I think you have a strange view of human nature. I feel pleasure at seeing someone more successful than I, as long as that success seems warranted. That urge towards justice and fairness you mention works both ways if you let it.
You should also read up on anthropology, because you have some strange ideas about what humans are like in their 'natural' state. Read The Continuum Concept for another view.
There seem to be only two cultures in the world, the culture of feast and sharing, and the culture of famine and war. You are drawing your conclusions based on only the currently dominant culture. For most of human history, though, it was not.
Conservatives do not like anything that challenges the status quo, and Bucky did. Critical Path also speaks against the dangers of corporate power. Most conservatives love the limitation of liability that comes with a corporate structure.
As for the Soviet submarine aircraft carrier, well, such things exist so its not a complete leap to have thought that the Soviets might be developing one. And when he made that dolphin claim, the idea wasn't completely out there either.
If the best you can come up with are wrong but not outlandish guesses, and unsubstantiated slander, you haven't sold me that there was anything wrong with the man.
I am totally serious: why does the back of my left ear smell like cheese doodles? I don't store any kind of foodstuffs behind my ear, and I bathe regularly. Please help.
Your response smacks of fighting fire with fire. What would you use besides propaganda to convince people of your solution? That could NEVER go wrong...
Don't insinuate that the status quo is in any way 'my' system. I'm not defending the status quo, just doubting the efficiency of your proposed solution.
I hope your solution works, I really do. But the people who will naturally support your position are already in no danger of falling prey to empty rhetoric and propaganda. The vast majority of people will need some convincing.
So, how do you plan on convincing people, propaganda, or force?
If you defend rednecks on Internet forums... you might be a redneck. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I really don't understand your ire here. Or your need to point out that non-rednecks also do stupid things. Redneck does not indicate ethnicity or birthplace. To me, redneck is just shorthand for stupid and uncultured. If you aren't stupid and uncultured, you aren't a redneck.
So why are you defending stupid and uncultured people? Or are you trying to use redneck in a different context, and irritated that others don't see it that way?
Although I agree with you that propaganda is a serious issue, I don't think forcing people to use a language like Esperanto is the solution. Rather, I would educate people in critical thinking.
No one can antagonize people on the Internet. People read things on the Internet and choose to feel antagonized. A dog being poked has no such choice.
Why do you a.) think so poorly of your fellow man's ability to make rational choices for himself, and b.) see yourself as this irrational creature's defender?
Words do not turn your fellow men into blind idiots, your fellow men choose to be blind idiots. Curse words are not actual curses causing people to act against their will. Choosing different words will not change human nature. Honestly, the people you worry about, the easily manipulated, often react more emotionally to a well reasoned argument they can't understand than to a curse word they can.
Curse words are less manipulative than words like love, freedom, and peace. Would you ban those words as well, to protect us from the manipulators who use them?
Just looked at the people posting slanderous comments against Buckminster Fuller. Surprise, surprise, conservatives hat a man who spoke out against the status quo and against corporatism.
If you want to understand why certain people seem to hate Bucky with an unreasonable passion, read Critical Path.
Sorry that's how you feel about yourself. Me, I'm exactly as successful as I want to be. And I love successful people, as long as they are decent to others. Its unwarranted success I can't stand. Most of the time that people defend folks like Zuckerberg, its because they know, deep in their hearts, that their success is unwarranted too.
Just because you don't see the value or purpose of a line of research does not mean it doesn't have value. At the end of the day, what we have is more in depth knowledge about what makes music good and bad, how to coordinate fine motion in robots, and numerous other advances.
Just so you know, you come across as a supercilious ass in this post. All you've shown is your ignorance regarding science and research, and your desire to tell other people how to spend their time. If that's not the image you wish to project to others, I suggest you work on your social skills.
The network effect has explanatory and predictive power. For instance, it predicts that blog popularity will follow a power curve, with the most popular blog being twice as popular as the next most, and so on. That's a pretty close fit. Simply because you don't know about or comprehend a theory doesn't mean it isn't valuable.
I don't work in a cubicle. I have a large office all to myself, and it smells exactly like the rest of the building.
What the hell do you mean by 'the smart people,' why would they mean nothing to me, and why are they laughing?
Are you high or something? I really wish stupid people would stop trying to insult me, it isn't insulting, just confusing and sad.
Luck may play a part, insofar as nobody can really predict with any accuracy the thoughts and actions of millions of whims, but I haven't seen any popular products whose popularity can't actually be explained.
Pet Rocks. Everybody Loves Raymond. Cabbage Patch Kids. Tila Tequila. George W. Bush. Perhaps in hindsight you can explain them, but that is meaningless. Does your explanation provide any predictive power, or does it just fit itself to observed facts?
Sometimes, the only thing that makes a product popular is the fact that it is popular. It's the network effect. Most of the time, when people are free to do what they choose, they choose to imitate other people. Things become popular just because random fluctuations in popularity lead to a runaway feedback loop of imitation.
But Lumpy was talking about luck in general terms. Sometimes people know the right people, have the timing right, even have a good idea, but they still don't get the break. On the other hand, luck can trump everything else. Think of the inventions that were found while looking for something completely different.
For Greenspan and the others to trash Zuckerberg's business acumen is the height of stupidity. Really? No one ever succeeded through dumb luck? Success is a guarantee of competence? I suppose the fact that you aren't a billionaire proves you are incompetent? Zuckerberg is a schmuck who lucked out, nothing more.
At least not in America. But hey, at least this time the politicos can say "but Sweeden is doing it, too!" Politicians know better than to confuse voters.
"Wait, what? What does wiretapping have to do with meatballs and massage? This guy is making my head hurt, that's it! I'm gonna vote for the guy who doesn't make me feel stupid."
I think that I have made my position clear. Diffusing responsibility is a bad thing, leading people to make choices they wouldn't ordinarily make if the responsibility was solely theirs.
Agree or disagree?
The limited liability corporate structure diffuses responsibility. Agree or disagree?
I never claimed that investing in a company means you specifically approve of their actions. My point is, you don't have to. You don't even have to know what they are doing. You get to feel good about it, no matter what, and if they do something bad, you can claim it wasn't your fault, and this diffusion of responsibility leads to amoral behavior.
Do you agree that people should take personal responsibility for their actions, and for the consequences of their actions, intended or unintended?
If I accidentally kill someone, do I have a responsibility to their loved ones? If I invest in a company that deliberately decides to, say, not recall cars with faulty gas tanks because settling with the families of the dead is less expensive, how is that different from me accidentally killing them?
It really sounds as though you don't feel people should be responsible for the consequences of their actions, and I find that reprehensible.
I'm all for workers making more money, and parasites like management, CEOs, boards, and investors making much, much less. Just to make things more fair and reverse the trends of the last 30 years of the ruling class stealing all the wealth that the workers created.
Then I'm crazy and insane, because many companies do participate willingly in illegal and immoral behavior, spurred on by owners and investors who demand 'anything to make a buck, wink wink.'
That is my point: the idea that the corporation will act ethically and with your best interest at heart is wrong, and people are being shielded from the consequences of that wrong assumption. Corporations are, for the most part, just mafia with better PR. Corruption built in to the system, no one feels personally responsible for any wrongdoing. And yet it keeps happening.
What would happen to the stock market if the government started to go after corporate criminals with the same zeal it goes after minority street criminals?
You missed the point, which is that people get to invest in corporations without having to think about whether they are funding evil & oppressive institutions, because no matter what happens, they won't be held accountable.
And that is why the myth that corporations, CEOs, and boards are all basically decent has to stand, even while the middle and lower class are getting fleeced like sheep. That is why people like you feel compelled to defend that myth. Because to face the truth is to face the fact that you are contributing to a system that creates oppression, unfairness, imbalance, and cr9iminal behavior.
No, crime is the rule. The only thing exceptional about them is that they got caught. Or do you think the news magically reports on things they don't know about?
Did you know that those fine upstanding grocery stores you visit also have outlets in poor neighborhoods? And they charge more, because poor people can't afford cars, so there is no competition. They also 'accidentally' charge more than the marked price at the register, much more frequently in poor areas.
So, do you think the workers who made your car are as well compensated as they were, say, in the US back in the 60s? You know, when corporations still believed in decency? Now, almost all the extra value created in society goes to a few rich people, who's real income has skyrocketed while the real income of the middle class and poor has been stagnant for decades.
Stealing a penny is not evil. Systematically stealing pennies from millions of people is. Putting thousands of people out of work to make a few more dollars that primarily go to rich shareholders is evil. Polluting is evil. Decimating labor unions is evil.
Limitation of liability is evil. If I invest in the mob, and they kill someone, I may be charged with a crime. If I invest in a corporation and they poison 10,000 people, or blow them up due to faulty gas tanks or whatever, I will never be held liable, though it is in part my money that allowed the corporation to kill.
Why is it my fault if I invest in organized crime, but not in a corporation that commits crimes?
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I think you have a strange view of human nature. I feel pleasure at seeing someone more successful than I, as long as that success seems warranted. That urge towards justice and fairness you mention works both ways if you let it.
You should also read up on anthropology, because you have some strange ideas about what humans are like in their 'natural' state. Read The Continuum Concept for another view.
There seem to be only two cultures in the world, the culture of feast and sharing, and the culture of famine and war. You are drawing your conclusions based on only the currently dominant culture. For most of human history, though, it was not.
Conservatives do not like anything that challenges the status quo, and Bucky did. Critical Path also speaks against the dangers of corporate power. Most conservatives love the limitation of liability that comes with a corporate structure.
As for the Soviet submarine aircraft carrier, well, such things exist so its not a complete leap to have thought that the Soviets might be developing one. And when he made that dolphin claim, the idea wasn't completely out there either.
If the best you can come up with are wrong but not outlandish guesses, and unsubstantiated slander, you haven't sold me that there was anything wrong with the man.
I am totally serious: why does the back of my left ear smell like cheese doodles? I don't store any kind of foodstuffs behind my ear, and I bathe regularly. Please help.
Your response smacks of fighting fire with fire. What would you use besides propaganda to convince people of your solution? That could NEVER go wrong...
Don't insinuate that the status quo is in any way 'my' system. I'm not defending the status quo, just doubting the efficiency of your proposed solution.
I hope your solution works, I really do. But the people who will naturally support your position are already in no danger of falling prey to empty rhetoric and propaganda. The vast majority of people will need some convincing.
So, how do you plan on convincing people, propaganda, or force?
If you defend rednecks on Internet forums... you might be a redneck. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I really don't understand your ire here. Or your need to point out that non-rednecks also do stupid things. Redneck does not indicate ethnicity or birthplace. To me, redneck is just shorthand for stupid and uncultured. If you aren't stupid and uncultured, you aren't a redneck.
So why are you defending stupid and uncultured people? Or are you trying to use redneck in a different context, and irritated that others don't see it that way?
Although I agree with you that propaganda is a serious issue, I don't think forcing people to use a language like Esperanto is the solution. Rather, I would educate people in critical thinking.
No one can antagonize people on the Internet. People read things on the Internet and choose to feel antagonized. A dog being poked has no such choice.
Why do you a.) think so poorly of your fellow man's ability to make rational choices for himself, and b.) see yourself as this irrational creature's defender?
Words do not turn your fellow men into blind idiots, your fellow men choose to be blind idiots. Curse words are not actual curses causing people to act against their will. Choosing different words will not change human nature. Honestly, the people you worry about, the easily manipulated, often react more emotionally to a well reasoned argument they can't understand than to a curse word they can.
Curse words are less manipulative than words like love, freedom, and peace. Would you ban those words as well, to protect us from the manipulators who use them?
Just looked at the people posting slanderous comments against Buckminster Fuller. Surprise, surprise, conservatives hat a man who spoke out against the status quo and against corporatism.
If you want to understand why certain people seem to hate Bucky with an unreasonable passion, read Critical Path.
Sorry that's how you feel about yourself. Me, I'm exactly as successful as I want to be. And I love successful people, as long as they are decent to others. Its unwarranted success I can't stand. Most of the time that people defend folks like Zuckerberg, its because they know, deep in their hearts, that their success is unwarranted too.
Just because you don't see the value or purpose of a line of research does not mean it doesn't have value. At the end of the day, what we have is more in depth knowledge about what makes music good and bad, how to coordinate fine motion in robots, and numerous other advances.
Just so you know, you come across as a supercilious ass in this post. All you've shown is your ignorance regarding science and research, and your desire to tell other people how to spend their time. If that's not the image you wish to project to others, I suggest you work on your social skills.
The network effect has explanatory and predictive power. For instance, it predicts that blog popularity will follow a power curve, with the most popular blog being twice as popular as the next most, and so on. That's a pretty close fit. Simply because you don't know about or comprehend a theory doesn't mean it isn't valuable.
I don't work in a cubicle. I have a large office all to myself, and it smells exactly like the rest of the building.
What the hell do you mean by 'the smart people,' why would they mean nothing to me, and why are they laughing?
Are you high or something? I really wish stupid people would stop trying to insult me, it isn't insulting, just confusing and sad.
Oh, wait, that's OS X Leopard. Sorry, my bad. That parrot story gave me Python on the brain.
Pet Rocks. Everybody Loves Raymond. Cabbage Patch Kids. Tila Tequila. George W. Bush. Perhaps in hindsight you can explain them, but that is meaningless. Does your explanation provide any predictive power, or does it just fit itself to observed facts?
Sometimes, the only thing that makes a product popular is the fact that it is popular. It's the network effect. Most of the time, when people are free to do what they choose, they choose to imitate other people. Things become popular just because random fluctuations in popularity lead to a runaway feedback loop of imitation.
But Lumpy was talking about luck in general terms. Sometimes people know the right people, have the timing right, even have a good idea, but they still don't get the break. On the other hand, luck can trump everything else. Think of the inventions that were found while looking for something completely different.
The site now redirects to the wiki article on "Leech (computing)" explaining why you can no longer see any other articles. That was quick.
None of them make me feel stupid. They make me feel that they are stupid.
"Wait, what? What does wiretapping have to do with meatballs and massage? This guy is making my head hurt, that's it! I'm gonna vote for the guy who doesn't make me feel stupid."
I think that I have made my position clear. Diffusing responsibility is a bad thing, leading people to make choices they wouldn't ordinarily make if the responsibility was solely theirs.
Agree or disagree?
The limited liability corporate structure diffuses responsibility. Agree or disagree?
I never claimed that investing in a company means you specifically approve of their actions. My point is, you don't have to. You don't even have to know what they are doing. You get to feel good about it, no matter what, and if they do something bad, you can claim it wasn't your fault, and this diffusion of responsibility leads to amoral behavior.
Do you agree that people should take personal responsibility for their actions, and for the consequences of their actions, intended or unintended?
If I accidentally kill someone, do I have a responsibility to their loved ones? If I invest in a company that deliberately decides to, say, not recall cars with faulty gas tanks because settling with the families of the dead is less expensive, how is that different from me accidentally killing them?
It really sounds as though you don't feel people should be responsible for the consequences of their actions, and I find that reprehensible.
I'm all for workers making more money, and parasites like management, CEOs, boards, and investors making much, much less. Just to make things more fair and reverse the trends of the last 30 years of the ruling class stealing all the wealth that the workers created.
Then I'm crazy and insane, because many companies do participate willingly in illegal and immoral behavior, spurred on by owners and investors who demand 'anything to make a buck, wink wink.'
That is my point: the idea that the corporation will act ethically and with your best interest at heart is wrong, and people are being shielded from the consequences of that wrong assumption. Corporations are, for the most part, just mafia with better PR. Corruption built in to the system, no one feels personally responsible for any wrongdoing. And yet it keeps happening.
What would happen to the stock market if the government started to go after corporate criminals with the same zeal it goes after minority street criminals?
You missed the point, which is that people get to invest in corporations without having to think about whether they are funding evil & oppressive institutions, because no matter what happens, they won't be held accountable.
And that is why the myth that corporations, CEOs, and boards are all basically decent has to stand, even while the middle and lower class are getting fleeced like sheep. That is why people like you feel compelled to defend that myth. Because to face the truth is to face the fact that you are contributing to a system that creates oppression, unfairness, imbalance, and cr9iminal behavior.
No, crime is the rule. The only thing exceptional about them is that they got caught. Or do you think the news magically reports on things they don't know about?
Did you know that those fine upstanding grocery stores you visit also have outlets in poor neighborhoods? And they charge more, because poor people can't afford cars, so there is no competition. They also 'accidentally' charge more than the marked price at the register, much more frequently in poor areas.
So, do you think the workers who made your car are as well compensated as they were, say, in the US back in the 60s? You know, when corporations still believed in decency? Now, almost all the extra value created in society goes to a few rich people, who's real income has skyrocketed while the real income of the middle class and poor has been stagnant for decades.
Stealing a penny is not evil. Systematically stealing pennies from millions of people is. Putting thousands of people out of work to make a few more dollars that primarily go to rich shareholders is evil. Polluting is evil. Decimating labor unions is evil.
Limitation of liability is evil. If I invest in the mob, and they kill someone, I may be charged with a crime. If I invest in a corporation and they poison 10,000 people, or blow them up due to faulty gas tanks or whatever, I will never be held liable, though it is in part my money that allowed the corporation to kill.
Why is it my fault if I invest in organized crime, but not in a corporation that commits crimes?