I'm old enough to remember when people didn't litter like they do today...when graffiti was rare-to-unknown...when people took their trash out and brought in the empty barrels and containers promptly. When oversight is not required because people behave responsibly, there is no demand - no motivation - for more government oversight.
We're trapped in a vicious circle, actually...the nation's leaders set horrible examples with their personal greed and self-centered behavior, the people follow their lead, to which the nation's leaders respond with laws designed to rectify everybody else's behavior. Heaven forbid that they just behave ethically and morally themselves and refuse to tolerate anything but the same from their peers.
Pretty bad, when better and faster is trumped by "You didn't get permission.". That is not flexibility and adaptability; it is the onset of rigor mortis.
however, now that we have all sorts of laws regarding working conditions on the books
The fact that corporations and their representatives - and the talking heads of Wall Street - cite those laws as expenses that (to use their words) "drive" corporations offshore to cheaper environments tells me that the need for unions still exists.
Particularly given the fact that those aforementioned talking heads, the USCC, corporate CEOs, etc. have the gall to presume that the American people are not aware that the rigged currency exchange rates and lack of environmental and worker safety/wage laws are why the corporations are going offshore.
If the need for unions was obsolete, then there would be "goodness and light" wherever our corporations went anywhere in the world to build their factories and buy their parts...and you would not read stories of workers afflicted with such horrible working conditions that they would rather commit suicide than face a lifetime of only more of the same.
Glad to hear that. Then I'm sure that you would agree that unions have the same flaw that corporations and governments have: They're run by people.
While some declare that pure democracy is anarchy, my observation is that "interpreted" democracy - i.e., a union, a "republic", a "representative democracy", or a "CEO acting on behalf of the shareholders" keeps leading us all down the identical road with the exact same destination: Corruption and the abuse of power.
The issue seems to be that the people who run for positions of power within whatever entity lie through their teeth to gain those positions, and then - having achieved those positions - seek to enrich and empower only themselves and, perhaps, another select few.
Be nice to fit everybody who is in the electorate (the union, the Congressional district, a shareholder, whatever) that an elected individual is nominally responsible to with something like a neural impulse actuator and then when the feedback from those devices indicated that their "duly elected" representative or corporate board member or union leader was doing something that the majority of that electorate did not approve of, feed 10 KV (at 2 milliamps...or greater) into their representative.
As it stands, the immoral and unethical behavior of one individual is used to paint that entire entity or electorate; watching that individual shriek with pain occasionally might be revealing to those who have preconceptions about, say, unions or Congress.
And there is no doubt in my mind that it would bring an end to the distortion of the inequality curve of the United States of America.
One hopes that you have personally been in a union or managed within a union environment, and so your comment is based upon real knowledge. I hope that, anyway, for I've found that anti-union comments often come from people with zilch experience with unions, whether from the member or management perspective. In fact, I've found that that anti-union attitudes are quite often inherited, which is quite revealing, if you stop to think about it.
Which is not to say that this union is right in this case; a parent needs this knowledge so that they can plan their lives around the compensating educational effort they'll have to make if their child gets stuck with a teach who is a poor performer.
Irony is seeing a story about "deliberate devolution" on the same page with a story worrying over the possibility of "too many geniuses". All of which reminds me of the "purges" of various extremist governments over the course of human history; purges that inevitably include attacks upon "the intelligentsia".
Seems like the basis for a good sci-fi story; one detailing how our galactic overlords built a subconscious trigger into our species to eliminate the possibility of competition in either technology or intelligence. Or, in a lower-budget approach, a mystery about a human conspiracy determined to keep the peoples of the world dependent upon the current form of economics with its well-organized and directed flows of wealth.
Makes me glad that I'm as dumb as dirt - but I'd watch the movie.
Consumers care, but it is a small fraction of things they must worry about in their lives, and give the legislation little attention. This results in regulation that hurts consumers by distorting the industry away from customers' true preferences. For example, exempting wireless from net neutrality may mean that cheap wireless limited internet plans exist, while even cheaper cable ones legally can't, which hurts consumers seeking this type of plan.
Oh, I see. The consumer is too busy to know what is good for them, so they should entrust Business-with-a-capital-B with their information choices.
...to study these devices under varying physical conditions...say, a determinate study to isolate the fractional conductivity effects of Grey Goose vs. Jägermeister...
China is only doing what America did during World War II - directing that everybody work together to achieve a common goal while using the profit motive as a incentive. We won WWII...China is winning WWIII.
You forget that a reduction in waste is an increase in efficiency. In "going green", China but lays the foundation for a dynasty whose duration and global reach would make Li Yuan, the founder of the Tang Dynasty, become a monk in shame at the myopia of his vision.
The U.S. will dwindle into insignificance, because too many believe that the individual pursuit of power/wealth trumps the interests of the nation and the people.
Put another way, individual greed in the U.S. has been allowed to achieve primacy, so our nation herds cats, while China trains a tiger.
When people whose entire focus is lust - lust for power, lust for wealth - are treated like royalty, it should shock no one when those lusts...expand.
I think the duality in the ethical system in the American workplace is a natural result of corporate America's success at buying whatever they want from Congress - success, even when what they purchase causes grievous harm to the American people and the national interest. The individual who would not self-inflate when their every wish became reality is rare...particularly in corporate America.
So I, at least, am not surprised; I await the day when an American CEO demands the royal prerogative of droit du seigneur.
Our nation's response to Pearl Harbor was protectionism, too. Why should the interests of Business-with-a-capital-B be favored over those of the American people? Why shouldn't the American people be allowed to direct that their government take measures that protect their futures and their way of life?
I believe that there is some document somewhere that originated from the time of this nation's founding that gives the American people that right...
I would disagree, but only to the extent that I have met many wealthy people who are quite content with their wealth and who also agree that all others should have an equal opportunity to become wealthy - and who also agree that making some artificially advantaged is the equivalent of suppressing others.
The unfortunate fact, akin to the saying that "One bad apple spoils the bunch.", is that at this moment in American history, a tiny minority of truly greedy and truly malicious individuals controls America's "right"...their behavior is so outrageous...so focused on limiting the opportunity available to the American people with artificial wealth-centric barriers (i.e., forcing American labor into competition with nations whose cost of living is far lower as a lever to repress and reduce wages, which in turn ensures that the masses in America will not be able to afford the education required for "the good life" or the health care required for a healthy - and so long - life, etc.) that all of the rest of America's wealthy receive the same label.
In some ways, the fact that those wealthy who do not see suppressing others as a way to elevate themselves are so "mellow" is a curse upon this nation's future, for if they were to lose their contentment for a moment and truly look into what some of the worst of their economic equals and superiors are trying to do to this country, they would likely feel motivated to crush them.
And they could...but that presupposition that wealth alone is an indicator of character afflicts them.
Assuming UCSD gives the algorithm to SETI, anyway, and doesn't instead go to Wall Street to be used in detecting market trends and major share movements as part of their never-ending quest to separate the small investor from their money faster.
IF the pump runs out of insulin---THE PUMP SAYS NOTHING. [...] Good thing she doesn't have to milk a hairless cat to live, huh?
Its not so hard to milk a hairless cat. You just attach eight of those electronic insulin pumps to their nipples, and off you go.
Now you have to watch closely, 'cuz the stupid things won't know to stop if the cat runs dry and if you're not looking, all you'll have left is what looks like somebody's nutsack laying on the floor.
Nah...but his credit score just mysteriously dumped, the license numbers for all of his home software was just purged from their manufacturer's computers, and 4 gigs of child porn just appeared - equally mysteriously - on his work computer.
Having been involved in technology and software development for some time, I find it to be far easier to believe that I am delusional than in the existence of a bug.;^)
Regardless, I frankly prefer either of your hypotheses to my - perhaps hasty - conclusion. 'Nuff said.
When I said "modded down", I meant one was at a 5 and became a 4, one was a 4 and became a 3, several were 2s and became 1s, 1 was a 1 and became a 0...and a -1 stayed a minus one - and we all know why.
But enough with that...it is off-topic, and the duration is making it lame (as I grant myself the ability to assume it wasn't lame to start with).
What, I cannot be simultaneously delusional and reliable? Fox does it...
(lolllll...no, I didn't just take a screenshot of my comments page. I learned something, though...I should have kept my observations to myself until after I took the path you proffered. Could have sold the story - if there was one - to Wired, then.)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm old enough to remember when people didn't litter like they do today...when graffiti was rare-to-unknown...when people took their trash out and brought in the empty barrels and containers promptly. When oversight is not required because people behave responsibly, there is no demand - no motivation - for more government oversight.
We're trapped in a vicious circle, actually...the nation's leaders set horrible examples with their personal greed and self-centered behavior, the people follow their lead, to which the nation's leaders respond with laws designed to rectify everybody else's behavior. Heaven forbid that they just behave ethically and morally themselves and refuse to tolerate anything but the same from their peers.
I.e., heaven forbid that our leaders lead.
Pretty bad, when better and faster is trumped by "You didn't get permission.". That is not flexibility and adaptability; it is the onset of rigor mortis.
however, now that we have all sorts of laws regarding working conditions on the books
The fact that corporations and their representatives - and the talking heads of Wall Street - cite those laws as expenses that (to use their words) "drive" corporations offshore to cheaper environments tells me that the need for unions still exists.
Particularly given the fact that those aforementioned talking heads, the USCC, corporate CEOs, etc. have the gall to presume that the American people are not aware that the rigged currency exchange rates and lack of environmental and worker safety/wage laws are why the corporations are going offshore.
If the need for unions was obsolete, then there would be "goodness and light" wherever our corporations went anywhere in the world to build their factories and buy their parts...and you would not read stories of workers afflicted with such horrible working conditions that they would rather commit suicide than face a lifetime of only more of the same.
Glad to hear that. Then I'm sure that you would agree that unions have the same flaw that corporations and governments have: They're run by people.
While some declare that pure democracy is anarchy, my observation is that "interpreted" democracy - i.e., a union, a "republic", a "representative democracy", or a "CEO acting on behalf of the shareholders" keeps leading us all down the identical road with the exact same destination: Corruption and the abuse of power.
The issue seems to be that the people who run for positions of power within whatever entity lie through their teeth to gain those positions, and then - having achieved those positions - seek to enrich and empower only themselves and, perhaps, another select few.
Be nice to fit everybody who is in the electorate (the union, the Congressional district, a shareholder, whatever) that an elected individual is nominally responsible to with something like a neural impulse actuator and then when the feedback from those devices indicated that their "duly elected" representative or corporate board member or union leader was doing something that the majority of that electorate did not approve of, feed 10 KV (at 2 milliamps...or greater) into their representative.
As it stands, the immoral and unethical behavior of one individual is used to paint that entire entity or electorate; watching that individual shriek with pain occasionally might be revealing to those who have preconceptions about, say, unions or Congress.
And there is no doubt in my mind that it would bring an end to the distortion of the inequality curve of the United States of America.
One hopes that you have personally been in a union or managed within a union environment, and so your comment is based upon real knowledge. I hope that, anyway, for I've found that anti-union comments often come from people with zilch experience with unions, whether from the member or management perspective. In fact, I've found that that anti-union attitudes are quite often inherited, which is quite revealing, if you stop to think about it.
Which is not to say that this union is right in this case; a parent needs this knowledge so that they can plan their lives around the compensating educational effort they'll have to make if their child gets stuck with a teach who is a poor performer.
Seems like I always learn about a new fee two days after the deadline for "free" expires.
Irony is seeing a story about "deliberate devolution" on the same page with a story worrying over the possibility of "too many geniuses". All of which reminds me of the "purges" of various extremist governments over the course of human history; purges that inevitably include attacks upon "the intelligentsia".
Seems like the basis for a good sci-fi story; one detailing how our galactic overlords built a subconscious trigger into our species to eliminate the possibility of competition in either technology or intelligence. Or, in a lower-budget approach, a mystery about a human conspiracy determined to keep the peoples of the world dependent upon the current form of economics with its well-organized and directed flows of wealth.
Makes me glad that I'm as dumb as dirt - but I'd watch the movie.
Consumers care, but it is a small fraction of things they must worry about in their lives, and give the legislation little attention. This results in regulation that hurts consumers by distorting the industry away from customers' true preferences. For example, exempting wireless from net neutrality may mean that cheap wireless limited internet plans exist, while even cheaper cable ones legally can't, which hurts consumers seeking this type of plan.
Oh, I see. The consumer is too busy to know what is good for them, so they should entrust Business-with-a-capital-B with their information choices.
Back in the day, the easiest way to tell if somebody wanted a martini was by how high her skirt was above her knee.
...to study these devices under varying physical conditions...say, a determinate study to isolate the fractional conductivity effects of Grey Goose vs. Jägermeister...
Stink, if nobody was able to get wealthier by condemning the world's people to live in the past, wouldn't it?
China is only doing what America did during World War II - directing that everybody work together to achieve a common goal while using the profit motive as a incentive. We won WWII...China is winning WWIII.
You forget that a reduction in waste is an increase in efficiency. In "going green", China but lays the foundation for a dynasty whose duration and global reach would make Li Yuan, the founder of the Tang Dynasty, become a monk in shame at the myopia of his vision.
The U.S. will dwindle into insignificance, because too many believe that the individual pursuit of power/wealth trumps the interests of the nation and the people.
Put another way, individual greed in the U.S. has been allowed to achieve primacy, so our nation herds cats, while China trains a tiger.
When people whose entire focus is lust - lust for power, lust for wealth - are treated like royalty, it should shock no one when those lusts...expand.
I think the duality in the ethical system in the American workplace is a natural result of corporate America's success at buying whatever they want from Congress - success, even when what they purchase causes grievous harm to the American people and the national interest. The individual who would not self-inflate when their every wish became reality is rare...particularly in corporate America.
So I, at least, am not surprised; I await the day when an American CEO demands the royal prerogative of droit du seigneur.
Our nation's response to Pearl Harbor was protectionism, too. Why should the interests of Business-with-a-capital-B be favored over those of the American people? Why shouldn't the American people be allowed to direct that their government take measures that protect their futures and their way of life?
I believe that there is some document somewhere that originated from the time of this nation's founding that gives the American people that right...
I would disagree, but only to the extent that I have met many wealthy people who are quite content with their wealth and who also agree that all others should have an equal opportunity to become wealthy - and who also agree that making some artificially advantaged is the equivalent of suppressing others.
The unfortunate fact, akin to the saying that "One bad apple spoils the bunch.", is that at this moment in American history, a tiny minority of truly greedy and truly malicious individuals controls America's "right"...their behavior is so outrageous...so focused on limiting the opportunity available to the American people with artificial wealth-centric barriers (i.e., forcing American labor into competition with nations whose cost of living is far lower as a lever to repress and reduce wages, which in turn ensures that the masses in America will not be able to afford the education required for "the good life" or the health care required for a healthy - and so long - life, etc.) that all of the rest of America's wealthy receive the same label.
In some ways, the fact that those wealthy who do not see suppressing others as a way to elevate themselves are so "mellow" is a curse upon this nation's future, for if they were to lose their contentment for a moment and truly look into what some of the worst of their economic equals and superiors are trying to do to this country, they would likely feel motivated to crush them.
And they could...but that presupposition that wealth alone is an indicator of character afflicts them.
Assuming UCSD gives the algorithm to SETI, anyway, and doesn't instead go to Wall Street to be used in detecting market trends and major share movements as part of their never-ending quest to separate the small investor from their money faster.
What's the fun in being surrounded by gigantic T-Rex skeletons in a creaky old museum all alone in the middle of the night if you can't be trippin'?
IF the pump runs out of insulin---THE PUMP SAYS NOTHING. [...] Good thing she doesn't have to milk a hairless cat to live, huh?
Its not so hard to milk a hairless cat. You just attach eight of those electronic insulin pumps to their nipples, and off you go.
Now you have to watch closely, 'cuz the stupid things won't know to stop if the cat runs dry and if you're not looking, all you'll have left is what looks like somebody's nutsack laying on the floor.
Holy cow! All of those links, when all I wanted was an unbreakable solution in 12 words or less?!
Now I must get back to my MegaMillions results predicting code...
Nah...but his credit score just mysteriously dumped, the license numbers for all of his home software was just purged from their manufacturer's computers, and 4 gigs of child porn just appeared - equally mysteriously - on his work computer.
We skin cats differently here.
How un-American of them...we'd just rotate contractors.
Having been involved in technology and software development for some time, I find it to be far easier to believe that I am delusional than in the existence of a bug. ;^)
Regardless, I frankly prefer either of your hypotheses to my - perhaps hasty - conclusion. 'Nuff said.
When I said "modded down", I meant one was at a 5 and became a 4, one was a 4 and became a 3, several were 2s and became 1s, 1 was a 1 and became a 0...and a -1 stayed a minus one - and we all know why.
But enough with that...it is off-topic, and the duration is making it lame (as I grant myself the ability to assume it wasn't lame to start with).
What, I cannot be simultaneously delusional and reliable? Fox does it...
(lolllll...no, I didn't just take a screenshot of my comments page. I learned something, though...I should have kept my observations to myself until after I took the path you proffered. Could have sold the story - if there was one - to Wired, then.)