Come on, hes basically selling a pocket lighter, not heroin to children, like the drug company Bayer used to do
Come on, Bayer didn't just sell heroin to kids, they made chemical weapons for use against US soldiers. Which of course is why they lost the US trademarks for Heroin and Aspirin.
Lots of democracies get by just fine with laws that regulate who can pay to influence election campaigns, and they seem to be much better democracies because of it.
Campaigning in the last US election cost 6.4 billion USD, or around 41 USD per registered voter. Campaigning in the last UK election cost a total of 39 million GBP (0.05 billion USD), or around 1.15 USD per registered voter.
Interesting example. The UK looks to me like a totalitarian dystopia where a reporter espousing the wrong view gets dragged off the street, tried in secret, and convicted an imprisoned within 24 hours, then a gag order placed on the rest of the British media to prevent them from protesting or even mentioning the event. That's 2018 UK, though it reads like early 16th century UK, right down to the subject matter of criticizing the wrong religion.*
Is your view that the US system presented voters with a higher quality of information, allowing them to make a more informed choice as to their representatives and president? Do you feel that additional six billion dollars was well spent? Does the requirement for billion dollar campaigns not seriously undercut the fundamental principles of democracy?
I believe the US system makes its citizens more free, which is the end goal. Most adults in the US ignore all ads from long habit anyhow. Those who wish to be informed voters don't get their information from the TV. We both have the same internet after all (well, except for the secret list of sites the UK government doesn't let its people visit, of course.)
* OK, I'm blurring history a little bit here, as the Star Chamber was pretty much over by the time political violence started over religion. Bloody Mary didn't bother with the subtleties of secret trials, after all.
People acting as a group have no rights. We have to take those rights to maintain rights for people acting alone.
Poe's Law in full effect here. But taking this as written, the First Amendment clearly says otherwise:
Congress shall make no law respecting... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There's just no basis in the Constitution to argue that your rights as an individual are diminished when acting on concert with other individuals with those same rights. Meanwhile, it's a staple of totalitarian regimes that a group of people advocating for change is an illegal disruption of public order.
If the two of us together pool our money to buy an ad, then that should be illegal and we should be put in prison. That is collusion and conspiracy. However, it's fine for either one of us to buy an ad.
What about conjoined twins?
The New York Times is a publicly traded corporation, so not just a group of like-minded friends, but a group of strangers. Can it run political pieces, or not? Can it pay its distribution company to deliver papers containing political opinion, or not?
It's OK for one of the Koch brothers to buy the New York Times and have it print libertarian op-eds every day, but if they both buy it together, not OK?
It's rather simple - if money changes hands for the purpose of advertising politics, it's illegal. If no money changes hands, it's not. That levels the playing field so those with more money cannot get more exposure, and those with no money can get none.
Must not be simple, because I don't understand how this would work. Can the New York Times run a political op-ed? They pay different corporations for ink and paper, and to buy and maintain their presses. They pay a separate company to distribute the paper. Lot of money changing hands there.
Can Bezos buy the Washington Post and have it print his political views, or not?
Can I have a political channel on YouTube, or not? Does it matter whether I monetize?
Can I start a "think tank" and pay a "Fellow of the lgw Society" to go on CNN and spout my views in an interview, or not? I mean, I'm not telling them specially what to say, but I'm hiring people who agree generally with the politics of the "lgw Society".
Can I stand on the corner and spout my political views? What if I pay for bus fare to get there? What if someone else pays for my bus fare?
What if I record it and put it on YouTube for the ad revenue? What if I have Patreon sponsors who fund my channel, so this is my full time job: spouting the political views that a group of patrons like to hear?
The problem with the US system is that everything is treated as a commodity to be bought and sold,
Anything with reach beyond the sound of your voice requires commodities being bought and sold. You're trying to draw some line here, but I see no line, just a big blur.
Every individual has and should have the right to political expression, but not the right to buy publishing.
OK, now I'm just confused. Bezos should not have the right to buy the Washington Post? Murdoch should not have the right to buy the but the Wall Street Journal, or to start Fox News?
You seem to be imagining a difference between "political expression" and "buying publishing" when it comes to freedom of the press, but I can't follow your argument. Would you limit freedom of the press to what one guy can do with a laser printer, handing out handbills on a corner?
If Murdoch want to reach a national audience with his political views, he buys the Wall Street Journal. If I want to reach a national audience with my political views, I buy an add in the Wall Street Journal. Either way it's political views in a national newspaper - words printed in the very same paper.
Where specifically is the line you're drawing here, if not restricting the freedom to the very rich? Ban both?
One system used by some countries is to only allow political ads paid for by the parties, using money received from the government
Yes, other countries don't have constitutionally protected freedom of the press. Many worldwide think that protection needless or even bad. I disagree. I stand firmly by the right of people to express their political views to whoever they can reach.
Americans determine the government of America. Seems right to me. The Queen of England has the money to outspend everyone else in an American presidential election, but we fought a war to prevent exactly that sort of control.
Again, are you really arguing that an ordinary person, who can only afford to buy an ad, not a newspaper corporation, does not have the right to political expression? Are you sure you want to say "political speech is only protected for 1%ers"?
You're even implying (intentionally?) that a group of like-minded people can't pool their money to show a film critical of a political candidate. Did you mean to imply that, or have I misunderstood you?
The press is free to refuse to publish. You have no right to buy ads. Write your own pamphlets, run your own private press - that is explicitly protected.
You're making a new argument, unrelated to the previous topic of the thread. The point was the government must not prevent you from buying political ads. And the broadcast media (OTA TV and radio) does not have the right to refuse to publish, because the airwaves are regulated by that same government. Heck, I remember DJs in Florida apologizing for political ads during the 2000 election, explaining this very thing - people would call in and yell at the station for the (woefully mistargeted) political ads they were running, but they had no choice.
as a foreigner, why would i care about your laws and why should your "advertisement ban by foreigners" be in any way binding to me? i never in y life set foot on USA soil, and i dont intend to
That's great and all, but we're talking about the US government regulating US corporations, and US political campaigns.
No, freedom of the press was not regarding political ads. It was to ensure that the public could be informed by the press about government malfeasance without state reprisal.
Again, is the freedom to publish one's political view limited to the like of Bezos and Murdock, who can buy a newspaper corporation, or ordinary people who can only buy an ad?
The solution is surely to restrict political advertising during elections. Other countries do this already.
We should certainly ban political advertising by foreigners near an election, just as we already ban campaign contributions from foreigners. Sadly, its the same politicians who enforce that ban, so it's not exactly strict.
But when it comes to Americans running political ads during elections, that's exactly what is meant by "freedom of the press". And freedom of the press should not be limited to the likes of Bezos, who can buy the Washington Post to get his opinion out there. Us peons who can only buy an ad, not the whole paper, also deserve freedom to express political dissent during an election.
Also, where's the line between an ad an an op-ed? Between an op-ed and selective reporting? If you follow through on your proposal, you're saying that CNN can run 24/7 anti-Trump coverage near an election, and in fact can't mention Trump negatively (or positively, as if) near the election at all. That's sort of the opposite of freedom of the press.
Even if you shut down one robocall center, three more pop up in its place. The telcos don't care either way, they make money regardless. The government regulators aka the FCC are too busy giving the telco executives handjobs to actually care about consumers.
That's the enforcement problem.
If you shut down the robocall place with a 2000 pound bomb, it's much less likely 3 more would pop up in its place. Drone strikes for justice! Of course, that would require politicians actually caring about voters, so this is all idle fantasy.
Uh - so you're conflating profit with S&P market capitalization estimates?
Economics can be hard. It pays to read carefully. P/E stands for "price to earnings": the ratio of the total value of the company to its earnings. Right now the average is a bit over 24, so earnings are about 1/24th, or about 4%, of the value of a company.
Did you follow, or did I lose you at "math"?
Corporate profits are enormous - and larger now than ever before.
Corporate profits are 4% of GDP. The economy is larger than ever before, so you'd expect corporate profits to be as an absolute number of dollars. But as a portion of the economy, they're about the same as they've been for the last 50 years.
Meanwhile total salaries are about 100% of GDP (this is always true).
Other beliefs might be comforting, but these beliefs are true.
They're collaborating with youtube, youtube brings the audience(s), they bring the content, both parties prosper.
The Youtuber brings both the content and the audience. YouTube brings the advertisers. The problem is, Google constantly and arbitrarily changes the rules for compensation. That's just dickish.
Of course, the smart guys on YouTube figured this out long ago and get their funding through Patreon etc, not YouTube.
If they are producing too much content and getting burnt out, maybe roll back to a weekly or monthly format?
YouTube's algorithms will drop you through the floor. With the latest changes, you might not even show up in subscription feeds. YouTube wants many small updates. No idea why - seems silly to me. Most the channels I watch do one real update a week, and then some shallow junk every couple of days to keep the algorithms happy.
What I'm saying is this: by and large older workers are less productive.
For a job like a Walmart associate where you learn the whole job in a few weeks? Sure. For an engineering position, where you accumulate years of wisdom about how not to do things? Not so much.
Look at corporate profits compared to wages and tell me no one cares about the employers.
If you want to see corporate profits (after salary and taxes and COGS and so on), here's a guide: http://www.multpl.com/ Corporate profits are about 4% of the market value of corporations right now. You can see the history for the past 150 years or so at the link.
The total value of all publicly traded US corporations is about equal to GDP. The total salary of all US employees (corporate and otherwise) is about equal to GDP.
So: * Corporate profits (all US corps): about 4% of GDP * Total wages (all US workers): about 100% of GDP * About half of the jobs in the US are corporate, so corporate wages are about 12x corporate profits.
So, there we go with actual numbers comparing wages to corporate profits. Not sure what your point was.
Do you have a problem with a database of every Muslim in America or every Jew, or everyone who's gay? Can you see any way in which that might be used for evil?
Are you familiar with the line "if you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him" from Cardinal Richelieu?
Are you aware that employers routinely check the facebook profile of potential employees, looking for reasons not to hire?
Overall, are you aware that some things that seem perfectly normal and sensible today will inevitably become unpardonable moral sins in a generation, but there's no telling which things. What do you want in your permanent record, to be used by a government or employer that does not have your best interests in mind, 20 years from now?
MS is now a cloud services company, with a sideline in OSs. Amazon is a cloud services company with a gift shop. Google is an advertising company with an app store sideline.
Cloud services will be around for as long as you can predict anything in this field. Advertising is forever, but Google is unique in history in dominating ad spend for so long - hard to guess how long that will last.
Sure, but as a user I reboot Windows once a month, on a predictable day, and Ubuntu twice a month somewhat randomly. Definitely room for improvement there.
Exactly. Needing reboots for most updates is plain f*ed up.
Ubuntu wants to update 1-2 times a week, and always wants to reboot after. Of course, most people simply ignore that, and mostly get away with ignoring it, but still.
Slashdot Mirror
Come on, hes basically selling a pocket lighter, not heroin to children, like the drug company Bayer used to do
Come on, Bayer didn't just sell heroin to kids, they made chemical weapons for use against US soldiers. Which of course is why they lost the US trademarks for Heroin and Aspirin.
Lots of democracies get by just fine with laws that regulate who can pay to influence election campaigns, and they seem to be much better democracies because of it.
Campaigning in the last US election cost 6.4 billion USD, or around 41 USD per registered voter.
Campaigning in the last UK election cost a total of 39 million GBP (0.05 billion USD), or around 1.15 USD per registered voter.
Interesting example. The UK looks to me like a totalitarian dystopia where a reporter espousing the wrong view gets dragged off the street, tried in secret, and convicted an imprisoned within 24 hours, then a gag order placed on the rest of the British media to prevent them from protesting or even mentioning the event. That's 2018 UK, though it reads like early 16th century UK, right down to the subject matter of criticizing the wrong religion.*
Is your view that the US system presented voters with a higher quality of information, allowing them to make a more informed choice as to their representatives and president? Do you feel that additional six billion dollars was well spent? Does the requirement for billion dollar campaigns not seriously undercut the fundamental principles of democracy?
I believe the US system makes its citizens more free, which is the end goal. Most adults in the US ignore all ads from long habit anyhow. Those who wish to be informed voters don't get their information from the TV. We both have the same internet after all (well, except for the secret list of sites the UK government doesn't let its people visit, of course.)
* OK, I'm blurring history a little bit here, as the Star Chamber was pretty much over by the time political violence started over religion. Bloody Mary didn't bother with the subtleties of secret trials, after all.
People acting as a group have no rights. We have to take those rights to maintain rights for people acting alone.
Poe's Law in full effect here. But taking this as written, the First Amendment clearly says otherwise:
Congress shall make no law respecting ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There's just no basis in the Constitution to argue that your rights as an individual are diminished when acting on concert with other individuals with those same rights. Meanwhile, it's a staple of totalitarian regimes that a group of people advocating for change is an illegal disruption of public order.
If the two of us together pool our money to buy an ad, then that should be illegal and we should be put in prison. That is collusion and conspiracy. However, it's fine for either one of us to buy an ad.
What about conjoined twins?
The New York Times is a publicly traded corporation, so not just a group of like-minded friends, but a group of strangers. Can it run political pieces, or not? Can it pay its distribution company to deliver papers containing political opinion, or not?
It's OK for one of the Koch brothers to buy the New York Times and have it print libertarian op-eds every day, but if they both buy it together, not OK?
It's rather simple - if money changes hands for the purpose of advertising politics, it's illegal. If no money changes hands, it's not. That levels the playing field so those with more money cannot get more exposure, and those with no money can get none.
Must not be simple, because I don't understand how this would work. Can the New York Times run a political op-ed? They pay different corporations for ink and paper, and to buy and maintain their presses. They pay a separate company to distribute the paper. Lot of money changing hands there.
Can Bezos buy the Washington Post and have it print his political views, or not?
Can I have a political channel on YouTube, or not? Does it matter whether I monetize?
Can I start a "think tank" and pay a "Fellow of the lgw Society" to go on CNN and spout my views in an interview, or not? I mean, I'm not telling them specially what to say, but I'm hiring people who agree generally with the politics of the "lgw Society".
Can I stand on the corner and spout my political views? What if I pay for bus fare to get there? What if someone else pays for my bus fare?
What if I record it and put it on YouTube for the ad revenue? What if I have Patreon sponsors who fund my channel, so this is my full time job: spouting the political views that a group of patrons like to hear?
The problem with the US system is that everything is treated as a commodity to be bought and sold,
Anything with reach beyond the sound of your voice requires commodities being bought and sold. You're trying to draw some line here, but I see no line, just a big blur.
Every individual has and should have the right to political expression, but not the right to buy publishing.
OK, now I'm just confused. Bezos should not have the right to buy the Washington Post? Murdoch should not have the right to buy the but the Wall Street Journal, or to start Fox News?
You seem to be imagining a difference between "political expression" and "buying publishing" when it comes to freedom of the press, but I can't follow your argument. Would you limit freedom of the press to what one guy can do with a laser printer, handing out handbills on a corner?
If Murdoch want to reach a national audience with his political views, he buys the Wall Street Journal. If I want to reach a national audience with my political views, I buy an add in the Wall Street Journal. Either way it's political views in a national newspaper - words printed in the very same paper.
Where specifically is the line you're drawing here, if not restricting the freedom to the very rich? Ban both?
One system used by some countries is to only allow political ads paid for by the parties, using money received from the government
Yes, other countries don't have constitutionally protected freedom of the press. Many worldwide think that protection needless or even bad. I disagree. I stand firmly by the right of people to express their political views to whoever they can reach.
Yes - that has always been the law.
Americans determine the government of America. Seems right to me. The Queen of England has the money to outspend everyone else in an American presidential election, but we fought a war to prevent exactly that sort of control.
Again, are you really arguing that an ordinary person, who can only afford to buy an ad, not a newspaper corporation, does not have the right to political expression? Are you sure you want to say "political speech is only protected for 1%ers"?
You're even implying (intentionally?) that a group of like-minded people can't pool their money to show a film critical of a political candidate. Did you mean to imply that, or have I misunderstood you?
The press is free to refuse to publish. You have no right to buy ads.
Write your own pamphlets, run your own private press - that is explicitly protected.
You're making a new argument, unrelated to the previous topic of the thread. The point was the government must not prevent you from buying political ads. And the broadcast media (OTA TV and radio) does not have the right to refuse to publish, because the airwaves are regulated by that same government. Heck, I remember DJs in Florida apologizing for political ads during the 2000 election, explaining this very thing - people would call in and yell at the station for the (woefully mistargeted) political ads they were running, but they had no choice.
Perhaps so. Google really does seem to want YouTube to be for humorous cat videos, not educational channels or analysis.
as a foreigner, why would i care about your laws and why should your "advertisement ban by foreigners" be in any way binding to me? i never in y life set foot on USA soil, and i dont intend to
That's great and all, but we're talking about the US government regulating US corporations, and US political campaigns.
No, freedom of the press was not regarding political ads. It was to ensure that the public could be informed by the press about government malfeasance without state reprisal.
Again, is the freedom to publish one's political view limited to the like of Bezos and Murdock, who can buy a newspaper corporation, or ordinary people who can only buy an ad?
The solution is surely to restrict political advertising during elections. Other countries do this already.
We should certainly ban political advertising by foreigners near an election, just as we already ban campaign contributions from foreigners. Sadly, its the same politicians who enforce that ban, so it's not exactly strict.
But when it comes to Americans running political ads during elections, that's exactly what is meant by "freedom of the press". And freedom of the press should not be limited to the likes of Bezos, who can buy the Washington Post to get his opinion out there. Us peons who can only buy an ad, not the whole paper, also deserve freedom to express political dissent during an election.
Also, where's the line between an ad an an op-ed? Between an op-ed and selective reporting? If you follow through on your proposal, you're saying that CNN can run 24/7 anti-Trump coverage near an election, and in fact can't mention Trump negatively (or positively, as if) near the election at all. That's sort of the opposite of freedom of the press.
Zuckerberg Grilled At Angry Facebook Shareholder's Meeting
Oh, metaphorically grilled. Had my hopes up there for a minute. How disappointing.
Even if you shut down one robocall center, three more pop up in its place. The telcos don't care either way, they make money regardless. The government regulators aka the FCC are too busy giving the telco executives handjobs to actually care about consumers.
That's the enforcement problem.
If you shut down the robocall place with a 2000 pound bomb, it's much less likely 3 more would pop up in its place. Drone strikes for justice! Of course, that would require politicians actually caring about voters, so this is all idle fantasy.
Uh - so you're conflating profit with S&P market capitalization estimates?
Economics can be hard. It pays to read carefully. P/E stands for "price to earnings": the ratio of the total value of the company to its earnings. Right now the average is a bit over 24, so earnings are about 1/24th, or about 4%, of the value of a company.
Did you follow, or did I lose you at "math"?
Corporate profits are enormous - and larger now than ever before.
Corporate profits are 4% of GDP. The economy is larger than ever before, so you'd expect corporate profits to be as an absolute number of dollars. But as a portion of the economy, they're about the same as they've been for the last 50 years.
Meanwhile total salaries are about 100% of GDP (this is always true).
Other beliefs might be comforting, but these beliefs are true.
They're collaborating with youtube, youtube brings the audience(s), they bring the content, both parties prosper.
The Youtuber brings both the content and the audience. YouTube brings the advertisers. The problem is, Google constantly and arbitrarily changes the rules for compensation. That's just dickish.
Of course, the smart guys on YouTube figured this out long ago and get their funding through Patreon etc, not YouTube.
If they are producing too much content and getting burnt out, maybe roll back to a weekly or monthly format?
YouTube's algorithms will drop you through the floor. With the latest changes, you might not even show up in subscription feeds. YouTube wants many small updates. No idea why - seems silly to me. Most the channels I watch do one real update a week, and then some shallow junk every couple of days to keep the algorithms happy.
Why not? Do you have a payment network that can process in excess of a 100 billion transactions in a year?
There was a time when ~3000 transactions per second was impressive. These days not so much.
What I'm saying is this: by and large older workers are less productive.
For a job like a Walmart associate where you learn the whole job in a few weeks? Sure. For an engineering position, where you accumulate years of wisdom about how not to do things? Not so much.
There is no reason to be ageist in your advocacy and pretend that letting go of a young person is any less disruptive to their life than old person.
Once you're married, it's more disruptive. Once you have kids, it's more disruptive. Once you have a mortgage, it's more disruptive.
So, maybe not age per se, but one does tend to accumulate reasons that losing's one's job is more disruptive.
Look at corporate profits compared to wages and tell me no one cares about the employers.
If you want to see corporate profits (after salary and taxes and COGS and so on), here's a guide: http://www.multpl.com/ Corporate profits are about 4% of the market value of corporations right now. You can see the history for the past 150 years or so at the link.
The total value of all publicly traded US corporations is about equal to GDP. The total salary of all US employees (corporate and otherwise) is about equal to GDP.
So:
* Corporate profits (all US corps): about 4% of GDP
* Total wages (all US workers): about 100% of GDP
* About half of the jobs in the US are corporate, so corporate wages are about 12x corporate profits.
So, there we go with actual numbers comparing wages to corporate profits. Not sure what your point was.
And my browsing behaviour has not changed the last 20 years, why would it?
Some people change and grow over time, adjusting their values and interests due to life experience.
Do you have a problem with a database of every Muslim in America or every Jew, or everyone who's gay? Can you see any way in which that might be used for evil?
Are you familiar with the line "if you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him" from Cardinal Richelieu?
Are you aware that employers routinely check the facebook profile of potential employees, looking for reasons not to hire?
Overall, are you aware that some things that seem perfectly normal and sensible today will inevitably become unpardonable moral sins in a generation, but there's no telling which things. What do you want in your permanent record, to be used by a government or employer that does not have your best interests in mind, 20 years from now?
MS is now a cloud services company, with a sideline in OSs. Amazon is a cloud services company with a gift shop. Google is an advertising company with an app store sideline.
Cloud services will be around for as long as you can predict anything in this field. Advertising is forever, but Google is unique in history in dominating ad spend for so long - hard to guess how long that will last.
Sure, but as a user I reboot Windows once a month, on a predictable day, and Ubuntu twice a month somewhat randomly. Definitely room for improvement there.
Exactly. Needing reboots for most updates is plain f*ed up.
Ubuntu wants to update 1-2 times a week, and always wants to reboot after. Of course, most people simply ignore that, and mostly get away with ignoring it, but still.