The only serious way out involves LOTS of cuts, everywhere.
I beg to differ. Not only is this not the "only" way, its not even a serious way.
The solution to the problem is increasing GDP. It is the fact that we have a large economy that pays for services we desire in the scale that we desire them.
GDP growth is at 1.5% It needs to be above 5% again. At 7% we double the economy in 10 years, and that would completely wipe out the current deficit and provide a very large surplus.
Taxing the rich isnt the answer. Letting the economy grow is the answer.
The $7 wasn't an estimate. It was the ratio of hours of television watched to hours of television available to watch in a year multiplied by total yearly cost. For the amount of television the OP watches, ie 1/36 of the available amount of television, OP's paying about $7 a year for the shows OP watches and about $143 a year for television gone unwatched. Why should OP be required to pay for television gone unwatched? Are you required to pay for electricity you don't use? Water you don't consume? No, these things are metered and you pay for what you use. Why should television be any different?
Because, as Dr Krugman so eloquently put it, "Goo goo ga ga, debasement. Theft!"
Because alcohol is to sex traffickers as porn of sex slaves is to sex traffickers? Did you mean to reply to someone else, because this post makes no sense in relation to what I said.
As horrible as child abuse is, it is utterly irrational grandstanding to say that child abuse is worse than murder. If I asked you if you would rather be raped or killed, do you really mean to tell me that you would answer "killed"? If not, then murder is worse than any form of abuse. The heinousness of a crime is directly proportional to its effect on the victim. There can be no crime more heinous, therefore, than any crime that deprives the victim of his or her existence unwillingly.
I can't speak for the GP, but I would answer "killed". It is a grave misjudgement to take for granted that your experience of the world is universal. Consider the suicide rate among victims of childhood sexual abuse.
"The lifetime prevalence of having at least 1 suicide attempt was 3.8%. Adverse childhood experiences in any category increased the risk of attempted suicide 2- to 5-fold."
Is it worse to take away a life, or risk leaving a survivor who wants to die? Some people might consider a lifetime sentence like that a fate worse than death.
I bet the number of CP producers turning a profit is quite small...
You're dead wrong there, I'm sorry to say. For-profit CP producers are often human traffickers, who enslave children as part of their predation - and human trafficking is a booming industry. There's no question that sexual abuse is a behavioral issue, and I'm very unhappy with the current solution of prosecuting owners of Very Large Numbers as though they were rapists, but there's a lot of money changing hands, within the US, on the backs of abused children.
There's a difference between living alone and living alone with depression. I can't truly relax or do what I need/want because I'm not ultimately in control of the situation. I don't choose to be alone. The situation you describe bears little resemblance to my experience of solitude.
Not trying to start a pity party or anything, but you're describing taking a long weekend off of work, when I'm talking about months of neurochemically-enforced solitude. There's a big difference.
We'd be the first to sign up for voluntary solitary confinement. (ok, that may just be me)
It's not just you. I hear horror stories about how terrible it is to be in solitary confinement and all I can think is, that's like my whole life for months at a time. Much rather be in solitary than in the *shudder* general population.
Or anyway, as a guy who's never been to prison, that's what I'd opt for, given the choice.
Non-depressed people socialize on Facebook and share interesting things with their friends. Depressed people go to Google+, limit their circles heavily and follow geek celebrities instead of their friends (if they have any).
This is a grossly overstated, bordering on deeply insulting, generalization. I would never go on Google+.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration
on
Diablo III Released
·
· Score: 1
Don't worry, the new golden age of PC gaming is here. Indie devs are making an astonishing number of remarkable games. I'm disappointed I won't be playing D3, for sure - but I'll get over it with Grimrock, Minecraft, Wasteland 2, Torchlight 2, X-COM... just to name a few. It won't hurt Activision, but I've quietly passed on this and probably all future Blizzard games.
We have "serious people" Bernake is the most serious of academic economists, of course he is running the country into the ground. The educated economists that caused the hyperinflation in Germany, Zimbabwe, Hungary, etc. were "serious people" often the best in their fields. What then do you propose? Keynesian economics have failed. The collapse of the European economy and the ongoing collapse of the American economy is proof of that.
Fiscal austerity in a liquidity trap is not Keynesian, so to claim it has failed is reading from a fraudulent playbook.
Let's try a serious stimulus (this time) to let states rehire teachers and police, extend the school day and resume civics, music, arts, theater, sports after-school programs, and get some national infrastructure projects going. Let the Fed finally fulfill their dual mandate to maximize employment by bumping inflation up to 4% to get big business spending instead of stuffing bonds into their mattresses. Let's see to it that no child in this country goes without healthcare or food. Let's make sure banks that are insured by our tax dollars aren't taking depositor money to Vegas.Hell, while we're at it and on Slashdot, let's nationalize the last fscking mile and create an even field for all comers as ISPs again, opening the doors of competition for a new generation of high-tech entrepreneurs.
Let's pay for it by borrowing at negative rates while we have them and getting serious about collecting taxes from corporations who sit on war chests and individuals who make enough in a day to pay my entire yearly budget three times over - but pay about half the tax rate I do. Let's make some common-sense efficiency changes to entitlement programs that will not curtail services but will reduce overhead and duplication of effort. LET'S ELIMINATE THE DHS IN ITS ENTIRETY. Let's stop feeding the new Jim Crow incarceration industry with our money by criminalizing things like pot and bullying, and instead address the underlying societal factors that drive people to destructive behavior, saving money and creating futures (with better paying jobs, and thus a stronger tax base) for 10% of the population where before they had none.
This isn't an exhaustive list, and most of these aren't my ideas, but they ARE my idea of a good goddamn start.
I'm not sure why you're directing this remark at me, apart from looking for someone to troll. I'm pointing out the distinction you inartfully describe and stating that the red blooded murrikan man has a hard time seeing the difference. I am American, but I'm not part of that particular demographic.
The poor don't get anorexia. Anorexia loves suburban females, often Jewish, and almost no one else. Seen any men with anorexia lately? How many black girls have anorexia?
You should probably learn something about this disease before you run your mouth.
Women, and to a lesser, but increasing amount, men, are getting severely programmed by all the fake crap
I have to say, I think you underestimate the impact of fake crap media on men. The whole hyper-macho thing is largely an American construction. Even countries which punish homosexuality with death (Iran) think nothing of two straight men hugging, or even holding hands. Here, it's all NO-HOMO all the time.
this kinda laws is gonna save the world ROFL.....ya know all those abuses going on and corruption and this is what the media pushes around a bunch a spoiled rich broads that have eating issues.
Where do "spoiled" or "rich" come into it? Have you met many models? Not a life I would choose. The fashion industry exploits youth. Just because the pretty pictures make them look one way, doesn't make it true - in fact, that's the whole point of this article!
Much of it could be covered under "truth in advertising" laws already on the books. The part prohibiting models below the WHO minimum BMI might be tougher.
"Object in mirror may be closer to death than it appears".
It's more akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater. He isn't directly responsible, but he undoubtedly has blood on his hands according to social convention in the US.
I know a lot of people who pay for Hulu and would probably pay more.
Are any of them at least waiting for the Advertisement-Free account to become an option before they'd be willing to pay more?
I would happily pay for a streaming account membership, but I am not going to do so if that account comes with ads. Why are people ok with paying a membership fee and watching an ad sequence every 7 minutes into their show??
This is an issue that confuses (AND ANGERS) me too. Ads are just unbearable to me now - like some exquisite torture. Even the TiVo-esque speedthrough makes me twitch, because they just make the ads that much more subliminal. Neuromarketing is the Devil's work.
Slashdot Mirror
The only serious way out involves LOTS of cuts, everywhere.
I beg to differ. Not only is this not the "only" way, its not even a serious way.
The solution to the problem is increasing GDP. It is the fact that we have a large economy that pays for services we desire in the scale that we desire them.
GDP growth is at 1.5% It needs to be above 5% again. At 7% we double the economy in 10 years, and that would completely wipe out the current deficit and provide a very large surplus.
Taxing the rich isnt the answer. Letting the economy grow is the answer.
And the economy will greet us as liberators.
Not to mention all the newfriends.
The $7 wasn't an estimate. It was the ratio of hours of television watched to hours of television available to watch in a year multiplied by total yearly cost. For the amount of television the OP watches, ie 1/36 of the available amount of television, OP's paying about $7 a year for the shows OP watches and about $143 a year for television gone unwatched. Why should OP be required to pay for television gone unwatched? Are you required to pay for electricity you don't use? Water you don't consume? No, these things are metered and you pay for what you use. Why should television be any different?
Because, as Dr Krugman so eloquently put it, "Goo goo ga ga, debasement. Theft!"
The problem with that is that while true Nazism is pretty rare in modern society,[..]
Tell that to Greece.
Because alcohol is to sex traffickers as porn of sex slaves is to sex traffickers? Did you mean to reply to someone else, because this post makes no sense in relation to what I said.
Or, at all.
As horrible as child abuse is, it is utterly irrational grandstanding to say that child abuse is worse than murder. If I asked you if you would rather be raped or killed, do you really mean to tell me that you would answer "killed"? If not, then murder is worse than any form of abuse. The heinousness of a crime is directly proportional to its effect on the victim. There can be no crime more heinous, therefore, than any crime that deprives the victim of his or her existence unwillingly.
I can't speak for the GP, but I would answer "killed". It is a grave misjudgement to take for granted that your experience of the world is universal. Consider the suicide rate among victims of childhood sexual abuse.
"The lifetime prevalence of having at least 1 suicide attempt was 3.8%. Adverse childhood experiences in any category increased the risk of attempted suicide 2- to 5-fold."
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?volume=286&issue=24&page=3089
Is it worse to take away a life, or risk leaving a survivor who wants to die? Some people might consider a lifetime sentence like that a fate worse than death.
I bet the number of CP producers turning a profit is quite small...
You're dead wrong there, I'm sorry to say. For-profit CP producers are often human traffickers, who enslave children as part of their predation - and human trafficking is a booming industry. There's no question that sexual abuse is a behavioral issue, and I'm very unhappy with the current solution of prosecuting owners of Very Large Numbers as though they were rapists, but there's a lot of money changing hands, within the US, on the backs of abused children.
I agree with you completely
But why do you think your observations have any relevancy to the production and consumption of CHILD pornography?
Increased availability of porn is positively correlated with a reduction in sexual violence. Why exactly would his observation NOT have relevance?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut
If there's no demand, there's no supply
therefore it is valid to go after demand
Worked great for pot. We started imprisoning potheads in Federal pens, and no one grew weed anymore! *dusts hands* Mission accomplished.
There's a difference between living alone and living alone with depression. I can't truly relax or do what I need/want because I'm not ultimately in control of the situation. I don't choose to be alone. The situation you describe bears little resemblance to my experience of solitude.
Not trying to start a pity party or anything, but you're describing taking a long weekend off of work, when I'm talking about months of neurochemically-enforced solitude. There's a big difference.
We'd be the first to sign up for voluntary solitary confinement. (ok, that may just be me)
It's not just you. I hear horror stories about how terrible it is to be in solitary confinement and all I can think is, that's like my whole life for months at a time. Much rather be in solitary than in the *shudder* general population.
Or anyway, as a guy who's never been to prison, that's what I'd opt for, given the choice.
Non-depressed people socialize on Facebook and share interesting things with their friends. Depressed people go to Google+, limit their circles heavily and follow geek celebrities instead of their friends (if they have any).
This is a grossly overstated, bordering on deeply insulting, generalization. I would never go on Google+.
Don't worry, the new golden age of PC gaming is here. Indie devs are making an astonishing number of remarkable games. I'm disappointed I won't be playing D3, for sure - but I'll get over it with Grimrock, Minecraft, Wasteland 2, Torchlight 2, X-COM... just to name a few. It won't hurt Activision, but I've quietly passed on this and probably all future Blizzard games.
We'll always have Blackthorne, Bliz.
Sure, sure, all of that is scary. But think of the ultra-porn!
We have "serious people" Bernake is the most serious of academic economists, of course he is running the country into the ground. The educated economists that caused the hyperinflation in Germany, Zimbabwe, Hungary, etc. were "serious people" often the best in their fields. What then do you propose? Keynesian economics have failed. The collapse of the European economy and the ongoing collapse of the American economy is proof of that.
Fiscal austerity in a liquidity trap is not Keynesian, so to claim it has failed is reading from a fraudulent playbook.
Let's try a serious stimulus (this time) to let states rehire teachers and police, extend the school day and resume civics, music, arts, theater, sports after-school programs, and get some national infrastructure projects going. Let the Fed finally fulfill their dual mandate to maximize employment by bumping inflation up to 4% to get big business spending instead of stuffing bonds into their mattresses. Let's see to it that no child in this country goes without healthcare or food. Let's make sure banks that are insured by our tax dollars aren't taking depositor money to Vegas.Hell, while we're at it and on Slashdot, let's nationalize the last fscking mile and create an even field for all comers as ISPs again, opening the doors of competition for a new generation of high-tech entrepreneurs.
Let's pay for it by borrowing at negative rates while we have them and getting serious about collecting taxes from corporations who sit on war chests and individuals who make enough in a day to pay my entire yearly budget three times over - but pay about half the tax rate I do. Let's make some common-sense efficiency changes to entitlement programs that will not curtail services but will reduce overhead and duplication of effort. LET'S ELIMINATE THE DHS IN ITS ENTIRETY. Let's stop feeding the new Jim Crow incarceration industry with our money by criminalizing things like pot and bullying, and instead address the underlying societal factors that drive people to destructive behavior, saving money and creating futures (with better paying jobs, and thus a stronger tax base) for 10% of the population where before they had none.
This isn't an exhaustive list, and most of these aren't my ideas, but they ARE my idea of a good goddamn start.
I'm not sure why you're directing this remark at me, apart from looking for someone to troll. I'm pointing out the distinction you inartfully describe and stating that the red blooded murrikan man has a hard time seeing the difference. I am American, but I'm not part of that particular demographic.
Get it? Got it? Good.
The poor don't get anorexia. Anorexia loves suburban females, often Jewish, and almost no one else. Seen any men with anorexia lately? How many black girls have anorexia?
You should probably learn something about this disease before you run your mouth.
Women, and to a lesser, but increasing amount, men, are getting severely programmed by all the fake crap
I have to say, I think you underestimate the impact of fake crap media on men. The whole hyper-macho thing is largely an American construction. Even countries which punish homosexuality with death (Iran) think nothing of two straight men hugging, or even holding hands. Here, it's all NO-HOMO all the time.
this kinda laws is gonna save the world ROFL.....ya know all those abuses going on and corruption and this is what the media pushes around a bunch a spoiled rich broads that have eating issues.
Where do "spoiled" or "rich" come into it? Have you met many models? Not a life I would choose. The fashion industry exploits youth. Just because the pretty pictures make them look one way, doesn't make it true - in fact, that's the whole point of this article!
Much of it could be covered under "truth in advertising" laws already on the books. The part prohibiting models below the WHO minimum BMI might be tougher.
"Object in mirror may be closer to death than it appears".
Models aren't the product
That all depends on your definition of 'product'.
I think if "The Media" can be said to have a broad bias, that bias would be a corporatist one, not on the conservative-liberal spectrum at all.
It's time to start thinking about how to deal with the global warming deniers.
Aren't there some empty FEMA camps somewhere where we can put them where they won't hurt anyone?
How about a biodome? Let's see how long it takes for them to become environmentalists then...
It's more akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater. He isn't directly responsible, but he undoubtedly has blood on his hands according to social convention in the US.
I know a lot of people who pay for Hulu and would probably pay more.
Are any of them at least waiting for the Advertisement-Free account to become an option before they'd be willing to pay more?
I would happily pay for a streaming account membership, but I am not going to do so if that account comes with ads. Why are people ok with paying a membership fee and watching an ad sequence every 7 minutes into their show??
This is an issue that confuses (AND ANGERS) me too. Ads are just unbearable to me now - like some exquisite torture. Even the TiVo-esque speedthrough makes me twitch, because they just make the ads that much more subliminal. Neuromarketing is the Devil's work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromarketing