Haha, one of my best friends is an atheist socialist and he likes to introduce me by saying "This is Dada, he's a judeoislamochristoanarchocapitalist. He doesn't vote."
Even funnier is the e-mails I get if I bring up Christianity instead of anarchy:)
1. Create your own hardware. Make sure that the hardware can assimilate obfuscated code in a way difficult to reverse engineer.
2. Create your software for your proprietary hardware.
3. Create your own peripherals for your proprietary hardware and software.
If you don't like this idea, then deal with the fact that your software relies on the creations of millions of other people, basically using what other's decided NOT to patent.
I ask why he would allow there to be anything bad in the world. Free will doesn't cover it.
Yet I can see how "bad things happening" would be directly a reaction to choices made through free will. I can't think of any bad things happening in my life that weren't directly because of choices I made, even if it seems like a cop out. My belief that our veil of uncertainty will be lifted after death leads me to believe that in the afterlife, we'll know what decisions not to make (eve if they aren't sinful decisions).
Why not make everything wonderful for everyone all the time forever? Everyone would be worthy of heaven... or heck, put everyone on there to begin with!
Sure, until you understand that God is a jealous God. If we want to worship idols and other gods, we're free to. He never promised not to test us.
It makes no sense that people like murderers and adulterers and rapists make God sad and angry... if he didn't think up these concepts and incorporate them into his universe, they wouldn't even be there.
You're right, but it is not something that I could explain. People who know me know that I am the most logical person you'll ever meet. The non-believers can't believe that I believe in God. The believers can't believe that I'm a Christ follower, either, as I don't follow the same path they do.
My life changed when I accepted Jesus in one big way -- I felt I knew why I was here and it didn't conflict one bit with my login and liberty beliefs.
I guess that's the big problem with "pushing" religion, though. No one pushed it on me, and to say that God led me towards salvation in everything I was reading and researching makes sense after the fact, but would I have seen it that way before the fact?
As for rape and murder and robbery, I don't know if I'd feel so certain that I couldn't commit these acts before I believe in God and the Word. I know that I'm utterly disgusted by the thought of any of the above now, but I can't recall how I felt before hand.
Look at His bumper stickers, to see whether it's one of those "no ass, no grass, no ride" situations.
Haha, I abhor religious bumper stickers. My only bumper sticker is my "Vote = Rape, Vote = Murder, Vote = Theft" one that I made about 5 years ago and needs a serious update!
FWIW, I don't think a lot of Christ followers will necessarily agree with my replies. I came to believing from a background of logic and liberty:)
How come that didn't work for Adam and Eve?
Adam and Eve were created in God's image but with the intent to see how Man would be outside of heaven -- away from God. God wanted to see if Man would still be able to live without His direct love (or as I like to see it, feeling his light and his warmth directly). Of course He knew the answer, which led us down the road of the Old Testament and which brought us to Jesus' life. That's a long story to tell here:)
But it will be possible, in principle, for people to sin in Heaven?
Interesting question and one that I love to debate with Christ followers of all beliefs.
I believe that heaven is basically living directly under the light of God (His Love as some would call it). Imagine that you're in your bedroom, it is pitch black. Someone gives you this ancient tome that has all of life's questions answered perfectly. When you read this tome, everything you've ever wanted to know makes complete and total sense -- you finally can understand everything. Unfortunately you're in complete darkness. You find a light and turn it on so you can read this tome. It would take eternity to go through the entire tome, but reading it gives you every answer correctly and completely. You find out you can turn your back on the light, but doing so means you'd take some time to not find more answers.
God's Light (heaven) is the ultimate Wikipedia with infinite links and always correct answers. Why WOULD you turn away from it if you're there?
And what would be the point of putting other people in Hell, since they too will have all certainty removed?
I don't really believe in Hell. I do believe that those who never found salvation (even though they were given then option to at least hear the Gospel and refused it) will live knowing God's Light exists, maybe they can even sense some of the glow and feel some of the heat -- but they'll be forever removed from it.
Note that I do believe there MIGHT be other opportunities after death to come to the Lord, but all my opinions are founded from gnostic text and parts of the Word that aren't considered Canon by Christ followers of almost every congregation. It still gives me great debate to talk about it:) I don't think it is wise, though, to give non-believers false hope when the reality is salvation is such a simple step to take and can change one's life so quickly. It surprises me that so many of my friends don't want to hear the Gospel and give it a chance, being as simple as it is.
He set to work with his squeeze tubes again. "I'll never understand about that stuff," Shawn commented. "If it's so good at fixing hull cracks and ridges, why not coat the whole hull with it?"
Seems like Sci-Fi writers believe we'll still have problems even a few hundred years in the future!
As a previously agnostic geek, my believer response has never been perfect. I'm always looking for a good way to reply to that comment without coming off as the typical Bible-thumping religious right wacko that I'm friends with:)
The answer is everyone can do it, and it is the easiest thing in the world to do. I firmly believe that the only guaranteed way to feeling God's love for every is basically to hear the Gospel, believe in it, repent as commanded and confess that you believe in salvation. The final step (baptism) is not required as far as I believe.
If you've heard the Gospel and take some personal time to give it real thought (I call it "prayer" but that's not an easy word for non-believers to understand), the other steps are really easy and I do believe that you'll feel an instant change after taking the other steps. Non-believers will say that this feeling is just our minds telling us that we need to feel good, but I'm sure that its more than that -- much more.
If you're an atheist geek and you're depressed and constantly feeling lost and alone, drop me an e-mail if you want some guidance. I've been where you are today, and I'm not one of those guys trying to push my beliefs on the masses, but I also believe there are unique opportunities other there for those who have been led to try to find out more.
Yes, except for the Great Commission. We are charged to spread the Gospel, and try to bring salvation to the lost. Jesus Christ spent a lot of time around sinners, including corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes, and rather than condemning them for their sins, He offered an alternative. The Bible says we are to follow Christ's example.
I offer my testimony to the (possibly) unsaved every day, but I don't push it through fear or retribution speeches. You know when someone is open to receiving the Gospel and when they aren't.
The best way to open yourself up to spreading the Gospel is by living a really awesome life and having people say "Why are you so happy?" or "Why aren't you bothered by [zzz]?" Once the question is asked, you can offer the reason through spreading the Gospel to questioning minds.
If I tell people they'll be condemned for their sins, they are much more likely to never be interested in what makes me happy every day and lead me to peace rather than depression.
I believe that He has -- its called heaven. I don't really believe in the artist's form of heaven and hell. To me, heaven would be a temporary place to hang out in the love of God until the earth is returned to us -- giving us that perfect body and perfect knowledge. Hell is not fire and brimstone and pain for eternity, I believe it is just eternity without the light of God's love.
Of course, my beliefs are very different than typical Christians believe. I think the average Christian would rather scare a non-believer into salvation than offer them the choice to come and ask questions themselves.
To which i normally reply "So does that mean in heaven we don't have any freewill"
Before I found my religious beliefs, this was a very tough question that I often asked believers.
I've found the best answer I can give is that once I'm in heaven, the veil of uncertainty will be lifted. Once I can see the consequences of an action, there would be no need to take any direction but the one with positive consequences. Does that mean free will in gone? Not really, but why make bad decisions when the good one is obvious?
I agree, but on the other hand I have Christian coalition groups all around me badmouthing my beliefs when they say that "life begins at conception" at whatever pro-life rally they're at. If it does, celebrate that day. It is a better use of your time than trying to control those that God never intended believers to control.
Who is to say the moment death occurs.
True. This is why I'm consistently reminding those in my congregation to leave their wishes in writing with their family so that the family knows what to do if the worst happens (vegetative state, etc). In the end, and in my opinion, only God knows when you're heading for heaven. Why should anyone choose by the person who is dying? I feel the same way about making the choice to end one's life.
It just re-stresses the importance of a living will or health care directive.
Bingo. This is how I live -- trying to follow God's Word while understanding that we live with free will. Make it easy on your family and friends and leave your testament for what will happen in any situation.
I'd love to find a generic living will/directive that is focused on the choices Christ followers find hard to do. Anyone have a link?
I'm a Christ follower but I have many problems with Christianity and the overall Body of the church. Your questions are some of the more frustrating ones because the average Christian is so holier than thou when they answer it.
I like to ask other Christians:
Why they celebrate birthdays and not conception days (they're so adamant at trying to control non-believers definitions of "life").
Why they believe one ascends to heaven immediately upon a man saying they are dead.
Why they believe that one who has no brain activity but body life might still be considered alive on this earth.
The answers to all three questions are basically: we shouldn't, we won't, and we will never push our views on non-believers. The Bible is pretty strict about holding other believers accountable for their actions, but we should be leaving the rest of the world alone.
They survive with low prices, and must be paying their employees fairly good because they do not have very high turnover rates.
Check again in a year. For 3 years now I have been interviewing small business owners all over the Midwest (urban, suburban and rural). In over 2000 face-to-face interview in 3 years, over 70% said they were taking out loans to support their businesses in hopes that things turn around.
In Illinois it is $6.50 an hour, that is only about $13500 a year! How can you possibly say that is alot of money? A one bedroom apartment with utilities can cost almost half that even in rural areas, how poor do you want your workers to be?
One employee at $6.50 an hour in a local business with a fixed customer base is not competitive with $6.50 in a state with lower regulatory costs that can keep people busy 24 hours a day.
How poor do I want my workers to be? I want them to be wealthy enough to spin off and run their own store/business. What a company pays an employee is directly related to how much the company's customers are willing to pay for the service or item they're selling. Local service businesses will find it more and more difficult to compete with the distance-support businesses that can offer the same product at a cheaper price.
Over the past 10 years I've seen people give up face-to-face service on many items in exchange for cheaper telephone (or even worse, mail) service plans. Not just in IT, mind you, but in almost every service imaginable -- vaccuum cleaners, electronics repair, etc. Of course I believe this is good for the overall economy by driving costs down -- including wages -- to those who can perform work more efficiently. The downside is that some workers will have to change their careers in order to survive, but that's actually a plus of the free market.
Business owners have never exploited employees, I believe it is vice versa. Wal*Mart succeeded by bringing less expensive goods to the consumer, but the consumer had to give up the information and service they used to receive from brick and mortar stores. The consumer made the decision to lower wages and incomes in their own area, Wal*Mart just met their desire for less expensive goods and lower overhead.
Over time, costs want to drive to zero -- this is normal. If our country stopped subsidizing the auto industry and the steel industry in this country in the 70s-90s, it would have allowed many of those assembly line workers to find new careers supporting cheaper and better cars from Asia. Imagine instead of 100,000 works subsidized to make cars inefficiently we'd have let them find new careers -- maybe as mechanics or installers of third party parts on these imported cars. Asia can make the cars cheaper and better but they sure couldn't support them.
Exploiting the worker is really just consumers of a market deciding they've found better deals elsewere. The worker should acknowledge that they're no longer efficient at their job and find something else to do. That's a reality. Horse shoers are long gone, when was the last time we saw an anvil? Yet you'd probably fight to make sure they make more money than the poverty line even though they aren't needed in their market any longer.
I don't mind that my shops had to close up -- I feel bad for my employees that my customer would no longer support. You'll see more "Main Street, USA" shops close down in the next 18 months, guaranteed. Some folks will run their lives into bankruptcy trying to beat a dying marketplace.
Mmmm, curds. My favorite place to take the broad on a date to is the Mars Cheese Castle. She once bought me a jar of Pickled Okra and a 29 pound wheel of Gouda. Damn fine people up there.
This is very true about the Midwest, actually. I've had situations where I had to talk to people in other parts of the country supporting a product, and more than once I was told that I was easy to understand and deal with.
I'm surprised we don't see more call centers in the rural midwest (not the redneck hick accent portions of course) -- the salaries there are very low due to a low cost of living, and the ability to communicate seem higher than a lot of rural areas I've been through in other parts of the US.
What town did you grow up in? Outside of KC or St Louis?
All of these articles drive me crazy. I ran a business in "small town" America -- it was a retail store. I made sure my prices were just as competitive as Amazon or other dotcoms, and the local customers loved it to a point.
Yet the small town was the reason I had to leave the business. They wanted more sales tax revenue (which made me less competitive than the dotcoms once you factored in almost 9% additional cost). They wanted to raise minimum wages, which made it impossible to stay competitive with the dotcoms. They wanted me to add a bathroom once I doubled my square footage (I was the most successful ma-and-pa retail store in that town's history). They wanted me to add an additional handicapped parking spot (which ended up occupying more than 22% of my total available parking spots even though I had never had one handicapped customer in 4 years of business -- we sold sporting equipment).
In the end, I wouldn't surive even if a paperwork error forced us out of business anyway. The demands of small town USA made it so I couldn't be make it in small town USA.
People move to small towns often to get away from the high overhead of living in the urban areas. Rural living can often mean rural salaries. Yet the rural communities that I ran 2 out of my 3 retail stores in were trying very hard not to be rural. Taxes went up (sales, property and residual regulatory user fees). Citizen services went WAY up (volunteer fire and ambulance squads because taxpayer funded unions).
In the end, small town USA will destroy itself by pretending it can mimic the high debt, high tax world of the big city. The only thing they don't realize is that they will chase away the customers that drove to small town USA to save a buck or three. Who will pay for the "gentrification" changes then? Tech companies? Ha!
I find myself completely hardwired for geometry. In fact, I honestly believed I invented the calculus when finding some shortcuts for algebraic equations in the 7th grade.
All my life I found myself aggressive trying to find the most efficient geometry. Looking back, maybe I had some OCD that I never realized.
Wide aspect ratio TVs always made more sense to me than the squarish ones we used to use. The golden ratio is for sure a mythical creature that proves that the ancients were just as bright as we are today, and that humans are locked in to geometric perfection.
Feng shui, symmetrical balance and all that garbage don't make me feel at ease -- geometric balance does.
Apparently since it can be digitized and copied at zero cost, the work must have zero value, and apparently zero production value. Do the slashbots have some solution for things that have high fixed costs?
This is a very accurate viewpoint of the current problems with digital content and the force of copyright. I was in the 3D animation business years ago (when a Pentium-200 with 64MB of RAM was considered huge) and I left it due to lack of profitable clients. If only I had waited 2 years!
Nonetheless, I agree with you -- how do you produce something that can be copied for almost no cost, and still make a profit on it?
I believe in the long run we have to look at the control mechanisms overall. DRM is probably the answer, but with "Fair Use" in copyright, DRM is completely destroyed. Copyright hurts the consumer, but it also hurts the producer! I see nothing wrong with DRM in an anarchocapitalist world. In fact, I see nothing wrong with proprietary playback machines. Only the market can decide what is worth buying.
I believe in a copyright-free world, we would see better use of the theaters for recouping profits. Maybe we'd see more viewer-sponsored art creation. Maybe we'd see more co-ops or even direct-to-audience displays (nightclubs, bars, who knows). There are numerous ways to compensate someone for the art that they create, but understand that for hundreds of years, are was not created necessarily for profit but for art sake. The artists that I know that paint or do comedy or even mime (*shudder*) don't do it for an income, they do it for some internal drive. I personally don't do it (I like profit), but I welcome artists to try to get that creativity off of their chests.
The market will always find a solution that is good for consumers, good for producers, and good for future content creators. I don't believe we need copyright to protect anything -- in fact I believe we'll see MORE content creation once we knock out the distribution cartels.
I've owned a studio and I'm opening a new one in spring.
A good recording session (8 songs average) costs the band US$12000. Producing 10,000 CDs 4color is US$8000. $2/CD cost. The physical CD has value.
Now copying the CD to another copy has little cost. You're selling the official CD, so you're asking for more money with the end user understanding that the additional price is going to help the band make more music.
The processor market is cheap, too. I can run SOCs for a few bucks a pop.
My studio experience and my IT experience lead me to believe that copyright is legal justification to rip people off. I think people have discovered that music in recorded form has little value, thanks to the web. Music in live form is still profitable, time for the musicians to make the same decisions the horse shoers had to make.
Slashdot Mirror
Haha, one of my best friends is an atheist socialist and he likes to introduce me by saying "This is Dada, he's a judeoislamochristoanarchocapitalist. He doesn't vote."
:)
Even funnier is the e-mails I get if I bring up Christianity instead of anarchy
1. Create your own hardware. Make sure that the hardware can assimilate obfuscated code in a way difficult to reverse engineer.
2. Create your software for your proprietary hardware.
3. Create your own peripherals for your proprietary hardware and software.
If you don't like this idea, then deal with the fact that your software relies on the creations of millions of other people, basically using what other's decided NOT to patent.
I ask why he would allow there to be anything bad in the world. Free will doesn't cover it.
Yet I can see how "bad things happening" would be directly a reaction to choices made through free will. I can't think of any bad things happening in my life that weren't directly because of choices I made, even if it seems like a cop out. My belief that our veil of uncertainty will be lifted after death leads me to believe that in the afterlife, we'll know what decisions not to make (eve if they aren't sinful decisions).
Why not make everything wonderful for everyone all the time forever? Everyone would be worthy of heaven... or heck, put everyone on there to begin with!
Sure, until you understand that God is a jealous God. If we want to worship idols and other gods, we're free to. He never promised not to test us.
It makes no sense that people like murderers and adulterers and rapists make God sad and angry... if he didn't think up these concepts and incorporate them into his universe, they wouldn't even be there.
You're right, but it is not something that I could explain. People who know me know that I am the most logical person you'll ever meet. The non-believers can't believe that I believe in God. The believers can't believe that I'm a Christ follower, either, as I don't follow the same path they do.
My life changed when I accepted Jesus in one big way -- I felt I knew why I was here and it didn't conflict one bit with my login and liberty beliefs.
I guess that's the big problem with "pushing" religion, though. No one pushed it on me, and to say that God led me towards salvation in everything I was reading and researching makes sense after the fact, but would I have seen it that way before the fact?
As for rape and murder and robbery, I don't know if I'd feel so certain that I couldn't commit these acts before I believe in God and the Word. I know that I'm utterly disgusted by the thought of any of the above now, but I can't recall how I felt before hand.
If you're not a believer, your reply is a good one to offer most believers.
If you are a believer, the proper answer is that God already answered the miracle question: Matthew 4:7
Look at His bumper stickers, to see whether it's one of those "no ass, no grass, no ride" situations.
Haha, I abhor religious bumper stickers. My only bumper sticker is my "Vote = Rape, Vote = Murder, Vote = Theft" one that I made about 5 years ago and needs a serious update!
FWIW, I don't think a lot of Christ followers will necessarily agree with my replies. I came to believing from a background of logic and liberty :)
:)
:) I don't think it is wise, though, to give non-believers false hope when the reality is salvation is such a simple step to take and can change one's life so quickly. It surprises me that so many of my friends don't want to hear the Gospel and give it a chance, being as simple as it is.
How come that didn't work for Adam and Eve?
Adam and Eve were created in God's image but with the intent to see how Man would be outside of heaven -- away from God. God wanted to see if Man would still be able to live without His direct love (or as I like to see it, feeling his light and his warmth directly). Of course He knew the answer, which led us down the road of the Old Testament and which brought us to Jesus' life. That's a long story to tell here
But it will be possible, in principle, for people to sin in Heaven?
Interesting question and one that I love to debate with Christ followers of all beliefs.
I believe that heaven is basically living directly under the light of God (His Love as some would call it). Imagine that you're in your bedroom, it is pitch black. Someone gives you this ancient tome that has all of life's questions answered perfectly. When you read this tome, everything you've ever wanted to know makes complete and total sense -- you finally can understand everything. Unfortunately you're in complete darkness. You find a light and turn it on so you can read this tome. It would take eternity to go through the entire tome, but reading it gives you every answer correctly and completely. You find out you can turn your back on the light, but doing so means you'd take some time to not find more answers.
God's Light (heaven) is the ultimate Wikipedia with infinite links and always correct answers. Why WOULD you turn away from it if you're there?
And what would be the point of putting other people in Hell, since they too will have all certainty removed?
I don't really believe in Hell. I do believe that those who never found salvation (even though they were given then option to at least hear the Gospel and refused it) will live knowing God's Light exists, maybe they can even sense some of the glow and feel some of the heat -- but they'll be forever removed from it.
Note that I do believe there MIGHT be other opportunities after death to come to the Lord, but all my opinions are founded from gnostic text and parts of the Word that aren't considered Canon by Christ followers of almost every congregation. It still gives me great debate to talk about it
The Icarus Hunt:
He set to work with his squeeze tubes again. "I'll never understand about that stuff," Shawn commented. "If it's so good at fixing hull cracks and ridges, why not coat the whole hull with it?"
Seems like Sci-Fi writers believe we'll still have problems even a few hundred years in the future!
Or can anyone do it?
:)
As a previously agnostic geek, my believer response has never been perfect. I'm always looking for a good way to reply to that comment without coming off as the typical Bible-thumping religious right wacko that I'm friends with
The answer is everyone can do it, and it is the easiest thing in the world to do. I firmly believe that the only guaranteed way to feeling God's love for every is basically to hear the Gospel, believe in it, repent as commanded and confess that you believe in salvation. The final step (baptism) is not required as far as I believe.
If you've heard the Gospel and take some personal time to give it real thought (I call it "prayer" but that's not an easy word for non-believers to understand), the other steps are really easy and I do believe that you'll feel an instant change after taking the other steps. Non-believers will say that this feeling is just our minds telling us that we need to feel good, but I'm sure that its more than that -- much more.
If you're an atheist geek and you're depressed and constantly feeling lost and alone, drop me an e-mail if you want some guidance. I've been where you are today, and I'm not one of those guys trying to push my beliefs on the masses, but I also believe there are unique opportunities other there for those who have been led to try to find out more.
Yes, except for the Great Commission. We are charged to spread the Gospel, and try to bring salvation to the lost. Jesus Christ spent a lot of time around sinners, including corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes, and rather than condemning them for their sins, He offered an alternative. The Bible says we are to follow Christ's example.
I offer my testimony to the (possibly) unsaved every day, but I don't push it through fear or retribution speeches. You know when someone is open to receiving the Gospel and when they aren't.
The best way to open yourself up to spreading the Gospel is by living a really awesome life and having people say "Why are you so happy?" or "Why aren't you bothered by [zzz]?" Once the question is asked, you can offer the reason through spreading the Gospel to questioning minds.
If I tell people they'll be condemned for their sins, they are much more likely to never be interested in what makes me happy every day and lead me to peace rather than depression.
Why doesn't god make earth like that?
I believe that He has -- its called heaven. I don't really believe in the artist's form of heaven and hell. To me, heaven would be a temporary place to hang out in the love of God until the earth is returned to us -- giving us that perfect body and perfect knowledge. Hell is not fire and brimstone and pain for eternity, I believe it is just eternity without the light of God's love.
Of course, my beliefs are very different than typical Christians believe. I think the average Christian would rather scare a non-believer into salvation than offer them the choice to come and ask questions themselves.
To which i normally reply "So does that mean in heaven we don't have any freewill"
Before I found my religious beliefs, this was a very tough question that I often asked believers.
I've found the best answer I can give is that once I'm in heaven, the veil of uncertainty will be lifted. Once I can see the consequences of an action, there would be no need to take any direction but the one with positive consequences. Does that mean free will in gone? Not really, but why make bad decisions when the good one is obvious?
Which is the more dramatic occasion?
I agree, but on the other hand I have Christian coalition groups all around me badmouthing my beliefs when they say that "life begins at conception" at whatever pro-life rally they're at. If it does, celebrate that day. It is a better use of your time than trying to control those that God never intended believers to control.
Who is to say the moment death occurs.
True. This is why I'm consistently reminding those in my congregation to leave their wishes in writing with their family so that the family knows what to do if the worst happens (vegetative state, etc). In the end, and in my opinion, only God knows when you're heading for heaven. Why should anyone choose by the person who is dying? I feel the same way about making the choice to end one's life.
It just re-stresses the importance of a living will or health care directive.
Bingo. This is how I live -- trying to follow God's Word while understanding that we live with free will. Make it easy on your family and friends and leave your testament for what will happen in any situation.
I'd love to find a generic living will/directive that is focused on the choices Christ followers find hard to do. Anyone have a link?
I'm a Christ follower but I have many problems with Christianity and the overall Body of the church. Your questions are some of the more frustrating ones because the average Christian is so holier than thou when they answer it.
I like to ask other Christians:
Why they celebrate birthdays and not conception days (they're so adamant at trying to control non-believers definitions of "life").
Why they believe one ascends to heaven immediately upon a man saying they are dead.
Why they believe that one who has no brain activity but body life might still be considered alive on this earth.
The answers to all three questions are basically: we shouldn't, we won't, and we will never push our views on non-believers. The Bible is pretty strict about holding other believers accountable for their actions, but we should be leaving the rest of the world alone.
Look out for hypothermia! by Three Brain.
They survive with low prices, and must be paying their employees fairly good because they do not have very high turnover rates.
Check again in a year. For 3 years now I have been interviewing small business owners all over the Midwest (urban, suburban and rural). In over 2000 face-to-face interview in 3 years, over 70% said they were taking out loans to support their businesses in hopes that things turn around.
In Illinois it is $6.50 an hour, that is only about $13500 a year! How can you possibly say that is alot of money? A one bedroom apartment with utilities can cost almost half that even in rural areas, how poor do you want your workers to be?
One employee at $6.50 an hour in a local business with a fixed customer base is not competitive with $6.50 in a state with lower regulatory costs that can keep people busy 24 hours a day.
How poor do I want my workers to be? I want them to be wealthy enough to spin off and run their own store/business. What a company pays an employee is directly related to how much the company's customers are willing to pay for the service or item they're selling. Local service businesses will find it more and more difficult to compete with the distance-support businesses that can offer the same product at a cheaper price.
Over the past 10 years I've seen people give up face-to-face service on many items in exchange for cheaper telephone (or even worse, mail) service plans. Not just in IT, mind you, but in almost every service imaginable -- vaccuum cleaners, electronics repair, etc. Of course I believe this is good for the overall economy by driving costs down -- including wages -- to those who can perform work more efficiently. The downside is that some workers will have to change their careers in order to survive, but that's actually a plus of the free market.
Business owners have never exploited employees, I believe it is vice versa. Wal*Mart succeeded by bringing less expensive goods to the consumer, but the consumer had to give up the information and service they used to receive from brick and mortar stores. The consumer made the decision to lower wages and incomes in their own area, Wal*Mart just met their desire for less expensive goods and lower overhead.
Over time, costs want to drive to zero -- this is normal. If our country stopped subsidizing the auto industry and the steel industry in this country in the 70s-90s, it would have allowed many of those assembly line workers to find new careers supporting cheaper and better cars from Asia. Imagine instead of 100,000 works subsidized to make cars inefficiently we'd have let them find new careers -- maybe as mechanics or installers of third party parts on these imported cars. Asia can make the cars cheaper and better but they sure couldn't support them.
Exploiting the worker is really just consumers of a market deciding they've found better deals elsewere. The worker should acknowledge that they're no longer efficient at their job and find something else to do. That's a reality. Horse shoers are long gone, when was the last time we saw an anvil? Yet you'd probably fight to make sure they make more money than the poverty line even though they aren't needed in their market any longer.
I don't mind that my shops had to close up -- I feel bad for my employees that my customer would no longer support. You'll see more "Main Street, USA" shops close down in the next 18 months, guaranteed. Some folks will run their lives into bankruptcy trying to beat a dying marketplace.
Wisconsin
Mmmm, curds. My favorite place to take the broad on a date to is the Mars Cheese Castle. She once bought me a jar of Pickled Okra and a 29 pound wheel of Gouda. Damn fine people up there.
This is very true about the Midwest, actually. I've had situations where I had to talk to people in other parts of the country supporting a product, and more than once I was told that I was easy to understand and deal with.
I'm surprised we don't see more call centers in the rural midwest (not the redneck hick accent portions of course) -- the salaries there are very low due to a low cost of living, and the ability to communicate seem higher than a lot of rural areas I've been through in other parts of the US.
What town did you grow up in? Outside of KC or St Louis?
It is easier to discover geometric shapes when one is used to rolling 3d6 or 1d20 in the basement 12 hours a day. :)
Kidding!
All of these articles drive me crazy. I ran a business in "small town" America -- it was a retail store. I made sure my prices were just as competitive as Amazon or other dotcoms, and the local customers loved it to a point.
Yet the small town was the reason I had to leave the business. They wanted more sales tax revenue (which made me less competitive than the dotcoms once you factored in almost 9% additional cost). They wanted to raise minimum wages, which made it impossible to stay competitive with the dotcoms. They wanted me to add a bathroom once I doubled my square footage (I was the most successful ma-and-pa retail store in that town's history). They wanted me to add an additional handicapped parking spot (which ended up occupying more than 22% of my total available parking spots even though I had never had one handicapped customer in 4 years of business -- we sold sporting equipment).
In the end, I wouldn't surive even if a paperwork error forced us out of business anyway. The demands of small town USA made it so I couldn't be make it in small town USA.
People move to small towns often to get away from the high overhead of living in the urban areas. Rural living can often mean rural salaries. Yet the rural communities that I ran 2 out of my 3 retail stores in were trying very hard not to be rural. Taxes went up (sales, property and residual regulatory user fees). Citizen services went WAY up (volunteer fire and ambulance squads because taxpayer funded unions).
In the end, small town USA will destroy itself by pretending it can mimic the high debt, high tax world of the big city. The only thing they don't realize is that they will chase away the customers that drove to small town USA to save a buck or three. Who will pay for the "gentrification" changes then? Tech companies? Ha!
I find myself completely hardwired for geometry. In fact, I honestly believed I invented the calculus when finding some shortcuts for algebraic equations in the 7th grade.
All my life I found myself aggressive trying to find the most efficient geometry. Looking back, maybe I had some OCD that I never realized.
Wide aspect ratio TVs always made more sense to me than the squarish ones we used to use. The golden ratio is for sure a mythical creature that proves that the ancients were just as bright as we are today, and that humans are locked in to geometric perfection.
Feng shui, symmetrical balance and all that garbage don't make me feel at ease -- geometric balance does.
I'm turning into Monk, aren't I?
Apparently since it can be digitized and copied at zero cost, the work must have zero value, and apparently zero production value. Do the slashbots have some solution for things that have high fixed costs?
This is a very accurate viewpoint of the current problems with digital content and the force of copyright. I was in the 3D animation business years ago (when a Pentium-200 with 64MB of RAM was considered huge) and I left it due to lack of profitable clients. If only I had waited 2 years!
Nonetheless, I agree with you -- how do you produce something that can be copied for almost no cost, and still make a profit on it?
I believe in the long run we have to look at the control mechanisms overall. DRM is probably the answer, but with "Fair Use" in copyright, DRM is completely destroyed. Copyright hurts the consumer, but it also hurts the producer! I see nothing wrong with DRM in an anarchocapitalist world. In fact, I see nothing wrong with proprietary playback machines. Only the market can decide what is worth buying.
I believe in a copyright-free world, we would see better use of the theaters for recouping profits. Maybe we'd see more viewer-sponsored art creation. Maybe we'd see more co-ops or even direct-to-audience displays (nightclubs, bars, who knows). There are numerous ways to compensate someone for the art that they create, but understand that for hundreds of years, are was not created necessarily for profit but for art sake. The artists that I know that paint or do comedy or even mime (*shudder*) don't do it for an income, they do it for some internal drive. I personally don't do it (I like profit), but I welcome artists to try to get that creativity off of their chests.
The market will always find a solution that is good for consumers, good for producers, and good for future content creators. I don't believe we need copyright to protect anything -- in fact I believe we'll see MORE content creation once we knock out the distribution cartels.
Sorry, incorrect.
I've owned a studio and I'm opening a new one in spring.
A good recording session (8 songs average) costs the band US$12000. Producing 10,000 CDs 4color is US$8000. $2/CD cost. The physical CD has value.
Now copying the CD to another copy has little cost. You're selling the official CD, so you're asking for more money with the end user understanding that the additional price is going to help the band make more music.
The processor market is cheap, too. I can run SOCs for a few bucks a pop.
My studio experience and my IT experience lead me to believe that copyright is legal justification to rip people off. I think people have discovered that music in recorded form has little value, thanks to the web. Music in live form is still profitable, time for the musicians to make the same decisions the horse shoers had to make.
One spends money on things others can do more efficiently.
The price we pay is based on our assessment of the time it took to make the exact item/service we're getting.
Music live I can see paying $15-$50 or more -- supply is low, so demand sets the price.
Digital music has a near infinite supply. The market pushes costs to zero.
This is true, but I find it lacks strength beyond proving that the market provides value better without force.
:)
The window keeps the elements out, as well as criminals. An IT security company works similarly.
If you don't have a window, crime and elements will cost you more. We need a cost-benefit parable
Sending paint chips and bolt fragments to the moon is going to be a veritable goldmine,
t first I thought "Ha ha funny" but then the entrepreneur in me kicked in.
I bet there IS value there.
Paint and bolts in spaceworthy vehicles is not house paint and hardware store steel. There might be some exotic materials used.
Then the dollar signs appeared! The guys building the vehicles/satellites might love to see what failed and why. Their competitors might pay more.
Sorting would be a bitch though.