There actually is a value in poor people not being so damn poor. People who are able to live healthy, comfortable lives are more capable of being highly productive members of society. That added productivity means that we can have more and work less, and thus, all live happier lives. Socialism is one means of dealing with the problem of poverty, but it's not the only one. So, the appropriate question is, what is the best treatment for the disease of poverty? There's room for serious debate on that topic, but I don't believe "Fuck it, I'll just buy a gun" is a strong contender.
No, I'm referring to basically everybody who has ever lived, from Hitler to Hawking. However, I didn't say that they were incompetent, I said that they don't have anywhere nearly as much agency as we claim to have. Our idea of what a human is capable of is wrong to an extent that would be hilarious if it wasn't so often depressing. That's why all that 'bootstraps'-type talk, such as your post, is so misguided.
Given the limited practical social mobility in the US, it's hard to say that we are that far from feudalism, and an apprenticeship would probably be preferable to an internship. But it's good to know that we shouldn't complain until we are literally back in the middle ages.
It's not an inherently positive force. However, rationally questioning an assumption tends to have a fairly low cost and potential for high gains. Questioning assumptions is a big part of how scientific advances occur. The assumption is that because Bill Gates has given a lot of money for a charitable cause, that the effects of his efforts are positive. If, however, the only people that ultimately benefited from this were Pearson employees and other businesses, then it's hard to say that his actions should be seen as a good act, regardless of the Gates' motive.
No, I'm saying that you can do bad things even if you intend to do good things, and that throwing time and labor at a problem doesn't change this fact. I'll give you an easy example. Jenny McCarthy ostensibly wanted to improve healthcare when she spoke about vaccines and autism, but because she was ignorant of the facts, she has caused harm to the health of many children, and further entrenched the stigma towards autism. Even thought her intentions were noble, she has caused a lot of harm, and her actions should not be praised, but rather, criticized.
I will fault someone for making a good faith effort if that effort ultimately proves to be a net harm. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The problem is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Most of the bad things that happen in this world are due primarily to incompetence, not malice. So, merely having well-meaning intentions doesn't make you a positive force.
One high priority should be to create open content textbooks for at least the liberal arts core education. Once completed, that would cut somewhere near a grand per student per year for at least freshmen and sophomores. I would also see grants as being more useful than loans, and perhaps those loans (if needed) should have the lowest rates available, possibly something we'd consider crazy like negative interest or interest-free loans. We should also have greater transparency in how funding is spent, and extra scrutiny should be applied to corporate partnerships, as they are especially ripe for abuse.
Another change I would suggest is to move away from a corporate career focus in most degree programs, instead focusing on personal improvement. Oh, and while we're at it, decimate the military industrial complex spending, as that would give us a lot of extra money to spend.
You are assigning humans far greater agency than they actually have, and is divorced from the realities of the lives of basically everyone on the planet. And yes, I think we would be more informed if we could block political ads (although I would prefer a technical solution that accurately treats political ads as spam), as you could pick a random person off the street and get better results than most candidates, simply by virtue of not engaging in active sabotage of the general public.
Granted Common Core has some faults, for sure, but at least it is an attempt by someone to do something.
Perhaps our federal education standards should put emphasis on teaching children about the politician's syllogism so we don't just 'do something' even if doing something makes things worse.
I think the idea isn't that the SEC specifically should address this issue, but rather, that it's a shame that we turned a blind eye to a fraudulent diploma mill until it started hurting someone who mattered to those at the top.
Have you considered the possibility that who someone is programmed to be and the environment may be incompatible to at least some degree? Drug abuse is quite often a coping mechanism.
Basically everything does have an effect on you, but defining it as better or worse is not anywhere near as clear as you try to make it. We barely have any kind of a grasp on mental health. Oddly enough, we seem to be stuck on the idea that anything that makes us happy is bad for us, despite happiness being clearly important to our mental well being.
I played and LOST football games, I didn't always get congratulated JUST for trying.
Kids see through that 'participation' bullshit pretty quickly, and it practically becomes a loser badge. What a generation of parents tell a generation of children will tell you more about the parents than the children.
I repeat my claim that you must be bad at poker. China wants to trade, and the need to trade is more important to them than their stupid pissing contests. They will back down, and if they don't, they will stagnate and likely be overthrown by someone who will. They can't do the same to us if we don't act petulant ourselves. I'm saying that we should play the game so everyone wins, and that means calling bullies out for being bullies, as well as not being bullies ourselves. In the scenario you mentioned, China was being a bully, and everyone can't win when you leave bullies in charge.
tl;dr Cure the world of cockroaches by shining a flashlight.
You must be a horrible poker player. Free trade is an enormous economic boon, especially if coupled with free speech. Governments use this power play bullshit, but people generally don't care about it unless tricked. If we broadcast to the world that China would rather have their own people starve and die because the US wants to trade openly with Taiwan as well, it's easy to make the Chinese government look like petulant children. The reason we don't do that is because we do the same shit, and thus could be subjected to at least some degree of countermeasures. But, if instead of being a power struggle that holds trade, sovereignty, and liberty hostage, a trade agreement was about free, open, and fair trading across borders.
The change that would have to happen for the real world is that we would have to drop OUR bullshit as well and actually act something like a democracy.
There are only a few reasons why certain countries might get a better deal. They either have a good reason, or they don't. If they have a good reason, they don't need to keep it a secret. If they don't have a good reason, then this unfair behavior SHOULD be exposed.
Yes, it's certainly a great idea to wait until we have perfect parity with Nazis before we fight back against a surveillance police state. The public gains NOTHING from this and we will almost certainly be in MORE danger with LESS freedom.
May I suggest, thesupraman, that you familiarize yourself with Poe's law. That sarcastic argument is very much like the real arguments that pro-surveillance shills push.
Slashdot Mirror
There actually is a value in poor people not being so damn poor. People who are able to live healthy, comfortable lives are more capable of being highly productive members of society. That added productivity means that we can have more and work less, and thus, all live happier lives. Socialism is one means of dealing with the problem of poverty, but it's not the only one. So, the appropriate question is, what is the best treatment for the disease of poverty? There's room for serious debate on that topic, but I don't believe "Fuck it, I'll just buy a gun" is a strong contender.
No, I'm referring to basically everybody who has ever lived, from Hitler to Hawking. However, I didn't say that they were incompetent, I said that they don't have anywhere nearly as much agency as we claim to have. Our idea of what a human is capable of is wrong to an extent that would be hilarious if it wasn't so often depressing. That's why all that 'bootstraps'-type talk, such as your post, is so misguided.
Given the limited practical social mobility in the US, it's hard to say that we are that far from feudalism, and an apprenticeship would probably be preferable to an internship. But it's good to know that we shouldn't complain until we are literally back in the middle ages.
It's not an inherently positive force. However, rationally questioning an assumption tends to have a fairly low cost and potential for high gains. Questioning assumptions is a big part of how scientific advances occur. The assumption is that because Bill Gates has given a lot of money for a charitable cause, that the effects of his efforts are positive. If, however, the only people that ultimately benefited from this were Pearson employees and other businesses, then it's hard to say that his actions should be seen as a good act, regardless of the Gates' motive.
No, I'm saying that you can do bad things even if you intend to do good things, and that throwing time and labor at a problem doesn't change this fact. I'll give you an easy example. Jenny McCarthy ostensibly wanted to improve healthcare when she spoke about vaccines and autism, but because she was ignorant of the facts, she has caused harm to the health of many children, and further entrenched the stigma towards autism. Even thought her intentions were noble, she has caused a lot of harm, and her actions should not be praised, but rather, criticized.
I will fault someone for making a good faith effort if that effort ultimately proves to be a net harm. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The problem is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Most of the bad things that happen in this world are due primarily to incompetence, not malice. So, merely having well-meaning intentions doesn't make you a positive force.
One high priority should be to create open content textbooks for at least the liberal arts core education. Once completed, that would cut somewhere near a grand per student per year for at least freshmen and sophomores. I would also see grants as being more useful than loans, and perhaps those loans (if needed) should have the lowest rates available, possibly something we'd consider crazy like negative interest or interest-free loans. We should also have greater transparency in how funding is spent, and extra scrutiny should be applied to corporate partnerships, as they are especially ripe for abuse.
Another change I would suggest is to move away from a corporate career focus in most degree programs, instead focusing on personal improvement. Oh, and while we're at it, decimate the military industrial complex spending, as that would give us a lot of extra money to spend.
You are assigning humans far greater agency than they actually have, and is divorced from the realities of the lives of basically everyone on the planet. And yes, I think we would be more informed if we could block political ads (although I would prefer a technical solution that accurately treats political ads as spam), as you could pick a random person off the street and get better results than most candidates, simply by virtue of not engaging in active sabotage of the general public.
Perhaps our federal education standards should put emphasis on teaching children about the politician's syllogism so we don't just 'do something' even if doing something makes things worse.
Sadly enough, satirical news is generally better than mainstream news.
I'm not going to disagree on that, but that doesn't mean that student loans are anywhere near a good answer.
I think the idea isn't that the SEC specifically should address this issue, but rather, that it's a shame that we turned a blind eye to a fraudulent diploma mill until it started hurting someone who mattered to those at the top.
Have you considered the possibility that who someone is programmed to be and the environment may be incompatible to at least some degree? Drug abuse is quite often a coping mechanism.
Basically everything does have an effect on you, but defining it as better or worse is not anywhere near as clear as you try to make it. We barely have any kind of a grasp on mental health. Oddly enough, we seem to be stuck on the idea that anything that makes us happy is bad for us, despite happiness being clearly important to our mental well being.
Kids see through that 'participation' bullshit pretty quickly, and it practically becomes a loser badge. What a generation of parents tell a generation of children will tell you more about the parents than the children.
I repeat my claim that you must be bad at poker. China wants to trade, and the need to trade is more important to them than their stupid pissing contests. They will back down, and if they don't, they will stagnate and likely be overthrown by someone who will. They can't do the same to us if we don't act petulant ourselves. I'm saying that we should play the game so everyone wins, and that means calling bullies out for being bullies, as well as not being bullies ourselves. In the scenario you mentioned, China was being a bully, and everyone can't win when you leave bullies in charge.
tl;dr Cure the world of cockroaches by shining a flashlight.
Then, as I said, perhaps we shouldn't have such an expansive treaty. That way, it doesn't take five years to renegotiate the treaty.
You must be a horrible poker player. Free trade is an enormous economic boon, especially if coupled with free speech. Governments use this power play bullshit, but people generally don't care about it unless tricked. If we broadcast to the world that China would rather have their own people starve and die because the US wants to trade openly with Taiwan as well, it's easy to make the Chinese government look like petulant children. The reason we don't do that is because we do the same shit, and thus could be subjected to at least some degree of countermeasures. But, if instead of being a power struggle that holds trade, sovereignty, and liberty hostage, a trade agreement was about free, open, and fair trading across borders.
The change that would have to happen for the real world is that we would have to drop OUR bullshit as well and actually act something like a democracy.
Exactly, the whole idea of free trade is about NOT being protectionist and NOT playing favorites.
There are only a few reasons why certain countries might get a better deal. They either have a good reason, or they don't. If they have a good reason, they don't need to keep it a secret. If they don't have a good reason, then this unfair behavior SHOULD be exposed.
Yes, it's certainly a great idea to wait until we have perfect parity with Nazis before we fight back against a surveillance police state. The public gains NOTHING from this and we will almost certainly be in MORE danger with LESS freedom.
I think you mean "How is giving away our freedom stopping terrorism. The answer is that it's not, and is in fact FUELING terrorism.
May I suggest, thesupraman, that you familiarize yourself with Poe's law. That sarcastic argument is very much like the real arguments that pro-surveillance shills push.
Actually, it's a good way to DEMONSTRATE abuse that has taken place. If we had a changelog of treaties, we could point to the party that fucked it up.