I know this is a bit off topic, but my girlfriend has trouble getting me to do chores and I'm 30, with a college education (BA in music, BS in Comp Sci), and a decent job. The point is, lack of "trainability" isn't necessarily a sign of lack of intelligence (I would argue that it could be a sign of just the opposite). Some people just don't care to be ordered around, and may have a higher tolerance for disorganization.
If you think I'm bad, one of the managers of the bioinformatics department hasn't paid his taxes, ever. He decided he didn't believe in debt, and as a result has a credit score that's about as low as it gets (do they go below zero?). And, he's a manager and a great programmer.
If you put someone in a bubble world such as school, where everything is fake, most of the asignments are nothing more than busywork, and nothing really matters, at least not for another life time (which is what 12 years seems like when you are that age), then you get the expected behavior of not really caring. On the other hand, I think that if you put people that 12 and beyond in an environment where they are exposed to the consequences of their actions, and these actions matter, then they suddenly start acting like adults.
Whether this change in behavior is a function of age or a function of environment is up to the reader. I believe that it's due to the former.
That being said, I couldn't see myself dating someone under the age of 18, mainly because most of them haven't experienced enough, they just don't have enough repoirte. But I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that they incapable of the least amount of responsibility. They are still a member of the same species, and being 12 doesn't make you mentally retarded.
if the government Senator Clinton represents didn't use violence every day to solve it's problems. This is quite a bit bigger problem than the extremely questionable link that video games have with real world violence. I realize that the government wants to maintain a monopoly on violence, but this seems to be taking it a bit too far.
I am disappointed by the disingenuous nature of the letter that I received. I believe that the characterization of my activity as illegal is dishonest, and prevents me from getting full use of the services that I am paying for. I really wish that the IT department would dedicate the resources necessary to separating illegal activity from legal activity, and block usage appropriately.
While I understand that it may not be feasable for the university to separate law abiding users of bit torrent from those who are using it for illegal activity, it is wrong to classify everyone that is using this software as a pirate. You should simply state the problem as it really is, and that is, you should say that you don't have the time to track down those who are breaking the law, and not that all such use of bit torrent is illegal.
Well, I think to be more accurate, there isn't a way to cram for standardized tests. At least that's what I think they mean when they tell you that you can't study for the SAT, ACT, IQ tests, etc. But the fact is, you can study for SAT and ACT tests, and a booming industry has formed around it. If IQ really mattered, I'm sure there would be an industry focused on how to study for the IQ test.
I agree that you are likely to find both sides of the republican vs. democrat dichotomy represented well in Mensa circles. Probably for different reasons than you do. I think that the whole dichotomy between the two parties is a false one, it's kind of an opiate for the true believers, those solid citizens who have bought into the dominant culture. Then there is the rest of us, who are too jaded and cynical to buy into the bullshit of either party. We tend to be in the lower, less educated classes.
IQ is as much a test of assignable curiosity (i.e. one's willingness to eagerly solve problems that are given to him by others) as it is intelligence. Thus, it shouldn't be a surprise that people who do well on IQ tests tend to also be automatons.
Further, many of the questions on IQ tests tend to be what are known as "trick" questions. The only way that most mortals can do well on such a test is to blindly memorize the answers. After that, it's a piece of cake. If one pays attention at Mensa meetings, one will notice that most members enjoy solving obscure puzzles, it shouldn't be a mystery why. So, you are also testing for one's willingness to blindly memorize useless trivia, and to work on esoteric, abstract problems. Is it any wonder that such genius's are so detached from reality that they think Bush is a great man?
It kind of reminds me of star trek deep space 9, where the only noticeably unique feature about the genetically engineered genius doctor is that he has a slight British accent. My belief is that IQ is primarily a test of whiteness. Not necessarily the color of your skin, but whiteness in the sense that you've been sheltered from the problems of the world, are well-trained by "educational" institutions to think in a certain way, and to eagerly solve the problems that one is asigned. An intellectual lap dog. Any resentment of the dominant culture is likely to interfere with one's willingness to memorize bullshit trivia and eagerly work on assigned tasks.
Not exactly. The itanium includes an x86 emulator, but it's very slow. For all pratical purposes you need to recompile in order to take advantage of the itanium's speed. The itanium has been around for about 4 years, but it's marketed for a completely different (high-end) market than x86_64.
I think the problem is, if I steal a car from GM's factory, how much have I stolen, the retail or wholesale value of the vehicle?
How about intellectual property, have I stolen the costs that it took to make the CD, or the suggested MSRP? Why does the RIAA assume that the MSRP is what is stolen?
With the GM vehicle, we have a greater chance of market competition causing the price to drop down to the cost of the materials + cost of labor. It's not perfect by any means, and barriers to market entry screw things up, but real competition keeps them more honest than the record companies. The problem with this logic, is that lack of competition with IP causes the price to be higher than it would be in a market where there is direct competition.(i.e. there is only one Windows, and it's made by microsoft, there is only one Radiohead, and only one record company I can get their CD from). Instead, each band, and product, is it's own monopoly, with no direct competition, which is why price fixing is so easy with music and movies.
So, the record company sets the price as high as it can, and since there is no direct competition, the profit margins stay high. What happens when someone "steals" music? They aren't charged for the costs of making the IP, instead they are stuck with fines that are based on artificially high prices.
I'm not sure if anyone dealing with economics has tried to come up with a way of measuring competition in an industry, but if they haven't, they should. The market distortions created by our IP rules are horribly unjust. Why should someone that makes a small amount of IP be rewarded handsomely, while someone that makes a really existing product, have comparatively low profit margins? Why should someone that steals maybe $100 from the real world profit of a record company, and even less than that from the true value of the good itself(if we assume that the value of the good is only as much as the amount paid to the artists and managers), be charged with millions in fines?
You seem to be able to ignore the fact that your beloved "society" is merely an aggregate of individuals. So when a aggregate of individuals though mechanisms such as markets expresses their preferences, then "society" has made a made a value judgement concerning what it considers to be it's bottom line. What makes your judgement about what's "good for society" better than their's?
Yes, and the brain is merely an agregate of neurons. I was saying that if markets allowed us to take into account all of the factors, and not just the bottom-line dollars and cents, we would have much more sensible outcomes. Markets don't take into account the full range of our preferences, but actually serve to constrain our preferences to the bottom line of dollars and cents economics. That's "freedom".
Sure, if you want to think about things in isolation, then your reasoning makes sense, but it doesn't really paint an accurate picture of the real world effects. The reason why it's important to have women as faculty (and other important positions in society) is because even though we might lose some productivity if she chooses to have kids, we gain quite a bit by having a society that is more egalitarian. The problem isn't with the women, the problem is with a system of institutions and thinking, that forces people like you to think of every single decision in isolation, instead of thinking of the wider ramifications of that decision.
The problem is markets. Markets have two roles, buyer and seller. They force people to think only in terms of what they, as individuals, will gain, rather than the greater social effects of a decision. While Universities may not participate in markets directly, they are still impacted by market pressures, and as a result end up having to think about the bottom line, despite their institutional inclination to think about wider ramifications. This is a problem, because the bottom line for an individual is NOT the same as the bottom line for society. A decision that can be a great boon for an individual can be terribly destructive socially (i.e. a factory's choice to pollute more in order to cut costs, or, in this case, a university's choice to overlook potential female faculty because they MIGHT have kids.)
Besides, who's to say that her partner won't stay home and raise the kids?
The democracy of this country belongs to it's people. Understand? This is how democracy works.
And, if enough people get tired of the situation they are in, that top 1% won't stand a chance. At that point, capitalism and ownership will be moot points. So, do us a favor, and drop the condescending rhetoric, because you aren't holding all the cards. Your "job" stays your job only as long as society agrees that this is the best way to run things.
So, either deal with it or move to a non-democratic country.
Exactly. What I find strange is that we're talking about the idea of improving "efficiency" on the battlefield as if it's a good thing. War should be difficult. It shouldn't be a cakewalk to go in and kill a bunch of people. Killing people, especially innocent civilians, SHOULD be difficult, if not because your conscience is stopping you, then maybe because the technology has problems, or it's not practical..
War should be difficult, to keep people from using it as a solution to problems that could be solved in another way, or in this case, by admitting that the problem of WMD's in Iraq doesn't even exist.
Whether you believe that it's all a bluff, or that it's really a threat to your job today, the answer is that we need to organize. You can't run from offshoring. It's pervasive, and it eventually will enter into every possible field, yes, even management. No one is safe. Market forces are relentless, and eventually even many of the smug millionaire CEO's will see their jobs replaced.
Before someone starts telling me about comparative advantage, and "efficiency" and all that crap, just remember that corporations view no difference between cost cutting and cost shifting. If they can find a way to shift a cost onto the worker, or the consumer, then to them that's a gain in "efficiency". In fact, most often, that's exactly what they mean. "Efficiency" is when they find a way to make the workers pay for things that they used to pay for. For example, if they figure out a way to save on heating in the winter, and as a result the workers have to put up with freezing temperatures, that's "efficiency". Nevermind that the workers are miserable, it's more efficient since they save on electricity. If they buy the programmer a cheap chair and a crappy work bench, and he gets back problems and carpal tunnel, that's "efficiency", as long as they don't get sued, since they were able to save a couple of hundred bucks on the chair. Nevermind the cost to society, or the programmer. Or, if a factory figures out a discreet way of dumping toxic waste into a river, poisoning the water supply, and surrounding community, that's "efficiency", since they were able to cut costs and avoid the expensive process of refining that waste.
So, just because free trade results in more "efficiency", doesn't mean that it's the kind of efficiency that any of us would want. The reason the corporations always win out, and are almost always able to shift their costs onto the worker, rather than vice versa, is due to their size in comparison to the workers. As long as we allow multinationals to exist, they will always use their size in the bargaining process. The predictable result is that they will consistently win. This is why monopolies have such a destructive effect on markets. What ends up happening is that they are able to use their size to shift more and more of their costs onto the workers and consumers, and the relationship becomes parasitic.
All of the reporting was nothing more than a bluff? What if software engineers simply organized, unionized, and managed to double or triple their salaries in a matter of years? Perhaps the reason the media is doing all of this reporting on jobs going overseas is nothing more than a way of scaring the living daylights out of programmers, so that they don't dare ask for the true value of their work. It seems to me that everytime the perception of worker insecurity is created, that salaries would go down, since workers would be less inclined to ask for more. However, I'm doing a job search right now, and I don't get the feeling that employers here in the US are having any easier of a time finding the right kind of employee than they were a couple of years ago. What if all this reporting was nothing more than a scam? a bit of psychological warfare on those expensive programmers? Then again, I'm probably just being a bit paranoid...
More accurately, it's probably a combination of the two. The first part of free trade is essentially to replace programmers with less expensive programmers overseas. The second part is to use this stick to keep the remaining, more talented US programmers that are still left, in line. So, I think that part of this reporting could be a psychological bluff that is used on the more talented programmers. i.e. "You'd better not ask for too much, or you'll be delivering pizzas." The only reason I'm bringing this up, is because all of the reporting on offshoring seems out of character for US mainstream media, which usually is content to not say a word when things such as this are going on.
You're leaving out the obvious third option of getting rid of the factors that motivate people to throw away their whole life in order to get $50 when they knock over a gas station. The obvious 3rd solution, which appears superior to having a locked down police state, or "allowing bad things to happen", would be to create enough of a safety net that only in the most strange of circumstance would someone even dream of going to jail for twenty years to knock over a gas station, sell drugs, etc.
The next question we need to ask is, whose security do large scale protests threaten? It would certainly seem to be a small minority that are threatened by these protests, not the average Joe. I know that I don't think twice when I see protestors. I see it as a sign of democracy, true democracy, in action.
That's Capitalism in the US for ya. It's massive wealth alongside huge amounts of poverty. So, yes, there are quite a few people in the US who live below the poverty line. This number is increasing, and has been increasing for about 25 years. On the other hand, the amount of extremely wealthy people has also been growing. And, to top it all off, our prison population is by far the largest in the world, even more so if you measure it in per capita terms. But, that's freedom for ya, you need lots of jails to ensure that people can stay free. I'll leave up to the reader to decide whether that's a problem or not.
Below is the US INCOME distribution. The asset distribution is even crazier, with the top 1% owning about 43% of US wealth, and the bottom 40% owning less than a 1%. If you go below the bottom 25th percentile, most of those people have what we call negative ownership, where they owe more than they own. Many in this bracket will pay substantial portions of their income in interest. Go to the top of the income distribution pile, and you'll find that quite a few make most of their money from interest and other dividends off what they own.
You might also get a kick out of Albert's reply to some student's reviews of his work. You can see some common arguments that the students made against Albert's vision. Apparently, a professor had his class read Albert's, "Parecon: Life After Capitalism". Since it sounds like you'll be doing roughly the same thing, but perhaps reading different stuff that he's written, it might be amusing for you to read Albert's response to some of the student's critiques.
http://blog.zmag.org/bloggers/?blogger=albert
Skip down to the blog posts titled "Soc 292: Parecon Comments" and read his replies.
You could also send in your paper, he'll probably reply to that, if you're interested. Just make sure that whatever you write is well written, he's pretty good at spotting logical fallacies and flaws in arguments.
I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for a couple of weeks. Let me know what you think when you get a chance. It's a lot to swallow in a day, and might not be the best topic for a paper unless you have a lot of time to explore the writing. If you need any more resources, there are quite a few books on the topic that Albert has put online, as well as audio, etc., plenty for a term paper.
If you want, I could post a temporary email address, and we could exchange email that way. I don't put my email on slashdot, for obvious reasons. Or, you can just reply here, whichever works best for you.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Again, take a look at the link at the bottom of my last post. That's probably the most technical, although they are all worthwhile reading. Some start from a more philosophical approach, others a more mathematical approach.
I'm sorry if I came off as a bit caustic. Part of the problem with ParEcon, may in fact be the people promoting it. Clearly, a lot of what ParEcon promotes isn't exactly "left", or socialist. For example, Albert flat out rejects one of socialism's core values, which is giving to people according to need. Instead, he says that if people are capable, but unwilling to work, then they should get nothing. He also rejects the idea of central planning, and promotes heavily the idea of self-management. Unfortunately, he only promotes his vision to socialists. The reality is, that this vision could appeal to a lot of people that exist outside "left" circles, if it was promoted correctly. That is likely part of the reason it hasn't succeeded in the US, where individual freedom is more appealing than "left" ideals. However, in my opinion, ParEcon, if done right, would promote individual freedom. By that I mean true freedom, to manage one's own affairs, and not the freedom to "negotiate or go elsewhere" as Rand puts it.
Keep in mind that Albert isn't a hack. He has a degree from MIT, and Hahnel is a professor at the American institute of economics. There are quite a few good ideas there and it's pretty evident from his writing that he has a clear understanding of how to think about these issues. Hopefully this will be an interesting topic for your paper. I wish that more universities looked at alternative economic models as possible research topics.
Look, if you're too impatient to read through a very well-thought out vision, don't claim to have anything of substance to say. At least you admit to skimming the titles. If you're so smart, then please take the author's (and my) challenge, and tell us what's wrong with it. I would hate to think that I'm wasting my time promoting something that is a load of crap, but as far as I can see, this vision has been quite extensively thought out, much more so than either capitalism or socialism ever were.
I think what was supposed to make an impression on you, was that people outside the US know what it is, all the way up to the leader of the former USSR, Italian intellectuals, who bestowed upon him the President's medal, and other European intellectuals, and you have no idea what it is. I think that Michael was quite astute, when he said that the reason he thinks people like Gorbachev promote it is because they don't understand what it is (i.e. they don't realize that their positions would not exist in a Participatory Economy).
I agree that they should change that title ("Socialism as it was always meant to be"). I've actually brought that up before. Michael is promoting something that is quite different than socialism, but since his main audience, in the beginning, were left wing radicals (many of whom were socialists), that's the title that he used for one of his first works. So, he was saying, "This isn't socialism, but this is what it should have been."
Obviously, here in America, where socialism has been confused with communism (they're not the same things), and where communism is associated with the former USSR, it's a bad idea to use the word socialism. Frankly, I'm not a socialist, or a communist, and I was happy when the USSR collapsed, to say the least.
Anyway, you should evaluate something based on the merits of the ideas, not based on the title, not on who likes it, or who promotes it. But that's just my opinion.
P.S. If you want a technical description of the model, you can find something approaching that here. http://www.zmag.org/books/poltoc.htm
Can you back that up with data? I've experienced an extreme amount of disconnect with performance and pay out in the corporate world.
Most universities do quite well with government funding. I've never known corporations to be especially good about paying their best scientists large salaries. It would be nice if it were true, but that's not what I've seen. That's one reason I dropped the chemistry degree and switched to programming. Chemists, and most other research scientists don't get rewarded much for performance. High end sales is about the only area where people seem to get rewarded based on performance, and I suppose that's because: 1. It's easy to measure the profits you make from a good salesman. 2. People in sales tend to move into management, researchers usually don't.
Even in my own field, which is programming, engineers that are ten times as productive are likely to not even get noticed (unless they know how to sell themselves), much less paid a lot more.
Anyway, I wasn't necessarily advocating government institutions. I think we should work on creating a new economy, but you can read some of my other posts to find out what I mean by that.
"All you've shown is that intellectual property rights encourage vigorous research, while the lack of those rights means that people "don't give a sh*t"."
Actually, PEOPLE do give a shit, which is why we're spending all this time talking about this.
Corporations, on the other hand, only give a shit when they are fed enough profits. This difference is not trivial. Let's not confuse the interests of a few selfish, greedy, arrogant corporations with the interests of everyday people.
We can fix this problem in one of two ways, one way to get corporations interested is to hand over all plant life and allow them to patent and own every organism on the planet so that they can profit from them. That's the method that you seem to be advocating. The other solution is to create institutions that respond to the needs of people without being handed gargantuan profits. This second method, is the method that I would advocate.
Why only replace market forces, that seems to be only half the problem? Why not work on replacing the institution of pharmaceutical companies (which are driven by profits) with other kinds of institutions, which might be driven by different goals?
I also think that the greater the risk, the greater the reward. On the other hand, if you subsidize the risk (as we already do with government funded research), then you should be able to reduce the reward.
One idea that I've gotten into for how to organize an economy better is Participatory Economicss, or ParEcon for short. You can read more about it here... www.parecon.org It's an economic vision created by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel. Albert just received the highest award that you can receive in Italy for his work on this vision, which has been going on for about 20 years, and has been written about in numerous books. He also received a glowing letter from Gorbachev. It's been discssed and reviewed widely in Europe. Step to the other side of the pond, in the US, the land of the free, and you won't hear a peep, not even a book review, despite the fact that Albert and Hahnel are both Americans. This gives us insight into how our media works.
Sorry, my brain gets fried after a certain amount of debate. I should proofread a bit better.
"I suppose, but I usually find that after doing some research, it's very easy to figure out who is bullshitting. Seriously, even the most casual amount of independent research can help you figure out who is lying, at least when it comes to politics. Some of the sloppier ones will even contradict themselves. After that it's a process of elimination, until you work your way down to people and sources that you can rely on. I never said it was easy, though."
I guess I should have qualified that last sentence "I never said it was ALWAYS easy, though." I'd say for about 80% of the crap out there, finding evidence for debate is easy. The other 20%, takes some work. I hope that seems a bit less self-contradictory.
Sorry I didn't answer your request right away. Luckily, you found the right site, it's the US census website. In fact, you can find all sorts of official websites, like the deparment of labor, census bureau, department of energy, center for economic policy research, etc. There is a ton of data, a lot of it backed up with sound research and analysis. And, you know what I've found? The majority of it backs up traditional left leaning philosophy of having a better safety net, better healthcare, etc. Hardly any of it would promote the idea that we should tax the rich less, not unless we want all the nation's assets to come under the control of the top 1%.
Slashdot Mirror
Oops,
Should have said that I believe the change in behavior is more of a function of environment than age, at least after the age of 12 it is.
I know this is a bit off topic, but my girlfriend has trouble getting me to do chores and I'm 30, with a college education (BA in music, BS in Comp Sci), and a decent job. The point is, lack of "trainability" isn't necessarily a sign of lack of intelligence (I would argue that it could be a sign of just the opposite). Some people just don't care to be ordered around, and may have a higher tolerance for disorganization.
If you think I'm bad, one of the managers of the bioinformatics department hasn't paid his taxes, ever. He decided he didn't believe in debt, and as a result has a credit score that's about as low as it gets (do they go below zero?). And, he's a manager and a great programmer.
If you put someone in a bubble world such as school, where everything is fake, most of the asignments are nothing more than busywork, and nothing really matters, at least not for another life time (which is what 12 years seems like when you are that age), then you get the expected behavior of not really caring. On the other hand, I think that if you put people that 12 and beyond in an environment where they are exposed to the consequences of their actions, and these actions matter, then they suddenly start acting like adults.
Whether this change in behavior is a function of age or a function of environment is up to the reader. I believe that it's due to the former.
That being said, I couldn't see myself dating someone under the age of 18, mainly because most of them haven't experienced enough, they just don't have enough repoirte. But I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that they incapable of the least amount of responsibility. They are still a member of the same species, and being 12 doesn't make you mentally retarded.
if the government Senator Clinton represents didn't use violence every day to solve it's problems. This is quite a bit bigger problem than the extremely questionable link that video games have with real world violence. I realize that the government wants to maintain a monopoly on violence, but this seems to be taking it a bit too far.
Start out something like this..
...
Dear IT services(or whoever you decide to write),
I am disappointed by the disingenuous nature of the letter that I received. I believe that the characterization of my activity as illegal is dishonest, and prevents me from getting full use of the services that I am paying for. I really wish that the IT department would dedicate the resources necessary to separating illegal activity from legal activity, and block usage appropriately.
While I understand that it may not be feasable for the university to separate law abiding users of bit torrent from those who are using it for illegal activity, it is wrong to classify everyone that is using this software as a pirate. You should simply state the problem as it really is, and that is, you should say that you don't have the time to track down those who are breaking the law, and not that all such use of bit torrent is illegal.
Sincerely,
Well, I think to be more accurate, there isn't a way to cram for standardized tests. At least that's what I think they mean when they tell you that you can't study for the SAT, ACT, IQ tests, etc. But the fact is, you can study for SAT and ACT tests, and a booming industry has formed around it. If IQ really mattered, I'm sure there would be an industry focused on how to study for the IQ test.
I agree that you are likely to find both sides of the republican vs. democrat dichotomy represented well in Mensa circles. Probably for different reasons than you do. I think that the whole dichotomy between the two parties is a false one, it's kind of an opiate for the true believers, those solid citizens who have bought into the dominant culture. Then there is the rest of us, who are too jaded and cynical to buy into the bullshit of either party. We tend to be in the lower, less educated classes.
IQ is as much a test of assignable curiosity (i.e. one's willingness to eagerly solve problems that are given to him by others) as it is intelligence. Thus, it shouldn't be a surprise that people who do well on IQ tests tend to also be automatons.
Further, many of the questions on IQ tests tend to be what are known as "trick" questions. The only way that most mortals can do well on such a test is to blindly memorize the answers. After that, it's a piece of cake. If one pays attention at Mensa meetings, one will notice that most members enjoy solving obscure puzzles, it shouldn't be a mystery why. So, you are also testing for one's willingness to blindly memorize useless trivia, and to work on esoteric, abstract problems. Is it any wonder that such genius's are so detached from reality that they think Bush is a great man?
It kind of reminds me of star trek deep space 9, where the only noticeably unique feature about the genetically engineered genius doctor is that he has a slight British accent. My belief is that IQ is primarily a test of whiteness. Not necessarily the color of your skin, but whiteness in the sense that you've been sheltered from the problems of the world, are well-trained by "educational" institutions to think in a certain way, and to eagerly solve the problems that one is asigned. An intellectual lap dog. Any resentment of the dominant culture is likely to interfere with one's willingness to memorize bullshit trivia and eagerly work on assigned tasks.
Not exactly. The itanium includes an x86 emulator, but it's very slow. For all pratical purposes you need to recompile in order to take advantage of the itanium's speed. The itanium has been around for about 4 years, but it's marketed for a completely different (high-end) market than x86_64.
Unfortunately their pricing model is flawed.
I think the problem is, if I steal a car from GM's factory, how much have I stolen, the retail or wholesale value of the vehicle?
How about intellectual property, have I stolen the costs that it took to make the CD, or the suggested MSRP? Why does the RIAA assume that the MSRP is what is stolen?
With the GM vehicle, we have a greater chance of market competition causing the price to drop down to the cost of the materials + cost of labor. It's not perfect by any means, and barriers to market entry screw things up, but real competition keeps them more honest than the record companies.
The problem with this logic, is that lack of competition with IP causes the price to be higher than it would be in a market where there is direct competition.(i.e. there is only one Windows, and it's made by microsoft, there is only one Radiohead, and only one record company I can get their CD from). Instead, each band, and product, is it's own monopoly, with no direct competition, which is why price fixing is so easy with music and movies.
So, the record company sets the price as high as it can, and since there is no direct competition, the profit margins stay high. What happens when someone "steals" music? They aren't charged for the costs of making the IP, instead they are stuck with fines that are based on artificially high prices.
I'm not sure if anyone dealing with economics has tried to come up with a way of measuring competition in an industry, but if they haven't, they should. The market distortions created by our IP rules are horribly unjust. Why should someone that makes a small amount of IP be rewarded handsomely, while someone that makes a really existing product, have comparatively low profit margins? Why should someone that steals maybe $100 from the real world profit of a record company, and even less than that from the true value of the good itself(if we assume that the value of the good is only as much as the amount paid to the artists and managers), be charged with millions in fines?
You seem to be able to ignore the fact that your beloved "society" is merely an aggregate of individuals. So when a aggregate of individuals though mechanisms such as markets expresses their preferences, then "society" has made a made a value judgement concerning what it considers to be it's bottom line. What makes your judgement about what's "good for society" better than their's?
Yes, and the brain is merely an agregate of neurons. I was saying that if markets allowed us to take into account all of the factors, and not just the bottom-line dollars and cents, we would have much more sensible outcomes. Markets don't take into account the full range of our preferences, but actually serve to constrain our preferences to the bottom line of dollars and cents economics. That's "freedom".
Sure, if you want to think about things in isolation, then your reasoning makes sense, but it doesn't really paint an accurate picture of the real world effects. The reason why it's important to have women as faculty (and other important positions in society) is because even though we might lose some productivity if she chooses to have kids, we gain quite a bit by having a society that is more egalitarian. The problem isn't with the women, the problem is with a system of institutions and thinking, that forces people like you to think of every single decision in isolation, instead of thinking of the wider ramifications of that decision.
The problem is markets. Markets have two roles, buyer and seller. They force people to think only in terms of what they, as individuals, will gain, rather than the greater social effects of a decision. While Universities may not participate in markets directly, they are still impacted by market pressures, and as a result end up having to think about the bottom line, despite their institutional inclination to think about wider ramifications. This is a problem, because the bottom line for an individual is NOT the same as the bottom line for society. A decision that can be a great boon for an individual can be terribly destructive socially (i.e. a factory's choice to pollute more in order to cut costs, or, in this case, a university's choice to overlook potential female faculty because they MIGHT have kids.)
Besides, who's to say that her partner won't stay home and raise the kids?
The democracy of this country belongs to it's people. Understand? This is how democracy works.
And, if enough people get tired of the situation they are in, that top 1% won't stand a chance. At that point, capitalism and ownership will be moot points. So, do us a favor, and drop the condescending rhetoric, because you aren't holding all the cards. Your "job" stays your job only as long as society agrees that this is the best way to run things.
So, either deal with it or move to a non-democratic country.
Exactly. What I find strange is that we're talking about the idea of improving "efficiency" on the battlefield as if it's a good thing. War should be difficult. It shouldn't be a cakewalk to go in and kill a bunch of people. Killing people, especially innocent civilians, SHOULD be difficult, if not because your conscience is stopping you, then maybe because the technology has problems, or it's not practical..
War should be difficult, to keep people from using it as a solution to problems that could be solved in another way, or in this case, by admitting that the problem of WMD's in Iraq doesn't even exist.
Whether you believe that it's all a bluff, or that it's really a threat to your job today, the answer is that we need to organize. You can't run from offshoring. It's pervasive, and it eventually will enter into every possible field, yes, even management. No one is safe. Market forces are relentless, and eventually even many of the smug millionaire CEO's will see their jobs replaced.
Before someone starts telling me about comparative advantage, and "efficiency" and all that crap, just remember that corporations view no difference between cost cutting and cost shifting. If they can find a way to shift a cost onto the worker, or the consumer, then to them that's a gain in "efficiency". In fact, most often, that's exactly what they mean. "Efficiency" is when they find a way to make the workers pay for things that they used to pay for. For example, if they figure out a way to save on heating in the winter, and as a result the workers have to put up with freezing temperatures, that's "efficiency". Nevermind that the workers are miserable, it's more efficient since they save on electricity. If they buy the programmer a cheap chair and a crappy work bench, and he gets back problems and carpal tunnel, that's "efficiency", as long as they don't get sued, since they were able to save a couple of hundred bucks on the chair. Nevermind the cost to society, or the programmer. Or, if a factory figures out a discreet way of dumping toxic waste into a river, poisoning the water supply, and surrounding community, that's "efficiency", since they were able to cut costs and avoid the expensive process of refining that waste.
So, just because free trade results in more "efficiency", doesn't mean that it's the kind of efficiency that any of us would want. The reason the corporations always win out, and are almost always able to shift their costs onto the worker, rather than vice versa, is due to their size in comparison to the workers. As long as we allow multinationals to exist, they will always use their size in the bargaining process. The predictable result is that they will consistently win. This is why monopolies have such a destructive effect on markets. What ends up happening is that they are able to use their size to shift more and more of their costs onto the workers and consumers, and the relationship becomes parasitic.
All of the reporting was nothing more than a bluff? What if software engineers simply organized, unionized, and managed to double or triple their salaries in a matter of years? Perhaps the reason the media is doing all of this reporting on jobs going overseas is nothing more than a way of scaring the living daylights out of programmers, so that they don't dare ask for the true value of their work. It seems to me that everytime the perception of worker insecurity is created, that salaries would go down, since workers would be less inclined to ask for more. However, I'm doing a job search right now, and I don't get the feeling that employers here in the US are having any easier of a time finding the right kind of employee than they were a couple of years ago. What if all this reporting was nothing more than a scam? a bit of psychological warfare on those expensive programmers? Then again, I'm probably just being a bit paranoid...
More accurately, it's probably a combination of the two. The first part of free trade is essentially to replace programmers with less expensive programmers overseas. The second part is to use this stick to keep the remaining, more talented US programmers that are still left, in line. So, I think that part of this reporting could be a psychological bluff that is used on the more talented programmers. i.e. "You'd better not ask for too much, or you'll be delivering pizzas." The only reason I'm bringing this up, is because all of the reporting on offshoring seems out of character for US mainstream media, which usually is content to not say a word when things such as this are going on.
You're leaving out the obvious third option of getting rid of the factors that motivate people to throw away their whole life in order to get $50 when they knock over a gas station. The obvious 3rd solution, which appears superior to having a locked down police state, or "allowing bad things to happen", would be to create enough of a safety net that only in the most strange of circumstance would someone even dream of going to jail for twenty years to knock over a gas station, sell drugs, etc.
The next question we need to ask is, whose security do large scale protests threaten? It would certainly seem to be a small minority that are threatened by these protests, not the average Joe. I know that I don't think twice when I see protestors. I see it as a sign of democracy, true democracy, in action.
Below is the US INCOME distribution. The asset distribution is even crazier, with the top 1% owning about 43% of US wealth, and the bottom 40% owning less than a 1%. If you go below the bottom 25th percentile, most of those people have what we call negative ownership, where they owe more than they own. Many in this bracket will pay substantial portions of their income in interest. Go to the top of the income distribution pile, and you'll find that quite a few make most of their money from interest and other dividends off what they own.
From the Census Bureau [census.gov] for 2001:
You might also get a kick out of Albert's reply to some student's reviews of his work. You can see some common arguments that the students made against Albert's vision. Apparently, a professor had his class read Albert's, "Parecon: Life After Capitalism". Since it sounds like you'll be doing roughly the same thing, but perhaps reading different stuff that he's written, it might be amusing for you to read Albert's response to some of the student's critiques.
http://blog.zmag.org/bloggers/?blogger=albert
Skip down to the blog posts titled "Soc 292: Parecon Comments" and read his replies.
You could also send in your paper, he'll probably reply to that, if you're interested. Just make sure that whatever you write is well written, he's pretty good at spotting logical fallacies and flaws in arguments.
I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for a couple of weeks. Let me know what you think when you get a chance. It's a lot to swallow in a day, and might not be the best topic for a paper unless you have a lot of time to explore the writing. If you need any more resources, there are quite a few books on the topic that Albert has put online, as well as audio, etc., plenty for a term paper.
If you want, I could post a temporary email address, and we could exchange email that way. I don't put my email on slashdot, for obvious reasons. Or, you can just reply here, whichever works best for you.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Again, take a look at the link at the bottom of my last post. That's probably the most technical, although they are all worthwhile reading. Some start from a more philosophical approach, others a more mathematical approach.
I'm sorry if I came off as a bit caustic. Part of the problem with ParEcon, may in fact be the people promoting it. Clearly, a lot of what ParEcon promotes isn't exactly "left", or socialist. For example, Albert flat out rejects one of socialism's core values, which is giving to people according to need. Instead, he says that if people are capable, but unwilling to work, then they should get nothing. He also rejects the idea of central planning, and promotes heavily the idea of self-management. Unfortunately, he only promotes his vision to socialists. The reality is, that this vision could appeal to a lot of people that exist outside "left" circles, if it was promoted correctly. That is likely part of the reason it hasn't succeeded in the US, where individual freedom is more appealing than "left" ideals. However, in my opinion, ParEcon, if done right, would promote individual freedom. By that I mean true freedom, to manage one's own affairs, and not the freedom to "negotiate or go elsewhere" as Rand puts it.
Keep in mind that Albert isn't a hack. He has a degree from MIT, and Hahnel is a professor at the American institute of economics. There are quite a few good ideas there and it's pretty evident from his writing that he has a clear understanding of how to think about these issues. Hopefully this will be an interesting topic for your paper. I wish that more universities looked at alternative economic models as possible research topics.
Look, if you're too impatient to read through a very well-thought out vision, don't claim to have anything of substance to say. At least you admit to skimming the titles. If you're so smart, then please take the author's (and my) challenge, and tell us what's wrong with it. I would hate to think that I'm wasting my time promoting something that is a load of crap, but as far as I can see, this vision has been quite extensively thought out, much more so than either capitalism or socialism ever were.
I think what was supposed to make an impression on you, was that people outside the US know what it is, all the way up to the leader of the former USSR, Italian intellectuals, who bestowed upon him the President's medal, and other European intellectuals, and you have no idea what it is. I think that Michael was quite astute, when he said that the reason he thinks people like Gorbachev promote it is because they don't understand what it is (i.e. they don't realize that their positions would not exist in a Participatory Economy).
I agree that they should change that title ("Socialism as it was always meant to be"). I've actually brought that up before. Michael is promoting something that is quite different than socialism, but since his main audience, in the beginning, were left wing radicals (many of whom were socialists), that's the title that he used for one of his first works. So, he was saying, "This isn't socialism, but this is what it should have been."
Obviously, here in America, where socialism has been confused with communism (they're not the same things), and where communism is associated with the former USSR, it's a bad idea to use the word socialism. Frankly, I'm not a socialist, or a communist, and I was happy when the USSR collapsed, to say the least.
Anyway, you should evaluate something based on the merits of the ideas, not based on the title, not on who likes it, or who promotes it. But that's just my opinion.
P.S. If you want a technical description of the model, you can find something approaching that here. http://www.zmag.org/books/poltoc.htm
Can you back that up with data? I've experienced an extreme amount of disconnect with performance and pay out in the corporate world.
Most universities do quite well with government funding. I've never known corporations to be especially good about paying their best scientists large salaries. It would be nice if it were true, but that's not what I've seen. That's one reason I dropped the chemistry degree and switched to programming. Chemists, and most other research scientists don't get rewarded much for performance. High end sales is about the only area where people seem to get rewarded based on performance, and I suppose that's because:
1. It's easy to measure the profits you make from a good salesman.
2. People in sales tend to move into management, researchers usually don't.
Even in my own field, which is programming, engineers that are ten times as productive are likely to not even get noticed (unless they know how to sell themselves), much less paid a lot more.
Anyway, I wasn't necessarily advocating government institutions. I think we should work on creating a new economy, but you can read some of my other posts to find out what I mean by that.
Just a pedantic correction..
"All you've shown is that intellectual property rights encourage vigorous research, while the lack of those rights means that people "don't give a sh*t"."
Actually, PEOPLE do give a shit, which is why we're spending all this time talking about this.
Corporations, on the other hand, only give a shit when they are fed enough profits. This difference is not trivial. Let's not confuse the interests of a few selfish, greedy, arrogant corporations with the interests of everyday people.
We can fix this problem in one of two ways, one way to get corporations interested is to hand over all plant life and allow them to patent and own every organism on the planet so that they can profit from them. That's the method that you seem to be advocating. The other solution is to create institutions that respond to the needs of people without being handed gargantuan profits. This second method, is the method that I would advocate.
Why only replace market forces, that seems to be only half the problem? Why not work on replacing the institution of pharmaceutical companies (which are driven by profits) with other kinds of institutions, which might be driven by different goals?
I also think that the greater the risk, the greater the reward. On the other hand, if you subsidize the risk (as we already do with government funded research), then you should be able to reduce the reward.
One idea that I've gotten into for how to organize an economy better is Participatory Economicss, or ParEcon for short. You can read more about it here... www.parecon.org It's an economic vision created by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel. Albert just received the highest award that you can receive in Italy for his work on this vision, which has been going on for about 20 years, and has been written about in numerous books. He also received a glowing letter from Gorbachev. It's been discssed and reviewed widely in Europe. Step to the other side of the pond, in the US, the land of the free, and you won't hear a peep, not even a book review, despite the fact that Albert and Hahnel are both Americans. This gives us insight into how our media works.
Sorry, my brain gets fried after a certain amount of debate. I should proofread a bit better.
"I suppose, but I usually find that after doing some research, it's very easy to figure out who is bullshitting. Seriously, even the most casual amount of independent research can help you figure out who is lying, at least when it comes to politics. Some of the sloppier ones will even contradict themselves. After that it's a process of elimination, until you work your way down to people and sources that you can rely on. I never said it was easy, though."
I guess I should have qualified that last sentence "I never said it was ALWAYS easy, though." I'd say for about 80% of the crap out there, finding evidence for debate is easy. The other 20%, takes some work. I hope that seems a bit less self-contradictory.
Sorry I didn't answer your request right away. Luckily, you found the right site, it's the US census website. In fact, you can find all sorts of official websites, like the deparment of labor, census bureau, department of energy, center for economic policy research, etc. There is a ton of data, a lot of it backed up with sound research and analysis. And, you know what I've found? The majority of it backs up traditional left leaning philosophy of having a better safety net, better healthcare, etc. Hardly any of it would promote the idea that we should tax the rich less, not unless we want all the nation's assets to come under the control of the top 1%.