Whoa 2edgy4me bro! You've blown my mind with your argument to moderation!
You're just a garden-variety denialist who thinks (unfortunately, perhaps correctly) that you can appear reasonable and win hearts and minds by striking a compromise between the downer realities of cold, hard science, and the blissful ignorance of soft, warm bullshit.
And without any action, what is the point of the climate science? We'll never reach absolute certainty on the issue. Science doesn't do absolute certainty, that's a religious concept. Some theoretical potential for falsification will always exist. What you advocate amounts to putting climate action off for forever minus a day.
Climate discussion instantly transforms the staunchest conservatives into Occupiers. Suddenly they're worried that the big bad CEOs of renewable energy companies are going to be getting rich from the rest of us and leave us impoverished.
I always tell them that's not a climate policy problem. That's an economic problem - perhaps more specifically, a tax policy problem.
But apparently the CEOs of fossil energy companies (and oil sheikhs) continuing to do the very same thing is A-OK:-\
Reminds me of the gratuitous bong-rip philosophy you see on Ashton Kutcher's news site A+, which is bizarrely one of the most-viewed websites in the US.
Because going the other way has ever led to anything but poverty, stagnation, and misery?
Yes, many times throughout history, most recently after the Great Depression.
No one says capitalism is a perfect system. It is just better then anything anyone else has ever come with that can manage a large complex economy in real time and do it dynamically adjusting to any of an infinite number of constantly changing variables.
Microsoft hasn't done "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" in the past. This is more likely another attempt at "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." So let's wait for the next E to drop.
I had an idea to build something like this combined with a police scanner using an SDR and a Raspi or similar. And at over 1000 euros for this system, those plans are still looking pretty good.
Someone who makes $10 million (or more) a year could afford to pay 90% tax and still live comfortably. But in what way is that fair? Presumably this person is providing a service to a business that they have both agreed is worth $10 million a year, and that they are both happy with the arrangement. Why should the government be allowed to take such a large amount of money as taxes? The rich person doesn't really get much extra out of the deal. At the end of the year, they may have only paid $100,000 in taxes, which is 1% of their earnings, but the have paid the same in taxes than 10 people making $30,000 who may have paid $10,000 each.
The rich person gets to harvest most of the productivity of a vast number of people who receive many services from the government but don't personally cover the entire cost through their taxes.
Also, some may argue that the wealthy do get more out of their taxes, but that is something that should be changed. We should fix the system so that they get exactly as much as everyone else. Not make them pay more because we know they get more out of the system.
Sounds fair. We'd have to stop them from absorbing so much of the value that others produce.
My problem isn't with the technology of the future, it's what we do with it. The demand for jobs has been falling, unemployment going up, and there's no end in sight. And the attitude we take is "meh, I'm sure the future free market will solve it. Or you can try living on welfare."
And people will revolt, if things get too bad, or just too much worse too quickly. You'll see if we just stay the course. Governments intervened to avert this after the Great Depression, but they probably won't this time.
I won't live better than I'm living now. The economy changes at a pace too slow to benefit existing human lives. Those farmers didn't go to work in factories the next week, their grandchildren or great grandchildren did and the generations in between suffered in grinding poverty.
We haven't been living better for many decades now - although I don't think a slight increase in standards of living should excuse ever-growing inequality either. On that note, it may not be in the interest of the rich for the economy to crash, but it is clearly in their interest to bring it close to crashing - exactly how close, who knows? Do they know? Will they have the foresight and self-control to pull out at the last second as their wealth share grows ever larger ever faster?
The hollow promise of a better future is one of the oldest poor-control techniques. It won't work much longer, the concept of an afterlife isn't even holding up well.
So people should starve to death and let the human population shrink to the number of employed people required, eventually to zero? Or are you OK with paying welfare as long as it is sub-livable?
The wealthy basically opted into it after the Great Depression, but moving away wasn't so palatable back then, and they wanted capitalism to succeed to stick it to the commies - both locally and abroad. They were picking up momentum locally and had held big marches.
These days we don't have commies as a credible enemy, and when OWS marched, the rich just watched from their balconies while drinking wine.
This mindset is what we have to get over. Why do people have to earn a living if there is no need for their work? Just out of curiosity, would you be OK with them digging holes and then filling them up again all day to "earn" money?
And if you can make good money for yourself while sustaining others who society does not need work from - and you yourself don't need to work - why is it wrong for some of your pay to go towards supporting others? Again there is no productive work for them to do. You're not being forced to work, either literally, or practically as today. Are you just too selfish?
Many people fear some dystopia where robots do everything and no one can get a job. But the reality is that money only has value in that you can buy things with it.
Which means those with money will need to spend it for it to have value. And that means if they get anything from people consenting to do what they want... people will have jobs.
Thank goodness the economy will crash and people will revolt before literally only the rich have money to spend on things beyond basic survival.
You end up with that most dreaded of situations: Skilled graduates on minimum wage.
If there aren't enough jobs to go around, it's not just those lacking motivation that end up unemployed. Employers get to be really picky, and make whatever demands they want.
OMG, we'd better prevent these things from happening at all costs! Imagine the consequences!
I think that these rich individuals and corporations would remain in America for several reasons. Foremost is my belief that rich individuals specifically aren't generally sociopathic, and consequently understand the value of contributing back to the society in which one lives.
HAHAHA
Many of them are indeed sociopathic - I'd say close to half. The rest have their heads deep in the sand about what life is like outside the country club and think things are pretty good for us - that we're somehow living like people making $0.25M per year, as the WSJ illustrated a few years ago. That latter group will have to choose a course of action when reality can't be ignored anymore. Which way they'll go, we can only guess.
They'll probably flee to either Monaco, a private island, or a floating platform like the Freedom Ship (maybe they'll call it Elysium?)
But it will be good for us in the long term - not even that long, but a time that is relevant to a human lifespan. At the very least, the burden of their wealth-hoarding will be gone from economies. Money will go into tangible improvements instead of into Swiss bank accounts, running up their high scores on the Forbes list.
Exactly. The hyper-rich "job creators" are actually the most entitled freeloaders in our society by far, but nobody ever questions it. They're too good to pay their taxes like everyone else, and they'll starve our societies to the brink of collapse in the process of hoarding ridiculous, unusable amounts of wealth for themselves. They've done it before and they're doing it again. Their "work" is a little bit of correspondence here and there from their megayachts or the golf course. But because they're in charge of all the decisions of a company in a very abstract way, we think they somehow generated all the value that results from those decisions. It's absurd.
But the people working their asses off for a sub-livable wage while receiving welfare (effectively a massive subsidy program for all businesses employing minimum wage workers - the gains of which are again hoarded by the hyper-rich), they're freeloaders:-\
I'm surprised WB didn't pull their idea for a Bleach movie out of development hell rather than trying some of these ideas. I realize it would have major trouble getting viewers outside of the existing fanbase, but that has to be more people than would pay to see Aquaman.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoa 2edgy4me bro! You've blown my mind with your argument to moderation!
You're just a garden-variety denialist who thinks (unfortunately, perhaps correctly) that you can appear reasonable and win hearts and minds by striking a compromise between the downer realities of cold, hard science, and the blissful ignorance of soft, warm bullshit.
And without any action, what is the point of the climate science? We'll never reach absolute certainty on the issue. Science doesn't do absolute certainty, that's a religious concept. Some theoretical potential for falsification will always exist. What you advocate amounts to putting climate action off for forever minus a day.
Slashdot still has those people, but about 1/3rd of Slashdotters are climate denialists. They're a minority, but a very loud one.
Climate discussion instantly transforms the staunchest conservatives into Occupiers. Suddenly they're worried that the big bad CEOs of renewable energy companies are going to be getting rich from the rest of us and leave us impoverished.
I always tell them that's not a climate policy problem. That's an economic problem - perhaps more specifically, a tax policy problem.
But apparently the CEOs of fossil energy companies (and oil sheikhs) continuing to do the very same thing is A-OK :-\
I myself only heard about it from an article making fun of it:
http://www.cracked.com/quick-f...
Reminds me of the gratuitous bong-rip philosophy you see on Ashton Kutcher's news site A+, which is bizarrely one of the most-viewed websites in the US.
These poor 3rd-worlders have unique talents that could never be found locally, don'tcha know!?!?
Because going the other way has ever led to anything but poverty, stagnation, and misery?
Yes, many times throughout history, most recently after the Great Depression.
No one says capitalism is a perfect system. It is just better then anything anyone else has ever come with that can manage a large complex economy in real time and do it dynamically adjusting to any of an infinite number of constantly changing variables.
Sounds familiar
Microsoft hasn't done "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" in the past. This is more likely another attempt at "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." So let's wait for the next E to drop.
Hahaha, perfect, deregulate and globalize! That's staying the course at full speed! This is gonna be one hell of a show!
I had an idea to build something like this combined with a police scanner using an SDR and a Raspi or similar. And at over 1000 euros for this system, those plans are still looking pretty good.
Someone who makes $10 million (or more) a year could afford to pay 90% tax and still live comfortably. But in what way is that fair? Presumably this person is providing a service to a business that they have both agreed is worth $10 million a year, and that they are both happy with the arrangement. Why should the government be allowed to take such a large amount of money as taxes? The rich person doesn't really get much extra out of the deal. At the end of the year, they may have only paid $100,000 in taxes, which is 1% of their earnings, but the have paid the same in taxes than 10 people making $30,000 who may have paid $10,000 each.
The rich person gets to harvest most of the productivity of a vast number of people who receive many services from the government but don't personally cover the entire cost through their taxes.
Also, some may argue that the wealthy do get more out of their taxes, but that is something that should be changed. We should fix the system so that they get exactly as much as everyone else. Not make them pay more because we know they get more out of the system.
Sounds fair. We'd have to stop them from absorbing so much of the value that others produce.
My problem isn't with the technology of the future, it's what we do with it. The demand for jobs has been falling, unemployment going up, and there's no end in sight. And the attitude we take is "meh, I'm sure the future free market will solve it. Or you can try living on welfare."
And people will revolt, if things get too bad, or just too much worse too quickly. You'll see if we just stay the course. Governments intervened to avert this after the Great Depression, but they probably won't this time.
Hadn't heard anything of this before today, I'll have to look for videos. I guess he didn't want to draw any attention.
I won't live better than I'm living now. The economy changes at a pace too slow to benefit existing human lives. Those farmers didn't go to work in factories the next week, their grandchildren or great grandchildren did and the generations in between suffered in grinding poverty.
We haven't been living better for many decades now - although I don't think a slight increase in standards of living should excuse ever-growing inequality either. On that note, it may not be in the interest of the rich for the economy to crash, but it is clearly in their interest to bring it close to crashing - exactly how close, who knows? Do they know? Will they have the foresight and self-control to pull out at the last second as their wealth share grows ever larger ever faster?
The hollow promise of a better future is one of the oldest poor-control techniques. It won't work much longer, the concept of an afterlife isn't even holding up well.
So people should starve to death and let the human population shrink to the number of employed people required, eventually to zero? Or are you OK with paying welfare as long as it is sub-livable?
The wealthy basically opted into it after the Great Depression, but moving away wasn't so palatable back then, and they wanted capitalism to succeed to stick it to the commies - both locally and abroad. They were picking up momentum locally and had held big marches.
These days we don't have commies as a credible enemy, and when OWS marched, the rich just watched from their balconies while drinking wine.
That's OK, they could use non-touch "button zones" like many sinks in public bathrooms have.
This mindset is what we have to get over. Why do people have to earn a living if there is no need for their work? Just out of curiosity, would you be OK with them digging holes and then filling them up again all day to "earn" money?
And if you can make good money for yourself while sustaining others who society does not need work from - and you yourself don't need to work - why is it wrong for some of your pay to go towards supporting others? Again there is no productive work for them to do. You're not being forced to work, either literally, or practically as today. Are you just too selfish?
Many people fear some dystopia where robots do everything and no one can get a job. But the reality is that money only has value in that you can buy things with it.
Which means those with money will need to spend it for it to have value. And that means if they get anything from people consenting to do what they want... people will have jobs.
Thank goodness the economy will crash and people will revolt before literally only the rich have money to spend on things beyond basic survival.
You end up with that most dreaded of situations: Skilled graduates on minimum wage.
If there aren't enough jobs to go around, it's not just those lacking motivation that end up unemployed. Employers get to be really picky, and make whatever demands they want.
OMG, we'd better prevent these things from happening at all costs! Imagine the consequences!
Oh wait...
Again, this bizarre alternate theory of what causes inflation. Can you support this with anything?
I think that these rich individuals and corporations would remain in America for several reasons. Foremost is my belief that rich individuals specifically aren't generally sociopathic, and consequently understand the value of contributing back to the society in which one lives.
HAHAHA
Many of them are indeed sociopathic - I'd say close to half. The rest have their heads deep in the sand about what life is like outside the country club and think things are pretty good for us - that we're somehow living like people making $0.25M per year, as the WSJ illustrated a few years ago. That latter group will have to choose a course of action when reality can't be ignored anymore. Which way they'll go, we can only guess.
They'll probably flee to either Monaco, a private island, or a floating platform like the Freedom Ship (maybe they'll call it Elysium?)
But it will be good for us in the long term - not even that long, but a time that is relevant to a human lifespan. At the very least, the burden of their wealth-hoarding will be gone from economies. Money will go into tangible improvements instead of into Swiss bank accounts, running up their high scores on the Forbes list.
Exactly. The hyper-rich "job creators" are actually the most entitled freeloaders in our society by far, but nobody ever questions it. They're too good to pay their taxes like everyone else, and they'll starve our societies to the brink of collapse in the process of hoarding ridiculous, unusable amounts of wealth for themselves. They've done it before and they're doing it again. Their "work" is a little bit of correspondence here and there from their megayachts or the golf course. But because they're in charge of all the decisions of a company in a very abstract way, we think they somehow generated all the value that results from those decisions. It's absurd.
But the people working their asses off for a sub-livable wage while receiving welfare (effectively a massive subsidy program for all businesses employing minimum wage workers - the gains of which are again hoarded by the hyper-rich), they're freeloaders :-\
Oh, "airbags." No more buttered scones for me, I'm off to play the grand piano. Pardon me while I drive my car with airbags!
I'm surprised WB didn't pull their idea for a Bleach movie out of development hell rather than trying some of these ideas. I realize it would have major trouble getting viewers outside of the existing fanbase, but that has to be more people than would pay to see Aquaman.