1) Tariffs don't make American products cheaper...they make foreign products more costly (by adding taxes at import time). 2) Yes, you _can_ get all those materials (steel, paint, plastic, LEDs) in the U.S., but at least some of them are available at a substantially lower cost from other countries (e.g. steel from China). 3) The margins on almost all competitive consumer products in the U.S., including computer cases, are VERY thin no matter what kind of optimizations you try to make to the production process. That's what competitive markets do...offer consumers a variety of prices, qualities and relative values. Consumers pick their preferences, and all other things being equal (e.g. relatively similar computer cases), consumers will typically select the lower priced one.
The short term effect of increased tariffs will be increased prices for the same goods you bought cheaper before the tariffs. The political and longer term effects are more uncertain, especially when you factor in the possibility that unfair players (like China with respect to intellectual property violations and government subsidies) will also hurt in the short run, and may improve their behaviors in the longer run. But you won't find many consumers who will prefer the fairly certain near-term increase in sticker prices [dripping with understatement].
And _if_ a robot takes your job, you should seek to product through some other function that people "value" (read: "are willing to pay for"). It's not as if your need to consume will go away. So it remains important that you produce. That is, unless you have decided that it should be somebody else's problem to pay your way.
(Virtuous notions: Try to be a giver. Try not to be a taker. Never give up.)
If a customer wants to know if food contains a particular ingredient...
Yes, he should know. But then, you're not talking about disclosure of an ingredient. You're talking about disclosure of the use of various processes you don't like, without having substantiated the materiality of risks of those processes.
My main concern is [...runaway...] GMOs and turning millions of people into unwitting lab rats.
Those would be unsubstantiated fears. And though your fear is undoubtedly "real", that which you fear is invented.
The courts, quite rightly, have little use for unsubstantiated claims. It is not Mansanto's money that compels the actions of the courts; it is the substance of Monsanto's arguments.
Imagine as you will. The courts will not be easy prey for your fears.
If GMOs are really so safe, why the tremendous resistance to putting a simple label on the food?
For the same reason that people have resisted requiring schools to include "creation science" in their text books.
Before you pass a law requiring people to disclose information, you should have a burden to reasonably demonstrate the significance and materiality of that information. If you try to take your anti-GMO "science" to a U.S. court of law, just as the creationists tried with theirs, you'll fail miserably as they did.
The law is not a playground for your unsubstantiated beliefs. (Slashdot, however, is.)
Very dubious. Slashdot often posts BS stories simply because doing so engages their readers. It is not a requirement of the editors that a story has integrity; only that a certain percentage of the stories have integrity. That's enough to keep people coming back with hope that their time isn't going to be wasted.
This time, we're losers. And, yes, to me, it is mildly humiliating to be a participant in this.
Slashdot. Not journalism. Infotainment. Hi BS quotient.
(And that's why I read and respond less and less every year.)
How in the world are new devices developed and approved for production that ignore the possibility of EMI from portable devices? There are no excuses for such negligence.
How, you ask? Well, really, if you wanted to know, then you wouldn't be asking such a foolish question. And you wouldn't be calling it "negligence."
How in the world do people routinely concoct unsupported technical judgements (such as yours) about things they don't technically understand, and then share those judgements with the world as if they are insightful?
Not surprisingly, most of the loudest and least articulate people are way up in the nosebleed section of the bleachers, far away from the players in the game, who, unlike you, must move beyond just [trite] words.
There are plenty of excuses for your ignorance. But none of them justifies it.
do really, really rich people still feel comfortable lending us money for long periods at low interest rates?
As opposed to what? As opposed to leaving their currency sit while the controllers of the currency dilute its value by printing $2 trillion dollars/year? Do you pretend that Joe Investor (oh...excuse me...Joe "Really Really Rich" Investor) has an alternative?
It amazes me that we can watch one bubble build and burst after another, and people like you still can't figure out that you can't spend more money than you have...you can only come up with lame-ass excuses like yours until, once again, the bubble bursts. And even then, you'll blame somebody else as if an intellectual theory could somehow transcend the conservation of mass.
Yeah...you're right...just print more money. BRILLIANT!!!
But your analysis, your decision-making, should not be done in the context of the "media cycle", but instead, by preponderance of the evidence (well-formed studies, well-qualified facts).
You present the major rights and wrongs in this case (and others) as being ambiguous. They are, but only if you choose to be informed by that media cycle of which you speak. Why would you choose, in your final analysis, to be informed by the media cycle? Why do you frame the decisions as in any way having to be made within the context of misinformation instead of well-qualified information?
I suspect that, for whatever reason, your own truth is best rationalized in the context of the media cycle, or, that you somehow benefit by influencing people within the context of their own ignorance (and susceptibility to weak rationalizations such as you present here). That would certainly explain your well-phrased appeal for us to be understanding of, well, nonsense. But you've simply presented a foolish context within which to make important decisions that are fairly easily and reasonably resolved within the context of good information.
The ambiguities you affirm are, for the most part, only affirmed within the context of misinformation and a willingness to trust untrustworthy sources. The issues are much clearer than you suggest, which is telling of your own brand of bluster.
Goldman Sachs are the criminals. Why aren't they all on trial too? All this guy did was steal a little code. They've been robbing their customers for years.
Well...if laws were built on hyperbole, and the typical juror were as reckless and imprudent as a typical Slashdot poster...well *then* they would be on trial too.
Greed, deceptiveness, even malice...these are offenses of the spirit but are not, in and of themselves, offenses of law which, when well-constructed, creates a standard that PROTECTS US ALL from being caught in a great net of grievances and contempt that seethes inside all but the most saintly among us.
Yes, some people...no...MANY people rely on World Health Organization pronouncements. As a matter of fact, MOST people rely on highly politicized sources, like WHO, for their pronouncements. Many people, in fact, rely on commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann (in the U.S.) as highly credible sources.
A very few people rely much more heavily on primary sources, basic research, because they think that's more credible (and I do to). You get to see the methods by which the data are produced...helpful context, I think. Of course, the source data and its conclusions are much more modest, disjointed and inconclusive than those other sources. But hey...everybody makes his own choice of what's credible, yes?
Anyway, I do apologize for having accused you of asserting that 150000 people are dying annually due to climate change. I thought you were saying that.
I see your assertion that 150,000 people are *already* dying annually due to climate change. And I read the cited article. You find substance in that article?
I have no hope nor inclination to change your mind about any of this. But please consider this: aside from the many uninformed people and faux skeptics, there are very well-informed, deeply considerate and concerned people who have thus far arrived at conclusions that differ greatly from yours. To the extent that they may wish to see inaction on the issue of AGW, you are a Poster Child who, among others, make *the* most compelling cases for skepticism.
a lot of people are going to die from the effects of climate change
Very unlikely. More likely, they'll die from hunger, poor sanitation, civil war..all so much more attributable to lack of economic development and social ills than to climate change. And if they don't die for those reasons, they'll die for others.
Perhaps my biggest concern about the focus on climate change is that it diverts attention away from the more salient, and manageable, factors that hasten death. I really think the GP is right on about keeping apprised of scale.
there is literally no benefit to having to argue every day over whether 2+2=4 and whether gravity will continue working tomorrow
I fully agree. But we were speaking of climate change, the possible paths it might take, the mechanisms by which we might act to affect them, and the statistically variable presumptions of benefit, abstract and material, that those actions might have. The debate about these, you liken to a debate of whether 2+2=4, or a debate of whether gravity will persist tomorrow?
Me doth think you doth over-simplify. You doth think not?
Many people in the U.S., particularly young ones, are so divorced from the realities of tyranny that they think an airport security check, or the disruption of copyright pirate operations, constitutes a significant threat to liberty.
Clearly, they are unfamiliar with the doings of tyrants or the devastating mechanics of a police state.
Oh...yeah...and the next great threat to human rights...the threat to "net neutrality."
Try poking your virgin head out of your pretty little neck of the woods...there's a world out there with serious problems and yours are a sign of comfort, luxury and intellect.
Boo-hoo to you and your *serious* concerns...your "cancers." (Good gosh...your language even reveals your fantasy that you are dealing in life-and-death challenges. Wow.)
Your point, that this and other less defensible decisions by the Nobel Committee are all the result of fallible human standards is so uninteresting as to not even be worth mentioning. As if there could be an award for "the most important discovery or invention within the field of physic" that doesn't involve fallible human standards. What, you think there's an objective universal method of measuring "importance"? I doubt you do, so what's the beef? You think they could do better? Of course. What fallible human organization couldn't?
Of course it's not interesting that the committee is fallible. It took *you* to make that point.
Notable is not that the committee is fallible, but that it has failed, in its assertions, as a matter of fact. The ubiquity of fallibility is not, in itself, cause to dismiss the significance of failure. Not like you seem to do here.
De Heer's argument looks to be factually correct, and in contradiction to the committee's presentation. Your point that the committee can always do better is "uninteresting" (to use your own phrasing). The fact that it was wrong here, the fact you so blithely diminish, is as interesting as Yassir Arafat's alleged contribution to peace.
I had the same confidence. I put a potential employee through a battery of programming tests, and he passed with flying colors. But when he began work, he wasn't so good. And he was a slob, too (not that I cared).
Four years later, I came upon him in a business suit. I was flabbergasted...never before had he looked even marginally cleaned up (except at that first job interview).
There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and there he was. Again. All sloppy like normal.
I...was...confused.
I looked forward, and there he was in in the suit. And behind me again, there was the familiar slob.
The slob said, "Say hello to my twin brother. And by the way...HE's the one you interviewed...I was the one who took the job. There's no way I could have passed your test."
True story...good enough for me to have enjoyed the quality of the deception more than having resented the depth of the deceit.
But you have put forth sensational questions in the context of a very common set of facts. What is your cause, beyond simply not knowing?
And you have summoned a LARGE audience to consider your questions. Yet, you have chosen to hide information that people may use to answer your questions. (You believe your questions warrant this much mindshare?)
You chastise the ones who sit on their butts, and yet purport to protect your yarn from the ones who might get off their butts to go and look?
Though your intent was not to mislead, you did musingly dabble with the edges of truth. The pain you feel now is of those edges sticking right back into you.
Science...the application of the scientific method, and the benefits of empirical reasoning. If you are indeed a scientist, then please show a bit more respect by living the practice.
All told, I think the people here at Slashdot did a rather fine job with this one.
In most cases, Slashdot posts are moderated by ignorant kids who harbor unsubstantiated biases, and consider "informative" any position that confirms what they already believe.
Slashdot Mirror
In 2015, the FCC upped the definition of "broadband" from 4 Mbps to 25 Mbps (https://broadbandnow.com/report/fcc-broadband-definition/)
In the New York Times article, statistical truth is obscured by political mission.
There's a lot of effort to add little meaningful information here. Politics, as usual.
1) Tariffs don't make American products cheaper...they make foreign products more costly (by adding taxes at import time).
2) Yes, you _can_ get all those materials (steel, paint, plastic, LEDs) in the U.S., but at least some of them are available at a substantially lower cost from other countries (e.g. steel from China).
3) The margins on almost all competitive consumer products in the U.S., including computer cases, are VERY thin no matter what kind of optimizations you try to make to the production process. That's what competitive markets do...offer consumers a variety of prices, qualities and relative values. Consumers pick their preferences, and all other things being equal (e.g. relatively similar computer cases), consumers will typically select the lower priced one.
The short term effect of increased tariffs will be increased prices for the same goods you bought cheaper before the tariffs. The political and longer term effects are more uncertain, especially when you factor in the possibility that unfair players (like China with respect to intellectual property violations and government subsidies) will also hurt in the short run, and may improve their behaviors in the longer run. But you won't find many consumers who will prefer the fairly certain near-term increase in sticker prices [dripping with understatement].
And _if_ a robot takes your job, you should seek to product through some other function that people "value" (read: "are willing to pay for"). It's not as if your need to consume will go away. So it remains important that you produce. That is, unless you have decided that it should be somebody else's problem to pay your way.
(Virtuous notions: Try to be a giver. Try not to be a taker. Never give up.)
Yes, he should know. But then, you're not talking about disclosure of an ingredient. You're talking about disclosure of the use of various processes you don't like, without having substantiated the materiality of risks of those processes.
Those would be unsubstantiated fears. And though your fear is undoubtedly "real", that which you fear is invented.
The courts, quite rightly, have little use for unsubstantiated claims. It is not Mansanto's money that compels the actions of the courts; it is the substance of Monsanto's arguments.
Imagine as you will. The courts will not be easy prey for your fears.
If GMOs are really so safe, why the tremendous resistance to putting a simple label on the food?
For the same reason that people have resisted requiring schools to include "creation science" in their text books.
Before you pass a law requiring people to disclose information, you should have a burden to reasonably demonstrate the significance and materiality of that information. If you try to take your anti-GMO "science" to a U.S. court of law, just as the creationists tried with theirs, you'll fail miserably as they did.
The law is not a playground for your unsubstantiated beliefs. (Slashdot, however, is.)
Very dubious. Slashdot often posts BS stories simply because doing so engages their readers. It is not a requirement of the editors that a story has integrity; only that a certain percentage of the stories have integrity. That's enough to keep people coming back with hope that their time isn't going to be wasted.
This time, we're losers. And, yes, to me, it is mildly humiliating to be a participant in this.
Slashdot. Not journalism. Infotainment. Hi BS quotient.
(And that's why I read and respond less and less every year.)
So I've spent years building my application on top of MySQL. And MySQL has done its job just fine...before Oracle and since.
Now comes along a fork, a new database, that solves *what* problem for me?
I'm looking for an effective DBMS (which I have in MySQL), not a company (or CEO) to love.
Are *you* paying attention? To *what*?
How, you ask? Well, really, if you wanted to know, then you wouldn't be asking such a foolish question. And you wouldn't be calling it "negligence."
How in the world do people routinely concoct unsupported technical judgements (such as yours) about things they don't technically understand, and then share those judgements with the world as if they are insightful?
Not surprisingly, most of the loudest and least articulate people are way up in the nosebleed section of the bleachers, far away from the players in the game, who, unlike you, must move beyond just [trite] words.
There are plenty of excuses for your ignorance. But none of them justifies it.
Go home.
As opposed to what? As opposed to leaving their currency sit while the controllers of the currency dilute its value by printing $2 trillion dollars/year? Do you pretend that Joe Investor (oh...excuse me...Joe "Really Really Rich" Investor) has an alternative?
It amazes me that we can watch one bubble build and burst after another, and people like you still can't figure out that you can't spend more money than you have...you can only come up with lame-ass excuses like yours until, once again, the bubble bursts. And even then, you'll blame somebody else as if an intellectual theory could somehow transcend the conservation of mass.
Yeah...you're right...just print more money. BRILLIANT!!!
...without the government getting in your way.
Anywhere.
Anymore.
--
The principles of Free Software are built atop the principles of intellectual property.
But your analysis, your decision-making, should not be done in the context of the "media cycle", but instead, by preponderance of the evidence (well-formed studies, well-qualified facts).
You present the major rights and wrongs in this case (and others) as being ambiguous. They are, but only if you choose to be informed by that media cycle of which you speak. Why would you choose, in your final analysis, to be informed by the media cycle? Why do you frame the decisions as in any way having to be made within the context of misinformation instead of well-qualified information?
I suspect that, for whatever reason, your own truth is best rationalized in the context of the media cycle, or, that you somehow benefit by influencing people within the context of their own ignorance (and susceptibility to weak rationalizations such as you present here). That would certainly explain your well-phrased appeal for us to be understanding of, well, nonsense. But you've simply presented a foolish context within which to make important decisions that are fairly easily and reasonably resolved within the context of good information.
The ambiguities you affirm are, for the most part, only affirmed within the context of misinformation and a willingness to trust untrustworthy sources. The issues are much clearer than you suggest, which is telling of your own brand of bluster.
Do you think so? Because *my* Congressman *doesn't* seem to be cutting much of anything.
The cuts always seem to be "scheduled." When does that "schedule" happen? What does it mean when they say "the cuts are scheduled."?
And when they cut, isn't total spending supposed to go down? What do they mean by "cut"?
Where can I get me one of those Congressman of which you speak?
I'm _really_ confused.
Yes. And they have selected technologies that make their product compatible with what...perhaps 98% of consumer platforms?
Perhaps _you_ are the one who has selected incompatible technologies?
He wrongfully assumed a right to use computer code (and sought to derive value from it), in violation of the terms of his employment.
And I didn't even have to walk across the hall and [blah...blah...blah...]
Well...if laws were built on hyperbole, and the typical juror were as reckless and imprudent as a typical Slashdot poster...well *then* they would be on trial too.
Greed, deceptiveness, even malice...these are offenses of the spirit but are not, in and of themselves, offenses of law which, when well-constructed, creates a standard that PROTECTS US ALL from being caught in a great net of grievances and contempt that seethes inside all but the most saintly among us.
Yes, some people...no...MANY people rely on World Health Organization pronouncements. As a matter of fact, MOST people rely on highly politicized sources, like WHO, for their pronouncements. Many people, in fact, rely on commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann (in the U.S.) as highly credible sources.
A very few people rely much more heavily on primary sources, basic research, because they think that's more credible (and I do to). You get to see the methods by which the data are produced...helpful context, I think. Of course, the source data and its conclusions are much more modest, disjointed and inconclusive than those other sources. But hey...everybody makes his own choice of what's credible, yes?
Anyway, I do apologize for having accused you of asserting that 150000 people are dying annually due to climate change. I thought you were saying that.
I see your assertion that 150,000 people are *already* dying annually due to climate change. And I read the cited article. You find substance in that article?
I have no hope nor inclination to change your mind about any of this. But please consider this: aside from the many uninformed people and faux skeptics, there are very well-informed, deeply considerate and concerned people who have thus far arrived at conclusions that differ greatly from yours. To the extent that they may wish to see inaction on the issue of AGW, you are a Poster Child who, among others, make *the* most compelling cases for skepticism.
150000 dead, indeed.
Carry on.
Very unlikely. More likely, they'll die from hunger, poor sanitation, civil war..all so much more attributable to lack of economic development and social ills than to climate change. And if they don't die for those reasons, they'll die for others.
Perhaps my biggest concern about the focus on climate change is that it diverts attention away from the more salient, and manageable, factors that hasten death. I really think the GP is right on about keeping apprised of scale.
I fully agree. But we were speaking of climate change, the possible paths it might take, the mechanisms by which we might act to affect them, and the statistically variable presumptions of benefit, abstract and material, that those actions might have. The debate about these, you liken to a debate of whether 2+2=4, or a debate of whether gravity will persist tomorrow?
Me doth think you doth over-simplify. You doth think not?
Many people in the U.S., particularly young ones, are so divorced from the realities of tyranny that they think an airport security check, or the disruption of copyright pirate operations, constitutes a significant threat to liberty.
Clearly, they are unfamiliar with the doings of tyrants or the devastating mechanics of a police state.
Oh...yeah...and the next great threat to human rights...the threat to "net neutrality."
Try poking your virgin head out of your pretty little neck of the woods...there's a world out there with serious problems and yours are a sign of comfort, luxury and intellect.
Boo-hoo to you and your *serious* concerns...your "cancers." (Good gosh...your language even reveals your fantasy that you are dealing in life-and-death challenges. Wow.)
Of course it's not interesting that the committee is fallible. It took *you* to make that point.
Notable is not that the committee is fallible, but that it has failed, in its assertions, as a matter of fact. The ubiquity of fallibility is not, in itself, cause to dismiss the significance of failure. Not like you seem to do here.
De Heer's argument looks to be factually correct, and in contradiction to the committee's presentation. Your point that the committee can always do better is "uninteresting" (to use your own phrasing). The fact that it was wrong here, the fact you so blithely diminish, is as interesting as Yassir Arafat's alleged contribution to peace.
I had the same confidence. I put a potential employee through a battery of programming tests, and he passed with flying colors. But when he began work, he wasn't so good. And he was a slob, too (not that I cared).
Four years later, I came upon him in a business suit. I was flabbergasted...never before had he looked even marginally cleaned up (except at that first job interview).
There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and there he was. Again. All sloppy like normal.
I...was...confused.
I looked forward, and there he was in in the suit. And behind me again, there was the familiar slob.
The slob said, "Say hello to my twin brother. And by the way...HE's the one you interviewed...I was the one who took the job. There's no way I could have passed your test."
True story...good enough for me to have enjoyed the quality of the deception more than having resented the depth of the deceit.
But you have put forth sensational questions in the context of a very common set of facts. What is your cause, beyond simply not knowing?
And you have summoned a LARGE audience to consider your questions. Yet, you have chosen to hide information that people may use to answer your questions. (You believe your questions warrant this much mindshare?)
You chastise the ones who sit on their butts, and yet purport to protect your yarn from the ones who might get off their butts to go and look?
Though your intent was not to mislead, you did musingly dabble with the edges of truth. The pain you feel now is of those edges sticking right back into you.
Science...the application of the scientific method, and the benefits of empirical reasoning. If you are indeed a scientist, then please show a bit more respect by living the practice.
All told, I think the people here at Slashdot did a rather fine job with this one.
In most cases, Slashdot posts are moderated by ignorant kids who harbor unsubstantiated biases, and consider "informative" any position that confirms what they already believe.
Facts will rarely get in the way of beliefs.