Wired ran an article about public figures making bets about the future. It talks about how putting your money where your mouth increases accountability of people who discuss the future.
In that spirit, I offer 10 to 1 odds on 10,000 that by 2050, we will not have more than 1,000 people living on two planets other than earth. Someone else puts up $1000, I put up $10,000. If we have two planets colonised by the definition above, they win, if we don't, I win.
The first paragraph exposes the falacy of this article.
Earth's population will be forced to colonise two planets within 50 years
if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate, according to a report out this week.
Anyone with an elementary understanding of economics knows about scarcity. Rare, desireable resources increase in price. It is preposterous to expect that the price of oil will not go up, if we are going to run out of it in a year. Second, as resources are depleted, the industries that harvest them won't be able to produce as much per year, increasing the price again. Higher prices mean less consumption.
Economics has been defined as the study of human behavior, and it has been developed because it is an accurate model. It predicts things accurately. Psychology is also the study of human behavior, so they are related.
If I had a possibility of a secure, dignified life without working my ass off, I would grab it, though.
It seems that you don't view waste management as dignified. If you are a work-a-holic, it seems unlikely that you would a accept a job where you didn't have to work your ass off. The point is, you could get by doing less work.
Real wealth has increased, that is undeniable. Today we have access to better quality food, clothing, housing, transportation, environment... (it's true that 100 years ago the atmosphere was more unhealthy than it is today. Burning wood for heat is not good and leaving horse crap on the street isn't healthy either) Teh work day has decreased. We work a 40 hour week, whereas during industrialization it was 50 or 60.
I find your phrase "North American excesses" humorous. Wealth is tied directy to productivity. The more you produce, the more you are worth to some company or customer, the more you earn. The lack of industrialization in those countries is exactly what's causing the problems. Those people are unproductive so they are poor. (Productivity is a measure of efficiency, not effort)
There has been an increase in reporting of stress-related illnesses which may just mean that more detection occurs. You really can't blame that on companies, it's more the fault of people addicted to work.
:-) I love the time arguement. "Society is forcing people to work themselves so hard." People could work as garbage collectors, make decent wages, and get afternoons off, but no, they become work-a-holics, because they want to succeed and want material goods. Again, it's their fault.
It's difficult to be one-income family if you assume that you need some ammenities, like a roomy house, two or three roomy cars (public transportation is an option), vacations, gaming systems for the kids, designer clothes, large tv's, cable, the list goes on and on. It's a list of excesses that our wealth allows us to have. You just make up stats about the 1920's. Do you know how much time was spent on chores (cleaning clothes, dishes) back then? A lot. Now it gets to be used otherwise.
Finally, throughout history, people have been claiming that we are heading down hill. In 1920, i'm sure that there were people who thought those times were the worst times ever. Where do you draw the line, when did we hit our peak? Your answer is arbitrary and innaccurate.
Microsoft see's problems out there, and wants to fix them. Admittedly, they want to fix them so that they can make more profits with a better products/services, but their motive is to better serve consumers. I don't buy the pure evil description.
This will fail because it limits freedom. SPAM is a problem, but it's inherent in the freedom we have. Open Sourcers fear marketing like biological warfare. "Our enemy will succeed because they have marketing" ( for warfare, insert smallpox ). There have been plenty of companies who had marketing yet still failed (e.g. WorldCom "generation D"). Some would like to blaim Microsoft's previous success on marketing, instead of good enough products coinciding with good timing. This will make their products much worse. They are trying to shoot the moon and solve all the problems in the world. It's too impractical. RSA encoding, there was a solution to a problem that was not too ambitious. Like the pandlers selling snake oil before them, Microsoft will not be able to sell this product for very long.
Companies behave as consumers demand. Boycots are a powerful weapon that can be used against immoral companies. Your problem is that you are in the minority, and therefore, the majority is amoral by your standards. And your personal boycot of Microsoft hasn't been too effective. What if we based morals on property rights instead of the principles of sharing you learned in second grade. In that case, a company should be able to whatever the f~~~ it wants to a product before selling it to you. If you don't like your choices, again, it's because you are in the minority. You have your property, money, to spend however you want, and the company has it's property, computers or software, to sell however it wants. Profits are the main reason the world progresses. Industrialization, which drastically improved the quality of lives for humans, was the result of profit seeking. The Americas were discovered by Europeans due to profit seeking.
If the people want it, someone will probably make it. a few companies will never control the internet. However, the question is, will they get most of the market share? My resoponse, only if the consumers want it.
Did you see that earthlink commercial where they claim to be the #1 provider of the real internet. Is that a direct shot at AOL or what. Pretty sweet.
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Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
His example of a moviemaker making a movie out from a book is a bad one. In this case the moviemaker is trying to make money off the creativeness of the other person. The moviemaker can't come up with his own plot so he uses someone elses.
I appoligize for not writing more. I wrote my entire response and then lost it when i accidentally closed the window. I have stopped caring.
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Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
One story I have heard that goes against your statement:
Wal-Mart was having trouble opening stores there because they demanded that the workers be nice to the customers.
Even some Americans do it. Complain about corperations that is.
Very few people are trying to screw you. They offer you goods and then you accept them, and afterward you bitch. No one forced you to do anything here. If the people at the store were unkind, don't go back, if every store is like that it's because the majority people prefer that over the alternative, and you are in the minority. If you think that's not the reason then why are these the businesses that are sucessful?
You make agressive statements, but don't back them up. Basically you bitch.
The vast majority of inovation in any sector is done in the US. I don't feel like looking for proof, but I would encourage other people to look for counter examples.
Linux and KDE are no way of measuring innovation of a country. Maybe, Americans spend more time working instead of donating to open source, making themselves more valuable to their company.
Currently, most new products are designed here and built somewhere else, so your example of Japan is void.
My evidence, the world recognizes that we have superior universities. Not just in Yale and Stanford, but across the board, a significant percentage of atendees are international. This just shows that the expertise is most centered here.
The wierd thing is that I was starting, The Cathedral and the Bazaar before reading this post. Within A Brief History of Hackerdom, at this site paragraph 5 it references an OS being entered by Seymour Cray trough switches.
You cant be talking about the speed at which pages are loaded because IE had a clear advantage in that department. And the vast majority of the time I can End Task IE and continue working.
Most people do keep their main workstation running constantly, but sometimes it crashes or needs a reboot, so a separate box that is only concerned with the firewall will always be one, and therefore won't cut off other computers from internet access. Also with most cable internet, the server gives you a new ip each time you reconnect, therefor, a computer constantly connected gives you a more static ip.
The whole point is that this company is not the only one in its field. This custom program undoubtedly serves a purpose that is common to the company's competition and to other companies like it. Now, these companies employ programers to maintain the solution to this problem, therefor, there will be programers who have an interest in this program.
This might be moderated down, but: Why does this comment get a 1, and the previous other reply get a 0. That makes no sense, this person really didn't say anything relevent to the topic, or to any topic for that matter, but the other reply actually made an inteligible comment. (0, flamebait)
The point is not that he's controlling their minds. It's that his proposal is absurd. From what I've seen, he and his followers don't respect the rights of the producer. Of course people will follow someone who says, "We deserve this expensive software free." They don't respect what the producer put into making and that the they deserve compensation. That's the insentive that makes these things possible. Hundreds of years ago a writer observed what allowed the giant city of London to be fed. It was that there was a market for bread there so that the people transported it in would be PAID. If the people would have demanded free bread, they would have got none.
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In that spirit, I offer 10 to 1 odds on 10,000 that by 2050, we will not have more than 1,000 people living on two planets other than earth. Someone else puts up $1000, I put up $10,000. If we have two planets colonised by the definition above, they win, if we don't, I win.
The first paragraph exposes the falacy of this article.
- Earth's population will be forced to colonise two planets within 50 years
- if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate, according to a report out this week.
Anyone with an elementary understanding of economics knows about scarcity. Rare, desireable resources increase in price. It is preposterous to expect that the price of oil will not go up, if we are going to run out of it in a year. Second, as resources are depleted, the industries that harvest them won't be able to produce as much per year, increasing the price again. Higher prices mean less consumption.Environmentalists have been predicting imminent doom for over 50 years. The Skeptical Environmentalist
I believe in live and let live, and I'll kill anyone who disagrees with me.
The best one i've heard is...
NOVA the N is for knowledge.
Of course when you say it, it sounds better.
If I had a possibility of a secure, dignified life without working my ass off, I would grab it, though.
It seems that you don't view waste management as dignified. If you are a work-a-holic, it seems unlikely that you would a accept a job where you didn't have to work your ass off. The point is, you could get by doing less work.
Real wealth has increased, that is undeniable. Today we have access to better quality food, clothing, housing, transportation, environment... (it's true that 100 years ago the atmosphere was more unhealthy than it is today. Burning wood for heat is not good and leaving horse crap on the street isn't healthy either) Teh work day has decreased. We work a 40 hour week, whereas during industrialization it was 50 or 60.
I find your phrase "North American excesses" humorous. Wealth is tied directy to productivity. The more you produce, the more you are worth to some company or customer, the more you earn. The lack of industrialization in those countries is exactly what's causing the problems. Those people are unproductive so they are poor. (Productivity is a measure of efficiency, not effort)
There has been an increase in reporting of stress-related illnesses which may just mean that more detection occurs. You really can't blame that on companies, it's more the fault of people addicted to work.
It's difficult to be one-income family if you assume that you need some ammenities, like a roomy house, two or three roomy cars (public transportation is an option), vacations, gaming systems for the kids, designer clothes, large tv's, cable, the list goes on and on. It's a list of excesses that our wealth allows us to have. You just make up stats about the 1920's. Do you know how much time was spent on chores (cleaning clothes, dishes) back then? A lot. Now it gets to be used otherwise.
Finally, throughout history, people have been claiming that we are heading down hill. In 1920, i'm sure that there were people who thought those times were the worst times ever. Where do you draw the line, when did we hit our peak? Your answer is arbitrary and innaccurate.
This will fail because it limits freedom. SPAM is a problem, but it's inherent in the freedom we have. Open Sourcers fear marketing like biological warfare. "Our enemy will succeed because they have marketing" ( for warfare, insert smallpox ). There have been plenty of companies who had marketing yet still failed (e.g. WorldCom "generation D"). Some would like to blaim Microsoft's previous success on marketing, instead of good enough products coinciding with good timing. This will make their products much worse. They are trying to shoot the moon and solve all the problems in the world. It's too impractical. RSA encoding, there was a solution to a problem that was not too ambitious. Like the pandlers selling snake oil before them, Microsoft will not be able to sell this product for very long.
Companies behave as consumers demand. Boycots are a powerful weapon that can be used against immoral companies. Your problem is that you are in the minority, and therefore, the majority is amoral by your standards. And your personal boycot of Microsoft hasn't been too effective. What if we based morals on property rights instead of the principles of sharing you learned in second grade. In that case, a company should be able to whatever the f~~~ it wants to a product before selling it to you. If you don't like your choices, again, it's because you are in the minority. You have your property, money, to spend however you want, and the company has it's property, computers or software, to sell however it wants. Profits are the main reason the world progresses. Industrialization, which drastically improved the quality of lives for humans, was the result of profit seeking. The Americas were discovered by Europeans due to profit seeking.
The only fair thing is fair market value.
Someone sounds bitter. Was it really worth the time required to post this? I guess you trying your hand at crude humor with the goatsex line.
Did you see that earthlink commercial where they claim to be the #1 provider of the real internet. Is that a direct shot at AOL or what. Pretty sweet.
- email account is @hotmail.com
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
I appoligize for not writing more. I wrote my entire response and then lost it when i accidentally closed the window. I have stopped caring.
- email account is @hotmail.com
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
www.perlmonks.com
I heard of this from everything2.com.
- email account is @hotmail.com
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Wal-Mart was having trouble opening stores there because they demanded that the workers be nice to the customers.
Beats me.
Very few people are trying to screw you. They offer you goods and then you accept them, and afterward you bitch. No one forced you to do anything here. If the people at the store were unkind, don't go back, if every store is like that it's because the majority people prefer that over the alternative, and you are in the minority. If you think that's not the reason then why are these the businesses that are sucessful?
You make agressive statements, but don't back them up. Basically you bitch.
Linux and KDE are no way of measuring innovation of a country. Maybe, Americans spend more time working instead of donating to open source, making themselves more valuable to their company.
Currently, most new products are designed here and built somewhere else, so your example of Japan is void.
My evidence, the world recognizes that we have superior universities. Not just in Yale and Stanford, but across the board, a significant percentage of atendees are international. This just shows that the expertise is most centered here.
true
The wierd thing is that I was starting, The Cathedral and the Bazaar before reading this post. Within A Brief History of Hackerdom, at this site paragraph 5 it references an OS being entered by Seymour Cray trough switches.
You cant be talking about the speed at which pages are loaded because IE had a clear advantage in that department. And the vast majority of the time I can End Task IE and continue working.
--I live off the Flamebait moderations.
Clearly deserves a -7
Most people do keep their main workstation running constantly, but sometimes it crashes or needs a reboot, so a separate box that is only concerned with the firewall will always be one, and therefore won't cut off other computers from internet access. Also with most cable internet, the server gives you a new ip each time you reconnect, therefor, a computer constantly connected gives you a more static ip.
Clearly this should be moderated redundant. Someone above pointed this fact out.
The whole point is that this company is not the only one in its field. This custom program undoubtedly serves a purpose that is common to the company's competition and to other companies like it. Now, these companies employ programers to maintain the solution to this problem, therefor, there will be programers who have an interest in this program.
This might be moderated down, but: Why does this comment get a 1, and the previous other reply get a 0. That makes no sense, this person really didn't say anything relevent to the topic, or to any topic for that matter, but the other reply actually made an inteligible comment. (0, flamebait)
It seems to me that if I see the code for an alogrithm, i will be able to see what it does.
Good Observation.
The point is not that he's controlling their minds. It's that his proposal is absurd. From what I've seen, he and his followers don't respect the rights of the producer. Of course people will follow someone who says, "We deserve this expensive software free." They don't respect what the producer put into making and that the they deserve compensation. That's the insentive that makes these things possible. Hundreds of years ago a writer observed what allowed the giant city of London to be fed. It was that there was a market for bread there so that the people transported it in would be PAID. If the people would have demanded free bread, they would have got none.