I don't usually reply to flamers, but for the sake of those interested I will add a final comment.
Ad hominems aside. You also are a hypocrite that I speak of. You offer no proof (that the stats in the parent post accurately reflect that smoking is a major cause of death), and you use ad hominem attacks against me. Any arguments I use you claim are influenced by the tobacco lobby. It is always the case. My arguments primarily are NOT based on statistics that I personally have at my disposal (but have heard and read over the years); rather they are based on critical thinking and the propaganda techniques used by the anti-smoking lobby, like their failure to give details on how they confirm, for example, that people actually die of smoking, and not some secondary cause or a combination of effects that include other lifestyle choices.
There was a 20/20 episode on urban myths that stated that second hand smoke is not dangerous (unlike you using the emotional appeal that it is "astonishingly dangerous"). Yes I could spend hours trying to look up every stat I have ever heard and reference it, that would in fact be better; but alas I am not an evangelist who has a collection of stats on my desk ready to prove a point for every slashdot poster. At any rate... just off the top of my head, I do remember one other fact: most people who are diagnosed as dying of smoking are over the age of 70. Go figure. Yes I know it would be better to look that up (assuming I could find that info on the Internet). And I know that everything that is Politically Incorrect here will be scrutinized and shot down at a level that is not seen for the socially acceptable answers. I really don't see the point, people like you will just claim its tobacco lobby crap. Take off the blinders and open your eyes, not everything the government tells you is true.
Let's face it... the smoking issue has always been political. I've read stats that most anti-smoking research is highly biased. You never (almost never) here stats about the general life-style of people who smoke and die (like obesity, drinking, etc). I've seen stats where smokers who lead an otherwise healthy life-style live just as long as non-smokers, but these stats are hardly ever published. You also never hear about the quantity of tobacco these death-bed smokers consume. There is always the proverbial details missing. One never hears about how many people who smoke and don't die. It's a religious issue for a lot of people. They get fed the anti-smoking FUD everyday and people start to think of it like a campaign. The sad thing is most of these people are also hypocrites.
Most people I know who are against smoking drive to work everyday shitting out far more toxic fumes from their car than are released from a cigarette when they could just as easily take a bus to work. And yes these hypocrites are full of excuses... please spare me if you have any. I'd really like to know how much anti-smoking research is done by people who don't have any biases against smoking. Smoking, according to the US Surgeon General is more addictive than heroine. Well apples and oranges aside, lets stop the FUD. I don't have any choice to hear people dangerous religious beliefs, I don't have the choice to not breathe in the ubiquitous car exhaust by lazy motorist, and there aren't any warning labels on chocolate bars saying that sugar causes diabetes, tooth decay, heart disease, stroke, obesity, etc... Let's stop the FUD and hypocrisy people... there are more important things in this world to deal with.
This illustrates to me the symbiotic relationship governments and businesses have with each other in democracies. In their words it's protecting the consumer from themselves while making music more available. In the double-think tradition of Orwell this makes sense. Too bad it doesn't seem like there is a choice nowadays in democracies. You get to vote for different people, but it's all the same basic ideology; the corrupt supporting the corrupt. That is, businesses supporting politicians, and your average voter being fed the same old FUD, appeals to emotion, etc. without any De facto choice or say in the matter. The popular vote really doesn't seem to be supporting anything popular. Career politicians supporting career business people who support career politicians. It's the mobius strip of Western progress.
There is a steadily diminishing U.S. base of up-and-coming technical talent. According to the Bureau of Labor statistics and a series of recent studies, the number of engineers and computer science students are dwindling.
To put things into perspective; I've read that a prospective Google employee will go through 12 interviews before he/she is deemed the right fit. With the massive amount of employees large companies like Microsoft hires and the relatively few amount of Computer Science PhDs that graduate each year in the US, it is not surprising to me that Microsoft would want to spread its work force out into other countries. Yeah you have to be well bread (and lucky) to work for company's like Microsoft. I can't see M$ looking for the lowest common denominator employee (pay-wise) just to satisfy the bean counters. I'm sure it happens to a degree, but not to the extent that they want to loose market share.
Don't get me wrong, I love hating corporate evil, but lets separate the emotional reactionism and politics from the reality.
You sacrifice efficiency for protectionism. It just doesn't work in the long run. That's why most countries are publicly pushing for free-trade (although generally pork-belly politics prevents real market forces from taking effect). It's Economics 101. Laissez-faire of course has it's own problems. And in a world where countries have different demographics and labour laws, etc... things can get quite skewed. It's more a matter of fair-trade (finding the middle ground). Simple reactionary political obstacles to the free market never work. It's like diverting a river or building a dike, natural tendencies will always try to overcome artificial barriers.
BTW: I almost said "building a dyke"... but I did a check on the spelling. I certainly don't want to give any tech heads here any weird ideas. Frankenstein was bad enough.
To put things in perspective, from my experience most tech support type jobs are filled by Indians (I live in Canada), so I was always the visible minority where I worked. I mentioned that East Indians would likely find it humurous because my Indian co-workers were the types of people to circulate YouTube video's etc that make fun of the stereo-type of the typical call-centre worker being Indian. They also had a preference for "ethnic" humour, like Borat and others.
The main premise of the joke in question isn't even about Indians, it is based on the idea that companies find it better to get cheap labour through immigration than to keep qualified employees already working for the company. Of course the name at the end implies that this person is from the Asian sub-continent, but this is secondary to the over-all premise. And yes I have heard "racist" jokes about Canada and Canadians and I was not offended. I have also heard a joke about "white" people and I was not offended (though I never did get the joke), nor was I concerned that it was anything more than a joke, as opposed to an ethnic slur.
laugh at offensive jokes
Humour nor jokes are offensive however anybody would like to project their beliefs and morals onto things, jokes are not offensive. If jokes were offensive then they would not be funny. In fact I consider "racial" jokes to be a sign of tolerance that we can make fun of our differences, though this would be qualified to the intent that the person telling the joke has.
The realm of comedy uses complexities and subtleties of language and ideas that most people are not adept at. I really doubt if somebody simple-minded enough to be a racist could appreciate humour, much less have the aptitude to be creative in the intellectual realm of comedy.
So if someone like you cracks an offensive joke, they have no choice but to humour them.
If people don't find jokes funny they won't laugh (fake laughter is pretty easy to spot). If there is a problem with racism in the work force then telling jokes are certainly not the problem. I've never worked in America so I don't know about all the racism that goes on in the workplace over their. There's a point to be made though: the joke in question is not offensive and it is not racist. I would suspect that the majority of people who find it racist are white people with money (the Middle Class) who want to project their middle class Idealism onto other people.
Well if you're white and/or from a rich country you can, as your experience with Indians shows.
No this is not true. There will always be people like you who will talk to me like I'm some type of jackass. I often think of that person as the Management Type. Also there are some people who do not have the genes to understand humour. The ability to understand irony for example is genetically based. This was a real insight when I first heard this because I always wondered why I can't joke around with some people. It's ironic because more than one of these people have themselves told me that I was stupid.
What you have told me is your opinion. You have not proven to me that the joke is offensive. If you even have to prove it then there seems to be some dubiousness in your assertion. You've already implied that I am racist ("someone like you.."), so I would assume you have other prejudices. This is another irony because I am neither racist nor do I seek to offend. If I did seek to offend I wouldn't feel so up-tight about telling jokes because I know there are a million ways how people can miss-interpret an art form.
I see the joke as making fun of the processes companies use to get cheap labour. My background-understanding of the joke comes from CNN and not mailing lists. Reading racism into the joke is something that is attributed to YOU, and not me. You can't even objectively speak about the author because you probably don't know him. I certainly don't. I don't know his background, mentali
I'd be damned if I could find the correct spelling. Thanks. I realized my mistake after I posted, but still couldn't find the phonetic equivalent (spelling). But yes "insight" seems somewhat appropriate too:)
When I did tech support I worked with a lot of East Indians who would probably find that snippet quite amusing. I never did find humour offensive, but I realize that humour (along with any other art form) will always insight the Politically Correct.
It would be nice if I could feel free to express myself and give a bit of humour to the world without worrying about offending somebody. Unfortunately there will always be the intolerant and Politically Correct among us who will project there own anxieties on other people.
Say anything good, bad or neutral that involves a "race", and that statement can be said to be "racial", but "racist" implies intolerance and dis-respect, and this is something I just don't see. Perhaps this is because I view ethnic and phenomic differences as trivial, and yet view humour and the creative use of words and ideas as a very important part of my personality. The sad thing is, is that I don't use humour a lot because I know there will always be some people who just don't "get it". So I just give up:(
If you aren't using spoofing for some rather serious illegal purposes like death threats, massive spamming or scamming then this law is unlikely to be enforced.
In my experiences with businesses using auto-dialers and pre-recorded phone calls to advertise, the police will just refer you to the phone company, and the phone company will just refer you to the police. The same with obscene and persistent phone calls. So I doubt if a law like this would be enforced for the average person just wanting to impress there friends.
several airlines have approached the Homeland Security Department, the State Department and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about providing "hospitality training" for federal security workers, Freeman said.
Also:
A 17 percent decrease in overseas visitors to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, is partially a result of "rude and arrogant" treatment by airport security employees, said Geoff Freeman, executive director of the Discover America Partnership, a group of businesses promoting travel. The partnership, with the assistance of RT Strategies, a public affairs opinion research and polling organization, published a report based on a survey of more than 2,000 travelers to the United States and other nations.
A third of respondents said immigration officials were so abrasive that they do not plan to return. More than half of respondents said they were concerned about a terrorist attack or crime and safety issues when they visited the United States. But even more -- 70 percent -- said they were worried that "legal and security issues" and treatment of visitors, would mar their stay.
I think it would be prudent not to pigeon-hole a "typical American" seeing as how culturally diverse America is. I think it is too easy to stereo-type based on what we see on TV and witness from the power elites in America, but reality is usually more complex. I certainly couldn't imagine the cmdrTaco as being your "typical American" for example.
In Canada it is a stereo-type that Canadians are nice, and Americans are rude, yet I remember hearing on the news (a year or two ago) a study done that shows Canadians are just as rude as Americans. Go figure. Yes Freedom Fries and the other stunts are really stupid, but I'm sure Europeans and other people say stupid things too. I guess I'm being politically incorrect again, so be it. You aint ganna persuade your average American to listen to you my calling him a jack-ass.
I could presume that the point of these no-fly rules is to prevent people from hi-jacking airplanes. People could still legally enter the US by train, boat, car, foot etc. If the US customs officials on 9/11 checked for box cutters, suspicious behavior, and yes the no-fly list; 9/11 probably wouldn't have happened. No bio-metric tests needed with adequate common-sense security.
I suppose it would just discourage people from going to Disney Land because of the hassles. I doubt if anybody who would consider themselves on a watch list would even bother trying. Treating your average tourist like a criminal certainly isn't going to help visitors feel welcome.
And they ensure privacy while saying they will share biometric data with other government agencies. This does not sound like privacy to me. I'm sure this will effect a lot of social activists and church groups, but I don't see it stopping terrorism. I suppose this is another good reason I don't post my real name on Slashdot, I'm sure I would be on a Watch List;)
Labour market elasticity is a pretty general topic with a lot of assumptions involved. With any economic model, it can only be generalized.
I think there are some basic points to be made:
1) The greater the demand for employees, and the smaller the supply, means more elasticity for the worker. I would argue that global markets and the introduction of telecommuting, immigration and off-shoring would help to mitigate the effects of worker shortages.
2) There is less elasticity for highly specialized jobs (hockey player, brain surgeon, professional wrestler, Cobol programmer, air traffic controller, etc). Retraining has only marginal benefits if you are older in your career path and with no experience under your belt. The same could be said for people just starting out in the work force; no experience means far less choice.
3) Market forces vary from region to region and country to country, where the mobility of the worker may be limited, especially for non-skilled and semi-skilled workers.
There will always be a certain amount of elasticity in almost any economic model. It just depends on the quantity and quality (of jobs) that this applies to. I would suppose you'd have a hard time convincing somebody that has been putting doors on cars for GM for 10 or 15 years that the labour market is elastic, and he can just go find another job if he doesn't like his current job. The real problem with RFID and other invasive technologies is that they will start to become ubiquitous if people start getting used to them, and there isn't much elasticity for something that is ubiquitous. As Winston Churchill once said, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Without being to obsessive over this topic I will make one final point. Worker efficiency (or efficiency per worker) does not necessarily equal increased pay. If that where the case then people working the assembly line jobs wouldn't (in many cases) be making minimum wage. I have seldom seen workplace efficiency being put into employee's pay cheques instead of into the company's profit margin (though I'm sure it happens in some cases). It's fairly easy to have counter-points with an issue as complex as economics, but so it goes. Never underestimate the complexity of an issue, or negative effects that can arise from new processes and technologies.
If your hypothesis is correct, then having market forces control the ethics of employers would have a similar effect of just outright banning unethical behavior. Laws in this sense would be redundant. However, laws banning unethical behavior would have no negative effect. Laws banning unethical behavior would then be redundant, but they would at least be a precaution against negative consequences if they were to occur. I'd rather err on the side of caution and just have a law in place.
As a person who has been compulsively under-employed (and some may say over-educated), I can say I speak from experience, so perhaps I am stupid. I happen to live in a major Canadian city where many legal immigrants should have far more choices than me because of their actual work expereince and Phd's etc, and yet they too have a difficult time finding any type of work; yes even in the year 2007. I would suggest your experiences do not match up with many (most?) people's experiences. I know a lot of people would submit to just about anything just to get a job. The choices people have are based more on duress than free will.
Once we start lowering the legal bar and the vast majority of employers start taking advantage of their new rights, then choices will be further reduced. With the advent of free-trade and global markets, and the transportation and communications networks, choices for employers to out-source their labour to the cheapest markets have certainly increased.
Historically, people had very little rights, but with the rise of labour unions in the early 20th century many draconian practices have been eliminated. Of course things are better now for many people, but you should not under-estimate how easily things can be reversed, especially for the less powerful and influential in our society.
I'm of the opinion that the type of people who would think that RFID implants are really not such a bad thing would not have a clue what you are talking about. Although I'm pretty sure they would accuse you of spewing socialism.
I really doubt of those people would understand economic concepts like elasticity. Nice try, but in my experience most politicians and "business" people only have a vague notion of economic concepts. Even my Business Management teacher (from years past), who has an MBA, thought it would be a good idea to create cities, because in her mind cities created jobs, and we could send unemployed people to these cities, therefore unemployment would be solved. Granted she seemed good at teaching-from-the-text-book, but she never really seemed to have a deep understanding of what she was teaching.
Most people do not have the choice to decide whether they wish to work, or with whom they wish to work for, therefore at least a certain amount of legal protection has to be maintained. This is especially true when most of the wealth (and power) is distributed to only a small minority of the population.
Considering the fact that power corrupts and companies tend towards the lowest common denominator when it comes to moral issues like workers rights and just plane ordinary dignity, it is not unreasonable to have a law that requires employers not to treat their workers too much like cattle. If people really did have a choice of not to work for bad companies, I'm sure they would. Until that day comes, we will need legislation protecting us from our employers.
Rising occurrences of Diagnosed Mental Disorders in western civilizations
1) "Rising occurrences of Diagnosed mental disorders" does not equal "a rising occurrence of mental disorders" 2) People are living longer in Western civilizations, so one would expect a rise in age related mental disorders (if in fact this is occurring)
susceptible to the negative imagery and psychological effects of simulation?
That's a pretty vague statement in itself. If you are implying that people who already have schizophrenia or clinical depression are more likely to commit murder after playing a video game than not, then this seems unrealistic. From what I have read there is no evidence of this. From my own experiences with people who can't distinguish reality from fantasy, they are not likely to be the types of people to play video games in the first place. They are more likely to indulge in excessive alcohol use or just spend their time ranting at people or stalking them (granted this is anecdotal, but I have met my fair share...). I think it would be more worthwhile to prevent these people from gaining access to actual weapons than to games.
anti-discrimination challenges?
There will always be anti-discrimination challenges, and so there should be. It's a matter of finding something that is fair. I don't think there are laws from banning the mentally ill from buying alcohol, but maybe there should be. There are laws discriminating against mentally ill people from making there own decisions in some cases, like in regards to taking care of their children, or even the freedom to walk the streets.
I think it would be better to focus energies on proper social support, psychiatric counseling, and medication; rather than to try to ban everything that could be considered a problem for the mentally ill. So far video games doesn't even come close, as there is no evidence that video games cause mental illness, much less murder.
It would be nice if people would just admit that they want something banned because they find it morally obscene, instead of making up FUD. I'm not sure if you are one of those people, but I hope I helped give you some insight.
It is censorship because it is not being released because of its content. This censorship comes from both political and market forces. The British government is censoring it (through its ratings system), and the console manufacturers are censoring it by not allowing it to be licensed on their machines.
It may not be popularly known as censorship by people who don't like the game (and I can presume have never played the game), but yes it is censorship.
I'm sure if this topic involved something about banning things that are more politically correct, then it would be considered censorship. Whether something gets banned by a library, a bookstore, or a video game store, or an entire country, it is still censorship. You don't get to redefine what censorship is.
The British Board of Film Classification isn't a government agency.
Look, every human decision that affects other people is political. This is a deep insight, as it opens new avenues to study the way society functions. But it can be easily abused if used shallowly. Let's keep the politics section focused on governments and their agents, lest it becomes inundated with trivial X-Makes-A-Decision-That-Affects-Others type stories.
Your last post offers a better explanation and is far more informative and insightful and would have been taken more seriously than:
I'm not even going to bother replying to him. People who don't like something will think up any excuse to get rid of it. His argument has no weight what-so-ever except to those who agree with him. The same with any other logical fallacies. They make good rhetoric for persuading the naive, but nothing more.
The post is tagged as "games" and "politics". Manhunt 2 is a game, and the decision to suspend it's marketing is based on the political decisions made in Britain. Relevant IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't usually reply to flamers, but for the sake of those interested I will add a final comment.
Ad hominems aside. You also are a hypocrite that I speak of. You offer no proof (that the stats in the parent post accurately reflect that smoking is a major cause of death), and you use ad hominem attacks against me. Any arguments I use you claim are influenced by the tobacco lobby. It is always the case. My arguments primarily are NOT based on statistics that I personally have at my disposal (but have heard and read over the years); rather they are based on critical thinking and the propaganda techniques used by the anti-smoking lobby, like their failure to give details on how they confirm, for example, that people actually die of smoking, and not some secondary cause or a combination of effects that include other lifestyle choices.
There was a 20/20 episode on urban myths that stated that second hand smoke is not dangerous (unlike you using the emotional appeal that it is "astonishingly dangerous"). Yes I could spend hours trying to look up every stat I have ever heard and reference it, that would in fact be better; but alas I am not an evangelist who has a collection of stats on my desk ready to prove a point for every slashdot poster. At any rate... just off the top of my head, I do remember one other fact: most people who are diagnosed as dying of smoking are over the age of 70. Go figure. Yes I know it would be better to look that up (assuming I could find that info on the Internet). And I know that everything that is Politically Incorrect here will be scrutinized and shot down at a level that is not seen for the socially acceptable answers. I really don't see the point, people like you will just claim its tobacco lobby crap. Take off the blinders and open your eyes, not everything the government tells you is true.
Let's face it... the smoking issue has always been political. I've read stats that most anti-smoking research is highly biased. You never (almost never) here stats about the general life-style of people who smoke and die (like obesity, drinking, etc). I've seen stats where smokers who lead an otherwise healthy life-style live just as long as non-smokers, but these stats are hardly ever published. You also never hear about the quantity of tobacco these death-bed smokers consume. There is always the proverbial details missing. One never hears about how many people who smoke and don't die. It's a religious issue for a lot of people. They get fed the anti-smoking FUD everyday and people start to think of it like a campaign. The sad thing is most of these people are also hypocrites.
Most people I know who are against smoking drive to work everyday shitting out far more toxic fumes from their car than are released from a cigarette when they could just as easily take a bus to work. And yes these hypocrites are full of excuses... please spare me if you have any. I'd really like to know how much anti-smoking research is done by people who don't have any biases against smoking. Smoking, according to the US Surgeon General is more addictive than heroine. Well apples and oranges aside, lets stop the FUD. I don't have any choice to hear people dangerous religious beliefs, I don't have the choice to not breathe in the ubiquitous car exhaust by lazy motorist, and there aren't any warning labels on chocolate bars saying that sugar causes diabetes, tooth decay, heart disease, stroke, obesity, etc... Let's stop the FUD and hypocrisy people... there are more important things in this world to deal with.
This illustrates to me the symbiotic relationship governments and businesses have with each other in democracies. In their words it's protecting the consumer from themselves while making music more available. In the double-think tradition of Orwell this makes sense. Too bad it doesn't seem like there is a choice nowadays in democracies. You get to vote for different people, but it's all the same basic ideology; the corrupt supporting the corrupt. That is, businesses supporting politicians, and your average voter being fed the same old FUD, appeals to emotion, etc. without any De facto choice or say in the matter. The popular vote really doesn't seem to be supporting anything popular. Career politicians supporting career business people who support career politicians. It's the mobius strip of Western progress.
To put things into perspective; I've read that a prospective Google employee will go through 12 interviews before he/she is deemed the right fit. With the massive amount of employees large companies like Microsoft hires and the relatively few amount of Computer Science PhDs that graduate each year in the US, it is not surprising to me that Microsoft would want to spread its work force out into other countries. Yeah you have to be well bread (and lucky) to work for company's like Microsoft. I can't see M$ looking for the lowest common denominator employee (pay-wise) just to satisfy the bean counters. I'm sure it happens to a degree, but not to the extent that they want to loose market share.
Don't get me wrong, I love hating corporate evil, but lets separate the emotional reactionism and politics from the reality.
You sacrifice efficiency for protectionism. It just doesn't work in the long run. That's why most countries are publicly pushing for free-trade (although generally pork-belly politics prevents real market forces from taking effect). It's Economics 101. Laissez-faire of course has it's own problems. And in a world where countries have different demographics and labour laws, etc... things can get quite skewed. It's more a matter of fair-trade (finding the middle ground). Simple reactionary political obstacles to the free market never work. It's like diverting a river or building a dike, natural tendencies will always try to overcome artificial barriers.
BTW: I almost said "building a dyke"
The main premise of the joke in question isn't even about Indians, it is based on the idea that companies find it better to get cheap labour through immigration than to keep qualified employees already working for the company. Of course the name at the end implies that this person is from the Asian sub-continent, but this is secondary to the over-all premise. And yes I have heard "racist" jokes about Canada and Canadians and I was not offended. I have also heard a joke about "white" people and I was not offended (though I never did get the joke), nor was I concerned that it was anything more than a joke, as opposed to an ethnic slur.
Humour nor jokes are offensive however anybody would like to project their beliefs and morals onto things, jokes are not offensive. If jokes were offensive then they would not be funny. In fact I consider "racial" jokes to be a sign of tolerance that we can make fun of our differences, though this would be qualified to the intent that the person telling the joke has.
The realm of comedy uses complexities and subtleties of language and ideas that most people are not adept at. I really doubt if somebody simple-minded enough to be a racist could appreciate humour, much less have the aptitude to be creative in the intellectual realm of comedy.
If people don't find jokes funny they won't laugh (fake laughter is pretty easy to spot). If there is a problem with racism in the work force then telling jokes are certainly not the problem. I've never worked in America so I don't know about all the racism that goes on in the workplace over their. There's a point to be made though: the joke in question is not offensive and it is not racist. I would suspect that the majority of people who find it racist are white people with money (the Middle Class) who want to project their middle class Idealism onto other people.
No this is not true. There will always be people like you who will talk to me like I'm some type of jackass. I often think of that person as the Management Type. Also there are some people who do not have the genes to understand humour. The ability to understand irony for example is genetically based. This was a real insight when I first heard this because I always wondered why I can't joke around with some people. It's ironic because more than one of these people have themselves told me that I was stupid.
What you have told me is your opinion. You have not proven to me that the joke is offensive. If you even have to prove it then there seems to be some dubiousness in your assertion. You've already implied that I am racist ("someone like you.."), so I would assume you have other prejudices. This is another irony because I am neither racist nor do I seek to offend. If I did seek to offend I wouldn't feel so up-tight about telling jokes because I know there are a million ways how people can miss-interpret an art form.
I see the joke as making fun of the processes companies use to get cheap labour. My background-understanding of the joke comes from CNN and not mailing lists. Reading racism into the joke is something that is attributed to YOU, and not me. You can't even objectively speak about the author because you probably don't know him. I certainly don't. I don't know his background, mentali
I'd be damned if I could find the correct spelling. Thanks. I realized my mistake after I posted, but still couldn't find the phonetic equivalent (spelling). But yes "insight" seems somewhat appropriate too :)
When I did tech support I worked with a lot of East Indians who would probably find that snippet quite amusing. I never did find humour offensive, but I realize that humour (along with any other art form) will always insight the Politically Correct.
:(
It would be nice if I could feel free to express myself and give a bit of humour to the world without worrying about offending somebody. Unfortunately there will always be the intolerant and Politically Correct among us who will project there own anxieties on other people.
Say anything good, bad or neutral that involves a "race", and that statement can be said to be "racial", but "racist" implies intolerance and dis-respect, and this is something I just don't see. Perhaps this is because I view ethnic and phenomic differences as trivial, and yet view humour and the creative use of words and ideas as a very important part of my personality. The sad thing is, is that I don't use humour a lot because I know there will always be some people who just don't "get it". So I just give up
If you aren't using spoofing for some rather serious illegal purposes like death threats, massive spamming or scamming then this law is unlikely to be enforced.
In my experiences with businesses using auto-dialers and pre-recorded phone calls to advertise, the police will just refer you to the phone company, and the phone company will just refer you to the police. The same with obscene and persistent phone calls. So I doubt if a law like this would be enforced for the average person just wanting to impress there friends.
Also:
I think it would be prudent not to pigeon-hole a "typical American" seeing as how culturally diverse America is. I think it is too easy to stereo-type based on what we see on TV and witness from the power elites in America, but reality is usually more complex. I certainly couldn't imagine the cmdrTaco as being your "typical American" for example.
In Canada it is a stereo-type that Canadians are nice, and Americans are rude, yet I remember hearing on the news (a year or two ago) a study done that shows Canadians are just as rude as Americans. Go figure. Yes Freedom Fries and the other stunts are really stupid, but I'm sure Europeans and other people say stupid things too. I guess I'm being politically incorrect again, so be it. You aint ganna persuade your average American to listen to you my calling him a jack-ass.
Correction, when referring to 9/11 I should have said government "watch list", and not "no-fly list".
I could presume that the point of these no-fly rules is to prevent people from hi-jacking airplanes. People could still legally enter the US by train, boat, car, foot etc. If the US customs officials on 9/11 checked for box cutters, suspicious behavior, and yes the no-fly list; 9/11 probably wouldn't have happened. No bio-metric tests needed with adequate common-sense security.
I suppose it would just discourage people from going to Disney Land because of the hassles. I doubt if anybody who would consider themselves on a watch list would even bother trying. Treating your average tourist like a criminal certainly isn't going to help visitors feel welcome.
;)
And they ensure privacy while saying they will share biometric data with other government agencies. This does not sound like privacy to me. I'm sure this will effect a lot of social activists and church groups, but I don't see it stopping terrorism. I suppose this is another good reason I don't post my real name on Slashdot, I'm sure I would be on a Watch List
Labour market elasticity is a pretty general topic with a lot of assumptions involved. With any economic model, it can only be generalized.
I think there are some basic points to be made:
1) The greater the demand for employees, and the smaller the supply, means more elasticity for the worker. I would argue that global markets and the introduction of telecommuting, immigration and off-shoring would help to mitigate the effects of worker shortages.
2) There is less elasticity for highly specialized jobs (hockey player, brain surgeon, professional wrestler, Cobol programmer, air traffic controller, etc). Retraining has only marginal benefits if you are older in your career path and with no experience under your belt. The same could be said for people just starting out in the work force; no experience means far less choice.
3) Market forces vary from region to region and country to country, where the mobility of the worker may be limited, especially for non-skilled and semi-skilled workers.
There will always be a certain amount of elasticity in almost any economic model. It just depends on the quantity and quality (of jobs) that this applies to. I would suppose you'd have a hard time convincing somebody that has been putting doors on cars for GM for 10 or 15 years that the labour market is elastic, and he can just go find another job if he doesn't like his current job. The real problem with RFID and other invasive technologies is that they will start to become ubiquitous if people start getting used to them, and there isn't much elasticity for something that is ubiquitous. As Winston Churchill once said, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Without being to obsessive over this topic I will make one final point. Worker efficiency (or efficiency per worker) does not necessarily equal increased pay. If that where the case then people working the assembly line jobs wouldn't (in many cases) be making minimum wage. I have seldom seen workplace efficiency being put into employee's pay cheques instead of into the company's profit margin (though I'm sure it happens in some cases). It's fairly easy to have counter-points with an issue as complex as economics, but so it goes. Never underestimate the complexity of an issue, or negative effects that can arise from new processes and technologies.
If your hypothesis is correct, then having market forces control the ethics of employers would have a similar effect of just outright banning unethical behavior. Laws in this sense would be redundant. However, laws banning unethical behavior would have no negative effect. Laws banning unethical behavior would then be redundant, but they would at least be a precaution against negative consequences if they were to occur. I'd rather err on the side of caution and just have a law in place.
As a person who has been compulsively under-employed (and some may say over-educated), I can say I speak from experience, so perhaps I am stupid. I happen to live in a major Canadian city where many legal immigrants should have far more choices than me because of their actual work expereince and Phd's etc, and yet they too have a difficult time finding any type of work; yes even in the year 2007. I would suggest your experiences do not match up with many (most?) people's experiences. I know a lot of people would submit to just about anything just to get a job. The choices people have are based more on duress than free will.
Once we start lowering the legal bar and the vast majority of employers start taking advantage of their new rights, then choices will be further reduced. With the advent of free-trade and global markets, and the transportation and communications networks, choices for employers to out-source their labour to the cheapest markets have certainly increased.
Historically, people had very little rights, but with the rise of labour unions in the early 20th century many draconian practices have been eliminated. Of course things are better now for many people, but you should not under-estimate how easily things can be reversed, especially for the less powerful and influential in our society.
I'm of the opinion that the type of people who would think that RFID implants are really not such a bad thing would not have a clue what you are talking about. Although I'm pretty sure they would accuse you of spewing socialism.
I really doubt of those people would understand economic concepts like elasticity. Nice try, but in my experience most politicians and "business" people only have a vague notion of economic concepts. Even my Business Management teacher (from years past), who has an MBA, thought it would be a good idea to create cities, because in her mind cities created jobs, and we could send unemployed people to these cities, therefore unemployment would be solved. Granted she seemed good at teaching-from-the-text-book, but she never really seemed to have a deep understanding of what she was teaching.
Most people do not have the choice to decide whether they wish to work, or with whom they wish to work for, therefore at least a certain amount of legal protection has to be maintained. This is especially true when most of the wealth (and power) is distributed to only a small minority of the population.
Considering the fact that power corrupts and companies tend towards the lowest common denominator when it comes to moral issues like workers rights and just plane ordinary dignity, it is not unreasonable to have a law that requires employers not to treat their workers too much like cattle. If people really did have a choice of not to work for bad companies, I'm sure they would. Until that day comes, we will need legislation protecting us from our employers.
2) People are living longer in Western civilizations, so one would expect a rise in age related mental disorders (if in fact this is occurring)That's a pretty vague statement in itself. If you are implying that people who already have schizophrenia or clinical depression are more likely to commit murder after playing a video game than not, then this seems unrealistic. From what I have read there is no evidence of this. From my own experiences with people who can't distinguish reality from fantasy, they are not likely to be the types of people to play video games in the first place. They are more likely to indulge in excessive alcohol use or just spend their time ranting at people or stalking them (granted this is anecdotal, but I have met my fair share...). I think it would be more worthwhile to prevent these people from gaining access to actual weapons than to games.There will always be anti-discrimination challenges, and so there should be. It's a matter of finding something that is fair. I don't think there are laws from banning the mentally ill from buying alcohol, but maybe there should be. There are laws discriminating against mentally ill people from making there own decisions in some cases, like in regards to taking care of their children, or even the freedom to walk the streets.
I think it would be better to focus energies on proper social support, psychiatric counseling, and medication; rather than to try to ban everything that could be considered a problem for the mentally ill. So far video games doesn't even come close, as there is no evidence that video games cause mental illness, much less murder.
It would be nice if people would just admit that they want something banned because they find it morally obscene, instead of making up FUD. I'm not sure if you are one of those people, but I hope I helped give you some insight.
It is censorship because it is not being released because of its content. This censorship comes from both political and market forces. The British government is censoring it (through its ratings system), and the console manufacturers are censoring it by not allowing it to be licensed on their machines.
It may not be popularly known as censorship by people who don't like the game (and I can presume have never played the game), but yes it is censorship.
I'm sure if this topic involved something about banning things that are more politically correct, then it would be considered censorship. Whether something gets banned by a library, a bookstore, or a video game store, or an entire country, it is still censorship. You don't get to redefine what censorship is.
For more definitive definitions and explanations:
censorship
Video game controversy
PS: I'm not trying to pick on you (with another reply/refutation), but I thought the issue of censorship should be clarified.
You equate their games with torture and with murderers, and you claim that you don't have a moral problem with them selling games to adults.
Your last post offers a better explanation and is far more informative and insightful and would have been taken more seriously than:
I'm not even going to bother replying to him. People who don't like something will think up any excuse to get rid of it. His argument has no weight what-so-ever except to those who agree with him. The same with any other logical fallacies. They make good rhetoric for persuading the naive, but nothing more.
The post is tagged as "games" and "politics". Manhunt 2 is a game, and the decision to suspend it's marketing is based on the political decisions made in Britain. Relevant IMHO.