The difficulty with these stories lies in the fact that it's a redistribution
of wealth from the workers to the owners of the company, until those owners
redistribute the wealth again by investing the savings. So it's difficult for the
people who lose their jobs, as they now have to fight to get new ones. It's sad. But
for humanity as a whole, extra efficiency means greater wealth, since we are now
creating the same product with less work invested.
This would absolutely be true if the increased wealth was directly invested in
productive capital or R&D. In places like China, this may be the case, but in Western
countries I think we see this increase in wealth flowing to investments that aren't
exactly the most productively efficient like the housing market and other bubbles,
where the investments that create the best returns (at the time) don't enhance
productivity much at all. So it really depends on where those extra savings are
invested.
Compare medieval kings to lower middle class people of today and we find the
kings did not have the amount of entertainment to choose from, the durable clothes, the
variety of food available, the health care quality, perks like temperature control of
their rooms, etc.
In absolute terms I agree, but people tend to look more to their relative economic
success than their absolute economic success. The lower classes in Western countries
may be better off than the royalty of the past, but I guarantee the royalty of the past
were much happier with their circumstances than the lower classes of today, simply due
to the fact that they were better off relative to their contemporaries. I'm not trying
to cast off the gains we've made in quality of life, but equating absolute economic
circumstances to well being is tricky.
Understand. Schools do NOT have a zero tolerance policy against violence. They have a zero tolerance policy against making them deal with the violence in their schools.
This is what I was speaking to specifically. My point was that, at least at my school, faculty attempted to deal with issues that were off school grounds, after school let out. In the case of my high school, they did have a zero tolerance policy to violence both on school property and off. Your point was that both fight participants were punished for making the faculty deal with the fighting on school property, implying that if the faculty didn't have to deal with the fighting, then the participants would not be punished.
The research questions were sound, but the way it was reported was not exactly
representative of the study. It's not that over 70% of Americans surveyed think that
nanotech is "morally reprehensible", it's that:
"Over 70% of respondents who disagreed with the statement that nanotechnology is
morally acceptable also did not approve of nanotechnology ‘under any circumstances’ or
only approved of it ‘under very special circumstances.’ Among respondents who felt that
nanotechnology was morally acceptable, the pattern was reversed, with almost 90% of
respondents approving of nanotechnology ‘as long as the usual levels of government
regulation are in place’ or ‘if it is more tightly regulated."
The study was showing that, the more religious a society is, the more likely they
are to believe that nanotech is morally objectionable. The US, even thought it is
somewhat of an anomaly in that it is both a richer and more religious country, holds
with the pattern of other religious western countries that have objections to
nanotech.
MozeeToby was right in that most of the American public has no idea what nanotech
really is, but this causes an interesting effect depending on where you are in relation to
support for new technologies: if you are pro-business, pro-new technologies, and you
have no idea what nanotech entails, you are less likely to support regulation than if
you are pro-business, pro-new technologies, and have a good idea of what nanotech
entails.
On the opposite end, if you are more religious and don't know what nanotech is,
you are more likely to support its morality than if you are religious and have a better
idea of what it is. Either way, a better understanding of what nanotech is typically
causes a shift to supporting increased regulations right now. The finding that
religious, lesser informed folks are more likely to support nanotech matches well with
what we saw with stem cells; before religious leaders had a chance to communicate ideas
about the new technology to their lesser-informed constituents, these constituents
didn't find it as morally objectionable.
Overall, arguing that a society's opinion of nanotech right now will be a good
indicator of its opinion of nanotech later on is akin to arguing that a society's
opinion of personal computers in the 1970's is indicative of its opinion of Internet
porn right now. These things are bound to change as society has more interaction with
the new technology.
Gonna write quick cause I gotta be at something...
I can see where you're coming from. I still have a few issues with the idea that materials engineering (especially working with carbon nanostructures - tubes and buckeyballs) for something like the space elevator can be accomplished on an everyman's budget, but you've got me interested in non-Spam artificial meat. I'll have to check out the literature when I have some time tonight.
I'd like to add that DNA sequencers and various other equipment is pretty affordable if you take a quick trip to ebay. Of course, you may have the feds drop by to check things out, but a talented person could make contributions there as well.
My high school actually did have a zero tolerance policy against violence, both in and out of the school. Plenty of kids were punished for fighting even when that fighting took place off school property, after school hours. And it was a public school, so no weird private school rules.
I remember getting called down to the principal's office junior year for giving the finger to a bus driver. It was an hour after school got out, well away from school property and I was in a friend's car. The principal and I argued about whether I could be punished or not, and he said, paraphrasing here, "If we passed each other in the mall during the summer, and you flipped me off, you could get punished for it when school started back in session". I refused to sign the "demerit slip" (I'm pretty sure every school has one of these, but it's basically a signed admission of guilt) and walked out.
So it might have just been my school, but they attempted to punish students for their actions whether those actions were in school or out.
>But what happens when a newspaper or TV show publishes a piece attacking a powerful politician? No right to free speech for that company, so the politician just shuts down the paper or station Venezuela-style.
Or what happens when the local mayor comes by to shake down your family business for campaign contributions and you don't donate? No right to due process, so he fines your business for "health code violations".
Your standpoint is absurd. The owners of these companies as legal persons would have no redress at all?
1. Education level of parents does not completely explain the intelligence levels of their children.
2. Numbers have not always overruled technology and intelligence. Intelligent actors usually feed that "dumb mob" their seemingly idiotic ideas and beliefs, and if you look at the actions the mob takes instead of what they say you find there is generally a rhyme and reason. The oratories of Marc Antony and Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar are excellent examples of this. Just because the common people ultimately acted on Antony's emotional speech instead of the rational speech made by Brutus doesn't mean their actions were unguided or unintelligently motivated.
3. On your last paragraph, you are completely correct: there have been no mass societal uprisings involving exclusively intelligent, educated people. But relating to my second point, all societal uprisings that I know of have been motivated by intelligent, educated actors. The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the American Revolution, Fascism in Europe, the Communist Revolution in China... on and on, there is always an educated class that begins and motivates these mass uprisings, and the intended result of the uprising always benefits that class.
A large base of average/below-average intelligence people may be good for society, as long as the upper classes are pushing a rational, progressive agenda. Those rallying behind the banner may not be the brightest, but those creating the ideas embodied by that banner are usually pretty intelligent.
If the US gets to enforce it's version of LAW on everyone else in the world then every other country gets to do the same to US Citizens regardless whether YOU think their laws and punishments are silly or extreme.
If every country that the US would want to force its laws on had an extradition treaty with the US, then yes. That's more or less the point of an extradition treaty. Remember, Britain voluntarily gave this man up; it's not like the US sent anyone in to kidnap him.
Now that really shows you have no clue - for his entire long life he's been surrounded by technical people in his inner circle that have told him when to backtrack away from a bad idea. Ask the English press if he's a dinosaur that never considers technical issues and has no experts to advise him and they will laugh at you and mention Wapping. He's an evil old bastard but he's not a stupid old bastard and he's had a chunk of online commerce only a couple of years after Microsoft noticed that there was an internet out there..
It's probably safe to say the current Iranian regime has no intention of using nuclear weapons if it gets a hold of them... it's most likely a "we have these things so back off" bargaining chip. It would also allow them to hold Israel hostage to deter a US attack if relations with the US deteriorate more than they have.
That said, the US is more worried about extreme religious radicals gaining control over the weapons. The current Iranian regime, for all their religious rhetoric, are actually quite rational. The bigger fear is of a Taliban-esque coup, much like the fears for Pakistan. Having nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them fall into the hands of a group like the Taliban would be much, much worse.
there's only one reason that any nation would want to obtain nukes themselves: to use them, consequences be damned.
In my experience, just letting the other guy know you have a gun goes a long way towards stopping the fight before it starts.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, I'm a social science PhD student and I still get a deal like this.
The difficulty with these stories lies in the fact that it's a redistribution of wealth from the workers to the owners of the company, until those owners redistribute the wealth again by investing the savings. So it's difficult for the people who lose their jobs, as they now have to fight to get new ones. It's sad. But for humanity as a whole, extra efficiency means greater wealth, since we are now creating the same product with less work invested.
This would absolutely be true if the increased wealth was directly invested in productive capital or R&D. In places like China, this may be the case, but in Western countries I think we see this increase in wealth flowing to investments that aren't exactly the most productively efficient like the housing market and other bubbles, where the investments that create the best returns (at the time) don't enhance productivity much at all. So it really depends on where those extra savings are invested.
Compare medieval kings to lower middle class people of today and we find the kings did not have the amount of entertainment to choose from, the durable clothes, the variety of food available, the health care quality, perks like temperature control of their rooms, etc.
In absolute terms I agree, but people tend to look more to their relative economic success than their absolute economic success. The lower classes in Western countries may be better off than the royalty of the past, but I guarantee the royalty of the past were much happier with their circumstances than the lower classes of today, simply due to the fact that they were better off relative to their contemporaries. I'm not trying to cast off the gains we've made in quality of life, but equating absolute economic circumstances to well being is tricky.
Life is a shit sandwich, and the more bread you have the less shit you taste.
I disagree completely with this sentence, but I absolutely love the visual it produces. This is getting used at my next dinner party.
Understand. Schools do NOT have a zero tolerance policy against violence. They have a zero tolerance policy against making them deal with the violence in their schools.
This is what I was speaking to specifically. My point was that, at least at my school, faculty attempted to deal with issues that were off school grounds, after school let out. In the case of my high school, they did have a zero tolerance policy to violence both on school property and off. Your point was that both fight participants were punished for making the faculty deal with the fighting on school property, implying that if the faculty didn't have to deal with the fighting, then the participants would not be punished.
The research questions were sound, but the way it was reported was not exactly representative of the study. It's not that over 70% of Americans surveyed think that nanotech is "morally reprehensible", it's that:
"Over 70% of respondents who disagreed with the statement that nanotechnology is morally acceptable also did not approve of nanotechnology ‘under any circumstances’ or only approved of it ‘under very special circumstances.’ Among respondents who felt that nanotechnology was morally acceptable, the pattern was reversed, with almost 90% of respondents approving of nanotechnology ‘as long as the usual levels of government regulation are in place’ or ‘if it is more tightly regulated."
The study was showing that, the more religious a society is, the more likely they are to believe that nanotech is morally objectionable. The US, even thought it is somewhat of an anomaly in that it is both a richer and more religious country, holds with the pattern of other religious western countries that have objections to nanotech.
Religious beliefs and public attitudes toward nanotechnology in Europe and the United States
MozeeToby was right in that most of the American public has no idea what nanotech really is, but this causes an interesting effect depending on where you are in relation to support for new technologies: if you are pro-business, pro-new technologies, and you have no idea what nanotech entails, you are less likely to support regulation than if you are pro-business, pro-new technologies, and have a good idea of what nanotech entails.
On the opposite end, if you are more religious and don't know what nanotech is, you are more likely to support its morality than if you are religious and have a better idea of what it is. Either way, a better understanding of what nanotech is typically causes a shift to supporting increased regulations right now. The finding that religious, lesser informed folks are more likely to support nanotech matches well with what we saw with stem cells; before religious leaders had a chance to communicate ideas about the new technology to their lesser-informed constituents, these constituents didn't find it as morally objectionable.
Overall, arguing that a society's opinion of nanotech right now will be a good indicator of its opinion of nanotech later on is akin to arguing that a society's opinion of personal computers in the 1970's is indicative of its opinion of Internet porn right now. These things are bound to change as society has more interaction with the new technology.
Gonna write quick cause I gotta be at something...
I can see where you're coming from. I still have a few issues with the idea that materials engineering (especially working with carbon nanostructures - tubes and buckeyballs) for something like the space elevator can be accomplished on an everyman's budget, but you've got me interested in non-Spam artificial meat. I'll have to check out the literature when I have some time tonight.
I'd like to add that DNA sequencers and various other equipment is pretty affordable if you take a quick trip to ebay. Of course, you may have the feds drop by to check things out, but a talented person could make contributions there as well.
My high school actually did have a zero tolerance policy against violence, both in and out of the school. Plenty of kids were punished for fighting even when that fighting took place off school property, after school hours. And it was a public school, so no weird private school rules.
I remember getting called down to the principal's office junior year for giving the finger to a bus driver. It was an hour after school got out, well away from school property and I was in a friend's car. The principal and I argued about whether I could be punished or not, and he said, paraphrasing here, "If we passed each other in the mall during the summer, and you flipped me off, you could get punished for it when school started back in session". I refused to sign the "demerit slip" (I'm pretty sure every school has one of these, but it's basically a signed admission of guilt) and walked out.
So it might have just been my school, but they attempted to punish students for their actions whether those actions were in school or out.
No offense meant, but these hardly seem like they're possible for a lone inventor researching in his garage. AI maybe, but the rest....
As long as capital gains is eliminated and all profits are taxed as personal income, then I don't see why not.
>But what happens when a newspaper or TV show publishes a piece attacking a powerful politician? No right to free speech for that company, so the politician just shuts down the paper or station Venezuela-style.
Or what happens when the local mayor comes by to shake down your family business for campaign contributions and you don't donate? No right to due process, so he fines your business for "health code violations".
Your standpoint is absurd. The owners of these companies as legal persons would have no redress at all?
1. Education level of parents does not completely explain the intelligence levels of their children.
2. Numbers have not always overruled technology and intelligence. Intelligent actors usually feed that "dumb mob" their seemingly idiotic ideas and beliefs, and if you look at the actions the mob takes instead of what they say you find there is generally a rhyme and reason. The oratories of Marc Antony and Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar are excellent examples of this. Just because the common people ultimately acted on Antony's emotional speech instead of the rational speech made by Brutus doesn't mean their actions were unguided or unintelligently motivated.
3. On your last paragraph, you are completely correct: there have been no mass societal uprisings involving exclusively intelligent, educated people. But relating to my second point, all societal uprisings that I know of have been motivated by intelligent, educated actors. The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the American Revolution, Fascism in Europe, the Communist Revolution in China... on and on, there is always an educated class that begins and motivates these mass uprisings, and the intended result of the uprising always benefits that class.
A large base of average/below-average intelligence people may be good for society, as long as the upper classes are pushing a rational, progressive agenda. Those rallying behind the banner may not be the brightest, but those creating the ideas embodied by that banner are usually pretty intelligent.
It's not always that easy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_v._Wainwright
If the US gets to enforce it's version of LAW on everyone else in the world then every other country gets to do the same to US Citizens regardless whether YOU think their laws and punishments are silly or extreme.
If every country that the US would want to force its laws on had an extradition treaty with the US, then yes. That's more or less the point of an extradition treaty. Remember, Britain voluntarily gave this man up; it's not like the US sent anyone in to kidnap him.
Now that really shows you have no clue - for his entire long life he's been surrounded by technical people in his inner circle that have told him when to backtrack away from a bad idea. Ask the English press if he's a dinosaur that never considers technical issues and has no experts to advise him and they will laugh at you and mention Wapping. He's an evil old bastard but he's not a stupid old bastard and he's had a chunk of online commerce only a couple of years after Microsoft noticed that there was an internet out there..
Myspace?
It's probably safe to say the current Iranian regime has no intention of using nuclear weapons if it gets a hold of them... it's most likely a "we have these things so back off" bargaining chip. It would also allow them to hold Israel hostage to deter a US attack if relations with the US deteriorate more than they have.
That said, the US is more worried about extreme religious radicals gaining control over the weapons. The current Iranian regime, for all their religious rhetoric, are actually quite rational. The bigger fear is of a Taliban-esque coup, much like the fears for Pakistan. Having nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them fall into the hands of a group like the Taliban would be much, much worse.
there's only one reason that any nation would want to obtain nukes themselves: to use them, consequences be damned.
In my experience, just letting the other guy know you have a gun goes a long way towards stopping the fight before it starts.
Scratch that... criminal misdemeanor, but still interesting.
I mean, come on, there isn't anywhere in the world the hammer and sickle are outlawed
Fun fact: Hungary outlaws the display of all "totalitarian symbols", including the hammer and sickle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Post-WWII_stigmatization_in_Western_countries
Touche. First time contributor, long time lurker. =D