Hmmm I'm pretty sure this is how the plot from Frozen Synapse starts out.
He ends up accurately predicting elections with all that data mining and gains political power when he can tell what potential platform/candidate will get someone elected. Of course from there, his alter-space "shape" economy kicks off and he starts sending virtual hit squads against competitors.
If people were rational on both sides, there would be less need for regulation.
If people were rational on both sides we wouldn't need war, military, government, currency, or swear words.
But yeah, it'd be nice if people were more rational.
As your resident QuadCities Slashdot associate, is there anything you guys want me to go confirm?
I mean, there are QC marts scattered throughout town, I could probably go get some statements/rants from his current employees.
Personally I get a kick out of any time the Midwest gets mentioned on Slashdot. This is downright hilarious. Especially since I just left a place due to a boss.
Amazing. A limited resource that everyone can tap into. Here comes the tragedy of the commons!
If only there was some way to keep the hoards from screwing it up for the rest of us.
Like a per-arranged set of rules that the majority of us found to be fair enough. ... REGULATIONS
Wired and wireless ARE fundamentally different. But the fact that wireless has a limited resource isn't a good argument to make EXCEPTIONS to the regulations.
We've asked them not to, it kind of buggers up trade over here. But it keeps their workers undercutting ours, and China is riding the gravy train of manufacturing, so they're sticking with it. So even when our currency takes a hit and looks like a terrible investment, China still buys up our debt. Because if our dollar really tanks, theirs will too.
Eventually they'll have to unpin it. Their currency will then suffer some massive fluctuation as it corrects itself and the market reacts. They'll have a hard time of it. And after that, maybe the USA will be able to sell goods to china for a profit.
I dunno man, I'm kind of a fan of freedom and power to the people. Treating the masses like children and putting them in a walled guarded under the lock and key of corporate overlords doesn't seem like the best sort of society.
Whoa whoa whoa, hold up a second. How exactly do you know Jesus said that? He didn't write anything and what we know about him is a re-translation of what the sons of political activists wrote down 10-50 years after their cult leader was killed for sedition. Probably. There's a chance it got tweaked over the years. Early Christianity had a pretty turbulent environment. Paul, and people using Paul's name, had a lot of influence on the church.
Now, there's some good stuff in there. There's also some pretty stupid stuff in there. If it's helped you live your life like a good person, all the better for you and everyone around you. But while the book is historical, you shouldn't expect the contents to be historically accurate.
It IS a concern. It was a problem back in the day and the hell if we're going to regress to be vulnerable to problems we've already solved.
Don't be that guy that breaks regression.
Honestly though, it's trivial to sneak in a cell phone and take a picture of your ballot. With that picture, you can show it to someone and they could pay your for your vote. Sure, it's illegal to carry a camera into the booth, but it's not a strict rule, and everyone has a cell phone with a camera. Vote buying could easily be done today. And no, it can't be monitored. Unless you want the TSA to be strip searching everyone before they go to vote, and that's just not feasible.
That's because they did something right, and those are the people we want to re-elect. It's a system with feedback.
The most effective way to reduce corporate influence over government is to reduce the degree to which the government manages the economy
Well, yes, this is true. They'll have less incentive to try and influence politicians. But if you loosen the collar on the economy... that IS GIVING POWER DIRECTLY to the corporations. Alright, that's the ENTIRE POINT. If corporations have more power then the poeople, we'll have rober-barons and dystopian cyberpunk-esque future. You've read snowcrash, you know what I'm talking about. It will reduce the power that the government has. And, as a citizen, I have some power over the government. Stop being cynical, we do. I only have as much power over the corporations as I have cash. And corporations have a LOT more cash then I do. Also I only have as much cash as the corporations pay me and they pay me as determined by my marketability. And given a little power they would bottom that out as fast as they could.
and the regulatory burden that companies labor under (this would have the ancillary effect of significantly boosting the economy).
Yeah, keeping workers safe and healthy sure is a burden. It costs corporate quite a bit of profit to clean up all that sludge. And think of the poor doctors that hardly have anyone to care for now that workers no longer have black lung to worry about.
At current regulatory levels it is incumbent upon corporate officers to spend large sums of money to minimize the cost of regulations and to get regulations written in such a way as to fall disproportionately on any competitors who are not taking similar action.
Which is ILLEGAL. Now, I understand that it happens. And there are economic forces pushing people to go do that illegal thing. But we're talking about influencing how people act. If it's illegal and they do it anyway you can't just throw your hands up in the air say all the laws don't work so we might as well legalize it all and (ahem) "Let the market sort it out". That doesn't work. It turns out they all conspire to bleed us dry. It turns out they're greedy bastards. We've learned this, we don't need to test it again.
Regulations are collars put onto corporations by the government. They are the embodyment of the people exerting power over business.
Hi Fart rader,
I'm interested in subject X, could you help out? I know that I could go google things, work through tutorials, and browse the communities that are dedicated to subject X, but I want your input. Also my schedule is pretty busy. So I'm looking for some way to spend zero time to get real meaningful advances.
Sure dude. Regulation makes corporations powerful. Sure.
Blanket statements like that are guarenteed to be bullshit. Now if you tried to say that some regulations raise the cost of entry into an industry, that's a bit of a smaller bite and easier to chew. Political campaign finance reform is NOT the problem. It helps. If you're really old and cynical and have no hope for the future you might say that it only forces the money to be more subtle. But that's like complaining that the rapists have only moved off of the main streets to the allyways, so nothing is really better.
Corporations are getting more powerful, and that's a bad thing. I'll agree with you there. But we disagree on the cause and how to fix it.
Also, you didn't actually suggest a different approach, and I feel the whole "rah rah, blood for the liberty tree, rah rah" rant coming up, so I'm just going to head you off at the pass and say; no, that's a bad idea.
Well nanotubes are a little older and graphene is a little newer, so we're preaching what we know. Furthermore, nanotubes have had experimental tests proving their tensile strength while graphene's properties are still... theoretical... ...
THEY'VE TESTED GRAPHENE TO HAVE 130GPa! Freakin AWESOME!
I'd prefer it more around the 0.027m range. That way the long end is 37000km. And if they just do a little finishing work and roll it over, it's now a single-wall carbon nano-tube and it can reach geosynchronous orbit and we've got ourselves a space elevator.
The same way my ISP granted me rights to the full unfiltered unthrottled unlimited Internet connection that I paid for?
You know, the one that they've secretly filtered out their competitors from. The one that they send false packets to just to stop downloads. The one they throttle after you hit your bandwidth cap for the month. The cap that they don't advertise. In the advertisement where they claim it's unlimited.
Is it anything like that one? Because if so, they either need to spend some time in prison, or they need to shut up and accept some regulation which they so clearly deserve.
Well yeah, it's pretty much an extrapolation of the "not built here" mentality. In business, it's a anti-pattern. An excuse to have some home-brew encryption. But as far as aesthetics and appreciation, hell yeah I prefer the things I made myself. Even if it's uglier. Sometimes even if it doesn't work as well.
If you have to ask why, you're getting into some fundamental psychology/sociology that's really eye-opening to professors and mind-blowingly obvious to everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm I'm pretty sure this is how the plot from Frozen Synapse starts out.
He ends up accurately predicting elections with all that data mining and gains political power when he can tell what potential platform/candidate will get someone elected. Of course from there, his alter-space "shape" economy kicks off and he starts sending virtual hit squads against competitors.
The download takes a few minutes rather then a full week. That +S&H takes a while you know.
Beep... beep... beep...
If people were rational on both sides, there would be less need for regulation.
If people were rational on both sides we wouldn't need war, military, government, currency, or swear words.
But yeah, it'd be nice if people were more rational.
As your resident QuadCities Slashdot associate, is there anything you guys want me to go confirm?
I mean, there are QC marts scattered throughout town, I could probably go get some statements/rants from his current employees.
Personally I get a kick out of any time the Midwest gets mentioned on Slashdot. This is downright hilarious. Especially since I just left a place due to a boss.
Since social networking sites pose a significant security risk, facebook will of course block other social networking sites.
For your safety.
Amazing. A limited resource that everyone can tap into. Here comes the tragedy of the commons!
...
If only there was some way to keep the hoards from screwing it up for the rest of us.
Like a per-arranged set of rules that the majority of us found to be fair enough.
REGULATIONS
Wired and wireless ARE fundamentally different. But the fact that wireless has a limited resource isn't a good argument to make EXCEPTIONS to the regulations.
When was the last time you tried?
Because they pin their currency to ours?
We've asked them not to, it kind of buggers up trade over here. But it keeps their workers undercutting ours, and China is riding the gravy train of manufacturing, so they're sticking with it. So even when our currency takes a hit and looks like a terrible investment, China still buys up our debt. Because if our dollar really tanks, theirs will too.
Eventually they'll have to unpin it. Their currency will then suffer some massive fluctuation as it corrects itself and the market reacts. They'll have a hard time of it. And after that, maybe the USA will be able to sell goods to china for a profit.
I dunno man, I'm kind of a fan of freedom and power to the people. Treating the masses like children and putting them in a walled guarded under the lock and key of corporate overlords doesn't seem like the best sort of society.
Whoa whoa whoa, hold up a second. How exactly do you know Jesus said that? He didn't write anything and what we know about him is a re-translation of what the sons of political activists wrote down 10-50 years after their cult leader was killed for sedition. Probably. There's a chance it got tweaked over the years. Early Christianity had a pretty turbulent environment. Paul, and people using Paul's name, had a lot of influence on the church.
Now, there's some good stuff in there. There's also some pretty stupid stuff in there. If it's helped you live your life like a good person, all the better for you and everyone around you. But while the book is historical, you shouldn't expect the contents to be historically accurate.
It IS a concern. It was a problem back in the day and the hell if we're going to regress to be vulnerable to problems we've already solved.
Don't be that guy that breaks regression.
Honestly though, it's trivial to sneak in a cell phone and take a picture of your ballot. With that picture, you can show it to someone and they could pay your for your vote. Sure, it's illegal to carry a camera into the booth, but it's not a strict rule, and everyone has a cell phone with a camera. Vote buying could easily be done today. And no, it can't be monitored. Unless you want the TSA to be strip searching everyone before they go to vote, and that's just not feasible.
Only if you're a large business owner. In that case, yeah, regulations limit the shit out of you.
The most effective way to reduce corporate influence over government is to reduce the degree to which the government manages the economy
Well, yes, this is true. They'll have less incentive to try and influence politicians. But if you loosen the collar on the economy... that IS GIVING POWER DIRECTLY to the corporations. Alright, that's the ENTIRE POINT. If corporations have more power then the poeople, we'll have rober-barons and dystopian cyberpunk-esque future. You've read snowcrash, you know what I'm talking about. It will reduce the power that the government has. And, as a citizen, I have some power over the government. Stop being cynical, we do. I only have as much power over the corporations as I have cash. And corporations have a LOT more cash then I do. Also I only have as much cash as the corporations pay me and they pay me as determined by my marketability. And given a little power they would bottom that out as fast as they could.
and the regulatory burden that companies labor under (this would have the ancillary effect of significantly boosting the economy).
Yeah, keeping workers safe and healthy sure is a burden. It costs corporate quite a bit of profit to clean up all that sludge. And think of the poor doctors that hardly have anyone to care for now that workers no longer have black lung to worry about.
At current regulatory levels it is incumbent upon corporate officers to spend large sums of money to minimize the cost of regulations and to get regulations written in such a way as to fall disproportionately on any competitors who are not taking similar action.
Which is ILLEGAL. Now, I understand that it happens. And there are economic forces pushing people to go do that illegal thing. But we're talking about influencing how people act. If it's illegal and they do it anyway you can't just throw your hands up in the air say all the laws don't work so we might as well legalize it all and (ahem) "Let the market sort it out". That doesn't work. It turns out they all conspire to bleed us dry. It turns out they're greedy bastards. We've learned this, we don't need to test it again.
Regulations are collars put onto corporations by the government. They are the embodyment of the people exerting power over business.
No, I want to play full scale thermonuclear war.
Hi Fart rader,
I'm interested in subject X, could you help out? I know that I could go google things, work through tutorials, and browse the communities that are dedicated to subject X, but I want your input. Also my schedule is pretty busy. So I'm looking for some way to spend zero time to get real meaningful advances.
Sure dude. Regulation makes corporations powerful. Sure.
Blanket statements like that are guarenteed to be bullshit. Now if you tried to say that some regulations raise the cost of entry into an industry, that's a bit of a smaller bite and easier to chew. Political campaign finance reform is NOT the problem. It helps. If you're really old and cynical and have no hope for the future you might say that it only forces the money to be more subtle. But that's like complaining that the rapists have only moved off of the main streets to the allyways, so nothing is really better.
Corporations are getting more powerful, and that's a bad thing. I'll agree with you there. But we disagree on the cause and how to fix it.
Also, you didn't actually suggest a different approach, and I feel the whole "rah rah, blood for the liberty tree, rah rah" rant coming up, so I'm just going to head you off at the pass and say; no, that's a bad idea.
Well nanotubes are a little older and graphene is a little newer, so we're preaching what we know. Furthermore, nanotubes have had experimental tests proving their tensile strength while graphene's properties are still... theoretical...
...
THEY'VE TESTED GRAPHENE TO HAVE 130GPa! Freakin AWESOME!
I'd prefer it more around the 0.027m range. That way the long end is 37000km.
And if they just do a little finishing work and roll it over, it's now a single-wall carbon nano-tube and it can reach geosynchronous orbit and we've got ourselves a space elevator.
The same way my ISP granted me rights to the full unfiltered unthrottled unlimited Internet connection that I paid for?
You know, the one that they've secretly filtered out their competitors from. The one that they send false packets to just to stop downloads. The one they throttle after you hit your bandwidth cap for the month. The cap that they don't advertise. In the advertisement where they claim it's unlimited.
Is it anything like that one? Because if so, they either need to spend some time in prison, or they need to shut up and accept some regulation which they so clearly deserve.
Now THAT is FUD.
"Ah, what a nice beautiful day we're having... FOR NOW" (Dun dun DUN!!!)
"...and since it is ENTIRELY THEIR DECISION not ours, we're not liable for anything. Suck it."
I usually have to factor in about twice the cost of materials, and it's still cheaper.
Unless you think you need to be paid for your time.
Well yeah, it's pretty much an extrapolation of the "not built here" mentality. In business, it's a anti-pattern. An excuse to have some home-brew encryption. But as far as aesthetics and appreciation, hell yeah I prefer the things I made myself. Even if it's uglier. Sometimes even if it doesn't work as well.
If you have to ask why, you're getting into some fundamental psychology/sociology that's really eye-opening to professors and mind-blowingly obvious to everyone else.
Oh hey, you don't have kids?
Have fun with that PILE OF MONEY you're raising instead.