As much as I'm a fan of the Darwin Awards, common sense dictates we shouldn't allow that problem to merely sort itself out because innocent victims are often hurt and killed.
I think the term you're looking for is collateral damage.
Evolution isn't about who is right. It's about who is left.
Collateral damage is a metric used by military leaders in a warzone. It's not fitting for everyday life, and I highly doubt either of us would be that casual about it if a distracted driver hurt or killed a beloved family member.
Evolution is also about learning. We should learn to punish those who create innocent victims to help create a valid deterrent and minimize the damage. Doing nothing showcases stupidity and ignorance, which is not progress.
And Greed justifies making them illegal if they're not paying the lawmakers. Last I checked there was no specific tax on video games, so the fact that they're addictive is a bad thing. As soon as some lobbyist from Electronic Arts or Activision or Tencent decides to whisper in a senator's ear about taxing them pretty much all talk about video games being bad will be kiboshed.
That trick doesn't work for every product out there. Video games are a multi-billion dollar industry, and lawmakers know the capitalist hand that ultimately feeds them. Lawmakers should also realize the power of the internet, which allows a major game maker to take their entire operations (and revenue) offshore. One can download a game from any country rather easily.
So unless your goal as a criminal is to some day die with $$$$ in some unused Bitcoin account, you have exactly the same problem of money laundering as with every other currency.
Since when has the "problem" of money laundering been a valid deterrent? One would think this fact would have been rather obvious to anyone looking back over the last century of crime.
Any non-criminal merchant, whether it is an sports car seller or a pizza delivery, will not have any reason to help you with hiding your association with some Bitcoin account number.
Again, look at history. People who launder money get paid for taking that risk. They do it for the same greedy reasons anyone from petty criminals to big bankers (Wells Fargo) do unethical and illegal shit; because it's often worth it.
So all police needs to do is to follow back the chain of transactions from the first such legitimate merchant back to the first legal entity who would not want to reveal the source of the money, and jail them, either for money laundering, or for the theft of the money.
The ransomware problem is not shrinking because they've made some miracle breakthrough in law enforcement. Death by 1,000 cuts was effective in growing ransomware into a multi-billion dollar enterprise because a $300 ransom makes law enforcement give a shit about as much as reporting a stolen cell phone. The same thing will continue to happen with other crimes because there's never enough law enforcement resources. This fact will establish monetary give-a-shit thresholds that will be abused.
There's also the obvious problem of legal jurisdiction, which will become a loophole as big as Ireland, a country known for hiding trillions from taxation (funny how no one wants to fix that criminal activity). If other crimes continue, it won't be long before bitcoin finds or establishes its "Ireland."
...It's just a shame nobody seems to want to go after these corporations for the mess they're creating, because I think this is going to become a very serious issue in the near future and I doubt any of them are going to be held responsible for the things they know they're doing to their players.
Cigarettes and alcohol kill millions of humans every year, and yet both are legal products. Smartphone addiction and distracted driving creates deaths, and yet we continue with slap-on-the-wrist punishments to essentially dismiss it as a problem. Social media and streaming services create millions of addicts, and society accepts marketing these products to children.
Making a product highly addictive is always justified because of Greed.
Then it IS an occupation, not interfering with one. In our society it is okay for an occupation to interfere with everything else (health, relationships, etc).
I agree that health should always be considered a priority, but when it comes to "relationships", it's going to be rather hard to listen to the look-at-me generation of social media narcissists complain about that one gamer family member who doesn't spend enough time with them and has a "problem", as they sit on the other side of the room with their face buried in a smartphone, showcasing their own addiction.
I mean, while we're at it, could we add clinging excessively to "social" media and constant gawking at your damn phone?
If only 10% of society were horribly addicted to social media who cannot be separated from their smartphones and electronic devices they abuse every waking hour of the day, then the other 90% of society would have no problem identifying the 10% as addicts who are harming themselves and others.
The REAL problem is we now have a society where 90% of people are horribly addicted to social media, who cannot be separated from their smartphones and electronic devices they abuse every waking hour of the day. It's like trying to tell society we have a problem with caffeine addiction. When damn near everyone is an addict, no one sees a problem.
I mean, the latter has a good chance of sorting itself out when you do it in halfway decent traffic, but the former does become an issue.
As much as I'm a fan of the Darwin Awards, common sense dictates we shouldn't allow that problem to merely sort itself out because innocent victims are often hurt and killed. Instead, we should be punishing those who drive distracted by not covering insurance claims, along with fines and punishments equal to driving under the influence. Perhaps then addicts will pull their head out of their ass and stop hurting innocent people. Maybe they'll like riding a bus for 6-12 months enough to stay there to keep their "drunk" ass away from me and my family on the road.
Intelligent people understand that Social Media has devolved into nothing more than a bullshit generator, and should be considered for entertainment purposes only.
Stupid people define Social Media as their only source of information, and it aligns directly with their own values due to targeted manipulation (also known as "advertising")
The real problem is Social Media has become stupidly profitable. Clicks are far more valuable than facts, which tends to validate how ignorance has taken over critical thought.
That said, I'm still laughing over the irony of a former POTUS warning about the dangers of Social Media, as if the very government he used to lead doesn't value offensive counterintelligence (also known as "fake news")...
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
I see you've read Coinage Act of 1965. Now the question is have you actually read what is printed on the front of ALL US currency?
"THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"
It's practically a contract written directly on the damn money we're debating about. Tends to make you wonder who's actually in the wrong here.
"Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the [overpriced prescription] version"
Translation: Doctors get a kickback from prescribing a vitamin. Clueless patients fill the prescription and send it to their insurance. Everybody loses except doctors and drug companies.
"approved by the US Food and Drug Administration"
Translation: FDA approved vitamins that other vitamin manufacturers either cant get approval for or have to spend a fortune to get.
So drug company gets a government monopoly on a vitamin that doctors are all too eager to prescribe to their patients for $300 a pop.
If my doctor "prescribes" a compound that is available over the counter as a vitamin, then I'll be damned if I'm going to be stupid enough to spend hundreds on "prescription" strength. It's not like you're going to die if you consume too much niacin (my daily multivitamin has 150% of the recommended daily value).
This is only a monopoly on those ignorant enough to fall for it.
I didn't say it was our largest killer, I said it was one of our largest killers, and 80,000 deaths per year makes that fact pretty damn clear. It was ranked 7th on our list in 2014, and I doubt much has changed since then. And you haven't even identified our actual largest killer, which is a product we call cigarettes. Greed again clarifies why this top killer is a legal product today. You're really degrading your fact-checking capability now. There are less than 2,000 cases of malaria reported in the US each year. That's a far cry from diabetes.
Except that your actual largest killer isn't cigarettes. It's not even the underlying cause. More people die from strokes unrelated to smoking then strokes directly related to smoking. You should probably look up those stats a bit more.
The CDC still classifies cigarettes/tobacco use as the #1 cause of preventable death. Smoking causes heart disease and cancer, and with over 400,000 deaths per year, it's pretty safe to say it's one hell of a contributor to our top killers as an "underlying" cause. Little point in splitting hairs over that.
My argument has to do with Greed, which adds to those 80,000 deaths per year. When people cannot afford the very chemical required to sustain life, it's a death sentence, which sadly still rings true today. You know this
Except it's not. Those 80k deaths are not the primary cause, it's an underlying cause. It's not even secondary, it's usually 3rd or 4th underlying. Now here's the interesting party, you can bet that many of those people are on insulin. Many of those people simply didn't or refused to take actual care of themselves. I know diabetics that are in their 30's and have lost fingers, toes, feet, an entire leg all because of their own lack of action, or because they simply didn't care. Either not eating right, not caring to take insulin, eating foods that spike their blood sugar, and so on.
Given your logic, you would also argue that it wasn't the drugs or obesity that killed Elvis, it was a toilet that did him in. Go argue with the CDC and their facts when it comes to deaths directly attributed to diabetes. No shit people die from not taking care of themselves; diabetes is literally caused by not taking care of yourself. It's completely preventable in the vast majority of people. Needless to say, laziness and don't-give-a-shit syndrome aren't tracked by the CDC/WHO. If they were, it would be the overwhelming cause of death for all humans by a long shot.
So....Facebook basically offers a service to organizations that will guide and train them to use features of Facebook. Don't a lot of large companies offer training services to users of their product(s)?
(Customer) "How does your product work?"
(Facebook) "Your advertising will be seen by 2 billion idiots daily, the largest in the known universe. We specialize in viral manipulation of the masses. Fact-checking is optional."
(Customer) "I believe a blank check is too slow. Here's my bank routing number, account number, and password. Take whatever you need."
Evil is subjective, but when revenue is all that matters, ethics goes out the fucking window.
What we need is 100% net neutrality that extends from layer 1 of the OSI model up to layer 7.
That means there would be neutrality at the Network layer, when it comes to packets. It would also mean that there'd be neutrality at the Application layer, as well, where we classify social media platforms.
I classify all social media platforms equally just fine now. They're nothing more than portals that feed the look-at-me generation of social media junkies addicted to narcissism. I wouldn't dare consider them a "news" outlet by any means. Intelligent people understand this, and do not need more regulation.
Besides, only 0.001% of society would even be able to grasp what the fuck you're talking about as you petition for "Application-layer Net Neutrality". Championing that would fall on deaf and dumb ears.
"The initiative is run by a little-known Facebook global government and politics team that's neutral in that it works with nearly anyone seeking or securing power."
Translation: We're as biased as a drug dealer. We'll take money from anyone and everyone, because revenue is all that matters.
Needless to say the government that runs on that capitalism wouldn't dare interfere. They recognize the hand that feeds them.
Greed is the only fucking reason this product still costs so much in the US. And regardless of how many people use insulin, diabetes is still one of the largest killers in our society. Get your fucking facts straight next time.
Diabetes isn't one of the largest killers in your society. That's heart disease, cancer and diseases related to weakened immune systems from secondary factors(old age, etc).
I didn't say it was our largest killer, I said it was one of our largest killers, and 80,000 deaths per year makes that fact pretty damn clear. It was ranked 7th on our list in 2014, and I doubt much has changed since then. And you haven't even identified our actual largest killer, which is a product we call cigarettes. Greed again clarifies why this top killer is a legal product today.
You're more likely to die of malaria in the US then diabetes.
You're really degrading your fact-checking capability now. There are less than 2,000 cases of malaria reported in the US each year. That's a far cry from diabetes.
FYI the reason it was sold for $1 wasn't because of a goodwill gesture, you should go read up some more about Frederick Banting and Rickard Macleod. There's far more to that story then you understand, or go take a trip to London, Ontario visit Banting House where they figured it all out.
This fact has already been clarified here, and $1 back in 1921 is as much of a goodwill gesture as $1000 would be today.
And before you or some sad AC troll replies with a "but u don't know anything about diabetics" or something else, I'll just add that having a sister who was a juvenile diabetic back in the 1980's, I do know a few things. You know those lovely 1980's where the child mortality rate from undiagnosed diabetes in young children still had a 50% death rate. Look at how far we've come, it's less then 5% now in the west...in 30 years.
My argument has nothing to do with how far we've come. My argument has to do with Greed, which adds to those 80,000 deaths per year. When people cannot afford the very chemical required to sustain life, it's a death sentence, which sadly still rings true today. You know this.
When you are trying to be a righteous asshole, the first step is to get your facts fucking right.
Most diabetics dont use insulin. Full fucking stop. Dipshit.
Almost a century ago, scientists discovered insulin, and found it could be used to treat diabetes. They sold that patented idea for $1 as a goodwill gesture because they knew their discovery could save millions of lives. Greed took over and turned insulin into a $24 billion dollar global industry by 2014, and it targeted to be almost a $50 billion dollar industry by 2020.
Greed is the only fucking reason this product still costs so much in the US. And regardless of how many people use insulin, diabetes is still one of the largest killers in our society. Get your fucking facts straight next time.
If this logic held true, diabetics would be able to buy insulin at the local dollar store, and QVC would be running a holiday special on cancer treatments.
The kneejerk America bashing gets so tiresome. Asbestos was originally banned in the US in 1989. Your joke is 28 years out of date. Get some new material.
No shit it was banned long ago. Clearly you failed to get the fucking joke that a 3-day celebration is about as relevant as France's 1-percent-impact announcement.
It was crystal clear which way it was going to go as soon as Trump announced it. All the protesting and wailing was just background noise.
If the leaders of a democracy are going to treat its citizens as mere background noise, then we no longer hold the status of a democracy, and should stop trying to proclaim we are.
DisneyFlix will only become a 'rival to Netflix' because Netflix is being forced to become less of an aggregator and more of a distributor of its own content. So Netflix will become worse and Disney will only fill the void for content owned by Disney.
First off, don't assume Netflix will become "worse". Disney is greedy enough that they'll likely release their streaming service in a tiered format, where they feel it right and proper to charge you a different rate based on their massive content portfolio (like charging you more to access "premium" Disney content). I'm certain by 2019 we'll be feeling the full fuck-up of the Net Neutrality dismantling, so tiered streaming services isn't far-fetched.
I'm not saying anything new here - but welcome to the world of paying for multiple streaming providers (or piracy).
Perhaps its time to think about some form of compulsory copyright licenses (as per music on the radio, or cable retransmissions).
It was best to think about these things well before government allowed massive monopolies like this to even exist. Today, it's far too late. The cable cutters who felt they were getting ripped off with 50 channels of what they want bundled with 500 channels of shit they don't will now pay a dozen streaming providers for the 50 streaming channels of what they want bundled with 50,000 streaming channels of shit they don't. The only difference is your internet service and streaming costs will likely make cable seem like a bargain in the end.
Good grief, why is that even a hard question? The answer is because it's not well explored, we as a civilization have always explored, and in the end have always ended up benefitting by doing so.
Untold riches await the explorer - either of the mind, or literal material riches.
The hard question is not figuring out why we are there, it's figuring out what the hell the delay is!
"Exploring" isn't what I would call going back to the lifeless wasteland we call the moon. If we want to explore something similar and save taxpayers a trillion or two, Death Valley would suffice.
And please feel free to elaborate what we truly got from visiting the moon other than the plant our flag there first. Seems we valued the rock collection so much that we've lost a good portion of it.
>I had never seen such single mindedness "my mind is made up don't confuse me with the facts" behaviour from US politicians.
This isn't ignorance, but deliberate lying. They know what will happen, it just happens to be in alignment with their desires.
This is what happens when you put a fox in charge of the hen house. When a bunch of rich people obviously want to reduce the impediments to getting richer and have a history of making moves in that direction, it's probably a bad idea to take them at their word when they say they're going to help you out at their expense.
(Rich People) "Trust us, we're here to help you."
The ignorance you claim isn't present is actually represented by 300 billion Americans, who fall for that shit every fucking time.
Slashdot Mirror
As much as I'm a fan of the Darwin Awards, common sense dictates we shouldn't allow that problem to merely sort itself out because innocent victims are often hurt and killed.
I think the term you're looking for is collateral damage.
Evolution isn't about who is right. It's about who is left.
Collateral damage is a metric used by military leaders in a warzone. It's not fitting for everyday life, and I highly doubt either of us would be that casual about it if a distracted driver hurt or killed a beloved family member.
Evolution is also about learning. We should learn to punish those who create innocent victims to help create a valid deterrent and minimize the damage. Doing nothing showcases stupidity and ignorance, which is not progress.
And Greed justifies making them illegal if they're not paying the lawmakers. Last I checked there was no specific tax on video games, so the fact that they're addictive is a bad thing. As soon as some lobbyist from Electronic Arts or Activision or Tencent decides to whisper in a senator's ear about taxing them pretty much all talk about video games being bad will be kiboshed.
That trick doesn't work for every product out there. Video games are a multi-billion dollar industry, and lawmakers know the capitalist hand that ultimately feeds them. Lawmakers should also realize the power of the internet, which allows a major game maker to take their entire operations (and revenue) offshore. One can download a game from any country rather easily.
So unless your goal as a criminal is to some day die with $$$$ in some unused Bitcoin account, you have exactly the same problem of money laundering as with every other currency.
Since when has the "problem" of money laundering been a valid deterrent? One would think this fact would have been rather obvious to anyone looking back over the last century of crime.
Any non-criminal merchant, whether it is an sports car seller or a pizza delivery, will not have any reason to help you with hiding your association with some Bitcoin account number.
Again, look at history. People who launder money get paid for taking that risk. They do it for the same greedy reasons anyone from petty criminals to big bankers (Wells Fargo) do unethical and illegal shit; because it's often worth it.
So all police needs to do is to follow back the chain of transactions from the first such legitimate merchant back to the first legal entity who would not want to reveal the source of the money, and jail them, either for money laundering, or for the theft of the money.
The ransomware problem is not shrinking because they've made some miracle breakthrough in law enforcement. Death by 1,000 cuts was effective in growing ransomware into a multi-billion dollar enterprise because a $300 ransom makes law enforcement give a shit about as much as reporting a stolen cell phone. The same thing will continue to happen with other crimes because there's never enough law enforcement resources. This fact will establish monetary give-a-shit thresholds that will be abused.
There's also the obvious problem of legal jurisdiction, which will become a loophole as big as Ireland, a country known for hiding trillions from taxation (funny how no one wants to fix that criminal activity). If other crimes continue, it won't be long before bitcoin finds or establishes its "Ireland."
...It's just a shame nobody seems to want to go after these corporations for the mess they're creating, because I think this is going to become a very serious issue in the near future and I doubt any of them are going to be held responsible for the things they know they're doing to their players.
Cigarettes and alcohol kill millions of humans every year, and yet both are legal products. Smartphone addiction and distracted driving creates deaths, and yet we continue with slap-on-the-wrist punishments to essentially dismiss it as a problem. Social media and streaming services create millions of addicts, and society accepts marketing these products to children.
Making a product highly addictive is always justified because of Greed.
Then it IS an occupation, not interfering with one. In our society it is okay for an occupation to interfere with everything else (health, relationships, etc).
I agree that health should always be considered a priority, but when it comes to "relationships", it's going to be rather hard to listen to the look-at-me generation of social media narcissists complain about that one gamer family member who doesn't spend enough time with them and has a "problem", as they sit on the other side of the room with their face buried in a smartphone, showcasing their own addiction.
"Smart" phone addiction. These pathetic retards can't put them down for even 2 minutes.
Smartphone addiction is so prevalent in society that your common sense suggestion was modded down. That's sad.
90% of society is a smartphone addict. When everyone acts the same, no one sees a problem, and attacks those that do point out the obvious.
And yes, I'll likely be modded down as well.
I mean, while we're at it, could we add clinging excessively to "social" media and constant gawking at your damn phone?
If only 10% of society were horribly addicted to social media who cannot be separated from their smartphones and electronic devices they abuse every waking hour of the day, then the other 90% of society would have no problem identifying the 10% as addicts who are harming themselves and others.
The REAL problem is we now have a society where 90% of people are horribly addicted to social media, who cannot be separated from their smartphones and electronic devices they abuse every waking hour of the day. It's like trying to tell society we have a problem with caffeine addiction. When damn near everyone is an addict, no one sees a problem.
I mean, the latter has a good chance of sorting itself out when you do it in halfway decent traffic, but the former does become an issue.
As much as I'm a fan of the Darwin Awards, common sense dictates we shouldn't allow that problem to merely sort itself out because innocent victims are often hurt and killed. Instead, we should be punishing those who drive distracted by not covering insurance claims, along with fines and punishments equal to driving under the influence. Perhaps then addicts will pull their head out of their ass and stop hurting innocent people. Maybe they'll like riding a bus for 6-12 months enough to stay there to keep their "drunk" ass away from me and my family on the road.
Intelligent people understand that Social Media has devolved into nothing more than a bullshit generator, and should be considered for entertainment purposes only.
Stupid people define Social Media as their only source of information, and it aligns directly with their own values due to targeted manipulation (also known as "advertising")
The real problem is Social Media has become stupidly profitable. Clicks are far more valuable than facts, which tends to validate how ignorance has taken over critical thought.
That said, I'm still laughing over the irony of a former POTUS warning about the dangers of Social Media, as if the very government he used to lead doesn't value offensive counterintelligence (also known as "fake news")...
It is also illegal.
Nope, it's not.
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
I see you've read Coinage Act of 1965. Now the question is have you actually read what is printed on the front of ALL US currency?
"THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"
It's practically a contract written directly on the damn money we're debating about. Tends to make you wonder who's actually in the wrong here.
"Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the [overpriced prescription] version"
Translation: Doctors get a kickback from prescribing a vitamin. Clueless patients fill the prescription and send it to their insurance. Everybody loses except doctors and drug companies.
"approved by the US Food and Drug Administration"
Translation: FDA approved vitamins that other vitamin manufacturers either cant get approval for or have to spend a fortune to get.
So drug company gets a government monopoly on a vitamin that doctors are all too eager to prescribe to their patients for $300 a pop.
If my doctor "prescribes" a compound that is available over the counter as a vitamin, then I'll be damned if I'm going to be stupid enough to spend hundreds on "prescription" strength. It's not like you're going to die if you consume too much niacin (my daily multivitamin has 150% of the recommended daily value).
This is only a monopoly on those ignorant enough to fall for it.
I didn't say it was our largest killer, I said it was one of our largest killers, and 80,000 deaths per year makes that fact pretty damn clear. It was ranked 7th on our list in 2014, and I doubt much has changed since then. And you haven't even identified our actual largest killer, which is a product we call cigarettes. Greed again clarifies why this top killer is a legal product today. You're really degrading your fact-checking capability now. There are less than 2,000 cases of malaria reported in the US each year. That's a far cry from diabetes.
Except that your actual largest killer isn't cigarettes. It's not even the underlying cause. More people die from strokes unrelated to smoking then strokes directly related to smoking. You should probably look up those stats a bit more.
The CDC still classifies cigarettes/tobacco use as the #1 cause of preventable death. Smoking causes heart disease and cancer, and with over 400,000 deaths per year, it's pretty safe to say it's one hell of a contributor to our top killers as an "underlying" cause. Little point in splitting hairs over that.
My argument has to do with Greed, which adds to those 80,000 deaths per year. When people cannot afford the very chemical required to sustain life, it's a death sentence, which sadly still rings true today. You know this
Except it's not. Those 80k deaths are not the primary cause, it's an underlying cause. It's not even secondary, it's usually 3rd or 4th underlying. Now here's the interesting party, you can bet that many of those people are on insulin. Many of those people simply didn't or refused to take actual care of themselves. I know diabetics that are in their 30's and have lost fingers, toes, feet, an entire leg all because of their own lack of action, or because they simply didn't care. Either not eating right, not caring to take insulin, eating foods that spike their blood sugar, and so on.
Given your logic, you would also argue that it wasn't the drugs or obesity that killed Elvis, it was a toilet that did him in. Go argue with the CDC and their facts when it comes to deaths directly attributed to diabetes. No shit people die from not taking care of themselves; diabetes is literally caused by not taking care of yourself. It's completely preventable in the vast majority of people. Needless to say, laziness and don't-give-a-shit syndrome aren't tracked by the CDC/WHO. If they were, it would be the overwhelming cause of death for all humans by a long shot.
So....Facebook basically offers a service to organizations that will guide and train them to use features of Facebook. Don't a lot of large companies offer training services to users of their product(s)?
(Customer) "How does your product work?"
(Facebook) "Your advertising will be seen by 2 billion idiots daily, the largest in the known universe. We specialize in viral manipulation of the masses. Fact-checking is optional."
(Customer) "I believe a blank check is too slow. Here's my bank routing number, account number, and password. Take whatever you need."
Evil is subjective, but when revenue is all that matters, ethics goes out the fucking window.
What we need is 100% net neutrality that extends from layer 1 of the OSI model up to layer 7.
That means there would be neutrality at the Network layer, when it comes to packets. It would also mean that there'd be neutrality at the Application layer, as well, where we classify social media platforms.
I classify all social media platforms equally just fine now. They're nothing more than portals that feed the look-at-me generation of social media junkies addicted to narcissism. I wouldn't dare consider them a "news" outlet by any means. Intelligent people understand this, and do not need more regulation.
Besides, only 0.001% of society would even be able to grasp what the fuck you're talking about as you petition for "Application-layer Net Neutrality". Championing that would fall on deaf and dumb ears.
"The initiative is run by a little-known Facebook global government and politics team that's neutral in that it works with nearly anyone seeking or securing power."
Translation: We're as biased as a drug dealer. We'll take money from anyone and everyone, because revenue is all that matters.
Needless to say the government that runs on that capitalism wouldn't dare interfere. They recognize the hand that feeds them.
Greed is the only fucking reason this product still costs so much in the US. And regardless of how many people use insulin, diabetes is still one of the largest killers in our society. Get your fucking facts straight next time.
Diabetes isn't one of the largest killers in your society. That's heart disease, cancer and diseases related to weakened immune systems from secondary factors(old age, etc).
I didn't say it was our largest killer, I said it was one of our largest killers, and 80,000 deaths per year makes that fact pretty damn clear. It was ranked 7th on our list in 2014, and I doubt much has changed since then. And you haven't even identified our actual largest killer, which is a product we call cigarettes. Greed again clarifies why this top killer is a legal product today.
You're more likely to die of malaria in the US then diabetes.
You're really degrading your fact-checking capability now. There are less than 2,000 cases of malaria reported in the US each year. That's a far cry from diabetes.
FYI the reason it was sold for $1 wasn't because of a goodwill gesture, you should go read up some more about Frederick Banting and Rickard Macleod. There's far more to that story then you understand, or go take a trip to London, Ontario visit Banting House where they figured it all out.
This fact has already been clarified here, and $1 back in 1921 is as much of a goodwill gesture as $1000 would be today.
https://www.healio.com/hematology-oncology/news/print/hemonc-today/%7Bb3848683-e962-43ac-b23b-5b2c10f711a8%7D/frederick-banting-discovered-insulin-in-1921
And before you or some sad AC troll replies with a "but u don't know anything about diabetics" or something else, I'll just add that having a sister who was a juvenile diabetic back in the 1980's, I do know a few things. You know those lovely 1980's where the child mortality rate from undiagnosed diabetes in young children still had a 50% death rate. Look at how far we've come, it's less then 5% now in the west...in 30 years.
My argument has nothing to do with how far we've come. My argument has to do with Greed, which adds to those 80,000 deaths per year. When people cannot afford the very chemical required to sustain life, it's a death sentence, which sadly still rings true today. You know this.
When you are trying to be a righteous asshole, the first step is to get your facts fucking right. Most diabetics dont use insulin. Full fucking stop. Dipshit.
Almost a century ago, scientists discovered insulin, and found it could be used to treat diabetes. They sold that patented idea for $1 as a goodwill gesture because they knew their discovery could save millions of lives. Greed took over and turned insulin into a $24 billion dollar global industry by 2014, and it targeted to be almost a $50 billion dollar industry by 2020.
Greed is the only fucking reason this product still costs so much in the US. And regardless of how many people use insulin, diabetes is still one of the largest killers in our society. Get your fucking facts straight next time.
First steps are always expensive.
If this logic held true, diabetics would be able to buy insulin at the local dollar store, and QVC would be running a holiday special on cancer treatments.
"The approval signals a new era for gene therapy...likely to cost as much as $1 million for both eyes."
When a solution that affects many is only affordable for the few, the only thing it signals is a new era of Greed.
The kneejerk America bashing gets so tiresome. Asbestos was originally banned in the US in 1989. Your joke is 28 years out of date. Get some new material.
No shit it was banned long ago. Clearly you failed to get the fucking joke that a 3-day celebration is about as relevant as France's 1-percent-impact announcement.
"...it is largely symbolic since oil and gas produced in France accounts for just 1 percent of domestic consumption."
So, France has essentially made a promise to fulfill almost two decades from now that changes damn near nothing, and they're expecting praise?
This is like watching the United States hold a 3-day celebration after announcing a ban on asbestos in new home construction.
you'd be better off petitioning your local government to open the local loop to competition. not everything has to be done at the federal level...
100 million Americans have but one provider to choose from. Google is struggling to compete.
Petitioning at the local government level is akin to pissing in a strong wind with your mouth wide open.
Was anybody actually surprised by the vote?
It was crystal clear which way it was going to go as soon as Trump announced it. All the protesting and wailing was just background noise.
If the leaders of a democracy are going to treat its citizens as mere background noise, then we no longer hold the status of a democracy, and should stop trying to proclaim we are.
DisneyFlix will only become a 'rival to Netflix' because Netflix is being forced to become less of an aggregator and more of a distributor of its own content. So Netflix will become worse and Disney will only fill the void for content owned by Disney.
First off, don't assume Netflix will become "worse". Disney is greedy enough that they'll likely release their streaming service in a tiered format, where they feel it right and proper to charge you a different rate based on their massive content portfolio (like charging you more to access "premium" Disney content). I'm certain by 2019 we'll be feeling the full fuck-up of the Net Neutrality dismantling, so tiered streaming services isn't far-fetched.
I'm not saying anything new here - but welcome to the world of paying for multiple streaming providers (or piracy).
Perhaps its time to think about some form of compulsory copyright licenses (as per music on the radio, or cable retransmissions).
It was best to think about these things well before government allowed massive monopolies like this to even exist. Today, it's far too late. The cable cutters who felt they were getting ripped off with 50 channels of what they want bundled with 500 channels of shit they don't will now pay a dozen streaming providers for the 50 streaming channels of what they want bundled with 50,000 streaming channels of shit they don't. The only difference is your internet service and streaming costs will likely make cable seem like a bargain in the end.
the hard part is figuring out why we're there.
Good grief, why is that even a hard question? The answer is because it's not well explored, we as a civilization have always explored, and in the end have always ended up benefitting by doing so.
Untold riches await the explorer - either of the mind, or literal material riches.
The hard question is not figuring out why we are there, it's figuring out what the hell the delay is!
"Exploring" isn't what I would call going back to the lifeless wasteland we call the moon. If we want to explore something similar and save taxpayers a trillion or two, Death Valley would suffice.
And please feel free to elaborate what we truly got from visiting the moon other than the plant our flag there first. Seems we valued the rock collection so much that we've lost a good portion of it.
>I had never seen such single mindedness "my mind is made up don't confuse me with the facts" behaviour from US politicians.
This isn't ignorance, but deliberate lying. They know what will happen, it just happens to be in alignment with their desires.
This is what happens when you put a fox in charge of the hen house. When a bunch of rich people obviously want to reduce the impediments to getting richer and have a history of making moves in that direction, it's probably a bad idea to take them at their word when they say they're going to help you out at their expense.
(Rich People) "Trust us, we're here to help you."
The ignorance you claim isn't present is actually represented by 300 billion Americans, who fall for that shit every fucking time.