self blinded.
mac: shiny, and with unix under the hood, costs about 3-4 times what it should.
linux: shiny, and with unix under the hood, costs exactly what it should ($0).
I think we can all agree on these simple truths, and based on these truths:
mac user: a fool recently parted from his money.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
It was said Macs are like Catholicism and PCs are like Protestantism, from one of these /. threads of the Mac vs. PC. One of comments is you're guarenteed salvation but have to follow the faith, the other is finding salvation is up to your own devices (choices).
mfwright@batnet.com
What about the other 23%? I am sure Linux users would have something to say about the age, intelligence, and political test.
Homosexuality may not be a trait of liberalism, but homophobia appears to be popular among conservatives...
Only if they can afford it, which despite the American ideal of getting a job, is not always an option. I've been there. Get laid off. Lots of other people in the area do all. Even McDonald's isn't hiring. It can make for a rough time. Food isn't much of a problem (from my experience) as there are food banks and kitchens enough to eat fairly well. Shelter is iffy without a job. There aren't enough beds in shelters for the normal homeless population and nobody wants a tent city in their backyard. Health care and dental isn't really even in the consideration when you can't pay rent, so your only option might be some overbooked clinics and the ER if things get bad enough. Everywhere but a handful of cities in the USA, that also assumes you have access to a car (and associated expenses) because there is no public transit worth speaking about and things are too spread out get anywhere without one.
Then you get into defining 'better' when talking about healthcare. Acute healthcare is much better in the USA than the rest of the world. Not that most of the US can really afford that care. The rest of the world considers it better if it is an available service that people can actually use.
Oddly, even the poorest US citizen has access to food, shelter, and far better health care than you do.
Really?
I make an ok amount, a little over $40k a year. I have a Wife and 2 kids. My wife is a teacher (got her degree in 08), and between the two of us, we weren't doing to badly. She graduated magna cum laude, but after getting laid off due to the economy, she can't find a job anywhere. There are so many teachers out of work subbing, she can only get about 1-3 days a week, making just enough to cover her student loan payments and gas to drive to work.
I get medical through my job (already the least expensive my company can find), my wife and kids had been getting it through hers, that just ran out. To add my wife and kids to my medical is between $900-$1000/month. That is nearly 1/2 of my net take home per month. There is NO WAY I can afford that, so as of right now, my wife and kids have no insurance.
I don't know what dream land you live in. There are a LOT of people worse off than I have it, and things are really bad right now for a lot of us.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Amiga had true multi-tasking much earlier for sure. But it's UI always sucked compared to the Mac.
I laughed. I might be the only one who got it, though.
Yeah, I'm not convinced by it. As TapeCutter pointed out they may only be interested in US citizens (doubtful though considering they mention world market share). It's not just that though - they seem to have reversed it in order to draw their conclusions. Sure there may be more "liberal"* Mac users by % than Windows users, but does that mean that liberals are more likely to be Mac users than PC users? Considering the difference in market share (89.2% : 10.8% according to the infographic) the data isn't representative. Also, the breakdown of users surveyed (52% : 25% : 23% - Windows : Mac : "other/those who don't define themselves as either") seem to suggest that the actual breakdown is "liberals" who use Mac is 14.5% (58% of 25%), "liberals" who use Windows is 18.72% (36% of 52%), "others" (non-liberal doesn't necessarily mean conservative) who use Mac is 10.5% (42% of 25%) and "others" who use Windows is 33.28% (64% of 52%) with "non-aligned" (presumably "no preference/both/Linux, BSD etc") people making up the remaining 23%. Assuming my calculations are accurate, that makes the split of those surveyed (who are either Mac or Windows users since they don't give data for the "others") 43.1% "liberal" to 56.9% "non-liberal", which would seem to suggest that those who were surveyed were a particularly liberal bunch considering most Americans seem to describe themselves as conservative or moderate (according to this article the % liberals is actually about 15-25% of the population assuming nothing drastic has happened in the last 2 years).
*"Liberal" is in scare quotes since it is self-reported and what someone claims to be and what they actually are can be wildly different. Different people use different definitions for things.
The same can be said of the "4 year college degree" bit as well. Windows degree = 28.08%, Mac degree = 16.75, Windows !degree = 23.92%, Mac !degree = 8.25%, with the rest, again, being "other". This data is even less useful than the political alignment as it can be pretty much be written off by the fact that Windows is extremely dominant in market share (i.e. the masses generally use Windows) and that, generally speaking, Windows computers are cheaper than the equivalent Macs (degree = higher chance of high payed job -> more likely to be willing to spend a lot of money on a computer).
There also seem to be some other rather suspect figures. They have placed "Win users are more likely to be suburban/rural" opposite "52% of Mac users live in a city". Those are connected but not directly comparable figures (what about urban town dwellers for example, and what are the actual figures for Win users/ non-city Mac users). The fashion/aesthetics clothing section doesn't give any direct comparisons, and under food & drink, I don't see how any of it is relevant other than possibly the vegetarianism bit. The newspaper preference is also not directly comparable (unless by "The Times" they mean "The New York Times" - considering there is a "The Times" paper, in the UK/on the internet at least, that would at best be misleading) and from websites down to magazines they simply list items (which are presumably "preferred" by that group, but without knowing the selection criteria the data is useless; that also applies to most of the food and drink section).
Interestingly, the figures on the bar chart at the bottom which shows preferred computer type has different figures than the main infographic. That's probably down to rounding though as the graph also includes a "skipped" option (when that is removed the numbers almost correspond).
All in all, the whole thing screams of data dredging, whether intentional or not, and is certainly skewed by the fact that all respondents were visitors to the Hunch rather than members of the general public, and that the creator of the infographic is a Mac user (although the same would likely be true in reverse for a Windows user - the only way to be truly unbiased in a situation like this is if the creator is not a computer user).
If homophobia is prevalant amongst conservatives, which political orientation would an average homosexual prefer?
From a european point of view, both US conservatives and liberals are extremist right wing.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I don't know where you're driving around at. I'm from Oklahoma with roots in the Ozarks of Arkansas and most rural people I've seen still have running water, electricity, phone, cable and internet. Not to mention a car (and sometimes more than one but it's usually up on blocks in the yard).
Which ones has he ended? Oh yea, Iraq is over -- I forgot. Obama officially declared the end of hostilities or something stupid like that some time ago -- a bit like Bush with the "Mission Accomplished" thingy. If you think Obama is anything other than an extension of Bush's policies, you're not paying attention.
Obama asserts the right to execute American citizens without any kind of trial, charges, or judicial oversight based on nothing but allegations, i.e., Obama says your are a terrorist -- you get murdered and don't get a chance to defend yourself. Look up Amendments 4-6 to the constitution to see just how breathtaking this is. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/02/assassinations/index.html
Then of course there is the refusal to prosecute the illegal wiretapping of the previous administration, but rather to immunize the evildoers: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/01/obama-sides-wit/
Closing Gitmo? Not. But worse, since the procedures at Gitmo have been declared unconstitutional, Obama is merely shifting operations to Bagram, as if the place in which one denies Habeas Corpus is of such great import: http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/05/no-habeas-at-bagram/
Obama uses the state secrets doctrine to prevent civil lawsuits against American companies complicit in the plaintiffs' torture under Bush's rendition program: http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2010/09/suit_alleging_cia_torture_dism.html
Moral: If you hated Bush, you need to be hating Obama because he and Bush are brothers.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I have hated macs well before there where macs, since the days I was forced to use an Apple IIe. My hatred for Jobs does cloud my judgement some but the simple observation I have always said is that Macs were designed for Left handed people. Right brain thinkers. It's for people who like their bottons on the left and a desire to have form over function. Windows users [the ones who actually know how to use a computer] tend to want Function over form and the ability to actually get work done. That's just me though.
I use Windows and I'm virtually a Nazi. Mind you Microsoft gives more to the Democrats than the Republicans.
Just because I want to burn down Congress and blame it on the Mac users to justify a coup doesn't mean that Microsoft would agree with me.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If the patient is diseased you do not kill the patient.
You do not kill the village to save it.
If some entity is too powerful you can't reduce its power by neutering the only challenger strong enough to temper it.
In short, you're swallowing the shit hook, line and sinker. The intention in the past 3 decades has been to corrupt government precisely so you can then say, "Look! Gov is corrupt! You don't want gov! Let us take over!"
The correct response is, "Yes! You corrupted it! Now it's time to remove corrupt elements."
The same can be said of the "4 year college degree" bit as well. Windows degree = 28.08%, Mac degree = 16.75, Windows !degree = 23.92%, Mac !degree = 8.25%, with the rest, again, being "other". This data is even less useful than the political alignment as it can be pretty much be written off by the fact that Windows is extremely dominant in market share (i.e. the masses generally use Windows) and that, generally speaking, Windows computers are cheaper than the equivalent Macs (degree = higher chance of high payed job -> more likely to be willing to spend a lot of money on a computer).
Yet of those educated, presumably affluent individuals who can make the non-economically driven choice, only 37.4% identify as Macs vs. PC users.
Also, paid.
And yet if you have a serious medical issue you can walk into an emergency room and won't be turned away. Try that in Mexico.
And if you continually strengthen the government, instead of a whole bunch of smaller corporate oligarchs running things, you have one all-powerful entity running things.
How is that better, exactly? How do you make a government the size of the US federal government accountable? Who can even understand everything that it does now? How does making it more powerful fix anything?
You don't solve problems rooted in complexity by adding onto the problem.
And yet if you have a serious medical issue you can walk into an emergency room and won't be turned away. Try that in Mexico.
Yes I know, that is what I am reduced to. When I get the 5 or 6 figure bill I will have no way of paying, I will most likely have to file for bankruptcy. Maybe I could convince the hospital I am an illegal alien, and not have to worry at all...
Now I am a contributor to the already out of control health insurance prices, and I have to live with that.
Oh, and FYI: "Public health care is provided to all Mexican citizens as guaranteed via Article 4 of the Constitution"
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Oddly, you're almost completely wrong.
While the poorest here generally have access to food, health care is available only for immediate emergencies, and will saddle you with enormous debt if you use it. The quality of that tremendously expensive emergency care is variable, and may be worse than anything that you'd get in South America.
Shelter can be completely unavailable, unless you consider the underside of a bridge to be adequate shelter. The shantytowns that the poorest in South America may call home aren't an option here - building codes will result in such a thing being bulldozed in short order.
The study did not address the issue of sexual orientation. It did, however, find half of male Mac users took it in the ass, while the other half indicated a preference for sodomizing bungholes.
I was testing the original iBook (the toilet seat cover-looking one) at Apple computers many years ago, and I complained to a friend that the USB ports were on the left-hand side. The original hockey-puck mouse had a fifteen inch cable, so this was especially annoying. "Only one out of nine people are left-handed... this makes no sense!" I fumed...
There was an Apple engineer there who was listening intently, and chimed in, "You're absolutely right--but do you know how many *Mac* users are left-handed?" No.... "One in two."
Never got any confirmation on that one, but it has seemed to jibe with personal experience... as well as the "liberal Mac vs. conservative PC" thing, hardly surprising.
Yes, we all understand that to Europeans, the populace exists to serve the government. The only question the Europeans have is what the goals of government should be. The U.S. still has some people who believe that the government should serve the populace and that individuals should be the locus of all power.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
But making sense out of the numbers all depends on the question you're trying to ask.
If you're most interested in knowing that given that someone (a) is a liberal and (b) took the survey, what are the odds that they have a Mac vs. having a Windows machine, then you're way of presenting the numbers is more illumanitive.
But if you're most interested in knowing that given that someone (a) owns a Mac and (b) took the survey, what are the odds that they are a liberal vs. being a converative, then you're way of presenting the numbers isn't very illumanitive. In fact, it's a bit misleading.
So it isn't the numbers that are misleading. It's taking the numbers for the answer to a particular question that is misleading.
You have an inflated evaluation of rural America. Compared to other Western countries, we are no better on the bottom end than any other. We just like to pretend we are....USA!! USA!! USA!!
I didn't say the people living in trailers and rv's (that don't actually move) did so because of a lack of opportunity or ability. I agree they chose to live like that. It doesn't change the fact we have an entire bottom 3rd of our country living like bad parts of Rio. The fact many do so BY CHOICE makes it even worse.
Now if you'll take of your jingo-colored glasses for a moment...
CNN ran a version of this article a couple days ago, at least they pointed out that the study was "unscientific."
Therefore this study is nothing more than flame-bait.
I am a well-educated, young Engineer and I use a Mac. I'm also a Republican (not one of those crazy ones you see on TV, a real one).
The U.S. still has some people who believe that the government should serve the populace and that individuals should be the locus of all power.
To bad that those of us that believe this are in a very small minority.
Lets not mistake believing that the individuals should be the locus of power with the more common thought that the capitalists (those that control capital) should be the locus of power. An elected government, when elected by knowledgeable people, has a far better chance of representing the individuals than a de-facto government set up by the capitalists by virtue of their capital alone.
"Educated" =/= "intelligent"
There seems to be a lot of social status posturing over who is "educated," but I'll take the guy with his GED and practical experience over the graduates of third-tier liberal arts colleges, stadium-like state schools and community colleges whose main claim to fame is that they are "educated" even if they are incapable of basic business, social and intellectual function.
Futurist Traditionalism
Whoever misused the word "urban" (which means: "from/in town") for "black" should be forced to listen to a phone hotline operated by non-native speakers for no less than 10 hrs.
I think you mean't "outwardly homosexual" as in not in the closet. It seems like it's always the conservatives politicians and activists that get into gay sex scandals: Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Bob Allen, Glenn Murphy Jr., Robert Bauman, the list goes on and on. Why is that?
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
This should be required reading for anyone interested in getting into internet debates with libertarians:
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html - Critiques of libertarianism.
(It should also be required reading for anyone who actually buys into that incoherent nonsense.)
I have no idea what you are saying. I am unaware of anyone who says that capitalists should be the locus of power.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You can vote politicians out of power. You can't vote corporations out of power.
You know the old sayings: Politicians are like diapers. You should change them often and for the same reason. Be careful to hand power only to people and institutions you can change within a reasonable time frame and without too much of a bloodshed.
...and linux uses are smarter, better looking, and generally superhuman. So what?
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
No. We Europeans understand that there is only one reason for a government to exist: to serve us. And if the government doesn't serve us right, we fire it and elect a new one. We are very vary against institutions we can't fire and elect anew, this is one of the reasons why the EU is often frowned upon - most europeans fear they can't change the EU enough to serve them.
But once we had agreed that the government is our servant, we are ready to trust it with lots of stuff to do for us - because if it doesn't work out as advertised, we will just fire the government and hire another.
MOST liberals are elitist, snot nose brats that think they know everything, are superior than everyone else, and are dumb enough to pay 10 bucks for a cup of water with coffee beans, along with expensive computers, like the Mac ;)
Your signature says you filter ACs, yet you replied to an AC...
Unfortunately, they must be counting Arts degrees as education.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Wait, so what if I'm using all 3? Does that just mean I'm conflicted?
well compared to OSX sure but compared to the Mac at the time it wasn't far off
I'm a Windows user, and I'm a great deal more liberal than many of the Mac users I know.
"Mac users were, on average, more urban, younger and more educated than PC users, ....."
Based off this comment, I can only assume the OP is an extremely dedicated PC user.
I disagree. Our "bottom" has food, clothing, shelter, and many luxuries available to them. The "bottom" in many places have none of these things.
This is not an "America" thing - this is a "first world" thing. The general welfare of a US citizen is approximately on par with that of a citizen of Sweden, for instance. To equate poverty in a developed country with poverty in an undeveloped one is simply not support be reality.
Learn about Photography Basics.
I completely get how you would think that the view is crazy. I believe that I responsible for myself, my family, and no one else. That responsibility comes *way* before helping others in society.
It long ago got to the point where paying taxes costs more than providing the basic necessities for my family. There's something wrong with that.
Learn about Photography Basics.
I guess this is one of those 'reality has a liberal bias' incidents. It's a statistic. Better educated individuals tend to be more liberal. As an educator, you should be well aware of this. How many of your peers share your political views?
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/october/are-liberals-smarter-than-conservatives -- here's one of the first things Google brought up. But this study has been done over and over with the same results: more people with college degrees are liberal than not. How can the truth be offensive?
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I'm not comparing poverty in a developed country with poverty in undeveloped countries. I distinctly said other western developed countries. The lowest tier of rural America is no better off than the the rest of the developed hemispheres. And like I said, this is extra sad, because it is mostly by choice.
I've lived in Tunisa, Yemen, and Egypt. If you think Mexico is on par with these countries, you haven't seen much of the world.
I've also lived in England and Germany, whose bottom tier are far better of than America (again, mostly by choice).
That's an urban legend. There may be a few (notable!) exceptions, where right-wingers are merely 'in the closet' about some issue (whether being pedophiles or gay, etc), but most of them are legitimately conservative. Conservatism is based on a genetic inclination to fear the unknown to an unreasonable degree, and therefore most conservatives are not experimental when it comes to sex or any other aspect of their lives.
OK, so I am about as right wing as you can get on fiscal/taxing/spending issues, moderate on social issues (so long as I don't have to in any way pay for others' proclivities, or have it rammed down my throat, no pun intended). I wouldn't vote for a Democrat to get out of a burning phone booth. Think Ron Paul with less isolationism. I am as far from a prude as you can get and still be legal and hetero, I hold a doctorate, and have been a Mac user for 30 years and Apple stockholder for 20.
There's my inductive reasoning debunking of TFA for the day.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Given the vast majority of the PC installed base over Macs, the Obama presidency doesn't bear out this premise of PC verses Mac users.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Mac users were, on average, more urban, younger and more educated than PC users
If they are more educated they would know how to use their blasted computers! uuugggggghhhhhhhh....
Balderdash!
So liberal homosexuals tend to vote in conservatives or... Okay, I'm a bit confused, care to explain what you mean by that? Also, I know a lot more straight people who shove their sexual orientation down people's throat than homosexuals, regardless of political affiliation (although, to be fair that could be attributed to the higher number of straight people.)
Feel free to mod me down, just know that unlike some Anonymous Cowards I'm not afraid to express my views as myself.
3x on something that does 1/2 as much? really? got a cite?
moron.
Obvious question: What about the political leanings and socio-economic end educational status of Linux users?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
...before you decide to turn into a pedofile. Don't deny it, the soon to be guilty ones always deny it.
Unless you're talking about the ability to troubleshoot broken drivers or remove viruses/spyware, I'm really not sure what you mean. OSX is Unix.
Such as?
Not true. I write and run my own code, and can download anything I want to run on my Mac, there is no verification or approval process. You also can install and use the full version of XCode for free, last I checked the full version of Visual Studio was pretty expensive.
Not true at all. You've taken what you've heard about the iPhone/iPod/iPad and completely misapplied it to the Mac product line.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
is convincing their supporters that learning is bad.
The greatest trick was to convince them that if Jesus was alive today he would have anything at all to do with the Republican party.
Perhaps instead of this "uh huh!" "nuh huh!" match, you could state what city or cities you are talking about so you can stop being so damned vague. Los Angeles is not a good example.
Living in a trailer/RV/whatever and living with a clean hygiene lifestyle (note I added the clean hygiene part) in no way brings anyone near Rio.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
There are a number of studies on this. I suggest you go read the source materials.
You mean the ones funded by either liberal or conservative groups, then end up having as much "science" as a paper on Phrenology?
No thanks. In my experience people are not so easily pigeon-holed, the Liberal/Conservative schism is a made-up one, meant to mask deeper issues and divisions that don't fall along the same lines but meant to make you inclined to be on a side you'd not be otherwise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, they're now trying to correlate what kind of computer you use with your political views? Why the fuck is this worthless garbage story even on slashdot? The mods seriously need to be replaced.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Homosexuality isn't correlated with the liberal/conservative spectrum. The only difference is that liberal homosexuals tend to be open about it. Conservative homosexuals tend to try to hide it from their wives and fellow church-goers.
Homosexuals tend to trend towards liberalism since it's generally not the side that attacks them. And political leaning is a choice.
Right. You're comparing "Oh no, I'm broke!" to "Oh fuck, I live in a shithole 2nd borderline-3rd world country!". Give me a fucking break. If you're not totally retarded in the US you can get shelter, enough food to survive, and access to emergency health care with the best technology there is.
No, you're not going to get top tier cancer treatment without insurance or lots of money. You're not getting it anywhere in South America at all unless you're very rich.
In short, a dirt poor US citizen is better off than a lower-middle class (or below) person anywhere south of the US border.
A lot worse than you have it? Seriously? Get some fucking perspective. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't sound like things are going well and I absolutely empathize. A lot of people aren't that far off from losing a whole lot of their lifestyle.
That said - call me when you don't have a car to drive, cable TV, access to emergency room care, food, etc... Do you own a house? If so, sell it - move to an apartment.
Bad off is when you can't get food or shelter or emergency medical care. Anything above that is gravy and just something Americans seem to think we're all "entitled" to.
Fred, you are all over the place. My point is I only have access to health care currently if I want to go through bankruptcy. Now I should sell my house that I have worked 25 years to get.
The cost for health care in the U.S. is out of control. Other countries (Canada, Australia, etc) in the world look at us and can't believe we don't have health care for all of our citizens. Canadians pay about $50 a month, with no co-pay or deductible. But you would probably say, that people in all other countries have no idea what they are talking about. It is us (the U.S.) that have it wrong.
A good friend of mine had to have a hernia operation while on vacation in Panama. He got excellent care and it cost him $.25 (yes 25 cents).
The right wing idea that conservatives in the U.S. (a unique group with no kin in the rest of the world) have it right and the rest of the U.S. and the world have no idea how to live or run a country is so egocentric it isn't even funny.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
To add my wife and kids to my medical is between $900-$1000/month. That is nearly 1/2 of my net take home per month. There is NO WAY I can afford that, so as of right now, my wife and kids have no insurance.
That sounds a lot like something you should have considered before you decided to have kids.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
You can vote politicians out of power. You can't vote corporations out of power.
Voting with your wallet does count, does it not? Think about the positive change that comes along with consumers voting with their wallet. The difference between corporations and politicians is that corporations are still just after your dollar, and if you demand changes or else will spend elsewhere, they will be forced to comply or else go out of business.
No such mechanism exists for politicians. You can vote for them all you want, but in the end, they have zero obligation to do what you'd like them to. Sure, we can always vote for a new politician, but does anything actually change?
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
If the patient is diseased you do not kill the patient.
You do not kill the village to save it.
No, but you do quarantine the patient and make sure he can't touch and infect anyone else.
The intention in the past 3 decades has been to corrupt government precisely so you can then say, "Look! Gov is corrupt! You don't want gov! Let us take over!"
Why do people maintain this weird fantasy that there exists a secret boardroom of evil corporation executives meeting in a dark room developing a 30 year plan to bait-and-switch the entire country? Each corporation acts in its own individual interest, and the logic is much simpler: (1) I like power, (2) the government has power, therefore (3) I must sink my claws into government, thereby corrupting it.
Each corporation acts in its own individual interest
The premise of your argument is wrong.
A corporation is not a person and has no interest.
A corporation is effectively (individual shareholders or fund managers) the property of a few powerful individuals. And it is entirely in their self interest for these people to cooperate, whichever company they act to represent. Why the hell would you work against someone when you could both do much better by helping each other out?
The idea that big businessmen compete for the betterment of society is fantasy designed to make useful idiots (such as yourself, perhaps?) divide and squabble amongst themselves.
No, voting with my wallet only works for corporations who are selling to me personally. And only for corporations for which a viable alternative exists. That's one of the reasons why I don't like the idea of utilities being privately held. I can't vote with my wallet against them, because I have to be their customer. So the only way to control them is if they are controlled by a government I can actually vote for or against. And that's also a reason why I am very vary against private health insurance - whenever I actually need them I am not in the situation where I can make concious decisions and freely compare options. For a health insurance company it's very easy to plunder my wallet - my emergeny situation is their business case.
(It has to be for a reason that the U.S. health system is by far the most expensive of the world. U.S. citizens pay about twice the money for health care than Europeans without really getting better care, with one exception. The cancer survival rate is actually higher in the U.S. than in Europa. The total life expectancy is not.)
Mac : PC = Democrats : Republicans
Functionally, they don't even pretend to be made of different parts anymore.
When you get down to the bottom nearly every choice is bad.
Instead of a pretty nasty "it's all their own fault" you could try "there but for the grace of God go I." For one thing the children in those places do not get to make the choices so can't be blamed. When they do get old enough they don't have the same range of choices you did.
on "clueless", "hipster" and "douchey"?
Only then we can put the ugly rumours to rest.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Well my anecdotes go like this: I took a drive from Austin (where I live) to go see the new Formula 1 track. No less than 5 miles outside of city limits, I could have sworn I was in Borat's hometown.
I used to live in Hinesville, GA (military town). Living proof that we aren't doing so hot at the bottom end. And from there it's that way 200 miles in any direction.
Even in ritzy Monterey CA, where I lived for several years, you have basically the equivalent of Tijuana Mexico right next door (Seaside).
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Have you SEEN one of those towns that no longer have timber industry jobs?
Parent is modded as funny, but this is about the most insightful comment I have seen on this topic so far.
PS, Some of my best friends are arts graduates, but they do not have a clue about computers.
Why must everything be politicized? Now owning a Mac becomes a litmus test for conservative purity? People are becoming so polarized in the most ridiculous ways. "I don't know if I can associate with you. You use a(n) computer." It's like a person I was talking to this weekend, who seriously asked, "Should I be offended by that?" Listen, if you're not immediately offended by something, then why worry about it? Why go out of your way to MAKE yourself offended? That is just madness.
Proverbs 21:19
The same Mike Huben who got his ass kicked all over Usenet years ago for his stupid strawman arguments?
Oh, and BTW, in the Rest of The World (to which you are posting, by not posting to slashdot.org.us), "liberal" is not generally a term of abuse. Even here in Britain under our ConDem (pronounced as condemn) coalition.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
That Mac users tend to be more educated and liberal makes it more sad what Apple is doing with tracking people via their iPhones and iPads. They will just accept it, like Mac users just accept everything else from Apple, without even asking for lube.
you will start to learn that there is more to life than games. Have you noticed girls yet? you might want to look into that.
That sounds a lot like something you should have considered before you decided to have kids.
When I had kids, 15-20 years ago, insurance was cheap and employers covered my whole family at very little or no charge to me. I think you missed a great deal of the point. The skyrocketing cost of health care.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
yet believe that gays should be allowed to marry, all drugs should be legal, the right of the unborn to have their lives legally protected, and that we should pull our military back home from all countries while balancing the budget. I also own an iPad and an Android phone that provides a mobile WiFi hotspot for the ipad. I'm hoping I just broke your convenient labeling system.
"There but for the grace of God go I" is a very common phrase you should have encountered at some point by now if you've done much reading in the English language. It really has nothing to do with God at all but instead means that if circumstances were different you could be the guy who got a different choice of parents or other uncontrollable situations - it just comes out as "grace of God" instead of fate, karma or whatever because of the age of the quote that has been so often repeated.
A bad accident with head injuries plus loss of loved ones and you too could be a crazy homeless guy that nobody cares about. That's the sort of thing it means.
Stuff happens that is beyond our control no matter what you or I believe in. I don't believe in any sort of predetermination either but that doesn't matter - the saying is about what HAS happened and that similar things can happen to anybody.
Onto the next stories of the Ric Romero News Update Show....
- Troops that have the high ground tend to win battles.
- Babies like Milk.
- News Organizations tend to have short attention spans.
- Gravity still works, video at 11.
- Computers tend to crash at the exact wrong time, usually when you next task is to start a backup job.
- Virtually nothing man-made today will survive 10 million years, video in year 10,002,011A.D.or C.E. (hopefully we will have flying cars by then).
No. You made that up.
See? Ipse dixit. :-)
-=Maggie Leber=-
No, but surprisingly it's not TPM/HuffPo/DemUnderground/DailyKos either.
-=Maggie Leber=-
No, I get it. I'm sure that's how it was when you first had kids. I'm just saying, it's prudent to plan for worst-case scenarios when you're deciding how you're going to financially support a family.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Dont have time for games, or broken computers. But I do have time to get on my boat and have a life. *cya suckers*
Question mark? How does not believing you imply I'm both a mac user and gullible?
No, you stop lying. The option of going into enormous debt is only there if you're in immediate danger of dying. Otherwise, there is no health care unless you have cash or insurance. The state programs are only available if you have children or are a child. And forget about dental or vision care.
I'd say the odds are probably closer to 70 - 30 that you'd find a better hospital here by picking one at random. But it doesn't matter how good that hospital is if you can't pay for it, and millions of Americans can't. The care you get if you're poor and can't afford to pay is minimal, they'll save your life, but put you back on the street, and with your medical debt, you can forget ever owning anything again.
And it's not hard to find people who have no options for shelter. The shelters are full, they're turning people away every day.
I have no idea what you are saying. I am unaware of anyone who says that capitalists should be the locus of power.
That's the problem, most of the people that think this way would never say it, and only think this way because they haven't really thought things through. Unrestricted capitalism leads to the situation where capital is the only measure of power, and therefore capitalists become the locus of power. Once you can buy and sell anything, then you have handed over power to those that control the means of production. And if you start with an environment where 1% control the means of production, you have basically chosen to give up your freedom in exchange for serfdom.
I still don't know what you mean, what do you mean by "unrestricted capitalism"?
In a complete free market system where all the government does is provide for the common defense, restrict the use of violence and enforce contract law, wealth does not accumulate in the hands of the few.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I totally agree. Obama has proven to be pretty useless. I'm glad I didn't vote for him (didn't vote for McCain either) but I think it's not being very honest to make out as if he put us in 3 wars. He arguably put us in one (Libya - if that can be considered a war) and yes I think he should have ended Iraq by now. On the other hand though we fucked up big time by even going in there and to pull out too early because we feel it's too expensive is a shitty thing to do. Part of me hopes the US really suffers over Iraq so hopefully we learn our lesson and stay the hell out of other people's business and especially don't start wars that are of questionable legality.
I didn't say he started 3. Clearly, he started one, expanded one (Afghanistan), and continued one.
It is indisputable however, given the continuation, the expansion, and the starting, that Obama is another "killer" president, in the most literal sense of the term.
Gladly, I too voted third party. I feel no guilt over the last election, only guilt in paying taxes that go to immoral bloodletting.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
This makes no sense at all.
Zinc is about 10 miles from a town of 12,000 people. It is also the home of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan - the people that live there choose to do so. They all have cars, and they all have access to better jobs and education.
Second, how the hell does the fact that Mexico lacks the material infrastructure to support opportunities for those people make them "lazy"? Even without it, many Mexicans work in maquiladoras, particularly near the borders. They aren't lazy, they are simply poor and in a geographic location that isolates them.
Yes, I live in Arkansas. I moved *back* to Arkansas - life is substantially slower here, the people are generally more welcoming, and it is a good place to raise my children. Don't let that stop you from assuming I'm a backwards, barefooted hick though.
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