Started in 2004 for a college kid and some roomates and classmates. Originally available to just his college campus.
At that time (2004) what was Microsoft worth?
How about IBM?
What about HP?
Wasnt that the year that Google became a publicly traded company?
I wonder if any of those entities would have had the ability to take the concept of facebook and roll it out exponentially bigger, faster, with greater resources....
You assume that while Dyson is out talking to banks, pitching his plans, trying to reel in investors, and setting up his first assembly location, no one with readily available funding, manufacturing and distribution ties is paying attention.
Without patent protections there's nothing preventing one of the people he's pitched the idea to deciding that paying him for the idea is a hell of a lot less profitable than just doing it for themselves. And that's just one example of where his hopes and dreams could be derailed.
0) Most ideas are a dime a dozen, the difficult bit is actually doing it well and successfully. Despite all their efforts on copying China isn't going to get a man on the moon by next month. Why should someone who just happened to patent some obvious idea be able to stop others who could be better able at implementing the idea?
China wont be in the moon next month because they dont have the technology. If China had hands-on all of our space tech, they would most certainly be in a position to do anything we can do, and do it cheaper. That's the whole point. That's why we keep or space and military tech secret ; So that we remain dominant and the advantages inherent in our investment remain ours, at least for some period of time.
Why would an innovator not want to be protected in the same manner?
Alright, reverse your thinking then:
Some of the best inventions are simple and elegant solutions to historically cumbersome problems. You might one day have a eureka moment in which you realize that a very easily implemented bit of code can increase computations exponentially or work around some issue.
In today's world you can spend $1000 and wait a few weeks to get a patent that will allow you to retire in style. Whereas with no patents, that big evil corporation can sick 10 coders(or engineers, or whatever, pick your industry) on your design and have the idea unraveled in a day or two and implemented in their code within a month. Your retirement is canceled. THAT is the worst case scenario if you abolish patents.
The possibilities for anyone EXCEPT the massive corporations really coming out well with no protections on invention are miniscule. With the funding available to those corporations they can take your idea and have it produced at 1000x the rate and quantity, strongarm distributors and retailers, and saturate the market with a cheaper product. Do you think a bank is going to give you a loan to roll that product out knowing full well that there will be mimics on the market within weeks of your release that are cheaper and probably better? Do you think you can sell your idea to a corporation? Why would they buy it knowing their competitors will steal it?
Instead they can spend a ton of money on research and development, produce a product, and a month later find themselves competing with a dozen competitors who invested nothing in research and developement and can therefor sell the product for a fraction of the cost and still make a profit. The innovators find themselves in a situation in which they made all the investment but cannot recoup the costs, while others are enriched without taking on the risk.
Explain to me how that fosters innovation.
There's a shade of grey in there to be discovered somewhere between everything and nothing.
I guess since it's now taken for granted that a hard left-leaning state like CA pushes left wing agenda in the classrooms, they may as well write textbooks that support their policies too. A bankrupt state creating the textbooks to teach ideas that cause bankruptcy... What could possibly go wrong?
Obviously this program will reduce the costs of college tuition also, right? Because we're all quite aware that when government does something it's always cheaper. Our kids are already getting a bachelor's degree funded by Sallie Mae they might be able to pay off in about 30 years. I cant imagine that getting any worse than it already is, right?
I have two kids, one 14 and one 7. In addition to working my full time career (greater than 40 hours a week with a 40minute commute one-way), we own a business associated with animals that my wife runs and I spend between 2-6 hours/day helping with (weekends much more, usually around 10). At home we have horses, goats, and chickens that all must be cared for daily (at least twice daily for the horses). Both boys play competitive travel sports and have 3-5 practices and a game per week with a minimum of 40 minute commute, and "local" games as far as 3 hours away. They are in different tiers of the league, so they have different schedules. My wife also plays in a friday night sports league. We both do volunteer work. We also care for my mother in law who lives with us.
Needless to say, I have little patience for people who "don't have time" for something as simple as buying and preparing food.
I'm good with that, as soon as the taxes that pay for subsidies are also voluntary.
History has many demonstrated cases of people doing as little as possible and suckling at the teet of others. It's asinine to require those who are earning to fund those who are not, and require nothing at all from those who recieve the funding.
The stupidity of government is exactly what brings about both extremes to this scenario. Your stated examples of making people do very stupid things instead of or as a prerequisite for giving them funding is one end of the spectrum. The other end is making it easier to live off of subsidies than even attempting to get a job. Both ends are equally absurd.
I'm not telling anyone what to do. I'm stating the simple fact that it's wasteful to the little money anyone has to buy more expensive food that's worse for them AND their families. I'm stating the indisputable reality that a family can and should reduce their spending, increase their health and be closer to one another by cooking meals together at home.
You can be as indignant as you want, but there is nothing but selfishness in spending more to eat worse and be around your family less.
Actually my arguments have had very little to do with whether or not someone can or should try to improve their lot in life. I've brought it up only in cases where people have essentially said, "who are you to speak for poor people" to demonstrate that I have been in the past "poor people", and I chose to change that.
This discussion, however, has been about how lower income people either dont have the time, or the knowledge, or the inclination to eat healthy foods. These same people are willing to spend a unnecessarily higher amount of subsidized income money on less healthy foods, or are unaware that they need not do so if they simply cook for themselves.
I actually made a reasonable suggestion, without any passage of judgement or attempt to reduce subsidized funding. Either your response was a half-assed attempt at baiting me, or a rather ignorant postion that we should not insult people we're giving money to in an attempt to help them be healthier and retain a greater portion of their subsidies for other uses. I would posit that most people who are underprivilidged are either uninterested in improving their situation, overwhelmed and dont believe that they can improve their position, or uneducated and dont believe it's possible to improve their position. In two of those three cases my suggestion might actually be a way to increase their quality of life, but you reject it because we might insult someone? Seriously? That' about as ridiculous as stating that it wouldnt be worth trying to educate them because if they are that poor they are obviously too stupid to understand the training anyway.
Actually, yes. At one point my mother and I lived in a KOA campground because she could afford nothing else. Shortly after I moved out on my own there was a period of over a year that I ate mostly raman noodles coated in butter and tomatoes.
I didnt eat at McDonald's because I COULDNT FUCKING AFFORD IT.
He killed himself because the voices in his head said so.
He clearly had a reason, and no one would claim that he was rational.
Being rational means that the reasons you have for doing things are the most logical and intelligent course of action. Being rational is very often at odds with what you want. I can try to convince you that because there are many nutritional things in cake (eggs, grains, dairy) that its perfectly ok to feed my child cake every night for dinner. I would have reasons for doing this (because there's nutritional content and he loves it), but child protective services would disagree and would be the rational party in that exchange.
A rational person recognizes that instant gratification should be secondary to long term health. It is irrational to live for this moment with no thought toward the consequences. That's what seperates us from most of the animal kingdom. We consider the ramifications and weigh the outcome to decide which course is in our best interests. Our best interests are never to endanger our future health unless there are mitigating circumstances (saving someone else, eating unhealthy food today only to stave off starvation because there's absolutely no other option, etc.). Instant gratification is never a mitigating circumstance. It is greed and entitlement overwhelming a more reasoned and rational approach.
Great points. Maybe we should give them nothing at all and let them sink or swim. We wouldnt want to insult anyone capable of making good nutritional choices by assuming that they cant also find a way to get by without a handout. And you certainly wouldnt want to waste money on people that clearly dont have a clue and never will.
... then they must accept that they will be not be eating healthy food, not enjoy the benefits of them, and will not see an increase in subsidies they recieve that allow them to continue to make worse and worse choices.
No. McDonalds food has more than enough energy (calories). There is a heatlh cost, but not an energy deficit.
The kind of calories that exist in McDonald's food will provide a short burst of energy, but it has a higher concentration of fats that will not help with long term energy. This is aside from the fact that a general health decrease will result in a general energy decrease.
No. The premise was that the cost of the McDonalds meal was on par with a cooked meal.
Aboslutely false. I can spend a couple of hours a week preparing very healthy meals at less than half the cost of a McDonald's value meal. Unless you're suggesting that you're going to take a single item off of the dollar menu you cannot compete with home prepped food. And if you are talking about an item off the dollar menu, the caloric intake of that will not sustain an active adult for any appreciable amount of time.
The rest of your argument is just insane. You're suggesting that a person's time is better spent collecting enough cans to buy McDonald's than it is in spending that same time at home preparing a meal? HUH?!
Being rational by definition precludes being self-destructive. There is no logical, reasonable, responsible or sound course of action (IE rational) that a human being can engage in which brings themselves more harm than another available course. The one exception to this is if that course would instead ease the burden of another person, and I'd love to hear an argument that you buying McDonald's somehow increases the quality of life for someone else.
So maybe as a requirement of recieving food stamps people must attend smart shopping and cooking classes. Arm them with the tools that will allow them to be successful, and if they choose not to employ those tools....
I'm fully aware of what that $50 is worth to them.
Use your own logic. They can spend an extra $3 - $10 per day on worse food, requiring them to earn and additional $21 - $70 per week (a 1-2 hour per day part time job...), or they can spend 7 hours a week at home with their families while cooking; a part time job, yes, but at least at home with family.
More work away from home to get worse food and be less healthy.
OR
More cooking healthy food at home and having a more healthy homelife.
I have done 6 12 hour shifts in dead end jobs, including doing janitorial work and car washes in a body shop during the weekdays, while flipping pizzas and waiting tables in shitty restaurants and bars at night and on weekends. Did it for a decade. It sucked. So I decided I wasnt going to do it anymore. I slept an hour or two less a night to teach myself the basics of a menial trade using books I got for a couple bucks at a used bookstore, and got a slightly better job. Then I worked my ass off, took any training I could find, and listened to anyone that would teach me something and got a better job. And a better one. And a better one. I dont know how many interviews i got rejected in. Seriously it must be in the thousands. But I didnt quit. I'm a business owner now because I would settle for nothing less. That could be gone tomorrow, but I'm not about to slink into a corner and quit. I'd build it up again because I want to raise my son in some degree of comfort I never knew.
No one revels in the shitty situation other people are in, whether they put themselves there or not. But at some point it's up to those people to improve their lives or become complacent with being subsidized. The fact that I never quit trying should not require me to make sure they have braised beef and asparagus barbs in garlic butter instead of lentils and beans.
How many people know how to use a smart phone, but live on subsidized income? How many people can tell you how to hook up a plasma tv but havent turned their stovetop on in months? How many people have spent at least 1 hour per night participating in any activity with their child or family for a week straight?
You know if a family were to make creating dinner something that can be done together, they might not just get good at it, but could actually get to know each other in the process. It could actually be... fun. They could even apply that family activity to 100's of cheap meal bases and start creating their own recipes....
Holy shit. What was I thinking. I mean, we are talking about how to make a food budget go as far as possible. I don't know why I thought looking at sale prices that come out every week like clockwork might be relevent. There's very little chance that next week there will be meat and vegetables in there again...
Let's examine this nightmare reasoning you have engaged in, shall we?
People who are poor are working incredibly long hours which leaves them little leisure time. To combat this lack of leisure time, said victim will spend more money in order to eat less healthy food, which provides less energy. The additional cost of the unhealthy food requires more hours of work to compensate.
The resulting situation is a person that is less healthy and with less energy who is less able to work long hours, working more hours to sustain the lower health and energy, but somehow has more leisure time despite the longer working hours.
Slashdot Mirror
Facebook : Perfect example.
Started in 2004 for a college kid and some roomates and classmates. Originally available to just his college campus.
At that time (2004) what was Microsoft worth?
How about IBM?
What about HP?
Wasnt that the year that Google became a publicly traded company?
I wonder if any of those entities would have had the ability to take the concept of facebook and roll it out exponentially bigger, faster, with greater resources....
You assume that while Dyson is out talking to banks, pitching his plans, trying to reel in investors, and setting up his first assembly location, no one with readily available funding, manufacturing and distribution ties is paying attention.
Without patent protections there's nothing preventing one of the people he's pitched the idea to deciding that paying him for the idea is a hell of a lot less profitable than just doing it for themselves. And that's just one example of where his hopes and dreams could be derailed.
There's a shade of grey in there to be discovered somewhere between everything and nothing.
0) Most ideas are a dime a dozen, the difficult bit is actually doing it well and successfully. Despite all their efforts on copying China isn't going to get a man on the moon by next month. Why should someone who just happened to patent some obvious idea be able to stop others who could be better able at implementing the idea?
China wont be in the moon next month because they dont have the technology. If China had hands-on all of our space tech, they would most certainly be in a position to do anything we can do, and do it cheaper. That's the whole point. That's why we keep or space and military tech secret ; So that we remain dominant and the advantages inherent in our investment remain ours, at least for some period of time.
Why would an innovator not want to be protected in the same manner?
You assume that the inventor is a corporation that can continue a trend of innovation, and not instead you or me in a garage somewhere.
Alright, reverse your thinking then:
Some of the best inventions are simple and elegant solutions to historically cumbersome problems. You might one day have a eureka moment in which you realize that a very easily implemented bit of code can increase computations exponentially or work around some issue.
In today's world you can spend $1000 and wait a few weeks to get a patent that will allow you to retire in style. Whereas with no patents, that big evil corporation can sick 10 coders(or engineers, or whatever, pick your industry) on your design and have the idea unraveled in a day or two and implemented in their code within a month. Your retirement is canceled. THAT is the worst case scenario if you abolish patents.
The possibilities for anyone EXCEPT the massive corporations really coming out well with no protections on invention are miniscule. With the funding available to those corporations they can take your idea and have it produced at 1000x the rate and quantity, strongarm distributors and retailers, and saturate the market with a cheaper product. Do you think a bank is going to give you a loan to roll that product out knowing full well that there will be mimics on the market within weeks of your release that are cheaper and probably better? Do you think you can sell your idea to a corporation? Why would they buy it knowing their competitors will steal it?
Instead they can spend a ton of money on research and development, produce a product, and a month later find themselves competing with a dozen competitors who invested nothing in research and developement and can therefor sell the product for a fraction of the cost and still make a profit. The innovators find themselves in a situation in which they made all the investment but cannot recoup the costs, while others are enriched without taking on the risk.
Explain to me how that fosters innovation.
There's a shade of grey in there to be discovered somewhere between everything and nothing.
I guess since it's now taken for granted that a hard left-leaning state like CA pushes left wing agenda in the classrooms, they may as well write textbooks that support their policies too. A bankrupt state creating the textbooks to teach ideas that cause bankruptcy... What could possibly go wrong?
Obviously this program will reduce the costs of college tuition also, right? Because we're all quite aware that when government does something it's always cheaper. Our kids are already getting a bachelor's degree funded by Sallie Mae they might be able to pay off in about 30 years. I cant imagine that getting any worse than it already is, right?
I have two kids, one 14 and one 7. In addition to working my full time career (greater than 40 hours a week with a 40minute commute one-way), we own a business associated with animals that my wife runs and I spend between 2-6 hours/day helping with (weekends much more, usually around 10). At home we have horses, goats, and chickens that all must be cared for daily (at least twice daily for the horses). Both boys play competitive travel sports and have 3-5 practices and a game per week with a minimum of 40 minute commute, and "local" games as far as 3 hours away. They are in different tiers of the league, so they have different schedules. My wife also plays in a friday night sports league. We both do volunteer work. We also care for my mother in law who lives with us.
Needless to say, I have little patience for people who "don't have time" for something as simple as buying and preparing food.
I'm good with that, as soon as the taxes that pay for subsidies are also voluntary.
History has many demonstrated cases of people doing as little as possible and suckling at the teet of others. It's asinine to require those who are earning to fund those who are not, and require nothing at all from those who recieve the funding.
The stupidity of government is exactly what brings about both extremes to this scenario. Your stated examples of making people do very stupid things instead of or as a prerequisite for giving them funding is one end of the spectrum. The other end is making it easier to live off of subsidies than even attempting to get a job. Both ends are equally absurd.
I'm not telling anyone what to do. I'm stating the simple fact that it's wasteful to the little money anyone has to buy more expensive food that's worse for them AND their families. I'm stating the indisputable reality that a family can and should reduce their spending, increase their health and be closer to one another by cooking meals together at home.
You can be as indignant as you want, but there is nothing but selfishness in spending more to eat worse and be around your family less.
If the summaries include descriptions of all possible acronyms or phrases included in the discussion, it's not really a summary is it?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=QR+Code
Actually my arguments have had very little to do with whether or not someone can or should try to improve their lot in life. I've brought it up only in cases where people have essentially said, "who are you to speak for poor people" to demonstrate that I have been in the past "poor people", and I chose to change that.
This discussion, however, has been about how lower income people either dont have the time, or the knowledge, or the inclination to eat healthy foods. These same people are willing to spend a unnecessarily higher amount of subsidized income money on less healthy foods, or are unaware that they need not do so if they simply cook for themselves.
I actually made a reasonable suggestion, without any passage of judgement or attempt to reduce subsidized funding. Either your response was a half-assed attempt at baiting me, or a rather ignorant postion that we should not insult people we're giving money to in an attempt to help them be healthier and retain a greater portion of their subsidies for other uses. I would posit that most people who are underprivilidged are either uninterested in improving their situation, overwhelmed and dont believe that they can improve their position, or uneducated and dont believe it's possible to improve their position. In two of those three cases my suggestion might actually be a way to increase their quality of life, but you reject it because we might insult someone? Seriously? That' about as ridiculous as stating that it wouldnt be worth trying to educate them because if they are that poor they are obviously too stupid to understand the training anyway.
Actually, yes. At one point my mother and I lived in a KOA campground because she could afford nothing else. Shortly after I moved out on my own there was a period of over a year that I ate mostly raman noodles coated in butter and tomatoes.
I didnt eat at McDonald's because I COULDNT FUCKING AFFORD IT.
He killed himself because the voices in his head said so.
He clearly had a reason, and no one would claim that he was rational.
Being rational means that the reasons you have for doing things are the most logical and intelligent course of action. Being rational is very often at odds with what you want. I can try to convince you that because there are many nutritional things in cake (eggs, grains, dairy) that its perfectly ok to feed my child cake every night for dinner. I would have reasons for doing this (because there's nutritional content and he loves it), but child protective services would disagree and would be the rational party in that exchange.
A rational person recognizes that instant gratification should be secondary to long term health. It is irrational to live for this moment with no thought toward the consequences. That's what seperates us from most of the animal kingdom. We consider the ramifications and weigh the outcome to decide which course is in our best interests. Our best interests are never to endanger our future health unless there are mitigating circumstances (saving someone else, eating unhealthy food today only to stave off starvation because there's absolutely no other option, etc.). Instant gratification is never a mitigating circumstance. It is greed and entitlement overwhelming a more reasoned and rational approach.
Great points. Maybe we should give them nothing at all and let them sink or swim. We wouldnt want to insult anyone capable of making good nutritional choices by assuming that they cant also find a way to get by without a handout. And you certainly wouldnt want to waste money on people that clearly dont have a clue and never will.
... then they must accept that they will be not be eating healthy food, not enjoy the benefits of them, and will not see an increase in subsidies they recieve that allow them to continue to make worse and worse choices.
No. McDonalds food has more than enough energy (calories). There is a heatlh cost, but not an energy deficit.
The kind of calories that exist in McDonald's food will provide a short burst of energy, but it has a higher concentration of fats that will not help with long term energy. This is aside from the fact that a general health decrease will result in a general energy decrease.
No. The premise was that the cost of the McDonalds meal was on par with a cooked meal.
Aboslutely false. I can spend a couple of hours a week preparing very healthy meals at less than half the cost of a McDonald's value meal. Unless you're suggesting that you're going to take a single item off of the dollar menu you cannot compete with home prepped food. And if you are talking about an item off the dollar menu, the caloric intake of that will not sustain an active adult for any appreciable amount of time.
The rest of your argument is just insane. You're suggesting that a person's time is better spent collecting enough cans to buy McDonald's than it is in spending that same time at home preparing a meal? HUH?!
Being rational by definition precludes being self-destructive. There is no logical, reasonable, responsible or sound course of action (IE rational) that a human being can engage in which brings themselves more harm than another available course. The one exception to this is if that course would instead ease the burden of another person, and I'd love to hear an argument that you buying McDonald's somehow increases the quality of life for someone else.
So maybe as a requirement of recieving food stamps people must attend smart shopping and cooking classes. Arm them with the tools that will allow them to be successful, and if they choose not to employ those tools....
I'm fully aware of what that $50 is worth to them.
Use your own logic. They can spend an extra $3 - $10 per day on worse food, requiring them to earn and additional $21 - $70 per week (a 1-2 hour per day part time job...), or they can spend 7 hours a week at home with their families while cooking; a part time job, yes, but at least at home with family.
More work away from home to get worse food and be less healthy.
OR
More cooking healthy food at home and having a more healthy homelife.
I'm not really seeing how that's a tough choice.
I have done 6 12 hour shifts in dead end jobs, including doing janitorial work and car washes in a body shop during the weekdays, while flipping pizzas and waiting tables in shitty restaurants and bars at night and on weekends. Did it for a decade. It sucked. So I decided I wasnt going to do it anymore. I slept an hour or two less a night to teach myself the basics of a menial trade using books I got for a couple bucks at a used bookstore, and got a slightly better job. Then I worked my ass off, took any training I could find, and listened to anyone that would teach me something and got a better job. And a better one. And a better one. I dont know how many interviews i got rejected in. Seriously it must be in the thousands. But I didnt quit. I'm a business owner now because I would settle for nothing less. That could be gone tomorrow, but I'm not about to slink into a corner and quit. I'd build it up again because I want to raise my son in some degree of comfort I never knew.
No one revels in the shitty situation other people are in, whether they put themselves there or not. But at some point it's up to those people to improve their lives or become complacent with being subsidized. The fact that I never quit trying should not require me to make sure they have braised beef and asparagus barbs in garlic butter instead of lentils and beans.
How many people know how to use a smart phone, but live on subsidized income? How many people can tell you how to hook up a plasma tv but havent turned their stovetop on in months? How many people have spent at least 1 hour per night participating in any activity with their child or family for a week straight?
You know if a family were to make creating dinner something that can be done together, they might not just get good at it, but could actually get to know each other in the process. It could actually be... fun. They could even apply that family activity to 100's of cheap meal bases and start creating their own recipes....
Nah, who am I kidding. Someone order a pizza.
Holy shit. What was I thinking. I mean, we are talking about how to make a food budget go as far as possible. I don't know why I thought looking at sale prices that come out every week like clockwork might be relevent. There's very little chance that next week there will be meat and vegetables in there again...
Let's examine this nightmare reasoning you have engaged in, shall we?
People who are poor are working incredibly long hours which leaves them little leisure time. To combat this lack of leisure time, said victim will spend more money in order to eat less healthy food, which provides less energy. The additional cost of the unhealthy food requires more hours of work to compensate.
The resulting situation is a person that is less healthy and with less energy who is less able to work long hours, working more hours to sustain the lower health and energy, but somehow has more leisure time despite the longer working hours.
This you have dubbed "rational self interest".
Woosh.