You are right that the amount of physical damage is minimal, but actual physical damage is not the goal of terrorists: spreading the message is the goal, and the spreading of that message is greatly heightened by a dramatic delivery, such as the deaths of innocent people.
That's a fine analysis as far as it goes, but it begs the question:
If their goal is to foster fear to spread their message, shouldn't our first priority be to eliminate that fear response?
How are we doing on that front? How much time have our politicians spent advocating impudence in the face of terrorism? Telling us that being afraid of terrorism is like being afraid of a car crash -- except that car crashes kill a lot more people and being afraid of them doesn't make them worse. I think our politicians spend a lot more time fostering fear of this minuscule threat, and telling us we have to give up on our national principles.
That being the case, it seems only rational to question their motives. And when you scratch the surface of the supposed benefits of backscatter or pat-downs, there simply is not much benefit there -- to anyone but the authoritarians, the equipment manufacturers, and the terrorists who are achieving their goal of putting us on a fear footing. To me, that does not seem like a path forward for The Nation.
Personally, I'll go for the public. If they're going to be obnoxious, authoritarian jerks, they should be forced to do it where everybody can see them.
we do check the other political party because by god they are out to destroy America as we know it.
I'm dubious about this.
Think about all the [one party] ranting and raving about [president from other party] when he was in office.
That is the empirical evidence, and the conclusion they want us (voters) to draw is that the other party is worse. I think that is the wrong conclusion. I think the right conclusion is that both parties want us (voters) to think one party is so objectionable that we have to vote for the other party. It keeps independents from being a threat.
The supporting evidence is that lots of legislation does get passed -- just not about any of the "hot talk" issues. When the banks automated the notarization process and weren't reading foreclosures, both parties magically agreed to instantly pass a law waiving all the banks' liability. That doesn't happen when two parties are really at each others' throats -- both sides would have been hoping for the other side to pass it so they could make hay with the voters. Same thing with the health care bill -- they were at each others throats until the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies got what they wanted, then the bill went through. Same with FISA, bank regulation, net neutrality, and so many other proposed laws that got bipartisan support despite being counter to the interests of We The People.
They shout about gun rights (and do nothing) and abortion (and do nothing) and civil liberties (and do nothing) and gay rights (and do nothing) and fiscal restraint (and do nothing) and on and on and on.
The polarizing rhetoric is all around the stuff they do nothing about, while everything that has big money behind it sails through with broad bipartisan support and takes another bite out of our economic efficiency.
These are not two parties at each others throats. This is one party (the authoritarian/lobbyist party) with two theater companies putting on 'competing' shows.
earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be 'monstrous and shocking' and reduced the amount to $54,000.
[the jury] decided today that she was liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages
The jury is instructed to apply the law without considering whether the law is constitutional. The judge is applying his perspective on constitutionality. Given a 30x difference in outcomes, it seems that there is a pretty severe disconnect between the law and what is right according this official boundaries of this nation's legislative charter.
What do we do to find the law to be 'monstrous and shocking'? What is the process for finding the legislature and DoJ to be 'monstrous and shocking'? For finding that they do not derive their just powers from the will of the governed and have violated their sworn duty to The Constitution in favor of their sponsors' will-to-power?
It's not surprising that they are the target of lawsuit... what's sad is that they aren't sued by regular citizens for abdication of their purpose in search of bribes and kickbacks from Industry.
I think a big part of the problem here is the very narrow definition of "standing". The United States court system currently does not hold that being a citizen is standing in itself regarding government activities. I can't point to specific cases regarding corruption, but two good cases to look at to frame the question of standing versus the government in general are Al-Haramain and ACLU v. NSA:
[T]he plaintiffs do not -- and because of the State Secrets Doctrine cannot -- produce any evidence that any of their own communications have ever been intercepted by the NSA, under the TSP, or without warrants. Instead, they assert a mere belief, which they contend is reasonable and which they label a "well founded belief,"...
You can read more about that sort of circular logic in the book Catch-22. You cannot legally know if you were being surveilled, and you cannot have standing regarding warrantless surveillance without proving you were surveilled.
To me this indicates a clear failure to understand The Constitution: All United States citizens, by any rational interpretation of The Constitution, have standing in any case against the federal government. Petition for redress of grievances is a fundamental right which the federal government does not have the authority to abridge. Asserting a lack of standing, let alone a law which prohibits you from showing standing, is a blatant violation of petition for redress.
The first does not say, "Petition for redress of grievances in which you can show that you were harmed." And even if "grievance" has some implicit notion that the petitioner cannot be aggrieved if he or she was not harmed, then it falls back to the government deriving its just authority from the consent of the governed. We The People *are* harmed when the government derives authority from something which we cannot know about and cannot submit a petition for redress about.
IE: Any set of legal standards which result in an inviolable inability to show standing are harmful to all citizens, and hence establish standing for all citizens.
'It turns out that the bitter compounds worked the opposite way from what we thought. They all opened the airway more extensively than any known drug that we have for treatment of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).'
Expect anything bitter and volatile to be classified as a controlled substance that can only be distributed on the condition that a pile of money is given to one of the major campaign contributing drug companies. You see, they need the money so they can continue doing life-saving research into finding new boner drugs and sleeping pills that they can convince us we need.
The UK government plans to introduce legislation that will allow the police to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public.
How quaint -- they use laws to grant government authority for such things. Over on this side of the pond the President just declares it to be so and tells the judicial they're not allowed to hear any petitions for redress of grievances. Much simpler that way.
Six months ago my brother, who is a very stalwart end-user-only, tried Ubuntu for the first time. He now recommends it for everything except for gaming.
But he is pretty smart -- probably not a fair test.
Two weeks ago my neighbor across the street came to me and said she had a problem with her computer. She explained the issue in very primitive terms which boiled down to a broad-spectrum viral infection of Windows. She said a friend of her son had recommended that she "Do something called 'wipe my hard drive' then install Ooo Boo Too on Windows." The conversation continued in this vein for a while. In short, she is neither the sharpest tack in the drawer nor a skilled computer user. She asked for my help with the install. I said, well, maybe I should stay here in case you need help, but you should try to do it all yourself. If you can figure it all out, then you should be OK with using it, but it is pretty different from Windows.
I helped out with a couple confidence things -- "Should I really wipe the whole hard drive?" "Yes.", "Do I really need a password?" "[brief pro/con explanation]" "OK, I'll use a password." -- but she did the rest on her own. Once it was up I showed her where the icons were and how to search for more software, where to put in her password for the local wi-fi she uses, how the system updater works -- but nothing else. I left feeling a little nauseous about the number of "How do I..." questions I would get over the ensuing days.
Two days later I stopped over to ask how it was going. "It's great -- works a lot better than Windows did." (which I ascribed to cruft and viruses having made her Windows install slow) I asked if she had any questions. "Nope, everything is working just fine."
This is what I have believed is the path this matter will take, and I (and probably many others) have been arguing exactly this. The following is the rational path:
Big ISP threatens big content. Big content counter-threatens big ISP. Big ISP and big content reach an agreement to shut out small competition. General public does not know about or care about small competition. Small competition dies, oligarchs win.
Oligarchy or net neutrality. Those are the only two outcomes. Net neutrality depends on an altruistic and long-term focused government. While it has happened before (telcos went through exactly this way back in the day, resulted in common carrier), I do not believe our current government or lackluster activism are capable of making it happen again. In short; oligarchy will win.
I've been trying to think of solutions, not much so far, a few thoughts:
1. Diaspora (or similar) farms that are big enough to buy a seat at the table. 2. Oligarchs sufficiently overstep to incite popular revolution. (unlikely, they're not that stupid -- they know how bread and circuses works -- it is a cookbook to them) 3. Diaspora (or similar) running over surreptitious channels. 4. Indie mesh networks similar to ham operations. 5. Geek revolt (ie: we realize we have all the power here, decide that our paychecks are not worth the price, and shut down the oligarchs before they gain unstoppable power)
None of these seem particularly likely to succeed, to me. One thing seems obvious: The further we get down the road, the more extreme the solution will have to be. Well, make that two things: The short term gains to the oligarchs will be enormously outweighed by the friction, and hence loss, to our GDP growth rate -- punishing us all, including them, in the long run.
An unfortunately easy thing given the lack of inflection in text and the frequency of mindless USA bashing. It frequently leads to dissent being viewed as antipathy, which in turn leads people like me to be, perhaps, too sensitive to such implications. I am sorry if my reaction was stronger than appropriate.
The theory of free market economics is pretty sound: All labor (including management and executives in the broadest definition of labor) should get paid according to its contribution to GDP. That is how to maximize GDP growth in the long run.
We, information scientists and engineers, create an enormous amount of wealth. Like any resource, the long-term market stable price is determined by the long-term value of the resource. While it is theoretically possible that short run supply is outstripping demand, or that low-cost supply is outstripping high-value demand, I find that premise highly dubious. I think it is vastly more likely in this period of firestorm information technology advances that supply cannot possibly keep up with demand. Our long-term value is very high, and short-term demand may well be biased upward.
Said differently: The idea that short run supply is outrunning demand is at least highly questionable. The notion that we must accept lower pay in the long run relative to our contribution to GDP is pure hokum, and harmful to GDP growth.
By all means, if you feel so inclined, reduce your expenses and telecommute. Possibly for lower pay as a result of higher costs or lower efficiency associated with employing telecommuters. But by no means should you ever accept that long-run compensation should not be directly correlated to GDP contribution, nor treat the implication that supply is outstripping demand in the short run with anything but a very large grain of salt.
The only real threat here is that the myths being promulgated become beliefs, and hence lead to systemic bias. That would be harmful to our rationally self-interested selves, but worse, it would inhibit long-run GDP growth.
How in the hell is this related to war profiteering?
The post was quite clear. Try reading it without skipping every other word, and perhaps it will be more clear to you.
This just sounds like another excuse to hate the USA.
Rarely do I lower myself to feed the trolls, but your shallow jingoism is offensive to my deep and considered patriotism.
Note that the threat of the military industrial complex was, as noted in my post, highlighted by Eisenhower. Do you believe Ike hated the USA? The extension of the war metaphor to non-war activities suppresses considered discourse in favor of subjective and emotionalist reactionism. Such behavior is a threat to the foundations of intelligent, republican, democracy, not to mention a tremendous source of friction in our free market economy.
"My country right or wrong -- when right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right." That is the position of the patriot. Your shallow jingoism is authoritarian rubbish.
The telcos get paid rapacious fees by the government to "voluntarily" provide direct intercept rooms for the war on terror. Halliburton and Blackwater get paid highwayman prices for services in the war zones. Now Google is licking its lips over getting a taste of the copyright war booty.
In an America run by authoritarians who love war, war metaphors, getting re-elected for their positions on war, and getting campaign ads sponsored by war-enriched corporations, being anything other than a war profiteer is choosing to be second tier.
Good? Bad? Necessary but regrettable? Maybe all those things in various specific cases. But always: A big chunk of GDP.
Eisenhower was right about the military-industrial complex. The only thing he missed: That war and war spending is not limited to things involving soldiers and guns. The war metaphor gives us the opportunity to extend war-footing excesses to all our beloved oligarchs.
take a rather extreme biblical literacy approach (which the Catholic Church hasn't had for well over a thousand years).
Transubstantiation?
Maybe they don't have that any more, but it wasn't dropped 1,000 years ago. It was less than 30 years ago that I heard it taught as literal truth at a pretty big, mainstream Catholic church.
I'm also guessing they haven't given up on the virgin birth, great flood, Samson, pillars of salt, walls of Jericho, or divine origin of the tablets yet -- to name just a few.
I do know people who practice a spiritual relationship with a deity only metaphorically represented in the stories of the Christian bible, but the Catholic church has a lot more literal interpretation than you give them credit for.
Yeah -- went to this little Mom & Pop lumbermill out in the country in Ohio and asked what they had with figure. One of the guys took me out to the barn and was showing me some curly maple. Then he says, "Oh! Come look at this!" And pulls out the piece of curly red oak that made the sides. "Most of our customers use red oak for crown moulding. They can't match curly pieces, so this board has been sitting here for two years."
I nearly did the poor fellow an injury ripping it out of his hands.:)
Was the marble countertop & stainless steel stove part of cutting expenses to the bone? heh -- definitely not -- that's my Dad's house.:)
It might also be wise to turn off directory browsing. Not sure if Bob at work wants to be on/. All the really good stuff is in the directories you can't see.;)
True for me. I made the jump this past January. 2009 my company said no raises for anyone (except executives, of course). 2010 they claimed the same thing, I declined, they offered me an insulting pittance, and away I went.
Cut my expenses to the bone, picked up some contract work, and now doing economic research most of the time. Getting ready to publish my first paper, if the vetting goes well. Also took some time to do my first fine woodworking -- produced two nice footstools(*), which I gave to my parents.
Damned fine thing. I strongly recommend it if you can bzip your budget.
Heh, at this rate, it won't be long before the United States is the only country left. Then the RIAA, MPAA, and the henchmen Obama appointed to the DoJ can write whatever they want and sign us on as the sole participating nation. Signing a treaty without another nation involved has to fall somewhere in the executive branch scale between extraordinary rendition and summary execution, so it's totally legit!
Very simple binary question. One simple valid answer: No.
Any further elaboration beyond, "No" should start by saying, "No" in a clear and loud voice, before moving on to other points. Elaboration should further refine the point, along the lines of, "Every person is a person, which is why they said, 'We The People' in the constitution. Not every person is a corporation, a corporate executive, or a member of an organization. That is why they did not say 'We, the people, corporations, organizations, and such other created entities as shall be defined later...'"
On to the evidence of Lessig's failure to say, "No.":
"And in it, he responds to one of the key questions we've heard from people all across the country: are corporations people?" - Monica Walsh, Change Congress, referencing a link to the video 'Lawrence Lessig, "Are corporations people?"', from the Change Congress mailing list, Feb 09, 2010.
"And in it, he responds to one of the key questions we've heard from people all across the country: are corporations people?" - Monica Walsh, Change Congress, referencing a link to the video 'Lawrence Lessig, "Are corporations people?"', from the Change Congress mailing list, Feb 09, 2010.
I bought the iPhone because I know they are controlling the user experience. I'm greatly enjoying my user experience on my iOS devices. I feel like I got what I paid for, and am likely to get more apple products in the future.
The existence of the iTunes app store is a fine thing. It creates GDP and should be an option for people who want to have a controlled experience. When you, the silent hand of the free market, choose a product based on your free and sober reflection on the merits of the market options, an angel gets his wings.
However, the free market is optimized by competition. While you may never have a use for competition in this particular market, and there may even be specific cases where competition reduces long-run GDP, those cases are the exception to the rule.
If you are saying that the iPhone is a peculiar case where a lack of competition does not have an apparent harm to you, then yours is a fine -- if somewhat trivial -- post.
If you are saying that the case of your particular experience with the iPhone is indicative of some general market truth, then I must strenuously disagree. Free market economic theory is pretty solid. The hypothesis that non-competition is a generally healthy market behavior has about as much rational basis as intelligent design.
the way of large companies getting a say on what does or does not get published on the distribution channels they control
This can be generalized to consider the negative impact of all forms of extra-market powers. Powerful entities distort the free market in all industries. Those distortions cost us GDP. The free market is sensitive to coercion from governments, corporations, organizations, and influential individuals. The price of a market free from bias -- free from performance-robbing distortion -- is eternal vigilance, just like democracy. Many conflate the free market with laissez faire. Adam Smith, the patron saint of free market theory, was also the first to point out the difference.
Oligarchs have been glossing over that part of The Wealth of Nations ever since. The real free market is anathema to oligarchy.
The Constitution implicitly assumes the private ownership of warships (see 'letters of marque and reprisal'), so the idea that the founders would have been shocked by private ownership of crew-served weapons seems rather silly.
Personally, I'm more for the spirit interpretation of the 2nd. The goal of the 2nd, in the eyes of the guys who had just overthrown the official government, was that The People should have enough firepower to take down the government if necessary. To me, handguns, rifles, shotguns, and IEDs are sufficient for that -- as long as we take the 1st seriously and are vigilant against abuses to the 4th through 6th.
Now, about the 1st and vigilance, well, we may have a problem there...
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent info -- thanks!
You are right that the amount of physical damage is minimal, but actual physical damage is not the goal of terrorists: spreading the message is the goal, and the spreading of that message is greatly heightened by a dramatic delivery, such as the deaths of innocent people.
That's a fine analysis as far as it goes, but it begs the question:
If their goal is to foster fear to spread their message, shouldn't our first priority be to eliminate that fear response?
How are we doing on that front? How much time have our politicians spent advocating impudence in the face of terrorism? Telling us that being afraid of terrorism is like being afraid of a car crash -- except that car crashes kill a lot more people and being afraid of them doesn't make them worse. I think our politicians spend a lot more time fostering fear of this minuscule threat, and telling us we have to give up on our national principles.
That being the case, it seems only rational to question their motives. And when you scratch the surface of the supposed benefits of backscatter or pat-downs, there simply is not much benefit there -- to anyone but the authoritarians, the equipment manufacturers, and the terrorists who are achieving their goal of putting us on a fear footing. To me, that does not seem like a path forward for The Nation.
Personally, I'll go for the public. If they're going to be obnoxious, authoritarian jerks, they should be forced to do it where everybody can see them.
Very well said. Thank you for the comment.
we do check the other political party because by god they are out to destroy America as we know it.
I'm dubious about this.
Think about all the [one party] ranting and raving about [president from other party] when he was in office.
That is the empirical evidence, and the conclusion they want us (voters) to draw is that the other party is worse. I think that is the wrong conclusion. I think the right conclusion is that both parties want us (voters) to think one party is so objectionable that we have to vote for the other party. It keeps independents from being a threat.
The supporting evidence is that lots of legislation does get passed -- just not about any of the "hot talk" issues. When the banks automated the notarization process and weren't reading foreclosures, both parties magically agreed to instantly pass a law waiving all the banks' liability. That doesn't happen when two parties are really at each others' throats -- both sides would have been hoping for the other side to pass it so they could make hay with the voters. Same thing with the health care bill -- they were at each others throats until the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies got what they wanted, then the bill went through. Same with FISA, bank regulation, net neutrality, and so many other proposed laws that got bipartisan support despite being counter to the interests of We The People.
They shout about gun rights (and do nothing) and abortion (and do nothing) and civil liberties (and do nothing) and gay rights (and do nothing) and fiscal restraint (and do nothing) and on and on and on.
The polarizing rhetoric is all around the stuff they do nothing about, while everything that has big money behind it sails through with broad bipartisan support and takes another bite out of our economic efficiency.
These are not two parties at each others throats. This is one party (the authoritarian/lobbyist party) with two theater companies putting on 'competing' shows.
earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be 'monstrous and shocking' and reduced the amount to $54,000.
[the jury] decided today that she was liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages
The jury is instructed to apply the law without considering whether the law is constitutional. The judge is applying his perspective on constitutionality. Given a 30x difference in outcomes, it seems that there is a pretty severe disconnect between the law and what is right according this official boundaries of this nation's legislative charter.
What do we do to find the law to be 'monstrous and shocking'? What is the process for finding the legislature and DoJ to be 'monstrous and shocking'? For finding that they do not derive their just powers from the will of the governed and have violated their sworn duty to The Constitution in favor of their sponsors' will-to-power?
It's not surprising that they are the target of lawsuit... what's sad is that they aren't sued by regular citizens for abdication of their purpose in search of bribes and kickbacks from Industry.
I think a big part of the problem here is the very narrow definition of "standing". The United States court system currently does not hold that being a citizen is standing in itself regarding government activities. I can't point to specific cases regarding corruption, but two good cases to look at to frame the question of standing versus the government in general are Al-Haramain and ACLU v. NSA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Haramain_Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACLU_v._NSA
Among the court opinions:
[T]he plaintiffs do not -- and because of the State Secrets Doctrine cannot -- produce any evidence that any of their own communications have ever been intercepted by the NSA, under the TSP, or without warrants. Instead, they assert a mere belief, which they contend is reasonable and which they label a "well founded belief,"...
You can read more about that sort of circular logic in the book Catch-22. You cannot legally know if you were being surveilled, and you cannot have standing regarding warrantless surveillance without proving you were surveilled.
To me this indicates a clear failure to understand The Constitution: All United States citizens, by any rational interpretation of The Constitution, have standing in any case against the federal government. Petition for redress of grievances is a fundamental right which the federal government does not have the authority to abridge. Asserting a lack of standing, let alone a law which prohibits you from showing standing, is a blatant violation of petition for redress.
The first does not say, "Petition for redress of grievances in which you can show that you were harmed." And even if "grievance" has some implicit notion that the petitioner cannot be aggrieved if he or she was not harmed, then it falls back to the government deriving its just authority from the consent of the governed. We The People *are* harmed when the government derives authority from something which we cannot know about and cannot submit a petition for redress about.
IE: Any set of legal standards which result in an inviolable inability to show standing are harmful to all citizens, and hence establish standing for all citizens.
That is the kind of Catch-22 I can get down with.
'It turns out that the bitter compounds worked the opposite way from what we thought. They all opened the airway more extensively than any known drug that we have for treatment of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).'
Expect anything bitter and volatile to be classified as a controlled substance that can only be distributed on the condition that a pile of money is given to one of the major campaign contributing drug companies. You see, they need the money so they can continue doing life-saving research into finding new boner drugs and sleeping pills that they can convince us we need.
The UK government plans to introduce legislation that will allow the police to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public.
How quaint -- they use laws to grant government authority for such things. Over on this side of the pond the President just declares it to be so and tells the judicial they're not allowed to hear any petitions for redress of grievances. Much simpler that way.
Six months ago my brother, who is a very stalwart end-user-only, tried Ubuntu for the first time. He now recommends it for everything except for gaming.
But he is pretty smart -- probably not a fair test.
Two weeks ago my neighbor across the street came to me and said she had a problem with her computer. She explained the issue in very primitive terms which boiled down to a broad-spectrum viral infection of Windows. She said a friend of her son had recommended that she "Do something called 'wipe my hard drive' then install Ooo Boo Too on Windows." The conversation continued in this vein for a while. In short, she is neither the sharpest tack in the drawer nor a skilled computer user. She asked for my help with the install. I said, well, maybe I should stay here in case you need help, but you should try to do it all yourself. If you can figure it all out, then you should be OK with using it, but it is pretty different from Windows.
I helped out with a couple confidence things -- "Should I really wipe the whole hard drive?" "Yes.", "Do I really need a password?" "[brief pro/con explanation]" "OK, I'll use a password." -- but she did the rest on her own. Once it was up I showed her where the icons were and how to search for more software, where to put in her password for the local wi-fi she uses, how the system updater works -- but nothing else. I left feeling a little nauseous about the number of "How do I..." questions I would get over the ensuing days.
Two days later I stopped over to ask how it was going. "It's great -- works a lot better than Windows did." (which I ascribed to cruft and viruses having made her Windows install slow) I asked if she had any questions. "Nope, everything is working just fine."
This is what I have believed is the path this matter will take, and I (and probably many others) have been arguing exactly this. The following is the rational path:
Big ISP threatens big content. Big content counter-threatens big ISP. Big ISP and big content reach an agreement to shut out small competition. General public does not know about or care about small competition. Small competition dies, oligarchs win.
Oligarchy or net neutrality. Those are the only two outcomes. Net neutrality depends on an altruistic and long-term focused government. While it has happened before (telcos went through exactly this way back in the day, resulted in common carrier), I do not believe our current government or lackluster activism are capable of making it happen again. In short; oligarchy will win.
I've been trying to think of solutions, not much so far, a few thoughts:
1. Diaspora (or similar) farms that are big enough to buy a seat at the table.
2. Oligarchs sufficiently overstep to incite popular revolution. (unlikely, they're not that stupid -- they know how bread and circuses works -- it is a cookbook to them)
3. Diaspora (or similar) running over surreptitious channels.
4. Indie mesh networks similar to ham operations.
5. Geek revolt (ie: we realize we have all the power here, decide that our paychecks are not worth the price, and shut down the oligarchs before they gain unstoppable power)
None of these seem particularly likely to succeed, to me. One thing seems obvious: The further we get down the road, the more extreme the solution will have to be. Well, make that two things: The short term gains to the oligarchs will be enormously outweighed by the friction, and hence loss, to our GDP growth rate -- punishing us all, including them, in the long run.
I misheard the tone of your post
An unfortunately easy thing given the lack of inflection in text and the frequency of mindless USA bashing. It frequently leads to dissent being viewed as antipathy, which in turn leads people like me to be, perhaps, too sensitive to such implications. I am sorry if my reaction was stronger than appropriate.
The theory of free market economics is pretty sound: All labor (including management and executives in the broadest definition of labor) should get paid according to its contribution to GDP. That is how to maximize GDP growth in the long run.
We, information scientists and engineers, create an enormous amount of wealth. Like any resource, the long-term market stable price is determined by the long-term value of the resource. While it is theoretically possible that short run supply is outstripping demand, or that low-cost supply is outstripping high-value demand, I find that premise highly dubious. I think it is vastly more likely in this period of firestorm information technology advances that supply cannot possibly keep up with demand. Our long-term value is very high, and short-term demand may well be biased upward.
Said differently: The idea that short run supply is outrunning demand is at least highly questionable. The notion that we must accept lower pay in the long run relative to our contribution to GDP is pure hokum, and harmful to GDP growth.
By all means, if you feel so inclined, reduce your expenses and telecommute. Possibly for lower pay as a result of higher costs or lower efficiency associated with employing telecommuters. But by no means should you ever accept that long-run compensation should not be directly correlated to GDP contribution, nor treat the implication that supply is outstripping demand in the short run with anything but a very large grain of salt.
The only real threat here is that the myths being promulgated become beliefs, and hence lead to systemic bias. That would be harmful to our rationally self-interested selves, but worse, it would inhibit long-run GDP growth.
How in the hell is this related to war profiteering?
The post was quite clear. Try reading it without skipping every other word, and perhaps it will be more clear to you.
This just sounds like another excuse to hate the USA.
Rarely do I lower myself to feed the trolls, but your shallow jingoism is offensive to my deep and considered patriotism.
Note that the threat of the military industrial complex was, as noted in my post, highlighted by Eisenhower. Do you believe Ike hated the USA? The extension of the war metaphor to non-war activities suppresses considered discourse in favor of subjective and emotionalist reactionism. Such behavior is a threat to the foundations of intelligent, republican, democracy, not to mention a tremendous source of friction in our free market economy.
"My country right or wrong -- when right to be kept right, when wrong to be put right." That is the position of the patriot. Your shallow jingoism is authoritarian rubbish.
The telcos get paid rapacious fees by the government to "voluntarily" provide direct intercept rooms for the war on terror. Halliburton and Blackwater get paid highwayman prices for services in the war zones. Now Google is licking its lips over getting a taste of the copyright war booty.
In an America run by authoritarians who love war, war metaphors, getting re-elected for their positions on war, and getting campaign ads sponsored by war-enriched corporations, being anything other than a war profiteer is choosing to be second tier.
Good? Bad? Necessary but regrettable? Maybe all those things in various specific cases. But always: A big chunk of GDP.
Eisenhower was right about the military-industrial complex. The only thing he missed: That war and war spending is not limited to things involving soldiers and guns. The war metaphor gives us the opportunity to extend war-footing excesses to all our beloved oligarchs.
take a rather extreme biblical literacy approach (which the Catholic Church hasn't had for well over a thousand years).
Transubstantiation?
Maybe they don't have that any more, but it wasn't dropped 1,000 years ago. It was less than 30 years ago that I heard it taught as literal truth at a pretty big, mainstream Catholic church.
I'm also guessing they haven't given up on the virgin birth, great flood, Samson, pillars of salt, walls of Jericho, or divine origin of the tablets yet -- to name just a few.
I do know people who practice a spiritual relationship with a deity only metaphorically represented in the stories of the Christian bible, but the Catholic church has a lot more literal interpretation than you give them credit for.
In Soviet Russia, Confusion Between Reality and Fiction Causes Religion.
Well played. :)
beautiful wood!
Yeah -- went to this little Mom & Pop lumbermill out in the country in Ohio and asked what they had with figure. One of the guys took me out to the barn and was showing me some curly maple. Then he says, "Oh! Come look at this!" And pulls out the piece of curly red oak that made the sides. "Most of our customers use red oak for crown moulding. They can't match curly pieces, so this board has been sitting here for two years."
I nearly did the poor fellow an injury ripping it out of his hands. :)
Nice craftsmanship.
Thanks!
Was the marble countertop & stainless steel stove part of cutting expenses to the bone? :)
heh -- definitely not -- that's my Dad's house.
It might also be wise to turn off directory browsing. Not sure if Bob at work wants to be on /. ;)
All the really good stuff is in the directories you can't see.
True for me. I made the jump this past January. 2009 my company said no raises for anyone (except executives, of course). 2010 they claimed the same thing, I declined, they offered me an insulting pittance, and away I went.
Cut my expenses to the bone, picked up some contract work, and now doing economic research most of the time. Getting ready to publish my first paper, if the vetting goes well. Also took some time to do my first fine woodworking -- produced two nice footstools(*), which I gave to my parents.
Damned fine thing. I strongly recommend it if you can bzip your budget.
* http://beach.traxel.com/img/footstool-ts/footstool-with-cushion.jpg
Heh, at this rate, it won't be long before the United States is the only country left. Then the RIAA, MPAA, and the henchmen Obama appointed to the DoJ can write whatever they want and sign us on as the sole participating nation. Signing a treaty without another nation involved has to fall somewhere in the executive branch scale between extraordinary rendition and summary execution, so it's totally legit!
>> Lessig caved on corporate personhood.
> Doesn't sound like "caving" to me.
The question: "Are corporations people?"
Very simple binary question. One simple valid answer: No.
Any further elaboration beyond, "No" should start by saying, "No" in a clear and loud voice, before moving on to other points. Elaboration should further refine the point, along the lines of, "Every person is a person, which is why they said, 'We The People' in the constitution. Not every person is a corporation, a corporate executive, or a member of an organization. That is why they did not say 'We, the people, corporations, organizations, and such other created entities as shall be defined later...'"
On to the evidence of Lessig's failure to say, "No.":
"And in it, he responds to one of the key questions we've heard from people all across the country: are corporations people?" - Monica Walsh, Change Congress, referencing a link to the video 'Lawrence Lessig, "Are corporations people?"', from the Change Congress mailing list, Feb 09, 2010.
The video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUHWfIabz0Q
>> Lessig caved on corporate personhood.
> Citation please. This would upset me very much.
"And in it, he responds to one of the key questions we've heard from people all across the country: are corporations people?" - Monica Walsh, Change Congress, referencing a link to the video 'Lawrence Lessig, "Are corporations people?"', from the Change Congress mailing list, Feb 09, 2010.
The video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUHWfIabz0Q
I bought the iPhone because I know they are controlling the user experience. I'm greatly enjoying my user experience on my iOS devices. I feel like I got what I paid for, and am likely to get more apple products in the future.
The existence of the iTunes app store is a fine thing. It creates GDP and should be an option for people who want to have a controlled experience. When you, the silent hand of the free market, choose a product based on your free and sober reflection on the merits of the market options, an angel gets his wings.
However, the free market is optimized by competition. While you may never have a use for competition in this particular market, and there may even be specific cases where competition reduces long-run GDP, those cases are the exception to the rule.
If you are saying that the iPhone is a peculiar case where a lack of competition does not have an apparent harm to you, then yours is a fine -- if somewhat trivial -- post.
If you are saying that the case of your particular experience with the iPhone is indicative of some general market truth, then I must strenuously disagree. Free market economic theory is pretty solid. The hypothesis that non-competition is a generally healthy market behavior has about as much rational basis as intelligent design.
the way of large companies getting a say on what does or does not get published on the distribution channels they control
This can be generalized to consider the negative impact of all forms of extra-market powers. Powerful entities distort the free market in all industries. Those distortions cost us GDP. The free market is sensitive to coercion from governments, corporations, organizations, and influential individuals. The price of a market free from bias -- free from performance-robbing distortion -- is eternal vigilance, just like democracy. Many conflate the free market with laissez faire. Adam Smith, the patron saint of free market theory, was also the first to point out the difference.
Oligarchs have been glossing over that part of The Wealth of Nations ever since. The real free market is anathema to oligarchy.
And where does the 2nd amendment say that?
The Constitution implicitly assumes the private ownership of warships (see 'letters of marque and reprisal'), so the idea that the founders would have been shocked by private ownership of crew-served weapons seems rather silly.
Personally, I'm more for the spirit interpretation of the 2nd. The goal of the 2nd, in the eyes of the guys who had just overthrown the official government, was that The People should have enough firepower to take down the government if necessary. To me, handguns, rifles, shotguns, and IEDs are sufficient for that -- as long as we take the 1st seriously and are vigilant against abuses to the 4th through 6th.
Now, about the 1st and vigilance, well, we may have a problem there...