Either the "sweatshop" exists in an environment of free market labor or it does not. If not, that's the problem. If so...
Either the "sweatshop" is the best option availble for the employees or it is not. If not, what do you suppose keeps them there? They cannot be kept there by force; we only reach this point in the argument if the "sweatshop" labor is hired on a free market. Therefore, the "sweatshop" must, for some reason, be better for the employees than any other employment that they could get.
Providing better employment than any other that a person could get seems to me to be a funny kind of exploitation.
But wait, that was just an insult, right? You really meant what you said in the sentence above that:
What is despicable is your belief that American companies should be allowed to pay a pittance to foreign workers while leaving American workers hanging out to dry.
Since we've already demolished the first assertion in that sentence (i.e., it isn't a pittance to the Russian employees; if you disagree, go back and re-read the first part of this post. Go on, I'll wait. Finished? Okay... ), what's left is the final phrase, "while leaving American workers hanging out to dry". Choosing not to employ a person is equivalent to hanging them out to dry? How so? Or is it that you believe that the workers in question are special because they are "American"? Frankly, who cares? Are they more worthy of consideration because they happened to be born in an American hospital? Why?
Even using pure utilitarian arguments (which have their place, to be sure), I can't see any reason to prefer hiring Americans over any other nationality, everything else being equal. In this case, the company is hardly going to hire fewer Russians than they would have hired Americans, so a simply count will ascertain that there are more people benefited by this arrangement than would have been had the company been forced to hire American programmers at some inflated wage.
I don't despise you for that. What I despise is the belief that it is right and proper to attempt to influence government to force other people to do things that benefit you, when they've used no force against you.
The person who is hiring those non-US citizens should be under no obligation to take your needs and family into account. He has to worry about his own needs and family, you see. This is how markets work.
Attempting to use legislation to force the market to produce outcomes you desire is not only ineffective, but counterproductive, as others have shown above. You might as well try to legislate against gravity or electromagnetism. The unfortunate difference is that while legislation against physics has no effect, legislation against markets hurt real people (in this case some Russian programmers, the other company employees and owners, and people who buy the product).
No. Jerry Pournelle mentions on his website (jerrypournelle.com) that Poul was offered the opportunity and chose not to do so, for whatever reason. Bizarre.
Randall. On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
since aquiring another neutron would make U-238 into U-239, NOT Pu-239. Unless the article meant protons, but I wouldn't believe anything someone says about fission if they can't keep neutrons and protons straight.
U-239 decays almost immediately to Neptunium-239, which decays almost immediately to Plutonium-239.
Randall. On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
"According to this Paul Krugman column, between 1971 and 1996, the price of gold has increased by about 1,000%, while the Consumer Price Index increased by about 250%, and the Dow rose by about 700%.
So if the country had maintained a gold standard over that period of time, then the price of gold would have remained stable, but the price of everything else would have dropped -- and the last time we had such a price deflation was the Great Depression."
The price deflation of the last thirty years (in real terms, as you showed) has been due to rising economies of scale and better technology (which in turn also drives economy of scale).
Randall. On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
I think somewhere like Cuba would be perfect. It's a poor nation because of the continued mistreatment by the U.S....
Cuba is poor mostly because Castro & Co. think that free markets are a bad idea. Whether or not they realize that free markets are more efficient than command economies is arguable. The embargo may have a large effect if you first subtract that whole "communism" bit...
Randall. On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Re:The natural evolution of this...
on
License to Sit
·
· Score: 1
Um, for those of us who haven't travelled much, what, exactly, is the difference?
Thanks.
Randall. On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
I've tended to assume that controlled LEA access to basic data is a norm, and so find it strange when US people go orbital about this, but are quite happy about companies selling the stuff off for money with no controls...
Of course, with companies, the individual has the ultimate control: he or she need not give the information out to begin with. With "law enforcement", that isn't usually an option. Unlike private transactions, where you can choose to forego some service or product for reasons of privacy, there isn't any choice about giving the police any information they want. If you try to stand on your rights, questions like, "D'ya think anyone's videotaping this?" open your eyes pretty quickly. Whether we as Americans have any rights at all seems to depend on the whim of the judge hearing our case.
I'm not saying, by the way, that I think that international standards are a necessary or sufficient answer to this problem. Ultimately, universal encryption may be the only real solution.
Randall. On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
What, exactly, do you mean by "free" in this case? Air is free; you just have to take it. Nearly everything else is provided by someone else. Is it "free" if the doctor is still paid by someone? If not, why would you expect the doctor to provide free health care, while his children starve? If so, then who pays, and why? If I'm paying for your health care, I'd hardly call it "free".
Randall. On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
This is exactly how I felt about it! It had lots of faults, but they were all the right faults; there were exactly the problems that actual campaigns I've played in (and GM'ed) were prone to. So while it wasn't the best movie I've seen, it was an excellent depiction of gameplay.
Staying home and voting for nothing just says that you're happy to have others (whom you do not approve of) in control of you.
Rather, it says that you'd rather not be in the position of trying to exert political control over others. Control of yourself is what you have in the market; control of other people through force is what politics and elections are all about. A vote for a lesser evil is still a vote for evil.
First, that's a perversion of the standard understanding of "memes".
Yes, it is. However, Barnes is not trying to explain what memes are ca 2000, but what they are in his fictional future (actually, it's an alternate history, since the prequel to this book starts in the 1980's, and it ain't our 1980's). In any case, language changes, and this is supposed to be the late 21st century of a world where Yeltsin was shot in 1991.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's examine this:
Either the "sweatshop" exists in an environment of free market labor or it does not. If not, that's the problem. If so...
Either the "sweatshop" is the best option availble for the employees or it is not. If not, what do you suppose keeps them there? They cannot be kept there by force; we only reach this point in the argument if the "sweatshop" labor is hired on a free market. Therefore, the "sweatshop" must, for some reason, be better for the employees than any other employment that they could get.
Providing better employment than any other that a person could get seems to me to be a funny kind of exploitation.
But wait, that was just an insult, right? You really meant what you said in the sentence above that:
What is despicable is your belief that American companies should be allowed to pay a pittance to foreign workers while leaving American workers hanging out to dry.
Since we've already demolished the first assertion in that sentence (i.e., it isn't a pittance to the Russian employees; if you disagree, go back and re-read the first part of this post. Go on, I'll wait. Finished? Okay... ), what's left is the final phrase, "while leaving American workers hanging out to dry". Choosing not to employ a person is equivalent to hanging them out to dry? How so? Or is it that you believe that the workers in question are special because they are "American"? Frankly, who cares? Are they more worthy of consideration because they happened to be born in an American hospital? Why?
Even using pure utilitarian arguments (which have their place, to be sure), I can't see any reason to prefer hiring Americans over any other nationality, everything else being equal. In this case, the company is hardly going to hire fewer Russians than they would have hired Americans, so a simply count will ascertain that there are more people benefited by this arrangement than would have been had the company been forced to hire American programmers at some inflated wage.
I don't despise you for that. What I despise is the belief that it is right and proper to attempt to influence government to force other people to do things that benefit you, when they've used no force against you.
The person who is hiring those non-US citizens should be under no obligation to take your needs and family into account. He has to worry about his own needs and family, you see. This is how markets work.
Attempting to use legislation to force the market to produce outcomes you desire is not only ineffective, but counterproductive, as others have shown above. You might as well try to legislate against gravity or electromagnetism. The unfortunate difference is that while legislation against physics has no effect, legislation against markets hurt real people (in this case some Russian programmers, the other company employees and owners, and people who buy the product).
Why is my desire to maintain my standard of living so hard to comprehend?
Oh, it isn't. Neither is your desire to use the force of government law to keep others from employing those they choose hard to comprehend.
It's just despicable.
No. Jerry Pournelle mentions on his website (jerrypournelle.com) that Poul was offered the opportunity and chose not to do so, for whatever reason. Bizarre.
Randall.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
since aquiring another neutron would make U-238 into U-239, NOT Pu-239. Unless the article meant protons, but I wouldn't believe anything someone says about fission if they can't keep neutrons and protons straight.
U-239 decays almost immediately to Neptunium-239, which decays almost immediately to Plutonium-239.
Randall.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Yeah, I actually use Pike, but I've never actually written anything in C, so I wasn't sure how close they really are.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
That is an important difference! :)
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
How is this different from EiC? Is it supposed to be better in some way?
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
"According to this Paul Krugman column, between 1971 and 1996, the price of gold has increased by about 1,000%, while the Consumer Price Index increased by about 250%, and the Dow rose by about 700%.
So if the country had maintained a gold standard over that period of time, then the price of gold would have remained stable, but the price of everything else would have dropped -- and the last time we had such a price deflation was the Great Depression."
The price deflation of the last thirty years (in real terms, as you showed) has been due to rising economies of scale and better technology (which in turn also drives economy of scale).
Randall.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Ask your average Cuban about their government and they will tell you that they support it.
Yeah, it's getting closer to the point where US citizens will have to say stuff like that, too.
Randall.On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
I think somewhere like Cuba would be perfect. It's a poor nation because of the continued mistreatment by the U.S. ...
Cuba is poor mostly because Castro & Co. think that free markets are a bad idea. Whether or not they realize that free markets are more efficient than command economies is arguable. The embargo may have a large effect if you first subtract that whole "communism" bit...
Randall.On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Um, for those of us who haven't travelled much, what, exactly, is the difference?
Thanks.
Randall.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Of course, with companies, the individual has the ultimate control: he or she need not give the information out to begin with. With "law enforcement", that isn't usually an option. Unlike private transactions, where you can choose to forego some service or product for reasons of privacy, there isn't any choice about giving the police any information they want. If you try to stand on your rights, questions like, "D'ya think anyone's videotaping this?" open your eyes pretty quickly. Whether we as Americans have any rights at all seems to depend on the whim of the judge hearing our case.
I'm not saying, by the way, that I think that international standards are a necessary or sufficient answer to this problem. Ultimately, universal encryption may be the only real solution.
Randall.On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Well, I hope so. And I hope he never got to whatever it was. People who do things like that deserve all the petty hardships we can throw at them.
Randall.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
What, exactly, do you mean by "free" in this case? Air is free; you just have to take it. Nearly everything else is provided by someone else. Is it "free" if the doctor is still paid by someone? If not, why would you expect the doctor to provide free health care, while his children starve? If so, then who pays, and why? If I'm paying for your health care, I'd hardly call it "free".
Randall.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Randall.
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
Randall.
Well, per that link, he said that he thought that the odds were only 20% that there would be a disruption. Sounds pretty accurate.
Randall.
Randall.
Rather, it says that you'd rather not be in the position of trying to exert political control over others. Control of yourself is what you have in the market; control of other people through force is what politics and elections are all about. A vote for a lesser evil is still a vote for evil.
I decline, thanks.
Randall.
Randall.
Yes, it is. However, Barnes is not trying to explain what memes are ca 2000, but what they are in his fictional future (actually, it's an alternate history, since the prequel to this book starts in the 1980's, and it ain't our 1980's). In any case, language changes, and this is supposed to be the late 21st century of a world where Yeltsin was shot in 1991.
Diff-er-ent. :)
Randall.
Randall.
Randall.
Randall.