I thought someone would say something about that. I should have more specifically said "...even just 20 years go, let alone 70...". My point was that you didn't even have to go as far back as my initial example for our present technology to seem like the stuff of far-fetched sci-fi.
"Hey, would you want a computer? It's a city block large, uses all of these punchcards for I/O, and doesn't really do much other than crack Enigma. Hey, where are you going?"
"Hey, would you want a computer? It can fit in your pocket, let you talk to anyone in the world, can take pictures and provide you god damn near any information written down by a human being, and you can watch porn on it!"
Computers are the same thing they were even 20 years ago in name only.
That's completely fair. I've never seen anything indicating that anyone involved in OWS indeed does live on their parent's income. The funny thing is that back when I was younger and did live off my parents income tax bracket, I'd have probably actually been hating on OWS myself, if they existed back then. As I said elsewhere here, I was kind of a Randroid. It wasn't until I got older, got myself a big boy job, and then watched my income increase a half a percent each year while my medical insurance and inflation outpaced it mutiple times over, and even still realized that the company's CEO was getting mutli-million dollar bonuses while leading the company through yearly losses, that I started to get bitter about such things. I actually get paid really well... for now. If trends continue, I have to start job hopping, with the hopes that there's a pay bump each time, just to keep myself at the qualtiy of life I was at years before.
Pedantism aside, I believe you know that the problem isn't that the top percent is higher in wealth than the 99%. The problem is that the gap is widening at ever increasing rates.
Your link is something else. I'm having a hard time grasping it as actually real, but maybe I just expect too much from humanity. The question that I've continued to ask in response to arguments like this is "at what income level does your message become legitimate?"
To take it to the absurd:
Hobo 1: The rich are the ones who have done this to us. The increased disparity of wealth has made things continually worse. We need to rise up against them and demand change. We need to get the money out of politics.
Hobo 2: Hey, your pants are somewhat less tattered than mine. You also beat me to that garbage can the other day and got all the good stuff for yourself. Hey, everyone, look at Mr. Entitled Whiner here!
Something else just popped into my head: How can they be wealthy children and be jobless hippies at the same time? Did they get all of their money from their parents? Wouldn't that make them the 1% they're protesting? That doesn't make much sense.
Frankly, your tinfoil hat theory did pop into my head as well. Here's the counter tin-foil hat theory though: The douchebags that you're describing have been the ones consistently shown by popular media which is, in turn, owned by the people that are the target of the protest. I don't need to show where this train of thought goes.
The less hatter theory is that showing intelligent people making well informed statements about what they want changed who are living within their means but disapproving of the way things are done simply isn't as good for the ratings as showing some mocha-brained hipster who jumped on board because he's all angry at the establishment because it beat him to being established before it was cool.
Finally, I'll close by asking what is hypocritical about having nice things but desiring to change the system? Is there a particular salary level in which that you lose your "right" to complain? If so, does it vary by region, like cost of living? I personally know one person under the age of 35 who DOESN'T have a smartphone, and that's because she's a self-proclaimed anachronism. With subsidized plans, phones aren't all that much money up front anymore, and as such, really aren't the difficult to buy. I suppose I could see you saying that they're not "have nots", and as such, they don't provide an image representative of what you would respect representing their movement, but there's a big leap between that and the abject hatred they receive. What would be the ideal face for OWS then, anyway?
The talking point of OWS is that there is a disparity between the top percentile and everyone else. This, I believe, would confirm that. The real question I ask is "Why is that happening?"
Honestly, I think most of the anger directed at them is cognitive dissonance. That's just my theory.
Anecdote time: Amongst the people I work with, the only one I know of who has a strong opinion (other than me) one way or another about the OWS crowd is a punk 22 year old who lives in a house his parents own, is married with two kids, and has, in general, everything still provided for him. The funniest thing is that, contrary to the popular opinion of the OWS crowd being spoiled brats, this one absolutely HATES them with a passion.
I think back to the kind of person I was when I was his age. Though I hardly had anything provided for me to speak of (lest of all a house), I probably wouldn't have liked the OWS people either. I was kind of a brainwashed Randist who believed that hard work and perseverance were all you needed, and the world really was a meritocracy. I believed in the American Dream. I hit the real world though, and realized what a lie it all was. I see the OWS group as a means to try to pull the wool from people's eyes, and the backlash they get is simply resentment for that.
I find it interesting that people not impacted by them get so angry about them and what they're trying to do. I'm not defending their actions, but I really feel like every person I've heard bitch about them makes an emotionally charged statement about them.
Do you REALLY believe there are no issues then and these people really are entitled hippies who are angry because they can't afford to get high anymore? What would you propose instead? Do you argue that there is no ever increasing disparity of wealth? Have you not seen the charts showing that "working" (even professional) wages have not increased in proportion to that of the 1%, or even really tracked with inflation?
Oh, USA has the fear, bigtime. As a resident of the country, I have to witness it first hand. Not my fault the vast majority shuts their brains down when they hear the magic phrase, "...but its for the good of the children."
Most of them believe in invisible sky wizards too. I just shake my head sadly and try to get on with life at this point.
Yeah, I even remember having some of those toys some 20 years ago. I can think of far more dangerous ones. I was using a soldering iron by the age of 14, and that's a pretty dangerous "toy", when you think about it. Hell, as you said, a pencil is even more dangerous. When my brother was about 5 or 6, he had just sharped a pencil and was running over to finish a drawing he was working on. He tripped, caught the sharp end of the pencil just above his eye, and broke a piece of the lead off sandwitched between his skull and flesh.
You can't see the difference between a corporation fiercely clinging to their failing 19th century business model and a nonprofit foundation making a temporary political statement out of concern for a bill's potential abuse?
Slashdot Mirror
I thought someone would say something about that. I should have more specifically said "...even just 20 years go, let alone 70...". My point was that you didn't even have to go as far back as my initial example for our present technology to seem like the stuff of far-fetched sci-fi.
I suspect you knew that though.
"Hey, would you want a computer? It's a city block large, uses all of these punchcards for I/O, and doesn't really do much other than crack Enigma. Hey, where are you going?"
"Hey, would you want a computer? It can fit in your pocket, let you talk to anyone in the world, can take pictures and provide you god damn near any information written down by a human being, and you can watch porn on it!"
Computers are the same thing they were even 20 years ago in name only.
I heard bonch was a Reading Rainbow shill. Mod down.
Hmm. Did you try using it in a coffee shop?
That's completely fair. I've never seen anything indicating that anyone involved in OWS indeed does live on their parent's income. The funny thing is that back when I was younger and did live off my parents income tax bracket, I'd have probably actually been hating on OWS myself, if they existed back then. As I said elsewhere here, I was kind of a Randroid. It wasn't until I got older, got myself a big boy job, and then watched my income increase a half a percent each year while my medical insurance and inflation outpaced it mutiple times over, and even still realized that the company's CEO was getting mutli-million dollar bonuses while leading the company through yearly losses, that I started to get bitter about such things. I actually get paid really well... for now. If trends continue, I have to start job hopping, with the hopes that there's a pay bump each time, just to keep myself at the qualtiy of life I was at years before.
Nice Cake reference by the way.
Pedantism aside, I believe you know that the problem isn't that the top percent is higher in wealth than the 99%. The problem is that the gap is widening at ever increasing rates.
Your link is something else. I'm having a hard time grasping it as actually real, but maybe I just expect too much from humanity. The question that I've continued to ask in response to arguments like this is "at what income level does your message become legitimate?"
To take it to the absurd:
Hobo 1: The rich are the ones who have done this to us. The increased disparity of wealth has made things continually worse. We need to rise up against them and demand change. We need to get the money out of politics.
Hobo 2: Hey, your pants are somewhat less tattered than mine. You also beat me to that garbage can the other day and got all the good stuff for yourself. Hey, everyone, look at Mr. Entitled Whiner here!
Something else just popped into my head: How can they be wealthy children and be jobless hippies at the same time? Did they get all of their money from their parents? Wouldn't that make them the 1% they're protesting? That doesn't make much sense.
Frankly, your tinfoil hat theory did pop into my head as well. Here's the counter tin-foil hat theory though: The douchebags that you're describing have been the ones consistently shown by popular media which is, in turn, owned by the people that are the target of the protest. I don't need to show where this train of thought goes.
The less hatter theory is that showing intelligent people making well informed statements about what they want changed who are living within their means but disapproving of the way things are done simply isn't as good for the ratings as showing some mocha-brained hipster who jumped on board because he's all angry at the establishment because it beat him to being established before it was cool.
Finally, I'll close by asking what is hypocritical about having nice things but desiring to change the system? Is there a particular salary level in which that you lose your "right" to complain? If so, does it vary by region, like cost of living? I personally know one person under the age of 35 who DOESN'T have a smartphone, and that's because she's a self-proclaimed anachronism. With subsidized plans, phones aren't all that much money up front anymore, and as such, really aren't the difficult to buy. I suppose I could see you saying that they're not "have nots", and as such, they don't provide an image representative of what you would respect representing their movement, but there's a big leap between that and the abject hatred they receive. What would be the ideal face for OWS then, anyway?
The talking point of OWS is that there is a disparity between the top percentile and everyone else. This, I believe, would confirm that. The real question I ask is "Why is that happening?"
Honestly, I think most of the anger directed at them is cognitive dissonance. That's just my theory.
Anecdote time: Amongst the people I work with, the only one I know of who has a strong opinion (other than me) one way or another about the OWS crowd is a punk 22 year old who lives in a house his parents own, is married with two kids, and has, in general, everything still provided for him. The funniest thing is that, contrary to the popular opinion of the OWS crowd being spoiled brats, this one absolutely HATES them with a passion.
I think back to the kind of person I was when I was his age. Though I hardly had anything provided for me to speak of (lest of all a house), I probably wouldn't have liked the OWS people either. I was kind of a brainwashed Randist who believed that hard work and perseverance were all you needed, and the world really was a meritocracy. I believed in the American Dream. I hit the real world though, and realized what a lie it all was. I see the OWS group as a means to try to pull the wool from people's eyes, and the backlash they get is simply resentment for that.
I find it interesting that people not impacted by them get so angry about them and what they're trying to do. I'm not defending their actions, but I really feel like every person I've heard bitch about them makes an emotionally charged statement about them.
Do you REALLY believe there are no issues then and these people really are entitled hippies who are angry because they can't afford to get high anymore? What would you propose instead? Do you argue that there is no ever increasing disparity of wealth? Have you not seen the charts showing that "working" (even professional) wages have not increased in proportion to that of the 1%, or even really tracked with inflation?
I wish this wasn't posted anonymously. I also wish I had mod points.
Isn't "Open API" just a different way of saying, "The first one is always free?"
Most fucked up haiku evah!
I'd stop doing business with the companies in the gizmodo link, but I already don't consume any of the 'services' they offer. :(
Yeah, no kidding. So is this a Windows exploit, an iframe exploit, or a Safari exploit?
Damnit. Redundant was not what I was going for.
Oh, USA has the fear, bigtime. As a resident of the country, I have to witness it first hand. Not my fault the vast majority shuts their brains down when they hear the magic phrase, "...but its for the good of the children."
Most of them believe in invisible sky wizards too. I just shake my head sadly and try to get on with life at this point.
Yeah, I even remember having some of those toys some 20 years ago. I can think of far more dangerous ones. I was using a soldering iron by the age of 14, and that's a pretty dangerous "toy", when you think about it. Hell, as you said, a pencil is even more dangerous. When my brother was about 5 or 6, he had just sharped a pencil and was running over to finish a drawing he was working on. He tripped, caught the sharp end of the pencil just above his eye, and broke a piece of the lead off sandwitched between his skull and flesh.
It was not a fun trip to the emergency room.
Ah. Thanks for that. Shame, but it was kind of a hilarious end to it all. Truely, a legend amongst slashdot.
I missed that. You have a link?
You can't see the difference between a corporation fiercely clinging to their failing 19th century business model and a nonprofit foundation making a temporary political statement out of concern for a bill's potential abuse?
I haven't seen Dr. Bob online for quite a while. I'm actually getting kind of concerned at this point.
...
Well? Did it turn out you were trolling or trawling? What type of fishing DID you do!? Christ man, I'm practically on the edge of my seat here!