"The ringtone generation because they are too lazy, indifferent, unmotivated to create a 10 second ringtone they will buy it and swap it and replace it with the next fad."
While I agree with your general sentiment, better tools help bridge the gap, making self-expression easier, and helping people take one step forward towards even more creative steps later. Here is one such tool I developed for breeding ringtones for the Android (a paid app, sadly), to make self-expression and creativity somewhat easier: http://musicalphrases.com/
See Noam Chomsky: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm """ The universities, for example, are not independent institutions. There may be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media as well. And it's generally true of corporations. It's true of Fascist states, for that matter. But the institution itself is parasitic. It's dependent on outside sources of support and those sources of support, such as private wealth, big corporations with grants, and the government (which is so closely interlinked with corporate power you can barely distinguish them), they are essentially what the universities are in the middle of. People within them, who don't adjust to that structure, who don't accept it and internalize it (you can't really work with it unless you internalize it, and believe it); people who don't do that are likely to be weeded out along the way, starting from kindergarten, all the way up. There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and obedience; if you don't do that, you are a troublemaker. So, it is kind of a filtering device which ends up with people who really honestly (they aren't lying) internalize the framework of belief and attitudes of the surrounding power system in the society. The elite institutions like, say, Harvard and Princeton and the small upscale colleges, for example, are very much geared to socialization. If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on. """
For more on rethinking Princeton University's guiding ideology in an alternative post-scarcity way, see an online document I wrote on that: "Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease (about 200 pages)" http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html
To begin with, why filter *before* people get a chance to create things or say things? Why not use review and moderation (like with slashdot) *after* people get a chance create things or say things?
"Thank you for this post, your insight is invaluable."
Thank you Mr./Ms. A.C.:-)
I put some more comments on the How Stuff Works blog entry; an excerpt from there as I ping-pong these back and forth: http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/08/06/makes-you-think-in-america-we-realize-that-our-children-will-do-worse-than-their-parents/ """ To add something new and state the obvious, someone with business and technical savvy and a track record of creating interesting companies could probably create a huge company doing this, and ideally, would do that in a globally cooperative way as much as possible, within an organizational framework informed by Alfie Kohn's book "Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes".
Maybe SAS could expand into this area, given it already has the social aspects of such an organization?:-) But they historically don't do open source. Or maybe Kitware or RedHat could expand into this area, given they already have the open source aspects?:-) [Although they may not get the Alfie Kohn Punished By Rewards aspects that SAS understands?] Or maybe there could be a spinoff from some existing organization that focuses on how stuff works?:-) Or maybe it would be best to have an entirely new set of organizations, especially a non-profit foundation that shepherds related standards in an open way, similar to how Debian/SPI, Apache, the PSF, or the FSF works perhaps?
As I see it, there is no point in doing this stuff in "secret". And also, citing Alfie Kohn, the people who do this best are not going to be the ones focused on the material rewards side of it. We will no doubt eventually see a bunch of different cooperating organizations that work towards such goals, each with their own strengths and weaknesses in different situations. And it might be fun for many people to be part of it and make their own diverse free and open source contributions to it from whatever motivations.
But one thing is for sure IMHO: trying to make sense of what is going on in a time of rapid technological and social transitions, to collaboratively think about how stuff works on a global scale, is a huge potential industry with billions of US$ on the table every year even now (most of it apparently wasted according to Wired), and the long-term stakes in this game are even higher (as Elizabeth Warren details). So, rather than fight over slices of that particular pie, we might all be better off trying to grow that open source intelligence pie right now.:-) """
In short, I feel open source tools for collaborative structured arguments, multiple perspective analysis, agent-based simulation, and so on, used together for making sense of what is going on in the world, are important to our democracy, security, and prosperity. Imagine if, instead of blog posts and comments on topics, we had searchable structured arguments about simulations and their results all with assumptions defined from different perspectives, where one could see at a glance how different subsets of the community felt about the progess or completeness of different arguments or action plans (somewhat like a debate flow diagram), where even a year of two later one could go back to an existing debate and expand on it with new ideas. As good as slashdot is, such a comprehensive open source sensemaking system would be to slashdot as slashdot is to a static webpage. It might help prevent so much rehashing the same old arguments because one could easily find and build on previous ones. Hopefully in a better way than this classic::-)
"Argument Clinic Sketch by Monty Python" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
As I mention in my comments to Marshall Brains' blog entry, Elizabeth Warren did a terrific job of socio-economic sensemaking, in terms of "The Two Income Trap" and her presentation on the struggles of US middle-class families in the video Marshall Brain linked to. But why should even Harvard Law professors essentially wing it as far as sensemaking with only email, spreadsheets, and word processors, probably working mostly alone, and in a way that she can not easily share all the details of her explorations? Especially when the USA has invested, probably, literally billions of dollars to create software to help groups of people collectively understand complex social and economic issues? And given the US is likely to spend billions more in this area? And given that, if we have any faith in "truth", one would hope that helping everyone in the world come to a better understanding of various truths and a better understanding of each other would, in general, lead to less conflict rather than more?
I feel there is room here for an entirely new approach towards structured collaboration across the internet. It has its roots in Doug Englebart's Augment ideas from the 1960s, and in scale may well be the next Red Hat, Wikipedia, or even Google (whether for-profit or non-profit). Or, it is possible it may be some bunch of related companies and non-profits, all using a common infrastructure
http://www.android.com/ -- you learn Java, the projects are small in scope, and you can demo your stuff easily to friends, and it is only getting hotter.:-)
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en "This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
And that was without even including the benefits to load balancing the electric grid with electric vehicles when they are plugged in, or all the new jobs created in making them.
Or this person's amazing point: http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm """ To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy. Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE! """
"Who in their right mind would work if 90% of ever dollar earned went to the government?"
Citation needed. See also, for endless citations why what is implied in your first statement is wrong: "Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes" http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm
"It's those high income people who buy big ticket items that create jobs."
Citation needed. In reality, this suggests they plow their money into the "casino" economy of derivatives, etc.:
"Money as Debt II Promises Unleashed" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxo_XPdpI_s Poor and middle class people usually spend every dollar they have in the real economy.
"You really think they are going to work 80-100 hours a week like most small businesspeople I know if they know almost everything they are working for is going to be taken away from them? They are going to shut down their business, or at least reduce them in size until they get down to a much smaller tax burden. That means a major loss in jobs for everyone else."
And if the work needs to be done, there will be twice as many 40 hour jobs. Citation to the contrary needed otherwise. Many people don't succeed in business because of this "arms race" of crazy hours. You're suggesting forcing people to work crazy hours and neglect their family and volunteer civic activities in their community is a good thing? It would seem to be something better engineered away. Maybe our society would be a lot better off if such businesses did shut down (in the context of a basic income, or a gift economy, or resource based planning, or stronger self-reliant local communities), since the families and communities of workaholics would be happier?
"The high tax rates are what dragged out the recovery from the Great Depression. The more you tax a person the less money he has to spend."
Citation needed, because progressive taxes work differently, as would a progressive tax redirected to a "basic income".
"The less money he has to spend the fewer products he buys. The fewer products that are bought the more the economy shrinks."
A "basic income" guaranteed to all through the government (along with a high tax on income beyond that) would ensure steady market demand, evenly distributed. That is where I'd suggest most of the tax goes -- back to the people to be more evenly distributed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
If 50% of the US GDP was taxed and redistributed evenly, it would still leave a GDP equivalent to what the US had around 1993 to motivate those who wanted more. The 1993 GDP was enough to motivate entrepreneurs then, why should it not be enough now?
"And since it is private business that creates jobs and funds government what's the net effect? Less economic growth."
Citation needed. Governments can get revenues from renting public resources like land, spectrum, and fishing rights; they can tax monopoly patents and copyrights; they can print money which is non-inflationary as long as what is printed is what is needed through economic growth, and so on. When a baby grows physically, parents are happy; when an adult grows physically, it may be cancer. We need to move to economics not so dependent on endless "growth" based on, essentially, a financial pyramid scheme of endless increasing debt.
"Think about it."
I have thought about it. A government with a sovereign currency works differently than the logic of finance for an individual, especially a government with rentable assets (which are often being given away now in corrupt sweetheart deals) and which also has a legitimate right to step in and deal with externalities (whether negative externalities like pollution and risk of war or economic collapse, or positive externalities like healthier peopl
Well, yes, the issues are intertwined. As Shirley Sherrod said in her video, race can be used to divide poor (or middle class) people so they don't get together to ask for reform. Still, economic issues can make racial ones matter more (like if there are too few jobs, too few nice places to live, to few good educational options, to little good medical care or access to good food). So, fixing those things for everyone can potentially make other issues easier to deal with.
They are both important, but one can wonder about priorities or strategies.
Yes, I'll completely agree on that issue of access to fresh food as it relates to social class or segregation, good point.
Isles, inc. is one example group in Trenton that has made a difference fostering community gardens is the inner city for fresh veggies (as well as other benefits): http://isles.org/
People with less free time to understand all this then are also at risk (another issue of either income or lifestyle).
So, a complex mix of issues. But, they are systematically addressable, even without massive government involvement (as nice as it would be to throw a lot of resources at the problems). Get you vitamin D, pennies a day, have a garden or at least grow sprouts in your kitchen, buy more vegetables, soak and cook beans, buy frozen fruit instead of ice cream, make green smoothies in a US$100 blender. http://www.greensmoothierevolution.com/ The most important foods to buy organic (generally, stuff you don't peel): http://www.greenwala.com/community/blogs/all/6290-The-Dirty-Dozen In general, it is cheaper and healthier to eat vegetarian. Permanently turn off the TV that mesmerises people into eating more junk.
It can be a positive upward spiral, of one improvement leading to another. First vitamin D, cheap and easy, then smoothies, then other changes... Any small group of people in any US community can make these basic things happen for themselves and their neighbors, as Isles, Inc. shows, as the Mohawk Harvest Cooperative shows, as lots of other examples show.
From: http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html "A lot of the constraints on us, a lot of the ah, ah - strings that hold us like puppets are really inventions of our own mind. I'm not saying that there aren't armies and police and various ways to punish deviants. But there isn't any way to punish a LARGE NUMBER of deviants. There isn't any way to do that. It's too expensive
Interesting link to the Kirwin Institute. One page from there: http://kirwaninstitute.org/research/talking-about-race.php "At Kirwan, we agree that all too often implicit and explicit race talk has indeed been used to divide and alienate. At the same time, we believe colorblindness, though sometimes urged by people and organizations with the best intentions, is a mistake--one with profound consequences. The critical question is not whether to use race, but how to talk about race in a variety of contexts. That question is an empirical one we engage in through a number of projects. In some cases we specifically examine how people talk about race and how such conversations impact their behavior. In other work we look at how issue "frames" operate. And in still other projects we look at the efficacy of using class-based or universal policy approaches to racial matters."
Thandeka says something related to your point on policy, too: http://archive.uua.org/ga/ga99/238thandeka.html "My point is this. Talk of white skin privilege is talk about the way in which some of the citizens of this country are able to avoid being mutilated - or less metaphorically, to avoid having their basic human rights violated. So much for the analogy. Here are the facts about so-called white skin privilege. First, 80 percent of the wealth in this country is owned by 20 percent of the population. The top 1 percent owns 47% of this wealth. These facts describe an American oligarchy that rules not as a right of race but as a right of class...."
As did Shirley Sherrod (in the later part of the video related to the controversy, suggesting that racism was invented as a systematic institution to keep poor people of any skin color from cooperating): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NcCa_KjXk
Howard Zinn says something similar in "A People's History of the United States": http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html "How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred-by economic inequity-faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices."
It includes references to things like: "The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation" by Harvey Cox (a professor of divinity at Harvard University) http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm "Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of déjà vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies. "
The religious aspect of so much economic thinking is one reason arguments about it are so contentious.
On your second citation, even by your own statistics, if 30% of health outcomes was from "genes" and "access to health care", 70% of health outcomes would come from something other than genes and access to sick care.
But, when you think about it, "genes" don't act alone in most cases (excepting a very few rare conditions). Genes interact with the environment and your history of behavior. That also includes nutrition.
For example, here is an African-American health care researcher suggesting vitamin D deficiency has had a big impact on the health of people in the USA with darker skins: http://curtisduncan.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-michelle-obama-is-more-likely-to.html Some other related research: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/the-black-community.shtml This is not to argue against social and economic reforms (we need lots IMHO), just to demonstrate how nutrition or outdoor exercise or choice of clothing and so on can have a big effect on your health from even just this one factor, as health emerges from an interaction of genes and environment in the context of our personal choices (and what we know about how their consequences) -- in this case, the CDC has been doing a terrible job for decades at informing people about the connection between vitamin D deficiency and ill-health, or even studying the issue.
Lifestyle choices for anybody that include whether you smoke, how promiscuous you are, how much you exercise, what drugs you use, your connection to nature, how much you drink alcohol, how much you sleep, what sort of job you decide to take or train for, what sort of friends you cultivate, what community you choose to live in, your spiritual practices (including meditation), whether you laugh a lot, what sort of media you watch and how often, as well as what you eat (including whether it is organic), remain dominant factors in how long you live. Still, sure, how polluted your environment is makes a big difference too, but in almost all cases, not as big, and people often still make choices that relate to that as well (like where to live). And, how well your body handles a more toxic environment is also effected to a big degree by nutrition (how well your body can deal with heavy metals or how good it is as preventing cancer).
I don't see how that CDC page backs up your point. Glancing at that page, how do they quantify "small"? The world "small" isn't even on that page. The major killers in our society are heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and some consequences of obesity, and almost all of those preventable (or for cancer, greatly delayable) by excellent nutrition (which links to behavior, since you control what you put in your mouth). Even Alzheimer's and other dementia is probably greatly reduced by good nutrition. Statistics:
"10 Leading Causes of Death in the U.S., 2004" http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005110.html
Dr. Fuhrman, for example, has built an eating plan that works to reduce lots of disease, based on thousands of scientific studies that say nutrition is a very significant aspect of health: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw
BlueZones, as another example, is one approach to building healthier communities that had an immediate significant (one year) reduction of heart disease and mental illness (including by creating parks and promoting healthy nutrition at local restaurants):
Still, I feel the grandparent post is right about taxes. A 90% progressive maximum tax rate would help deal with a growing rich poor divide, and the fact that since it takes money to make money, the rich tend to get richer, and then a centralization of capital leads to the free market and capitalism breaking down (small businesses can't get started, etc.). Also, there are some needed things that business just won't do because of the risk or time horizon or externalities. That tax rate is part of what pulled the USA out of the Great Depression (justified at the time in part by WWII).
Debt by the US government and also citizens for mortgages is a tricky thing, since our economy is based on debt to create money. I think we'd probably be better off with some other approach eventually. Ideas on that: http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
For some more economic ideas, see this Knol I put together, which mentions infrastructure investments (along with many other things): "Beyond a Jobless Recovery: A heterodox perspective on 21st century economics" http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
See, that's why so many people don't use Debian.:-)
I understand what you are getting at in a glance because I used Debian for years. But would the average person understand it? Let alone be able to do that right. Even knowing stuff, it sometimes would take a day to get a machine settled again after doing an upgrade (all sorts of little things would go wrong with fonts or audio or multi-screen support or whatever). Which is why we use Macs now. My wife switched first. Then I did about a year later. Am I happy about that? Not really. I'd rather use all free software. I do use free software mostly on top of Mac OS X. And I use GNU/Linux in embedded hardware. I guess we could have tried switching to Ubuntu instead of Mac OS X, but Ubuntu has its own issues. At some point, I think I'll try running it on my Mac Pro (although the couple times I tried in the past from a bootable DVD, it did not work).
Anyway, the big issue with any typical GNU/Linux system is that changes like you outline are textual at the command line or editor and not in terms of objects and transactions. It's a fundamental problem with the whole model. I never wanted to use GNU/Linux in the sense that I had used UNIX decades before and thought that much better software was possible (such as based on Smalltalk or Lisp or even Forth ideas).
But I jumped on the GNU/Linux bandwagon eventually because of the community. But, at the core, UNIX systems are still messed up compared to what might be possible. Sure, a very knowledgeable user can fix things like you outlined (assuming it works, I just glanced at it), or a less knowledgeable but determined one can solve the problem in an hour or so, but the typical user can not approach the problem oftentimes. And really, what is the point of learning a lot of esoteric stuff you mainly use once and never again? Are you really in control of your machine if you are overwhelmed by complexity and brittleness, even if in theory you can do whatever you want with it? And if something keeps breaking with every upgrade?
Granted we used Debian years ago, and went through major revisions to the X server, to the USB support, to the sound system, and other things, so maybe by now that basic stuff is all settled down?
We need a better underlying architecture for a free OS. And a monolithic kernel just contributes to the problem IMHO. QNX was a much better system way back when in that sense.
"There are plenty of diseases and injuries that could eat that half million in just a fraction of the time it took you to collect it." Not to disagree with that, but most of those diseases are probably preventable by good nutrition and good lifestyle choices. See: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml http://www.drfuhrman.com/
What if you have to choose between eating organic food and having a low stress job you care about with no health insurance vs. working at a stressful job you hate and eating junk because you have no time or energy left over just so you can have health insurance? Because the latter is the treadmill a lot of people are on...
Why was the parent marked Flamebait? It's so sarcastically true.:-) Except maybe for aspects of the "collectivist" bit, depending what is meant by that (can you have a collectivist society that alienates individuals from themselves and others?).
To understand why it is true as far as the "indoctrinaton bit", see all the links I've collected here: "[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)" http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html "I'm going to make some comments on student unrest, mostly focusing on how students could make positive changes to the university without being directly obstructive. So, this mostly agrees with the first half of "Communiqué from an Absent Future" and then disagrees with the second half."
And essential reading that backs up some of the parent's sarcasm: http://www.disciplined-minds.com/ That book suggests studying US Armed Forces anti-brainwashing manuals for GIs captured as prisoners of war, in order to resist the indoctrination of graduate school (which could be seen as collectivist in the sense of joining an elite that is collectivist for itself in a sense, even as it preys on others).
And you can also get a good free education through online content that you discuss with other online learners (for free), like through Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/
See my other posts in this thread for why things are changing and what to do about it.
"We NEED to be focusing more on vocational training. The world needs ditch diggers. The world also needs mechanics, electricians, welders." See this knol I put together for all the reasons that is less and less true due to automation and better design: http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery "This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."
"Liberals Arts Majors = Not worth $50k." See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/business/economy/28leonhardt.html?_r=1& "Mr. Chetty and his colleagues -- one of whom, Emmanuel Saez, recently won the prize for the top research economist under the age of 40 -- estimate that a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year. That's the present value of the additional money that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers. This estimate doesn't take into account social gains, like better health and less crime."
Is kindergarten teacher a liberal arts major?
Of course, if you just give the money directly to the families, they'll probably have even better results: http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html "New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators:-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out."
And how to fix it (by me): http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html """ Let's consider some specific tough questions about Princeton related to "quality" in the "now". * Do, say, most people who start PU PhD programs usually get professorships? * Does the typical person with, say, a degree in linguistics get to later do research on, say, the history of words after graduation? * Do alumni who, say, endow professorships have long and joyful lives? * Are donations doing unique good? * Is there room for everyone, young and old, to give what they can to the local community and the global world? * Are ethics integrated into science and engineering? * Are the non-university surroundings strengthened in diversity and community by the university's presence? * Are the students socializing Friday and Saturday nights in joyful settings promoting wellness and balance? * Are PU assets producing the highest return in terms of people well educated globally? Princeton is a complex institution, so there can be no definitive or easy answers to each of these questions. Still, this essay suggests that, more often than it should be, the answer to all of them is "No". So, I suggest, not only is Princeton conflicted about the "future", it even misses the "now". Which means it is time for serious change in how it sees itself. """
http://www.disciplined-minds.com/ "The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy."
Slashdot Mirror
"The ringtone generation because they are too lazy, indifferent, unmotivated to create a 10 second ringtone they will buy it and swap it and replace it with the next fad."
While I agree with your general sentiment, better tools help bridge the gap, making self-expression easier, and helping people take one step forward towards even more creative steps later. Here is one such tool I developed for breeding ringtones for the Android (a paid app, sadly), to make self-expression and creativity somewhat easier:
http://musicalphrases.com/
That's a very insightful AC comment, including the idea for a "local community college co-op for access to labs".
I suggested something related here:
"Build 21000 flexible fabrication facilities across the USA"
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Build-21000-flexible-fabrication-facilities-across-the-USA/44897-8319
Some other posts on rethinking schooling that I put together, including endless links within them on the bigger picture:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
See Noam Chomsky: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
"""
The universities, for example, are not independent institutions. There may be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media as well. And it's generally true of corporations. It's true of Fascist states, for that matter. But the institution itself is parasitic. It's dependent on outside sources of support and those sources of support, such as private wealth, big corporations with grants, and the government (which is so closely interlinked with corporate power you can barely distinguish them), they are essentially what the universities are in the middle of. People within them, who don't adjust to that structure, who don't accept it and internalize it (you can't really work with it unless you internalize it, and believe it); people who don't do that are likely to be weeded out along the way, starting from kindergarten, all the way up. There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and obedience; if you don't do that, you are a troublemaker. So, it is kind of a filtering device which ends up with people who really honestly (they aren't lying) internalize the framework of belief and attitudes of the surrounding power system in the society. The elite institutions like, say, Harvard and Princeton and the small upscale colleges, for example, are very much geared to socialization. If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on.
"""
For more on rethinking Princeton University's guiding ideology in an alternative post-scarcity way, see an online document I wrote on that:
"Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease (about 200 pages)"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html
To begin with, why filter *before* people get a chance to create things or say things? Why not use review and moderation (like with slashdot) *after* people get a chance create things or say things?
"Thank you for this post, your insight is invaluable."
Thank you Mr./Ms. A.C. :-)
I put some more comments on the How Stuff Works blog entry; an excerpt from there as I ping-pong these back and forth: :-) But they historically don't do open source. Or maybe Kitware or RedHat could expand into this area, given they already have the open source aspects? :-) [Although they may not get the Alfie Kohn Punished By Rewards aspects that SAS understands?] Or maybe there could be a spinoff from some existing organization that focuses on how stuff works? :-) Or maybe it would be best to have an entirely new set of organizations, especially a non-profit foundation that shepherds related standards in an open way, similar to how Debian/SPI, Apache, the PSF, or the FSF works perhaps? :-)
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/08/06/makes-you-think-in-america-we-realize-that-our-children-will-do-worse-than-their-parents/
"""
To add something new and state the obvious, someone with business and technical savvy and a track record of creating interesting companies could probably create a huge company doing this, and ideally, would do that in a globally cooperative way as much as possible, within an organizational framework informed by Alfie Kohn's book "Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes".
Maybe SAS could expand into this area, given it already has the social aspects of such an organization?
As I see it, there is no point in doing this stuff in "secret". And also, citing Alfie Kohn, the people who do this best are not going to be the ones focused on the material rewards side of it. We will no doubt eventually see a bunch of different cooperating organizations that work towards such goals, each with their own strengths and weaknesses in different situations. And it might be fun for many people to be part of it and make their own diverse free and open source contributions to it from whatever motivations.
But one thing is for sure IMHO: trying to make sense of what is going on in a time of rapid technological and social transitions, to collaboratively think about how stuff works on a global scale, is a huge potential industry with billions of US$ on the table every year even now (most of it apparently wasted according to Wired), and the long-term stakes in this game are even higher (as Elizabeth Warren details). So, rather than fight over slices of that particular pie, we might all be better off trying to grow that open source intelligence pie right now.
"""
And there is some further related discussion on the "Open Manufacturing" list in this thread.
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/413f03f03243029d
I posted two comments related to this issue of open source sensemaking tools to understand how socio-politico-techno-economic stuff works at the following URL in response to a larger issue raised by Marshall Brain on the USA's ongoing economic decline:
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/08/06/makes-you-think-in-america-we-realize-that-our-children-will-do-worse-than-their-parents/
In short, I feel open source tools for collaborative structured arguments, multiple perspective analysis, agent-based simulation, and so on, used together for making sense of what is going on in the world, are important to our democracy, security, and prosperity. Imagine if, instead of blog posts and comments on topics, we had searchable structured arguments about simulations and their results all with assumptions defined from different perspectives, where one could see at a glance how different subsets of the community felt about the progess or completeness of different arguments or action plans (somewhat like a debate flow diagram), where even a year of two later one could go back to an existing debate and expand on it with new ideas. As good as slashdot is, such a comprehensive open source sensemaking system would be to slashdot as slashdot is to a static webpage. It might help prevent so much rehashing the same old arguments because one could easily find and build on previous ones. Hopefully in a better way than this classic: :-)
"Argument Clinic Sketch by Monty Python"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
As I mention in my comments to Marshall Brains' blog entry, Elizabeth Warren did a terrific job of socio-economic sensemaking, in terms of "The Two Income Trap" and her presentation on the struggles of US middle-class families in the video Marshall Brain linked to. But why should even Harvard Law professors essentially wing it as far as sensemaking with only email, spreadsheets, and word processors, probably working mostly alone, and in a way that she can not easily share all the details of her explorations? Especially when the USA has invested, probably, literally billions of dollars to create software to help groups of people collectively understand complex social and economic issues? And given the US is likely to spend billions more in this area? And given that, if we have any faith in "truth", one would hope that helping everyone in the world come to a better understanding of various truths and a better understanding of each other would, in general, lead to less conflict rather than more?
I also commented on that idea about a year ago:
"[p2p-research] FOSS modeling tools (was Re: Earth's carrying capacity and Catton)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004130.html
I tried a little to put together a non-profit foundation to do that, so far to not much success.
And here is why I feel the (non-secret) results of any public funding should be open source rather than proprietary:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html
I feel there is room here for an entirely new approach towards structured collaboration across the internet. It has its roots in Doug Englebart's Augment ideas from the 1960s, and in scale may well be the next Red Hat, Wikipedia, or even Google (whether for-profit or non-profit). Or, it is possible it may be some bunch of related companies and non-profits, all using a common infrastructure
http://www.android.com/ -- you learn Java, the projects are small in scope, and you can demo your stuff easily to friends, and it is only getting hotter. :-)
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
And that was without even including the benefits to load balancing the electric grid with electric vehicles when they are plugged in, or all the new jobs created in making them.
Or this person's amazing point:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"""
To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy.
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!
"""
"Who in their right mind would work if 90% of ever dollar earned went to the government?"
Citation needed. See also, for endless citations why what is implied in your first statement is wrong:
"Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes"
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm
"It's those high income people who buy big ticket items that create jobs."
Citation needed. In reality, this suggests they plow their money into the "casino" economy of derivatives, etc.:
"Money as Debt II Promises Unleashed"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxo_XPdpI_s
Poor and middle class people usually spend every dollar they have in the real economy.
"You really think they are going to work 80-100 hours a week like most small businesspeople I know if they know almost everything they are working for is going to be taken away from them? They are going to shut down their business, or at least reduce them in size until they get down to a much smaller tax burden. That means a major loss in jobs for everyone else."
And if the work needs to be done, there will be twice as many 40 hour jobs. Citation to the contrary needed otherwise. Many people don't succeed in business because of this "arms race" of crazy hours. You're suggesting forcing people to work crazy hours and neglect their family and volunteer civic activities in their community is a good thing? It would seem to be something better engineered away. Maybe our society would be a lot better off if such businesses did shut down (in the context of a basic income, or a gift economy, or resource based planning, or stronger self-reliant local communities), since the families and communities of workaholics would be happier?
"The high tax rates are what dragged out the recovery from the Great Depression. The more you tax a person the less money he has to spend."
Citation needed, because progressive taxes work differently, as would a progressive tax redirected to a "basic income".
"The less money he has to spend the fewer products he buys. The fewer products that are bought the more the economy shrinks."
A "basic income" guaranteed to all through the government (along with a high tax on income beyond that) would ensure steady market demand, evenly distributed. That is where I'd suggest most of the tax goes -- back to the people to be more evenly distributed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
If 50% of the US GDP was taxed and redistributed evenly, it would still leave a GDP equivalent to what the US had around 1993 to motivate those who wanted more. The 1993 GDP was enough to motivate entrepreneurs then, why should it not be enough now?
"And since it is private business that creates jobs and funds government what's the net effect? Less economic growth."
Citation needed. Governments can get revenues from renting public resources like land, spectrum, and fishing rights; they can tax monopoly patents and copyrights; they can print money which is non-inflationary as long as what is printed is what is needed through economic growth, and so on. When a baby grows physically, parents are happy; when an adult grows physically, it may be cancer. We need to move to economics not so dependent on endless "growth" based on, essentially, a financial pyramid scheme of endless increasing debt.
"Think about it."
I have thought about it. A government with a sovereign currency works differently than the logic of finance for an individual, especially a government with rentable assets (which are often being given away now in corrupt sweetheart deals) and which also has a legitimate right to step in and deal with externalities (whether negative externalities like pollution and risk of war or economic collapse, or positive externalities like healthier peopl
Well, yes, the issues are intertwined. As Shirley Sherrod said in her video, race can be used to divide poor (or middle class) people so they don't get together to ask for reform. Still, economic issues can make racial ones matter more (like if there are too few jobs, too few nice places to live, to few good educational options, to little good medical care or access to good food). So, fixing those things for everyone can potentially make other issues easier to deal with.
They are both important, but one can wonder about priorities or strategies.
A basic income could be one way forward on the economic side of that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
"Archbishop Tutu on Basic Income
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf3n-L5FDy0
Yes, I'll completely agree on that issue of access to fresh food as it relates to social class or segregation, good point.
Isles, inc. is one example group in Trenton that has made a difference fostering community gardens is the inner city for fresh veggies (as well as other benefits): http://isles.org/
Here is a co-op just started in a town as part of regenerating it:
http://www.mohawkharvest.org/
But our society could do a lot more. These issues are all intertwined.
And then these issues are interwoven with product design, advertising, profit-driven commerce, and externalities:
"The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health & Happiness"
http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Mastering-Undermines-Happiness/dp/1570671508
"Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose"
http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X
People with less free time to understand all this then are also at risk (another issue of either income or lifestyle).
So, a complex mix of issues. But, they are systematically addressable, even without massive government involvement (as nice as it would be to throw a lot of resources at the problems). Get you vitamin D, pennies a day, have a garden or at least grow sprouts in your kitchen, buy more vegetables, soak and cook beans, buy frozen fruit instead of ice cream, make green smoothies in a US$100 blender.
http://www.greensmoothierevolution.com/
The most important foods to buy organic (generally, stuff you don't peel):
http://www.greenwala.com/community/blogs/all/6290-The-Dirty-Dozen
In general, it is cheaper and healthier to eat vegetarian. Permanently turn off the TV that mesmerises people into eating more junk.
It can be a positive upward spiral, of one improvement leading to another. First vitamin D, cheap and easy, then smoothies, then other changes... Any small group of people in any US community can make these basic things happen for themselves and their neighbors, as Isles, Inc. shows, as the Mohawk Harvest Cooperative shows, as lots of other examples show.
Still, it can be hard to throw off the mental parasites (like coming through mainstream TV, or even sometimes through school programs influenced by the meat and dairy industry) that keep us down.
* "Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food"
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jamie_oliver.html
* "Dean Ornish on the world's killer diet"
http://www.ted.com/talks/dean_ornish_on_the_world_s_killer_diet.html
* "Ann Cooper talks school lunches"
http://www.ted.com/talks/ann_cooper_talks_school_lunches.html
* "Mark Bittman on what's wrong with what we eat"
http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html
From:
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
"A lot of the constraints on us, a lot of the ah, ah - strings that hold us like puppets are really inventions of our own mind. I'm not saying that there aren't armies and police and various ways to punish deviants. But there isn't any way to punish a LARGE NUMBER of deviants. There isn't any way to do that. It's too expensive
Interesting link to the Kirwin Institute. One page from there:
http://kirwaninstitute.org/research/talking-about-race.php
"At Kirwan, we agree that all too often implicit and explicit race talk has indeed been used to divide and alienate. At the same time, we believe colorblindness, though sometimes urged by people and organizations with the best intentions, is a mistake--one with profound consequences. The critical question is not whether to use race, but how to talk about race in a variety of contexts. That question is an empirical one we engage in through a number of projects. In some cases we specifically examine how people talk about race and how such conversations impact their behavior. In other work we look at how issue "frames" operate. And in still other projects we look at the efficacy of using class-based or universal policy approaches to racial matters."
Thandeka says something related to your point on policy, too: ..."
http://archive.uua.org/ga/ga99/238thandeka.html
"My point is this. Talk of white skin privilege is talk about the way in which some of the citizens of this country are able to avoid being mutilated - or less metaphorically, to avoid having their basic human rights violated. So much for the analogy. Here are the facts about so-called white skin privilege. First, 80 percent of the wealth in this country is owned by 20 percent of the population. The top 1 percent owns 47% of this wealth. These facts describe an American oligarchy that rules not as a right of race but as a right of class.
As did Shirley Sherrod (in the later part of the video related to the controversy, suggesting that racism was invented as a systematic institution to keep poor people of any skin color from cooperating):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NcCa_KjXk
Howard Zinn says something similar in "A People's History of the United States":
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html
"How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred-by economic inequity-faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices."
On the general issues of "-isms":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankism
To support your point and build on it, see the knol I put together here:
"Beyond a Jobless Recovery: A heterodox perspective on 21st century economics"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
It includes references to things like:
"The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation" by Harvey Cox (a professor of divinity at Harvard University)
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm
"Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of déjà vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies. "
The religious aspect of so much economic thinking is one reason arguments about it are so contentious.
On your second citation, even by your own statistics, if 30% of health outcomes was from "genes" and "access to health care", 70% of health outcomes would come from something other than genes and access to sick care.
But, when you think about it, "genes" don't act alone in most cases (excepting a very few rare conditions). Genes interact with the environment and your history of behavior. That also includes nutrition.
For example, here is an African-American health care researcher suggesting vitamin D deficiency has had a big impact on the health of people in the USA with darker skins:
http://curtisduncan.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-michelle-obama-is-more-likely-to.html
Some other related research:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/the-black-community.shtml
This is not to argue against social and economic reforms (we need lots IMHO), just to demonstrate how nutrition or outdoor exercise or choice of clothing and so on can have a big effect on your health from even just this one factor, as health emerges from an interaction of genes and environment in the context of our personal choices (and what we know about how their consequences) -- in this case, the CDC has been doing a terrible job for decades at informing people about the connection between vitamin D deficiency and ill-health, or even studying the issue.
Lifestyle choices for anybody that include whether you smoke, how promiscuous you are, how much you exercise, what drugs you use, your connection to nature, how much you drink alcohol, how much you sleep, what sort of job you decide to take or train for, what sort of friends you cultivate, what community you choose to live in, your spiritual practices (including meditation), whether you laugh a lot, what sort of media you watch and how often, as well as what you eat (including whether it is organic), remain dominant factors in how long you live. Still, sure, how polluted your environment is makes a big difference too, but in almost all cases, not as big, and people often still make choices that relate to that as well (like where to live). And, how well your body handles a more toxic environment is also effected to a big degree by nutrition (how well your body can deal with heavy metals or how good it is as preventing cancer).
If the CDC really cared about your health, they would have raised the US RDA for vitamin D by a factor of ten a long time ago.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
I don't see how that CDC page backs up your point. Glancing at that page, how do they quantify "small"? The world "small" isn't even on that page. The major killers in our society are heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and some consequences of obesity, and almost all of those preventable (or for cancer, greatly delayable) by excellent nutrition (which links to behavior, since you control what you put in your mouth). Even Alzheimer's and other dementia is probably greatly reduced by good nutrition. Statistics:
"10 Leading Causes of Death in the U.S., 2004"
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005110.html
Dr. Fuhrman, for example, has built an eating plan that works to reduce lots of disease, based on thousands of scientific studies that say nutrition is a very significant aspect of health:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw
BlueZones, as another example, is one approach to building healthier communities that had an immediate significant (one year) reduction of heart disease and mental illness (including by creating parks and promoting healthy nutrition at local restaurants):
To support your points, consider:
"The Two-Income Trap" (about needing two incomes and being more precarious)
http://motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap
and:
"Capitalism hits the fan" (about 30 years of stagnant wages)
http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/
Still, I feel the grandparent post is right about taxes. A 90% progressive maximum tax rate would help deal with a growing rich poor divide, and the fact that since it takes money to make money, the rich tend to get richer, and then a centralization of capital leads to the free market and capitalism breaking down (small businesses can't get started, etc.). Also, there are some needed things that business just won't do because of the risk or time horizon or externalities. That tax rate is part of what pulled the USA out of the Great Depression (justified at the time in part by WWII).
As far as government debt, it could be paid off tomorrow by just printing the money (which can be non-inflationary if the money printed matches the growing need for it). Related:
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986212
http://www.moneyasdebt.net/
Debt by the US government and also citizens for mortgages is a tricky thing, since our economy is based on debt to create money. I think we'd probably be better off with some other approach eventually. Ideas on that:
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
MOD PARENT UP!
For some more economic ideas, see this Knol I put together, which mentions infrastructure investments (along with many other things):
"Beyond a Jobless Recovery: A heterodox perspective on 21st century economics"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
See, that's why so many people don't use Debian. :-)
I understand what you are getting at in a glance because I used Debian for years. But would the average person understand it? Let alone be able to do that right. Even knowing stuff, it sometimes would take a day to get a machine settled again after doing an upgrade (all sorts of little things would go wrong with fonts or audio or multi-screen support or whatever). Which is why we use Macs now. My wife switched first. Then I did about a year later. Am I happy about that? Not really. I'd rather use all free software. I do use free software mostly on top of Mac OS X. And I use GNU/Linux in embedded hardware. I guess we could have tried switching to Ubuntu instead of Mac OS X, but Ubuntu has its own issues. At some point, I think I'll try running it on my Mac Pro (although the couple times I tried in the past from a bootable DVD, it did not work).
Anyway, the big issue with any typical GNU/Linux system is that changes like you outline are textual at the command line or editor and not in terms of objects and transactions. It's a fundamental problem with the whole model. I never wanted to use GNU/Linux in the sense that I had used UNIX decades before and thought that much better software was possible (such as based on Smalltalk or Lisp or even Forth ideas).
But I jumped on the GNU/Linux bandwagon eventually because of the community. But, at the core, UNIX systems are still messed up compared to what might be possible. Sure, a very knowledgeable user can fix things like you outlined (assuming it works, I just glanced at it), or a less knowledgeable but determined one can solve the problem in an hour or so, but the typical user can not approach the problem oftentimes. And really, what is the point of learning a lot of esoteric stuff you mainly use once and never again? Are you really in control of your machine if you are overwhelmed by complexity and brittleness, even if in theory you can do whatever you want with it? And if something keeps breaking with every upgrade?
Granted we used Debian years ago, and went through major revisions to the X server, to the USB support, to the sound system, and other things, so maybe by now that basic stuff is all settled down?
We need a better underlying architecture for a free OS. And a monolithic kernel just contributes to the problem IMHO. QNX was a much better system way back when in that sense.
"There are plenty of diseases and injuries that could eat that half million in just a fraction of the time it took you to collect it."
Not to disagree with that, but most of those diseases are probably preventable by good nutrition and good lifestyle choices. See:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
What if you have to choose between eating organic food and having a low stress job you care about with no health insurance vs. working at a stressful job you hate and eating junk because you have no time or energy left over just so you can have health insurance? Because the latter is the treadmill a lot of people are on...
Why was the parent marked Flamebait? It's so sarcastically true. :-) Except maybe for aspects of the "collectivist" bit, depending what is meant by that (can you have a collectivist society that alienates individuals from themselves and others?).
To understand why it is true as far as the "indoctrinaton bit", see all the links I've collected here:
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
"I'm going to make some comments on student unrest, mostly focusing on how students could make positive changes to the university without being directly obstructive. So, this mostly agrees with the first half of "Communiqué from an Absent Future" and then disagrees with the second half."
Essential links from there to other lists of links:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
And essential reading that backs up some of the parent's sarcasm:
http://www.disciplined-minds.com/
That book suggests studying US Armed Forces anti-brainwashing manuals for GIs captured as prisoners of war, in order to resist the indoctrination of graduate school (which could be seen as collectivist in the sense of joining an elite that is collectivist for itself in a sense, even as it preys on others).
MOD PARENT UP What a great summary of existential issues in our society and how the effect how people feel about the system.
And for what to do about such issues in the long term, see this knol I put here:
"Beyond a Jobless Recovery: A heterodox perspective on 21st century economics; Four long-term heterodox alternatives"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery#Four_long(2D)term_heterodox_alternatives
"My opinion on that is, professors--like everybody else in the entire world--are human" :-) http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=robotic+teacher
Except robots are being introduced into teaching:
And you can also get a good free education through online content that you discuss with other online learners (for free), like through Khan Academy:
http://www.khanacademy.org/
See my other posts in this thread for why things are changing and what to do about it.
"We NEED to be focusing more on vocational training. The world needs ditch diggers. The world also needs mechanics, electricians, welders."
See this knol I put together for all the reasons that is less and less true due to automation and better design: http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
"This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."
"Liberals Arts Majors = Not worth $50k." See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/business/economy/28leonhardt.html?_r=1&
"Mr. Chetty and his colleagues -- one of whom, Emmanuel Saez, recently won the prize for the top research economist under the age of 40 -- estimate that a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year. That's the present value of the additional money that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers. This estimate doesn't take into account social gains, like better health and less crime."
Is kindergarten teacher a liberal arts major?
Of course, if you just give the money directly to the families, they'll probably have even better results: :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out."
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
Just to pick one from there:
"The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
And how to fix it (by me): http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html
"""
Let's consider some specific tough questions about Princeton related to "quality" in the "now".
* Do, say, most people who start PU PhD programs usually get professorships?
* Does the typical person with, say, a degree in linguistics get to later do research on, say, the history of words after graduation?
* Do alumni who, say, endow professorships have long and joyful lives?
* Are donations doing unique good?
* Is there room for everyone, young and old, to give what they can to the local community and the global world?
* Are ethics integrated into science and engineering?
* Are the non-university surroundings strengthened in diversity and community by the university's presence?
* Are the students socializing Friday and Saturday nights in joyful settings promoting wellness and balance?
* Are PU assets producing the highest return in terms of people well educated globally?
Princeton is a complex institution, so there can be no definitive or easy answers to each of these questions. Still, this essay suggests that, more often than it should be, the answer to all of them is "No". So, I suggest, not only is Princeton conflicted about the "future", it even misses the "now". Which means it is time for serious change in how it sees itself.
"""
http://www.disciplined-minds.com/ "The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy."
See my other post in this thread, too:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1738326&cid=33090340