Seems fishy, or is it some sort of SEO for a friend or business partner? The name Ruben Bouso ring any bells? I thought the AC was just link spamming, but those are on your site.
... Twitter has been able to sustain phenomenal growth, and it seems with more stability than what they had before the switch, so I think that's a good testament to Scala...Hmmmm, maybe I should switch my company's programming language to Scalia. After all, it cause market share to increase, computer systems to become more stable, and maybe it will make my hair grow back. I'm in!
No, this is Scala, a language that is a blend of functional and object oriented programming. Scalia is mix of textualism and originalism with a very conservative framework. Some consider its inability to recuse itself to be its greatest asset.
domain giving it to your wife to see if she spits it out?
Last time I tried that in the bedroom she threatened to kill me.
I say that we, the males of the species, start a class action suit against the fairer sex for false advertising. Or bait and switch, I'm not sure. All I know is, after we marry them, there's this whole list of stuff they won't do anymore, and if we try to get it in writing beforehand, we get slapped.
"So, if we were to get married, how many blowjobs per week, on average, could I expect to receive?"
Obviously, some domains have gone bad, like milk left out too long. You don't want to drink the whole thing, so, um, you taste a little bit of it? To see if it's gone sour? Maybe we could replace it with domain smelling, or domain giving it to your wife to see if she spits it out?
You want me to give away the house? Crikey, man, how much is it worth to you? If you really want to know, just send me your SSN and bank account information so I can transfer my fee.
I already told you who the fan boy was, fan boy. Sheesh, pay attention. You've refuted nothing and simply made yourself look even more foolish, kid. Security through obscurity depends on the fact of nobody knowing, which was the original poster's point, to which you replied with such a complete inanity that I felt compelled to mock you.
So, the time it took the mainstream to discover the exploit DOES matter, doesn't it? Yeah.
Oh. My. God. It keeps getting stupider as we watch! Nobody said anything about physical access, I said local access, yes, which includes ssh. But how are you going to ssh in without an account? That's what makes it LOCAL. This is a privilege escalation, not a remote exploit. Learn the difference. Sure, for ISPs running shared, non-VM based servers, this could be a problem. Heck, it could be a problem for me if my developers knew their ASCII from a hole in the ground and had any reason to want to gain root on our systems. But is it the kind of problem that will turn your computer into a zombie ten minutes after you hook it up to the Internet? No, and that's my point.
Now, where can I send the bill for your education?
Well, in all technicality, we have a democratic republic. In our constitution (constitutional) it calls for voting (democratic) to figure out who the representatives are (republic) to the fereral government (federal).
Ah, there's the problem, the government's gone feral!
The phrase commonly used to describe our political system is 'democracy.' Yes, we know it is a constitutional representative democracy, otherwise known as a Republic, but that is still a kind of democracy. And just so you know, some states do have voter initiatives, you know, laws the voters get to vote on directly. But thanks for the civics lesson, knowing our country, I'm sure there are some people who are actually confused on the issue and wondering why they don't get to vote on every single issue.
No. If nobody knew it wasn't a security issue. I'm sure there are bugs on every OS with more than 8 years old yet to discover.
You veered completely off track right about here: "If nobody knew"
Seriously? Really, that's the best you could come up with? That's your apologia? How do you know nobody knew? You think the real blackhats are going publicizing their 'sploits? Blackhats these days aren't script kiddies and honest hackers, they are hard core Russian mafia doing it for cash. Your Linux systems could have been owned twelve ways from Sunday for EIGHT YEARS without you ever knowing it, and you are claiming 'it wasn't a security issue?' WTF? When did Linux get infested with idiot fanboys? Shouldn't you be slobbing all over an Apple or something? I was using Linux before you even knew what Unix was, I despise Microsoft and love open source, but a bug is a bug.
Try this one: 'No. Because it's a freaking LOCAL EXPLOIT and nearly no-one uses Linux for multi-user systems now that everyone can afford their OWN FREAKING COMPUTER.' Good lord, kids these days, gotta teach them everything.
As was stated before: if someone has a local account on your Windows machine, they already own you. You DO know the difference between local and remote exploits, right? I mean, NOBODY on Slashdot would go spouting off on topics they know nothing about just to score some points for their favorite OS.
Yeah, this is a serious bug. But honestly, how many people are running real multi-user systems with multiple honest to God local users? Okay, I am, but I figure I'm probably in the minority nowadays.
Oh, boo hoo for the people on the top, who take what isn't theirs in the first place. Cry me a God damn river. You think anyone in the world is worth billions of times more than anyone else? That kind of over the top elitism would be infuriating if it came from someone actually making that kind of money, coming from someone making $32,000 a year, it's just pathetic.
The top tax rate used to be 90%. Now, that was demonstrated to be too high, on the left hand side of the Laffer curve. But now it's too low, not too high, it's on the right hand side. Those thieves pay the same amount of taxes on their first $50,000 that we all pay. The fact that they pay more as they steal more is not unfair, it's barely even a bandaid on the problem: they shouldn't be making that much in the first place. No one should. And you know what? The people who are really making a difference, who are actually coming up with the ideas that make these sociopaths rich, they are working for wages, not taking home millions. The scientist who revolutionized agriculture and fed the world, how much money did he see from that, and how much went into the pockets of the corporate officers of Monsanto?
But you know what? In the end, I have to agree with your main point. Oppression is oppression whether it comes from dominant sociopaths in business or government. If a state, or a county, or a town wants to secede from their larger polity, I say, more power to them. Nobody should be able to impose their will on others.
In closing, I doubt I'll have the time to respond for a while. Which is a pity because I was enjoying our debate. But I've got a mom dying of pancreatic cancer who's going into her second round of chemo, and work is picking up (I work for the state, and you know how it is, we have to spend all our budget by the end of the fiscal year, or, heaven forbid, we might not get that much next year. You want to talk about broken government? Lets talk about the fourth, unelected branch, the permanent bureaucrats protecting their little fiefdoms. Sigh.)
Just because you can't imagine how it can be done doesn't mean it can't be done. Your failure of imagination does not mean something is impossible. If you'd read any libertarian theory, you'd probably have heard of something social libertarians like to call negative taxation. Look it up and marvel at the fact that other people can think up solutions to problems you consider insolvable.
The natural order of things is not the RIGHT order of things. You are suffering under the 'is/ought' fallacy. Slavery used to be considered the natural order of things, but GOVERNMENT changed what private enterprise had wrought.
I don't care if people end up on an equal footing, but if the people at the bottom don't see the people at the top as having earned their top position, if they see those at the top using power and coercion to take more than there fair share, we have a problem. Why should those on the bottom agree to stay on the bottom? In a fair world, where those who excel do not take more than is fair, no one would begrudge them their perks. When they take too much, those on the bottom fight back. That's just the natural order of things.;)
If my view is naive, why is my view backed up by science when yours is not? Google 'games theory fairness reciprocity economic experiments.' Look up games theory on wikipedia. Do a little research instead of assuming your negative view of humanity is anything other than a self serving excuse to be a selfish ass.
If you think the cut throat can make more money, and you think it's fair for the ruthless and selfish to take advantage of the weak and selfless, then why the hell aren't you cut-throat? If you think it isn't fair or right, why aren't you fighting back?
I don't think (And I've never said) that everyone should be equally compensated. Hard work should get you more. Good ideas should get you more. But there is a limit, and we have every right to say, "too much is too much, don't be greedy."
How is saying that a hard, unpleasant job is hard and unpleasant 'looking down' on those jobs? You are really reaching here.
I'm not implying you are a parasite. You stated you made around $32,000 a year. You aren't the parasite, you are the host! Can we try to move beyond the insults? Not that they bother me in any way, in fact I find dissing matches quite fun, but they seem to be getting in the way of what could be a more productive debate. Sorry for the 'selfish ass' comment above, consider it a rhetorical device.
You aren't being forced to work at $0/hour. You have a choice, and you chose to enter into a contract with our society. You were made an offer, you took it, now you are suffering buyer's remorse, but if you don't like it, you can stop. No one is forcing you to keep on receiving the benefits of living in our society. THAT is the point of my 'love it or leave it' argument. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and saying, "Stay in America, keep receiving the benefits, and keep paying the agreed upon fee." You understand that it is your free choice to stay here, right? I'm not really saying you should leave, I'm pointing out that you still consider the benefits of staying greater than the cost, OR YOU WOULD HAVE LEFT. Get it? The very fact that you are still here is proof that you think you are getting a good bargain. That is my point.
Semantic games are boring. Everyone knows that when we in America say 'democracy' we mean representative democracy. You aren't making any kind of a point by distinguishing the two, except to call attention to what a pedant you are.
The burger flipper should make a living wage. Maybe that's not $50,000, but he should be able to support himself and his family on that wage. Everyone should be able to support themselves and their family, and they all could if we didn't give the vast majority of the wealth we collectively create to the top 1%. If you think he should not make a living wage, you are advocating oppression and wage slavery.
We are the only ones who can stop unfairness. We, the people, working together. Not self interested individuals acting for their own personal gain. That is what creates unfairness. We, the citizens of the United States. That is who will end unfairness. There are plenty of examples in history of the people, acting through their elected representatives, ending unfairness. You'd have to be deliberately blind not to see that.
You have a distorted view of human nature, as I said, you need to read some more modern theories backed up by actual experiments. We aren't the evil, selfish creatures you seem to think we are. In fact, it is our selfish system that forces us to act selfishly. In other systems, people do not feel the need to be so cut-throat.
Do you honestly think that there is equality of opportunity in this country? That all anyone needs to do is pick themselves up by their own bootstraps, remove their obstacles, and succeed? Is there room at the top for everyone, or does our system depend on having enough burger flippers, too? Is it okay that some people are forced to take menial positions because of some supposed inferiority, when those positions are actually required for society to function? Who would do those onerous tasks if everyone were a 'success?'
I don't want to deprive the individual of any choice except freeloading on my contributions. The freeloader is not the person in need. The freeloading parasite is the person who does not contribute to his community. Having no poor, starving, desperate people is a public good. We all benefit from it. Yet some don't want to pay their fair share to ensure that all are taken care of, that no one needs to resort to thievery and violence. I'm happy paying to ensure that everyone around me is fed, clothed, and healthy. Everyone wins when that happens. But some people don't want to have to pay for that, even though they receive the benefit, and I would cut those people off, and keep them from benefiting from what the rest of us collectively create, yes. If you don't like it, leave and go set up your own society. It's a free market of governance in the world, surely you can find someplace that is selling the governance you like? What you can't do is walk into my store (America) and demand that I sell you what you want, at the price you want. If it's not on the menu, try someplace else.
People love to use the 'republic vs. democracy' line, but it is not meaningful, I could very well have used the phrase 'socialist republic,' but then you would have used another throwaway debate ender: 'what are you, some kind of communist?' Because, you know, the Russians called themselves a socialist republic. Doesn't mean they were. I used democracy in the sense that we Americans do when we claim to be exporting it. We don't claim to be exporting republicanism, do we? Please.
Do we have to go over how unhappy I am with Obama AGAIN? I thought I made that pretty clear. I'd be less happy with McCain, though.
If you work for an employer and make less than $50,000, I'd say you are not receiving all the fruits of your labor. You are being screwed. And just like a battered wife, you are defending your oppressor. Sad.
Democratic control of the means of production has not been TRIED very often. It's been payed lip service to, but not tried. Do you think the Russians were really communists or socialists? Really? I suppose you think they were a democracy, too, they also claimed that. Do a little more research.
If you want an example of democratic control over the means of production, look up what Chile was like under Allende before we overthrew him for scaring the shit out of the owning class by doing it right. Look up Cybersyn, the information system he pioneered to help do it right. Look up the history of cooperatives in the US, read about the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain. It can be done right.
Valuation is arbitrary and in our system, the value of something is determined by a vote, using dollars. The more dollars you have, the more votes you have. It's still a democracy, but a completely unfair one. Those with the money make the rules, they set the prices, and they determine the income that we, the peons, receive.
The thing is, even if we DID have a free market in labor, the workers would be screwed by market forces. There is a serious imbalance of information between buyers and sellers of labor, and this leads to a systematic devaluation of labor in a free market. Read 'The Market for Lemons' for an explanation of why this is, it's a famous economics paper from the 70s using used cars as an example.
Another problem with the labor market is that people are not primarily rational and self interested. First, especially when their lives are at stake, people are not rational. For many people, a job is life. Forcing people to choose between working in degrading conditions for unfair wages, or DIEING, is coercion. People are not primarily self interested, according to recent economic and games theory experiments, because most people, most of the time, value fairness and reciprocity over their own interests. The free market is based on several proven falsehoods, and it is not wonder it doesn't work right.
You are asked to part with more than half your wages, counting your mortgage, food, car payments, etc. But you feel you get good value for the wages you part with. In socialist countries, people pay as much or more in taxes, but feel they get good value for their money, better value than the free market would provide them. After all, they can vote and would vote socialism out if it weren't working for them.
I'm speaking from experience. Long, hard, boring, infuriating experience dealing with rabid anti-intellectuals. Have you ever actually had a debate with these people? I have not found a single one that wants to engage in debate, is capable of changing their world view, brings up ANY original points, or uses ANY points that have not been debunked a million times. Yes, that is my personal experience, but it is also the experience of everyone else I've talked to.
Yes, I'm prejudiced against anti-intellectual religious zealots with an anti-science, anti-democratic, anti-freedom agenda. I also happen to be prejudiced against murderers, thieves and rapists. Does that make me a bad person?
Now, if you consider yourself one of these people and take offense, I will go ahead and give you a chance to prove me wrong. Fire away, but please, try to be original. Go to talk-origins.com and check to see whether your arguments have been debunked a million times, before you try them on me, okay?
"The State" is just a group of individuals. There is no state outside of what we agree to. Even in a completely anarchist society, the members decide what is fair and what is not fair. Your idea that this so-called 'state' is something outside of the people who make it up makes no sense to me. What is the state?
I've read some good libertarian science fiction, and in these imagined libertarian societies, groups arise to enforce the notions of fairness held by their members. If someone, for instance, uses child labor or pollutes, and the majority of people don't think that is fair, these societies enforce ostracism of the offender. Anyone that does business with them is similarly ostracized, and in this fashion, even in a libertarian utopia, fairness is enforced by society.
Nobody on the left that I know wants a ruling class. We want open and transparent governance. This is not impossible, as some would have us believe. We can have a socialist democracy with an open and accountable government. Remember, anarchy does not mean 'no government.' It means 'no rulers.'
Yes, I absolutely believe there is a serious and ongoing class war in America. Just look at real wages over the last thirty years. Almost all the gains in GDP have gone to the top ten percent of wage earners, while real wages for the middle class have stagnated, and real wages for the bottom twenty percent have decreased. This is a result of concerted effort by the ruling class.
A quick point: one person's 'objective view' is another person's 'subjective bias.' By claiming I am not being objective, you are attempting to: a.) poison the well (that is, impugn the speaker to discredit the source of the argument) b.) move the goalposts (that is, to frame the argument so that your opinions are considered the normal and unbiased viewpoints, while your opponents are out in left field)
What exactly are the 'fruits of your labor?' If you employ others, do they share in the fruits, or do you take the fruits of their labor? Who determines a fair market value for labor when it is in every employers best interest to devalue the common laborer's contribution and overvalue the 'contribution' of capital? Capital sets the rules, and capital says that capital is worth more than labor.
What is ownership? What is property? Why do you get to fence of a natural resource and call it your own? If you say that you mixed your labor with the resource, and thus you rightfully own it, what gave you the right to mix your labor with it in the first place? I believe in private ownership of goods such as houses, cars, food, clothing, and so forth, but not property. This is because there is an unfair contract at work. To be valid, a contract must provide benefit to all parties. Everyone excluded from your private resource is a party to the contract, or else they would not be excluded. What benefit do they receive? I believe in democratic control of the means of production as the only fair and equitable way to distribute natural resources.
You appear to think that what you earn is objectively determined, fair, and has nothing to do with the use of force or the oppression of others. If all you want to keep is, in fact, objectively determined, fair, and does not impose oppression on others, then I agree. That is what you earned. But you seem to be advocating a government that employs coercion to enforce your particular view of what you earned. That is the point of the Adam Smith quote I referenced earlier. A government who's only purpose is to protect property and earnings is a government of the haves, against the have nots. Why should the have nots agree to be governed like that?
No. I'm not rationalizing anything. I honestly think the Democrats are bad, while the Republicans are pure, unadulterated evil. Not everything is balanced. Not every bad thing is equally bad. Some things are merely annoying, while others are truly horrifying.
See, now this is how I know you aren't a liberal by any stretch of the imagination: you are parroting back some of the dumbest, most inaccurate right wing descriptions of socialism out there. Socialism is not bad, it does not seek to punish the productive, take away firearms, or restrict free speech. Those are anti socialist lies created by the ruling class to further their class war against the workers and the poor.
Most really rich people (those who make over half a million a year) did, in some respect, steal from the poor. Economic coercion is still coercion. It is still an imposition of one person's will on other people. And it is backed up with the threat of physical violence. As Adam Smith said, "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
There is no parity between the two parties. One is bad, the other is pure evil. The Republican party's policies all boil down to one overriding principle: will this policy help provide cheaper labor for the ruling class. Their lip-service to the religious right is just a means of control.
This has proved an interesting exposition of your values. The more you write, the less I believe you were ever, in any way, a liberal. A libertarian, sure. Libertarians believe the only real function of government is protecting their private property, and thus acting as the police force to keep their slaves in check. Libertarians think they are inherently better than others. They think in social Darwinist terms, and believe it is wrong for the weak to organize politically to protect themselves. They believe it is the right of the superior person to dominate and control the inferior person, and I find that world view repugnant.
Our system is screwed up, and I agree with you as to the root cause. I think we need some kind of proportional voting system, a system that allows ranked choice, and/or a Condorcet type system.
While I agree that the lesser of two evils is still evil, I also see a VAST difference between Republicans and Democrats. The Republican base is truly frightening, on a Taliban level. They are the American religious zealots who BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION want to turn America into a theocracy. Republicans and Democrats both want to pilfer my wallet and give it to their contributors, but only one of those two groups wants to invade my bedroom. And Republicans seem to want to pilfer my wallet out of a sense of innate moral superiority that I find galling in the extreme. They seem to believe that God wants them to be rich because they are better than me, and any attempt on my part to stand up to them is evil, because I should know my place and not try to climb above it. I can't support that, and I will support any attainable alternative to that. Sure, I'd like something else, but voting for anyone else but the Democrats in our current system is simply asking for the American Taliban to turn our country into a theocracy, and I will not have that.
Oh, God no! You believed Obama? Now I understand, and kinda feel sorry for you. I didn't even believe Clinton, and I was young and naive when I voted for him. We don't have a left wing in this country, we have far right lunatics, and centrists. Obama is and always was a Clintonesque centrist. I'm ALWAYS going to be disappointed by the guy I vote for, but I'll vote for the lesser of two evils anyhow.
I honestly wish that the Republican party was not so dominated by religious wingnuts and ultra free market radicals. I want a smaller Federal government and fiscal responsibility. If there were a conservative party that really stood for those principals, I would vote for them on a national level and for the touchy-feely bleeding heart party on a local level. But then, I'm secretly an anarchist at heart, not a liberal.
I'm not outraged. If I got outraged at every troll on the Internet, my head would explode. I'm mildly annoyed at what I saw as shoehorning a political agenda into a debate about ID. Would I be as annoyed if you were trolling in a pro-Democrat fashion? Oh, probably not. Still annoyed, but not as annoyed.
I think you're a Republican because you inserted Republican talking points into an unrelated discussion.
If there are few Republicans who believe that Obama was born outside the US, why is the media giving them so much coverage? If you're an ex Dem, why do you use phrases like 'you guys?' Turned oppositely hyper-partisan awfully fast, didn't you? You act like you haven't ever posted here before, like you have no history, and you can claim anything you like because we can't look up what you've posted over the years.
You can bring up anecdotes to 'prove' that there is parity in lunacy and corruption, but matching anecdote 'R' to anecdote 'D' does not mean the two are equal. Nor does it address the number of scandals and loons on each side. It's a false parity, espoused for political gain.
Half your state doesn't live in the sticks. Folks who live in cities contribute the most in taxes and represent the greatest percentage of the population.
If you start aiming your criticism at the Republicans, it will be a first for you on this site. We aren't driving the bus over the cliff, we're hauling it back from the edge. We'll save your ass every time you screw up the country, we're just good that way. You're welcome.
zweistein was arguing that ALL speech should be protected, and only actions should be punished. I gave one of the obvious counter examples. I suppose I should have quoted the post I was replying to, to avoid this confusion...
And I was suggesting that the examples were nearly as ridiculous as ID, these ideas are sponsored by people with a particular agenda. They are a complete tangent to the topic at hand, which is why I assumed trolling. Why bring up an unrelated topic such as an attack on health care reform (I haven't heard anyone seriously suggest a government takeover of our corrupt and inefficient health care system) or mainstream economic policies supported by both parties (Bush pushed through the bailout, not Obama, and all economic data suggests that Obama's policies are working to reduce the depth and severity of this recession.)
Shakrai merely wanted to equate Daily Kos in particular, and Democrats in general, with the lunatic fringe of intelligent design. This is typical of the fact free, anger filled rants of the rapidly disappearing regional rump party known as Republicans. A better example might have been 'why not try to argue with the Republicans that Obama was born in the US, and is not planning on killing either your grandparents or Sarah Palin's children.'
Slashdot Mirror
Seems fishy, or is it some sort of SEO for a friend or business partner? The name Ruben Bouso ring any bells? I thought the AC was just link spamming, but those are on your site.
No, this is Scala, a language that is a blend of functional and object oriented programming. Scalia is mix of textualism and originalism with a very conservative framework. Some consider its inability to recuse itself to be its greatest asset.
domain giving it to your wife to see if she spits it out?
Last time I tried that in the bedroom she threatened to kill me.
I say that we, the males of the species, start a class action suit against the fairer sex for false advertising. Or bait and switch, I'm not sure. All I know is, after we marry them, there's this whole list of stuff they won't do anymore, and if we try to get it in writing beforehand, we get slapped.
"So, if we were to get married, how many blowjobs per week, on average, could I expect to receive?"
"Depends. How flexible are you?"
What was the purpose of "domain testing" anyway??
Obviously, some domains have gone bad, like milk left out too long. You don't want to drink the whole thing, so, um, you taste a little bit of it? To see if it's gone sour? Maybe we could replace it with domain smelling, or domain giving it to your wife to see if she spits it out?
You want me to give away the house? Crikey, man, how much is it worth to you? If you really want to know, just send me your SSN and bank account information so I can transfer my fee.
Sorry champ. I'm not actually a grumpy old curmudgeon, but I play one on the Internet. Now get off my lawn!
I already told you who the fan boy was, fan boy. Sheesh, pay attention. You've refuted nothing and simply made yourself look even more foolish, kid. Security through obscurity depends on the fact of nobody knowing, which was the original poster's point, to which you replied with such a complete inanity that I felt compelled to mock you.
So, the time it took the mainstream to discover the exploit DOES matter, doesn't it? Yeah.
Oh. My. God. It keeps getting stupider as we watch! Nobody said anything about physical access, I said local access, yes, which includes ssh. But how are you going to ssh in without an account? That's what makes it LOCAL. This is a privilege escalation, not a remote exploit. Learn the difference. Sure, for ISPs running shared, non-VM based servers, this could be a problem. Heck, it could be a problem for me if my developers knew their ASCII from a hole in the ground and had any reason to want to gain root on our systems. But is it the kind of problem that will turn your computer into a zombie ten minutes after you hook it up to the Internet? No, and that's my point.
Now, where can I send the bill for your education?
Well, in all technicality, we have a democratic republic. In our constitution (constitutional) it calls for voting (democratic) to figure out who the representatives are (republic) to the fereral government (federal).
Ah, there's the problem, the government's gone feral!
The phrase commonly used to describe our political system is 'democracy.' Yes, we know it is a constitutional representative democracy, otherwise known as a Republic, but that is still a kind of democracy. And just so you know, some states do have voter initiatives, you know, laws the voters get to vote on directly. But thanks for the civics lesson, knowing our country, I'm sure there are some people who are actually confused on the issue and wondering why they don't get to vote on every single issue.
Mmmm, yeah, I'm gonna need you to look up the meaning 'local exploit,' mkay?
No. If nobody knew it wasn't a security issue. I'm sure there are bugs on every OS with more than 8 years old yet to discover.
You veered completely off track right about here: "If nobody knew"
Seriously? Really, that's the best you could come up with? That's your apologia? How do you know nobody knew? You think the real blackhats are going publicizing their 'sploits? Blackhats these days aren't script kiddies and honest hackers, they are hard core Russian mafia doing it for cash. Your Linux systems could have been owned twelve ways from Sunday for EIGHT YEARS without you ever knowing it, and you are claiming 'it wasn't a security issue?' WTF? When did Linux get infested with idiot fanboys? Shouldn't you be slobbing all over an Apple or something? I was using Linux before you even knew what Unix was, I despise Microsoft and love open source, but a bug is a bug.
Try this one: 'No. Because it's a freaking LOCAL EXPLOIT and nearly no-one uses Linux for multi-user systems now that everyone can afford their OWN FREAKING COMPUTER.' Good lord, kids these days, gotta teach them everything.
As was stated before: if someone has a local account on your Windows machine, they already own you. You DO know the difference between local and remote exploits, right? I mean, NOBODY on Slashdot would go spouting off on topics they know nothing about just to score some points for their favorite OS.
Yeah, this is a serious bug. But honestly, how many people are running real multi-user systems with multiple honest to God local users? Okay, I am, but I figure I'm probably in the minority nowadays.
Oh, boo hoo for the people on the top, who take what isn't theirs in the first place. Cry me a God damn river. You think anyone in the world is worth billions of times more than anyone else? That kind of over the top elitism would be infuriating if it came from someone actually making that kind of money, coming from someone making $32,000 a year, it's just pathetic.
The top tax rate used to be 90%. Now, that was demonstrated to be too high, on the left hand side of the Laffer curve. But now it's too low, not too high, it's on the right hand side. Those thieves pay the same amount of taxes on their first $50,000 that we all pay. The fact that they pay more as they steal more is not unfair, it's barely even a bandaid on the problem: they shouldn't be making that much in the first place. No one should. And you know what? The people who are really making a difference, who are actually coming up with the ideas that make these sociopaths rich, they are working for wages, not taking home millions. The scientist who revolutionized agriculture and fed the world, how much money did he see from that, and how much went into the pockets of the corporate officers of Monsanto?
But you know what? In the end, I have to agree with your main point. Oppression is oppression whether it comes from dominant sociopaths in business or government. If a state, or a county, or a town wants to secede from their larger polity, I say, more power to them. Nobody should be able to impose their will on others.
In closing, I doubt I'll have the time to respond for a while. Which is a pity because I was enjoying our debate. But I've got a mom dying of pancreatic cancer who's going into her second round of chemo, and work is picking up (I work for the state, and you know how it is, we have to spend all our budget by the end of the fiscal year, or, heaven forbid, we might not get that much next year. You want to talk about broken government? Lets talk about the fourth, unelected branch, the permanent bureaucrats protecting their little fiefdoms. Sigh.)
Just because you can't imagine how it can be done doesn't mean it can't be done. Your failure of imagination does not mean something is impossible. If you'd read any libertarian theory, you'd probably have heard of something social libertarians like to call negative taxation. Look it up and marvel at the fact that other people can think up solutions to problems you consider insolvable.
The natural order of things is not the RIGHT order of things. You are suffering under the 'is/ought' fallacy. Slavery used to be considered the natural order of things, but GOVERNMENT changed what private enterprise had wrought.
I don't care if people end up on an equal footing, but if the people at the bottom don't see the people at the top as having earned their top position, if they see those at the top using power and coercion to take more than there fair share, we have a problem. Why should those on the bottom agree to stay on the bottom? In a fair world, where those who excel do not take more than is fair, no one would begrudge them their perks. When they take too much, those on the bottom fight back. That's just the natural order of things. ;)
If my view is naive, why is my view backed up by science when yours is not? Google 'games theory fairness reciprocity economic experiments.' Look up games theory on wikipedia. Do a little research instead of assuming your negative view of humanity is anything other than a self serving excuse to be a selfish ass.
If you think the cut throat can make more money, and you think it's fair for the ruthless and selfish to take advantage of the weak and selfless, then why the hell aren't you cut-throat? If you think it isn't fair or right, why aren't you fighting back?
I don't think (And I've never said) that everyone should be equally compensated. Hard work should get you more. Good ideas should get you more. But there is a limit, and we have every right to say, "too much is too much, don't be greedy."
How is saying that a hard, unpleasant job is hard and unpleasant 'looking down' on those jobs? You are really reaching here.
I'm not implying you are a parasite. You stated you made around $32,000 a year. You aren't the parasite, you are the host! Can we try to move beyond the insults? Not that they bother me in any way, in fact I find dissing matches quite fun, but they seem to be getting in the way of what could be a more productive debate. Sorry for the 'selfish ass' comment above, consider it a rhetorical device.
You aren't being forced to work at $0/hour. You have a choice, and you chose to enter into a contract with our society. You were made an offer, you took it, now you are suffering buyer's remorse, but if you don't like it, you can stop. No one is forcing you to keep on receiving the benefits of living in our society. THAT is the point of my 'love it or leave it' argument. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and saying, "Stay in America, keep receiving the benefits, and keep paying the agreed upon fee." You understand that it is your free choice to stay here, right? I'm not really saying you should leave, I'm pointing out that you still consider the benefits of staying greater than the cost, OR YOU WOULD HAVE LEFT. Get it? The very fact that you are still here is proof that you think you are getting a good bargain. That is my point.
Semantic games are boring. Everyone knows that when we in America say 'democracy' we mean representative democracy. You aren't making any kind of a point by distinguishing the two, except to call attention to what a pedant you are.
The burger flipper should make a living wage. Maybe that's not $50,000, but he should be able to support himself and his family on that wage. Everyone should be able to support themselves and their family, and they all could if we didn't give the vast majority of the wealth we collectively create to the top 1%. If you think he should not make a living wage, you are advocating oppression and wage slavery.
We are the only ones who can stop unfairness. We, the people, working together. Not self interested individuals acting for their own personal gain. That is what creates unfairness. We, the citizens of the United States. That is who will end unfairness. There are plenty of examples in history of the people, acting through their elected representatives, ending unfairness. You'd have to be deliberately blind not to see that.
You have a distorted view of human nature, as I said, you need to read some more modern theories backed up by actual experiments. We aren't the evil, selfish creatures you seem to think we are. In fact, it is our selfish system that forces us to act selfishly. In other systems, people do not feel the need to be so cut-throat.
Do you honestly think that there is equality of opportunity in this country? That all anyone needs to do is pick themselves up by their own bootstraps, remove their obstacles, and succeed? Is there room at the top for everyone, or does our system depend on having enough burger flippers, too? Is it okay that some people are forced to take menial positions because of some supposed inferiority, when those positions are actually required for society to function? Who would do those onerous tasks if everyone were a 'success?'
I don't want to deprive the individual of any choice except freeloading on my contributions. The freeloader is not the person in need. The freeloading parasite is the person who does not contribute to his community. Having no poor, starving, desperate people is a public good. We all benefit from it. Yet some don't want to pay their fair share to ensure that all are taken care of, that no one needs to resort to thievery and violence. I'm happy paying to ensure that everyone around me is fed, clothed, and healthy. Everyone wins when that happens. But some people don't want to have to pay for that, even though they receive the benefit, and I would cut those people off, and keep them from benefiting from what the rest of us collectively create, yes. If you don't like it, leave and go set up your own society. It's a free market of governance in the world, surely you can find someplace that is selling the governance you like? What you can't do is walk into my store (America) and demand that I sell you what you want, at the price you want. If it's not on the menu, try someplace else.
People love to use the 'republic vs. democracy' line, but it is not meaningful, I could very well have used the phrase 'socialist republic,' but then you would have used another throwaway debate ender: 'what are you, some kind of communist?' Because, you know, the Russians called themselves a socialist republic. Doesn't mean they were. I used democracy in the sense that we Americans do when we claim to be exporting it. We don't claim to be exporting republicanism, do we? Please.
Do we have to go over how unhappy I am with Obama AGAIN? I thought I made that pretty clear. I'd be less happy with McCain, though.
If you work for an employer and make less than $50,000, I'd say you are not receiving all the fruits of your labor. You are being screwed. And just like a battered wife, you are defending your oppressor. Sad.
Democratic control of the means of production has not been TRIED very often. It's been payed lip service to, but not tried. Do you think the Russians were really communists or socialists? Really? I suppose you think they were a democracy, too, they also claimed that. Do a little more research.
If you want an example of democratic control over the means of production, look up what Chile was like under Allende before we overthrew him for scaring the shit out of the owning class by doing it right. Look up Cybersyn, the information system he pioneered to help do it right. Look up the history of cooperatives in the US, read about the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain. It can be done right.
Valuation is arbitrary and in our system, the value of something is determined by a vote, using dollars. The more dollars you have, the more votes you have. It's still a democracy, but a completely unfair one. Those with the money make the rules, they set the prices, and they determine the income that we, the peons, receive.
The thing is, even if we DID have a free market in labor, the workers would be screwed by market forces. There is a serious imbalance of information between buyers and sellers of labor, and this leads to a systematic devaluation of labor in a free market. Read 'The Market for Lemons' for an explanation of why this is, it's a famous economics paper from the 70s using used cars as an example.
Another problem with the labor market is that people are not primarily rational and self interested. First, especially when their lives are at stake, people are not rational. For many people, a job is life. Forcing people to choose between working in degrading conditions for unfair wages, or DIEING, is coercion. People are not primarily self interested, according to recent economic and games theory experiments, because most people, most of the time, value fairness and reciprocity over their own interests. The free market is based on several proven falsehoods, and it is not wonder it doesn't work right.
You are asked to part with more than half your wages, counting your mortgage, food, car payments, etc. But you feel you get good value for the wages you part with. In socialist countries, people pay as much or more in taxes, but feel they get good value for their money, better value than the free market would provide them. After all, they can vote and would vote socialism out if it weren't working for them.
I'm speaking from experience. Long, hard, boring, infuriating experience dealing with rabid anti-intellectuals. Have you ever actually had a debate with these people? I have not found a single one that wants to engage in debate, is capable of changing their world view, brings up ANY original points, or uses ANY points that have not been debunked a million times. Yes, that is my personal experience, but it is also the experience of everyone else I've talked to.
Yes, I'm prejudiced against anti-intellectual religious zealots with an anti-science, anti-democratic, anti-freedom agenda. I also happen to be prejudiced against murderers, thieves and rapists. Does that make me a bad person?
Now, if you consider yourself one of these people and take offense, I will go ahead and give you a chance to prove me wrong. Fire away, but please, try to be original. Go to talk-origins.com and check to see whether your arguments have been debunked a million times, before you try them on me, okay?
"The State" is just a group of individuals. There is no state outside of what we agree to. Even in a completely anarchist society, the members decide what is fair and what is not fair. Your idea that this so-called 'state' is something outside of the people who make it up makes no sense to me. What is the state?
I've read some good libertarian science fiction, and in these imagined libertarian societies, groups arise to enforce the notions of fairness held by their members. If someone, for instance, uses child labor or pollutes, and the majority of people don't think that is fair, these societies enforce ostracism of the offender. Anyone that does business with them is similarly ostracized, and in this fashion, even in a libertarian utopia, fairness is enforced by society.
Nobody on the left that I know wants a ruling class. We want open and transparent governance. This is not impossible, as some would have us believe. We can have a socialist democracy with an open and accountable government. Remember, anarchy does not mean 'no government.' It means 'no rulers.'
Yes, I absolutely believe there is a serious and ongoing class war in America. Just look at real wages over the last thirty years. Almost all the gains in GDP have gone to the top ten percent of wage earners, while real wages for the middle class have stagnated, and real wages for the bottom twenty percent have decreased. This is a result of concerted effort by the ruling class.
A quick point: one person's 'objective view' is another person's 'subjective bias.' By claiming I am not being objective, you are attempting to: a.) poison the well (that is, impugn the speaker to discredit the source of the argument) b.) move the goalposts (that is, to frame the argument so that your opinions are considered the normal and unbiased viewpoints, while your opponents are out in left field)
What exactly are the 'fruits of your labor?' If you employ others, do they share in the fruits, or do you take the fruits of their labor? Who determines a fair market value for labor when it is in every employers best interest to devalue the common laborer's contribution and overvalue the 'contribution' of capital? Capital sets the rules, and capital says that capital is worth more than labor.
What is ownership? What is property? Why do you get to fence of a natural resource and call it your own? If you say that you mixed your labor with the resource, and thus you rightfully own it, what gave you the right to mix your labor with it in the first place? I believe in private ownership of goods such as houses, cars, food, clothing, and so forth, but not property. This is because there is an unfair contract at work. To be valid, a contract must provide benefit to all parties. Everyone excluded from your private resource is a party to the contract, or else they would not be excluded. What benefit do they receive? I believe in democratic control of the means of production as the only fair and equitable way to distribute natural resources.
You appear to think that what you earn is objectively determined, fair, and has nothing to do with the use of force or the oppression of others. If all you want to keep is, in fact, objectively determined, fair, and does not impose oppression on others, then I agree. That is what you earned. But you seem to be advocating a government that employs coercion to enforce your particular view of what you earned. That is the point of the Adam Smith quote I referenced earlier. A government who's only purpose is to protect property and earnings is a government of the haves, against the have nots. Why should the have nots agree to be governed like that?
No. I'm not rationalizing anything. I honestly think the Democrats are bad, while the Republicans are pure, unadulterated evil. Not everything is balanced. Not every bad thing is equally bad. Some things are merely annoying, while others are truly horrifying.
See, now this is how I know you aren't a liberal by any stretch of the imagination: you are parroting back some of the dumbest, most inaccurate right wing descriptions of socialism out there. Socialism is not bad, it does not seek to punish the productive, take away firearms, or restrict free speech. Those are anti socialist lies created by the ruling class to further their class war against the workers and the poor.
Most really rich people (those who make over half a million a year) did, in some respect, steal from the poor. Economic coercion is still coercion. It is still an imposition of one person's will on other people. And it is backed up with the threat of physical violence. As Adam Smith said, "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
There is no parity between the two parties. One is bad, the other is pure evil. The Republican party's policies all boil down to one overriding principle: will this policy help provide cheaper labor for the ruling class. Their lip-service to the religious right is just a means of control.
This has proved an interesting exposition of your values. The more you write, the less I believe you were ever, in any way, a liberal. A libertarian, sure. Libertarians believe the only real function of government is protecting their private property, and thus acting as the police force to keep their slaves in check. Libertarians think they are inherently better than others. They think in social Darwinist terms, and believe it is wrong for the weak to organize politically to protect themselves. They believe it is the right of the superior person to dominate and control the inferior person, and I find that world view repugnant.
Our system is screwed up, and I agree with you as to the root cause. I think we need some kind of proportional voting system, a system that allows ranked choice, and/or a Condorcet type system.
While I agree that the lesser of two evils is still evil, I also see a VAST difference between Republicans and Democrats. The Republican base is truly frightening, on a Taliban level. They are the American religious zealots who BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION want to turn America into a theocracy. Republicans and Democrats both want to pilfer my wallet and give it to their contributors, but only one of those two groups wants to invade my bedroom. And Republicans seem to want to pilfer my wallet out of a sense of innate moral superiority that I find galling in the extreme. They seem to believe that God wants them to be rich because they are better than me, and any attempt on my part to stand up to them is evil, because I should know my place and not try to climb above it. I can't support that, and I will support any attainable alternative to that. Sure, I'd like something else, but voting for anyone else but the Democrats in our current system is simply asking for the American Taliban to turn our country into a theocracy, and I will not have that.
Oh, God no! You believed Obama? Now I understand, and kinda feel sorry for you. I didn't even believe Clinton, and I was young and naive when I voted for him. We don't have a left wing in this country, we have far right lunatics, and centrists. Obama is and always was a Clintonesque centrist. I'm ALWAYS going to be disappointed by the guy I vote for, but I'll vote for the lesser of two evils anyhow.
I honestly wish that the Republican party was not so dominated by religious wingnuts and ultra free market radicals. I want a smaller Federal government and fiscal responsibility. If there were a conservative party that really stood for those principals, I would vote for them on a national level and for the touchy-feely bleeding heart party on a local level. But then, I'm secretly an anarchist at heart, not a liberal.
You weren't the only one, so don't feel bad. I should have quoted zwei2stein so nobody got confused.
I'm not outraged. If I got outraged at every troll on the Internet, my head would explode. I'm mildly annoyed at what I saw as shoehorning a political agenda into a debate about ID. Would I be as annoyed if you were trolling in a pro-Democrat fashion? Oh, probably not. Still annoyed, but not as annoyed.
I think you're a Republican because you inserted Republican talking points into an unrelated discussion.
If there are few Republicans who believe that Obama was born outside the US, why is the media giving them so much coverage? If you're an ex Dem, why do you use phrases like 'you guys?' Turned oppositely hyper-partisan awfully fast, didn't you? You act like you haven't ever posted here before, like you have no history, and you can claim anything you like because we can't look up what you've posted over the years.
You can bring up anecdotes to 'prove' that there is parity in lunacy and corruption, but matching anecdote 'R' to anecdote 'D' does not mean the two are equal. Nor does it address the number of scandals and loons on each side. It's a false parity, espoused for political gain.
Half your state doesn't live in the sticks. Folks who live in cities contribute the most in taxes and represent the greatest percentage of the population.
If you start aiming your criticism at the Republicans, it will be a first for you on this site. We aren't driving the bus over the cliff, we're hauling it back from the edge. We'll save your ass every time you screw up the country, we're just good that way. You're welcome.
zweistein was arguing that ALL speech should be protected, and only actions should be punished. I gave one of the obvious counter examples. I suppose I should have quoted the post I was replying to, to avoid this confusion...
And I was suggesting that the examples were nearly as ridiculous as ID, these ideas are sponsored by people with a particular agenda. They are a complete tangent to the topic at hand, which is why I assumed trolling. Why bring up an unrelated topic such as an attack on health care reform (I haven't heard anyone seriously suggest a government takeover of our corrupt and inefficient health care system) or mainstream economic policies supported by both parties (Bush pushed through the bailout, not Obama, and all economic data suggests that Obama's policies are working to reduce the depth and severity of this recession.)
Shakrai merely wanted to equate Daily Kos in particular, and Democrats in general, with the lunatic fringe of intelligent design. This is typical of the fact free, anger filled rants of the rapidly disappearing regional rump party known as Republicans. A better example might have been 'why not try to argue with the Republicans that Obama was born in the US, and is not planning on killing either your grandparents or Sarah Palin's children.'