I agree, but he is not talking comparison so much as absolute performance. Operating systems take too long to boot, period. The mouse pointer on a modern desktop should never, ever lag. Media players should never stutter and skip. Applications shouldn't take five seconds to switch. We have the CPU horsepower for that.
Yes, but if someone says the sky is pink, and you say, "Nuh uh! A Panda eats shoots and leaves!" then you are both idiots. So, to make the analogy clear, when a disgruntled kernel hacker says that the Linux kernel has performance problems on the desktop, and Slashdot posters say it is easy to use, they are idiots.
There are two kinds of monopolies, artificial and natural. Artificial monopolies exist due to government regulation backed up by the threat of force, or by collusion between ostensible competitors. Natural monopolies exist where two or more competing firms in an industry would be less efficient than one. Like roads, electricity, or piped water. Who wants to be the second guy to lay water pipes in a suburb?
In libertarian theory, there is a cap on these monopolies ability to overprice goods. People will start finding alternatives if the price gets too high. And collusion between companies simply allows another company to enter the market and undercut the entrenched players.
In reality, there is still inefficiency when monopolies exist. The monopoly could be happy selling for much less, instead, they are taking nearly all the extra value created in the trade. This is not in the best interests of the largest number of people. Collusion is possible due to economic coercion. Not all force comes from a gun, entrenched players can buy up all supplies, or agree to all undercut a competitor until they are out of business. Or they can bribe a competitor to join their oligopoly.
But that's impossible! The free market for executive labor ensures that only the absolute best and brightest ever make it to executive positions. I mean, come one! There's no government interference in the executive salary market, so it has to be working perfectly. We all know that the only time markets fail to be the closest solution to God-like perfection is when government interferes. Therefore, these executives are making all the right decisions, based solely on their undying love for their shareholders, rather than shortsighted greed and cronyism.
Great. Now I have this picture in my head of a horde of barbarian dorks, as if one had crossed the cast of the "What's in your wallet?" commercials with the stars of "Revenge of the Nerds." Chainmail pocket protectors. Helmets with horn-rim glasses. Slide rules in scabbards. Run away! Run away!
Note too that much of the work being done in open source these days comes from companies like IBM, Redhat, and Novell, not from Joe Q. Randomhacker. These companies see the server market as the largest, most profitable Linux market. That's where their throwing their development dollars. Hey, here's an idea: why not make desktop distribution without all that enterprise crap in the kernel?
let's just nip this little tangent in the bud, shall we? he's saying the Linux kernel is so bloated with enterprise level crap, and is so optimized for the server role, that it performs poorly on the desktop.
You don't understand anarchism. Before anyone had coined the term "Libertarian" there were anarchists. All anarchists believe that government exists to prevent coercion. Libertarians are a branch of individualist anarchism, believers in strong property rights. Some anarchists are social anarchists and believe that private real estate is theft. We call it coercion when you fence off land that everyone could use, call it your own, and shoot people for trespass. We call it coercion when you buy up all the land and prevent the landless from growing food for themselves so you can make them work for you.
Libertarians want government. They want a government police force to keep their legally purchased slaves in line, and to keep the desperate starving masses from 'stealing' their land.
I suppose you think when someone claims to be able to eat a horse, they actually have the capacity to devour an entire equine. Relax, it's a figure of speech.
Games, like other art forms, follow the characteristics laid out in Aristotle's Poetics. Specifically, games raise and lower dramatic tension by posing and answering questions. Ebert misunderstands the basis of art. It is as if I were to say that paintings and theater both can't be art, because their characteristics are so different. Yet paintings too ask and answer questions. We even talk about tension and motion in paintings. We say the eye is drawn this way or that. Why? Because the painting poses a question with it's structure that makes you want to look here as opposed to there. I think dramatic tension is a key component of art. But then, looked at that way, sports are art too, because they raise and lower dramatic tension the same way.
Well, that's fair. But I do like hearing about new gadgets as well. Even crap from Sony. Perhaps we could have a category for gadgets, and anyone who doesn't want to see slashvertisements can just choose not to show that category on the home page.
I mean, people here whine as if Slashdot has turned into the "Popular Science" of the Internet. Sure, I don't want to see blurbs written by PR flaks, like this one obviously was. But I still want to see cool new hardware.
This is a tech site. Techies are interested in new technology. New technology is sold, not given away. Is Slashdot simply not supposed to mention any new technology? What is the difference between a "Slashvertisement" and an interesting story about new technology?
You two are arguing different things. There is old school, Diogenes and the Lamp style cynicism, then there is the common modern understanding of the term, which is more akin to a dumbed down version of nihilism. A cynic of the old school does not believe or disbelieve anything, but they suppose a lot. The GP post was talking about that style of cynicism. You are attacking the other style.
There is no meaning to life other than the meaning we arbitrarily choose to give it. Why does that make some people so sad? It makes me very, very happy. If there were an absolute meaning, and that meaning did not include love, hope, trust and loyalty (oh, say Satan created this place just to fuck with us) then those concepts would be meaningless. If we create all meaning, then we can give meaning to love, hope, trust and loyalty.
You ignore the power of collusion. People in a given industry can get together and decide to set prices. When someone else comes along and tries to undercut them, they can in turn undercut him until he's out of business, or collude or economically threaten his suppliers.
If all transactions were voluntary, marketing and advertising would not exist. People can be persuaded to buy things they don't need and that will not fulfill the need they are seeking to fulfill with the purchase. As long as people can be fooled this way, a free market is an illusion.
You've not mentioned the problems with market failure. There are conditions under which the market will fail to allocate resources correctly. Natural monopolies exist without government regulation. There are industries where one firm can provide the desired output at a lower social cost than two or more competing firms. Roads, piped water, & electricity are three good examples.
Imbalance of information exists when the buyer or seller knows more about the good than the other. The used car market is a good example. Sellers know more than buyers, so buyers must assume that sellers lie. Buyers underbid, driving the better sellers out of the market, exacerbating the problem.
Externalities are a major problem. I've not yet heard a credible theory for dealing with externalities in a strictly unregulated market. How do you deal with pollution?
I'm no English major. I'm a comp/sci major. In my early twenties I was a hard core anarcho-syndicalist organizing for the IWW. No economics background except self study. As people on the Internet continue to say ridiculous things about economics, I've decided to educate myself enough to show the problems in their thinking. I will read the books you mention. I've yet to be convinced by any pro-free market propaganda I've read, but maybe I just haven't read the right book yet.
I have been swayed, mind you. I've gone from being strictly anti-free market to acknowledging that the free market is a useful tool for maximizing human freedom and contentment in certain circumstances. But I can not wrap my head around the idea that the free market can not be manipulated in ways the free market itself can not defend against. If true, that would put the free market in a category by itself.
Really though, the free market is not my major problem with our current system. My problem is with ownership of natural resources. I'm not a communist, I think people's personal property should be protected. But no one owned these natural resources at first, and we all could use them. Then someone came along and said, "I own this. Stay off!" before they even started working the resource. How is that fair? Resources should be democratically controlled.
Funny you should mention "the invisible hand." Adam Smith himself admitted that a free market needs regulation to stay free. Your opinions, the opinions of the Rothbard and Mises Institute, and even to some extent Friedman's opinions are not considered mainstream economics. I wouldn't put them in the same league as say, global warming deniers or electric universe proponents, but the majority do not agree with their conclusions. Even Adam Smith disagrees with you. For instance, in this lovely quote from Wealth of Nations
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation. Hmm, sounds almost Marxist!
You are making sense. In fact, in that last paragraph you've hit the nail on the head. "Rationality and the ability to become human," that's a great turn of phrase. And it points out another problem with the "That decision can only come from within," line. We don't have a choice as to whether we're exposed to that kind of stimulus growing up. We don't have a choice about whether we have the experiences necessary to become human. We all need guidance, up to the point where we have the set of experiences necessary to truly guide ourselves.
What do you think "Tend to" means? Does it mean everyone does it, all the time? No, it does not. Moreover, in trying to be clever, you have mistaken reductionism with generalization, which is what I was doing. It's a generalization I stand behind, like saying men tend to be taller than women. Does that mean every man is taller than every women? I probably have to spell this out for you so, no, it does not. Go back to digg.
As the airwaves are a public good, the American public, in all it's collective genius, is free to set whatever restrictions it feels like when granting artificial monopolies on their use. Meaning, if the majority feels as you do, that is the standard to which broadcast TV should adhere. But if the majority wants to watch people swear a blue streak, then YOU are then one with the right to pay for the privilege of clean TV on cable. As we do not live in a dictatorship, you don't get to decide all on your own how we collectively use our airwaves.
Isn't there someplace a little less batshit, bugfuck insane than freep that might have a copy of that testimony? I wouldn't trust those brain dead poo flinging monkey fucks to wipe their own asses, let alone quote Dee Snider correctly.
You call for censorship in the same post you blame people for censorship. I just thought that was funny. You are basically saying "ooh! those censors really make me mad! Let's have more censorship!" Are you blaming or praising, or does that depend on party affiliation?
Don't blame just the Republicans. As I recall, it was Al Gore and his wife who were leading the charge against Dee Snider and WASP not too long ago. I'm afraid this crosses party lines.
Besides, if you want to hear "fuck" on TV, get cable. So, what you are really trying to say is, we can thank Democrats like Al and Tipper for doing the right thing censoring evil curse-mongers like Dee Snider.
It's just a tempest of cognitive dissonance in that teacup of a mind of yours, isn't it?
"We know there'd prob'ly be no one in prison If rights to food clothes and shelter were given" --Boots Riley, The Coup, "I Love Boosters!" on Pick a Bigger Weapon
Which is more immoral or unethical? Buying or selling? I don't think it's always useful to make such distinctions. We in the west tend to apply reductionist thought patterns to systems analysis problems, and it doesn't work. We can't just pick an arbitrary point in a system and say, "that's our problem, right there!" We need to look at patterns & feedback loops.
In this case, you choose to isolate and morally condemn the demand side of the equation as if it had no interaction with the supply side. The idea that everyone is solely responsible for their actions is only true in a vacuum. Being solely responsible for ones actions implies that no outside force could cause one to deviate from some completely internal compass. Which implies that no one could ever learn from experience.
If one can in fact learn from experience, then certain experiences can change our internal compass. Think for a moment, what would a person raised in a blank box with no outside stimulus be like? We are not individuals. We are amalgams of genes we didn't choose to be born with interacting with experiences we never chose to have.
The rush to assign blame is counterproductive. It ignores the fact that all causes themselves have causes. It is not enough to point fingers, saying "There's your problem!" and think you've solved anything. Punishing people for buying from spammers is a ludicrous solution. I mean, come on, we've been trying that approach to addictions since prohibition, and it has never, ever worked.
It is valid to focus on the purchasing end of things. Just don't jump right into the blame and punishment game. Look at what has actually worked to reduce addictive behaviors: education. Instead of punishing spam-buyers like we punish drug-addicts, why not spend that same money to educate people? It has worked wonders for tobacco addiction.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, but he is not talking comparison so much as absolute performance. Operating systems take too long to boot, period. The mouse pointer on a modern desktop should never, ever lag. Media players should never stutter and skip. Applications shouldn't take five seconds to switch. We have the CPU horsepower for that.
Yes, but if someone says the sky is pink, and you say, "Nuh uh! A Panda eats shoots and leaves!" then you are both idiots. So, to make the analogy clear, when a disgruntled kernel hacker says that the Linux kernel has performance problems on the desktop, and Slashdot posters say it is easy to use, they are idiots.
There are two kinds of monopolies, artificial and natural. Artificial monopolies exist due to government regulation backed up by the threat of force, or by collusion between ostensible competitors. Natural monopolies exist where two or more competing firms in an industry would be less efficient than one. Like roads, electricity, or piped water. Who wants to be the second guy to lay water pipes in a suburb?
In libertarian theory, there is a cap on these monopolies ability to overprice goods. People will start finding alternatives if the price gets too high. And collusion between companies simply allows another company to enter the market and undercut the entrenched players.
In reality, there is still inefficiency when monopolies exist. The monopoly could be happy selling for much less, instead, they are taking nearly all the extra value created in the trade. This is not in the best interests of the largest number of people. Collusion is possible due to economic coercion. Not all force comes from a gun, entrenched players can buy up all supplies, or agree to all undercut a competitor until they are out of business. Or they can bribe a competitor to join their oligopoly.
The executive washroom is a logic-free zone.
But that's impossible! The free market for executive labor ensures that only the absolute best and brightest ever make it to executive positions. I mean, come one! There's no government interference in the executive salary market, so it has to be working perfectly. We all know that the only time markets fail to be the closest solution to God-like perfection is when government interferes. Therefore, these executives are making all the right decisions, based solely on their undying love for their shareholders, rather than shortsighted greed and cronyism.
Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Great. Now I have this picture in my head of a horde of barbarian dorks, as if one had crossed the cast of the "What's in your wallet?" commercials with the stars of "Revenge of the Nerds." Chainmail pocket protectors. Helmets with horn-rim glasses. Slide rules in scabbards. Run away! Run away!
Note too that much of the work being done in open source these days comes from companies like IBM, Redhat, and Novell, not from Joe Q. Randomhacker. These companies see the server market as the largest, most profitable Linux market. That's where their throwing their development dollars. Hey, here's an idea: why not make desktop distribution without all that enterprise crap in the kernel?
let's just nip this little tangent in the bud, shall we? he's saying the Linux kernel is so bloated with enterprise level crap, and is so optimized for the server role, that it performs poorly on the desktop.
It's the worldwide system of intermodal freight transport using ISO standard containers. It revolutionized shipping starting in the mid 1950s. You wouldn't be buying cheap Chinese crap at Wal-Mart without it. Perhaps the authors are trying to play on this connotation?
You don't understand anarchism. Before anyone had coined the term "Libertarian" there were anarchists. All anarchists believe that government exists to prevent coercion. Libertarians are a branch of individualist anarchism, believers in strong property rights. Some anarchists are social anarchists and believe that private real estate is theft. We call it coercion when you fence off land that everyone could use, call it your own, and shoot people for trespass. We call it coercion when you buy up all the land and prevent the landless from growing food for themselves so you can make them work for you.
Libertarians want government. They want a government police force to keep their legally purchased slaves in line, and to keep the desperate starving masses from 'stealing' their land.
I suppose you think when someone claims to be able to eat a horse, they actually have the capacity to devour an entire equine. Relax, it's a figure of speech.
Well how do you know it was paid for? Everyone always assumes that any commercial product mentioned here must have been paid for.
Games, like other art forms, follow the characteristics laid out in Aristotle's Poetics. Specifically, games raise and lower dramatic tension by posing and answering questions. Ebert misunderstands the basis of art. It is as if I were to say that paintings and theater both can't be art, because their characteristics are so different. Yet paintings too ask and answer questions. We even talk about tension and motion in paintings. We say the eye is drawn this way or that. Why? Because the painting poses a question with it's structure that makes you want to look here as opposed to there. I think dramatic tension is a key component of art. But then, looked at that way, sports are art too, because they raise and lower dramatic tension the same way.
Well, that's fair. But I do like hearing about new gadgets as well. Even crap from Sony. Perhaps we could have a category for gadgets, and anyone who doesn't want to see slashvertisements can just choose not to show that category on the home page.
I mean, people here whine as if Slashdot has turned into the "Popular Science" of the Internet. Sure, I don't want to see blurbs written by PR flaks, like this one obviously was. But I still want to see cool new hardware.
This is a tech site. Techies are interested in new technology. New technology is sold, not given away. Is Slashdot simply not supposed to mention any new technology? What is the difference between a "Slashvertisement" and an interesting story about new technology?
You two are arguing different things. There is old school, Diogenes and the Lamp style cynicism, then there is the common modern understanding of the term, which is more akin to a dumbed down version of nihilism. A cynic of the old school does not believe or disbelieve anything, but they suppose a lot. The GP post was talking about that style of cynicism. You are attacking the other style.
There is no meaning to life other than the meaning we arbitrarily choose to give it. Why does that make some people so sad? It makes me very, very happy. If there were an absolute meaning, and that meaning did not include love, hope, trust and loyalty (oh, say Satan created this place just to fuck with us) then those concepts would be meaningless. If we create all meaning, then we can give meaning to love, hope, trust and loyalty.
If all transactions were voluntary, marketing and advertising would not exist. People can be persuaded to buy things they don't need and that will not fulfill the need they are seeking to fulfill with the purchase. As long as people can be fooled this way, a free market is an illusion.
You've not mentioned the problems with market failure. There are conditions under which the market will fail to allocate resources correctly. Natural monopolies exist without government regulation. There are industries where one firm can provide the desired output at a lower social cost than two or more competing firms. Roads, piped water, & electricity are three good examples.
Imbalance of information exists when the buyer or seller knows more about the good than the other. The used car market is a good example. Sellers know more than buyers, so buyers must assume that sellers lie. Buyers underbid, driving the better sellers out of the market, exacerbating the problem.
Externalities are a major problem. I've not yet heard a credible theory for dealing with externalities in a strictly unregulated market. How do you deal with pollution?
I'm no English major. I'm a comp/sci major. In my early twenties I was a hard core anarcho-syndicalist organizing for the IWW. No economics background except self study. As people on the Internet continue to say ridiculous things about economics, I've decided to educate myself enough to show the problems in their thinking. I will read the books you mention. I've yet to be convinced by any pro-free market propaganda I've read, but maybe I just haven't read the right book yet.
I have been swayed, mind you. I've gone from being strictly anti-free market to acknowledging that the free market is a useful tool for maximizing human freedom and contentment in certain circumstances. But I can not wrap my head around the idea that the free market can not be manipulated in ways the free market itself can not defend against. If true, that would put the free market in a category by itself.
Really though, the free market is not my major problem with our current system. My problem is with ownership of natural resources. I'm not a communist, I think people's personal property should be protected. But no one owned these natural resources at first, and we all could use them. Then someone came along and said, "I own this. Stay off!" before they even started working the resource. How is that fair? Resources should be democratically controlled.
Funny you should mention "the invisible hand." Adam Smith himself admitted that a free market needs regulation to stay free. Your opinions, the opinions of the Rothbard and Mises Institute, and even to some extent Friedman's opinions are not considered mainstream economics. I wouldn't put them in the same league as say, global warming deniers or electric universe proponents, but the majority do not agree with their conclusions. Even Adam Smith disagrees with you. For instance, in this lovely quote from Wealth of Nations The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation. Hmm, sounds almost Marxist!
Yeah, that is the problem. People are hypocrites.
You are making sense. In fact, in that last paragraph you've hit the nail on the head. "Rationality and the ability to become human," that's a great turn of phrase. And it points out another problem with the "That decision can only come from within," line. We don't have a choice as to whether we're exposed to that kind of stimulus growing up. We don't have a choice about whether we have the experiences necessary to become human. We all need guidance, up to the point where we have the set of experiences necessary to truly guide ourselves.
What do you think "Tend to" means? Does it mean everyone does it, all the time? No, it does not. Moreover, in trying to be clever, you have mistaken reductionism with generalization, which is what I was doing. It's a generalization I stand behind, like saying men tend to be taller than women. Does that mean every man is taller than every women? I probably have to spell this out for you so, no, it does not. Go back to digg.
As the airwaves are a public good, the American public, in all it's collective genius, is free to set whatever restrictions it feels like when granting artificial monopolies on their use. Meaning, if the majority feels as you do, that is the standard to which broadcast TV should adhere. But if the majority wants to watch people swear a blue streak, then YOU are then one with the right to pay for the privilege of clean TV on cable. As we do not live in a dictatorship, you don't get to decide all on your own how we collectively use our airwaves.
Isn't there someplace a little less batshit, bugfuck insane than freep that might have a copy of that testimony? I wouldn't trust those brain dead poo flinging monkey fucks to wipe their own asses, let alone quote Dee Snider correctly.
You call for censorship in the same post you blame people for censorship. I just thought that was funny. You are basically saying "ooh! those censors really make me mad! Let's have more censorship!" Are you blaming or praising, or does that depend on party affiliation?
Besides, if you want to hear "fuck" on TV, get cable. So, what you are really trying to say is, we can thank Democrats like Al and Tipper for doing the right thing censoring evil curse-mongers like Dee Snider.
It's just a tempest of cognitive dissonance in that teacup of a mind of yours, isn't it?
"We know there'd prob'ly be no one in prison
If rights to food clothes and shelter were given"
--Boots Riley, The Coup, "I Love Boosters!" on Pick a Bigger Weapon
In this case, you choose to isolate and morally condemn the demand side of the equation as if it had no interaction with the supply side. The idea that everyone is solely responsible for their actions is only true in a vacuum. Being solely responsible for ones actions implies that no outside force could cause one to deviate from some completely internal compass. Which implies that no one could ever learn from experience.
If one can in fact learn from experience, then certain experiences can change our internal compass. Think for a moment, what would a person raised in a blank box with no outside stimulus be like? We are not individuals. We are amalgams of genes we didn't choose to be born with interacting with experiences we never chose to have.
The rush to assign blame is counterproductive. It ignores the fact that all causes themselves have causes. It is not enough to point fingers, saying "There's your problem!" and think you've solved anything. Punishing people for buying from spammers is a ludicrous solution. I mean, come on, we've been trying that approach to addictions since prohibition, and it has never, ever worked.
It is valid to focus on the purchasing end of things. Just don't jump right into the blame and punishment game. Look at what has actually worked to reduce addictive behaviors: education. Instead of punishing spam-buyers like we punish drug-addicts, why not spend that same money to educate people? It has worked wonders for tobacco addiction.