those in the higher tax brackets derive more benefit from certain government services than those in lower brackets.
Talking about calling things what they are, let me rephrase that for you:
those in the higher tax brackets derive ALL THEIR benefit from certain government services than those in lower brackets.
You can talk all you want about your rugged individualists and self made men, but how many Bill Gates are there in of Somalia? None. How many poor people? lots. The rich in this and other countries owe everything they have to stable government and rule of law. The poor just owe their TV and car to it. Who should pay more to support the system?
If I were running a swap-meet and people who rented stalls were getting rich, yet my rents were so low I was going into debt to keep it running, my share holders would sue me if I didn't raise rents. Seems like the same thing is happening now.
fuck yeah, I don't know what they did but I constantly feel like I'm getting the crap knocked out of me. I was level 17 and had 1000 rounds for the chines assault rifle, 40 stims, and 3000 caps, I went and hit downtown up, and by the time i got done I was broke as hell. Jericho was dead and I was irradiated and mostly dead. I don't think I've been handed as memorable a beating as that in any game.
It's really just history. From Egypt to Rome to India, Australia, England, Japan, and anyplace that had a class system.
I'm sure Heinlein wrote a lot similar to that, he was concerned with the rights of individuals, the origination of power, and the systems created around them.
What will happen in space is you'll get a few large companies that get people to sign contracts with them that cover their cost to orbit. The cost will be so high it will put people so far in debt that they have to sign away their freedom, and work for the company as property for several generations.
A few will be able to earn their freedom. Those that earn their freedom will settle in cities and become merchants and prosper. These merchants power will come to rival the corporations which by that time will have become inefficient and corrupt, but the corps. will control the the law and use it to support their power.
This control will ultimately be challenged by a revolutions lead by the middling merchant class and made up of the poor contract workers around the year 2775.
The revolution will be successful and force everyone to follow the same laws, and turn the governing of the land over to the law which will be written in a representitive collective fashion, removing the power of corrupt officials to rule by mandate. Then everything will be peachy utile the wealthy discover that they can just buy the representitives who write the laws and create a system that benefits themselves handsomely, they will even learn that all they need to do to silence any criticism of that system is accuse it's critics of being a straw man called co-prosperitalism.
umm, Your right mostly, but you overlook harm. Taxes are a great way to mold behavior when the behavior is harmful to society and the world, in essence a police fine is little more then a special sin tax. Following this, a carbon tax seems like it would be well within any scope of power the Feds should have since global warming could cause distinct harm.
The anti tax crowd is funny to me because they always talk about economics and governments role and usually completely avoid the Tragedy of the commons, and negative externalities.
Well obviously my generalization was correct, as you've pretty much revealed yourself to be heavily biased against ONE of the the cultures of US (a culture I don't belong to). I was right not to take your critique of cars seriously, since it seemed a thinly guised attack against a people you dislike.
I'm sure you would hate to see American culture spread further since you're ethnocentricly biased against it. But a lot of people who don't like substance farming seem to be welcoming it with open arms as fast as they can. How come the only significant protest against globalization and trade liberation comes from wealthy western countries or third world dictators? Maybe you anti-Americans are more bigoted and hateful then you'd like to think.
I'm all for stopping global warming, I'm not for using it as a scapegoat to attack a culture you don't like. If the American way of life is not sustainable then the costs of living it will increase, and people will change their habits, they don't need your enlightened hand spiting ire at them.
Just because you are jealous of American prosperity and a lot of people agree with you doesn't make you right. And the current down turn in the market doesn't hail the end of America, it just means there's a current downturn.
*sigh* no, I understand it better then you, obviously: "accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort" Yeah, cars free up a lot of time, and are easy, and compared to mass transit, that isn't being subsidized, pretty cheap.
I am not going to explain here the cost benefit ratio of sub-urban vs urban living, and the car oriented structure of society. look it up for your self.
Who says cars aren't sustainable? you, and really only you and a few sub-urb haters, and your obviously no economist. There are other models of car being given great consideration that rely much less on fossil fuels. Just becuase you don't like something doesn't make it bad.
Here's a thought for you, "the car" is realy an automobile, basicaly, a person mover, the structure of the suburbs is a direct growth of higher transit speeds and carrying capacity. it developed that way becuase of new tech,and efficiency.
uhhhm I don't think so. I don't know where to start. Mainly, would climate change justify that? I mean they don't even know what the effect will be, loss of the ice caps hardly justifies mass murder, and why would somebody need to implement them? if global warming is as bad as you seem to think it is won't that eliminate much of the problem?
See I don't get it, if 7 billion people could survive global warming then we don't need to kill them, if 7 billion people can't then we don't need to kill them. Or do you feel its a good idea for the US to kill people to support our already high living standard?
I agree with everything you say except one: It's not wasteful. In fact it's more efficient. Thats why it developed that way. Cars are cheap, and gas is still relatively cheap, and the economies of scale and other efficiency it provide are well documented. I don't buy into the urban myth, I look back at cities in the past and 80% of them were poverty sinks. No amount of smart growth will fix that problem, the only thing that will is if the cost of gas were to go up again.
More like a way to piss on their lawn. Bike gangs will kill you if you wear their colors and your not a member. And some make you kill to get the right to wear them. They show the same devotion to their club as some would to a country.
Basically the Feds just said "we own your country, salute your flag and we arrest you for infringement." sounds more like a move to antagonize then anything. Though it has the benefit of restricting the groups "cultural" spread and helping break solidarity.
True, and thats probably the biggest fault with the "media" today. And car companies. I like how your example of how a story gets buried was a journalist at the bottom, rather then a direction from a Boss at top. It really shows how this is a feedback problem and not a control problem, which makes it a lot harder to fix.
The same thing almost happened to Watergate, as reporters questioned their stories due to a lack of public interest and media attention.
I think the best way to solve the problem of the big companies acting as trend setters and parrots of each other in an echo chamber is to have more small companies.
I'd like to think people are active enough consumers of media that it will be a self correcting problem, that they will search out new products when the old fail them, and it seems to be to an extent.
I also believe that much of the loss of circulation in recent years is due more to people leaving after the corporatizing of newspapers to regurgitate processed junk, and the destruction of local reporting, then it is to the internet taking them away. Though many probably leave to the internet.
This seems evidenced by the fact that local weeklies, who put much more focus on local affairs and local opinion, are making large inroads into newspaper sales, and often buck the big media trends. Much like how a lot of smaller grocery stores have been popping up to buck the processed 400g junk the big boxes have been putting out.
You are ignoring the very real fact that news is a money making enterprise. There is absolutely no way for the "media" to run as tight a control as you just described. You see, news is like any product, if the news companies don't follow the popular trends they lose money, heaps of it.
So someone like you who is holding on to a position that a lot of people are moving away from will think the shift in media attention is directed from the top down, instead of from the bottom up, that the media is changing things instead of reporting on changing opinions.
You are suffering from what I like to call the "Fringe Media Censorship Bias," which is where people with marginal or fringe beliefs often attribute their beliefs lack of representation in the "media" to some sort of censorship, rather then a lack of interest from the rest of society. Some, like Noam Chomsky, suffer from this condition to the extent where they write whole books trying to rationalize that it's the "media" ignoring them and not just society in general.
Osama probably didn't get the air time because he's old hat. Your example is from what? 4 years ago? Christ thats a generation in media years. And Palin is dumb, and that's a story that sells.
Call me sadistic, but the best lay I've ever had wouldn't touch walking right through white house security as the bullets bounce off me. And when I garb Bush with my metal claws he won't break free. Because I'll be made of metal. And robots are strong.
The test had two groups, young people who used the Internet, and older people who had never been online.
But not really because of age. Even older people use the web extensively these days, hell my grand parents use it, doesn't mean it makes you smarter. Maybe people who aren't online just are dumber then web users? much like how someone who subscribes to a literary magazine would probably be smarter then someone who doesn't read.
DUDE, I'd totally give up all of the feeling in my hands for robotic claws. Hell I'd give up all feeling for a robot Chassis. In fact giving up all feeling is a plus. Who needs to feel when you hug your loved ones when you could have the option of not feeling as you crush city hall?
Give the children technology that they, and their teachers don't understand and the laptops will end up gathering dust.
My M&P got there comp when I was like 7 and no one knew how to use it. I figured out every aspect of windows 95 in about a year and a half, and it only took two dozen reinstalls of the OS. The problem isn't the teachers not showing the kids how to use them but worrying that the kids will breack them and looking them up.
This actually happened at my high school. My school spent a ton of money to buy laptops for students to use and checkout, and ended up locking them away in a back room and lent one out about 3 times a year until they were so outdated they weren't worth even selling on e-bay. I agree with you mostly, but Schools are failing because of bad management, giving kids laptops they don't need won't help, and throwing money at the problem will only make that get worse.
haha I guess two is a multi, I was thinking more of the different styles of voting, I liked the ones where I mark all the candidates I like and the one with the most marks wins. I'd like to see congress get more diverse. From what I can tell the dems and gop are made up of lots of different groups that have to cling together because it's winner take all.
Slashdot Mirror
those in the higher tax brackets derive more benefit from certain government services than those in lower brackets.
Talking about calling things what they are, let me rephrase that for you:
those in the higher tax brackets derive ALL THEIR benefit from certain government services than those in lower brackets.
You can talk all you want about your rugged individualists and self made men, but how many Bill Gates are there in of Somalia? None. How many poor people? lots. The rich in this and other countries owe everything they have to stable government and rule of law. The poor just owe their TV and car to it. Who should pay more to support the system?
If I were running a swap-meet and people who rented stalls were getting rich, yet my rents were so low I was going into debt to keep it running, my share holders would sue me if I didn't raise rents. Seems like the same thing is happening now.
fuck yeah, I don't know what they did but I constantly feel like I'm getting the crap knocked out of me. I was level 17 and had 1000 rounds for the chines assault rifle, 40 stims, and 3000 caps, I went and hit downtown up, and by the time i got done I was broke as hell. Jericho was dead and I was irradiated and mostly dead. I don't think I've been handed as memorable a beating as that in any game.
I don't know, after playing Manhunt I was pretty tempted to try and take care of my cities homeless problem.
I was just in Metro Center this morning, and all I saw was posters to help the war effort and buy Vault-tech.
The place was also filled with rubble and ghouls too.
It's really just history. From Egypt to Rome to India, Australia, England, Japan, and anyplace that had a class system. I'm sure Heinlein wrote a lot similar to that, he was concerned with the rights of individuals, the origination of power, and the systems created around them.
What will happen in space is you'll get a few large companies that get people to sign contracts with them that cover their cost to orbit. The cost will be so high it will put people so far in debt that they have to sign away their freedom, and work for the company as property for several generations.
A few will be able to earn their freedom. Those that earn their freedom will settle in cities and become merchants and prosper. These merchants power will come to rival the corporations which by that time will have become inefficient and corrupt, but the corps. will control the the law and use it to support their power.
This control will ultimately be challenged by a revolutions lead by the middling merchant class and made up of the poor contract workers around the year 2775.
The revolution will be successful and force everyone to follow the same laws, and turn the governing of the land over to the law which will be written in a representitive collective fashion, removing the power of corrupt officials to rule by mandate. Then everything will be peachy utile the wealthy discover that they can just buy the representitives who write the laws and create a system that benefits themselves handsomely, they will even learn that all they need to do to silence any criticism of that system is accuse it's critics of being a straw man called co-prosperitalism.
Why do you hate America?
That way People will know what obscure piece of tech trash you are rambling about.
umm, Your right mostly, but you overlook harm. Taxes are a great way to mold behavior when the behavior is harmful to society and the world, in essence a police fine is little more then a special sin tax. Following this, a carbon tax seems like it would be well within any scope of power the Feds should have since global warming could cause distinct harm.
The anti tax crowd is funny to me because they always talk about economics and governments role and usually completely avoid the Tragedy of the commons, and negative externalities.
Sure color is nice, but I can't afford monochrome right now, and I don't want to know what all those extra colors will cost.
your a business tool.
So this explains McCain's inexplicable popularity amongst Gnomes.
Well obviously my generalization was correct, as you've pretty much revealed yourself to be heavily biased against ONE of the the cultures of US (a culture I don't belong to). I was right not to take your critique of cars seriously, since it seemed a thinly guised attack against a people you dislike.
I'm sure you would hate to see American culture spread further since you're ethnocentricly biased against it. But a lot of people who don't like substance farming seem to be welcoming it with open arms as fast as they can. How come the only significant protest against globalization and trade liberation comes from wealthy western countries or third world dictators? Maybe you anti-Americans are more bigoted and hateful then you'd like to think.
I'm all for stopping global warming, I'm not for using it as a scapegoat to attack a culture you don't like. If the American way of life is not sustainable then the costs of living it will increase, and people will change their habits, they don't need your enlightened hand spiting ire at them.
Just because you are jealous of American prosperity and a lot of people agree with you doesn't make you right. And the current down turn in the market doesn't hail the end of America, it just means there's a current downturn.
*sigh* no, I understand it better then you, obviously: "accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort" Yeah, cars free up a lot of time, and are easy, and compared to mass transit, that isn't being subsidized, pretty cheap.
I am not going to explain here the cost benefit ratio of sub-urban vs urban living, and the car oriented structure of society. look it up for your self.
Who says cars aren't sustainable? you, and really only you and a few sub-urb haters, and your obviously no economist. There are other models of car being given great consideration that rely much less on fossil fuels. Just becuase you don't like something doesn't make it bad.
Here's a thought for you, "the car" is realy an automobile, basicaly, a person mover, the structure of the suburbs is a direct growth of higher transit speeds and carrying capacity. it developed that way becuase of new tech,and efficiency.
uhhhm I don't think so. I don't know where to start. Mainly, would climate change justify that? I mean they don't even know what the effect will be, loss of the ice caps hardly justifies mass murder, and why would somebody need to implement them? if global warming is as bad as you seem to think it is won't that eliminate much of the problem?
See I don't get it, if 7 billion people could survive global warming then we don't need to kill them, if 7 billion people can't then we don't need to kill them. Or do you feel its a good idea for the US to kill people to support our already high living standard?
I agree with everything you say except one: It's not wasteful. In fact it's more efficient. Thats why it developed that way. Cars are cheap, and gas is still relatively cheap, and the economies of scale and other efficiency it provide are well documented. I don't buy into the urban myth, I look back at cities in the past and 80% of them were poverty sinks. No amount of smart growth will fix that problem, the only thing that will is if the cost of gas were to go up again.
More like a way to piss on their lawn. Bike gangs will kill you if you wear their colors and your not a member. And some make you kill to get the right to wear them. They show the same devotion to their club as some would to a country.
Basically the Feds just said "we own your country, salute your flag and we arrest you for infringement." sounds more like a move to antagonize then anything. Though it has the benefit of restricting the groups "cultural" spread and helping break solidarity.
True, and thats probably the biggest fault with the "media" today. And car companies. I like how your example of how a story gets buried was a journalist at the bottom, rather then a direction from a Boss at top. It really shows how this is a feedback problem and not a control problem, which makes it a lot harder to fix.
The same thing almost happened to Watergate, as reporters questioned their stories due to a lack of public interest and media attention.
I think the best way to solve the problem of the big companies acting as trend setters and parrots of each other in an echo chamber is to have more small companies.
I'd like to think people are active enough consumers of media that it will be a self correcting problem, that they will search out new products when the old fail them, and it seems to be to an extent.
I also believe that much of the loss of circulation in recent years is due more to people leaving after the corporatizing of newspapers to regurgitate processed junk, and the destruction of local reporting, then it is to the internet taking them away. Though many probably leave to the internet.
This seems evidenced by the fact that local weeklies, who put much more focus on local affairs and local opinion, are making large inroads into newspaper sales, and often buck the big media trends. Much like how a lot of smaller grocery stores have been popping up to buck the processed 400g junk the big boxes have been putting out.
You are ignoring the very real fact that news is a money making enterprise. There is absolutely no way for the "media" to run as tight a control as you just described. You see, news is like any product, if the news companies don't follow the popular trends they lose money, heaps of it.
So someone like you who is holding on to a position that a lot of people are moving away from will think the shift in media attention is directed from the top down, instead of from the bottom up, that the media is changing things instead of reporting on changing opinions.
You are suffering from what I like to call the "Fringe Media Censorship Bias," which is where people with marginal or fringe beliefs often attribute their beliefs lack of representation in the "media" to some sort of censorship, rather then a lack of interest from the rest of society. Some, like Noam Chomsky, suffer from this condition to the extent where they write whole books trying to rationalize that it's the "media" ignoring them and not just society in general.
Osama probably didn't get the air time because he's old hat. Your example is from what? 4 years ago? Christ thats a generation in media years. And Palin is dumb, and that's a story that sells.
So the secret to evolution and humanity is a middle man? No wonders were so messed up.
Call me sadistic, but the best lay I've ever had wouldn't touch walking right through white house security as the bullets bounce off me. And when I garb Bush with my metal claws he won't break free. Because I'll be made of metal. And robots are strong.
The test had two groups, young people who used the Internet, and older people who had never been online.
But not really because of age. Even older people use the web extensively these days, hell my grand parents use it, doesn't mean it makes you smarter. Maybe people who aren't online just are dumber then web users? much like how someone who subscribes to a literary magazine would probably be smarter then someone who doesn't read.
DUDE, I'd totally give up all of the feeling in my hands for robotic claws. Hell I'd give up all feeling for a robot Chassis. In fact giving up all feeling is a plus. Who needs to feel when you hug your loved ones when you could have the option of not feeling as you crush city hall?
Give the children technology that they, and their teachers don't understand and the laptops will end up gathering dust.
My M&P got there comp when I was like 7 and no one knew how to use it. I figured out every aspect of windows 95 in about a year and a half, and it only took two dozen reinstalls of the OS. The problem isn't the teachers not showing the kids how to use them but worrying that the kids will breack them and looking them up.
This actually happened at my high school. My school spent a ton of money to buy laptops for students to use and checkout, and ended up locking them away in a back room and lent one out about 3 times a year until they were so outdated they weren't worth even selling on e-bay. I agree with you mostly, but Schools are failing because of bad management, giving kids laptops they don't need won't help, and throwing money at the problem will only make that get worse.
haha I guess two is a multi, I was thinking more of the different styles of voting, I liked the ones where I mark all the candidates I like and the one with the most marks wins. I'd like to see congress get more diverse. From what I can tell the dems and gop are made up of lots of different groups that have to cling together because it's winner take all.