Yeah, I know what you mean. Until they got used to me, my local MosBurger used to look around for the guy who placed the order at the speaker when I drove up to the window. Took a second to get the kid to understand, "Yeah, that was me talking back there. That's my burger."
Then I came home to the States after a few years in Japan. The first day back, I met a middle-aged Asian-American woman who had spent her whole life in the South. She looked like Atsuko Asano. She sounded like Dolly Parton.
For the first couple of minutes, my brain just refused to put the picture and the sound together, and I had grown up in the States. I hope I wasn't too rude to her.
If you're going to be reading Ayn Rand, then you're headed in the right direction. It's a philosophy perfectly suited to people with little experience with reality, like seventeen-year-old boys and pampered heiresses.
The Cliff Notes version? She begins with a high-minded "Wouldn't it be great if we were all free and responsible?" and the entirely reasonable "The mob should not intrude on the rights of the individual." You then have to sit through endless dreary variations of "The Little Red Hen." It eventually boils down to "Frack you, I got mine." and a childish cry of "Mine! Mine! Mine! Don't Wanna!"
The Randians love to scrunch their eyes, put their fingers in their ears, chant at the top of their lungs and stamp their feet when anyone points out that eventually, at the end of the day, you have to work and get along with other people. We're all standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before, and there's no such thing as a truly "self-made man."
Not all sad, lonely, miserable bastards are Objectivists, but from what I've seen, all Objectivists are sad, lonely, miserable bastards.
Taking Rand or Nietzsche seriously is pretty much guaranteed to ruin your life.
I thought you were arguing that I did not have enough experience with solitude to argue against it. OK, if you want my credentials on the matter, then, depending on how you define it, I've spent one and a half to three decades alone. I don't recommend it.
I was skipping over that bit of bookkeeping because I thought you were arguing that I didn't know enough about solitude to denigrate it, and that in fact solitude was a good thing. Please excuse my mistake.
Tell you what. I'll give you the point. Maybe I'm missing the attraction of solitary existence. By all means, Jah-Wren Sartre, enlighten me. Show me the advantages of solipsism. Run down the virtues of extended solitude. Thrall me with the wonders of a life spent apart.
Now, now, read what I wrote, I also allowed for the possibility that they were an infant...:-)
You're the one who's blindly being ideological
Actually, I'm being blindly experienced. I was 17 once upon a time too, and struck out on my own path as well, angry at the world.
Now, I'm a grey-haired father of several and blissfully married for 20 years, and I can tell you, there is precious little joy in extended solitude. We're social animals, and while heroic stands against the mob are occasionally necessary -- and I've made them at the price of blood both metaphoric and real -- most of the joy in my life comes from my duty to others.
If you're arguing that small towns can be myopic and hidebound, I'm with you there. If you're saying your high school is a hothouse and microcosm of all society's ills, I keenly remember.
But gee, Darth Crowley, if you're saying charity is useless and that you are not your brother's keeper, then I only have one thing to ask:
What you're referring to as collectivism, I usually call family, friendship and community.
Have you ever noticed how lonely and miserable it gets in your Randian paradise?
Take two worlds, one in which everyone looks out for each other, and the other in which everyone looks out for themselves. I don't know what their official designations would be, but the common nicknames for them would be "Heaven" and "Hell."
When he accessed his ex-wife's information, he did so without the legitimacy his position provides. He did so without authorization. Had you or I logged into that database without authorization, they'd have charged us with felonies.
I believe people in positions of public trust should be held to a HIGHER standard, not a lower one, and the penalities for abuse under the color of authority should carry higher penalties than mere black hat crackers would receive.
He committed a felony by illegally accessing privileged information. He did this with perfect knowledge and forethought that he WAS committing a felony. He did it for petty reasons and personal gratification. He abused his position for personal gain. He perjured himself to cover it up before Congress.
Had you or I done this, we'd be writing about it from inside a penitientiary.
Now, if you're going to argue that he has learned from mistakes, that he is contrite, that he has since reformed, the time and place to make those arguments are at HIS SENTENCING HEARING, not his next job interview.
After a breach like that, the only public trust this man should be given is a choice between the grill and the fry machine.
I mean the work that's way, way past overdue. I mean the "Let's fix the bridges and levies the civil engineers have been screaming about" work. I mean the "let's bring electricity to rural America" work. I mean the "Let's build an interstate highway system" work.
Have you seen public schools in America? There are two elementary schoold within a ten-minute drive of my place. Both of them have leaks in their roof. They actually had to cancel classes twice this week when the main line to the school flooded the place. My fire department has been complaining for years they can't cover their area of responsibility without more men, and sure enough, a house about two miles from here just burned to the ground waiting for the trucks to arrive. We had a very suspicious police shooting in my city last year, and the cops all came out crying that they don't have enough men to handle potentially dangerous situations.
There's an overpass in my city that's been condemned. Politics got the condemnation lifted so traffic is flowing again, but everyone knows it's not IF, it's WHEN, it falls. When it goes, it's going to take a bunch of office buildings with it. Everyone I know avoids that route.
These are all problems I see first-hand in my city, but I'll bet it's the same story elsewhere. Forget makework. We've got enough real problems to keep an army busy for years.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people fixing bridges. Four hundred fifty two thousand people on standby for the next inevitable Natural Disaster. Four hundred fifty two thousand people building public access broadband. Four hundred fifty two thousand people fixing schools. Four hundred fifty two thousand people beefing up Police Departments so that cops on the street don't have to panic and overreact to every incident like they're the last man in the zombie apocalypse. Four hundred fifty two thousand people preparing for the coming demographic wave of retirement. Four hundred fifty two thousand people trying to get to Mars. Four hundred fifty two thousand people addressing the root causes of gang enlistment in Los Angeles. Four hundred fifty two thousand people building free public colleges. Four hundred fifty two thousand people investigating corruption. Four hundred fifty two thousand people enforcing enviromental laws. Four hundred fifty two thousand people investigating OSHA violations. Four hundred fifty two thousand people auditing the IRS.
Can you imagine the good we could get done with an honest-to-God army to address the issue?
If the Government can be the "Lender of Last Resort" for the Wealthy, If we can pony up seven to eight hundred BILLION dollars because the banks got greedy, If we can bail out any Fortune 500 company with it's hand out, If we can provide every form of corporate welfare imaginable to shield the Rich from the harsh realities of the market, Then why can't the Government be the Employer of Last Resort? We've got infrastructure falling around our ears, we've got social problems galore, why not simply take every unemployed person in America and put them to work fixing problems far too long neglected?
And yeah, let's put tax rates back to where they were in 1950 to pay for it, and ask any who complain why they hate America?
My bad, and my apologies to the Land of Erin. Swift was indeed Irish.
My point is that if this priest had gotten up on Sunday and said,"We should be better to the poor," I doubt even the parishioners would have noticed. But since he said, "You know what? Frack 'em, go take what you need from the greedy buggers and the Lord will let it slide..." and suddenly we're talking about it half a world away...
Can anyone, anywhere, point out ONE time HIPAA was actually enforced beyond just a symbolic wrist-slap? Show me the company that was forced out of business, show me the CEO whose career was ended for HIPAA violations.
Every single one of my "health providers" -- doctors, dentists and optometrists -- make me sign paperwork saying they can share my information with anyone they want. I tried to decline signing that paperwork once at an optometrist for an eye exam I was paying for out of my pocket.
They kicked me out of the office.
HIPAA works a lot like the TSA. It's just done for show.
Historically, "Justice" was a function of the family. This led to private feuds and vigilantes that literally tore towns and cities apart. There is a man in prison today who harmed one of the women in my family. He was caught, tried, convicted and sent to prison. Every man in my family can look himself in the mirror and say "Justice was done," and because of that, no one has done anything rash.
Have you thought about how you intend to satisfy the families under your new sentencing guidelines? Because if you don't take them into account, they're going to write some new Greek and Shakespearean plays for you.
You think the precious few actual engineers AT&T has left aren't trying like Hell to fix this? Management doesn't want to fix the issues -- they'd rather pocket the money than "waste" it on gear.
Expertise and equipment costs money. Bullshit is free.
Which do you think is going to be applied to this problem?
"I have faith, the big chemical, nuclear and power companies have alot of plans written up and I believe they'll secure things to their best ability."
Yes, that's exactly what you have, Faith, because that line is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.
I, on the other hand, have Experience. Because the Universe has a ripping sense of humor, I've lived through two major disasters and gotten to see two others from a hop-skip-and-a-jump away. Not all the grey in my hair comes from age.
Those "men-in-charge" you're placing such faith in will not only not do the Right Thing, they will almost certainly Make Things Worse.
1. Invent something great. 2. Have millions to defend your patent. 3. Have millions to beat the vulture capitalists away from your baby. 4. Have a mother on the board of IBM and a father as a partner in one of the nation's most powerful law firms. 5. Acquire the social connections to market your product. 6. Profit.
Bonus reading: The cheerful history of Edison and Tesla, and why virtue does not always win, even when Mickey Rooney plays you in the movie.
I listen to television programs at volume "6." Every damn time a commercial comes on, I have to jump to my remote and crank it down to "3" or get blasted through the back wall. Sometimes I'm in another room of my house, and I can hear the commercial plain as day, which I'm sure is the whole damn point.
How about we write the regulations this way? "Whatever the Hell it is that you guys are doing to make sure I can hear about Snuggles the Toilet Paper Bear even when I'm sitting on the bathroom, you will cut that crap out."
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I know what you mean. Until they got used to me, my local MosBurger used to look around for the guy who placed the order at the speaker when I drove up to the window. Took a second to get the kid to understand, "Yeah, that was me talking back there. That's my burger."
Then I came home to the States after a few years in Japan. The first day back, I met a middle-aged Asian-American woman who had spent her whole life in the South. She looked like Atsuko Asano. She sounded like Dolly Parton.
For the first couple of minutes, my brain just refused to put the picture and the sound together, and I had grown up in the States. I hope I wasn't too rude to her.
Ladies and Gentlemen, exhibit 1. :-)
I was hoping for something at a lower IQ level.
If you're going to be reading Ayn Rand, then you're headed in the right direction. It's a philosophy perfectly suited to people with little experience with reality, like seventeen-year-old boys and pampered heiresses.
The Cliff Notes version? She begins with a high-minded "Wouldn't it be great if we were all free and responsible?" and the entirely reasonable "The mob should not intrude on the rights of the individual." You then have to sit through endless dreary variations of "The Little Red Hen." It eventually boils down to "Frack you, I got mine." and a childish cry of "Mine! Mine! Mine! Don't Wanna!"
The Randians love to scrunch their eyes, put their fingers in their ears, chant at the top of their lungs and stamp their feet when anyone points out that eventually, at the end of the day, you have to work and get along with other people. We're all standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before, and there's no such thing as a truly "self-made man."
Not all sad, lonely, miserable bastards are Objectivists, but from what I've seen, all Objectivists are sad, lonely, miserable bastards.
Taking Rand or Nietzsche seriously is pretty much guaranteed to ruin your life.
I thought you were arguing that I did not have enough experience with solitude to argue against it. OK, if you want my credentials on the matter, then, depending on how you define it, I've spent one and a half to three decades alone. I don't recommend it.
I was skipping over that bit of bookkeeping because I thought you were arguing that I didn't know enough about solitude to denigrate it, and that in fact solitude was a good thing. Please excuse my mistake.
Sure. Your reasoning is sound, and your argument holds together.
And if you honestly believe what you just wrote, and you're past the age of thirty, then I'm sorry. I truly am.
Tell you what. I'll give you the point. Maybe I'm missing the attraction of solitary existence. By all means, Jah-Wren Sartre, enlighten me. Show me the advantages of solipsism. Run down the virtues of extended solitude. Thrall me with the wonders of a life spent apart.
Cuz' I'm a wee bit past twenty years of age. ;-)
You're the one calling someone a sociopath
Now, now, read what I wrote, I also allowed for the possibility that they were an infant... :-)
You're the one who's blindly being ideological
Actually, I'm being blindly experienced. I was 17 once upon a time too, and struck out on my own path as well, angry at the world.
Now, I'm a grey-haired father of several and blissfully married for 20 years, and I can tell you, there is precious little joy in extended solitude. We're social animals, and while heroic stands against the mob are occasionally necessary -- and I've made them at the price of blood both metaphoric and real -- most of the joy in my life comes from my duty to others.
If you're arguing that small towns can be myopic and hidebound, I'm with you there. If you're saying your high school is a hothouse and microcosm of all society's ills, I keenly remember.
But gee, Darth Crowley, if you're saying charity is useless and that you are not your brother's keeper, then I only have one thing to ask:
Are you happy with your life?
What you're referring to as collectivism, I usually call family, friendship and community.
Have you ever noticed how lonely and miserable it gets in your Randian paradise?
Take two worlds, one in which everyone looks out for each other, and the other in which everyone looks out for themselves. I don't know what their official designations would be, but the common nicknames for them would be "Heaven" and "Hell."
And why does wanting to enjoy your life and the fruits of your labor make someone evil?
It doesn't, unless that's ALL you want to do. We have two words for people who care only for their own needs and no one elses; infants and sociopaths.
Here, let me look these up for you:
compassion
empathy
Dude,
You're posting on Slashdot. You're a D&D rulebook lawyer. Your sig is a Tolkien quote.
Did you think you were just a little nerdly?
Don't feel bad. I myself actually own a Star Trek collectible. You're in a safe place here, among friends. :-)
When he accessed his ex-wife's information, he did so without the legitimacy his position provides. He did so without authorization. Had you or I logged into that database without authorization, they'd have charged us with felonies.
I believe people in positions of public trust should be held to a HIGHER standard, not a lower one, and the penalities for abuse under the color of authority should carry higher penalties than mere black hat crackers would receive.
He committed a felony by illegally accessing privileged information. He did this with perfect knowledge and forethought that he WAS committing a felony. He did it for petty reasons and personal gratification. He abused his position for personal gain. He perjured himself to cover it up before Congress.
Had you or I done this, we'd be writing about it from inside a penitientiary.
Now, if you're going to argue that he has learned from mistakes, that he is contrite, that he has since reformed, the time and place to make those arguments are at HIS SENTENCING HEARING, not his next job interview.
After a breach like that, the only public trust this man should be given is a choice between the grill and the fry machine.
I mean the work that's way, way past overdue. I mean the "Let's fix the bridges and levies the civil engineers have been screaming about" work. I mean the "let's bring electricity to rural America" work. I mean the "Let's build an interstate highway system" work.
Have you seen public schools in America? There are two elementary schoold within a ten-minute drive of my place. Both of them have leaks in their roof. They actually had to cancel classes twice this week when the main line to the school flooded the place. My fire department has been complaining for years they can't cover their area of responsibility without more men, and sure enough, a house about two miles from here just burned to the ground waiting for the trucks to arrive. We had a very suspicious police shooting in my city last year, and the cops all came out crying that they don't have enough men to handle potentially dangerous situations.
There's an overpass in my city that's been condemned. Politics got the condemnation lifted so traffic is flowing again, but everyone knows it's not IF, it's WHEN, it falls. When it goes, it's going to take a bunch of office buildings with it. Everyone I know avoids that route.
These are all problems I see first-hand in my city, but I'll bet it's the same story elsewhere. Forget makework. We've got enough real problems to keep an army busy for years.
Just off the top of my head...
Four hundred fifty two thousand people fixing bridges.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people on standby for the next inevitable Natural Disaster.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people building public access broadband.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people fixing schools.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people beefing up Police Departments so that cops on the street don't have to panic and overreact to every incident like they're the last man in the zombie apocalypse.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people preparing for the coming demographic wave of retirement.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people trying to get to Mars.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people addressing the root causes of gang enlistment in Los Angeles.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people building free public colleges.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people investigating corruption.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people enforcing enviromental laws.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people investigating OSHA violations.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people auditing the IRS.
Can you imagine the good we could get done with an honest-to-God army to address the issue?
...the words "reward" and "bait."
If the Government can be the "Lender of Last Resort" for the Wealthy,
If we can pony up seven to eight hundred BILLION dollars because the banks got greedy,
If we can bail out any Fortune 500 company with it's hand out,
If we can provide every form of corporate welfare imaginable to shield the Rich from the harsh realities of the market,
Then why can't the Government be the Employer of Last Resort? We've got infrastructure falling around our ears, we've got social problems galore, why not simply take every unemployed person in America and put them to work fixing problems far too long neglected?
And yeah, let's put tax rates back to where they were in 1950 to pay for it, and ask any who complain why they hate America?
My bad, and my apologies to the Land of Erin. Swift was indeed Irish.
My point is that if this priest had gotten up on Sunday and said,"We should be better to the poor," I doubt even the parishioners would have noticed. But since he said, "You know what? Frack 'em, go take what you need from the greedy buggers and the Lord will let it slide..." and suddenly we're talking about it half a world away...
England, home of Jonathan Swift, who also had a modest proposal...
Sometimes orators makes shocking or controversial statements to make a point.
From TFA:
"In his sermon Sunday Jones ... added that his advocacy of shoplifting was a 'grim indictment' of society and a plea for help for the most vulnerable."
Can anyone, anywhere, point out ONE time HIPAA was actually enforced beyond just a symbolic wrist-slap? Show me the company that was forced out of business, show me the CEO whose career was ended for HIPAA violations.
Every single one of my "health providers" -- doctors, dentists and optometrists -- make me sign paperwork saying they can share my information with anyone they want. I tried to decline signing that paperwork once at an optometrist for an eye exam I was paying for out of my pocket.
They kicked me out of the office.
HIPAA works a lot like the TSA. It's just done for show.
...of the Justice System.
Historically, "Justice" was a function of the family. This led to private feuds and vigilantes that literally tore towns and cities apart. There is a man in prison today who harmed one of the women in my family. He was caught, tried, convicted and sent to prison. Every man in my family can look himself in the mirror and say "Justice was done," and because of that, no one has done anything rash.
Have you thought about how you intend to satisfy the families under your new sentencing guidelines? Because if you don't take them into account, they're going to write some new Greek and Shakespearean plays for you.
You think the precious few actual engineers AT&T has left aren't trying like Hell to fix this? Management doesn't want to fix the issues -- they'd rather pocket the money than "waste" it on gear.
Expertise and equipment costs money. Bullshit is free.
Which do you think is going to be applied to this problem?
"I have faith, the big chemical, nuclear and power companies have alot of plans written up and I believe they'll secure things to their best ability."
Yes, that's exactly what you have, Faith, because that line is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.
I, on the other hand, have Experience. Because the Universe has a ripping sense of humor, I've lived through two major disasters and gotten to see two others from a hop-skip-and-a-jump away. Not all the grey in my hair comes from age.
Those "men-in-charge" you're placing such faith in will not only not do the Right Thing, they will almost certainly Make Things Worse.
OK, now we have more steps:
1. Invent something great.
2. Have millions to defend your patent.
3. Have millions to beat the vulture capitalists away from your baby.
4. Have a mother on the board of IBM and a father as a partner in one of the nation's most powerful law firms.
5. Acquire the social connections to market your product.
6. Profit.
Bonus reading: The cheerful history of Edison and Tesla, and why virtue does not always win, even when Mickey Rooney plays you in the movie.
OK, fair enough. Here's my problem.
I listen to television programs at volume "6." Every damn time a commercial comes on, I have to jump to my remote and crank it down to "3" or get blasted through the back wall. Sometimes I'm in another room of my house, and I can hear the commercial plain as day, which I'm sure is the whole damn point.
How about we write the regulations this way? "Whatever the Hell it is that you guys are doing to make sure I can hear about Snuggles the Toilet Paper Bear even when I'm sitting on the bathroom, you will cut that crap out."