No. This would be like proving that 80% of TV ads cause voice-simulation-robots to dial the phone number on the screen. Your analogy also misses that the network is charging for the original ad, based on length and broadcast time, NOT per call about the advertised company/product.
The difference is that someone, somewhere, for some reason, is artificially driving up per-click costs for companies that participate in Facebook's advertising schemes. You would be completely correct if the Facebook ad banner had a pre-determined, up-front cost, like TV and radio ads do.
If it's mostly bots, then the amount advertisers are willing to pay will go down in proportion to how much bot "views" go up (or as people simply grow insensitive to the ads, or don't have enough disposable income to buy the product, etc etc).
Market forces? Maybe over the long run, but that doesn't mean companies aren't getting SCREWED by this right now (it's blatantly unethical, and probably illegal). How many companies would just herp-derp along, paying 80% too much for their ad space? This company wisely put a very basic test in place (one that FB really should be implementing prior to sending the click; in fact, Google has been doing this for years).
The fact that 80% users were coming in with JavaScript off was merely a clue. The company's staff were used to 1-2% of users coming in with JS off, which sounds fairly reasonable to me. The discrepancy raised a big red flag.
They then decided to put a logger on the site to track where the users were coming in from and what they were doing. From this, they determined 80% of the clicks from FB were bots.
Others have also done these types of analytics in regards to Facebook, with results in the 70%-are-bots range.
Here's a quote from the LA Times blog article (admittedly, it is pretty poorly edited):
In a Facebook status post as well as a blog posted Monday, Limited Run said it built its own analytics program, which found that 80% of its ad clicks were coming from users with JavaScript turned off, which makes it difficult for analytics software to verify clicks. The company added that in its staff's experience, only about 1% to 2% of clicks typically come with JavaScript turned off.
As a result, the company built a page logger on its site, and that led the company to find that all those clicks were coming from bots.
I suppose all of this could be bunk, but it sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Depreciation the moment you drive it off the lot? There is absolutely nothing logical about that, financially. A car is not an investment, it is a purchase. The way way to justify purchasing a new car is if you are willing to pay a very high price to (as you say) avoid hassle, find features, design, cleanliness, brand, model wanted, etc, in addition to all the other reasons people buy expensive things.
I'd also argue that things like avoiding hassle and finding features you want isn't a guarantee at a dealership, either, even if you're willing to pay for them. High pressure sales is not something most people like to deal with - spending the time to find and buy a well-loved used car (2-3 years old, or 10, depending what I'm looking for) is an order of magnitude more satisfying to me than driving a new shiny off the lot, losing 10 grand the moment I do. Maybe it's because my uncle and grandfather owned and ran a Ford dealership in Idaho, where I got to see some inside stuff, but I just don't trust them very much.
Your mathematical formula of New_Subaru == 4_Year_Old_Subaru + $3000 doesn't appear to be true. The average yearly depreciation of a car is $3392 (http://www.buyingadvice.com/featured-car-articles/ownership-survey/). Subaru may hold value better than most cars, but I'd be surprised if deprecation was only $800 year, and the first month you own a car is the bitchslap anyway.
For most people I've ever talked to, cost is not *the only* factor that matters for transportation for them.
This is the key. There are benefits to buying new, in terms maintenance, freebies that come with it, status of owning brand new, and just general pride in your new purchase. Most people have to be at a comfortable income level to decide these benefits are worth the loss. I always find it interesting that people who buy new cars don't simply lease more often; it's all the major benefits of owning a new car, with the ability to trade in for a new shiny every few years.
Agreed. The focus should be on improving quality and expectancy of life, for all people. I don't fear mass extinctions except in a few distinct cases (asteroid strikes, global pandemic, etc). Global warming and climate change may cause a drastic change of life for us all, and it will suck bad, but I don't see extinction level event.
All that said, yup, there's a lot we can do to improve life for the people who do live here, and we should strive to do so. All of us atheists get it, and most religious folks do too; you don't do the right thing out of fear of the whip, you do it because it's the right thing to do (the Golden Rule is the ONLY tautology I subscribe to).
This isn't always true. Often religious beliefs factor in. I know a great many Mormon and Catholic families that pump em out like turnip factories, yet these people can afford all college tuition, cars, clothes, etc for all their children.
Granted, I'm sure they get some pretty significant tax breaks, but they are by no means the dumbest *well, in terms of marketable intelligence; why anyone would WANT 8 kids is beyond me) and/or poorest.
Here's why I'm happy with my two: my family fits in all Disneyland rides, we all get window seats on long drives, we fit in booths properly at restaurants, and when my lovely wife (their stepmom) and I grow too old wipe, we each get a free nurse. THAT is family planning, baby.
I *think* he's trying to point out two different measurements.
First, you have the subset of people who own the top echelon of the world's wealth (though this measurement is far easier to parse as owners of 99% of all wealth instead of the top 1% of wealth owners; I digress). Second, you have the 1% of the population that have the highest net worth. These two numbers are not necessarily the same; I'd think the first group is far larger than the second, but I'm not really sure.
Exactly *why* he believes the phrase "the 1%" refers to that first group of people, I can't tell you. I always understood it to meant that 1% of the population controlled more wealth than the other 99% (as an extreme symbol, anyway; I don't believe this is strictly true based on the numbers I've seen). I believe most people understand the phrase to mean this subset of the population.
The software equivalent to this case would be using Apple's trademark.... apple.... for a book-cover, with said book having nothing to do with Apple equipment, other than he used a Mac to help him with a piano.
In other words, there IS no software comparison (as software would be copyright, not trademark, infringement), and the closest you can come to an analogy is the exact same scenario with two different parties.
The author wanted to attribute some of his book's success to Jack Daniels, which they understood, and responded with an understanding and helpful letter explaining why this would not be appreciated, with an offer of help to make the requested changes. In other words, JD didn't see the author as a thief, but took a moment to understand the situation, and responded accordingly.
How the *fuck* can you misconstrue this into a bullying bad thing?
I agree with you, but this is an argument against the cost/value ratio of the verification process, not an argument against him having to pay for verification: Round Two.
Unfortunately, them's the rules he agreed to, and he could have saved himself the second set of fees (or the loss of goodwill suffered by not patching properly, if he decides not to) had he tested the patch properly prior to submission to MSFT.
As many others have said, had he released on PC, none of this would have been an issue. Although, he'd probably have had to advertise more heavily. All these factors should have been weighed.
You're right, but only because some developers of buggy code are unwilling to take responsibility for their mistakes (or, preferably, avoid them in the first place).
More generally, fear of having to pay for a mistake encourages people to either hide or ignore a mistake. This doesn't make it any less silly for Microsoft to subsidize other peoples' mistakes. Also, MS *will* have to re-verify the newly corrected patch. Why should verification be free this time?
Maybe MS could lower the cost of verification altogether, but they shouldn't make subsequent verification cheaper; all THAT would do is make end-users beta testers.
I would imagine that Microsoft verifies patch releases with regards to the Xbox platform itself, and all its sub-systems, but does not extend to what happens when the patch is applied to a 3rd party developer's game.
In other words, MS verified it didn't break the Xbox, so it goes live. Oh, it broke the game? Well, fix the patch, learn a lesson in proper patch QA, and submit the new patch for re-verification. That's the way it SHOULD work.
I used to deal with this all the time at a previous position; we would intensely verify that a 3rd party patch would not tear down our Unix platforms prior to release. Those platforms were our company's lifeblood, and keeping them safe was 90% of my job. That doesn't mean I can (or care to) test whether a software update that my guys didn't write for an application we don't control had the developer's intended effect on their software. And yes, if the 3rd party changed their patch, we *would* require re-verification it before pushing it out again. You simply do not release untested software onto production servers. I don't care if some programmer protests "all I did was change a variable name and recompile!"; it's still gonna get re-verified prior to release.
I don't think Microsoft is in the wrong on this one; re-verification should be charged. Now, you may have a case if you consider the verification fee to be exorbitant.
Chris Whalen, senior managing director of Tangent Capital Partners in New York City, told the Free Beacon that he thought the group of investors was probably motivated by “relatively altruistic reasons”—trying to alleviate the housing crisis in the region—but acknowledged that the use of eminent domain was a “a pretty a extreme way to deal with it.”
This still misses the point, though. We're not talking about someone who's purchasing a new vehicle. We're talking about a project that tests the viability of a hybrid SUV. If they can succeed, and the hybrid SUV is *more* efficient than a diesel SUV, 10 years down the line you may be recommending that vehicle instead of the Taureg.
This, definitely. If SUVs were required to be as efficient as cars, the research the submitter is performing would be more widespread. It's really a question of "Why would we spend money researching efficiency if we are not required to?"
From a business standpoint, dollars have more immediate effect than ethical or environmental concerns.
You guys will note that they don't mention cost, other than to help get going. The project seems rudimentary and prototypical; they want to see if they can do it, and then refine it, and then mass produce it. I'm hoping they can succeed and get the costs down somehow.
He pretty clearly stated why they're using an SUV, and I applaud his thinking. Since so many people want the SUV "feel", if he can succeed in this it could herald a major step forward.
It doesn't matter what you think people "need". The "need" behind an SUV is often simply the desire to own a large vehicle. Since that's the case, why *not* try to succeed with a big old truck with crappy aerodynamics and weight ratios? It seems FAR more likely that this generation of soccer moms (who have access to Suburbans and Expeditions) will switch to an electric/diesel hybrid SUV than to a Prius.
Uh, did you even read my post? I didn't claim anything of the sort; I claimed the opposite. Godwin's Law isn't even a category of logical fallacy; it's a snarky joke about how all arguments will degenerate into discussions of Hitler and Nazis, at which point the argument has zero value.
Let me quote the line in question for you, with emphasis added this time. Do keep in mind that it was presented half-jokingly, half-sadly, and half-seriously (for a total of 1 and 1-half halves!).
...the biggest roadblock for change is that none of us can discuss the issues, since Godwin almost always rears his ugly head the moment the word "oppression" comes into play.
It was my intention to state the same thing you just did. The application of Godwin's law, invoked either implicitly (i.e. "America is NOTHING like Germany, you fool!") or explicitly (i.e. "Your argument is invalid because you compared America to Hitler, hippie!.") derails conversation about where the United States is now, and just as importantly, where it may be heading, and this invocation is indeed a problem in this dialogue. Most comparisons of our current state of affairs to Nazi Germany claim our government commits similar but (currently) less obvious or egregious actions. Indeed, the whole point is to say "the similarities between the two scenarios are starting to get scary, so we should do something while we still can."
Perhaps you are so annoyed by mere mention of Godwin's law that it causes you to argue against people who agree with you? Even when they are pointing out that Godwin's law is a pretty shitty "law" when the conversation is actually related in some way to Nazi Germany? You should get that checked that out.:)
Slippery slope actually IS a logical fallacy, but Mr. Reindeer didn't appeal to a slippery slope logical argument to assert a claim. Like you, I believe his post was spot on.
It's much different to say "I've seen these regrettable changes over my lifetime, and am not only worried I won't seem them undone, but I also worry it will get worse unless we curtail the trend we've been on." than "Past data guarantees a future trend of NAZIS!"
On a related note, the biggest roadblock for change is that none of us can discuss the issues, since Godwin almost always rears his ugly head the moment the word "oppression" comes into play.
Really, how many of you have been stopped at government checkpoints and asked to show your papers (except when leaving the country)?
Aside from the obvious of air travel (which also includes a quick fondle along with the paperwork), how about these? DUI checkpoints, local department of alcoholic beverage stores, any time I enter a government building for any reason, etc. Maybe those aren't all checkpoints, but the point is I have to have proof I'm allowed to be where I want to go. That's just me, as a normal white fellow. You toss in a Mexican woman with a heavy accent, citizen or not, and the complications quadruple.
Further, if you failed to supply papers, were you under threat of arrest?
Arrests? Probably not, so long as I don't get upset at the way I'm treated. If I do get angry and want to argue about the situation, all bets are off. Citations and fines, though? You betcha, at a peace officer's sole discretion.
How many of you have had your entire families deported or locked-up because of their religions or their views of the government?
I'd say ask Nadia Habib, among others: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/college-student-wins-reprieve-from-deportation-to-bangladesh.html. She can stay.... for now. Even her reprieve was hard fought, and precarious. Many others get shipped out every day. Sure, immigration and undocumented and blah blah, but the fact is a LOT of these people have called the U.S. home for longer than their country of birth. Make em pay taxes, or exempt them from public services for a period of time to make up for being here illegally so long, or do whatever feels equitable to allow them to stay in their home, but to punt em back to a country they don't even know? Pretty harsh.
Can I call the feds and report my neighbor for being a collaborator if I want his house?
Yessir, you can. He looks an awful lot like he's an undocumented illegal who beats his kids, to me. Better get INS and the Neighborhood Watch on the case. Zing! Of course you don't get the house, but you can definitely screw a family up if you really want to plug away at it.
Now, of course you are correct that this is a pale and forced comparison to Nazi Germany, or Stalin's Russia, in terms of scale and intent. It's not even *close*. The analogy actually undermines the argument that we're losing our freedom, as it makes our situation here look pretty damned good by historical comparison. Even so, some of the things that made Nazi Germany such a terrible regime actually are happening here, albeit much less aggressively.
The crux of the issue: our country is getting cumulatively more restrictive, and it fucking sucks. Just getting through the daily shit I have to do is 10 times more a pain in the ass than it was for my grandparents, and it appears to be getting worse, albeit in fits and starts. As individuals, we haven't really lost all that many freedoms, but many freedoms that were previously a simple given now require upkeep and diligence or we risk losing "access" to them. Some people argue that "this is where tyranny begins." I'm arguing that the here and now is shitty enough to warrant change, whether or not we're on a path to tyranny.
Why don't we look at The Problem. There are TOO FUCKING MANY PEOPLE
Right on. First shuttle to the sun will be at your place in 5; don't worry about packing anything.
Your argument can be stated identically with this statement: "There are TOO FEW RESOURCES." You can't go culling wide swaths of people or magically increasing on-hand resources. Besides, as geekoid says below, it's a matter of logistics, which is something we *can* begin to address. We can also begin to address education in family planning and increases in resource acquisition, but this is a very long-term proposition. At least a generation; more probably several, if it even works. Regardless, yelling about how many people we have, or how few resources we have, is a "The barn door's already open." situation.
The solution is 3 pronged: 1) Progressively waste less. 2) Progressively increase logistical efficiency. 3) Progressively develop and exploit high-yield and renewable resources. It's not all doom and gloom, because we are already doing this in a great many industries, and companies have even found it profitable in many cases. I think we should be focusing on business success in this area just as much as we focus on business failure, but I guess a news story on "ABC Corp increased efficiency of XYZ production by 400% this quarter" isn't as interesting as "BCA Corp used up ALL the whales."
Your second and third paragraphs are spot on, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point. Math is hard. :)
The difference is that someone, somewhere, for some reason, is artificially driving up per-click costs for companies that participate in Facebook's advertising schemes. You would be completely correct if the Facebook ad banner had a pre-determined, up-front cost, like TV and radio ads do.
If it's mostly bots, then the amount advertisers are willing to pay will go down in proportion to how much bot "views" go up (or as people simply grow insensitive to the ads, or don't have enough disposable income to buy the product, etc etc).
Market forces? Maybe over the long run, but that doesn't mean companies aren't getting SCREWED by this right now (it's blatantly unethical, and probably illegal). How many companies would just herp-derp along, paying 80% too much for their ad space? This company wisely put a very basic test in place (one that FB really should be implementing prior to sending the click; in fact, Google has been doing this for years).
They then decided to put a logger on the site to track where the users were coming in from and what they were doing. From this, they determined 80% of the clicks from FB were bots.
Others have also done these types of analytics in regards to Facebook, with results in the 70%-are-bots range.
Here's a quote from the LA Times blog article (admittedly, it is pretty poorly edited):
In a Facebook status post as well as a blog posted Monday, Limited Run said it built its own analytics program, which found that 80% of its ad clicks were coming from users with JavaScript turned off, which makes it difficult for analytics software to verify clicks. The company added that in its staff's experience, only about 1% to 2% of clicks typically come with JavaScript turned off. As a result, the company built a page logger on its site, and that led the company to find that all those clicks were coming from bots.
I suppose all of this could be bunk, but it sounds pretty reasonable to me.
I'd also argue that things like avoiding hassle and finding features you want isn't a guarantee at a dealership, either, even if you're willing to pay for them. High pressure sales is not something most people like to deal with - spending the time to find and buy a well-loved used car (2-3 years old, or 10, depending what I'm looking for) is an order of magnitude more satisfying to me than driving a new shiny off the lot, losing 10 grand the moment I do. Maybe it's because my uncle and grandfather owned and ran a Ford dealership in Idaho, where I got to see some inside stuff, but I just don't trust them very much.
Your mathematical formula of New_Subaru == 4_Year_Old_Subaru + $3000 doesn't appear to be true. The average yearly depreciation of a car is $3392 (http://www.buyingadvice.com/featured-car-articles/ownership-survey/). Subaru may hold value better than most cars, but I'd be surprised if deprecation was only $800 year, and the first month you own a car is the bitchslap anyway.
For most people I've ever talked to, cost is not *the only* factor that matters for transportation for them.
This is the key. There are benefits to buying new, in terms maintenance, freebies that come with it, status of owning brand new, and just general pride in your new purchase. Most people have to be at a comfortable income level to decide these benefits are worth the loss. I always find it interesting that people who buy new cars don't simply lease more often; it's all the major benefits of owning a new car, with the ability to trade in for a new shiny every few years.
I figured some people just wouldn't understand.
Now I have to execute a deep, soul-wrenching sigh of superiority and contempt.
I set em up, you knock em down. ;)
I guess maybe I'm a kind of hipster nerd.
I've never heard of this.
Agreed. The focus should be on improving quality and expectancy of life, for all people. I don't fear mass extinctions except in a few distinct cases (asteroid strikes, global pandemic, etc). Global warming and climate change may cause a drastic change of life for us all, and it will suck bad, but I don't see extinction level event.
All that said, yup, there's a lot we can do to improve life for the people who do live here, and we should strive to do so. All of us atheists get it, and most religious folks do too; you don't do the right thing out of fear of the whip, you do it because it's the right thing to do (the Golden Rule is the ONLY tautology I subscribe to).
What if we gave you a button you thought did this? Would you push it and shut the fuck up?
This isn't always true. Often religious beliefs factor in. I know a great many Mormon and Catholic families that pump em out like turnip factories, yet these people can afford all college tuition, cars, clothes, etc for all their children.
Granted, I'm sure they get some pretty significant tax breaks, but they are by no means the dumbest *well, in terms of marketable intelligence; why anyone would WANT 8 kids is beyond me) and/or poorest.
Here's why I'm happy with my two: my family fits in all Disneyland rides, we all get window seats on long drives, we fit in booths properly at restaurants, and when my lovely wife (their stepmom) and I grow too old wipe, we each get a free nurse. THAT is family planning, baby.
I *think* he's trying to point out two different measurements.
First, you have the subset of people who own the top echelon of the world's wealth (though this measurement is far easier to parse as owners of 99% of all wealth instead of the top 1% of wealth owners; I digress). Second, you have the 1% of the population that have the highest net worth. These two numbers are not necessarily the same; I'd think the first group is far larger than the second, but I'm not really sure.
Exactly *why* he believes the phrase "the 1%" refers to that first group of people, I can't tell you. I always understood it to meant that 1% of the population controlled more wealth than the other 99% (as an extreme symbol, anyway; I don't believe this is strictly true based on the numbers I've seen). I believe most people understand the phrase to mean this subset of the population.
The software equivalent to this case would be using Apple's trademark.... apple.... for a book-cover, with said book having nothing to do with Apple equipment, other than he used a Mac to help him with a piano.
In other words, there IS no software comparison (as software would be copyright, not trademark, infringement), and the closest you can come to an analogy is the exact same scenario with two different parties.
The author wanted to attribute some of his book's success to Jack Daniels, which they understood, and responded with an understanding and helpful letter explaining why this would not be appreciated, with an offer of help to make the requested changes. In other words, JD didn't see the author as a thief, but took a moment to understand the situation, and responded accordingly.
How the *fuck* can you misconstrue this into a bullying bad thing?
I'd feel better about *any* purchase I make if the seller is classy. If I buy a lawnmower, or a backhoe, I'm a classy and respectful buyer.
Are you saying that there are items that only sell if the provider is inherently dick-ish? Because I absolutely do not believe that.
I agree with you, but this is an argument against the cost/value ratio of the verification process, not an argument against him having to pay for verification: Round Two.
Unfortunately, them's the rules he agreed to, and he could have saved himself the second set of fees (or the loss of goodwill suffered by not patching properly, if he decides not to) had he tested the patch properly prior to submission to MSFT.
As many others have said, had he released on PC, none of this would have been an issue. Although, he'd probably have had to advertise more heavily. All these factors should have been weighed.
You're right, but only because some developers of buggy code are unwilling to take responsibility for their mistakes (or, preferably, avoid them in the first place).
More generally, fear of having to pay for a mistake encourages people to either hide or ignore a mistake. This doesn't make it any less silly for Microsoft to subsidize other peoples' mistakes. Also, MS *will* have to re-verify the newly corrected patch. Why should verification be free this time?
Maybe MS could lower the cost of verification altogether, but they shouldn't make subsequent verification cheaper; all THAT would do is make end-users beta testers.
I would imagine that Microsoft verifies patch releases with regards to the Xbox platform itself, and all its sub-systems, but does not extend to what happens when the patch is applied to a 3rd party developer's game.
In other words, MS verified it didn't break the Xbox, so it goes live. Oh, it broke the game? Well, fix the patch, learn a lesson in proper patch QA, and submit the new patch for re-verification. That's the way it SHOULD work.
I used to deal with this all the time at a previous position; we would intensely verify that a 3rd party patch would not tear down our Unix platforms prior to release. Those platforms were our company's lifeblood, and keeping them safe was 90% of my job. That doesn't mean I can (or care to) test whether a software update that my guys didn't write for an application we don't control had the developer's intended effect on their software. And yes, if the 3rd party changed their patch, we *would* require re-verification it before pushing it out again. You simply do not release untested software onto production servers. I don't care if some programmer protests "all I did was change a variable name and recompile!"; it's still gonna get re-verified prior to release.
I don't think Microsoft is in the wrong on this one; re-verification should be charged. Now, you may have a case if you consider the verification fee to be exorbitant.
Chris Whalen, senior managing director of Tangent Capital Partners in New York City, told the Free Beacon that he thought the group of investors was probably motivated by “relatively altruistic reasons”—trying to alleviate the housing crisis in the region—but acknowledged that the use of eminent domain was a “a pretty a extreme way to deal with it.”
Riiiight.
This still misses the point, though. We're not talking about someone who's purchasing a new vehicle. We're talking about a project that tests the viability of a hybrid SUV. If they can succeed, and the hybrid SUV is *more* efficient than a diesel SUV, 10 years down the line you may be recommending that vehicle instead of the Taureg.
This, definitely. If SUVs were required to be as efficient as cars, the research the submitter is performing would be more widespread. It's really a question of "Why would we spend money researching efficiency if we are not required to?"
From a business standpoint, dollars have more immediate effect than ethical or environmental concerns.
You guys will note that they don't mention cost, other than to help get going. The project seems rudimentary and prototypical; they want to see if they can do it, and then refine it, and then mass produce it. I'm hoping they can succeed and get the costs down somehow.
He pretty clearly stated why they're using an SUV, and I applaud his thinking. Since so many people want the SUV "feel", if he can succeed in this it could herald a major step forward.
It doesn't matter what you think people "need". The "need" behind an SUV is often simply the desire to own a large vehicle. Since that's the case, why *not* try to succeed with a big old truck with crappy aerodynamics and weight ratios? It seems FAR more likely that this generation of soccer moms (who have access to Suburbans and Expeditions) will switch to an electric/diesel hybrid SUV than to a Prius.
Let me quote the line in question for you, with emphasis added this time. Do keep in mind that it was presented half-jokingly, half-sadly, and half-seriously (for a total of 1 and 1-half halves!).
...the biggest roadblock for change is that none of us can discuss the issues, since Godwin almost always rears his ugly head the moment the word "oppression" comes into play.
It was my intention to state the same thing you just did. The application of Godwin's law, invoked either implicitly (i.e. "America is NOTHING like Germany, you fool!") or explicitly (i.e. "Your argument is invalid because you compared America to Hitler, hippie!.") derails conversation about where the United States is now, and just as importantly, where it may be heading, and this invocation is indeed a problem in this dialogue. Most comparisons of our current state of affairs to Nazi Germany claim our government commits similar but (currently) less obvious or egregious actions. Indeed, the whole point is to say "the similarities between the two scenarios are starting to get scary, so we should do something while we still can."
:)
Perhaps you are so annoyed by mere mention of Godwin's law that it causes you to argue against people who agree with you? Even when they are pointing out that Godwin's law is a pretty shitty "law" when the conversation is actually related in some way to Nazi Germany? You should get that checked that out.
Slippery slope actually IS a logical fallacy, but Mr. Reindeer didn't appeal to a slippery slope logical argument to assert a claim. Like you, I believe his post was spot on.
It's much different to say "I've seen these regrettable changes over my lifetime, and am not only worried I won't seem them undone, but I also worry it will get worse unless we curtail the trend we've been on." than "Past data guarantees a future trend of NAZIS!"
On a related note, the biggest roadblock for change is that none of us can discuss the issues, since Godwin almost always rears his ugly head the moment the word "oppression" comes into play.
Really, how many of you have been stopped at government checkpoints and asked to show your papers (except when leaving the country)?
Aside from the obvious of air travel (which also includes a quick fondle along with the paperwork), how about these? DUI checkpoints, local department of alcoholic beverage stores, any time I enter a government building for any reason, etc. Maybe those aren't all checkpoints, but the point is I have to have proof I'm allowed to be where I want to go. That's just me, as a normal white fellow. You toss in a Mexican woman with a heavy accent, citizen or not, and the complications quadruple.
Further, if you failed to supply papers, were you under threat of arrest?
Arrests? Probably not, so long as I don't get upset at the way I'm treated. If I do get angry and want to argue about the situation, all bets are off. Citations and fines, though? You betcha, at a peace officer's sole discretion.
How many of you have had your entire families deported or locked-up because of their religions or their views of the government?
I'd say ask Nadia Habib, among others: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/college-student-wins-reprieve-from-deportation-to-bangladesh.html. She can stay.... for now. Even her reprieve was hard fought, and precarious. Many others get shipped out every day. Sure, immigration and undocumented and blah blah, but the fact is a LOT of these people have called the U.S. home for longer than their country of birth. Make em pay taxes, or exempt them from public services for a period of time to make up for being here illegally so long, or do whatever feels equitable to allow them to stay in their home, but to punt em back to a country they don't even know? Pretty harsh.
Can I call the feds and report my neighbor for being a collaborator if I want his house?
Yessir, you can. He looks an awful lot like he's an undocumented illegal who beats his kids, to me. Better get INS and the Neighborhood Watch on the case. Zing! Of course you don't get the house, but you can definitely screw a family up if you really want to plug away at it.
Now, of course you are correct that this is a pale and forced comparison to Nazi Germany, or Stalin's Russia, in terms of scale and intent. It's not even *close*. The analogy actually undermines the argument that we're losing our freedom, as it makes our situation here look pretty damned good by historical comparison. Even so, some of the things that made Nazi Germany such a terrible regime actually are happening here, albeit much less aggressively.
The crux of the issue: our country is getting cumulatively more restrictive, and it fucking sucks. Just getting through the daily shit I have to do is 10 times more a pain in the ass than it was for my grandparents, and it appears to be getting worse, albeit in fits and starts. As individuals, we haven't really lost all that many freedoms, but many freedoms that were previously a simple given now require upkeep and diligence or we risk losing "access" to them. Some people argue that "this is where tyranny begins." I'm arguing that the here and now is shitty enough to warrant change, whether or not we're on a path to tyranny.
Why don't we look at The Problem. There are TOO FUCKING MANY PEOPLE
Right on. First shuttle to the sun will be at your place in 5; don't worry about packing anything.
Your argument can be stated identically with this statement: "There are TOO FEW RESOURCES." You can't go culling wide swaths of people or magically increasing on-hand resources. Besides, as geekoid says below, it's a matter of logistics, which is something we *can* begin to address. We can also begin to address education in family planning and increases in resource acquisition, but this is a very long-term proposition. At least a generation; more probably several, if it even works. Regardless, yelling about how many people we have, or how few resources we have, is a "The barn door's already open." situation.
The solution is 3 pronged: 1) Progressively waste less. 2) Progressively increase logistical efficiency. 3) Progressively develop and exploit high-yield and renewable resources. It's not all doom and gloom, because we are already doing this in a great many industries, and companies have even found it profitable in many cases. I think we should be focusing on business success in this area just as much as we focus on business failure, but I guess a news story on "ABC Corp increased efficiency of XYZ production by 400% this quarter" isn't as interesting as "BCA Corp used up ALL the whales."
Your second and third paragraphs are spot on, though.