I suppose it's naive of me to think that the left hand and the right hand ought to communicate once in a while...
Why don't any of these articles mention the black water problem in Florida? Current explanation seems to be a "plant plankton bloom" or "algae bloom", and it has resulted in the death of many bottom-dwellers, including sponges, corals, and starfish. It also resulted in an almost complete lack of fish in the area, which is bad economically as well as ecologically.
So far, we don't know what caused this bloom - suggestions range from industrial waste to disturbances of the sea floor.
<rant>
How can anyone seriously propose tampering with the balance of the ocean without even mentioning the possible dangers? Until we have a good idea what causes blooms like this, and whether introduction of huge amounts of CO2 into the ocean would increase the risk, we have no business considering it as an option.
Oh, that's right, I forgot. As long as the short-term savings favor corporations, we must *never* think about long-term external costs!
</rant>
Eons ago, I grabbed a quote from Hydrophobe here on slashdot that summarizes the situation perfectly:
We need corporations to protect us from governments. And vice versa.
As long as there's a balance of power between the two, then they spend their resources counteracting each other, and those less fortunate (i.e., us) are safer from exploitation.
The dangers come when government and corporations join and work together. It doesn't matter whether the government is running the corporations, or the corporations are running the government -- both communism and corporatism lead to exploitation.
What we need is some way to discourage or prevent the two from working together. I have no idea what that could be, though. Seems like historically, the two are naturally drawn to each other, and only random acts of nature drive them apart.
I think I agree with removing the "natural person" status of corporations - it gives them the ability to use resources far in excess of those of us who are only a "normal person." Once this enormous power is removed from the corporations, though, we would have to watch out for the pendulum swinging the opposite direction.
I still think the real solution would be to find a way to ensure the separation of corporation and government interests. True campaign reform would help some, but we still have the "buddy" system that you mentioned - the overlap between business power and government power, and the "revolving-door" pattern of employment, need changing, too. That would be harder, though. It doesn't sound right to prevent people from ever changing careers between business and government, so there must be some other way of reducing this overlap. It would be silly to say that we can't allow people with business expertise in a certain area to use that in the government...
It's too bad we can't infallibly test the motives and corruptibility of politicians and bureaucrats before allowing them to serve in government. It's also too bad that motives are rarely considered as a major reason for voting for or against someone...
Now I'm rambling, I know...
Another part of the solution might be to find a better way to measure the health of the country. Right now, the core assumption is that if something is good for the economy (i.e., big money, big business), then it's good for the country -- "a rising tide lifts all boats," you know. Hah! Double hah!
I wish we could somehow make the government realize that the country's good can be better seen by looking at the median income, or the cost of health care for the typical citizen, rather than looking at the big, bottom-line numbers.
A question. If we could have a button to press to eliminate any selected person, group of people, or all the members of a country, with 100% accuracy and no collateral damage, should be ever push it? What conditions would justify pushing it? Would the world even survive 5 years past the invention of the perfect weapon?
Initial gut reaction: this would provide too much power -- power that would obviously bring the most benefit to those who would use it most (and therefore those who would deserve it least). Seems like we'd end up with either Hitler/Stalin type of totalitarianism, or gangster/warlord type chaos, depending on how hard it was to gain access to this weapon.
If *everyone* could easily use this weapon, then I suppose it's possible we'd end up with a cold-war-like detente, where everyone is afraid of offending anyone else. It wouldn't last very long, though. Someone's bound to start the explosion sooner or later. Fear of retailiation can supress hostility, but it can't establish permanent peace.
The scariest part of a weapon like that is that it lets people do violence without risk to themselves. I don't know if facts would back me up on this, but I tend to think that war was better (i.e., more horrible, hated, and avoided) when the people deciding to do violence to others bore the primary risks, rather than delegating those risks to underlings. Things sure seem to be moving in the opposite direction, though.
The interests of individual users and businesses (not to mention "key interest groups" - read: 'corporate sponsored lobbies') are diabolically oppposed at the most fundamental level.
That's exactly why someone needs to step in to balance the interests of all involved parties, and make sure that no party is allowed to exploit the rest. Ideally, that's what a government ought to do. Practically, on the other hand...
Governments are large organizations that exploit individuals for their benefit. Corporations are large organizations that exploit individuals for their benefit.
Sure, the benefits and methods may differ somewhat. Governments use law, force and money to ensure power and profit. Corporations use money, law and force to ensure profit and market power. Often, government and corporations work together. Tell me again how they're different?
Oh, and please don't tell me that only governments use physical force on individuals. Corporations often use government troops or mercenaries against people standing in the way of their profits.
Re:Actually hemp would work better...
on
Cradle to Cradle
·
· Score: 2
Of course, trees are a renewable resource, but the time your talking, hundreds of years, before a new tree will grow is unacceptable to turn a profit.
You need to check your facts. Trees planted for pulp/paper do not take "hundreds of years". It depends on the tree and the location, but it ranges from 20-50 years for North American softwoods, to 3-5 years for eucalyptus in Asia.
Perhaps hemp is still preferable, but let's do an accurate comparison...
Equally chilled? I really don't think so. If there is an official warrant, then that means that a judge somewhere was convinced enough of the reasonable cause to issue the warrant. This process reduces the chance of abuse of powers.
If an agent can investigate based solely on individual suspicion or hunch, without review by an external party like the judge, then I see a much greater chance of misuse of the powers, and I'd be more suspicious of strangers than if warrants were required.
Re:Safety through better home insulation
on
Surveillance Update
·
· Score: 2
Exactly my point - those are the things that are now changing how I look at my energy use.
Re:Safety through better home insulation
on
Surveillance Update
·
· Score: 2
Yup. The efficiency of centralization seems to lie primarily in its ability to externalize costs and appear more efficient than it really is. And if the costs can be externalized beyond the country borders, then that's even better because the costs are even better hidden.
It's effective, too. I fill my car with gas about twice a week - and until recently, rarely even thought about any costs of that oil other than the $ I'm paying...shame on me
Example: An FBI agent walks into a mosque and says, "Hey folks! No cause for alarm. Just wanted to let you know we'll have three agents with tape recorders at every public meeting held here from now on. But hey, as long as you're not doing or saying anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about, right?" It'd be hard to argue that this wouldn't have a profound impact on legitimate discourse in that particular forum.
It's even worse than that. Since the agents don't announce their presence or intent, anyone who is unknown to a group could be an agent fishing for leads. Thus the chilling effect occurs even in the absence of an actual agent, and groups are encouraged to be more suspicious of outsiders.
Pretty effective way to push either conformity or paranoia, n'est pas?
I don't know that I'd consider them "graphic depictions", but there are some pretty honest depictions of things in the Bible. It doesn't glorify them, but it doesn't hide them.
sex (consensual, somewhat explicit)
Proverbs 5:18-19
Song of Solomon ch. 1, 4, 7
rape
Judges 20 - Levite offers concubine to mob, then she's raped & murdered
2 Samuel 13 - Absalom rapes half-sister Tamar
Genesis 19:8 - Lot offers daughters to mob, saved by miracle
incest
Genesis 19:30-38 - Lot's daughters seduce him to get children
1 Corinthians 5:1 - man has his father's wife (perhaps stepmother?)
murder - too numerous to mention all...
Genesis 4 - Cain murders Abel (first religious-based murder, by the way)
Judges 4 - Heber's wife Jael kills Sisera by hammering a tent spike through his head while he sleeps
Judges 9 - Gideon's son Abimelech kills his 70 brothers to prevent challenges to his position
2 Samuel 11 - David orders army to abandon Uriah in battle so that he dies
infanticide
Exodus 1 - Pharaoh orders death of all Jewish sons
Judges 11:30-40 - Jephthah fulfills stupid vow by killing daughter
2 Kings 10, 2 Chronicles 22 - Jehu killed all the sons of Ahab, previous king of Israel
Matthew 2:16 - Herod orders all children
torture - this is the only hard one - there's brief mention of things like being cut in half (Heb 11:37) - or I suppose you could consider some of the methods of execution, like stoning and crucifixion, to be torture
cannibalism (not in the previous poster's list...)
2 Kings 6 - women eating their sons during the seige of Samaria
That depends on whether you consider misleading or deception to be a lie...is it a lie to tell the truth in such a way as to intentionally deceive the hearer? Good biblical example: Abraham claiming that Sarah was his sister (Gen 12, 20) - absolutely true, but intentionally leading others to believe that she wasn't his wife.
Often they ignore sound science and instead rely on sudo science
<ROTFL>
All we need is the universal root password! The mind boggles...
#sudo create perpetual-motion
Password:
create: perpetual-motion created, access through/dev/always
#sudo redefine h
Password:
Enter old value of h: 6.63 * 10^-34
Enter new value of h: 42
Re-enter new value of h: 42
redefine: h has been redefined to 42. Please restart reality.
At Cedar Point, I only get a headache after Mean Streak. That's an uuuugly ride, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The rest of the coasters are wonderful - although Mantis is getting a bit rougher as it gets old.
I know the breathing techniques, and I know to keep my head relatively still.
Ah, now that does make a difference, though. How many of the general public know anything about these techniques? I suspect people often hold their breath from excitement, and keep turning their heads to watch whats going on around them on the coaster.
<tongue location="firmly in cheek">
Perhaps what we need is certified G-force education, and have to present our G-card before riding any good coaster.
</tongue>
In this context, positive and negative Gs are relative to the body orientation: positive Gs are directed from head to feet; negative Gs are directed from feet to head.
In physics, there may be no difference between positive and negative Gs, but there are definite physiological differences in how the body reacts to positive and negative Gs, and how much the body can tolerate in each direction. Like the previous poster said, negative Gs cause increased blood pressure in the head, which can lead to bursting blood vessels. Contrariwise, positive Gs cause decreased blood pressure (and flow) to the head, and can eventually cause blackouts.
Nope, sound of Harley is not patented. Harley-Davidson tried to register the sound as a trademark in 1994. In 2000, they withdrew the application after much opposition. There's an interesting analysis of the registrability here, which also mentions successful trademarks on color and scent.
Hmmm...isn't a focus on the entertainment of the populace just as important for keeping the masses ignorant or apathetic of the downfall as it is for causing the downfall?
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose it's naive of me to think that the left hand and the right hand ought to communicate once in a while...
Why don't any of these articles mention the black water problem in Florida? Current explanation seems to be a "plant plankton bloom" or "algae bloom", and it has resulted in the death of many bottom-dwellers, including sponges, corals, and starfish. It also resulted in an almost complete lack of fish in the area, which is bad economically as well as ecologically.
So far, we don't know what caused this bloom - suggestions range from industrial waste to disturbances of the sea floor.
<rant>
How can anyone seriously propose tampering with the balance of the ocean without even mentioning the possible dangers? Until we have a good idea what causes blooms like this, and whether introduction of huge amounts of CO2 into the ocean would increase the risk, we have no business considering it as an option.
Oh, that's right, I forgot. As long as the short-term savings favor corporations, we must *never* think about long-term external costs!
</rant>
...we use the cone of silence something terrible happens. Can't you just write it out to me on a piece of paper?
Eons ago, I grabbed a quote from Hydrophobe here on slashdot that summarizes the situation perfectly:
As long as there's a balance of power between the two, then they spend their resources counteracting each other, and those less fortunate (i.e., us) are safer from exploitation.
The dangers come when government and corporations join and work together. It doesn't matter whether the government is running the corporations, or the corporations are running the government -- both communism and corporatism lead to exploitation.
What we need is some way to discourage or prevent the two from working together. I have no idea what that could be, though. Seems like historically, the two are naturally drawn to each other, and only random acts of nature drive them apart.
I think I agree with removing the "natural person" status of corporations - it gives them the ability to use resources far in excess of those of us who are only a "normal person." Once this enormous power is removed from the corporations, though, we would have to watch out for the pendulum swinging the opposite direction.
I still think the real solution would be to find a way to ensure the separation of corporation and government interests. True campaign reform would help some, but we still have the "buddy" system that you mentioned - the overlap between business power and government power, and the "revolving-door" pattern of employment, need changing, too. That would be harder, though. It doesn't sound right to prevent people from ever changing careers between business and government, so there must be some other way of reducing this overlap. It would be silly to say that we can't allow people with business expertise in a certain area to use that in the government...
It's too bad we can't infallibly test the motives and corruptibility of politicians and bureaucrats before allowing them to serve in government. It's also too bad that motives are rarely considered as a major reason for voting for or against someone...
Now I'm rambling, I know...
Another part of the solution might be to find a better way to measure the health of the country. Right now, the core assumption is that if something is good for the economy (i.e., big money, big business), then it's good for the country -- "a rising tide lifts all boats," you know. Hah! Double hah!
I wish we could somehow make the government realize that the country's good can be better seen by looking at the median income, or the cost of health care for the typical citizen, rather than looking at the big, bottom-line numbers.
[aside] Sounds like the Tantalus Field in ST:TOS "Mirror, Mirror".
Initial gut reaction: this would provide too much power -- power that would obviously bring the most benefit to those who would use it most (and therefore those who would deserve it least). Seems like we'd end up with either Hitler/Stalin type of totalitarianism, or gangster/warlord type chaos, depending on how hard it was to gain access to this weapon.
If *everyone* could easily use this weapon, then I suppose it's possible we'd end up with a cold-war-like detente, where everyone is afraid of offending anyone else. It wouldn't last very long, though. Someone's bound to start the explosion sooner or later. Fear of retailiation can supress hostility, but it can't establish permanent peace.
The scariest part of a weapon like that is that it lets people do violence without risk to themselves. I don't know if facts would back me up on this, but I tend to think that war was better (i.e., more horrible, hated, and avoided) when the people deciding to do violence to others bore the primary risks, rather than delegating those risks to underlings. Things sure seem to be moving in the opposite direction, though.
That's exactly why someone needs to step in to balance the interests of all involved parties, and make sure that no party is allowed to exploit the rest. Ideally, that's what a government ought to do. Practically, on the other hand...
Governments are large organizations that exploit individuals for their benefit. Corporations are large organizations that exploit individuals for their benefit.
Sure, the benefits and methods may differ somewhat. Governments use law, force and money to ensure power and profit. Corporations use money, law and force to ensure profit and market power. Often, government and corporations work together. Tell me again how they're different?
<expected_rant type="libertarian" content="governmental_force" />
Oh, and please don't tell me that only governments use physical force on individuals. Corporations often use government troops or mercenaries against people standing in the way of their profits.
How about an EAT (Entropy Added Tax)?
(only half joking...)
You need to check your facts. Trees planted for pulp/paper do not take "hundreds of years". It depends on the tree and the location, but it ranges from 20-50 years for North American softwoods, to 3-5 years for eucalyptus in Asia.
Perhaps hemp is still preferable, but let's do an accurate comparison...
Equally chilled? I really don't think so. If there is an official warrant, then that means that a judge somewhere was convinced enough of the reasonable cause to issue the warrant. This process reduces the chance of abuse of powers.
If an agent can investigate based solely on individual suspicion or hunch, without review by an external party like the judge, then I see a much greater chance of misuse of the powers, and I'd be more suspicious of strangers than if warrants were required.
Exactly my point - those are the things that are now changing how I look at my energy use.
Yup. The efficiency of centralization seems to lie primarily in its ability to externalize costs and appear more efficient than it really is. And if the costs can be externalized beyond the country borders, then that's even better because the costs are even better hidden.
It's effective, too. I fill my car with gas about twice a week - and until recently, rarely even thought about any costs of that oil other than the $ I'm paying...shame on me
Ahh, that's what They want you to think. Remember, only one of them is too stoopeed to be stoopeed!
It's even worse than that. Since the agents don't announce their presence or intent, anyone who is unknown to a group could be an agent fishing for leads. Thus the chilling effect occurs even in the absence of an actual agent, and groups are encouraged to be more suspicious of outsiders.
Pretty effective way to push either conformity or paranoia, n'est pas?
I don't know that I'd consider them "graphic depictions", but there are some pretty honest depictions of things in the Bible. It doesn't glorify them, but it doesn't hide them.
That depends on whether you consider misleading or deception to be a lie...is it a lie to tell the truth in such a way as to intentionally deceive the hearer? Good biblical example: Abraham claiming that Sarah was his sister (Gen 12, 20) - absolutely true, but intentionally leading others to believe that she wasn't his wife.
<ROTFL>
All we need is the universal root password! The mind boggles...
#sudo create perpetual-motion /dev/always
Password:
create: perpetual-motion created, access through
#sudo redefine h
Password:
Enter old value of h: 6.63 * 10^-34
Enter new value of h: 42
Re-enter new value of h: 42
redefine: h has been redefined to 42. Please restart reality.
Who would have guessed?
Well, not quite, anyway
There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed.
At Cedar Point, I only get a headache after Mean Streak. That's an uuuugly ride, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The rest of the coasters are wonderful - although Mantis is getting a bit rougher as it gets old.
Ah, now that does make a difference, though. How many of the general public know anything about these techniques? I suspect people often hold their breath from excitement, and keep turning their heads to watch whats going on around them on the coaster.
<tongue location="firmly in cheek">
Perhaps what we need is certified G-force education, and have to present our G-card before riding any good coaster.
</tongue>
In this context, positive and negative Gs are relative to the body orientation: positive Gs are directed from head to feet; negative Gs are directed from feet to head.
In physics, there may be no difference between positive and negative Gs, but there are definite physiological differences in how the body reacts to positive and negative Gs, and how much the body can tolerate in each direction. Like the previous poster said, negative Gs cause increased blood pressure in the head, which can lead to bursting blood vessels. Contrariwise, positive Gs cause decreased blood pressure (and flow) to the head, and can eventually cause blackouts.
sister Frieda, and this is my other sister Frieda, and...
<shriek>
Nope, sound of Harley is not patented. Harley-Davidson tried to register the sound as a trademark in 1994. In 2000, they withdrew the application after much opposition. There's an interesting analysis of the registrability here, which also mentions successful trademarks on color and scent.
Hmmm...isn't a focus on the entertainment of the populace just as important for keeping the masses ignorant or apathetic of the downfall as it is for causing the downfall?
Why a Duck?
Because even a goose is a duck when it's on the scales. (I've watched that scene way too often!)