For some context, SANRAL misappropriated a pension fund. A won lawsuit against the city of Joburg would just result in an increase of rates and we'd still have to pay E-tolls on top of that. The city of Joburg may be incompetent in the extreme, but SANRAL is just pure evil.
I am slightly saddened by the fact that you felt the need to link to the wikipedia pyrrhic article. Does anyone here seriously not understand the term?
[rant]I ran into a classic one yesterday. Some Information Services 'engineer' telling me I must use his packaging machine PLC code standard to run his Power Factor Correction System. These guys often have no idea what forces they're playing with. The standard is brilliant for packaging machines I'm sure, which are largely sequential lots of VSDs and axis control, but this is most definitely not the sort of system that can work on this standard. It is completely inappropriate. I applaud standards. I love it when a client gives me a well defined tag naming convention, and a logical plant structure, but keep the bloody IS guys out of the actual engineering please.[/rant]
Yes, they take a lot of the Jobs in SA. Mainly because they're more willing to work and often better educated than their South African counterparts. In any case, since the SA government props up Mugabe, it is sort of a self-created problem. If all the Zimbabweans went home (and former Zimbabweans like myself), the economy here would take quite a hit... Still, you can't empty an entire country...
South Africa isn't too bad. Not too good either, but it passes. The real issue is pretty much nowhere in Africa has a functional democracy. South Africa's does partially work, but not completely. It is really depressing, I know. I lived through the worst of Zimbabwe. If SA goes the same way, I guess I'm leaving Africa. I would be very sad to go though. Africa, despite it's issues is an absolutely amazing place to be.
When Mugabe refused to allow the UN to administer the money the British were sending him to buy farms for the war veterans (because then he would not be able to steal it, and also, pride "Zimbabwe is a sovereign Nation!"), the money stopped and he had nothing to give the war veterans who then revolted. What happened next was highly predictable in hindsight. He printed money to appease them, which they squandered and inflation ate. So they demanded land and took it.
The problem is, when you're riding the tiger, if you get off it will eat you. I could almost pity the man, except for the slaughter of his own people in the 80s... In any case, if Mugabe dies, the Mujurus and so forth of Zimbabwe will drag it into civil war, since they control the police and the army. He clings to power because if he loses it, he is dead. He once stated he'd leave power in a coffin, and that is likely true even if he resigns. He is actually a very intelligent, though very nasty, person. Most blame his wife who is basically evil incarnate.
Zimbabweans are a peaceful people, they don't easily become violent. If that weren't the case, he would be dead by now. In essence, I guess the people get the government they deserve, though this could have gone an entirely different way had we had someone else as leader.
What the solution is, I don't know. Perhaps a free and fair election could transition power, but Tsvangirai isn't actually good leadership material. Essentially, the cancer has spread to the point where the organism that is Zimbabwe basically may die. Zimbabwe had such amazing potential.
Many do, but many stay because hope is a triumph of optimism over experience. Also, where do you propose they all go? Given the literacy rates a significant proportion of the population can use a computer. While I love the idea of Mugabe sitting alone in a ghost town, it isn't really practical...
Those gadgets? Guess where they come from? I suppose the Chinese could have trained them up in the interim, but for a large part they seemed to be following instructions from their Chinese overlords last time I was there... A couple of ham operators I knew got into fairly serious trouble over the things they were saying back in the mid 2000s, but mainly because they used their own callsigns. To be fair, I did not get my internet through tell-one, who probably did censor things, but instead through Econet, who did not(they had their own satellite link). I never ran across any blocked sites through them, or through the state sponsored university internet. I haven't been back for more than a couple of weeks in 3 years though, so things may have changed, but in the towns you can access pretty much any site you like.
You might be a little surprised if you visited Zimbabwe. The (one and only) thing Mugabe did right was push education, which means a lot of arbitrary schools in the middle of the rural areas have computer labs and things like that. There is a thriving business in old computers there, and it was almost enough for me to support myself.
The goal? Survival I suppose. On a more personal level, I suppose it would imply staying true to a particular philosophy or view.... A lot of things seem to be relative to one's starting position...
Selfishness includes the desire for food and shelter, is it an evolutionary benefit to demand neither? This whole argument is absurd.
Is it absurd? Would you demand neither food nor shelter if doing so allowed your progeny both(not unreasonable you may be asked to sacrifice both for your kids)? Tricky isn't it? Never argue with a drunk guy... He won't ever realise you won or lost...:P
Honestly dude, I'm not sober enough for this. But it does sound reasonable.... What if we could survive despite our destruction of nature? Why should we be custodians? It seems arbitrary. Why would intelligence make us better custodians? Surely obedience to the goal is more important? I have, I suppose, my own internal answers, but I think it is important to go on asking. When marginally sober at least...
(Thank goodness for spell checkers...) Ok. I quit for bed now,. It is 11 at night here.
Advertising revenue? In South Africa? BBC Entertainment consists of advertising for (guess what?) BBC Entertainment. As with Discovery and Nat Geo, so no, no advertising lost. Their costs are covered by my US$ 80 subscription. Perhaps I am not the group he is referring to, but that does not imply that I (or my colleagues) abruptly cease to exist.... Admittedly discovery advertises a process control company(Nelson Concentrators, during Gold Rush Alaska) with which I admittedly have association with, but then I'm hardly likely to buy my own product am I? A surprisingly large number of people here subscribe to DSTV... And we still don't get why you would want to advertise a channel you're already watching....
Is it selfishness as a species or as a group of individuals that leads to an ecosystem collapse? As a species, doesn't selfishness mean survival at any cost? Even the extreme cost of preserving the ecosystem? Perhaps the error is that we are selfish on the wrong level - as individuals rather than as a species. I am admittedly drunk, but it sounds like a rather profound question, so, what the heck, I'm asking.
Well done AC, you have made me laugh! Let us then do this thing, not because he is necessarily wrong but for the nobility of our cause!
To be fair to him, I suspect he is implying 'general selfishness' (i.e. selfishness as a species) is 'better' (whatever that means) than individual selfishness. I might be wrong, but I am certainly 7 440ml beers down, so wrong is relative........
I am not American. While I am profoundly grateful for that fact, I have to admit that my understanding of your dream is a nightmare - in all honesty, that may well be because I misunderstand it, or perhaps I am just an over-privileged descendant of the great British Empire. It is understood that in order to succeed there must be some stepping on of others. We have just made it a bit less subtle about it in Africa.
Small teams only? Damn. 7 Billion is such a small team... I of course bow to your no doubt more sober analysis. But, well I still can't help but think there might be some value in co-operation for a species....
Given my current moderation score I suspect you may have hit upon the deeper truth.... I'll go get me another ice cold one and leave the philosophy to the sober ones...:)
I am no communist, but I think it would be difficult to argue that selfishness benefited the species as a whole in all circumstances. Communism !=Altruism.
Slashdot Mirror
SANRAL should be Suing?!!!
For some context, SANRAL misappropriated a pension fund. A won lawsuit against the city of Joburg would just result in an increase of rates and we'd still have to pay E-tolls on top of that. The city of Joburg may be incompetent in the extreme, but SANRAL is just pure evil.
I am slightly saddened by the fact that you felt the need to link to the wikipedia pyrrhic article. Does anyone here seriously not understand the term?
[rant]I ran into a classic one yesterday. Some Information Services 'engineer' telling me I must use his packaging machine PLC code standard to run his Power Factor Correction System. These guys often have no idea what forces they're playing with. The standard is brilliant for packaging machines I'm sure, which are largely sequential lots of VSDs and axis control, but this is most definitely not the sort of system that can work on this standard. It is completely inappropriate. I applaud standards. I love it when a client gives me a well defined tag naming convention, and a logical plant structure, but keep the bloody IS guys out of the actual engineering please.[/rant]
We could not afford chairs, so we had to sit on piles of money instead...
As it happens, yes...
Yes, they take a lot of the Jobs in SA. Mainly because they're more willing to work and often better educated than their South African counterparts. In any case, since the SA government props up Mugabe, it is sort of a self-created problem. If all the Zimbabweans went home (and former Zimbabweans like myself), the economy here would take quite a hit... Still, you can't empty an entire country...
South Africa isn't too bad. Not too good either, but it passes. The real issue is pretty much nowhere in Africa has a functional democracy. South Africa's does partially work, but not completely. It is really depressing, I know. I lived through the worst of Zimbabwe. If SA goes the same way, I guess I'm leaving Africa. I would be very sad to go though. Africa, despite it's issues is an absolutely amazing place to be.
In the recent elections people were hit by both, so it is progress... Just not progress from a non-Zaunu PF point of view...
When Mugabe refused to allow the UN to administer the money the British were sending him to buy farms for the war veterans (because then he would not be able to steal it, and also, pride "Zimbabwe is a sovereign Nation!"), the money stopped and he had nothing to give the war veterans who then revolted. What happened next was highly predictable in hindsight. He printed money to appease them, which they squandered and inflation ate. So they demanded land and took it.
The problem is, when you're riding the tiger, if you get off it will eat you. I could almost pity the man, except for the slaughter of his own people in the 80s... In any case, if Mugabe dies, the Mujurus and so forth of Zimbabwe will drag it into civil war, since they control the police and the army. He clings to power because if he loses it, he is dead. He once stated he'd leave power in a coffin, and that is likely true even if he resigns. He is actually a very intelligent, though very nasty, person. Most blame his wife who is basically evil incarnate.
Zimbabweans are a peaceful people, they don't easily become violent. If that weren't the case, he would be dead by now. In essence, I guess the people get the government they deserve, though this could have gone an entirely different way had we had someone else as leader.
What the solution is, I don't know. Perhaps a free and fair election could transition power, but Tsvangirai isn't actually good leadership material. Essentially, the cancer has spread to the point where the organism that is Zimbabwe basically may die. Zimbabwe had such amazing potential.
Many do, but many stay because hope is a triumph of optimism over experience. Also, where do you propose they all go? Given the literacy rates a significant proportion of the population can use a computer. While I love the idea of Mugabe sitting alone in a ghost town, it isn't really practical...
Those gadgets? Guess where they come from? I suppose the Chinese could have trained them up in the interim, but for a large part they seemed to be following instructions from their Chinese overlords last time I was there... A couple of ham operators I knew got into fairly serious trouble over the things they were saying back in the mid 2000s, but mainly because they used their own callsigns. To be fair, I did not get my internet through tell-one, who probably did censor things, but instead through Econet, who did not(they had their own satellite link). I never ran across any blocked sites through them, or through the state sponsored university internet. I haven't been back for more than a couple of weeks in 3 years though, so things may have changed, but in the towns you can access pretty much any site you like.
You might be a little surprised if you visited Zimbabwe. The (one and only) thing Mugabe did right was push education, which means a lot of arbitrary schools in the middle of the rural areas have computer labs and things like that. There is a thriving business in old computers there, and it was almost enough for me to support myself.
Indeed, I doubt the Zim government has the resources or skill to do this, given how often their own websites seem to get hacked.
The goal? Survival I suppose. On a more personal level, I suppose it would imply staying true to a particular philosophy or view.... A lot of things seem to be relative to one's starting position...
Where have you been through this whole thread? Are you in the Americas? Wake up earlier or go to bed later!
Selfishness includes the desire for food and shelter, is it an evolutionary benefit to demand neither? This whole argument is absurd.
Is it absurd? Would you demand neither food nor shelter if doing so allowed your progeny both(not unreasonable you may be asked to sacrifice both for your kids)? Tricky isn't it? Never argue with a drunk guy... He won't ever realise you won or lost... :P
Honestly dude, I'm not sober enough for this. But it does sound reasonable.... What if we could survive despite our destruction of nature? Why should we be custodians? It seems arbitrary. Why would intelligence make us better custodians? Surely obedience to the goal is more important? I have, I suppose, my own internal answers, but I think it is important to go on asking. When marginally sober at least...
(Thank goodness for spell checkers...) Ok. I quit for bed now,. It is 11 at night here.
Advertising revenue? In South Africa? BBC Entertainment consists of advertising for (guess what?) BBC Entertainment. As with Discovery and Nat Geo, so no, no advertising lost. Their costs are covered by my US$ 80 subscription. Perhaps I am not the group he is referring to, but that does not imply that I (or my colleagues) abruptly cease to exist.... Admittedly discovery advertises a process control company(Nelson Concentrators, during Gold Rush Alaska) with which I admittedly have association with, but then I'm hardly likely to buy my own product am I? A surprisingly large number of people here subscribe to DSTV... And we still don't get why you would want to advertise a channel you're already watching....
Interesting...
Is it selfishness as a species or as a group of individuals that leads to an ecosystem collapse? As a species, doesn't selfishness mean survival at any cost? Even the extreme cost of preserving the ecosystem? Perhaps the error is that we are selfish on the wrong level - as individuals rather than as a species. I am admittedly drunk, but it sounds like a rather profound question, so, what the heck, I'm asking.
Well done AC, you have made me laugh! Let us then do this thing, not because he is necessarily wrong but for the nobility of our cause!
To be fair to him, I suspect he is implying 'general selfishness' (i.e. selfishness as a species) is 'better' (whatever that means) than individual selfishness. I might be wrong, but I am certainly 7 440ml beers down, so wrong is relative........
I am not American. While I am profoundly grateful for that fact, I have to admit that my understanding of your dream is a nightmare - in all honesty, that may well be because I misunderstand it, or perhaps I am just an over-privileged descendant of the great British Empire. It is understood that in order to succeed there must be some stepping on of others. We have just made it a bit less subtle about it in Africa.
Small teams only? Damn. 7 Billion is such a small team... I of course bow to your no doubt more sober analysis. But, well I still can't help but think there might be some value in co-operation for a species....
Given my current moderation score I suspect you may have hit upon the deeper truth.... I'll go get me another ice cold one and leave the philosophy to the sober ones... :)
I am no communist, but I think it would be difficult to argue that selfishness benefited the species as a whole in all circumstances. Communism !=Altruism.
Ok, Apparently TFA implies it is quantifiable... Who would have thought?