Is it just me, or does it seem that some of these schools teach in a way that is designed to drive up revenue even if it's against the patients best interest. Like pinhole cavities that "require" drilling filling, when in truth they probably could be filled in with an epoxy without harm. Or like child-teeth cavities, that would probably be fine if you just waited for the tooth to fall out, but the dentist insists that it must be fully drilled and crowned. Or like one time a dentist "tested" to see if my tooth was decaying by dipping a swab in liquid nitrogen and holding it on my tooth untill I felt pain. Funny thing is though, I could have sworn that did something to my tooth that caused it to go bad a month later. Or another case where my wife had a tooth that hadn't grown in yet, but the dentist picked at the sensitive gums arround it to see if it was infected or contaminated with dirt. I'll be damned - if that wasn't what caused it to become contaminated or infected a week later. One time when I was 9, a dentist scraped some gunk off my tooth held it in front of my face and said this has enough bacteria to kill a person if I pricked you - I took it to mean, "let me do as many procedures on your teeth as I want and don't complain to your mom or I'm going to murder you".
Perhaps these schools are this way, because they are ran by those kinds of people.
Agreed, IBM is a hardware and services company, Microsoft is a proprietary software vendor. If you want to maximize your profits from service standpoint, the best route to go is to have a non-proprietary infrastructure ( like Linux.... hint ) so you don't bet bogged down with license costs while you get the maximim value for your service expenses. The consultants who got nailed during the dot com crash have already learned that lesson the hard way. Both Linux and MS professionals got nailed hard, but the Linux experts recovered while the MS ones never really did.
OK, I'll bite. What are it's goals? To cut off the supply of drugs so their price gets driven up to the point that it turns drug loards and gangsters into millionaires several times over who can then finance a crime wave that in turn gives the police an excuse to ignore privacy rights and unreasonable search and seisure and fill up prisons with non violent criminals and give the feds an excuse to ignore states rights. It's goals certainly aren't to reduce harmfull drug use.
I do. I know it worked in at least one case, as I'm able to read your post. Worked in a bunch of others, too.
It didn't work. You have been conditioned by the state that the only way for society to make it is to coerce freebies from everyone else. Very sad indeed.
I assume it's the only institution capable of doing it on a consistent basis at tiny cost to the people that can't afford it. Unless you know of a few thousand private schools that will take kids for free, we don't have much of an alternative. Homeschooling is the only possible option for people without money, but that counts on the parents being well-educated.
No it doesn't. For example, my wife was dislexic, but her public school system was incapable of handeling dyslexic kids at the time, so they put her in the retarded program and ruined several years of her life. That has motivated her to make sure that my daughter is homeschooled better than any public school in the state can teach her inspite of her weak education. I could also talk about how the private boarding school I went to cost a fraction of what it cost the state to send the kids to the local ghetto high, and what that money could do if put back in the hands of it's owners, but I won't because once again - it's just arguing arround the notion that state "guatanteed" education is more important than freedom. I told you so, some people simply just can't deal with such a radical idea.
...I would never try to convince you that gun ownership is bad because I don't think it is. I think arming the poor to combat violence is profoundly stupid. I don't know what argument you're extending to this one, but please don't assume I meant to say bad things I didn't say.
Bullshit, poverty doesn't coorlate to crime or violence, but lack of freedom does. There are all sorts of dirt poor people all over the planet that could resort to crime but don't choose to - and your arrogant attitude is basically a slap in their face and a spit wad on their sturggle. As if they are "auto baboons" because they're not guaranteed freebies.
I have guns that say it won't. Try offering services to get things from me, because even if you can shoot me, you would still cut off your supply of freebies.
If that happens, I'll be clothed and fed. Step up from where I was, what with my social security checks no longer coming in and all the local work taken by the other people no longer getting the same checks. If it's jail or eating out of the garbage, I'll take jail. Unfortunately, that's going to cost Uncle Sam some cash, but ah well, he's saving all that money on social programs.
How about you just get shot for stealing.
Cutting off his nose to spite his face, there, ain't he? He's got lots of customers that don't steal.
Hypocrite, but at least now you admin that it's stealing. When you drive society into a socialist pigstye for the sake of freebies, you are the one cutting your nose off inspite of your face.
A crime wave is very easy to solve in a society that has gun rights. But once again, there you go insisting that a "smooth" transition is more important that freedom. Yup. the notion that freedom matters most is too radical for people to handle.
First of all, stop using the word "coerce." Pick up a thesaurus. Second, most parents aren't qualified to even teach fractions, which makes homeschooling on a large scale impossible, and private school is too expensive for the majority. Again, your solution isn't "radical", it's unworkable.
That's not true, in fact Hong Kong didn't have any taxpayer funded schools for the longest time, but thru private efforts the education and literacy rates were quite up to par.
Billy doesn't get his check next week, Billy doesn't eat. Shit ain't free. Solve the problem and people will be thrilled to listen to you. And no one said "millions."
Billy's check is given to him thru a bureauocracy that is 25-30% efficient. After all, when you don't have freedom, then you don't have the accountability that makes you efficient too. When you kill billy's check - you give 3 to 4 times much back to the tax payers. Those people who create jobs. Those people who cause capital gains to increase ( and thus peoples retirement incomes ). Those people who give more to charity freely than all the non free countries in the world do to the poor combined. The problem isn't that billy won't eat unless the state will coerce freebies at other peoples expense, the problem is that those freebies are at the expense of other peoples freedoms.
....Explain how we go from social security to no social security without social security-dependent families turning to crime, especially considering all their social security-dependent friends will suddenly be looking to fill the 30 available jobs in the area. You still haven't explained step 2.
Sure, I'd love to, that is if you'd explain to me how they're going to pay off their social security obligations without slowing down US economic growth - and thus making it impossible for the US economy to pay off it's already maxed out debt - and thus forcing SSI to default or be paid off with hyperinflated money - and thus the no social security scenario that you were talking about anyhow. At least in my scenario they'd be let loose into a healthy economy and not a collapsed one. At least in my scenario, people could get money back to invest and create wealth and thus retirement income, rather than total collapse. At least in my scenario, charity resources would be maximized and not wiped out when they're needed most. The problem isn't making sure that dependent people are funded to aviod a wave of crime, the problem is making sure that those who fund do so freely to the benefit of all.
I hope you understand that the US economy is currently contracting while the US debt is expanding exponentially. So far, foriegn investors are keeping the US economy going with new loans, while the interest on our current loans is expanding. If things go at their current pace, the interest on the current debt will become higner than the new investments comming in at about mid 2006. At that point the US economy will contract faster, so new loans and investments will become fewer, and things will snowball.
Conclusion: If you are depending on SSI, or a retirement income - I would very seriously consider investing every penny you can in silver (or gold, but silver is in more short supply, or if you know what you're doing - precious metal stocks, but be very carefull because some precious metal stocks have pre promised their metals in derivatives contracts at a fixed price, so if precious metal prices go up they will get slaughtered). Anyhow, my point is that a run on the dollar is about to happen, and when that happens there won't be enough tax revenue or free credit to pay for these programs even if you think they're Gods savior to the universe. Those of us who understand freedom and free markets have taken measures to protect ourselves from this disaster, those who don't are heading to the slaughter at the very time they have alinated themselves from the people they need the most.
It's always nice when someone new walks into a process that's been going on for hundreds of years and gets angry that no one sees his simple solution, even though that's where we started and we've been fixing the problems with it ever since.
Yup. I knew it would be too radical for people to handle.
They're too busy talking about the financial freedom lost when you have a work force of illiterates who can't add.
Yup. The notion that people might actually become educated without the government coercing it on everyone - I told you, it is simply too radical for people to handle.
And your constructive solution is then to let thousands and thousands of people either die or turn to crime? Step one, end social security. What's step two? Please answer. If you've got a way to make this work, please tell us. I really, really want to be on your side, because that's a lot of money.
Boy, I sure hit the nail on the head. After all, who could ever possibly accept the notion that millions won't die unless the government coerces people to pay for retirement and health care. Yes, it is truely too radical to handle.
Genius! How could that possibly go bad? Combine this with your no-free-schooling idea and we've got ourselves a plan that just might solve everybody's problem.
I can see now, that my idea was truely too dangerous. Clearly modding to minus infinity doesn't provide society enough safety. I think you need to have/. trace my IP, to my ISP, and have my ISP trace to my home address so that experts may be hired to rip my toung out, cut off my typing hands, and gouge my peanus out of it's socket to ensure that I can no longer promote such radical ideas or reproduce. Thank you.
I'm sorry for responding to my own post, but no argument about freedom would be complete without mentioning the "war on drugs". God forbid that people actually be "allowed" to act in ways that may not be in their own best interest. Even worse, God forbid that they might be "allowed" to decide what drugs might be in their own best interest. Yeah, if not for the war on drugs "we would have so much crime and violence"............ hmmmmmmmm.
In Linux - everyone seems to think that the technology is more important that the freedom in making the business case for using it.
In monitary policy - everyone seems to think that other measures of inflation and growth are more important, than the freedom from controll that the gold standard offers.
In public education - everyone talks about what kind of education the kids need, and noone talks about the financial freedom lost in paying for it, or the very influence that such has on the kids.
In social security and medicade/ medical care - everyones worried about how will we take care of the needy and elderly and noone talks about the people that need to be financially coerced to make these systems work.
In copyrights and patents - everyone talks about the poor starving inventor or creator, and noone talks about all the people that need to be coerced to make these systems of incentive work.
In the genocide of the poor - noone would even dare mention that the best solution would be to arm them and seciure their right to bear arms first.
Yes, I know it is an insanely radical shocking "lunatic" proposal and people would shudder at the thought that people might actually be "allowed" freedom and empowerment. Perhaps you should just mod me to minus infinity now to save society from the terror that such an outlandish notion would inflict.
What about Patents?
on
Makers
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· Score: 2, Interesting
After all, the story that we've all been spoon-feed is that "noone has an incentive to invent without patents", and that "all the inventors would be dying and starving in the streets" without them? Hmmmm.
FYI, I hate moveon.org, hate the copyright/media industry that supports them, and am one of those minorities that support the war in Iraq, but that doesn't change the fact that the US has some suvere financial problems. And FYI, the banks are that stupid because it has paid bigtime to be that stupid - that's half the problem. When you have the power to create money and out of thin air and loan it out, you tend to do stupid things that wouldn't make sense with naturally limited money like gold.
So, judging by historical parallels, they will need a diversionary tactic, and it's invariably always been a larger general war. It's always been the last gasp of failing empires....
Yeah. I've been trying to figure out what that's going to be though. I don't think it will be the war on terrorisim, no, that reminds me of the war on indians that was fought - then paused while the US went thru a civil war - then resumed after the civil was was over. Also, this time all the conflicts seem to center arround controlling information..... the fed manipulating money, the stock market, copyright, the internet, dupeing all our trade partners.... and you can't controll information with physical war. It would half to be some kind of information war? Perhaps DRM, price controlls, massive propaganda, idle threats???? Between that supreme court rullings on emminent domain and student loans, and the massive housing debt - it already seems like they're getting ready to do something with peoples property? Try to make a currency backed by land?? I dunno, it is very strange.
... bla bla bla... the sky is FALLING!... bla bla bla... so buy GOLD!
Well, laugh in my face all you want, but it won't change the fact that I made an absolute killing in gold stocks this last two quarters. Well, I guess google did pretty well too, but if you want to cling to a technology stock with that high of a P/E - then good luck, you'll need it.
BTW, everyone already knows that the dollar is going to get trashed... the only question nowdays is can the derivatives market withstand the shock? The current theory is that the FED can just print up money to smooth out defaults, but I'd like to see the fed print up the 12 trillion dollar spread on interest rate "bets" out there without causing mass inflation or messing up a lot of other stuff!
My prediction is that technology predictions will be cut short because the US economy is getting ready to fall off hyperinflationary debt cliff. A rare condition where costs and prices become orders of magnitude larger while at the same time pay and employment become orders of magnitude lower. With over leveraged housing debt on a housing market that is getting ready to fall, too much credit card debt, too much corporate debt, too much trade debt, too much municipal debt, too much state debt, too much federal debt - and 270 TRILLION with a T in derivatives contracts that must settle wether thru default or thru printing up money. It wouldn't take too much in the modern efficient US economy for things to snowball and between the FED and a potential panic out of foriegn dollar reserves - it could really be a very very ugly global colapse. IMHO, people should really consider gold in their portfolios this year, there is a reason why it has been going up for the last 5 years, and recently those reasons have become a lot more immenent.
I think it's more like the people who impose copyrights are using the law to rationalize poor choices and coercive behavior. Some say there no "incentive", call people thiefs and pirates, and declare it their property yet it still doesn't chnge the fact that property rights exist to allocate limited resources and not to choke off supply for the sake of "incentive". Perhaps some think that information should have limits in supply for the sake of incentive, not good for them that the natural universe disagrees with them. Maybe the law says gravity pulls upward too, but it would be a poor choice to bet on it, even worse to say those who ignored that law were rationalizing law breaking. What about physical and natural laws?
PS: that's not what RMS (the father of the GPL) said when I last met with him.
Bull, this has nothing to do with security, the real reason is that the leaders of India don't want the people of India to see how they live in huge mansions on drawn out estates while the vast majority of the country lives on under $1000 per year.
You see, in the IT industry - there are all these sales people who are constantly trying to push this proprietary crap down your throat 7x24 that is alsmost always expensive, and will almost certainly be obsolete in a few years. You will have a much more fufilling career, if you are cyincal about all of this, and embrace non-proprietary stuff whenever you whenever you cen even if it is a little more work and a little less feature rich. Over the years, the non proprietary also has the advantage that it tends to build on itself while the proprietary stuff will often keep re-inventing the wheel and charge for it.
I'm sorry, but the parent post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172124&cid=143 32895 isn't flamebait. It's point is very on topic and real. Maybe some people are pissed off, because they don't like the trailing hint to toss their X-box and not game. But the truth is, it it entertainment, the sacrifice being made by people who are facing hard time is real. Considering Microsoft's role in all this, I thought is was a valad side point.
Money is no longer real. Its simply printed and/or blipped on computers. It is not backed by gold or silver like it used to be. The money holders (banks) hold less and charge people for giving it away (service) and they don't even own anything besides nice buildings (although that is changing). Its pretty much a crime to own a decent amount of cash money for some reason.
You know, I was reading that just as I was thinking if there was ever a kind of way that I could give a christmas present to people I don't even know. And then it came to me - my gift to people this year is the plea:
"PLEASE BUY GOLD AND SILVER".
Really! and I am not a "gold kook", it's just that the same information age forces that are killing the copyright cartell are also going to kill central banks ability to lie to people about the value of their currency. I am serious, the economic fundamentals today are WAY worse than the 80's when gold went to $850 usd/oz. Also, today the economony is sevral times more efficient so when the adjustment happens, it will happen several times faster. During the great depression, our currency came out OK, because it was backed by gold. During the 80's our currency came out OK, because Americans didn't have much debt. This time it really is different, and there is nothing to stop the US economy from heading off a hyperinflationary debt cliff after the over-indebted housing market falters and that's why the silver and gold market have been going up so high over the last 5 years.
Food for thought: in 1935, there was about $35 in circulation for every ounce of gold held by the central banks, in 2005 there is about $35000 in circulation for every ounce of gold held by the central banks. People should really buy silver and gold like their butts depended on it. Merry Christmas!!!!
Giving a concert to thousands and thousands of people is a service, controlling content distrubition on millions and millions of internet hosts to preserve a media distribution revenue stream - is not offering a service, even though it is technicaly part of the white collar service sector. The content industries are not only overvalued, they are WAY overvalued. In fact, if every one of them were kidnapped by space alians and brought to a different galaxy, our economy probably wouldn't even notice. Our rents would still be the same, our groceries would still be distributed and wholesale costs, our work efficiency would likely remain untouched. On the other hand, try doing that with the internet industry - and society would take an immedaite milti-trillion dollar economic productivity hit.
Also, my honest opinion is thet I don't think that artists will suffer all that much if the copyright system dies because only 1% 1% ever make money from big copyright deals anyhow, and while the total revenue to the media industry would probably collapse - they are so top heavy that the average going to an artist would likely increase. The real deal is that people just need to stop having faith in the copyright system, it may have been well intentioned, but in practice it is crap.
It was said that during the Mexican American war, that the Mexican armies had superior equiptment, training, and size to the US armies of the time. But the funny thing was that they lost badly because, it is said, that each general was so greedy for power and control - that they refused to work together with any of the other gnereals, thus fragmenting their forces and ensuring their loss.
In a way, it seems, that the same is true of the content cartels of today. They are so into controlling people to gain a monopoly on content distribution - that they can't possibly bring themselves to work with or to trust each other. Meanwhile Linux, and free and open source alternatives to media, contnet, and opperating systems are moving forward as a unified front.
I think both MS and NBC are going to get what's comming to them, and now considering the recnet X-box arrests where people were given hard time for merely copying content, and then charged with totally unrelated DMCA violations. (Two overkills with one stone) I will be all the more relieved to see Microsoft and the copyright cartel burn in financial hell when their time comes due. I really hope people don't get or return their X-boxes this season, if for anything - in the name of Christmas spirit.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it just me, or does it seem that some of these schools teach in a way that is designed to drive up revenue even if it's against the patients best interest. Like pinhole cavities that "require" drilling filling, when in truth they probably could be filled in with an epoxy without harm. Or like child-teeth cavities, that would probably be fine if you just waited for the tooth to fall out, but the dentist insists that it must be fully drilled and crowned. Or like one time a dentist "tested" to see if my tooth was decaying by dipping a swab in liquid nitrogen and holding it on my tooth untill I felt pain. Funny thing is though, I could have sworn that did something to my tooth that caused it to go bad a month later. Or another case where my wife had a tooth that hadn't grown in yet, but the dentist picked at the sensitive gums arround it to see if it was infected or contaminated with dirt. I'll be damned - if that wasn't what caused it to become contaminated or infected a week later. One time when I was 9, a dentist scraped some gunk off my tooth held it in front of my face and said this has enough bacteria to kill a person if I pricked you - I took it to mean, "let me do as many procedures on your teeth as I want and don't complain to your mom or I'm going to murder you".
Perhaps these schools are this way, because they are ran by those kinds of people.
Agreed, .... hint ) so you don't bet bogged down with license costs while you get the maximim value for your service expenses. The consultants who got nailed during the dot com crash have already learned that lesson the hard way. Both Linux and MS professionals got nailed hard, but the Linux experts recovered while the MS ones never really did.
IBM is a hardware and services company, Microsoft is a proprietary software vendor. If you want to maximize your profits from service standpoint, the best route to go is to have a non-proprietary infrastructure ( like Linux
OK, I'll bite. What are it's goals? To cut off the supply of drugs so their price gets driven up to the point that it turns drug loards and gangsters into millionaires several times over who can then finance a crime wave that in turn gives the police an excuse to ignore privacy rights and unreasonable search and seisure and fill up prisons with non violent criminals and give the feds an excuse to ignore states rights. It's goals certainly aren't to reduce harmfull drug use.
I do. I know it worked in at least one case, as I'm able to read your post. Worked in a bunch of others, too.
It didn't work. You have been conditioned by the state that the only way for society to make it is to coerce freebies from everyone else. Very sad indeed.
I assume it's the only institution capable of doing it on a consistent basis at tiny cost to the people that can't afford it. Unless you know of a few thousand private schools that will take kids for free, we don't have much of an alternative. Homeschooling is the only possible option for people without money, but that counts on the parents being well-educated.
No it doesn't. For example, my wife was dislexic, but her public school system was incapable of handeling dyslexic kids at the time, so they put her in the retarded program and ruined several years of her life. That has motivated her to make sure that my daughter is homeschooled better than any public school in the state can teach her inspite of her weak education. I could also talk about how the private boarding school I went to cost a fraction of what it cost the state to send the kids to the local ghetto high, and what that money could do if put back in the hands of it's owners, but I won't because once again - it's just arguing arround the notion that state "guatanteed" education is more important than freedom. I told you so, some people simply just can't deal with such a radical idea.
Bullshit, poverty doesn't coorlate to crime or violence, but lack of freedom does. There are all sorts of dirt poor people all over the planet that could resort to crime but don't choose to - and your arrogant attitude is basically a slap in their face and a spit wad on their sturggle. As if they are "auto baboons" because they're not guaranteed freebies.
I have guns that say it will.
I have guns that say it won't. Try offering services to get things from me, because even if you can shoot me, you would still cut off your supply of freebies.
If that happens, I'll be clothed and fed. Step up from where I was, what with my social security checks no longer coming in and all the local work taken by the other people no longer getting the same checks. If it's jail or eating out of the garbage, I'll take jail. Unfortunately, that's going to cost Uncle Sam some cash, but ah well, he's saving all that money on social programs.
How about you just get shot for stealing.
Cutting off his nose to spite his face, there, ain't he? He's got lots of customers that don't steal.
Hypocrite, but at least now you admin that it's stealing. When you drive society into a socialist pigstye for the sake of freebies, you are the one cutting your nose off inspite of your face.
A crime wave is very easy to solve in a society that has gun rights. But once again, there you go insisting that a "smooth" transition is more important that freedom. Yup. the notion that freedom matters most is too radical for people to handle.
First of all, stop using the word "coerce." Pick up a thesaurus. Second, most parents aren't qualified to even teach fractions, which makes homeschooling on a large scale impossible, and private school is too expensive for the majority. Again, your solution isn't "radical", it's unworkable.
That's not true, in fact Hong Kong didn't have any taxpayer funded schools for the longest time, but thru private efforts the education and literacy rates were quite up to par.
Billy doesn't get his check next week, Billy doesn't eat. Shit ain't free. Solve the problem and people will be thrilled to listen to you. And no one said "millions."
Billy's check is given to him thru a bureauocracy that is 25-30% efficient. After all, when you don't have freedom, then you don't have the accountability that makes you efficient too. When you kill billy's check - you give 3 to 4 times much back to the tax payers. Those people who create jobs. Those people who cause capital gains to increase ( and thus peoples retirement incomes ). Those people who give more to charity freely than all the non free countries in the world do to the poor combined. The problem isn't that billy won't eat unless the state will coerce freebies at other peoples expense, the problem is that those freebies are at the expense of other peoples freedoms.
Sure, I'd love to, that is if you'd explain to me how they're going to pay off their social security obligations without slowing down US economic growth - and thus making it impossible for the US economy to pay off it's already maxed out debt - and thus forcing SSI to default or be paid off with hyperinflated money - and thus the no social security scenario that you were talking about anyhow. At least in my scenario they'd be let loose into a healthy economy and not a collapsed one. At least in my scenario, people could get money back to invest and create wealth and thus retirement income, rather than total collapse. At least in my scenario, charity resources would be maximized and not wiped out when they're needed most. The problem isn't making sure that dependent people are funded to aviod a wave of crime, the problem is making sure that those who fund do so freely to the benefit of all.
I hope you understand that the US economy is currently contracting while the US debt is expanding exponentially. So far, foriegn investors are keeping the US economy going with new loans, while the interest on our current loans is expanding. If things go at their current pace, the interest on the current debt will become higner than the new investments comming in at about mid 2006. At that point the US economy will contract faster, so new loans and investments will become fewer, and things will snowball.
Conclusion: If you are depending on SSI, or a retirement income - I would very seriously consider investing every penny you can in silver (or gold, but silver is in more short supply, or if you know what you're doing - precious metal stocks, but be very carefull because some precious metal stocks have pre promised their metals in derivatives contracts at a fixed price, so if precious metal prices go up they will get slaughtered). Anyhow, my point is that a run on the dollar is about to happen, and when that happens there won't be enough tax revenue or free credit to pay for these programs even if you think they're Gods savior to the universe. Those of us who understand freedom and free markets have taken measures to protect ourselves from this disaster, those who don't are heading to the slaughter at the very time they have alinated themselves from the people they need the most.
Er, so buying medical assistance for the poor is bad but buying them guns is good?
Both are good if people are not coerced to pay for it.
For a solution that "noone would even dare mention" various governments have certainly done quite a lot of it.....and with amazing results too!
It's amazing how people can get "amazing" results with someone elses money.
It's always nice when someone new walks into a process that's been going on for hundreds of years and gets angry that no one sees his simple solution, even though that's where we started and we've been fixing the problems with it ever since.
Yup. I knew it would be too radical for people to handle.
They're too busy talking about the financial freedom lost when you have a work force of illiterates who can't add.
Yup. The notion that people might actually become educated without the government coercing it on everyone - I told you, it is simply too radical for people to handle.
And your constructive solution is then to let thousands and thousands of people either die or turn to crime? Step one, end social security. What's step two? Please answer. If you've got a way to make this work, please tell us. I really, really want to be on your side, because that's a lot of money.
Boy, I sure hit the nail on the head. After all, who could ever possibly accept the notion that millions won't die unless the government coerces people to pay for retirement and health care. Yes, it is truely too radical to handle.
Genius! How could that possibly go bad? Combine this with your no-free-schooling idea and we've got ourselves a plan that just might solve everybody's problem.
I can see now, that my idea was truely too dangerous. Clearly modding to minus infinity doesn't provide society enough safety. I think you need to have /. trace my IP, to my ISP, and have my ISP trace to my home address so that experts may be hired to rip my toung out, cut off my typing hands, and gouge my peanus out of it's socket to ensure that I can no longer promote such radical ideas or reproduce. Thank you.
I'm sorry for responding to my own post, but no argument about freedom would be complete without mentioning the "war on drugs". God forbid that people actually be "allowed" to act in ways that may not be in their own best interest. Even worse, God forbid that they might be "allowed" to decide what drugs might be in their own best interest. Yeah, if not for the war on drugs "we would have so much crime and violence" .... .... .... hmmmmmmmm.
In Linux - everyone seems to think that the technology is more important that the freedom in making the business case for using it.
In monitary policy - everyone seems to think that other measures of inflation and growth are more important, than the freedom from controll that the gold standard offers.
In public education - everyone talks about what kind of education the kids need, and noone talks about the financial freedom lost in paying for it, or the very influence that such has on the kids.
In social security and medicade/ medical care - everyones worried about how will we take care of the needy and elderly and noone talks about the people that need to be financially coerced to make these systems work.
In copyrights and patents - everyone talks about the poor starving inventor or creator, and noone talks about all the people that need to be coerced to make these systems of incentive work.
In the genocide of the poor - noone would even dare mention that the best solution would be to arm them and seciure their right to bear arms first.
Yes, I know it is an insanely radical shocking "lunatic" proposal and people would shudder at the thought that people might actually be "allowed" freedom and empowerment. Perhaps you should just mod me to minus infinity now to save society from the terror that such an outlandish notion would inflict.
Essay: A Violent Protest Against Patents
After all, the story that we've all been spoon-feed is that "noone has an incentive to invent without patents", and that "all the inventors would be dying and starving in the streets" without them? Hmmmm.
FYI, I hate moveon.org, hate the copyright/media industry that supports them, and am one of those minorities that support the war in Iraq, but that doesn't change the fact that the US has some suvere financial problems. And FYI, the banks are that stupid because it has paid bigtime to be that stupid - that's half the problem. When you have the power to create money and out of thin air and loan it out, you tend to do stupid things that wouldn't make sense with naturally limited money like gold.
I should have suggested gun ownership and food storage too, but I was really just focusing on the dollar fall.
So, judging by historical parallels, they will need a diversionary tactic, and it's invariably always been a larger general war. It's always been the last gasp of failing empires....
Yeah. I've been trying to figure out what that's going to be though. I don't think it will be the war on terrorisim, no, that reminds me of the war on indians that was fought - then paused while the US went thru a civil war - then resumed after the civil was was over. Also, this time all the conflicts seem to center arround controlling information ..... the fed manipulating money, the stock market, copyright, the internet, dupeing all our trade partners .... and you can't controll information with physical war. It would half to be some kind of information war? Perhaps DRM, price controlls, massive propaganda, idle threats???? Between that supreme court rullings on emminent domain and student loans, and the massive housing debt - it already seems like they're getting ready to do something with peoples property? Try to make a currency backed by land?? I dunno, it is very strange.
Well, laugh in my face all you want, but it won't change the fact that I made an absolute killing in gold stocks this last two quarters. Well, I guess google did pretty well too, but if you want to cling to a technology stock with that high of a P/E - then good luck, you'll need it.
BTW, everyone already knows that the dollar is going to get trashed ... the only question nowdays is can the derivatives market withstand the shock? The current theory is that the FED can just print up money to smooth out defaults, but I'd like to see the fed print up the 12 trillion dollar spread on interest rate "bets" out there without causing mass inflation or messing up a lot of other stuff!
My prediction is that technology predictions will be cut short because the US economy is getting ready to fall off hyperinflationary debt cliff. A rare condition where costs and prices become orders of magnitude larger while at the same time pay and employment become orders of magnitude lower. With over leveraged housing debt on a housing market that is getting ready to fall, too much credit card debt, too much corporate debt, too much trade debt, too much municipal debt, too much state debt, too much federal debt - and 270 TRILLION with a T in derivatives contracts that must settle wether thru default or thru printing up money. It wouldn't take too much in the modern efficient US economy for things to snowball and between the FED and a potential panic out of foriegn dollar reserves - it could really be a very very ugly global colapse. IMHO, people should really consider gold in their portfolios this year, there is a reason why it has been going up for the last 5 years, and recently those reasons have become a lot more immenent.
I think it's more like the people who impose copyrights are using the law to rationalize poor choices and coercive behavior. Some say there no "incentive", call people thiefs and pirates, and declare it their property yet it still doesn't chnge the fact that property rights exist to allocate limited resources and not to choke off supply for the sake of "incentive". Perhaps some think that information should have limits in supply for the sake of incentive, not good for them that the natural universe disagrees with them. Maybe the law says gravity pulls upward too, but it would be a poor choice to bet on it, even worse to say those who ignored that law were rationalizing law breaking. What about physical and natural laws?
PS: that's not what RMS (the father of the GPL) said when I last met with him.
essay: Straight Talk About Copyrights
Bull, this has nothing to do with security, the real reason is that the leaders of India don't want the people of India to see how they live in huge mansions on drawn out estates while the vast majority of the country lives on under $1000 per year.
You see, in the IT industry - there are all these sales people who are constantly trying to push this proprietary crap down your throat 7x24 that is alsmost always expensive, and will almost certainly be obsolete in a few years. You will have a much more fufilling career, if you are cyincal about all of this, and embrace non-proprietary stuff whenever you whenever you cen even if it is a little more work and a little less feature rich. Over the years, the non proprietary also has the advantage that it tends to build on itself while the proprietary stuff will often keep re-inventing the wheel and charge for it.
I'm sorry, but the parent post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=172124&cid=143 32895 isn't flamebait. It's point is very on topic and real. Maybe some people are pissed off, because they don't like the trailing hint to toss their X-box and not game. But the truth is, it it entertainment, the sacrifice being made by people who are facing hard time is real. Considering Microsoft's role in all this, I thought is was a valad side point.
Money is no longer real. Its simply printed and/or blipped on computers. It is not backed by gold or silver like it used to be. The money holders (banks) hold less and charge people for giving it away (service) and they don't even own anything besides nice buildings (although that is changing). Its pretty much a crime to own a decent amount of cash money for some reason.
You know, I was reading that just as I was thinking if there was ever a kind of way that I could give a christmas present to people I don't even know. And then it came to me - my gift to people this year is the plea:
"PLEASE BUY GOLD AND SILVER".
Really! and I am not a "gold kook", it's just that the same information age forces that are killing the copyright cartell are also going to kill central banks ability to lie to people about the value of their currency. I am serious, the economic fundamentals today are WAY worse than the 80's when gold went to $850 usd/oz. Also, today the economony is sevral times more efficient so when the adjustment happens, it will happen several times faster. During the great depression, our currency came out OK, because it was backed by gold. During the 80's our currency came out OK, because Americans didn't have much debt. This time it really is different, and there is nothing to stop the US economy from heading off a hyperinflationary debt cliff after the over-indebted housing market falters and that's why the silver and gold market have been going up so high over the last 5 years.
Food for thought: in 1935, there was about $35 in circulation for every ounce of gold held by the central banks, in 2005 there is about $35000 in circulation for every ounce of gold held by the central banks. People should really buy silver and gold like their butts depended on it. Merry Christmas!!!!
Giving a concert to thousands and thousands of people is a service, controlling content distrubition on millions and millions of internet hosts to preserve a media distribution revenue stream - is not offering a service, even though it is technicaly part of the white collar service sector. The content industries are not only overvalued, they are WAY overvalued. In fact, if every one of them were kidnapped by space alians and brought to a different galaxy, our economy probably wouldn't even notice. Our rents would still be the same, our groceries would still be distributed and wholesale costs, our work efficiency would likely remain untouched. On the other hand, try doing that with the internet industry - and society would take an immedaite milti-trillion dollar economic productivity hit.
Also, my honest opinion is thet I don't think that artists will suffer all that much if the copyright system dies because only 1% 1% ever make money from big copyright deals anyhow, and while the total revenue to the media industry would probably collapse - they are so top heavy that the average going to an artist would likely increase. The real deal is that people just need to stop having faith in the copyright system, it may have been well intentioned, but in practice it is crap.
It was said that during the Mexican American war, that the Mexican armies had superior equiptment, training, and size to the US armies of the time. But the funny thing was that they lost badly because, it is said, that each general was so greedy for power and control - that they refused to work together with any of the other gnereals, thus fragmenting their forces and ensuring their loss.
In a way, it seems, that the same is true of the content cartels of today. They are so into controlling people to gain a monopoly on content distribution - that they can't possibly bring themselves to work with or to trust each other. Meanwhile Linux, and free and open source alternatives to media, contnet, and opperating systems are moving forward as a unified front.
I think both MS and NBC are going to get what's comming to them, and now considering the recnet X-box arrests where people were given hard time for merely copying content, and then charged with totally unrelated DMCA violations. (Two overkills with one stone) I will be all the more relieved to see Microsoft and the copyright cartel burn in financial hell when their time comes due. I really hope people don't get or return their X-boxes this season, if for anything - in the name of Christmas spirit.