This is one of those, "oh, it sounds good and makes me look tough on crime, therefore, it's a good idea" things. Not that it's a bad idea, but it's ineffective. If someone is drunk and things driving is a good idea I kind of doubt they'll be in the state of mind at the time to thing, "oh golly, if I get caught people on Twitter might know!" Not to mention that most people won't even know this is happening in the first place!
This really is just some inane idea some bureaucrat thought up because it makes them look tough on crime and HEY LOOK TWITTER ISN'T THAT COOL. This is just some stunt someone thought up to make it look like they are getting paid for a good reason. The kind of gimmick that appeals to PHBs in corporate settings.
And moreso, if people can't be bothered to look up and consider important things like food safety on their own, is trusting them with electing politicians anymore solving the problem (and not creating new ones)?
Or, how about, if you're ever concerned about the cleanliness of food, you shouldn't eat there?
but then the customers would have to constantly be checking those certifications.
And they damn well should. People shouldn't expect or assume anything. One of the main problems today is that people believe consumers are a passive force. You should always be reading reviews on a product, so on, so forth.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure people, even you, truly care about this. I'm sure you've eaten food your friends have cooked, possibly in questionable conditions in their kitchens, without your own concern. I am not downplaying the necessity for clean food, but your argument really is just hand-waving and saying, "meh, that's too much work" when even that's not true.
Until and unless people come to see it this way, we will indeed need government regulation.
Who will regulate the government and prevent its corruption? You state,
The only way you would ever have a free market is if the average person always fully understood both the product/service that is being sold AND any contract that goes along with it.
How is that not similar to the politicians people vote for? You're just treating the government as a benevolent, righteous deity because "IT'S SUPPOSED TO" carry out justice. But the world doesn't run on wishes. You can't escape the necessity for people to be responsible and informed, first and foremost, and when they are that makes the need for regulation unnecessary.
There has to be a balancing act performed to keep the market truly competitive and profitable.
Shouldn't that be you?
Everywhere I go people claim we need some great authority to keep a smaller "authority" in check. We need a city government to rule over people, because people might do bad things. We need county governments to rule over the cities, in case the city does something wrong. We need a state government to watch over the county governments. We need a federal government to make sure the states don't pass terrible laws. So on and so forth; some people go even further and claim we need a world government, but that doesn't even solve the problem, and I'd say the further up the chain you go the more removed from the actual effects of your policies and the more apt and able a leader is to engage in corrupt activities.
Every business exists because either 1) shady and clearly immoral business practices (outright theft), 2) government largesse, or 3) because people are paying for the goods and services. I'm a believer in certain types of collective action, and if you want better pay and working conditions then collective bargaining is an option. Likewise, consumers are free to express their disapproval by refusing to engage in business relations with a corporation that conducts business in a way unsuitable for them.
You say,
Unfortunately, one groups idea of fair and balanced differs from another groups idea of fair and balanced. That is why we need regulation.
Like above, that applies to governments, too. Who is going to watch over, or regulate, when they have differing ideas of fair or balanced? A world government? Who will watch over that? God? Many people worship a deity simply because it gives them comfort that something right in the world will ensure justice always happens, something that will make good happen to them and for them, without them having to lift a finger to fight it themselves. God is, however, just a creation of the human mind, and after people have increasingly begun to realize this they turned to government to try to right every little wrong and scratch every little itch they have. But the edicts of governments are not moral ones, and no one "should" follow a government's laws as if doing so will put them on the right side, morally speaking.
People generally have to live with their actions, a corporation can merely disolve itself and start up as a completely different corporation. It is a lot more difficult for a person to simply disolve their identity and reappear under a completely new one free of all legal and moral obligations of their past actions. If the US goverment is going to provide corporations with that type of benefit then they do have a MORAL responsibility to make sure they don't abuse it.
That would be more the result of the emergent nature of a corporation, and the actual laws and regulations put in that specifically dissolve people of individual responsibility in a corporate setting.
That is why we need regulation. Maybe this particular case isn't one that requires regulation. Maybe this particular case works as it currently is implemented. Obviously not everyone believes that, especially the person who DIDN'T get a DROID and then for whatever reason had to cancel their contract two months early.
Guess what? Verizon is not the greatest company around, but they don't exist, or shouldn't exist, to serve you. Many, many companies have termination fees, as insurance because a fickle or unreliable customer can easily cost them money. My ISP demanded a deposit, which functionally works a similar way, when I first got my cable access particularly because I was a new customer. Life is tough and shit happens, but you have to take responsibility sometimes. If you foresee the termination fee becoming an issue you should either set aside the money for it o
Mod parent up to recover his unfair flamebait score, he's not attacking either party, he's attacking both--and he's right. It's true that the Democrats aren't meetinging in the middle, and it's also true that the Republicans aren't either.
'course when they do meet up in the middle good things don't happen there, either...
Ah, yes, that's a very good point, situational awareness. Remember C'thun from WoW? That encounter completely relied upon situational awareness, and you could tell who was and wasn't good at it by how often and early they died there (or at least, caused others to die).
Except many other companies have been playing around with using Wiimotes, and software is freely available to use your wiimote on your computer and no DMCA notice has been served. Nintendo typically doesn't serve DMCAs notices like shadier companies do.
How is that "natural"? How does that even remotely follow?
Does it need to? The supposed "economic conservativism" and "small government" of the right in no way is logically connected to the abortion issue, or even military intervention overseas, and yet all those issues are strongly linked. Likewise, economic regulation typically championed by the left is unrelated to the abortion issue as well, and is also unrelated to hate crime legislation, and is also unrelated to affirmative action.
Private industry would never regulate itself in consideration of anything but its bottom line.
Correction, corporations often do not do much beyond their bottom line, because of the diffusion of responsibility of the corporate structure--and most chilling, the fact that people buy products from companies they nonetheless think operate immorally. Corporations make money either by government largesse or because someone is buying their products. It's naive to blame business (naive, but trendy) and ignore the long lines of people patronizing them and allowing them to exist.
"Government has no business telling private companies what to do." I don't get this one either. Private industry would never regulate itself in consideration of anything but its bottom line. There's a reason we're not all still working 14 hour days and dealing with child labor -- and it's not because corporations voluntarily relaxed those standards. Why does anyone think it's a good idea for companies to crap all over everything, dump any pollutants they want anywhere they like? But the second someone suggests that maybe that's not good, out comes Fox News and their ilk to blame government for ruining everyone's fun.
I'm not sure, but I don't think -most- people ever worked over 14 hours a day, and minimum wage (and 40-hour work week) was actually first started by Ford:
So actually, yes, it is in large part because corporations relaxed their standards, particularly the Ford Corporation. I am no fan of the corporate structure, environment, or culture.
You are correct that business has no right to pollute when that pollution will clearly harm other people. Yet at the same time, the government itself often isn't held to the same pollution standards...
Someone has to design, manufacture, install, and maintain the smokestack scrubbers. Someone has to design, manufacture, and upkeep new and more efficient engines. Or solar panels, or hydroelectric power stations, or whatever. All creating jobs, all being done at profit. There's a whole green industry waiting in the wings to do these things. How on earth is it anti-capitalist, anti-business, or anti-"The Man" to see a need for better and more efficient service, and provide that need at profit?!
Um, I don't think capitalists are capitalists merely for capitalism's own sake, which is what that argument seems to imply... they maintain that some of those industries are unnecessary and thus a waste of resources. Capitalists are not capitalists simply because they like the idea of people working for business for money.
As for child labor, it usually exists as a byproduct of economic conditions. Many people go on crusades to avoid or ban products that were made with child labor but with no thought as to why that child was working in the first place. There's some evidence to indicate that banning child-made goods may cause a rise in child prostitution, as the children as working to survive and thus may have to turn to worse means. Most child labor is, though, as I understand it, not an exported goods.
Finally, I don't see how anyone can argue that we can continue to take billions of tons of carbon-based fuel, set it on fire, release whatever combustion byproducts into the atmosphere.. and absolutely nothing bad will happen. So, again, even if it's not having any actual effect on the
Oh, please, you liberal god-hating scumbag, Obama has yet to provide proof that his birth certificate is not a clever hologram. Until then, I'll just continue believing he was born in Indonesia/Kenya.
Most of the anti-AGW crowd is simply doing armchair, a-priori reasoning behind why AGW is false. "Humans are too puny to have an effect!" they say, or "The climate has changed drastically fast even without humanity being around!" Often there are political reasons for holding this position--certain arguments on how to deal with GW are certainly political in nature, and may come into conflict with one's own dogma, and thus psychologically one may be predisposed to oppose GW on that basis.
HOWEVER, that does not mean that some people that argue for AGW do not fit into the same shoes. Remember, just because you are "correct" does not mean your reasoning is. Naturally, someone that hates big business and "the man" may also psychologically have a reason to believe in AGW--another reason to rage on about the status quo.
If I was a betting man I'd bet for AGW, but really I know the science behind it is quite complicated and I know I'm nowhere near competent to make a good, solid argument on the matter, so I must approach the issue with a tempered agnosticism while leaning a bit towards the AGW side because that's the verdict by a vast majority of hard-working PhDs, and I highly doubt that climatologists consist of some dark, left-wing communist sect of economy-destroying conspirators. That is what true skepticism is, noncommitance (particularly emotionally) to a position particularly when you are not an expert on it. Many on both sides of the GW debate are not skeptics but reactionaries with their thought ruled by political underpinnings. Most of the people I know that rant about how AGW is a fraud no absolutely nothing about the mechanisms scientists go about acquiring the data on past climate conditions.
And how do you propose to stop a government from slipping into a populistic-oligarchic (you get aspects of both in a democracy as we see today) cesspit of tyranny? A magic scroll?
It's hard to talk about "sound quality" with rave music and not laugh, when the "music" itself is bloody awful and you have to be tripping balls to enjoy it.
Anarchy within anarchic theorists isn't "no rules lol," it's organically-derived governance as opposed to top-down rule. Imagine similar principles behind "we the people" but except of a few rich privileged men declaring what "we the people" means it's agreement/consent with other involved parties within their own area. Possible? I do personally doubt it, but my point wasn't to claim anarchy is viable, merely that situations like this child porn case serve to make the government look less and less like the protector and benefactor the idealists view it as and more and more like just a rogue faction in power (that, by the way, an anarchist would view it as).
There are different strains of anarchism, and as with such ideologies there's infighting over whether one strain is truly anarchism and which isn't. Some do not believe in any sort of hierarchy, some believe that consensual hierarchy is fine, etc etc. So even anarchists do not agree what "true anarchy" is. I find most anarchists to be hopeless pessimistic, and often dogmatic, but there's more to the anarchists' theories and beliefs than just "Down with rulers!" I find a lot of the language used by anarchists to be downright misleading, at times. The fighting over the terms of what "socialism" means, what "capitalism" is, so on and so forth...
Since we ARE going to be stuck with government of some kind the question is how best can we keep it from turning into a monster?
If you view Somalia as an anarchy, and if you agree that it's not likely to improve in its overall state, then I don't see why you can't also assume that the state can't ever be stopped from turning into a monster as well.
Anyway, through a moral perspective, you can be an anarchist and believe absolutely that the state will always exist, much like a pacifist can believe that war will always exist. You can also believe that most people are not peaceful and that government is necessary to keep the aggressive and such in line to prevent even more tyranny from emerging, but that does not give the big tyrant a moral justification for his rule. A modern analog here is the toppling of Saddam Hussein--the power vacuum turned things worse, not better, yet he was far from a representative of just and benign rule.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd rather not. I make too much money installing operating systems and clearing out spyware for people.
Well, if they don't know how something works they should just go read the man page.
Sorry, make that "think," I can't believe I made that typo twice.
This is one of those, "oh, it sounds good and makes me look tough on crime, therefore, it's a good idea" things. Not that it's a bad idea, but it's ineffective. If someone is drunk and things driving is a good idea I kind of doubt they'll be in the state of mind at the time to thing, "oh golly, if I get caught people on Twitter might know!" Not to mention that most people won't even know this is happening in the first place!
This really is just some inane idea some bureaucrat thought up because it makes them look tough on crime and HEY LOOK TWITTER ISN'T THAT COOL. This is just some stunt someone thought up to make it look like they are getting paid for a good reason. The kind of gimmick that appeals to PHBs in corporate settings.
The only reason there's any positive at all to the DMCA is because of the ridiculous copyright system already in place.
And moreso, if people can't be bothered to look up and consider important things like food safety on their own, is trusting them with electing politicians anymore solving the problem (and not creating new ones)?
Or, how about, if you're ever concerned about the cleanliness of food, you shouldn't eat there?
And they damn well should. People shouldn't expect or assume anything. One of the main problems today is that people believe consumers are a passive force. You should always be reading reviews on a product, so on, so forth.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure people, even you, truly care about this. I'm sure you've eaten food your friends have cooked, possibly in questionable conditions in their kitchens, without your own concern. I am not downplaying the necessity for clean food, but your argument really is just hand-waving and saying, "meh, that's too much work" when even that's not true.
And businesses act much the same way--people voting with their patronage.
Who will regulate the government and prevent its corruption? You state,
How is that not similar to the politicians people vote for? You're just treating the government as a benevolent, righteous deity because "IT'S SUPPOSED TO" carry out justice. But the world doesn't run on wishes. You can't escape the necessity for people to be responsible and informed, first and foremost, and when they are that makes the need for regulation unnecessary.
Shouldn't that be you?
Everywhere I go people claim we need some great authority to keep a smaller "authority" in check. We need a city government to rule over people, because people might do bad things. We need county governments to rule over the cities, in case the city does something wrong. We need a state government to watch over the county governments. We need a federal government to make sure the states don't pass terrible laws. So on and so forth; some people go even further and claim we need a world government, but that doesn't even solve the problem, and I'd say the further up the chain you go the more removed from the actual effects of your policies and the more apt and able a leader is to engage in corrupt activities.
Every business exists because either 1) shady and clearly immoral business practices (outright theft), 2) government largesse, or 3) because people are paying for the goods and services. I'm a believer in certain types of collective action, and if you want better pay and working conditions then collective bargaining is an option. Likewise, consumers are free to express their disapproval by refusing to engage in business relations with a corporation that conducts business in a way unsuitable for them.
You say,
Like above, that applies to governments, too. Who is going to watch over, or regulate, when they have differing ideas of fair or balanced? A world government? Who will watch over that? God? Many people worship a deity simply because it gives them comfort that something right in the world will ensure justice always happens, something that will make good happen to them and for them, without them having to lift a finger to fight it themselves. God is, however, just a creation of the human mind, and after people have increasingly begun to realize this they turned to government to try to right every little wrong and scratch every little itch they have. But the edicts of governments are not moral ones, and no one "should" follow a government's laws as if doing so will put them on the right side, morally speaking.
That would be more the result of the emergent nature of a corporation, and the actual laws and regulations put in that specifically dissolve people of individual responsibility in a corporate setting.
Guess what? Verizon is not the greatest company around, but they don't exist, or shouldn't exist, to serve you. Many, many companies have termination fees, as insurance because a fickle or unreliable customer can easily cost them money. My ISP demanded a deposit, which functionally works a similar way, when I first got my cable access particularly because I was a new customer. Life is tough and shit happens, but you have to take responsibility sometimes. If you foresee the termination fee becoming an issue you should either set aside the money for it o
Mod parent up to recover his unfair flamebait score, he's not attacking either party, he's attacking both--and he's right. It's true that the Democrats aren't meetinging in the middle, and it's also true that the Republicans aren't either.
'course when they do meet up in the middle good things don't happen there, either...
That's probably going to be the funniest thing I've read all week.
Ah, yes, that's a very good point, situational awareness. Remember C'thun from WoW? That encounter completely relied upon situational awareness, and you could tell who was and wasn't good at it by how often and early they died there (or at least, caused others to die).
Except many other companies have been playing around with using Wiimotes, and software is freely available to use your wiimote on your computer and no DMCA notice has been served. Nintendo typically doesn't serve DMCAs notices like shadier companies do.
They've done nothing to break the DMCA.
Usually, it's a "small government conspiracy!" angle, because a lack of government involvement is usually seen as the problem.
From each according to his ability, to each according to how valuable he is to others.
How is that "natural"? How does that even remotely follow?
Does it need to? The supposed "economic conservativism" and "small government" of the right in no way is logically connected to the abortion issue, or even military intervention overseas, and yet all those issues are strongly linked. Likewise, economic regulation typically championed by the left is unrelated to the abortion issue as well, and is also unrelated to hate crime legislation, and is also unrelated to affirmative action.
Private industry would never regulate itself in consideration of anything but its bottom line.
Correction, corporations often do not do much beyond their bottom line, because of the diffusion of responsibility of the corporate structure--and most chilling, the fact that people buy products from companies they nonetheless think operate immorally. Corporations make money either by government largesse or because someone is buying their products. It's naive to blame business (naive, but trendy) and ignore the long lines of people patronizing them and allowing them to exist.
"Government has no business telling private companies what to do." I don't get this one either. Private industry would never regulate itself in consideration of anything but its bottom line. There's a reason we're not all still working 14 hour days and dealing with child labor -- and it's not because corporations voluntarily relaxed those standards. Why does anyone think it's a good idea for companies to crap all over everything, dump any pollutants they want anywhere they like? But the second someone suggests that maybe that's not good, out comes Fox News and their ilk to blame government for ruining everyone's fun.
I'm not sure, but I don't think -most- people ever worked over 14 hours a day, and minimum wage (and 40-hour work week) was actually first started by Ford:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#Labor_philosophy
So actually, yes, it is in large part because corporations relaxed their standards, particularly the Ford Corporation. I am no fan of the corporate structure, environment, or culture.
You are correct that business has no right to pollute when that pollution will clearly harm other people. Yet at the same time, the government itself often isn't held to the same pollution standards...
Someone has to design, manufacture, install, and maintain the smokestack scrubbers. Someone has to design, manufacture, and upkeep new and more efficient engines. Or solar panels, or hydroelectric power stations, or whatever. All creating jobs, all being done at profit.
There's a whole green industry waiting in the wings to do these things. How on earth is it anti-capitalist, anti-business, or anti-"The Man" to see a need for better and more efficient service, and provide that need at profit?!
Um, I don't think capitalists are capitalists merely for capitalism's own sake, which is what that argument seems to imply... they maintain that some of those industries are unnecessary and thus a waste of resources. Capitalists are not capitalists simply because they like the idea of people working for business for money.
As for child labor, it usually exists as a byproduct of economic conditions. Many people go on crusades to avoid or ban products that were made with child labor but with no thought as to why that child was working in the first place. There's some evidence to indicate that banning child-made goods may cause a rise in child prostitution, as the children as working to survive and thus may have to turn to worse means. Most child labor is, though, as I understand it, not an exported goods.
Finally, I don't see how anyone can argue that we can continue to take billions of tons of carbon-based fuel, set it on fire, release whatever combustion byproducts into the atmosphere.. and absolutely nothing bad will happen. So, again, even if it's not having any actual effect on the
I am instantly skeptical of any scientist that makes statements such as "this can only be understood by someone with a PhD in a related field"
Many nuances are involved in many fields that may not be immediately obvious.
And your point is certainly wrong when taken to the extreme, such as theoretical particle physics or the like.
Oh, please, you liberal god-hating scumbag, Obama has yet to provide proof that his birth certificate is not a clever hologram. Until then, I'll just continue believing he was born in Indonesia/Kenya.
Most of the anti-AGW crowd is simply doing armchair, a-priori reasoning behind why AGW is false. "Humans are too puny to have an effect!" they say, or "The climate has changed drastically fast even without humanity being around!" Often there are political reasons for holding this position--certain arguments on how to deal with GW are certainly political in nature, and may come into conflict with one's own dogma, and thus psychologically one may be predisposed to oppose GW on that basis.
HOWEVER, that does not mean that some people that argue for AGW do not fit into the same shoes. Remember, just because you are "correct" does not mean your reasoning is. Naturally, someone that hates big business and "the man" may also psychologically have a reason to believe in AGW--another reason to rage on about the status quo.
If I was a betting man I'd bet for AGW, but really I know the science behind it is quite complicated and I know I'm nowhere near competent to make a good, solid argument on the matter, so I must approach the issue with a tempered agnosticism while leaning a bit towards the AGW side because that's the verdict by a vast majority of hard-working PhDs, and I highly doubt that climatologists consist of some dark, left-wing communist sect of economy-destroying conspirators. That is what true skepticism is, noncommitance (particularly emotionally) to a position particularly when you are not an expert on it. Many on both sides of the GW debate are not skeptics but reactionaries with their thought ruled by political underpinnings. Most of the people I know that rant about how AGW is a fraud no absolutely nothing about the mechanisms scientists go about acquiring the data on past climate conditions.
And how do you propose to stop a government from slipping into a populistic-oligarchic (you get aspects of both in a democracy as we see today) cesspit of tyranny? A magic scroll?
Monster Linux?
It's hard to talk about "sound quality" with rave music and not laugh, when the "music" itself is bloody awful and you have to be tripping balls to enjoy it.
Anarchy within anarchic theorists isn't "no rules lol," it's organically-derived governance as opposed to top-down rule. Imagine similar principles behind "we the people" but except of a few rich privileged men declaring what "we the people" means it's agreement/consent with other involved parties within their own area. Possible? I do personally doubt it, but my point wasn't to claim anarchy is viable, merely that situations like this child porn case serve to make the government look less and less like the protector and benefactor the idealists view it as and more and more like just a rogue faction in power (that, by the way, an anarchist would view it as).
There are different strains of anarchism, and as with such ideologies there's infighting over whether one strain is truly anarchism and which isn't. Some do not believe in any sort of hierarchy, some believe that consensual hierarchy is fine, etc etc. So even anarchists do not agree what "true anarchy" is. I find most anarchists to be hopeless pessimistic, and often dogmatic, but there's more to the anarchists' theories and beliefs than just "Down with rulers!" I find a lot of the language used by anarchists to be downright misleading, at times. The fighting over the terms of what "socialism" means, what "capitalism" is, so on and so forth...
Since we ARE going to be stuck with government of some kind the question is how best can we keep it from turning into a monster?
If you view Somalia as an anarchy, and if you agree that it's not likely to improve in its overall state, then I don't see why you can't also assume that the state can't ever be stopped from turning into a monster as well.
Anyway, through a moral perspective, you can be an anarchist and believe absolutely that the state will always exist, much like a pacifist can believe that war will always exist. You can also believe that most people are not peaceful and that government is necessary to keep the aggressive and such in line to prevent even more tyranny from emerging, but that does not give the big tyrant a moral justification for his rule. A modern analog here is the toppling of Saddam Hussein--the power vacuum turned things worse, not better, yet he was far from a representative of just and benign rule.