this means that some of the worse Tory policies can be avoided.
They wouldn't be voted through anyway.
rather than simply voting against them, which risks a re-election.
Why do you consider the risk significant? What past historical evidence is there? What significant battles, such as those based on the ideological opposites of 1974, do you foresee?
What good is PR, if people like you are dead against the Lib Dems working with anyone?
The coalition is a very bad sort of "working with anyone". Agreements can be made over specific policy issues without creating a government which depends on Cameron's will being projected across two parties.
Labour and the Tories have enough in common today that they don't need to be sitting on the same side of the house for majority support on significant legislation. The LD's have been dragged into the same homogenising pot. Whether you agree with traditional LD policy or not, this is bad for British politics.
Or perhaps answer the question?;-) Unless you're parodying a classic politician "NO U" avoidance technique.
And to confirm that I'm happy to answer your question, but only briefly so as not to deflect from the original question: the LDs want a system of proportional representation. The Tories want a single member constituency system.
(The FPTP vs AV is a red herring: neither are systems of proportional representation. The proposed legislation, as well as shutting up those who aren't really paying attention, is just an excuse to continue the proud tradition of gerrymandering.)
Only by a very simplistic geek-like understanding of Parliament: "policies are decided by numbers of each Party". If that were the case then usual aim for majority government would mean we might as well just go straight to an automatic "yes" on every law the current government proposes and does not encounter immediate backbench rebellion to.
Laws aren't suddenly proposed and simultaneously voted on. LD involvement (esp. civil liberties, war) has been valuable in the past 13 years as providing the opposition stimulus for debate. The debate would result in one or more of: straight delay; an opportunity for the MPs to understand what they'd otherwise just wave through; bringing onside of Tory or rebel Labour MPs; watering down of otherwise offensive laws. We are now in a long-term wash-up period.
because it's been in their own manifesto for at least the last three elections
It's a running joke that every Labour manifesto involves contemplating PR after the next election. This isn't even PR.
I've seen a lot of hardline Labour supporters feigning fury at LD
Oh, don't be paranoid. I know this is the Internet but not everyone who disagrees with you has some covert agenda. "Astroturfer!!!"
"hypocrisy" for entering into a coalition that doesn't give them total control
Any control. The only LD "wins" are the Tories delivering what they'd promised before the election and were very likely to deliver.
The problem is that the LDs entered a coalition with the Tories. I'd add "without managing to effect significant policy change" but Cameron's too smart and his Party too powerful to have let that happen.
Clegg had the option to form agreements in the style of many Lib-Lab pacts through last century. Or he could have allowed a minority government, what with the zero evidence that a political landscape similar to today's would make such a government unworkable (again, 1974 was entirely different).
I wonder who grassroots LD supporters will flock to next election. If I suggested that this may be a long-term win for Labour, you'd accuse me of being a Labour lackey - but I think it's far too early to assert that.
You mean apart from a referendum on electoral reform which the Tories are staunchly opposed to
What are you talking about? The LD platform was for PR. AV is as bad or worse than FPTP from a proportionality point of view, and no-one really wants it so it's unlikely to receive significant support. (This will then be interpreted as no-one wanting PR.)
pretty much the entire section on civil liberties
Could you be more specific? Specify clearly what the Tories agreed to as a condition of coalition. Do not include what was already part of their election platform (or follows from it: e.g. fingerprints in passports).
and an increased threshold for the lowest tax bracket?
Again, please be more specific. If you're referring to personal allowance for under 65s, this is nothing groundbreaking. It's being held at £6475 for years ending 2010, 2011 then bumped by £1000 for year ending 2012 - compare Labour increasing by £1000 from 2007 to 2009. And it's been more than offset by reneging on the promise to reverse Labour's pending NIC increases.
No sizeable opposition in the sense of group of MPs who can and will act as opposition to the Government, not in the sense of few people sitting on the opposite side of the House. We currently have 28 non-Lib/Con and non-Lab MPs. The Tories are currently following Labour's lead (or vice versa if you look further back).
Except that the Party already agreed to a coalition in which essentially no major LD policy not already coinciding with Tory policy was demanded. The fact that LD backbenchers are still there implies that they have gone mysteriously limp will not give trouble to Cameron. I guess there's something about the theatre of power which makes a man strangely impotent.
We've only had one general election resulting in hung parliament minority government since WW2, and this was under the completely different circumstances of nearly equal and substantially ideologically opposing Con/Lab seats. Meanwhile the Lib-Lab pact of '77 wasn't even a coalition, and that required the Winter of Discontent two years later (and only a few months before the 5 year election term) to break down.
Clegg, whose views are very much at the Tory end of the LD spectrum, is enjoying his power trip at the expense of his Party's long term health and Parliament's ability to represent voters. This was the worst possible outcome. Even if a minority government collapsed and the following election mirrored the ~2.4% (IIRC) swing of October 1974, we wouldn't end up with a Tory majority - if that single previous election is to be used as evidence, as politicians and pundits have tried, it's been interpreted precisely oppositely to its relevant outcome.
To some extent. A Commons majority government is by definition over 50%. Your argument appears to be vacuous.
But there was still sizeable LD opposition to encourage debate (the lack of which resulted in the rushed DEA) and sway Tories and less-loyal Labour, particularly on civil liberties. The Tories even provided an opposition to Labour from time to time. So laws were carefully drafted and tweaked to render them less abusive.
For the first time since, well, quite a long time, we have no sizeable opposition in Parliament. It's either Government or Labour (who are even more authoritarian than the current lot).
All laws that the Government wants, the Government will get.
Well, I guess we have "Green" Caroline Lucas of Brighton Pavilion...
How do you explain hundreds of government projects that are epic failures
In England, much government IT work is outsourced. There's your first problem.
Second IME is that a government department's main missions are: (1) Preserve budget for next year; (2) PPP kickbacks; (3) Political fad-following for management reward.
Could it be that the value of the API you are writing doesn't justify the cost of having you and the Englishman sitting in a room in the US?
Occasionally so: I implied that some outsourcing demonstrates a degree of success. Western management currently tries to imply far greater success (lest they be outsourced too).
Exceptions to some assumed rule are good to begin picking apart prejudices.
In this case, what's important to observe is the lack of evidence that a competent, creative workforce can be formed when all people with not-high IQ are eliminated.
spiffmastercow has hinted at what might happen when you start making a habit of filling firms solely with people with high IQs. We don't know what is likely to happen until we have widespread evidence. All we can say for certain from spiffmastercow's post is that we can't assert that we'll have a bunch of creative geniuses all producing a continuous stream of brilliance.
Erm, okay. I assume you misinterpreted "division by race" rather obtusely as "existence of races" rather than discrimination due to race. But you're fairly wrong anyway: we're interbreeding more than ever; to the extent that distinct races can be defined, they're disappearing.
There are stupid people and smart people. It's a fact.
The error is fixing people on a line, or fixing people in any way by some small set of parameters. There's nothing wrong with asserting, say, "my daughter has severe mental retardation" (which is another way of saying "my daughter is stupid") or "Feynman, despite his low IQ score, was smart".
0/2. And simplistic attitudes as you've expressed emphasise the danger.
This is especially surprising because the average slashdotter is doing the same crap that the average developer in India is doing.
Everything built today is short-term throw-away crap, often because the cultural, organisational, specification and documentation requirements won't translate (and the people involved in outsourcing don't care anyway).
Try discussing a real-world requirement with a well-spoken Englishman who has lived in the same area as you and experienced the same social and workplace culture and worked with you in the company on similar projects, then try communicating it to a man living in India who has experienced none of the above. Sit down with that man in a quiet room and prepare, say, an API together; now do the same with Bob from Bangalore over MSN. If you don't experience/any/ barrier then your need is so simple you'd be better off spending the next hour fulfilling it yourself.
Outsourcing is often used because the guy who got the bonus from apparently saving money in the short term knows that he'll be long gone by the time the shit hits the fan. Sometimes it works really well, but just as often it's a cruel joke. Its essential premise is: let's move work to an area with a greater supply of desperate workers and fewer workers protections because that'd be cheaper. It assumes that saving, say, $500,000 on the salary line of the budget for some project is not going to be offset by the disadvantages of not having someone with a local understanding. Communication takes longer, requests are more likely to be misinterpreted, there is no link between robustness of output and long-term advancement of the worker so his code is likely to suffer worse engineering practice, etc.
In some cases (where IQ's much higher), the worker may come up with solutions radically faster.
Or mull around over-engineering. Or not make much difference because the IQ test didn't identify skills applicable to the problem.
Hence it makes sense to link pay to IQ (at the start) and pay to IQ and results as time passes.
Why don't we link pay to colour? And any other number of immutable measures of an individual which have some correlation with intellectual performance.
It has not escaped any youth's notice that certain races were once regarded as inherently intellectually inferior. Today we know this to be bullshit. But people were measured by their colour, and judged by their colour, and treated by their colour, and restricted by their colour. And all because they were born with a particular colour.
Now a new measurement grows: the IQ. People with low IQ are regarded as inherently intellectually inferior. People are measured by their IQ, and judged by their IQ, and treated by their IQ. Ultimately, they are restricted by their IQ. And all because they were born with a particular IQ.
In a century's time, the last vestiges of division by race may disappear in the West. We'll be divided instead by new irrelevant metrics which we have no hope of changing.
Then, in another century's time, we might realise that our measurements were not only cruel but also specious, and start over.
People are often gullible. Especially when they have led each other to believe that they are not.
For example, the guy described in the article has led/. to believe that he has managed independently to fool a heap of significant people in some way.
And, no, resting on your laurels is precisely the worst thing to do in such an environment. You are arguing that senior surgeons get lazy and start killing patients.
The fact that you tolerate and even support the government (any government) in its "security" operations is proof that you are also gullible.
Wait, what? I implied that the government employs a lot of damn smart people in security. I didn't say I tolerated or supported anything.
You pose a fair argument, but if it were true at all levels then wouldn't America be a heap of rubble right now? Trivial social engineering would allow even North Korea to dismantle US security.
The whole "government are humans just like you and I" seems vacuous. Yes they are, but people in significant security positions are humans with heightened acuity and a lot of training to protect them from trivial and non-trivial vulnerabilities (including social engineering hacks). The evidence is the very continued existence of the nation.
Not Fucking Up 101 incorporates not believing some random person on the Internet (or in real life) who says they have a particular position. It would also encompass not posting pictures of your location to the Internet.
So the question we really need to ask is not, "How could the military/government be so dumb?" but, "What connections do these researchers have with the government, and what are they actually trying to achieve with this theatre?"
It would be so enticing for the "hacker community" to believe the story because it inflates their already unwarrantedly large egos: we're just so much smarter than the average person at solving puzzles, right? The government surely only employs easily duped idiots - even in significant security positions - whereas we are geniuses operating from our basements.
Bullshit.
All we've learnt from this is that Robin isn't what Robin's page initially claimed she is. As for what's actually going on, independent evidence is appropriately lacking.
- Do nothing ensuring status quo and absolutely no chance to get voting system changed, guaranteeing a government that could get nothing done during one of the worst economic crisis in living memory.
You are spouting Tory election scaremongering rhetoric.
(1) What do you mean "status quo"? The Tories would have formed a minority government;
(2) We're already not getting PR, so we've gone from absolutely no chance to absolutely no chance. AV is as bad as or worse than FPTP;
(3) There have been several Lib-Lab pacts through the last century, some fairly stable, showing that it's quite possible to cooperate without forming a coalition. Regardless:
(a) Opposition's purpose isn't to just vote against any proposal to be awkward;
(b) The Tories were only a few seats short of a majority and the Commons isn't full of ideologically opposing MPs in an approximately equal number (as it was in 1974). Support will flow naturally.
And finally:
(4) The economic problem has been developing into an economic crisis over the past few years. We didn't just go from joy and surplus to a huge debt overnight. The Tories and LDs had the chance to raise hell over increasing debt at any moment over the past half decade but chose not to. Why do you think this is?
The only genius in this is Cameron, although self-interested Clegg made his job quite simple.
And there's nothing on any website that allows support for any laws - at least not on any government website.
Indeed. A working country should be governed first by laws which (i) protect the individual, subordinate to which are laws which (ii) the majority of people support.
Yet we've reached a stage where even the government wants to consider laws as the enemy of the people, and throwing a bone to the citizen consumer means offering to eliminate (i).
This is becoming one of those, "You're the one with extraordinary assertions - you provide extraordinary evidence." Main supporting factors include the closeness of the Tory government to majority, their significant lead over the next Party, the ideological similarity of the major Parties, and the agreement on the need to tackle economic issues. Main counterarguments include a single hung parliament in 1974 involving completely different circumstances.
Had the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats done nothing, Labour would simply have remained in power
"Done nothing" in the sense of stayed at home in bed or in the sense of trying and failing to come to a coalition agreement? Once the latter had been understood, Brown would probably have given the opportunity for Cameron to form a minority government.
they had to come to a resolution before the uncertainty caused a total collapse of the economy
Sorry, that's pathetic. The very idea that "the markets" (i.e. the combination of investors) were going to go on some sort of mission of self-destruction just because it wasn't clear whether Kodos or Kang was going to be sitting in a particular chair in the House of Commons is absurd and without evidence. The same scaremongery was part of the Tory election campaign which also warned against the very backroom deals used to form the current government.
Since WW2 before 2010 there have been three hung parliaments.
The relevant context is general elections resulting in hung parliaments (though perhaps I should have made that explicit - sorry). But if you want to add those two examples:
Callaghan formed a pact with the Liberals in early 1977. There was no formal coalition, instead policy delivery in return for support. Despite this, he maintained control until a no-confidence vote (majority of one) forced a general election two years later, only a few months before the five year term limit. To achieve this instability took:
The aftershock of the 1974 hung parliament - Labour started off with a majority of three and the Tories had a much closer numbe of seats (see previous post);
The not wholly enjoyable Winter of Discontent;
Major's slowly dwindling seats reached minority at the end of '96, near statutory election time and with no sign of disruption to government.
IOW, one count of government hanging on for years despite a slim to negative majority and the voting public being fairly dissatisfied, with an eventual Parliamentary finger despite a pact. And another count of no-one caring. Both in a political environment with less homogeneity.
Evidence continues to point to the coalition being unnecessary, the LDs being to the Tories as Britain was to America in Bush's 2003 war, and LD support being being way down low for a long fucking time.
And how long would have a minority government lasted?
If you want to say, "And I don't think a minority government would have lasted very long," then say so. What is your evidence that, on this occasion, a minority Tory government would have quickly disappeared? What Tory proposals are so controversial that being 20 seats short of majority and 49 ahead of the closest opposition would have rendered them impotent?
One doesn't go into an election planning to form an effective opposition, one goes in to form a government.
Nonsense - many have stood at an election with the purpose of opposing, and it's effective for tempering representatives of the major Parties. But if you're going in to win in a representative democracy then it's proper that you go in to win on your manifesto.
Absolute time is a poor indicator. You'd have to have been in the talks to know whether any further progress was possible.
Nonsense - time is always available as a tool in diplomacy. Until time has been exhausted by some set of appropriate measures, further efforts at negotiation are worthwhile.
And the general tendency in such circumstances
Since WW2 there has before 2010 been one hung parliament in the UK, the only hung parliament with a political map similar to today's. With 635 seats and 319 (a tiny majority) elected Labour in October 1974 from 301 in February, that's a 2.8% increase for Labour. Guess what a 2.8% increase for the Tories this year wouldn't have done?
Moreover, in February 1974 there was a difference of only four seats between Labour and Tory, and the ideologies of the Parties were far different vs today. The minority government of 1974 was inevitably unstable. The situation today is simply not comparable.
Slashdot Mirror
this means that some of the worse Tory policies can be avoided.
They wouldn't be voted through anyway.
rather than simply voting against them, which risks a re-election.
Why do you consider the risk significant? What past historical evidence is there? What significant battles, such as those based on the ideological opposites of 1974, do you foresee?
What good is PR, if people like you are dead against the Lib Dems working with anyone?
The coalition is a very bad sort of "working with anyone". Agreements can be made over specific policy issues without creating a government which depends on Cameron's will being projected across two parties.
Labour and the Tories have enough in common today that they don't need to be sitting on the same side of the house for majority support on significant legislation. The LD's have been dragged into the same homogenising pot. Whether you agree with traditional LD policy or not, this is bad for British politics.
I'd rather Lib Dems trying to work with the Tories, than Tories running a minority Government alone.
Why? What's worse about the Lib Dems having a free vote?
there's more chance for effective opposition in a hung Parliament,
As long as parties don't give up their principles for coalition.
Put it the other way round
Or perhaps answer the question? ;-) Unless you're parodying a classic politician "NO U" avoidance technique.
And to confirm that I'm happy to answer your question, but only briefly so as not to deflect from the original question: the LDs want a system of proportional representation. The Tories want a single member constituency system.
(The FPTP vs AV is a red herring: neither are systems of proportional representation. The proposed legislation, as well as shutting up those who aren't really paying attention, is just an excuse to continue the proud tradition of gerrymandering.)
it's always been a choice between Labour and Tory
Only by a very simplistic geek-like understanding of Parliament: "policies are decided by numbers of each Party". If that were the case then usual aim for majority government would mean we might as well just go straight to an automatic "yes" on every law the current government proposes and does not encounter immediate backbench rebellion to.
Laws aren't suddenly proposed and simultaneously voted on. LD involvement (esp. civil liberties, war) has been valuable in the past 13 years as providing the opposition stimulus for debate. The debate would result in one or more of: straight delay; an opportunity for the MPs to understand what they'd otherwise just wave through; bringing onside of Tory or rebel Labour MPs; watering down of otherwise offensive laws. We are now in a long-term wash-up period.
because it's been in their own manifesto for at least the last three elections
It's a running joke that every Labour manifesto involves contemplating PR after the next election. This isn't even PR.
I've seen a lot of hardline Labour supporters feigning fury at LD
Oh, don't be paranoid. I know this is the Internet but not everyone who disagrees with you has some covert agenda. "Astroturfer!!!"
"hypocrisy" for entering into a coalition that doesn't give them total control
Any control. The only LD "wins" are the Tories delivering what they'd promised before the election and were very likely to deliver.
The problem is that the LDs entered a coalition with the Tories. I'd add "without managing to effect significant policy change" but Cameron's too smart and his Party too powerful to have let that happen.
Clegg had the option to form agreements in the style of many Lib-Lab pacts through last century. Or he could have allowed a minority government, what with the zero evidence that a political landscape similar to today's would make such a government unworkable (again, 1974 was entirely different).
I wonder who grassroots LD supporters will flock to next election. If I suggested that this may be a long-term win for Labour, you'd accuse me of being a Labour lackey - but I think it's far too early to assert that.
You mean apart from a referendum on electoral reform which the Tories are staunchly opposed to
What are you talking about? The LD platform was for PR. AV is as bad or worse than FPTP from a proportionality point of view, and no-one really wants it so it's unlikely to receive significant support. (This will then be interpreted as no-one wanting PR.)
pretty much the entire section on civil liberties
Could you be more specific? Specify clearly what the Tories agreed to as a condition of coalition. Do not include what was already part of their election platform (or follows from it: e.g. fingerprints in passports).
and an increased threshold for the lowest tax bracket?
Again, please be more specific. If you're referring to personal allowance for under 65s, this is nothing groundbreaking. It's being held at £6475 for years ending 2010, 2011 then bumped by £1000 for year ending 2012 - compare Labour increasing by £1000 from 2007 to 2009. And it's been more than offset by reneging on the promise to reverse Labour's pending NIC increases.
No sizeable opposition in the sense of group of MPs who can and will act as opposition to the Government, not in the sense of few people sitting on the opposite side of the House. We currently have 28 non-Lib/Con and non-Lab MPs. The Tories are currently following Labour's lead (or vice versa if you look further back).
Except that the Party already agreed to a coalition in which essentially no major LD policy not already coinciding with Tory policy was demanded. The fact that LD backbenchers are still there implies that they have gone mysteriously limp will not give trouble to Cameron. I guess there's something about the theatre of power which makes a man strangely impotent.
We've only had one general election resulting in hung parliament minority government since WW2, and this was under the completely different circumstances of nearly equal and substantially ideologically opposing Con/Lab seats. Meanwhile the Lib-Lab pact of '77 wasn't even a coalition, and that required the Winter of Discontent two years later (and only a few months before the 5 year election term) to break down.
Clegg, whose views are very much at the Tory end of the LD spectrum, is enjoying his power trip at the expense of his Party's long term health and Parliament's ability to represent voters. This was the worst possible outcome. Even if a minority government collapsed and the following election mirrored the ~2.4% (IIRC) swing of October 1974, we wouldn't end up with a Tory majority - if that single previous election is to be used as evidence, as politicians and pundits have tried, it's been interpreted precisely oppositely to its relevant outcome.
Any law Labour wanted, they got
To some extent. A Commons majority government is by definition over 50%. Your argument appears to be vacuous.
But there was still sizeable LD opposition to encourage debate (the lack of which resulted in the rushed DEA) and sway Tories and less-loyal Labour, particularly on civil liberties. The Tories even provided an opposition to Labour from time to time. So laws were carefully drafted and tweaked to render them less abusive.
Now, we have.. Clegg's word?
248
288?
For the first time since, well, quite a long time, we have no sizeable opposition in Parliament. It's either Government or Labour (who are even more authoritarian than the current lot).
All laws that the Government wants, the Government will get.
Well, I guess we have "Green" Caroline Lucas of Brighton Pavilion...
How do you explain hundreds of government projects that are epic failures
In England, much government IT work is outsourced. There's your first problem.
Second IME is that a government department's main missions are:
(1) Preserve budget for next year;
(2) PPP kickbacks;
(3) Political fad-following for management reward.
Could it be that the value of the API you are writing doesn't justify the cost of having you and the Englishman sitting in a room in the US?
Occasionally so: I implied that some outsourcing demonstrates a degree of success. Western management currently tries to imply far greater success (lest they be outsourced too).
Exceptions to some assumed rule are good to begin picking apart prejudices.
In this case, what's important to observe is the lack of evidence that a competent, creative workforce can be formed when all people with not-high IQ are eliminated.
spiffmastercow has hinted at what might happen when you start making a habit of filling firms solely with people with high IQs. We don't know what is likely to happen until we have widespread evidence. All we can say for certain from spiffmastercow's post is that we can't assert that we'll have a bunch of creative geniuses all producing a continuous stream of brilliance.
Races will never disappear.
Erm, okay. I assume you misinterpreted "division by race" rather obtusely as "existence of races" rather than discrimination due to race. But you're fairly wrong anyway: we're interbreeding more than ever; to the extent that distinct races can be defined, they're disappearing.
There are stupid people and smart people. It's a fact.
The error is fixing people on a line, or fixing people in any way by some small set of parameters. There's nothing wrong with asserting, say, "my daughter has severe mental retardation" (which is another way of saying "my daughter is stupid") or "Feynman, despite his low IQ score, was smart".
0/2. And simplistic attitudes as you've expressed emphasise the danger.
This is especially surprising because the average slashdotter is doing the same crap that the average developer in India is doing.
Everything built today is short-term throw-away crap, often because the cultural, organisational, specification and documentation requirements won't translate (and the people involved in outsourcing don't care anyway).
Try discussing a real-world requirement with a well-spoken Englishman who has lived in the same area as you and experienced the same social and workplace culture and worked with you in the company on similar projects, then try communicating it to a man living in India who has experienced none of the above. Sit down with that man in a quiet room and prepare, say, an API together; now do the same with Bob from Bangalore over MSN. If you don't experience /any/ barrier then your need is so simple you'd be better off spending the next hour fulfilling it yourself.
Outsourcing is often used because the guy who got the bonus from apparently saving money in the short term knows that he'll be long gone by the time the shit hits the fan. Sometimes it works really well, but just as often it's a cruel joke. Its essential premise is: let's move work to an area with a greater supply of desperate workers and fewer workers protections because that'd be cheaper. It assumes that saving, say, $500,000 on the salary line of the budget for some project is not going to be offset by the disadvantages of not having someone with a local understanding. Communication takes longer, requests are more likely to be misinterpreted, there is no link between robustness of output and long-term advancement of the worker so his code is likely to suffer worse engineering practice, etc.
In some cases (where IQ's much higher), the worker may come up with solutions radically faster.
Or mull around over-engineering. Or not make much difference because the IQ test didn't identify skills applicable to the problem.
Hence it makes sense to link pay to IQ (at the start) and pay to IQ and results as time passes.
Why don't we link pay to colour? And any other number of immutable measures of an individual which have some correlation with intellectual performance.
It has not escaped any youth's notice that certain races were once regarded as inherently intellectually inferior. Today we know this to be bullshit. But people were measured by their colour, and judged by their colour, and treated by their colour, and restricted by their colour. And all because they were born with a particular colour.
Now a new measurement grows: the IQ. People with low IQ are regarded as inherently intellectually inferior. People are measured by their IQ, and judged by their IQ, and treated by their IQ. Ultimately, they are restricted by their IQ. And all because they were born with a particular IQ.
In a century's time, the last vestiges of division by race may disappear in the West. We'll be divided instead by new irrelevant metrics which we have no hope of changing.
Then, in another century's time, we might realise that our measurements were not only cruel but also specious, and start over.
So, who's next?
People are often gullible. Especially when they have led each other to believe that they are not.
For example, the guy described in the article has led /. to believe that he has managed independently to fool a heap of significant people in some way.
And, no, resting on your laurels is precisely the worst thing to do in such an environment. You are arguing that senior surgeons get lazy and start killing patients.
The fact that you tolerate and even support the government (any government) in its "security" operations is proof that you are also gullible.
Wait, what? I implied that the government employs a lot of damn smart people in security. I didn't say I tolerated or supported anything.
You pose a fair argument, but if it were true at all levels then wouldn't America be a heap of rubble right now? Trivial social engineering would allow even North Korea to dismantle US security.
The whole "government are humans just like you and I" seems vacuous. Yes they are, but people in significant security positions are humans with heightened acuity and a lot of training to protect them from trivial and non-trivial vulnerabilities (including social engineering hacks). The evidence is the very continued existence of the nation.
Not Fucking Up 101 incorporates not believing some random person on the Internet (or in real life) who says they have a particular position. It would also encompass not posting pictures of your location to the Internet.
So the question we really need to ask is not, "How could the military/government be so dumb?" but, "What connections do these researchers have with the government, and what are they actually trying to achieve with this theatre?"
It would be so enticing for the "hacker community" to believe the story because it inflates their already unwarrantedly large egos: we're just so much smarter than the average person at solving puzzles, right? The government surely only employs easily duped idiots - even in significant security positions - whereas we are geniuses operating from our basements.
Bullshit.
All we've learnt from this is that Robin isn't what Robin's page initially claimed she is. As for what's actually going on, independent evidence is appropriately lacking.
Sirs,
You have segued the OP with waggishness and gusto. My congratulations.
They're the guys overly fussy about protecting their intellectual property in genetic modification, right?
Yes yes, all those flaps of skin progressively becoming wings were just such an evolutionary keeper.
- Do nothing ensuring status quo and absolutely no chance to get voting system changed, guaranteeing a government that could get nothing done during one of the worst economic crisis in living memory.
You are spouting Tory election scaremongering rhetoric.
(1) What do you mean "status quo"? The Tories would have formed a minority government;
(2) We're already not getting PR, so we've gone from absolutely no chance to absolutely no chance. AV is as bad as or worse than FPTP;
(3) There have been several Lib-Lab pacts through the last century, some fairly stable, showing that it's quite possible to cooperate without forming a coalition. Regardless:
(a) Opposition's purpose isn't to just vote against any proposal to be awkward;
(b) The Tories were only a few seats short of a majority and the Commons isn't full of ideologically opposing MPs in an approximately equal number (as it was in 1974). Support will flow naturally.
And finally:
(4) The economic problem has been developing into an economic crisis over the past few years. We didn't just go from joy and surplus to a huge debt overnight. The Tories and LDs had the chance to raise hell over increasing debt at any moment over the past half decade but chose not to. Why do you think this is?
The only genius in this is Cameron, although self-interested Clegg made his job quite simple.
And there's nothing on any website that allows support for any laws - at least not on any government website.
Indeed. A working country should be governed first by laws which (i) protect the individual, subordinate to which are laws which (ii) the majority of people support.
Yet we've reached a stage where even the government wants to consider laws as the enemy of the people, and throwing a bone to the citizen consumer means offering to eliminate (i).
What is your evidence that they wouldn't?
This is becoming one of those, "You're the one with extraordinary assertions - you provide extraordinary evidence." Main supporting factors include the closeness of the Tory government to majority, their significant lead over the next Party, the ideological similarity of the major Parties, and the agreement on the need to tackle economic issues. Main counterarguments include a single hung parliament in 1974 involving completely different circumstances.
Had the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats done nothing, Labour would simply have remained in power
"Done nothing" in the sense of stayed at home in bed or in the sense of trying and failing to come to a coalition agreement? Once the latter had been understood, Brown would probably have given the opportunity for Cameron to form a minority government.
they had to come to a resolution before the uncertainty caused a total collapse of the economy
Sorry, that's pathetic. The very idea that "the markets" (i.e. the combination of investors) were going to go on some sort of mission of self-destruction just because it wasn't clear whether Kodos or Kang was going to be sitting in a particular chair in the House of Commons is absurd and without evidence. The same scaremongery was part of the Tory election campaign which also warned against the very backroom deals used to form the current government.
Since WW2 before 2010 there have been three hung parliaments.
The relevant context is general elections resulting in hung parliaments (though perhaps I should have made that explicit - sorry). But if you want to add those two examples:
IOW, one count of government hanging on for years despite a slim to negative majority and the voting public being fairly dissatisfied, with an eventual Parliamentary finger despite a pact. And another count of no-one caring. Both in a political environment with less homogeneity.
Evidence continues to point to the coalition being unnecessary, the LDs being to the Tories as Britain was to America in Bush's 2003 war, and LD support being being way down low for a long fucking time.
And how long would have a minority government lasted?
If you want to say, "And I don't think a minority government would have lasted very long," then say so. What is your evidence that, on this occasion, a minority Tory government would have quickly disappeared? What Tory proposals are so controversial that being 20 seats short of majority and 49 ahead of the closest opposition would have rendered them impotent?
One doesn't go into an election planning to form an effective opposition, one goes in to form a government.
Nonsense - many have stood at an election with the purpose of opposing, and it's effective for tempering representatives of the major Parties. But if you're going in to win in a representative democracy then it's proper that you go in to win on your manifesto.
Absolute time is a poor indicator. You'd have to have been in the talks to know whether any further progress was possible.
Nonsense - time is always available as a tool in diplomacy. Until time has been exhausted by some set of appropriate measures, further efforts at negotiation are worthwhile.
And the general tendency in such circumstances
Since WW2 there has before 2010 been one hung parliament in the UK, the only hung parliament with a political map similar to today's. With 635 seats and 319 (a tiny majority) elected Labour in October 1974 from 301 in February, that's a 2.8% increase for Labour. Guess what a 2.8% increase for the Tories this year wouldn't have done?
Moreover, in February 1974 there was a difference of only four seats between Labour and Tory, and the ideologies of the Parties were far different vs today. The minority government of 1974 was inevitably unstable. The situation today is simply not comparable.
tl;dr No.