"don't worry, we are backed by Uncle Sam, what could go wrong?"
Even if they said that they lied. It says plain and clearly on the paper they give out that the US in no way backs it. And no, it isn't in the fine print but in big nice capitalized letters.
you don't have a CRA telling lenders how they have to loan their money.
And just how did CRA force lenders to enter in to bad contracts? Oh, it didn't. The lenders were fully within their right to stop lending out money and should have done so. The free market has no problem dealing/routing around such laws.
You are right about the goverment corruption though and there are other regulatory problems, but don't act like the free market isn't partially responsible for the mess.
"The certificates and payments of principal and interest on the certificates are not guaranteed by the united states, and do not constitute a debt or obligation of the united states or any of its agencies or instrumentalities other than Fannie Mae."
In a free market, the government doesn't pass laws requiring businesses to offer equal amounts of loans to subprime candidates as prime candidates,
But a free market easily routes around this by simply stoping loaning out money if it isn't safe enough. Oh...are you saying that they didn't stop loaning out. Guess what, they were idiots. It is business 101. It is better to do no business than to do unprofitable business.
And, in a free market, the government doesn't step in and assist businesses that made bad decisions and took on too much risk.
This I agree with. It just creates moral hazard and wastes money.
Congress stepped in and told them to loan to people with poor credit history
If the goverment makes on part of your business unprofitable, you stop making that kind of business. It is as simple as that.
If you continue on making business anyway, you deserve what you get. The "goverment is responsible" argument is simple bullshit by people who won't admit that those in charge of companies are just as stupid as they are. (although with better contacts)
Where did you get the idea that a signature is nescessary for a contract. That is simply not true. Of course, a written signature on a contract is the preferred way to seal a contract as it stands up very well in court, but it is in no way the only way to seal a contract.
You can make the points that it is a unconscionable contract because of it being loopsided, but as this is about using blizzards servers, it is questionable if it will work.
Give me an example of one go bot that has been able to maintain 1 dan over a longer period of time on a go server. Crazystone is the best I have seen, and while it did jump into 1d for a short time, it quickly went back to 1k again where it has been steadily for quite a while.
Also, they don't seem to be improving that much right now. They did have a big breakthrough when Monte Carlo algorithms were introduced, and a little more with using improved processors power to maximize the monte carlo brute forcing. But the problems are now beginning to show, and that is that brute force is still brute force even if it is using a more appropriate version for go.
pros can't beat Mogo with 9 stones anymore.
The two rematches with 7 stones didn't go so well though. The pro beat MoGo in both. The game records were quite embarrasing including a total blunder from MoGos side.
On the other hand, crazystone won an 8 handicap game vs a pro.
Still, I don't find these games vs pros very interesting. Lots of even games vs amateurs is what should be used to judge strength. High handicap games simply don't scale linearly enough to give any good indication of rating, and are in general to variable in result (meaning you need more games to get an accurate result), because they rely on the mistake of the weaker player, more than the strength of the stronger player.
P.S. You arrogant fans of Go can frak yourselves. Where do you think the scientists will go once they're done with chess. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Go is considerably more difficult than chess because of how the game moves around the board. It isn't the branching factor per se, but the fact that weaknesses left behind sometimes won't get exploited until as far as 100 or even 200 moves later on. In the meantime, players will try to direct the game in such a way that they can exploit the opponent's weaknesses while protecting their own. Also, the other way around, make use of their strength while preventing the opponent from making use of his.
Without a higher level concept of the board, it is impossible for a computer to understand such ideas, and reading doesn't help because the depth is simply to deep. Monte Carlo bots try by playing out lots of complete game variations rapidly to get a somewhat understanding of the board, but in the end it fails because such playouts are overly simplistic.
This isn't to say that go computers won't beat us someday, but it will be tougher than chess. Also, one point you made stands out to me as arguing for go, even if computers become better.
To even competitively play at the local club level you really need a ridiculously deep memorization of openings and endings. At the grandmaster level, they've basically memorized the tables used by computers.
Due to how go works, memorization isn't nescessary to the same degree. Of course, having some common sequences memorized helps, but in general it is better to have a generic idea about different patterns as to understand the strategic and tactical implications of moves.
While there are established patterns (joseki) that are used in corners, players often deviate from them based on how the rest of the board looks. And when that happens, knowing the joseki is not very useful except to tell you that the player deviated from it. That is why there is a common saying "learn joseki, lose two stones: forget joseki, improve three stones".
Those confined to memorized patterns lose to those with more open minds. Still, studying some joseki is useful, because it helps to broaden you view on what good and bad patterns are.
I don't know if it actually is tortious interference or not, but it sounds like it.
Just because I gave a simplistic description doesn't mean that that is all there is. Of course there is limits to exactly what is counted as tortious interferance. For exact definitions, look up the laws in your jurisdiction.
It's called running MMOGlider on a personal WoW server
Sure, and you have the right to argue that. I doubt you could find a judge that would buy the argument though.
Mostly, I think, "So what?" Glider has no reason to be bound to the agreement, and I still can't see a basis for the damages. Violate the agreement, get kicked off their server.
Read up on tortious interference.
Willfully helping someone to violate a contract is often illegal. And that is where the fact that the functionality sold that people use to violate the contract doesn't have any secondary legal functionality, making the intention clear.
Re:a bunch of questions
on
C# In-Depth
·
· Score: 1
Of course, the tiobe index is rather limited and inaccurate. Notice for example that ".NET programming" gets more than double the number of hits as "C# programming" on google. But because.NET isn't a language but a framework, it doesn't appear at all in the numbers.
It's not that it's scarce, but that it's expensive. And it's not just the fiber that is expensive, it's the additional routers with the higher bandwidth they also need to purchase to be able to receive and send the data.
Which doesn't make any sense since many countries are able to handle higher bandwidths than the US at cheaper prices. And backbone bandwidth is so cheap (in the amount of data ISPs are talking about) that calling it expensive to send data just sounds ridicioulus.
And please don't bring up T1. It is old and inefficent technology that is used to get money from companies that have little other choice.
It's not just that simple. You don't just string the fiber between telephone poles, you have to get rights to bury the fiber where necessary, and all that costs a lot more money than just the fiber itself.
So the US strong property laws comes back to bite them in their asses. OK, that coupled with communication companies suing local towns that try to be efficent and lay down their own fiber in one sweep.
So what do you propose instead? As the bandwidth is maxed out during primetime, how do you suggest that the limited bandwidth is distributed. Do you have a better suggestion than the one mentioned.
Oh, and just in case you are thinking about talking about increasing bandwidth and not oversubscribing, I'll just requote from my previous post so you don't have to bother:
"Of course, you can still complain about comcast not providing enough last mile bandwidth, having a too high oversubscription ratio, but that is a different matter. As an actual packet prioritizing scheme, this is a good one."
It is simple. The more bandwidth you use, the less priority you will get.
Streaming audio, not so much. It doesn't use that much bandwidth.
Streaming video will suffer. Really, those people who download huge files during primetime (mainly streaming that can't schedule downloads) are hurting the network far more than someone who download/upload large amounts of data during the night. The p2p bogeyman is getting tired of taking all the blame.
if I'm blasting a 6 GB file download in an hour or two, does that piss them off? Because I'm going to be mad if it does, since it was a perfectly legitimate use of the service that I'm paying for (vs. some "gray area" activities).
If you do it during primetime when everyone else is on and the bandwidth is saturated, Yes. And by pissed off, I mean that your traffic will get less priority and slow down to avoid you hogging all the availible bandwidth.
If you are doing it during the night when there is plenty of availible bandwidth, No. Sure, you will still get deprioritized, but it doesn't matter as the bandwidth isn't saturated and you will be just another bulk downloader making use of the less "crowdy" nights.
Yup. As someone who usually complain about these companies not doing things neutrally, I don't really have anything to stand on this time. This is basically how it should work. It is the network neutral way of doing things. Don't analyze the type or destination, but instead just look at the traffic you are causing. If you are using more than your fair share, you get put behind the one who has used less.
There only is so much bandwidth during primetime and to divide fairly among all users you have to do something. The system mentioned in the article is about as fair as you can get. It doesn't matter if it is video streaming or bittorrent, you shouldn't be able to use more than your fair share. Yes, high quality video streaming is probably hit, but that is because it is an incredibly wasteful type of technology, requiring high bandwidth during primetime when the user online.
Of course, you can still complain about comcast not providing enough last mile bandwidth, having a too high oversubscription ratio, but that is a different matter. As an actual packet prioritizing scheme, this is a good one.
The purpose of patents is to ensure that inventions are published, and not lost simply because the inventor disappeared,
Yeah, right. We humans are in general quite good at reverse engineering.
And keeping something a secret is quite difficult. Especially when more than one person is involved (which there pretty much always is nowadays). Finally, most inventions are just waiting to happen once the time is right. If one person doesn't do it, someone else will.
but if no-one else has made that step then it isn't that obvious.
The problem with that argument is that what happens in reality is that inventions happens when the time is right and the prerequisites (everything from manufacturing process to societal views) are filled. At that time it is very likely that the exact same or similar invention happens in more than one locations.
There are very few inventions that are actually unique to warrant the need for patents. The little time gain (one or maybe a few years) that a patent could gain is offset by the cost of the two decade long monopoly and associated costs with the patent system, which include chilling effects, lawsuit costs and inferior technology used to avoid patents. The only field where patents are even remotly useful may be medicine, and even there it is debatable if the costs inflicted by use of inferiror/no medicines (especially in 3rd world countries) is worth it.
People in power SHOULD be rich. Say what you want but rich people are less prone to lobbying and bribery. They also want to protect their possessions, so they are less likely to do something truly stupid.
Yeah, that theory has worked so well in the US......NOT.
This isn't some 3rd world country we are talking about where goverment earn so little that they have to support themselves via bribery. The salaries are good enough to support a family without problem.
You still get gluttony corruption, but that is just as likely to affect rich people because it has little to do with actual need for money and more to do with a want for more.
No, they just inserted the word 'rich' in front of people.
Sure. What do you expect when you elect people who are richer than average and spend their time in richer societal circles.
Politicians have a good deal of self interest just like everyone else. If you elect people who aren't "ordinary" citizens, then you won't get people who represent ordinary citizens. It is as simple as that.
That is why I support randomocracy. Select politicans by random. It is fair and ensures that no societal special interests get any priority.
Of course, there will always be protesters to the idea, claiming that the average citizen is an idiot and that elections stops those from getting elected. However, looking at some of those who actually are elected right now, you can see that that argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Intelligence is currently not a prerequisite for being elected. Charisma, advertising and connections are.
Also, if you really want to ensure some qualifications you can always have those elected perform a competency test before being allowed to serve as a politican.
Umm, it is republicans that are responsible for class warfare by creating a widening gap between lower and upper class, which inevitably leads to lots of tension.
More mindless entitlements
And yet the rich under the republicans seems to feel entitled to owning the wast majority of resources without really putting in any more work than your average worker. And no, I am not denying the hard work of those who get rich. I am just saying that there are lots of people doing hard work without getting rich. And depending on luck (and connections for a close second) to distribute resources is a lousy idea.
More appeasement
Because not everyone is the same. The republicans wants everyone to get down on their knees and pray to capitalism and the christian god (I still havn't figured out how those two fit together).
Diplomacy is the far superior method as people don't like listening to and obeying people who try to force them into things. And diplomacy creates far more goodwill and finally relating to the next point, is far less costly monetarily than trying to rule by force and threats.
More tax and spend.
You got that wrong. It is republicans who like to spend, not democrats. When a republican says he don't like spending, what he really means is that he don't like spending money on things that could help society.
Sure, republicans don't like to tax. They prefer to run at a deficit, creating inflation that has a similar effect to taxing, although less costly to those who own resources instead of having money in the bank.
More shady politics.
True. You get same, indepenent of you vote for republicans or democrats.
More of the same old crap.
Compared to voting for someone who is similar to the current ruler. The grandparent was right here. Change is good.
Actually, a huge part of the constitution applies to everyone, not citizens specifically. Of course, that is something that has been ignored for a long time as it would cause problems for the rulers if they interpeted it literally.
How many linux distro CDs do you need to download? 250GB = 357 CDs.
Talking like a true leecher.
For those who actually share back what they take (grandparent did say torrent after all) it is 357/2 = 178 CDs. Of course, that is still quite a bit as long as you don't have a big household.
"A republic is one wolf and two lambs deciding what to have for dinner after the two lambs gave their votes to the wolf. Oh, and the wolf gets to have a gun while the lambs get pocket knifes." - Someone tired of people using catchy quotes that really aren't that special
The opposite is also true. You can't treat economy as an infinite non-zero-sum game. There is a finite amount of natural resources that can be owned and society is not well of by having a few percent of rich people claim ownership over all of it.
A capitalistic (market driven) society have a natural tendency for resources to flow upwards toward the rich. This is generally an unstable system, but there are two things in place to keep it working. Increases in efficency and redistribution of resources.
As long as efficency increase at a relativly decent rate you can make do with relativly little redistribution. Even if the percentual difference between the rich and poor increase, the poor can still get a piece of cake. But even in such a situation, it is important to remember human nature, as jealousy and anger will strike if the imbalance grows too great.
The real problem however occurs when efficency isn't increasing fast enough compared to the resource flow upwards. When that happens, the only thing that works is some kind of redistribution of resources.
Of course, the best kind of redistribution of resources should focus on ensuring that everyone can provide a productive role in society. Giving people resources without any effort at all isn't efficent and also tends to lead to jealousy and anger in the other direction (rich angry at the poor). Anohter big problem with redistribution is that you have to enough control over your goverment to trust that they'll make fair redistributions, and that is a lot of work in itself. Limiting corruption is vital for a well functioning goverment.
Slashdot Mirror
"don't worry, we are backed by Uncle Sam, what could go wrong?"
Even if they said that they lied. It says plain and clearly on the paper they give out that the US in no way backs it. And no, it isn't in the fine print but in big nice capitalized letters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJfUNWthglI/. At 3:50 in the video.
you don't have a CRA telling lenders how they have to loan their money.
And just how did CRA force lenders to enter in to bad contracts? Oh, it didn't. The lenders were fully within their right to stop lending out money and should have done so. The free market has no problem dealing/routing around such laws.
You are right about the goverment corruption though and there are other regulatory problems, but don't act like the free market isn't partially responsible for the mess.
the government doesn't back the debt liabilities of private corporations, as in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
It sucks that so many people have been fooled by the mainstream bullshiters that are paid to misinform you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJfUNWthglI/. At 3 minutes 50 seconds in big bold capitalized letters.
"The certificates and payments of principal and interest on the certificates are not guaranteed by the united states, and do not constitute a debt or obligation of the united states or any of its agencies or instrumentalities other than Fannie Mae."
In a free market, the government doesn't pass laws requiring businesses to offer equal amounts of loans to subprime candidates as prime candidates,
But a free market easily routes around this by simply stoping loaning out money if it isn't safe enough. Oh...are you saying that they didn't stop loaning out. Guess what, they were idiots. It is business 101. It is better to do no business than to do unprofitable business.
And, in a free market, the government doesn't step in and assist businesses that made bad decisions and took on too much risk.
This I agree with. It just creates moral hazard and wastes money.
Congress stepped in and told them to loan to people with poor credit history
If the goverment makes on part of your business unprofitable, you stop making that kind of business. It is as simple as that.
If you continue on making business anyway, you deserve what you get. The "goverment is responsible" argument is simple bullshit by people who won't admit that those in charge of companies are just as stupid as they are. (although with better contacts)
Where did you get the idea that a signature is nescessary for a contract. That is simply not true. Of course, a written signature on a contract is the preferred way to seal a contract as it stands up very well in court, but it is in no way the only way to seal a contract.
You can make the points that it is a unconscionable contract because of it being loopsided, but as this is about using blizzards servers, it is questionable if it will work.
Computer go players are now one Dan, and rising
Give me an example of one go bot that has been able to maintain 1 dan over a longer period of time on a go server. Crazystone is the best I have seen, and while it did jump into 1d for a short time, it quickly went back to 1k again where it has been steadily for quite a while.
Also, they don't seem to be improving that much right now. They did have a big breakthrough when Monte Carlo algorithms were introduced, and a little more with using improved processors power to maximize the monte carlo brute forcing. But the problems are now beginning to show, and that is that brute force is still brute force even if it is using a more appropriate version for go.
pros can't beat Mogo with 9 stones anymore.
The two rematches with 7 stones didn't go so well though. The pro beat MoGo in both. The game records were quite embarrasing including a total blunder from MoGos side.
On the other hand, crazystone won an 8 handicap game vs a pro.
Still, I don't find these games vs pros very interesting. Lots of even games vs amateurs is what should be used to judge strength. High handicap games simply don't scale linearly enough to give any good indication of rating, and are in general to variable in result (meaning you need more games to get an accurate result), because they rely on the mistake of the weaker player, more than the strength of the stronger player.
P.S. You arrogant fans of Go can frak yourselves. Where do you think the scientists will go once they're done with chess. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Go is considerably more difficult than chess because of how the game moves around the board. It isn't the branching factor per se, but the fact that weaknesses left behind sometimes won't get exploited until as far as 100 or even 200 moves later on. In the meantime, players will try to direct the game in such a way that they can exploit the opponent's weaknesses while protecting their own. Also, the other way around, make use of their strength while preventing the opponent from making use of his.
Without a higher level concept of the board, it is impossible for a computer to understand such ideas, and reading doesn't help because the depth is simply to deep. Monte Carlo bots try by playing out lots of complete game variations rapidly to get a somewhat understanding of the board, but in the end it fails because such playouts are overly simplistic.
This isn't to say that go computers won't beat us someday, but it will be tougher than chess. Also, one point you made stands out to me as arguing for go, even if computers become better.
To even competitively play at the local club level you really need a ridiculously deep memorization of openings and endings. At the grandmaster level, they've basically memorized the tables used by computers.
Due to how go works, memorization isn't nescessary to the same degree. Of course, having some common sequences memorized helps, but in general it is better to have a generic idea about different patterns as to understand the strategic and tactical implications of moves.
While there are established patterns (joseki) that are used in corners, players often deviate from them based on how the rest of the board looks. And when that happens, knowing the joseki is not very useful except to tell you that the player deviated from it. That is why there is a common saying "learn joseki, lose two stones: forget joseki, improve three stones".
Those confined to memorized patterns lose to those with more open minds. Still, studying some joseki is useful, because it helps to broaden you view on what good and bad patterns are.
I don't know if it actually is tortious interference or not, but it sounds like it.
Just because I gave a simplistic description doesn't mean that that is all there is. Of course there is limits to exactly what is counted as tortious interferance. For exact definitions, look up the laws in your jurisdiction.
It's called running MMOGlider on a personal WoW server
Sure, and you have the right to argue that. I doubt you could find a judge that would buy the argument though.
This isn't an EULA though. This is a Terms of Service that you agree to as part of subscribing to a monthly service.
Mostly, I think, "So what?" Glider has no reason to be bound to the agreement, and I still can't see a basis for the damages. Violate the agreement, get kicked off their server.
Read up on tortious interference.
Willfully helping someone to violate a contract is often illegal. And that is where the fact that the functionality sold that people use to violate the contract doesn't have any secondary legal functionality, making the intention clear.
Of course, the tiobe index is rather limited and inaccurate. Notice for example that ".NET programming" gets more than double the number of hits as "C# programming" on google. But because .NET isn't a language but a framework, it doesn't appear at all in the numbers.
It's not that it's scarce, but that it's expensive. And it's not just the fiber that is expensive, it's the additional routers with the higher bandwidth they also need to purchase to be able to receive and send the data.
Which doesn't make any sense since many countries are able to handle higher bandwidths than the US at cheaper prices. And backbone bandwidth is so cheap (in the amount of data ISPs are talking about) that calling it expensive to send data just sounds ridicioulus.
And please don't bring up T1. It is old and inefficent technology that is used to get money from companies that have little other choice.
It's not just that simple. You don't just string the fiber between telephone poles, you have to get rights to bury the fiber where necessary, and all that costs a lot more money than just the fiber itself.
So the US strong property laws comes back to bite them in their asses. OK, that coupled with communication companies suing local towns that try to be efficent and lay down their own fiber in one sweep.
So what do you propose instead? As the bandwidth is maxed out during primetime, how do you suggest that the limited bandwidth is distributed. Do you have a better suggestion than the one mentioned.
Oh, and just in case you are thinking about talking about increasing bandwidth and not oversubscribing, I'll just requote from my previous post so you don't have to bother:
"Of course, you can still complain about comcast not providing enough last mile bandwidth, having a too high oversubscription ratio, but that is a different matter. As an actual packet prioritizing scheme, this is a good one."
Either use a software (cFosSpeed or another similar packet prioritizing driver) or hardware (router) solution to priority your own packets.
It is simple. The more bandwidth you use, the less priority you will get.
Streaming audio, not so much. It doesn't use that much bandwidth.
Streaming video will suffer. Really, those people who download huge files during primetime (mainly streaming that can't schedule downloads) are hurting the network far more than someone who download/upload large amounts of data during the night. The p2p bogeyman is getting tired of taking all the blame.
if I'm blasting a 6 GB file download in an hour or two, does that piss them off? Because I'm going to be mad if it does, since it was a perfectly legitimate use of the service that I'm paying for (vs. some "gray area" activities).
If you do it during primetime when everyone else is on and the bandwidth is saturated, Yes. And by pissed off, I mean that your traffic will get less priority and slow down to avoid you hogging all the availible bandwidth.
If you are doing it during the night when there is plenty of availible bandwidth, No. Sure, you will still get deprioritized, but it doesn't matter as the bandwidth isn't saturated and you will be just another bulk downloader making use of the less "crowdy" nights.
Yup. As someone who usually complain about these companies not doing things neutrally, I don't really have anything to stand on this time. This is basically how it should work. It is the network neutral way of doing things. Don't analyze the type or destination, but instead just look at the traffic you are causing. If you are using more than your fair share, you get put behind the one who has used less.
There only is so much bandwidth during primetime and to divide fairly among all users you have to do something. The system mentioned in the article is about as fair as you can get. It doesn't matter if it is video streaming or bittorrent, you shouldn't be able to use more than your fair share. Yes, high quality video streaming is probably hit, but that is because it is an incredibly wasteful type of technology, requiring high bandwidth during primetime when the user online.
Of course, you can still complain about comcast not providing enough last mile bandwidth, having a too high oversubscription ratio, but that is a different matter. As an actual packet prioritizing scheme, this is a good one.
The purpose of patents is to ensure that inventions are published, and not lost simply because the inventor disappeared,
Yeah, right. We humans are in general quite good at reverse engineering.
And keeping something a secret is quite difficult. Especially when more than one person is involved (which there pretty much always is nowadays). Finally, most inventions are just waiting to happen once the time is right. If one person doesn't do it, someone else will.
but if no-one else has made that step then it isn't that obvious.
The problem with that argument is that what happens in reality is that inventions happens when the time is right and the prerequisites (everything from manufacturing process to societal views) are filled. At that time it is very likely that the exact same or similar invention happens in more than one locations.
There are very few inventions that are actually unique to warrant the need for patents. The little time gain (one or maybe a few years) that a patent could gain is offset by the cost of the two decade long monopoly and associated costs with the patent system, which include chilling effects, lawsuit costs and inferior technology used to avoid patents. The only field where patents are even remotly useful may be medicine, and even there it is debatable if the costs inflicted by use of inferiror/no medicines (especially in 3rd world countries) is worth it.
People in power SHOULD be rich. Say what you want but rich people are less prone to lobbying and bribery. They also want to protect their possessions, so they are less likely to do something truly stupid.
Yeah, that theory has worked so well in the US......NOT.
This isn't some 3rd world country we are talking about where goverment earn so little that they have to support themselves via bribery. The salaries are good enough to support a family without problem.
You still get gluttony corruption, but that is just as likely to affect rich people because it has little to do with actual need for money and more to do with a want for more.
No, they just inserted the word 'rich' in front of people.
Sure. What do you expect when you elect people who are richer than average and spend their time in richer societal circles.
Politicians have a good deal of self interest just like everyone else. If you elect people who aren't "ordinary" citizens, then you won't get people who represent ordinary citizens. It is as simple as that.
That is why I support randomocracy. Select politicans by random. It is fair and ensures that no societal special interests get any priority.
Of course, there will always be protesters to the idea, claiming that the average citizen is an idiot and that elections stops those from getting elected. However, looking at some of those who actually are elected right now, you can see that that argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Intelligence is currently not a prerequisite for being elected. Charisma, advertising and connections are.
Also, if you really want to ensure some qualifications you can always have those elected perform a competency test before being allowed to serve as a politican.
More class warfare.
Umm, it is republicans that are responsible for class warfare by creating a widening gap between lower and upper class, which inevitably leads to lots of tension.
More mindless entitlements
And yet the rich under the republicans seems to feel entitled to owning the wast majority of resources without really putting in any more work than your average worker. And no, I am not denying the hard work of those who get rich. I am just saying that there are lots of people doing hard work without getting rich. And depending on luck (and connections for a close second) to distribute resources is a lousy idea.
More appeasement
Because not everyone is the same. The republicans wants everyone to get down on their knees and pray to capitalism and the christian god (I still havn't figured out how those two fit together).
Diplomacy is the far superior method as people don't like listening to and obeying people who try to force them into things. And diplomacy creates far more goodwill and finally relating to the next point, is far less costly monetarily than trying to rule by force and threats.
More tax and spend.
You got that wrong. It is republicans who like to spend, not democrats. When a republican says he don't like spending, what he really means is that he don't like spending money on things that could help society.
Sure, republicans don't like to tax. They prefer to run at a deficit, creating inflation that has a similar effect to taxing, although less costly to those who own resources instead of having money in the bank.
More shady politics.
True. You get same, indepenent of you vote for republicans or democrats.
More of the same old crap.
Compared to voting for someone who is similar to the current ruler. The grandparent was right here. Change is good.
Actually, a huge part of the constitution applies to everyone, not citizens specifically. Of course, that is something that has been ignored for a long time as it would cause problems for the rulers if they interpeted it literally.
How many linux distro CDs do you need to download? 250GB = 357 CDs.
Talking like a true leecher.
For those who actually share back what they take (grandparent did say torrent after all) it is 357/2 = 178 CDs. Of course, that is still quite a bit as long as you don't have a big household.
"A republic is one wolf and two lambs deciding what to have for dinner after the two lambs gave their votes to the wolf. Oh, and the wolf gets to have a gun while the lambs get pocket knifes." - Someone tired of people using catchy quotes that really aren't that special
The opposite is also true. You can't treat economy as an infinite non-zero-sum game. There is a finite amount of natural resources that can be owned and society is not well of by having a few percent of rich people claim ownership over all of it.
A capitalistic (market driven) society have a natural tendency for resources to flow upwards toward the rich. This is generally an unstable system, but there are two things in place to keep it working. Increases in efficency and redistribution of resources.
As long as efficency increase at a relativly decent rate you can make do with relativly little redistribution. Even if the percentual difference between the rich and poor increase, the poor can still get a piece of cake. But even in such a situation, it is important to remember human nature, as jealousy and anger will strike if the imbalance grows too great.
The real problem however occurs when efficency isn't increasing fast enough compared to the resource flow upwards. When that happens, the only thing that works is some kind of redistribution of resources.
Of course, the best kind of redistribution of resources should focus on ensuring that everyone can provide a productive role in society. Giving people resources without any effort at all isn't efficent and also tends to lead to jealousy and anger in the other direction (rich angry at the poor). Anohter big problem with redistribution is that you have to enough control over your goverment to trust that they'll make fair redistributions, and that is a lot of work in itself. Limiting corruption is vital for a well functioning goverment.