The real wealth and power in the world is being the worlds manufacturing base, just like the US once was.
Now China is, after been *given* that enormous power base by the short sighted and increasingly decadent and bankrupt west are very close to being the worlds new powerhouse. And while people in the west will whinge and moan about China not respecting the wests mass delusion of "IP" laws, China will continue laughing all the way to the bank producing physical goods from nuts and bolts to electronics to massive and complex machines and tools of industry, an income stream and power base that can't be taken without mass violence. Unlike "IP". And given that there's a billion of them to protect their factories and industry...good luck with that anyway.
So the west will just have to suck it up now wont they? If people in the west want things, physical things like cars and computers and fridges and TVs and most of the tools and parts for the tiny industry that they do have left, they're going to have to play by Chinas rules. Just like everyone else has had to play by the US's rules for the last 100 years, and just like the US, whatever China wants to do, China does.
Not quite there yet, but in 10 years that will be the state of the world.
At least for 20-30 years that it would take to rebuild the manufacturing base in the west if the desire ever took hold again. Which is somewhat doubtful for the current generations, given it was them who gave away the manufacturing base to start with.
I won't even go into the irony of Americans bitching about the upstart country gaining dominance by making use of the old countrys "IP". The parallels to history are uncanny. Problem is this time, the new powerhouse isn't even pretending that it's going to try the whole individual sovereignty over state thing. In fact many in power in China see that as one of the wests weaknesses and something that holds the west back.
Fascism (to call a spade a spade) is an excellent economic and governance model for production, making money and getting a country to become an industrial powerhouse. That is, if you can keep the lowest citizens in line. Which as we've seen time and time again, China can - hell western business even helps them.
Actually, the "doing this is a bad idea" is a pretty common response from Linux fans when confronted by something their OS doesn't do well, or at all
Well 17 comments in one thread desperately trying to excuse the Vista UAC whitelist exploit here two days ago show your not above a bit of unapologetic hand waving yourself (when it suits). And now here you are trying to say other people making excuses are annoying.
Yes, yes they are. Hypocrites are much much worse though.
Not to mention you must have missed the 10 comments in this thread currently at +5 explaining exactly how to stop people running unwanted programs in Linux. And the two comments at +4 explaining how to easily circumvent application 'lockdown' (lol) on a Windows box.
You're right but I will say in some sort of weak defence of many of those parents, that a lot of parents I know are *terrified* of metting out *any* discipline in public, even a harsh word. Whether it's as pathetic as being worried of being seen as 'uncool' to a greater fear of public scorn or the greatest fear of having the police, social services, child welfare, whoever knocking on the door and invading the home and family. In our current society there's an enormous amount of pressure on this generation of parents to treat children as some sort of ether born angels that can do no wrong and must be molly coddled in everything they do and to have every desire met instantly. Of course the inevitable outcome of humans who are raised that way when they become adolescents is also pinned directly on the parents as a failure. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
See to not treat your child as a demi-god is symptomatic of a bad parent, and if your a bad parent, maybe your an abusive parent, maybe emotionally or perhaps even physically. To be safe we had better look into your family more closely, you may be damaging that child.
There's those of us that are still kicking it old school with our kids, who understand that a child needs absolute love, but also craves thoughtful boundaries and to be told NO as well as yes. That children, *especially* young children need a real honest to goodness mother and father more than they need a 'best friend' in their parents. But as a social construct we're dwindling, and I can see why, current western society doesn't want us. We're seen as relics of the past, useless dinosaurs holding our children back for our own selfish desires.
Teachers look down on you and eye you with suspicion - your children are a little different, a bit more polite, a bit less selfish, a bit quieter than most of the other kids...well perhaps something's going on in the home (true story). Other parents (many who should know better) tut-tut, and sometimes, just sometimes you even catch yourself doing it to others. It's a powerful thing, the culture to which you belong and can make hypocrites out of the best of us.
It takes a hell of a lot of courage to bring kids up the way you, me and a thousand generations before us were brought up in the current climate of child worship prevalent in the western world. Many still do openly and take the social hits, many pretend they parent in the 'new ways' in public but in the privacy of their home are more sane and many many more have caved in completely or actually embrace the new way, the 'new way' is a *hell* of a lot easier that's for sure! Just let them do whatever the hell they want. The group you identify could be from either of the last two groups.
1979, then again in 1985, then again in 1996, then again in 2001 and now in 2009...
People forgetting the huge roadblocks and drawbacks of the thin client model and imagining it solving every problem with home PCs...again (oh but this time will be different!).
Why would you be going to Ireland? It's acting as a cheap whore for abusive foreign multinationals for the last ten years has meant it has been
hitharder than any other western country in the "downturn".
- Impose tariffs on products produced in brutal authoritarian third world countries who make full use of state sanctioned slave labor. They can either clean their act up and start competing on a level ground or stay where they are.
Throughout this entire thread you keep arguing that Americans (and by Americans I assume you mean the west) must reduce their standard of living.
But why? Because you say so?
People in western countries must reduce their standard of living (share of the wealth) to that of the average person in China to allow a tiny tiny fraction of people...in the west...to continue to increase their share of the wealth??
Because that's what it boils down to, western companies who each decade are benefiting a smaller and smaller group of people making full use of subjugated peoples in third world countries to produce things so they don't have to pay a fair market price for labour in their own or *other* FREE AND OPEN countries. So your saying that we - in the middle and lower classes of free countries should allow that? We as individuals should reduce our standard of living to that of the third world so that we can compete with slave labour to allow the 1% at the "top" to take ever increasing portions of their respective countries wealth?
We should do that just to satisfy some pseudo-intellectuals completely imaginary dogma?
Righteo, got ya.
I wonder if you would have applied the same arguments when the northern states where arguing that they couldn't compete with the southern states and their slave labour. "You must decrease your standard of living to that of the Slave in Texas!" - Red Flayer
The funny thing is that the west, each and every western country rose to power and accumulated their wealth with *all sorts* of protectionism in place. JUST LIKE CHINA AND INDIA HAVE IN PLACE RIGHT NOW.
Strangely we never seem to hear about that from you and your ilk, it's always conveniently forgotten when people such as yourself are lecturing everyone on your religious ideas.
What a joke that first link is. Truly. Some vague hand waving, a distortion of numbers and a couple of meaningless graphs can convince some people of anything. It (intentionally I'll assume given the source) also misses the obvious, if it's going to include "benefits" it'd better include the enormously inflated cost of health care! Oh it doesn't? Then it's less than meaningless, it's misleading.
In 1970 my father, a lowly mechanic purchased a nice house (on 70% of his wage), supported a wife and raised three children in a solid middle class household.
39 years later his son, a white collar computer programmer raising three children and supporting a wife can't afford to buy a house on 100% of his wage in ANY POPULATION CENTRE. Functionally lower-middle class, one car not two, not to mention working twice as many hours and getting half the benefits!
And yet ivory tower pseudo-intellectuals such as yourself will assume to lecture to us with the help of awful graphs and twisted and distorted 'truths' that we work less for more than people did thirty years ago.
What a joke.
And why would tariffs put you out of a job? Tariffs affect imports not exports.
And holy shit of course 'real disposable income' increased in the last four months, half a million people are losing their jobs a month, people aren't buying things so prices on luxuries MUST come down. It's called a recession! You seem to have a flimsy grasp on real economics. Or an agenda to drive. Gee I wonder which.
Ideological fanatics such as yourself, who don't have a firm hand on reality, just the dogma in your minds are selling your own countries out for no reason what so ever. And China and India and other developing countries will *happily* allow that to happen, then see if they're so ready to be so open with their borders when they finally hold the upper hand.
You people are little more than an updated version of the 20th centuries Useful Idiots. How the Chinese must laugh at the west.
resultset = sql("select Prize from Contestants where Contestant = 'AKAImBatman');
resultset = sql("select Prize from Contestants where Contestant = 'AKAImBatman' and Prize IS NOT NULL);
Perfectly acceptable in the real world, not perfect but often superior to creating a new table with the associated baggage that that brings along. Though in this case you fail at the argument your making, as Contestant should be in its own table as well and the prize -> contestant table should be a lookup to both Prize and Contestant tables as who's to say a contestant can't win more than one prize?
You made the same error that your chiding the OP for.
In your country if you're accused of a crime you consider it a natural right to have access to a free lawyer and access to free legal advice is enshrined in the highest law of the land. The spirit of socialism at its finest! But oddly there's no "socialism" conflict in that area, even from the "libertarians".
But when it comes to the right to some basic level of healthcare, no go. If you're poor you and your children can suffer.
It's an interesting paradox actually, because generally the poor commit more crime. So people are happy to fund legal representation for lower class criminals. But are definitely not happy to help fund a basic level of health care for themselves. Which is somewhat odd as the vast majority of people will be affected by health issues in their life, not criminal courts. And the costs associated with the two are about the same.
A strange but interesting culture.
(Yes I'm aware of the low quality of public defenders - due to a lack of funding more than anything. But it's better than nothing, just like public hospitals)
To throw in a real world data point to back your claim, my healthy, active and vibrant 82 year old grandfather went in to have an operation to deal with prostate cancer, his doctor suggested that as he was in such good shape if he got rid of the cancer he could live on for quite a while longer.
He died suddenly in the hospital from internal bleeding caused by the surgery a few hours later. Now the cancer might have gotten him eventually, but how long, five years? ten? He was 82 and healthy and happy so it was kinda pointless operating really.
He thought so too, but let himself be talked into it by his doctor.
Worst thing was he was completely lucid, happy and rational minutes before he died, it was very sudden and unexpected.
"You may be interested in the councils side of that story, the minutes can be found here (pdf warning).
The council wants to build a pool and needed 200k from somewhere?
I read that pdf and it in no way implies anything you're trying to imply. They cleared a firebreak around their property, 256 trees. If the property is 10 acres then four acres divided up as a strip around the perimeter is perfectly reasonable.
So the council brought in its "fire expert" (I bet he never dares show his face in the district again) and he deemed it excessive, I wonder how many of the houses with "reasonable" council approved firebreaks are still standing? I'm sure the Shehans are glad they didn't ask for the councils permission now anyway, and I can guarantee you that councils in all the burned areas will be answering for the ridiculous feel good don't cut anything down on your own property legislation they've pursued and pushed for 15 years.
Sorry that doesn't make sense. In another post you say its because of the biggest drought in a hundred years, but now you say that the forest is growing so fast and out of control that it burns and then grows back again quicker than ever. How does native forest grow that fast if it's in the biggest drought ever? I think you have an agenda.
Australian native bush is very slow growing at the best of times, and in drought there's no way (no way in hell actually) that the forest that burned the other week has burnt "many times" in the last decade. Here in Canberra our native forests are only just starting to get back to a state where there's now enough undergrowth and canopy to make bush fire any real concern again after the fires in 2001 - exactly 8 years ago. And there's still huge areas where the forest is only just starting to come good again - it could easily be another 10 years before they do.
Not to mention all of these towns and homes are less than 100 years old (some less than 30). Before that the land out there was inaccessible wilderness and cleared farmland. Fire has raged through there unchecked many times over the last few thousand years. The last known big one was back in 1983 and before than 1939. Were they both due to global warming too?
I wont even mention that we've had heatwaves leading into massive fires since Australia was settled, 1939 was exactly the same as this one there was also 1908, 1895, 1911 and 1921 . The only difference was there was no where near as many people living up in the forests and the mountains. Living on non-productive, uncleared acreage in the middle of a forest 100ks from the nearest city wasn't something that was possible or desirable for 99.999% of (European) people to do then.
I look forward to the ability to remove the ugly, awkward social misfit segment from society.
It's bad news for Slashdots future though.
Ironically it's the awkward social misfits who are the loudest proponents of this. Seems like tech is some sort of religion to them.
"Yes Mr and Mrs Smith, your embryo has all the genes to ensure it will forever be a pseudo-intellectual, who will be quite ugly for their entire life, will never fit into greater society will have a miserable adolescence and although will be exceptionally bright in some very narrow areas, will be forever burdened by the desire to feel superior to everyone around them. Plus they'll constantly use terrible strawman arguments to try to advance social issues of which they have no ability to mentally grapple."
"Oh well, maybe next time, best remove it we certainly don't want a child whose going to be unhappy!"
Re:Parents choose their baby's name
on
Designer Babies
·
· Score: 1
Dear QuantumG,
You've spent all morning in some bizarre and tortured attempt to equate eugenics with the naming of a child.
Please go away, have a little think and come back when you have a more sensible and less "WTF is he on" argument to make.
Also after looking at your pic on your homepage...You probably shouldn't be defending cosmetic Eugenics.
"By withholding information about the configuration, he stole from his employer on the way out."
I don't know about this Terry Child fellow or anything to do with what he's alleged to have done. But that is one bat-shit insane sentence.
Are you saying that an individual cannot just quit his or her job and walk out the door? And if they do should rot in jail and be stripped of all possessions? On the basis of a private companies say-so? WTF?? Who the fuck modded this bullshit up??
They fired him, he walked...but he's forever beholden to them and every employer he's ever worked for because he holds some knowledge about their network?
What a fucked up world you live in, sorry but you're a little fascist, any individual, from the CEO to the Janitor has every right to leave a position and never look back, if the world implemented your policy we'd all be too terrified to work for anyone! Some HR schmuck wants to fuck with you after you leave, HE DIDNT TELL US SOMETHING WE NEED PUT HIM IN JAIL AND STRIP HIM OF HIS POSSESSIONS! Jafiwam demands it!
You the only IT person for a small company and want to quit? TO BAD! Don't dare walk out the door, if you do according to Jafiwam the little fascist you deserve to rot in jail and have all your possessions stripped away from you. Oops didn't document what that script does, STEALING! JAIL FOR YOU. Didn't tell them about that Cronjob before you left? STEALING! Didn't document that object properly, didn't let them know about that revision, didn't pass on that message? STEALING, STEALING, STEALING!
Didn't write a 2000 page manifesto brain dumping every tiny little bit of trivia and knowledge that you have about their business, STEALING!
The idiocy is truly unbelievable around here sometimes.
Good god man, you're embarrassing yourself. Get a grip.
Life is not a movie, there's no imminent state of emergency, the entire planet is not going to implode, explode, rain fireballs, etc.
Even if GW is as bad as it can possibly be, you and I will see only the slightest changes in our lifetimes, many many people will see none at all. Future generations will have to adapt and alter to compensate, like they always HAVE. 100 years ago My great-grandfather used to grow crop 50kms from where I live now. The average temperature and rainfall in the area dropped and crops were no longer viable by time his son, my Grandfather took over the farm. So he (and many many others in the district) moved on to an area that had in the previous 20 years *become* viable for growing crops. 40 years later the area my great-grandfather farmed in is now *again* becoming viable to grow wheat.
Its kinda funny to see so many people here laugh at the 'hysterical' masses on other issues such as child protection, terrorism etc. But really are no different themselves.
Not to mention I come here to *escape* a melodramatic drama queen. (Coming dear)
If you honestly believe the government will ever make good on that 'debt' by cutting the monetary supply in the future when things settle to bring our dollars buying power back to what it was before they fire up the printing presses, it's you who is the nutter.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm no Lib, but I am torn on the package. See one half of me likes the idea of money in my pocket (yes short sighted I know) at this point in time. The other half looks at my little boys sleeping peacefully and feels mad as hell that the federal government, a bunch of old men are selling my innocent little men into debt so that those fools don't ever have to suffer. It feels like...theft, sorry can't help it, it just does.
Just a couple of nitpics for you there old mate...
A) I have two children aged 1 and 8 and another on the way. Which makes me a parent, so no you are not special and you don't get to corner any sort of moral high ground in this debate. B) If in your household it's possible for your seven year old daughter to come across content like you mention then your already a failure as a parent, sorry. C) Don't push me (a real dad) and the rest of us down because you can't swim. We real parents can handle the internet in our homes, in fact of all the day to day dangers to my boys health and safety the internet rates about a 1 / 10. D) Don't ever, ever assume to speak for 'parents' again. E) If you can't handle having the internet in your home without the federal government getting involved, your the bad parent.
Unfortunately your predictions for the future are sadly more than likely accurate and fairly insightful.
The problem we now have, and it's a hugely problematic problem, is that the government is going to use this legislation as a bargaining chip to push through it's economic stimulus plan.
Late last year I was hoping and sitting rather comfortably in the knowledge that this would never make it through the senate.
But now a few individual senators are holding the government over a barrel regarding the stimulus plan, the same senators that support the censorship (except the greens). So expect the government to sacrifice the internet giving them everything they want to gain support for their new financial endevours.
The internet in Australia doesn't have a hope I'm afraid.
I won't even mention that yet again Rudd seems to be bringing us into line with China. He really seems to have an infatuation with that country and everything they do, and I think it's got a little more to do than just being able to speak their language. It's getting to be really quite creepy.
In other words I'm waiting for the bastard to sell us out.
I voted for labour above the libs, something I'm somewhat regretting now (and not just for the internet censorship) I must say.
"And with it, the protectionism and labor unionism that plagued the country for decades. Want to see what happens when the whole US economy becomes like GM ? You're in for a ride."
A strong and powerful society where the middle class held real power and families could easily own a home and live well on one adults wage while and the other stayed at home to raise the kids leading to highly functioning and prosperous nations?
Your right, 1950 to the late 1980s were bloody awful for the average man on the street in western countries thats.for.sure.
Growth? That 'growth' was wiped out in about two weeks when the financial house of cards fell. Some 'growth'.
The last 20-30 years have seen the most dramatic drop in real wages and the hardest squeeze on the middle class for over a century.
Not exactly what I'd call 'growth', more like hollywood accounting and people living on credit in an attempt to maintain their class status. We'll get a look at the real financial state of society in many western countries over the next couple of years. Once people get bumped en-masse down into the lower class and they realise that they are now the people they used to look down upon, they're gonna be *pissed*. Whether the pro-globalist ivory tower intellectuals and/or robber barons like it or not. And when that happens all the strict financial regulations and high tax rates on the ultra wealthy and protectionism that have been chipped away at for last century will be brought back post haste. Rightly or wrongly governments won't have a choice. In fact it's already begun to happen.
Not to mention doing things in isolation has its merits...like providing jobs, lots and lots of jobs, and security both nationally and personally and national self-reliance. Not to mention the skill, knowledge and pride base it builds.
If an operation in the US (or here in Aus) wishes to run the bulk of its operation in a third world country then the executive should have to live there as well. See how long the pro offshoring arguments would carry on for then.
As with everything there's a balance, bit of protectionism here, bit of free trade there whatever's good for the country and your countrymen. Totally closing the borders is about as useful as totally opening them and seems to have the same outcome. But moderation in ideology is out of fashion these days isn't it?
WHAT? You've got some strange ideas my friend. So how's that work exactly? Does the executive move overseas (boohoo)? The employees? How does a multinational company 'leave' a country? And what will they do with their employees who actually make the company anything more than just a VC Firm? Fire them? Then what? So they've got a nice Nokia Trademark and no one to do anything with it. Oh and watch their share price go to 0.
Think the world and shareholders will wait and forgive their debts while they start from fresh?
"A company SHOULD leave any place it finds a hostile environment."
What does that mean exactly? Nokia started in Finland, grew and thrived under the laws as they stand so I guess that it's not that 'hostile'. And of course it's just *that* easy for a multibillion dollar company to pick up and leave and start fresh in a foreign nation, which of course would have it's own set of laws and regulations to work under.
Or do you mean "A company SHOULD leave any place whose government wont do exactly as its told when it's told by the tiny group of people, many who are foreigners, that make up it's shareholders."? Because that's all that amounts too.
Companies are just tiny groups of citizens working together under various pieces of legislation. The construct of a company has no inherent 'rights' and most constitutions don't even mention them. So why do you, and people like you, keep trying to tell us that companies have some sort of power and place alongside (and usually elevated above) private citizens? Companies in each individual country have exactly the rights given to them by citizens of that country via their government, no more and no less.
Companies can't tap employee phones or open letters addressed to employees, so why would email be any different?
"Large companies" (as though they're somehow special) can't tap the phone lines and listen to employee phone calls made on company phones.
The same thing applying to email seems perfectly rational to me, not absurd like you presumptuously assert.
Employees aren't servants, companies exist to serve and if a company is formed where the law of the land says a private entity can't snoop on any private citizens communications then that is that.
And to head you off at the pass (oh but the company OWNS the servers) so what? The company owns this chair I'm sitting in but that doesn't give them any right to strip search me. Selling your labour to someone in no way shape or form gives them any inherent right or power to violate a citizens own personal rights. As in working for a company doesn't mean they can snoop on my communication, search my house, search my car, imprison me, take my firstborn, kill me, etc.
In most countries companies are still seen as subservient legal entities whose needs come miles behind the private citizens. I know the in US, and quite a few anglo-countries this is not so much the case anymore.
You forgot one fact: Slashdot is full of blow hards.
So if I, while doing various chemical experiments in my garage, blow up my house and your house next door killing everyone in it, it's of no consequence because it's in the name of science and you were all going to die anyway? What if I just come in and shoot you all? Can I apply the same juvenile logic?
"I don't see the problem, facts:
1) You were all going to die some day. 2) The solar system will stop working some day.
So what's the problem? Sure it may kill you and all life in this house, but does it really matter? You're screwed anyway."
How does that work? Or are you just an internet hero?
"Honestly, if the human race has to end, that is exactly how I want us to go out."
You or a handful of individuals anywhere don't get to choose that. It's unspeakably arrogant to even hold a fleeting thought that you do, and the real world and people in it otherwise known as the human race will smack you down the moment you attempt to apply it to real life.
And it's for that very reason that large projects like the LHC come up against so much opposition. Fear of the unknown fueled by arrogant, juvenile, man-children spouting utter garbage like the above and reaffirming to the average man on the street the belief that the 'scientific community' is very much a separate group of crazies that can't be trusted to not kill everyone. Funnily the (majority) of scientists themselves are not the ones who talk this sort of rubbish, it's the hanger-ons, the zealots and the fanboys. But to the wider community it appears the same. In this thread alone at the moment it's about 50/50 scientific arguments vs rubbish like this.
If you don't care about your own life that's fine. But don't expect the average man on the street to ever accept the risk of death to themselves and families for your particular cause.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would they do that? Produce "IP" I mean.
The real wealth and power in the world is being the worlds manufacturing base, just like the US once was.
Now China is, after been *given* that enormous power base by the short sighted and increasingly decadent and bankrupt west are very close to being the worlds new powerhouse. And while people in the west will whinge and moan about China not respecting the wests mass delusion of "IP" laws, China will continue laughing all the way to the bank producing physical goods from nuts and bolts to electronics to massive and complex machines and tools of industry, an income stream and power base that can't be taken without mass violence. Unlike "IP". And given that there's a billion of them to protect their factories and industry...good luck with that anyway.
So the west will just have to suck it up now wont they? If people in the west want things, physical things like cars and computers and fridges and TVs and most of the tools and parts for the tiny industry that they do have left, they're going to have to play by Chinas rules. Just like everyone else has had to play by the US's rules for the last 100 years, and just like the US, whatever China wants to do, China does.
Not quite there yet, but in 10 years that will be the state of the world.
At least for 20-30 years that it would take to rebuild the manufacturing base in the west if the desire ever took hold again. Which is somewhat doubtful for the current generations, given it was them who gave away the manufacturing base to start with.
I won't even go into the irony of Americans bitching about the upstart country gaining dominance by making use of the old countrys "IP". The parallels to history are uncanny. Problem is this time, the new powerhouse isn't even pretending that it's going to try the whole individual sovereignty over state thing. In fact many in power in China see that as one of the wests weaknesses and something that holds the west back.
Fascism (to call a spade a spade) is an excellent economic and governance model for production, making money and getting a country to become an industrial powerhouse. That is, if you can keep the lowest citizens in line. Which as we've seen time and time again, China can - hell western business even helps them.
Actually, the "doing this is a bad idea" is a pretty common response from Linux fans when confronted by something their OS doesn't do well, or at all
Well 17 comments in one thread desperately trying to excuse the Vista UAC whitelist exploit here two days ago show your not above a bit of unapologetic hand waving yourself (when it suits). And now here you are trying to say other people making excuses are annoying.
Yes, yes they are. Hypocrites are much much worse though.
Not to mention you must have missed the 10 comments in this thread currently at +5 explaining exactly how to stop people running unwanted programs in Linux. And the two comments at +4 explaining how to easily circumvent application 'lockdown' (lol) on a Windows box.
You're right but I will say in some sort of weak defence of many of those parents, that a lot of parents I know are *terrified* of metting out *any* discipline in public, even a harsh word. Whether it's as pathetic as being worried of being seen as 'uncool' to a greater fear of public scorn or the greatest fear of having the police, social services, child welfare, whoever knocking on the door and invading the home and family. In our current society there's an enormous amount of pressure on this generation of parents to treat children as some sort of ether born angels that can do no wrong and must be molly coddled in everything they do and to have every desire met instantly. Of course the inevitable outcome of humans who are raised that way when they become adolescents is also pinned directly on the parents as a failure. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
See to not treat your child as a demi-god is symptomatic of a bad parent, and if your a bad parent, maybe your an abusive parent, maybe emotionally or perhaps even physically. To be safe we had better look into your family more closely, you may be damaging that child.
There's those of us that are still kicking it old school with our kids, who understand that a child needs absolute love, but also craves thoughtful boundaries and to be told NO as well as yes. That children, *especially* young children need a real honest to goodness mother and father more than they need a 'best friend' in their parents. But as a social construct we're dwindling, and I can see why, current western society doesn't want us. We're seen as relics of the past, useless dinosaurs holding our children back for our own selfish desires.
Teachers look down on you and eye you with suspicion - your children are a little different, a bit more polite, a bit less selfish, a bit quieter than most of the other kids...well perhaps something's going on in the home (true story). Other parents (many who should know better) tut-tut, and sometimes, just sometimes you even catch yourself doing it to others. It's a powerful thing, the culture to which you belong and can make hypocrites out of the best of us.
It takes a hell of a lot of courage to bring kids up the way you, me and a thousand generations before us were brought up in the current climate of child worship prevalent in the western world. Many still do openly and take the social hits, many pretend they parent in the 'new ways' in public but in the privacy of their home are more sane and many many more have caved in completely or actually embrace the new way, the 'new way' is a *hell* of a lot easier that's for sure! Just let them do whatever the hell they want. The group you identify could be from either of the last two groups.
Just an attempt at explanation.
Imagine,
1979, then again in 1985, then again in 1996, then again in 2001 and now in 2009...
People forgetting the huge roadblocks and drawbacks of the thin client model and imagining it solving every problem with home PCs...again (oh but this time will be different!).
See you again in another eight to ten years.
Why would you be going to Ireland? It's acting as a cheap whore for abusive foreign multinationals for the last ten years has meant it has been hit harder than any other western country in the "downturn".
Err you forgot the most potent way to fix it
- Impose tariffs on products produced in brutal authoritarian third world countries who make full use of state sanctioned slave labor. They can either clean their act up and start competing on a level ground or stay where they are.
Throughout this entire thread you keep arguing that Americans (and by Americans I assume you mean the west) must reduce their standard of living.
But why? Because you say so?
People in western countries must reduce their standard of living (share of the wealth) to that of the average person in China to allow a tiny tiny fraction of people...in the west...to continue to increase their share of the wealth??
Because that's what it boils down to, western companies who each decade are benefiting a smaller and smaller group of people making full use of subjugated peoples in third world countries to produce things so they don't have to pay a fair market price for labour in their own or *other* FREE AND OPEN countries. So your saying that we - in the middle and lower classes of free countries should allow that? We as individuals should reduce our standard of living to that of the third world so that we can compete with slave labour to allow the 1% at the "top" to take ever increasing portions of their respective countries wealth?
We should do that just to satisfy some pseudo-intellectuals completely imaginary dogma?
Righteo, got ya.
I wonder if you would have applied the same arguments when the northern states where arguing that they couldn't compete with the southern states and their slave labour. "You must decrease your standard of living to that of the Slave in Texas!" - Red Flayer
The funny thing is that the west, each and every western country rose to power and accumulated their wealth with *all sorts* of protectionism in place. JUST LIKE CHINA AND INDIA HAVE IN PLACE RIGHT NOW.
Strangely we never seem to hear about that from you and your ilk, it's always conveniently forgotten when people such as yourself are lecturing everyone on your religious ideas.
What a joke that first link is. Truly. Some vague hand waving, a distortion of numbers and a couple of meaningless graphs can convince some people of anything. It (intentionally I'll assume given the source) also misses the obvious, if it's going to include "benefits" it'd better include the enormously inflated cost of health care! Oh it doesn't? Then it's less than meaningless, it's misleading.
In 1970 my father, a lowly mechanic purchased a nice house (on 70% of his wage), supported a wife and raised three children in a solid middle class household.
39 years later his son, a white collar computer programmer raising three children and supporting a wife can't afford to buy a house on 100% of his wage in ANY POPULATION CENTRE. Functionally lower-middle class, one car not two, not to mention working twice as many hours and getting half the benefits!
And yet ivory tower pseudo-intellectuals such as yourself will assume to lecture to us with the help of awful graphs and twisted and distorted 'truths' that we work less for more than people did thirty years ago.
What a joke.
And why would tariffs put you out of a job? Tariffs affect imports not exports.
And holy shit of course 'real disposable income' increased in the last four months, half a million people are losing their jobs a month, people aren't buying things so prices on luxuries MUST come down. It's called a recession! You seem to have a flimsy grasp on real economics. Or an agenda to drive. Gee I wonder which.
Ideological fanatics such as yourself, who don't have a firm hand on reality, just the dogma in your minds are selling your own countries out for no reason what so ever. And China and India and other developing countries will *happily* allow that to happen, then see if they're so ready to be so open with their borders when they finally hold the upper hand.
You people are little more than an updated version of the 20th centuries Useful Idiots. How the Chinese must laugh at the west.
resultset = sql("select Prize from Contestants where Contestant = 'AKAImBatman');
resultset = sql("select Prize from Contestants where Contestant = 'AKAImBatman' and Prize IS NOT NULL);
Perfectly acceptable in the real world, not perfect but often superior to creating a new table with the associated baggage that that brings along. Though in this case you fail at the argument your making, as Contestant should be in its own table as well and the prize -> contestant table should be a lookup to both Prize and Contestant tables as who's to say a contestant can't win more than one prize?
You made the same error that your chiding the OP for.
How strange,
In your country if you're accused of a crime you consider it a natural right to have access to a free lawyer and access to free legal advice is enshrined in the highest law of the land. The spirit of socialism at its finest! But oddly there's no "socialism" conflict in that area, even from the "libertarians".
But when it comes to the right to some basic level of healthcare, no go. If you're poor you and your children can suffer.
It's an interesting paradox actually, because generally the poor commit more crime. So people are happy to fund legal representation for lower class criminals. But are definitely not happy to help fund a basic level of health care for themselves. Which is somewhat odd as the vast majority of people will be affected by health issues in their life, not criminal courts. And the costs associated with the two are about the same.
A strange but interesting culture.
(Yes I'm aware of the low quality of public defenders - due to a lack of funding more than anything. But it's better than nothing, just like public hospitals)
To throw in a real world data point to back your claim, my healthy, active and vibrant 82 year old grandfather went in to have an operation to deal with prostate cancer, his doctor suggested that as he was in such good shape if he got rid of the cancer he could live on for quite a while longer.
He died suddenly in the hospital from internal bleeding caused by the surgery a few hours later. Now the cancer might have gotten him eventually, but how long, five years? ten? He was 82 and healthy and happy so it was kinda pointless operating really.
He thought so too, but let himself be talked into it by his doctor.
Worst thing was he was completely lucid, happy and rational minutes before he died, it was very sudden and unexpected.
"You may be interested in the councils side of that story, the minutes can be found here (pdf warning).
The council wants to build a pool and needed 200k from somewhere?
I read that pdf and it in no way implies anything you're trying to imply. They cleared a firebreak around their property, 256 trees. If the property is 10 acres then four acres divided up as a strip around the perimeter is perfectly reasonable.
So the council brought in its "fire expert" (I bet he never dares show his face in the district again) and he deemed it excessive, I wonder how many of the houses with "reasonable" council approved firebreaks are still standing? I'm sure the Shehans are glad they didn't ask for the councils permission now anyway, and I can guarantee you that councils in all the burned areas will be answering for the ridiculous feel good don't cut anything down on your own property legislation they've pursued and pushed for 15 years.
Sorry that doesn't make sense. In another post you say its because of the biggest drought in a hundred years, but now you say that the forest is growing so fast and out of control that it burns and then grows back again quicker than ever. How does native forest grow that fast if it's in the biggest drought ever? I think you have an agenda.
Australian native bush is very slow growing at the best of times, and in drought there's no way (no way in hell actually) that the forest that burned the other week has burnt "many times" in the last decade. Here in Canberra our native forests are only just starting to get back to a state where there's now enough undergrowth and canopy to make bush fire any real concern again after the fires in 2001 - exactly 8 years ago. And there's still huge areas where the forest is only just starting to come good again - it could easily be another 10 years before they do.
Not to mention all of these towns and homes are less than 100 years old (some less than 30). Before that the land out there was inaccessible wilderness and cleared farmland. Fire has raged through there unchecked many times over the last few thousand years. The last known big one was back in 1983 and before than 1939. Were they both due to global warming too?
I wont even mention that we've had heatwaves leading into massive fires since Australia was settled, 1939 was exactly the same as this one there was also 1908, 1895, 1911 and 1921 . The only difference was there was no where near as many people living up in the forests and the mountains. Living on non-productive, uncleared acreage in the middle of a forest 100ks from the nearest city wasn't something that was possible or desirable for 99.999% of (European) people to do then.
I look forward to the ability to remove the ugly, awkward social misfit segment from society.
It's bad news for Slashdots future though.
Ironically it's the awkward social misfits who are the loudest proponents of this. Seems like tech is some sort of religion to them.
"Yes Mr and Mrs Smith, your embryo has all the genes to ensure it will forever be a pseudo-intellectual, who will be quite ugly for their entire life, will never fit into greater society will have a miserable adolescence and although will be exceptionally bright in some very narrow areas, will be forever burdened by the desire to feel superior to everyone around them. Plus they'll constantly use terrible strawman arguments to try to advance social issues of which they have no ability to mentally grapple."
"Oh well, maybe next time, best remove it we certainly don't want a child whose going to be unhappy!"
Dear QuantumG,
You've spent all morning in some bizarre and tortured attempt to equate eugenics with the naming of a child.
Please go away, have a little think and come back when you have a more sensible and less "WTF is he on" argument to make.
Also after looking at your pic on your homepage...You probably shouldn't be defending cosmetic Eugenics.
Kind regards, the rest of the world.
"By withholding information about the configuration, he stole from his employer on the way out."
I don't know about this Terry Child fellow or anything to do with what he's alleged to have done. But that is one bat-shit insane sentence.
Are you saying that an individual cannot just quit his or her job and walk out the door? And if they do should rot in jail and be stripped of all possessions? On the basis of a private companies say-so? WTF?? Who the fuck modded this bullshit up??
They fired him, he walked...but he's forever beholden to them and every employer he's ever worked for because he holds some knowledge about their network?
What a fucked up world you live in, sorry but you're a little fascist, any individual, from the CEO to the Janitor has every right to leave a position and never look back, if the world implemented your policy we'd all be too terrified to work for anyone! Some HR schmuck wants to fuck with you after you leave, HE DIDNT TELL US SOMETHING WE NEED PUT HIM IN JAIL AND STRIP HIM OF HIS POSSESSIONS! Jafiwam demands it!
You the only IT person for a small company and want to quit? TO BAD! Don't dare walk out the door, if you do according to Jafiwam the little fascist you deserve to rot in jail and have all your possessions stripped away from you. Oops didn't document what that script does, STEALING! JAIL FOR YOU. Didn't tell them about that Cronjob before you left? STEALING! Didn't document that object properly, didn't let them know about that revision, didn't pass on that message? STEALING, STEALING, STEALING!
Didn't write a 2000 page manifesto brain dumping every tiny little bit of trivia and knowledge that you have about their business, STEALING!
The idiocy is truly unbelievable around here sometimes.
Good god man, you're embarrassing yourself. Get a grip.
Life is not a movie, there's no imminent state of emergency, the entire planet is not going to implode, explode, rain fireballs, etc.
Even if GW is as bad as it can possibly be, you and I will see only the slightest changes in our lifetimes, many many people will see none at all. Future generations will have to adapt and alter to compensate, like they always HAVE. 100 years ago My great-grandfather used to grow crop 50kms from where I live now. The average temperature and rainfall in the area dropped and crops were no longer viable by time his son, my Grandfather took over the farm. So he (and many many others in the district) moved on to an area that had in the previous 20 years *become* viable for growing crops. 40 years later the area my great-grandfather farmed in is now *again* becoming viable to grow wheat.
Its kinda funny to see so many people here laugh at the 'hysterical' masses on other issues such as child protection, terrorism etc. But really are no different themselves.
Not to mention I come here to *escape* a melodramatic drama queen. (Coming dear)
If you honestly believe the government will ever make good on that 'debt' by cutting the monetary supply in the future when things settle to bring our dollars buying power back to what it was before they fire up the printing presses, it's you who is the nutter.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm no Lib, but I am torn on the package. See one half of me likes the idea of money in my pocket (yes short sighted I know) at this point in time. The other half looks at my little boys sleeping peacefully and feels mad as hell that the federal government, a bunch of old men are selling my innocent little men into debt so that those fools don't ever have to suffer. It feels like...theft, sorry can't help it, it just does.
Just a couple of nitpics for you there old mate...
A) I have two children aged 1 and 8 and another on the way. Which makes me a parent, so no you are not special and you don't get to corner any sort of moral high ground in this debate.
B) If in your household it's possible for your seven year old daughter to come across content like you mention then your already a failure as a parent, sorry.
C) Don't push me (a real dad) and the rest of us down because you can't swim. We real parents can handle the internet in our homes, in fact of all the day to day dangers to my boys health and safety the internet rates about a 1 / 10.
D) Don't ever, ever assume to speak for 'parents' again.
E) If you can't handle having the internet in your home without the federal government getting involved, your the bad parent.
Unfortunately your predictions for the future are sadly more than likely accurate and fairly insightful.
The problem we now have, and it's a hugely problematic problem, is that the government is going to use this legislation as a bargaining chip to push through it's economic stimulus plan.
Late last year I was hoping and sitting rather comfortably in the knowledge that this would never make it through the senate.
But now a few individual senators are holding the government over a barrel regarding the stimulus plan, the same senators that support the censorship (except the greens). So expect the government to sacrifice the internet giving them everything they want to gain support for their new financial endevours.
The internet in Australia doesn't have a hope I'm afraid.
I won't even mention that yet again Rudd seems to be bringing us into line with China. He really seems to have an infatuation with that country and everything they do, and I think it's got a little more to do than just being able to speak their language. It's getting to be really quite creepy.
In other words I'm waiting for the bastard to sell us out.
I voted for labour above the libs, something I'm somewhat regretting now (and not just for the internet censorship) I must say.
"And with it, the protectionism and labor unionism that plagued the country for decades. Want to see what happens when the whole US economy becomes like GM ? You're in for a ride."
A strong and powerful society where the middle class held real power and families could easily own a home and live well on one adults wage while and the other stayed at home to raise the kids leading to highly functioning and prosperous nations?
Your right, 1950 to the late 1980s were bloody awful for the average man on the street in western countries thats.for.sure.
Growth? That 'growth' was wiped out in about two weeks when the financial house of cards fell. Some 'growth'.
The last 20-30 years have seen the most dramatic drop in real wages and the hardest squeeze on the middle class for over a century.
Not exactly what I'd call 'growth', more like hollywood accounting and people living on credit in an attempt to maintain their class status. We'll get a look at the real financial state of society in many western countries over the next couple of years. Once people get bumped en-masse down into the lower class and they realise that they are now the people they used to look down upon, they're gonna be *pissed*. Whether the pro-globalist ivory tower intellectuals and/or robber barons like it or not. And when that happens all the strict financial regulations and high tax rates on the ultra wealthy and protectionism that have been chipped away at for last century will be brought back post haste. Rightly or wrongly governments won't have a choice. In fact it's already begun to happen.
Not to mention doing things in isolation has its merits...like providing jobs, lots and lots of jobs, and security both nationally and personally and national self-reliance. Not to mention the skill, knowledge and pride base it builds.
If an operation in the US (or here in Aus) wishes to run the bulk of its operation in a third world country then the executive should have to live there as well. See how long the pro offshoring arguments would carry on for then.
As with everything there's a balance, bit of protectionism here, bit of free trade there whatever's good for the country and your countrymen. Totally closing the borders is about as useful as totally opening them and seems to have the same outcome. But moderation in ideology is out of fashion these days isn't it?
"Nokia should leave Finland."
WHAT? You've got some strange ideas my friend. So how's that work exactly? Does the executive move overseas (boohoo)? The employees? How does a multinational company 'leave' a country? And what will they do with their employees who actually make the company anything more than just a VC Firm? Fire them? Then what? So they've got a nice Nokia Trademark and no one to do anything with it. Oh and watch their share price go to 0.
Think the world and shareholders will wait and forgive their debts while they start from fresh?
"A company SHOULD leave any place it finds a hostile environment."
What does that mean exactly? Nokia started in Finland, grew and thrived under the laws as they stand so I guess that it's not that 'hostile'. And of course it's just *that* easy for a multibillion dollar company to pick up and leave and start fresh in a foreign nation, which of course would have it's own set of laws and regulations to work under.
Or do you mean "A company SHOULD leave any place whose government wont do exactly as its told when it's told by the tiny group of people, many who are foreigners, that make up it's shareholders."? Because that's all that amounts too.
Companies are just tiny groups of citizens working together under various pieces of legislation. The construct of a company has no inherent 'rights' and most constitutions don't even mention them. So why do you, and people like you, keep trying to tell us that companies have some sort of power and place alongside (and usually elevated above) private citizens? Companies in each individual country have exactly the rights given to them by citizens of that country via their government, no more and no less.
Companies can't tap employee phones or open letters addressed to employees, so why would email be any different?
"Large companies" (as though they're somehow special) can't tap the phone lines and listen to employee phone calls made on company phones.
The same thing applying to email seems perfectly rational to me, not absurd like you presumptuously assert.
Employees aren't servants, companies exist to serve and if a company is formed where the law of the land says a private entity can't snoop on any private citizens communications then that is that.
And to head you off at the pass (oh but the company OWNS the servers) so what? The company owns this chair I'm sitting in but that doesn't give them any right to strip search me. Selling your labour to someone in no way shape or form gives them any inherent right or power to violate a citizens own personal rights. As in working for a company doesn't mean they can snoop on my communication, search my house, search my car, imprison me, take my firstborn, kill me, etc.
In most countries companies are still seen as subservient legal entities whose needs come miles behind the private citizens. I know the in US, and quite a few anglo-countries this is not so much the case anymore.
Some people seem to want to be serfs.
You forgot one fact: Slashdot is full of blow hards.
So if I, while doing various chemical experiments in my garage, blow up my house and your house next door killing everyone in it, it's of no consequence because it's in the name of science and you were all going to die anyway? What if I just come in and shoot you all? Can I apply the same juvenile logic?
"I don't see the problem, facts:
1) You were all going to die some day.
2) The solar system will stop working some day.
So what's the problem? Sure it may kill you and all life in this house, but does it really matter? You're screwed anyway."
How does that work? Or are you just an internet hero?
"Honestly, if the human race has to end, that is exactly how I want us to go out."
You or a handful of individuals anywhere don't get to choose that. It's unspeakably arrogant to even hold a fleeting thought that you do, and the real world and people in it otherwise known as the human race will smack you down the moment you attempt to apply it to real life.
And it's for that very reason that large projects like the LHC come up against so much opposition. Fear of the unknown fueled by arrogant, juvenile, man-children spouting utter garbage like the above and reaffirming to the average man on the street the belief that the 'scientific community' is very much a separate group of crazies that can't be trusted to not kill everyone. Funnily the (majority) of scientists themselves are not the ones who talk this sort of rubbish, it's the hanger-ons, the zealots and the fanboys. But to the wider community it appears the same. In this thread alone at the moment it's about 50/50 scientific arguments vs rubbish like this.
If you don't care about your own life that's fine. But don't expect the average man on the street to ever accept the risk of death to themselves and families for your particular cause.