You're right - religion and science are the same in one sense. They are guesses at what reality is.
The largest difference is that science acknowledges that it is a guess. A very educated guess, which yes yielded modern life as we know it. Religion tries to claim that it is the truth, and the only truth, and expects it's adherents to doggedly follow it's rules and values way beyond their useful context. To give you an example, a slashdot poster recently gave a ridiculously long opinion on whether pig meat cultivated in a lab would be kosher or not.
Now, religion in it's early days claimed to heal the sick, to make the blind see, and to allow the lame to walk again. It has never done any of these things. Science, on the other hand, has done all of these things and much more. I'll stick with the continued results of the scientific method. You can keep your bronze age mysticism.
You know, scientists just keep reforming their ideas until it conforms to observable reality. How can they expect anyone to believe what they say when they're just going to keep changing their minds?
I prefer my religion. It allows me to conform reality to my ideas.
If you can sort of wade through the homophobia and hatred of former American colonies, he's right: you will soon be charged the full price for your lifestyle. You're going to live in a smaller dwelling and I doubt everyone will be driving a 6 liter V8. Red meat will be very expensive because it uses an enormous amount of water and staple crops to generate, which will really get expensive once it's not legal to pollute local waterways to the point where they create thousands of square miles of deadzones in the ocean. There will probably be an international treaty on overpopulation, since that's the number one threat to long term human survival.
If this sounds like hell to you, hop in your El Camino, crank up the Metallica, and head to McBurgerndy's-Fil-A-Bell. Buy three triple whopper chicken bacon cheese towers, a SuperJumbo Coke, a sixty ounce curly mayonnaise french fry bucket, and of course thirty dozen cinnamon twisters. (Don't forget your blood sugar! Your kidney dialysis isn't until next week.) Stuff two of the burgers into your mouth, gorge on the fries and the cinnamon treats until you feel like you're about to vomit, and what the hell, pour half the soda all over your head to soak in the corn syrup and caffeine. Hit the highway at rush our, breathe in the smog, gaze in awe of the faint outline of bank and insurance buildings, and while you sit thinking about how awesome Lars Ulrich is and how they can't ever top Unforgiven: The Threequel, spike the last burger on your erection for the God Damn American Way of Life. Take a good look in the mirror. As a single tear unsuccessfully tries to crest your fat cheek, remember this moment for the poor future generations who will never have it this good.
Republicans tax poor people by eliminating social services? Since when is NOT gifting charity to the recipients suddenly a tax? By what right should the government gift them anything while forcing others to pay for it? You really call the decision to discontinue charity as a tax?
Social services are not gifts or charity. They are the shared benefits of civilization and infrastructure, and a recognition that the market does not have just solutions for every situation.
Spoken like a true Marxist. Need as defined by who? What the heck does need have to do with it? Just because someone manages to acquire, without committing a crime, more than another person they should be forced to give it up? By what right should the government take from one person and give to another when no theft or other crime has been committed?
The infrastructure and shared wealth of a society provides opportunity for success. Liberia is not home to any technology firms because it lacks the infrastructure to support one. Infrastructure is funded by public money. Therefore, if you want to continue to have a civilization, you should pay taxes. How much from whom is certainly a valid debate, but one it seems you wouldn't be capable of having.
Democrats tax anyone who makes anything and wastes most of it on operating the government, sending a small percentage of the budgeted money to the recipients.
On this we can sort of agree. Much of the money in the Federal budget is wasted on the military and the loans we have to pay off from previous wars. I say wasted, because although it provides jobs, the end result isn't really an investment. You can't do anything with a laser guided missile after you've paid millions of dollars for it, except use it to kill someone, or sell it to someone you'll probably have to disarm down the road.
They just do it under the "from those who have more than they need to those who don't" argument. I'll ask again, how do you decide when someone has more than they "need"? Who's the determiner? Why should those people be punished for success by having the fruits of their efforts taken from them?
Progressive tax rates are determined by the congress, who are elected by us. They are adjusted every year for inflation, and are based on the idea that taking 1/3 of someone's check who makes $250,000 a year is less damaging than taking 1/3 of someone's check who makes $25,000 per year.
If you think seeing a tax rate increase from 28% to 31% for income above $80k is punishment, or from 31% to 36% for income above $170k, or from 36% to 39.6% for income above $370k... well, forgive me for saying you're just being a bitch. Love it or leave it, right?
Incidentally, current tax rates are much lower. Those are the "Clinton" tax rates that apparently terrify you, I guess because balancing the budget isn't important these days, even if we should have raised taxes instead of lowered them after we decided to go to war. I really think McCain said it best: "The tax cut is not appropriate until we find out the cost of the war and the cost of reconstruction."
During his Presidential run in 2000, his commercial said:
"There’s one big difference between me and the others. I won’t take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy. I’ll use the bulk of the surplus to secure Social Security far into the future to keep our promise to the greatest generation.”
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Greatest Generation? Fuck those old people. I need a second home in Aix-en-Provence.
Oh, Jesus, let me put that into Conservative Outrage: "I don't need anyone stealing my hard earned money just because they're lazy welfare recipients who just don't want to get jobs!"
Republicans tax poor people by eliminating social services and giving tax breaks to the people who don't need them. Democrats tax rich people to pay for social services for poor people.
This was going alright - both parties have interests in the society, and there was a balance of power. Then the conservatives started losing ground, and had a miraculous conversion. Turns out there are 40 million Americans who will vote against their own interests at the drop of a hat, if you'll call yourself an evangelical. You may have to do a lot of embarrassing things - pretend you'll overturn Roe v. Wade, praise hopeless idiots like Pat Robertson, pretend that gay people are "evil", and so on. Corporations will give you the money to promote yourself this way, to defeat working class (or "union") money, in exchange for tax cuts at any cost, even during wars.
All of this is perfectly illustrated by the last decade of John McCain. If his VP running mate hadn't been so shockingly stupid, he would have given Obama a run for his money.
Sorry for the nuanced approach. I know it's terribly unpatriotic.
America has been constantly invading and interfering with Haiti for a century. It wasn't six years ago that we kidnapped their democratically elected president and exiled him to Africa. Chavez lies about a lot of things, but he isn't pulling this one out of his ass. We may be there for purely humanitarian reasons this time, but this is an exception rather than a rule.
Chavez and Morales are democratically elected leaders who have never invaded another nation, who are pointing out the bleedingly obvious about the colonialist tendencies of the American Empire, but somehow they are the dangerous dictators? Ignorance truly is bliss, I guess.
These men are dangerous dictators in a region with a long history of them.
I'll bet you couldn't name a single other former dictator in the region. When you look them up on Wikipedia, see who put them in power. There's a very good chance it was the good old stars and stripes.
That's just it. People expect the government to be this magical source of goodness and righteousness like a magical deity, somehow outside of the corruption of human behavior, if we only *try* hard enough, yet people can't possibly be good enough consumers to control a free market.
If you were interested in the real issues concerning governance, it would help if you didn't project your emotions onto the viewpoints of others.
The point can be established, thus far, every successful culture has had a system of government. You are right that America is not a functioning democracy, but as long as the basic rules for a democracy are in place, that can be changed. In more democratic societies, like Britain and Australia (chosen for their cultural similarity), income inequality is better, poverty rates are lower, their populations are generally happier, healthier, and they live longer. This is because there is a balance between government power, individual rights, corporate rights, and the independence of the press.
If you like you could go where corporations and governance are one in the same, soon to be the largest economy in the world: China. Or you can go where you don't have to be bothered by any sort of government - Liberia, Somalia, and Haiti don't seem to suffer from a lack of regulations, do they?
You seem to think Monsanto's patent regulations are the main problem. The problem is that Monsanto abuses the patent system, and then abuses the legal system to abuse smaller entities. If the system weren't there, they would just abuse smaller corporations and farmers more directly. To put it more succinctly, the solution to bad governance is not zero governance, it is better governance.
Whether you realize it or not, you advocate anti-politics. You're actually the end result of a goal espoused by people who think that the average man is too dumb to govern himself. I hope that's not what you believe.
The WSJ spreads rumors about Iraq to protect it's interests. The WSJ doesn't spread rumors about Apple to protect it's interests. If this seems like a moral inconsistency, it is. That would presuppose the staff of the WSJ had any values.
The netbook craze has shown one thing: average users no longer care about speed or enormous screen size. Honestly, I would have never believed anyone if they said I could buy a gigahertz phone in 2010, I'm not sure I would have believed them. If it can play MP3s, 720p, and requires little maintenance, most users are going to be happy.
Pretty soon the only thing the user is going to care about is the size of the screen. They'll want it to dock to a keyboard and mouse when they sit down to write a paper. Otherwise, they'd like to drag it around the house. It won't be a computer, so much as an interface to their data - as the article states, a true information appliance.
The Apple product may suck, but it will probably sell people on the idea that tablets are "cool." And in a way, that may be the most important thing to go to the next level of interaction with computers.
Think about the iMacs that were just released: wireless keyboard and mouse, enormous display with a stand that only requires a power cable. Exchange the stand with a dock and make it smaller with a touch interface. Hopefully they will provide some good hardware I/O on the dock, but again, for the regular users, they won't care if it has every sort of port in the world. As long as they can get on youtube and facebook without having to fuss with a traditional computer, they will be fine.
Once the Wall Street Journal starts publishing details, you know that they are using a purposeful leak. They wouldn't put their reputation on a rumor, and Apple has to keep their secretive product development intact to preserve their brand identity.
Why is it that people are so willing to put themselves under government hegemony instead?
That is what a government is for - in democracies, to provide a system of organization whereby people, equally represented by a vote each, get together to decide what to do with their resources. It's based on the idea that humans have certain inalienable rights that cannot be trespassed upon by the rich and powerful. (I know, stupid idea - I don't know who came up with it.)
I guess love of government, love of the people that can slap you in jail (while hating those that charge you more than you like / more than they should for something more) on their whim after "justice theater" in the courtroom are just being fashionable for the times.
You'll have to clarify yourself. Do you think that the outrage against Goldman Sachs and Monsanto is of the same moral character that makes readers here despise Apple? Are you joking?
News flash: corporations can't do much to you if you don't do business with them.
Except put you out of business with a hostile takeover, buy your parent company out and fire you, sue you with a team of lawyers that collectively gross in a day what you do in a year, bribe a local politician to falsely imprison you... and that's just to a fellow citizen. God help you if you live in a country with no government large enough to protect your rights.
Any corporation could buckle overnight if people acted on principle.
On this we can definitely agree.
But people don't care about principle, and the fact that they can't even act in their own self-interest in business shows that democracy itself is untenable.
I think you'll find in most democracies that principles are very important. They are not perfect institutions, for sure, but you cannot live your entire life on the slippery slopes of political cowardice. Fascism is little better than Totalitarian Communism which is more or less as terrible and backwards as Monarchy and Theocracy. The only antidote to all of these provably broken systems of government is a secular, constitutional (as in law abiding) democracy that sensibly polices it's citizens and it's markets for the sociopaths and gold crazed sociopaths that will always blight the human landscape.
And a final point - you state that people can't be good consumers. I believe that they can, but first there has to be some penalty for lying for corporations. There has to be an entity, outside the direct control of corporations, that is itself policed by the press, which can act in meaningful ways to keep them honest. Throughout many parts of the world, consumers make the choice every day to buy food that doesn't harm the environment, products that don't exploit their producers, and lifestyle choices that make our modern world more sustainable. Informed choice is actually a prerequisite for a healthy market. However, when corporations break regulations on the press, turn them into an entertainment network, and then proceed to dismantle reality in order to perpetuate their own goals, real problems can and do and have developed. The cowardly answer is to abandon the whole process.
Personally, I'm not convinced America can recover without a cycle of real consequences for these choices. However, these choices still remain.
Hear, hear! I'll take fascism over socialist democracy any day of the week. We may all eat at McDonalds, but damnit, the trains taking me to my work camp will be on time!
Of course you can. The so called experts are no match for the inherent genius of the free market. Just shrink regulatory agencies to nothing, and appoint graduates of Liberty University to all the top posts. With the Free Market unshackled and Good and Simple Judeo-Christians running the show, what's the worst thing that could happen?
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the oil it sent to Cuba stopped almost literally overnight. On approximately half of their old energy usage, they have survived.
America is one of the freest countries on earth, there is no doubt, and I am grateful to live in a country that is free. However, your identification with the incidental place of your birth is entirely meaningless. In this way, your wife made a much more meaningful choice about becoming an American. If you were born in Iran, would you consider yourself a patriot if you supported wholeheartedly every decision made by your leaders?
I'm proud of, and grateful for, the good things about my country. And there is more good than bad. I disagree with the wholesale condemnation of the US, especially by someone who benefits from living here.
This is entirely a matter of which end of the gun you are at. Imagine for a moment someone born in London at the height of the British Empire. They are enjoying the fruits of free speech, a market economy, the glittering promise of the mechanized age. For those who cooperate with his countrymen, there is opportunity and wealth. For those who don't wish to give up their religion, culture, resources - for those who don't want to give up their very freedom - there is punishment, poverty, torture, forced migration, forced conscription, and perhaps mercifully, death itself. How could you say he believes in free speech if he only fights for it for Englishmen on the shores of England? How could you say he supports freedom of the press if opposition editors in colonized countries are gunned down and their buildings torched to the ground? How could you say he supports freedom of religion if he refuses to make any concessions for non-christians?
I think it's offensive that anyone pretends America is anything but the newest iteration of western imperialism, as far as it's foreign policy is concerned. Imperialism, above all else, is the denial of the human right to self-governance and independence of the less powerful. Not only that, American imperialism is the height of irony and hypocrisy - we are a nation founded on the belief that English imperialism was inherently immoral and unjust.
As for the benefits I enjoy, they come with a responsibility. In the same way (I hope) I would not have supported slavery simply because I benefited from it, I do not support war, even if I believed I derived my rights from the death of foreigners and the destruction of their homelands.
Twain brings it to light better than I can. Perhaps you and your wife should read it together.
There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded-counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred -- including women and children -- and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States...
If I know President Roosevelt -- and I am sure I do -- this utterance cost him more pain and shame than any other that ever issued from his pen or his mouth. I am far from blaming him. If I had been in his place my official duty would have compelled me to say what he said. It was a convention, an old tradition, and he had to be loyal to it. There was no help for it. This is what he said:
Washington, March 10. Wood, Manila:- I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag. (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.
His whole utterance is merely a convention. Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms - and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salar
Yes... what could the Philippines possibly illustrate about my point that people flee countries destroyed by imperialism, often for the imperial country itself.
All developing nations are those that have been victims of colonialism, whether traditional invasion or more modern forms of economic corruption and sabotage. No one is denying that imperial nations benefit from destroying more poorly armed or less violent cultures. The question is, if you believe at all in morality, is it just?
(All due respect for you and your wife, but arriving from the Philippines doesn't mean you know anything about it's history, or the nature of colonialism. Just ask any American on the street what year the Civil War started.)
As a reality check, if you have the choice between living under the boot of British rule, or moving to England and enjoying the fruits of imperialism, which are you likely to choose?
People are not fleeing to America from England and France. If you say that we are better off than the countries we exploit and China, well, color me unimpressed.
When your government is some crazy military who has remained in power by force for 50 years and has isolated the country from the rest of the world, you don't need foreign enemies to ruin your economy.
Long Term Results The western countries stopped short of finally colonizing China. From the Boxer rebellions, the westerners learned that the best way to govern China was through the Chinese dynasty, instead of direct dealing with the Chinese people (as a saying “The people are afraid of officials, the officials are afraid of foreigners, and the foreigners are afraid of the people". Dowager Cixi used Boxers to fight westerners largely because western countries sympathized with the Guangxu Emperor, who had been house-arrested after an aborted reformation. However, eventually, as an unwritten agreement, Dowager Cixi was allowed to stay in power, since comparatively, Cixi could use her influence to suppress the Chinese anti-western sentiment better than the weak and ineffectual Guangxu Emperor. The Guangxu Emperor spent the rest of his life in house-arrest.
The Cuban people live like cavemen in falling down cities, with all personal wealth stripped away, where you disappear if you have a cell phone or TV that isn't approved, where "knowing too much" isn't a joke, it's a crime.
The Cuban people live very modestly, but not like cavemen. They are the only modern society that has survived peak oil. They have an excellent medical system, because medical equipment is the only thing we allow in and out. They have a similar life expectancy yet they live on a fraction of what we do.
Sorry to say, but they are far more self-sufficient and capable of surviving as a community than America is, military power aside. It's no paradise, but until the Cuban people choose otherwise, we have no right to continue interfering for the purposes of political grandstanding.
Slashdot Mirror
The second sentence of the second paragraph should read, "A very educated guess, which has yielded modern life as we know it."
Science has not yielded a better in-browser grammar check - yet.
You're right - religion and science are the same in one sense. They are guesses at what reality is.
The largest difference is that science acknowledges that it is a guess. A very educated guess, which yes yielded modern life as we know it. Religion tries to claim that it is the truth, and the only truth, and expects it's adherents to doggedly follow it's rules and values way beyond their useful context. To give you an example, a slashdot poster recently gave a ridiculously long opinion on whether pig meat cultivated in a lab would be kosher or not.
Now, religion in it's early days claimed to heal the sick, to make the blind see, and to allow the lame to walk again. It has never done any of these things. Science, on the other hand, has done all of these things and much more. I'll stick with the continued results of the scientific method. You can keep your bronze age mysticism.
You know, scientists just keep reforming their ideas until it conforms to observable reality. How can they expect anyone to believe what they say when they're just going to keep changing their minds?
I prefer my religion. It allows me to conform reality to my ideas.
If you can sort of wade through the homophobia and hatred of former American colonies, he's right: you will soon be charged the full price for your lifestyle. You're going to live in a smaller dwelling and I doubt everyone will be driving a 6 liter V8. Red meat will be very expensive because it uses an enormous amount of water and staple crops to generate, which will really get expensive once it's not legal to pollute local waterways to the point where they create thousands of square miles of deadzones in the ocean. There will probably be an international treaty on overpopulation, since that's the number one threat to long term human survival.
If this sounds like hell to you, hop in your El Camino, crank up the Metallica, and head to McBurgerndy's-Fil-A-Bell. Buy three triple whopper chicken bacon cheese towers, a SuperJumbo Coke, a sixty ounce curly mayonnaise french fry bucket, and of course thirty dozen cinnamon twisters. (Don't forget your blood sugar! Your kidney dialysis isn't until next week.) Stuff two of the burgers into your mouth, gorge on the fries and the cinnamon treats until you feel like you're about to vomit, and what the hell, pour half the soda all over your head to soak in the corn syrup and caffeine. Hit the highway at rush our, breathe in the smog, gaze in awe of the faint outline of bank and insurance buildings, and while you sit thinking about how awesome Lars Ulrich is and how they can't ever top Unforgiven: The Threequel, spike the last burger on your erection for the God Damn American Way of Life. Take a good look in the mirror. As a single tear unsuccessfully tries to crest your fat cheek, remember this moment for the poor future generations who will never have it this good.
Republicans tax poor people by eliminating social services? Since when is NOT gifting charity to the recipients suddenly a tax? By what right should the government gift them anything while forcing others to pay for it? You really call the decision to discontinue charity as a tax?
Social services are not gifts or charity. They are the shared benefits of civilization and infrastructure, and a recognition that the market does not have just solutions for every situation.
Spoken like a true Marxist. Need as defined by who? What the heck does need have to do with it? Just because someone manages to acquire, without committing a crime, more than another person they should be forced to give it up? By what right should the government take from one person and give to another when no theft or other crime has been committed?
The infrastructure and shared wealth of a society provides opportunity for success. Liberia is not home to any technology firms because it lacks the infrastructure to support one. Infrastructure is funded by public money. Therefore, if you want to continue to have a civilization, you should pay taxes. How much from whom is certainly a valid debate, but one it seems you wouldn't be capable of having.
Democrats tax anyone who makes anything and wastes most of it on operating the government, sending a small percentage of the budgeted money to the recipients.
On this we can sort of agree. Much of the money in the Federal budget is wasted on the military and the loans we have to pay off from previous wars. I say wasted, because although it provides jobs, the end result isn't really an investment. You can't do anything with a laser guided missile after you've paid millions of dollars for it, except use it to kill someone, or sell it to someone you'll probably have to disarm down the road.
They just do it under the "from those who have more than they need to those who don't" argument. I'll ask again, how do you decide when someone has more than they "need"? Who's the determiner? Why should those people be punished for success by having the fruits of their efforts taken from them?
Progressive tax rates are determined by the congress, who are elected by us. They are adjusted every year for inflation, and are based on the idea that taking 1/3 of someone's check who makes $250,000 a year is less damaging than taking 1/3 of someone's check who makes $25,000 per year.
If you think seeing a tax rate increase from 28% to 31% for income above $80k is punishment, or from 31% to 36% for income above $170k, or from 36% to 39.6% for income above $370k... well, forgive me for saying you're just being a bitch. Love it or leave it, right?
Incidentally, current tax rates are much lower. Those are the "Clinton" tax rates that apparently terrify you, I guess because balancing the budget isn't important these days, even if we should have raised taxes instead of lowered them after we decided to go to war. I really think McCain said it best: "The tax cut is not appropriate until we find out the cost of the war and the cost of reconstruction."
During his Presidential run in 2000, his commercial said:
"There’s one big difference between me and the others. I won’t take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy. I’ll use the bulk of the surplus to secure Social Security far into the future to keep our promise to the greatest generation.”
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Greatest Generation? Fuck those old people. I need a second home in Aix-en-Provence.
Oh, Jesus, let me put that into Conservative Outrage: "I don't need anyone stealing my hard earned money just because they're lazy welfare recipients who just don't want to get jobs!"
Republicans tax poor people by eliminating social services and giving tax breaks to the people who don't need them. Democrats tax rich people to pay for social services for poor people.
This was going alright - both parties have interests in the society, and there was a balance of power. Then the conservatives started losing ground, and had a miraculous conversion. Turns out there are 40 million Americans who will vote against their own interests at the drop of a hat, if you'll call yourself an evangelical. You may have to do a lot of embarrassing things - pretend you'll overturn Roe v. Wade, praise hopeless idiots like Pat Robertson, pretend that gay people are "evil", and so on. Corporations will give you the money to promote yourself this way, to defeat working class (or "union") money, in exchange for tax cuts at any cost, even during wars.
All of this is perfectly illustrated by the last decade of John McCain. If his VP running mate hadn't been so shockingly stupid, he would have given Obama a run for his money.
Sorry for the nuanced approach. I know it's terribly unpatriotic.
America has been constantly invading and interfering with Haiti for a century. It wasn't six years ago that we kidnapped their democratically elected president and exiled him to Africa. Chavez lies about a lot of things, but he isn't pulling this one out of his ass. We may be there for purely humanitarian reasons this time, but this is an exception rather than a rule.
Chavez and Morales are democratically elected leaders who have never invaded another nation, who are pointing out the bleedingly obvious about the colonialist tendencies of the American Empire, but somehow they are the dangerous dictators? Ignorance truly is bliss, I guess.
These men are dangerous dictators in a region with a long history of them.
I'll bet you couldn't name a single other former dictator in the region. When you look them up on Wikipedia, see who put them in power. There's a very good chance it was the good old stars and stripes.
Catholic priests and publicly homophobic senators?
Damn. Couldn't help myself.
That's just it. People expect the government to be this magical source of goodness and righteousness like a magical deity, somehow outside of the corruption of human behavior, if we only *try* hard enough, yet people can't possibly be good enough consumers to control a free market.
If you were interested in the real issues concerning governance, it would help if you didn't project your emotions onto the viewpoints of others.
The point can be established, thus far, every successful culture has had a system of government. You are right that America is not a functioning democracy, but as long as the basic rules for a democracy are in place, that can be changed. In more democratic societies, like Britain and Australia (chosen for their cultural similarity), income inequality is better, poverty rates are lower, their populations are generally happier, healthier, and they live longer. This is because there is a balance between government power, individual rights, corporate rights, and the independence of the press.
If you like you could go where corporations and governance are one in the same, soon to be the largest economy in the world: China. Or you can go where you don't have to be bothered by any sort of government - Liberia, Somalia, and Haiti don't seem to suffer from a lack of regulations, do they?
You seem to think Monsanto's patent regulations are the main problem. The problem is that Monsanto abuses the patent system, and then abuses the legal system to abuse smaller entities. If the system weren't there, they would just abuse smaller corporations and farmers more directly. To put it more succinctly, the solution to bad governance is not zero governance, it is better governance.
Whether you realize it or not, you advocate anti-politics. You're actually the end result of a goal espoused by people who think that the average man is too dumb to govern himself. I hope that's not what you believe.
The WSJ spreads rumors about Iraq to protect it's interests. The WSJ doesn't spread rumors about Apple to protect it's interests. If this seems like a moral inconsistency, it is. That would presuppose the staff of the WSJ had any values.
The GP is arguing that Photoshop should have the same interface as Excel. Not very convincing.
The netbook craze has shown one thing: average users no longer care about speed or enormous screen size. Honestly, I would have never believed anyone if they said I could buy a gigahertz phone in 2010, I'm not sure I would have believed them. If it can play MP3s, 720p, and requires little maintenance, most users are going to be happy.
Pretty soon the only thing the user is going to care about is the size of the screen. They'll want it to dock to a keyboard and mouse when they sit down to write a paper. Otherwise, they'd like to drag it around the house. It won't be a computer, so much as an interface to their data - as the article states, a true information appliance.
The Apple product may suck, but it will probably sell people on the idea that tablets are "cool." And in a way, that may be the most important thing to go to the next level of interaction with computers.
Think about the iMacs that were just released: wireless keyboard and mouse, enormous display with a stand that only requires a power cable. Exchange the stand with a dock and make it smaller with a touch interface. Hopefully they will provide some good hardware I/O on the dock, but again, for the regular users, they won't care if it has every sort of port in the world. As long as they can get on youtube and facebook without having to fuss with a traditional computer, they will be fine.
vi v. emacs
or even
vi v. vim
Prepare to eat your words, sir. 80 columns at a time.
Once the Wall Street Journal starts publishing details, you know that they are using a purposeful leak. They wouldn't put their reputation on a rumor, and Apple has to keep their secretive product development intact to preserve their brand identity.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703405704575015362653644260.html
Sometimes the only thing you can do is chuckle.
Clarke and Dawe: Iraq War Strategies
Clarke and Dawe: US Banks
Why is it that people are so willing to put themselves under government hegemony instead?
That is what a government is for - in democracies, to provide a system of organization whereby people, equally represented by a vote each, get together to decide what to do with their resources. It's based on the idea that humans have certain inalienable rights that cannot be trespassed upon by the rich and powerful. (I know, stupid idea - I don't know who came up with it.)
I guess love of government, love of the people that can slap you in jail (while hating those that charge you more than you like / more than they should for something more) on their whim after "justice theater" in the courtroom are just being fashionable for the times.
You'll have to clarify yourself. Do you think that the outrage against Goldman Sachs and Monsanto is of the same moral character that makes readers here despise Apple? Are you joking?
News flash: corporations can't do much to you if you don't do business with them.
Except put you out of business with a hostile takeover, buy your parent company out and fire you, sue you with a team of lawyers that collectively gross in a day what you do in a year, bribe a local politician to falsely imprison you... and that's just to a fellow citizen. God help you if you live in a country with no government large enough to protect your rights.
Any corporation could buckle overnight if people acted on principle.
On this we can definitely agree.
But people don't care about principle, and the fact that they can't even act in their own self-interest in business shows that democracy itself is untenable.
I think you'll find in most democracies that principles are very important. They are not perfect institutions, for sure, but you cannot live your entire life on the slippery slopes of political cowardice. Fascism is little better than Totalitarian Communism which is more or less as terrible and backwards as Monarchy and Theocracy. The only antidote to all of these provably broken systems of government is a secular, constitutional (as in law abiding) democracy that sensibly polices it's citizens and it's markets for the sociopaths and gold crazed sociopaths that will always blight the human landscape.
And a final point - you state that people can't be good consumers. I believe that they can, but first there has to be some penalty for lying for corporations. There has to be an entity, outside the direct control of corporations, that is itself policed by the press, which can act in meaningful ways to keep them honest. Throughout many parts of the world, consumers make the choice every day to buy food that doesn't harm the environment, products that don't exploit their producers, and lifestyle choices that make our modern world more sustainable. Informed choice is actually a prerequisite for a healthy market. However, when corporations break regulations on the press, turn them into an entertainment network, and then proceed to dismantle reality in order to perpetuate their own goals, real problems can and do and have developed. The cowardly answer is to abandon the whole process.
Personally, I'm not convinced America can recover without a cycle of real consequences for these choices. However, these choices still remain.
Hear, hear! I'll take fascism over socialist democracy any day of the week. We may all eat at McDonalds, but damnit, the trains taking me to my work camp will be on time!
Of course you can. The so called experts are no match for the inherent genius of the free market. Just shrink regulatory agencies to nothing, and appoint graduates of Liberty University to all the top posts. With the Free Market unshackled and Good and Simple Judeo-Christians running the show, what's the worst thing that could happen?
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the oil it sent to Cuba stopped almost literally overnight. On approximately half of their old energy usage, they have survived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Community:_How_Cuba_Survived_Peak_Oil
Oil is America's achilles heel. We're less than 5% of the world, and we use 25% of the oil, which means our society is largely dependent on it's cost.
America is one of the freest countries on earth, there is no doubt, and I am grateful to live in a country that is free. However, your identification with the incidental place of your birth is entirely meaningless. In this way, your wife made a much more meaningful choice about becoming an American. If you were born in Iran, would you consider yourself a patriot if you supported wholeheartedly every decision made by your leaders?
I'm proud of, and grateful for, the good things about my country. And there is more good than bad. I disagree with the wholesale condemnation of the US, especially by someone who benefits from living here.
This is entirely a matter of which end of the gun you are at. Imagine for a moment someone born in London at the height of the British Empire. They are enjoying the fruits of free speech, a market economy, the glittering promise of the mechanized age. For those who cooperate with his countrymen, there is opportunity and wealth. For those who don't wish to give up their religion, culture, resources - for those who don't want to give up their very freedom - there is punishment, poverty, torture, forced migration, forced conscription, and perhaps mercifully, death itself. How could you say he believes in free speech if he only fights for it for Englishmen on the shores of England? How could you say he supports freedom of the press if opposition editors in colonized countries are gunned down and their buildings torched to the ground? How could you say he supports freedom of religion if he refuses to make any concessions for non-christians?
I think it's offensive that anyone pretends America is anything but the newest iteration of western imperialism, as far as it's foreign policy is concerned. Imperialism, above all else, is the denial of the human right to self-governance and independence of the less powerful. Not only that, American imperialism is the height of irony and hypocrisy - we are a nation founded on the belief that English imperialism was inherently immoral and unjust.
As for the benefits I enjoy, they come with a responsibility. In the same way (I hope) I would not have supported slavery simply because I benefited from it, I do not support war, even if I believed I derived my rights from the death of foreigners and the destruction of their homelands.
Twain brings it to light better than I can. Perhaps you and your wife should read it together.
There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded-counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred -- including women and children -- and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States...
If I know President Roosevelt -- and I am sure I do -- this utterance cost him more pain and shame than any other that ever issued from his pen or his mouth. I am far from blaming him. If I had been in his place my official duty would have compelled me to say what he said. It was a convention, an old tradition, and he had to be loyal to it. There was no help for it. This is what he said:
Washington, March 10. Wood, Manila:- I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag. (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.
His whole utterance is merely a convention. Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms - and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salar
Yes... what could the Philippines possibly illustrate about my point that people flee countries destroyed by imperialism, often for the imperial country itself.
Oh wait.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War
All developing nations are those that have been victims of colonialism, whether traditional invasion or more modern forms of economic corruption and sabotage. No one is denying that imperial nations benefit from destroying more poorly armed or less violent cultures. The question is, if you believe at all in morality, is it just?
(All due respect for you and your wife, but arriving from the Philippines doesn't mean you know anything about it's history, or the nature of colonialism. Just ask any American on the street what year the Civil War started.)
As a reality check, if you have the choice between living under the boot of British rule, or moving to England and enjoying the fruits of imperialism, which are you likely to choose?
People are not fleeing to America from England and France. If you say that we are better off than the countries we exploit and China, well, color me unimpressed.
When your government is some crazy military who has remained in power by force for 50 years and has isolated the country from the rest of the world, you don't need foreign enemies to ruin your economy.
Are you talking about Cuba or America?
I'm sorry, can you tell me what I'm missing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_rebellion
Long Term Results
The western countries stopped short of finally colonizing China. From the Boxer rebellions, the westerners learned that the best way to govern China was through the Chinese dynasty, instead of direct dealing with the Chinese people (as a saying “The people are afraid of officials, the officials are afraid of foreigners, and the foreigners are afraid of the people". Dowager Cixi used Boxers to fight westerners largely because western countries sympathized with the Guangxu Emperor, who had been house-arrested after an aborted reformation. However, eventually, as an unwritten agreement, Dowager Cixi was allowed to stay in power, since comparatively, Cixi could use her influence to suppress the Chinese anti-western sentiment better than the weak and ineffectual Guangxu Emperor. The Guangxu Emperor spent the rest of his life in house-arrest.
The Cuban people live like cavemen in falling down cities, with all personal wealth stripped away, where you disappear if you have a cell phone or TV that isn't approved, where "knowing too much" isn't a joke, it's a crime.
The Cuban people live very modestly, but not like cavemen. They are the only modern society that has survived peak oil. They have an excellent medical system, because medical equipment is the only thing we allow in and out. They have a similar life expectancy yet they live on a fraction of what we do.
Sorry to say, but they are far more self-sufficient and capable of surviving as a community than America is, military power aside. It's no paradise, but until the Cuban people choose otherwise, we have no right to continue interfering for the purposes of political grandstanding.