Nah, I think I'll organize with my fellow workers and we will demand our rights be respected. If the boss doesn't like it, we will do one of the following:
Work to rule: follow every little inane rule the management sets, causing immense slowdowns. Slowdown: Work at a speed proprtional to the pay and respect given. Sickout: Everyone calls in sick. Strike: Picket and don't work. Sabotage: if they try to strike-break, throw them a monkey wrench. Boost: If they won't pay you enough, take what you are due whether they like it or not.
If the boss doesn't respect you, why should you respect him? If the rules are set up to oppress you, why should you follow them? The workers make everything of value in the world. Bosses are leaches who provide nothing of value. Workers are not idiots and could probably run the business better than the boss on his best day. Put the leaches in their place.
You did a good job. If you read my posts, you'll see that I take every opportunity to point out the inherent injustice of our free market system, founded as it is on the ideas that humans are selfish and logical. Neither of which is entirely true. And while the free market sysetm does not encourage logic, focused as it is on short term gains, it does encourage selfishness. Most people are not naturally selfish, but they will resort to it if they feel taken advantage of.
Competition itself is also inherently inefficient, which is why you never see large corporations organized as a system of competing business units. Internally, all businesses are cooperative. Competition destroys intrinsic motivation, substituting the fear of death as a motivator. Intrinsic motivations to do what one loves are always more powerful. Competition is inherently inefficient, by duplicating effort that could be shared. If there is a best way to do something, shouldn't all businesses be doing it that way?
I am speaking of competition in the form where some must lose in order for others to win. That is inherently inefficient. Conflict, on the other hand, is good. Resolving conflict leads to more efficient solutions. When the rights of the minority group are protected, democracy and debate are excellent tools for resolving conflict.
The first step towards change is acknowledging that you need to change. Do you believe the strong should take advantage of the weak? If so, we have nothing further to discuss. If not, then you acknowledge that we need to change. Our system isn't terrible, it does have some protections for the weak. But it could be better.
Networks of cooperatively owned and run businesses operating in a regulated free market with garaunteed access to basic necessities through a social safety net and a cap on both earnings and ownership would work better. Cooperative ownership and management leads to higher productivity by workers that actually have a stake in their business. The free market needs regulation to stay free, given that it fails in the case of monopoly, imbalance of information, and externalities. If people felt they would be taken care of, no matter what, they would be free to let go of jobs that were no longer necessary or useful to society instead of hanging on tooth and nail through manipulation of markets and governments. A cap on earnings and ownership would prevent the runaway feedback loop of concentration of wealth. No one is worth millions of times more to society than any other, so society should not reward them that way.
Wow, so everyone can be a master, and no one has to be a slave? Uh, how's that work? I hear this line a lot from people who don't know what it's like to struggle your whole life and never get anywhere. The rags-to-riches story is a myth that people who have benefited from the injustices of the system tell themselves to reduce their feelings of guilt.
Oh, I like the editors. I've been here forever, and I'm not gonna leave anytime soon. I like to tweak the editors now and then. It's just a Troll Thursday thing.;)
Uh, read the wikipedia entry. Or if you don't trust wiki, read the references listed therein. They are (or will be) using Xenon as an anaesthetic in Europe. It's not as inert as you might think.
If competition truly led to higher productivity, then large corporations would be internaly structured as redundant competing units. In reality, this has been tried and failed miserably. Our ability to cooperate is one thing that sets us apart from other animals.
Everyone says the free market leads to freedom. It seems to lead to people having to shut the hell up or not eat, to me. Wage slavery is still slavery. No matter that you are free to pick your master, if you can't speak your mind or do what you want with your time and resources, you are a slave.
I would love to see an MMO with elements of Civilization, Sim City, The Sims, and RPGs. It would use a first person interface, have plenty of Sim like NPCs to interact with, and if you achieved positions of power and influence, you could influence city and nation building. Hehe, you could even have a "Politician" class. Wouldn't that be fun, playing a level 40 Politician or Civil Engineer?
Real property, not personal property. Real estate. It is maintained by coercive force. Fencing off land anyone could use to support themselves and saying, "This is mine. I know you used to eat these apples, but they're my apples now. If you want apples you are going to have to pay me. You don't have any money? Well, I happen to have a job available, picking apples! If you pick enough apples, I will pay you enough that you can afford to buy back a few of the apples you picked. Sounds fair, right?"
We agree at a basic level about where rights derive from: the willingness of others to uphold those rights. Rights are simply a matter of contract: I agree to uphold the right in others, in exchange for them upholding it in me. I hear the "Natural Rights" argument so much, I tend to refute it as a matter of course. The argument is simply an appeal to authority with no logical backing.
While I'm certainly glad that your father found the success he did, the fact is that rags-to-riches anecdotes like this are the exception, not the rule. Most people are unable to rise above the position and options that society sets out for them. Recent studies show that upward mobility for the truly poor is almost non-existent in America. On average, it takes over ten generations for a poor family to rise to middle class.
I was using "you" in the generic sense. I was not claiming you had literally stolen your land! More that you had purchased stolen property. I also have less of a problem with personal ownerhsip of real estate that is actually being lived on, as opposed to things like forests, mines, grazing lands, etc. that are not even being worked by the real owners but by their employees. Think of it like this: if you buy a stolen bicycle, does that bicycle belong to you or the original owner? Land is the same, it was stolen originally and therefore all subsequent title to it is invalid as well.
You accuse me of sophistry, and then demonstrate it yourself. People are always "fundamentally free" in any regime. Even in a totalitarian state, you are free to do as you are told, or die. Same with a free market system that does not garauntee individuals access to the means of suporting themselves. You are free to do what you are told, or die. You may have a choice of who you are told what to do by, unless you sign that right away as part of your "employment" contract. There is no historical precedent that would lead me to trust that the owning class will not collude to keep the poor in wage-slavery.
You can make the claim that the free market will always correct this, but I have seen absolutely no evidence this is true. The labor market is an inherently unfair and inefficient market, for the same reason the market in used cars is inherently unfair and inefficient. there is an imbalance of information regarding quality that leads to a lower than fair price for either labor or used cars. There is also a surplus of labor, we need fewer and fewer people to support everyone. When there is a surplus, prices drop.
The free market system has flaws and weaknesses. First, it gains it's flexibility by allowing individuals to suffer instead of the system absorbing the risk. When too many individuals enter a market, some of them will fail and it won't necessarily be the ones who provide the worst product or service. In fact, they will tend to fail before the people who are good at marketing, a field that provides absolutely nothing of value to humanity. In a planned economy, the economy as a whole suffers when bad decisions like this are made. In our system, individuals do. Given that the individuals who most deserve to fail often don't, is one system really better than the other?
If a particular system gives 10% economic growth but 99% of the created welath goes to 1% of the population, is that really better than a system that provide 5% growth but distributes it equitably? Equitably, not equally. I believe exellence should be rewarded. In any case, I don't think history is as clear as you make it out to be. You must understand that systems such as I advocate have been attacked tootha nd nail by those benefiting from maintaining the status quo. Perhaps that fact has more to do with their failure than any real inefficiencies. One major reason that the Societ Union failed, for instance, is that we tricked them into bankupting themselves in a futile arms race they couldn't hope to win.
One more problem I have with the free market is taht it is entirely reactive and prone to getting stuck in local maximums,
I think you are right, and I think there is another aspect involved, the social aspect. This is one reason that any new sport will have a tough time attracting an audience. As the audience itself is part of the draw, if you don't have one, you'll have a tough time getting one. Watching sports gives you something to talk about. Watching sports with friends is a fun social bonding experience. Going to a game gives people that comforting "I'm an accepted part of the herd" feeling.
There's another, more reliable full body orgasm drug, or so I've heard, I've never tried it. It's perfectly legal but expensive. Xenon gas. Mix it 1 to 5 with pure oxygen. Inhale deeply and you'll get a full body orgasm for as long as you can hold your breath, which should be at least five minutes since you are breathing 80% pure oxygen. It still works out to about $20 a hit, though. Again, I got this all second hand, so take it with a grain of salt, although wikipedia does claim it can be used as a general anaesthetic.
Honestly, since it wasn't what any of us were expecting, it wasn't that fun. After about 15 minutes it was kind of scary. She was just kind of moaning and writhing about. She had a big smile on her face so we weren't too scared. After she regained consciousness she said it was absoulutely awesome. The rest of us were kind of jealous.
What are you, some kind of commie, pinko, free-market hating anti-American scumbags? This is the free market we're talking about, it's power is Divine and it can do no wrong. Sharing things is bad, we should be charging for everything. I mean, if these Avian Virus samples aren't privately owned, we might be facing the dreaded Tragedy of the Commons here! Sharing of scientific data is socialism, plain and simple, and it goes against everything America stands for: profit at the expense of all else.
Seriously, though, I wonder how long it wil be before some misguided Libertarian offers up a serious excuse as to why this is a good thing. I can't wait, it's been a while since I've seen a good contortionist show.
There are multiple definitions of the "complete sequence of the human genome". According to some of these definitions, the genome has already been completely sequenced, and according to other definitions, the genome has yet to be completely sequenced. There have been multiple popular press articles reporting that the genome was "complete." The genome has been completely sequenced using the defintion employed by the International Human Genome Project. A graphical history of the human genome project shows that most of the human genome was complete by the end of 2003. However, there are a number of regions of the human genome that can be considered unfinished. First, the central regions of each chromosome, known as centromeres, are highly repetitive DNA sequences that are difficult to sequence using current technology. The centromeres are millions (possibly tens of millions) of base pairs long, and for the most part these are entirely unsequenced. Second, the ends of the chromosomes, called telomeres, are also highly repetitive, and for most of the 46 chromosome ends these too are incomplete. We do not know precisely how much sequence remains before we reach the telomeres of each chromosome, but as with the centromeres, current technology does not make it easy to get there. Third, there are several loci in each individual's genome that contain members of multigene families that are difficult to disentangle with shotgun sequencing methodologies - these multigene families often encode proteins important for immune functions. It is likely that the centromeres and telomeres will remain unsequenced until new technology is developed that facilitates their sequencing. Other than these regions, there remain a few dozen gaps scattered around the genome, some of them rather large, but there is hope that all these will be closed in the next couple of years. In summary: our best estimates of total genome size indicate that we have completed about 92% of the genome. Most of the remaining DNA is highly repetitive and unlikely to contain genes, but we cannot truly know until we sequence all of it. Understanding the functions of all the genes and their regulation is far from complete. The roles of junk DNA, the evolution of the genome, the differences between individuals, and many other questions are still the subject of intense study by laboratories all over the world.
I love Kevin Smith, but am I the only one who thinks every line of dialogue in his movies sounds like something Kevin Smith would say? I watch his movies, and even as I'm laughing my ass off, I can't help but be reminded of the scene in Being John Malkovitch where John goes inside his own head. To me, the dialogue sounds like this:
Kevin: "Kevin Smith? Kevin smith kevin smith!" Mr. Smith: "Kevin kevin smith smith, kevin smith kevin smith." Kevin: "Smith, kevin. Smith kevin smith smith kevin kevin smith."
One woman I saw take it had an unusually good reaction. What should have been a 10-20 minute trip turned into an hour long, full-body orgasm. Or at least that's what it looked and sounded like. Another guy I knew took it and thought he had died. He was incredibly depressed because he thought this was the afterlife and it was exactly like his real life. It took him a month to get over it. I took too much once and stood on my thumbs for half an hour. They still aren't the same. You used to (c. 2001) be able to legally buy 5MeO on the web, don't know if you still can. Both of them need to be smoked or snorted, they break down in the stomache unless you take an MAOI with them, in which case the effects last hours, not minutes.
Seriously, though, even experienced users of hallucinogens should aproach these two drugs with EXTREME caution.
How about "Some moves towards linux by Europe" or "Europe makes some moves towards linux." These capture the essence of the original without being confusing. However, they are still kind of dumb. The concept is that more people or agencies in europe have been using Linux. "Moves towards" isn't the best way of poutting this. "More Agencies in Europe Adopt Linux" or "Linux Usage Rising in Europe" would have been much better.
"Some Lazy Editor Moves Towards Cheetos." Why do I suspect that these guys really just want to sit on their asses all day playing video games while the money pours in and they do as little as possible? I know the submitter probably wrote the headline, but that's what editors are for: editing.
I feel like the editors resent everything they actually have to do, like they are some kind of royalty and we are the peasants whose duty it is to support them. Hmm, I wonder if slashdot editors get Primae Noctis rights?
Acid is for wimps. If you really want to see light dance, you want N,N-DMT or 5MeO-DMT. There is also no way to stop it from utterly demolishing your ego, so ego based people should NOT try it.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, I think I'll organize with my fellow workers and we will demand our rights be respected. If the boss doesn't like it, we will do one of the following:
Work to rule: follow every little inane rule the management sets, causing immense slowdowns.
Slowdown: Work at a speed proprtional to the pay and respect given.
Sickout: Everyone calls in sick.
Strike: Picket and don't work.
Sabotage: if they try to strike-break, throw them a monkey wrench.
Boost: If they won't pay you enough, take what you are due whether they like it or not.
If the boss doesn't respect you, why should you respect him? If the rules are set up to oppress you, why should you follow them? The workers make everything of value in the world. Bosses are leaches who provide nothing of value. Workers are not idiots and could probably run the business better than the boss on his best day. Put the leaches in their place.
You did a good job. If you read my posts, you'll see that I take every opportunity to point out the inherent injustice of our free market system, founded as it is on the ideas that humans are selfish and logical. Neither of which is entirely true. And while the free market sysetm does not encourage logic, focused as it is on short term gains, it does encourage selfishness. Most people are not naturally selfish, but they will resort to it if they feel taken advantage of.
Competition itself is also inherently inefficient, which is why you never see large corporations organized as a system of competing business units. Internally, all businesses are cooperative. Competition destroys intrinsic motivation, substituting the fear of death as a motivator. Intrinsic motivations to do what one loves are always more powerful. Competition is inherently inefficient, by duplicating effort that could be shared. If there is a best way to do something, shouldn't all businesses be doing it that way?
I am speaking of competition in the form where some must lose in order for others to win. That is inherently inefficient. Conflict, on the other hand, is good. Resolving conflict leads to more efficient solutions. When the rights of the minority group are protected, democracy and debate are excellent tools for resolving conflict.
The first step towards change is acknowledging that you need to change. Do you believe the strong should take advantage of the weak? If so, we have nothing further to discuss. If not, then you acknowledge that we need to change. Our system isn't terrible, it does have some protections for the weak. But it could be better.
Networks of cooperatively owned and run businesses operating in a regulated free market with garaunteed access to basic necessities through a social safety net and a cap on both earnings and ownership would work better. Cooperative ownership and management leads to higher productivity by workers that actually have a stake in their business. The free market needs regulation to stay free, given that it fails in the case of monopoly, imbalance of information, and externalities. If people felt they would be taken care of, no matter what, they would be free to let go of jobs that were no longer necessary or useful to society instead of hanging on tooth and nail through manipulation of markets and governments. A cap on earnings and ownership would prevent the runaway feedback loop of concentration of wealth. No one is worth millions of times more to society than any other, so society should not reward them that way.
Wow, so everyone can be a master, and no one has to be a slave? Uh, how's that work? I hear this line a lot from people who don't know what it's like to struggle your whole life and never get anywhere. The rags-to-riches story is a myth that people who have benefited from the injustices of the system tell themselves to reduce their feelings of guilt.
Oh, I like the editors. I've been here forever, and I'm not gonna leave anytime soon. I like to tweak the editors now and then. It's just a Troll Thursday thing. ;)
You know that was sarcasm, right?
Uh, read the wikipedia entry. Or if you don't trust wiki, read the references listed therein. They are (or will be) using Xenon as an anaesthetic in Europe. It's not as inert as you might think.
If competition truly led to higher productivity, then large corporations would be internaly structured as redundant competing units. In reality, this has been tried and failed miserably. Our ability to cooperate is one thing that sets us apart from other animals.
Everyone says the free market leads to freedom. It seems to lead to people having to shut the hell up or not eat, to me. Wage slavery is still slavery. No matter that you are free to pick your master, if you can't speak your mind or do what you want with your time and resources, you are a slave.
I would love to see an MMO with elements of Civilization, Sim City, The Sims, and RPGs. It would use a first person interface, have plenty of Sim like NPCs to interact with, and if you achieved positions of power and influence, you could influence city and nation building. Hehe, you could even have a "Politician" class. Wouldn't that be fun, playing a level 40 Politician or Civil Engineer?
Ook. Maybe I need to rethink this...
Real property, not personal property. Real estate. It is maintained by coercive force. Fencing off land anyone could use to support themselves and saying, "This is mine. I know you used to eat these apples, but they're my apples now. If you want apples you are going to have to pay me. You don't have any money? Well, I happen to have a job available, picking apples! If you pick enough apples, I will pay you enough that you can afford to buy back a few of the apples you picked. Sounds fair, right?"
We agree at a basic level about where rights derive from: the willingness of others to uphold those rights. Rights are simply a matter of contract: I agree to uphold the right in others, in exchange for them upholding it in me. I hear the "Natural Rights" argument so much, I tend to refute it as a matter of course. The argument is simply an appeal to authority with no logical backing.
While I'm certainly glad that your father found the success he did, the fact is that rags-to-riches anecdotes like this are the exception, not the rule. Most people are unable to rise above the position and options that society sets out for them. Recent studies show that upward mobility for the truly poor is almost non-existent in America. On average, it takes over ten generations for a poor family to rise to middle class.
I was using "you" in the generic sense. I was not claiming you had literally stolen your land! More that you had purchased stolen property. I also have less of a problem with personal ownerhsip of real estate that is actually being lived on, as opposed to things like forests, mines, grazing lands, etc. that are not even being worked by the real owners but by their employees. Think of it like this: if you buy a stolen bicycle, does that bicycle belong to you or the original owner? Land is the same, it was stolen originally and therefore all subsequent title to it is invalid as well.
You accuse me of sophistry, and then demonstrate it yourself. People are always "fundamentally free" in any regime. Even in a totalitarian state, you are free to do as you are told, or die. Same with a free market system that does not garauntee individuals access to the means of suporting themselves. You are free to do what you are told, or die. You may have a choice of who you are told what to do by, unless you sign that right away as part of your "employment" contract. There is no historical precedent that would lead me to trust that the owning class will not collude to keep the poor in wage-slavery.
You can make the claim that the free market will always correct this, but I have seen absolutely no evidence this is true. The labor market is an inherently unfair and inefficient market, for the same reason the market in used cars is inherently unfair and inefficient. there is an imbalance of information regarding quality that leads to a lower than fair price for either labor or used cars. There is also a surplus of labor, we need fewer and fewer people to support everyone. When there is a surplus, prices drop.
The free market system has flaws and weaknesses. First, it gains it's flexibility by allowing individuals to suffer instead of the system absorbing the risk. When too many individuals enter a market, some of them will fail and it won't necessarily be the ones who provide the worst product or service. In fact, they will tend to fail before the people who are good at marketing, a field that provides absolutely nothing of value to humanity. In a planned economy, the economy as a whole suffers when bad decisions like this are made. In our system, individuals do. Given that the individuals who most deserve to fail often don't, is one system really better than the other?
If a particular system gives 10% economic growth but 99% of the created welath goes to 1% of the population, is that really better than a system that provide 5% growth but distributes it equitably? Equitably, not equally. I believe exellence should be rewarded. In any case, I don't think history is as clear as you make it out to be. You must understand that systems such as I advocate have been attacked tootha nd nail by those benefiting from maintaining the status quo. Perhaps that fact has more to do with their failure than any real inefficiencies. One major reason that the Societ Union failed, for instance, is that we tricked them into bankupting themselves in a futile arms race they couldn't hope to win.
One more problem I have with the free market is taht it is entirely reactive and prone to getting stuck in local maximums,
Yeah, I was pretty sure the guy was pulling my leg. I never tried it so I don't know.
I think you are right, and I think there is another aspect involved, the social aspect. This is one reason that any new sport will have a tough time attracting an audience. As the audience itself is part of the draw, if you don't have one, you'll have a tough time getting one. Watching sports gives you something to talk about. Watching sports with friends is a fun social bonding experience. Going to a game gives people that comforting "I'm an accepted part of the herd" feeling.
There's another, more reliable full body orgasm drug, or so I've heard, I've never tried it. It's perfectly legal but expensive. Xenon gas. Mix it 1 to 5 with pure oxygen. Inhale deeply and you'll get a full body orgasm for as long as you can hold your breath, which should be at least five minutes since you are breathing 80% pure oxygen. It still works out to about $20 a hit, though. Again, I got this all second hand, so take it with a grain of salt, although wikipedia does claim it can be used as a general anaesthetic.
any artificial monopolies such as copyrights and patents are obstacles to a free market.
And ownership of real property isn't an artificial monopoly?
Honestly, since it wasn't what any of us were expecting, it wasn't that fun. After about 15 minutes it was kind of scary. She was just kind of moaning and writhing about. She had a big smile on her face so we weren't too scared. After she regained consciousness she said it was absoulutely awesome. The rest of us were kind of jealous.
What are you, some kind of commie, pinko, free-market hating anti-American scumbags? This is the free market we're talking about, it's power is Divine and it can do no wrong. Sharing things is bad, we should be charging for everything. I mean, if these Avian Virus samples aren't privately owned, we might be facing the dreaded Tragedy of the Commons here! Sharing of scientific data is socialism, plain and simple, and it goes against everything America stands for: profit at the expense of all else.
Seriously, though, I wonder how long it wil be before some misguided Libertarian offers up a serious excuse as to why this is a good thing. I can't wait, it's been a while since I've seen a good contortionist show.
So you think we've sequenced the entire genome? By what definition of "entire?" Ever hear of centromeres and telomeres?
I think he meant chimp, not shrimp.
I love Kevin Smith, but am I the only one who thinks every line of dialogue in his movies sounds like something Kevin Smith would say? I watch his movies, and even as I'm laughing my ass off, I can't help but be reminded of the scene in Being John Malkovitch where John goes inside his own head. To me, the dialogue sounds like this:
Kevin: "Kevin Smith? Kevin smith kevin smith!"
Mr. Smith: "Kevin kevin smith smith, kevin smith kevin smith."
Kevin: "Smith, kevin. Smith kevin smith smith kevin kevin smith."
One woman I saw take it had an unusually good reaction. What should have been a 10-20 minute trip turned into an hour long, full-body orgasm. Or at least that's what it looked and sounded like. Another guy I knew took it and thought he had died. He was incredibly depressed because he thought this was the afterlife and it was exactly like his real life. It took him a month to get over it. I took too much once and stood on my thumbs for half an hour. They still aren't the same. You used to (c. 2001) be able to legally buy 5MeO on the web, don't know if you still can. Both of them need to be smoked or snorted, they break down in the stomache unless you take an MAOI with them, in which case the effects last hours, not minutes.
Seriously, though, even experienced users of hallucinogens should aproach these two drugs with EXTREME caution.
How about "Some moves towards linux by Europe" or "Europe makes some moves towards linux." These capture the essence of the original without being confusing. However, they are still kind of dumb. The concept is that more people or agencies in europe have been using Linux. "Moves towards" isn't the best way of poutting this. "More Agencies in Europe Adopt Linux" or "Linux Usage Rising in Europe" would have been much better.
"Some Lazy Editor Moves Towards Cheetos." Why do I suspect that these guys really just want to sit on their asses all day playing video games while the money pours in and they do as little as possible? I know the submitter probably wrote the headline, but that's what editors are for: editing.
I feel like the editors resent everything they actually have to do, like they are some kind of royalty and we are the peasants whose duty it is to support them. Hmm, I wonder if slashdot editors get Primae Noctis rights?
Acid is for wimps. If you really want to see light dance, you want N,N-DMT or 5MeO-DMT. There is also no way to stop it from utterly demolishing your ego, so ego based people should NOT try it.