There are certainly millions of things we do that are inefficient, wasteful, or just plain wrong. You won't get any argument from me on that point, and cars are a great place to start.
Sustainability is a goal that we have to achieve at some point, but getting there will be difficult, and it will require further technological advances that can only be brought about by countries with large, vibrant and educated middle classes; the same way we got where we are today. The process is incremental, and I think we're moving in that direction, ultimately, but you can't do it if people are worrying about keeping their families fed instead of focusing on advancing the state of the art.
As far as changing the culture of materialism goes, well, the first place to start would be making people understand the difference between "more" and "better." That alone is a large enough windmill for anyone to tackle, I think. Displacing materialism entirely in favor of cultural richness sounds good, but in my opinion you're getting into utopia-land there.:-)
I think oil will be one of the largest mitigating factors in this trend; at least as far as physical goods go. Transportation costs will rise and eventually make it more profitable to make things locally again, barring drastically better alternate energy sources.
The whole "growth" mantra is the fallacy of the World Bank and IMF.
Absolutely, you are completely correct. The same is true of the stock market. Simply making a profit and paying dividends is no longer good enough, you must GROW.. pfeh.
The middle class is the sole long-term stabilizing factor in western civilization, and it can't even always keep up.
If what you say is true (it may very well be, I don't think anyone can say,) and we cannot as a species come up with a way to fix this that does not involve global economic meltdown, then we look forward to eternal war over limited resources. In which case, bring on the protectionism.
Several reasons. First, the American taxpayer has shouldered an enormous part of the cost of the infrastructure and technical development required to offshore in the first place since the 1960's. If you turn around and use that investment to deprive them of jobs, you're basically giving the work of decades away in return for corporate profits that benefit a very few (who are currently already getting incredible tax breaks compared to historical rates.)
Secondly, offshoring is a race to the bottom. Indian salaries are already rising, causing some companies to look to China or other places with even lower wages. You'll end up having destroyed the American middle class without creating one anywhere else-- 1 or 2% of the very richest will be the only beneficiaries of this, and everyone else will be just as poor as most of the world already is. Currently "free trade" is just a euphemism for taking advantage of cheap labor and not providing anything in return. It's the respectable cousin of sweatshop labor.
Our goal should be *fair* trade, not "free" trade. If India invests in the social trappings of the middle class- clean water, clean food, clean(er) energy, pollution controls, healthcare, etc., then the quality of life there will *really* improve and they'll have a real middle class, with jobs of their own, and thereby will also qualify for even trade footing.
So trade freely with qualified partners: Canada, Europe, Japan, and use the possibility of free trade to 1) keep corporations from taking unfair advantage of cheap labor, and 2) encourage relatively undeveloped countries to rise up to meet better standards on behalf of their own citizens.
it's caused enormous economic hardship here - but given hundreds of millions of people abroad new hope and new life.
So? Since when is it our job to take care of the rest of the planet? Join the fuckin' Peace Corps if you care so much.
There's no such thing as a free market, only different sets of rules. Unless everyone's playing by roughly the same set, it's crooked. Until India has comparable environmental laws, a safety net, reasonable healthcare, etc, offshore work done there should be subject to taxes and tariffs.
Move to Kentucky. It's quite nice down here, at least once you get out of the sticks, and even in them if you like that kind of thing. Best part is, if you're not a felon or otherwise mentally unstable, you can buy all the handguns you want. In addition, you can take a simple yet very instructional daylong course (seemingly far more rigorous than Florida's, I might add) and be eligible to receive a concealed carry permit. And to top it all off, the state is utterly compelled to issue that permit to you within 60 days unless it can somehow prove that you are not truly eligible. There is no room here for the kind of corrupt good-old-boy nonsense perpetrated by your local chief of police. Well, at least not when it comes to CCDW permits.:-)
At this week's rates, I'm getting 11,000/year already. And I'm pretty careful with my addresses, I guess most of it's to role accounts scraped from whois. procmail and spamassassin are what keeps email usable at all.
It was a rare day I could even manage to stay logged into Cingular's Wireless Web service long enough to ASK for a page, nevermind actually view it. I eventually cancelled the service once it became clear there were no improvements coming down the pipe anytime soon. "Webless Wireless" is perhaps a more accurate description.
Manos is relatively weak... compared to this monstrosity. I have an episode recorded somewhere (maybe Cave Dwellers?) where, at the end, one of the bots states "This is THE worst movie we've ever been forced to watch!" and there ensues a great argument. They list *all* the nasties, and _Ring of Terror_ was the one that brought the house down. It was the only MST3K that ever put me to sleep, and that's saying a lot considering I used to stay up during the whole Turkey Day marathon each year.
The naming policy is clearly stated in the rules before you ever create your first character. It's been that way since Day 1, and Verant reserves the right to change names that don't meet their rules. (from 'Suckmyballz' to 'Gandalf'.)
I personally think it's a shame the GMs are spread as thin as they are - they rarely actually get around to changing anyone's name except the very worst offenders.
When I'm playing a fantasy game, a tosser running around with name like daPimpDaddyMack ruins the experience. EFNet is free, he can go be a wanker there.
Slashdot, nifty as it may be, is an unwieldy read-once medium for me. I am not going to waste my time going back to a story's comment page twice, because there's simply no way to filter out what you've already read or to really -follow- a given thread besides doing it in wetware. All web boards I've ever seen suffer from this. Usenet does not. I will most likely not even see any replies to this post. =)
Usenet is by far the most powerful communications medium ever devised by humanity. *Nothing* else comes close to bringing so many diverse people from all over the world together to share ideas.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, no. The fucking "War on Drugs" is the Prohibition of the 21st century, hands down.
It's got DTrace and garbage collection motherfuckers! I soiled my pants twice, and I already knew about the gc. DTrace!
ipods what.
..and 75% of the murder victims in Philly have criminal records.
You guys have it backwards; you clearly do not have enough homicides.
PDF is an open format; Apple implemented it themselves in Quartz. They no longer license code from Adobe.
..and someone better than me has already ripped it apart.
What else are you piping it into? More specifically, can this be done with Reason?
There are certainly millions of things we do that are inefficient, wasteful, or just plain wrong. You won't get any argument from me on that point, and cars are a great place to start.
:-)
Sustainability is a goal that we have to achieve at some point, but getting there will be difficult, and it will require further technological advances that can only be brought about by countries with large, vibrant and educated middle classes; the same way we got where we are today. The process is incremental, and I think we're moving in that direction, ultimately, but you can't do it if people are worrying about keeping their families fed instead of focusing on advancing the state of the art.
As far as changing the culture of materialism goes, well, the first place to start would be making people understand the difference between "more" and "better." That alone is a large enough windmill for anyone to tackle, I think. Displacing materialism entirely in favor of cultural richness sounds good, but in my opinion you're getting into utopia-land there.
I think oil will be one of the largest mitigating factors in this trend; at least as far as physical goods go. Transportation costs will rise and eventually make it more profitable to make things locally again, barring drastically better alternate energy sources.
The whole "growth" mantra is the fallacy of the World Bank and IMF.
Absolutely, you are completely correct. The same is true of the stock market. Simply making a profit and paying dividends is no longer good enough, you must GROW.. pfeh.
The middle class is the sole long-term stabilizing factor in western civilization, and it can't even always keep up.
If what you say is true (it may very well be, I don't think anyone can say,) and we cannot as a species come up with a way to fix this that does not involve global economic meltdown, then we look forward to eternal war over limited resources. In which case, bring on the protectionism.
Several reasons. First, the American taxpayer has shouldered an enormous part of the cost of the infrastructure and technical development required to offshore in the first place since the 1960's. If you turn around and use that investment to deprive them of jobs, you're basically giving the work of decades away in return for corporate profits that benefit a very few (who are currently already getting incredible tax breaks compared to historical rates.)
Secondly, offshoring is a race to the bottom. Indian salaries are already rising, causing some companies to look to China or other places with even lower wages. You'll end up having destroyed the American middle class without creating one anywhere else-- 1 or 2% of the very richest will be the only beneficiaries of this, and everyone else will be just as poor as most of the world already is. Currently "free trade" is just a euphemism for taking advantage of cheap labor and not providing anything in return. It's the respectable cousin of sweatshop labor.
Our goal should be *fair* trade, not "free" trade. If India invests in the social trappings of the middle class- clean water, clean food, clean(er) energy, pollution controls, healthcare, etc., then the quality of life there will *really* improve and they'll have a real middle class, with jobs of their own, and thereby will also qualify for even trade footing.
So trade freely with qualified partners: Canada, Europe, Japan, and use the possibility of free trade to 1) keep corporations from taking unfair advantage of cheap labor, and 2) encourage relatively undeveloped countries to rise up to meet better standards on behalf of their own citizens.
it's caused enormous economic hardship here - but given hundreds of millions of people abroad new hope and new life.
So? Since when is it our job to take care of the rest of the planet? Join the fuckin' Peace Corps if you care so much.
There's no such thing as a free market, only different sets of rules. Unless everyone's playing by roughly the same set, it's crooked. Until India has comparable environmental laws, a safety net, reasonable healthcare, etc, offshore work done there should be subject to taxes and tariffs.
No. I don't do any of this.
And here you are. The racist bits have been removed, the sexist bits are nominally still intact. Enjoy.
Move to Kentucky. It's quite nice down here, at least once you get out of the sticks, and even in them if you like that kind of thing. Best part is, if you're not a felon or otherwise mentally unstable, you can buy all the handguns you want. In addition, you can take a simple yet very instructional daylong course (seemingly far more rigorous than Florida's, I might add) and be eligible to receive a concealed carry permit. And to top it all off, the state is utterly compelled to issue that permit to you within 60 days unless it can somehow prove that you are not truly eligible. There is no room here for the kind of corrupt good-old-boy nonsense perpetrated by your local chief of police. Well, at least not when it comes to CCDW permits. :-)
Hmm, that's not a bad idea. Probably more of a deterrent than the security system thing that's out there right now..
At this week's rates, I'm getting 11,000/year already. And I'm pretty careful with my addresses, I guess most of it's to role accounts scraped from whois. procmail and spamassassin are what keeps email usable at all.
It was a rare day I could even manage to stay logged into Cingular's Wireless Web service long enough to ASK for a page, nevermind actually view it. I eventually cancelled the service once it became clear there were no improvements coming down the pipe anytime soon. "Webless Wireless" is perhaps a more accurate description.
Manos is relatively weak ... compared to this monstrosity. I have an episode recorded somewhere (maybe Cave Dwellers?) where, at the end, one of the bots states "This is THE worst movie we've ever been forced to watch!" and there ensues a great argument. They list *all* the nasties, and _Ring of Terror_ was the one that brought the house down. It was the only MST3K that ever put me to sleep, and that's saying a lot considering I used to stay up during the whole Turkey Day marathon each year.
YA THINK?!!?
'biblio' is French for 'library'. "bib' lee oh"
I personally think it's a shame the GMs are spread as thin as they are - they rarely actually get around to changing anyone's name except the very worst offenders.
When I'm playing a fantasy game, a tosser running around with name like daPimpDaddyMack ruins the experience. EFNet is free, he can go be a wanker there.
Usenet is by far the most powerful communications medium ever devised by humanity. *Nothing* else comes close to bringing so many diverse people from all over the world together to share ideas.