Inexpensive homes like these can keep people in decent living conditions in rural areas.
Which part of 135% of per capita GDP did you not understand? $5,925 is NOT CHEAP for a Chinese rural family. Nor is a $1000. And that's a booming economy. 1k house is hailed as a "low-cost home for the poor" - for most of the world's poor even that is an unattainable goal.
$5925 house is the only house from the MIT's $1K house project - THAT ACTUALLY GOT BUILT.
The goal of the MIT project is to produce designs that can be built for only $1000.
I have a goal too. Mine is to be fabulously rich, healthy and immortal while making little or no effort to achieve any of that. Still haven't figured out all the kinks in the plan, but that is my goal.
As far as building upward... people in rural areas don't have to worry about that. They have lots of land. Seeing a handful of people cram into tall, dense structures when there are thousands and thousands of square kilometers stretching out around is fairly ridiculous. They can rebuild upward when their economy and population density call for it.
Haven't seen many rural third world self-built houses have you?
The equivalent of a $60,000 new house is still fantastic. There are things called loans, and even people who don't make much can get them. Moreover, the cheaper the housing is the more of them we can get built with subsidization and charity given from regions making much more money.
Yup. Haven't seen many rural third world self-built houses.
It starts with a plot of land as close to the geographical center of the town/village OR the road that leads there. In many cases it ends up being a building with zero squared feet/meters of yard, you literally step out into the street from the front door. Naturally, it's probably built completely illegally, keeping the bribe money for the officials of the power company and for the representatives of other utilities. Cause, there are MANY ways for preventing someone from tearing down your illegally built building (from small children, pregnant women, bedridden individuals kept inside the home at all times, various legal loop holes, more bribing and finally guns) but there are precious few ways of providing electricity and running water to a building. So, first you build the house and then later you can legalize it. Naturally, it is easier to legalize a house with a smaller footprint - cause if you have money for a large house that indicates that you have the money for a large bribe too.
The new family home is built as a single floor building, with only a concrete slab for ceiling as you don't really need a roof if there is not much snowfall in your area. Also, outer walls are bare brick with no isolation or facade to speak of. That comes much later.
Family lives in such a house until they come up with more money to continue building the house. Usually, it's motivated by the fact that the children are coming to a "marriageable age" (more rural areas), or simply growing up to be teenagers (less rural area) - so another "family unit" is built on top of the original one. Sometimes it takes years until it's in a "move in and live in" stage. Adding one room at a time is a perfectly valid way of building. Two sons? Two floors. Daughters are married INTO another house. The best part is, legally you are simply "adapting" your by now legalized home as regulations are mostly concerned only with the footprint of the foundation.
The whole thing usually ends at around three floors, which is when the house gets its final roof and if the owner has enough disposable cash - outer isolation and a facade. If one or more children decide to leave the family home, i.e. moving to a more urban area, lowest floor is converted into a "business space" (a shop of some kind) or is rented out.
Plus, the price will come down. One has to start somewhere.
Yeah. I keep saying that about space travel. Have a $100 tucked away for my ticket.
Ever heard anyone complaining about of a piece of shit [insert machine here]?
The misconception at play here is that the lives of people who have more stuff are less valuable than the lives of people who have less stuff.
Ergo, it is perfectly moral for people with more stuff to relieve the people with little or no stuff of their lives - without risking their own lives, or even their reputation and moral standing among their own people. After all, how can you say it was a "bloody war of conquest" if there are no veterans of such a war - on both sides? Only a pile or two of corpses of very little value.
Such mental and moral exercise would allow the "1st world" country to kill off all combat-able humans in a "3rd world" country on Monday, only to come with care packages and a straight face by Friday - calling the whole thing a "humanitarian effort". Or an "action of freedom".
Second, that is slightly over a $1.5k more than the Chinese per capita GDP of about $4,382. Compared to the average US per capita GDP that is about as much as a $60k house. Do I really need to comment that?
And all that is before even getting a building permit. Which is often the greatest single expense when building a house in the third world and other "growing democracies" due to inefficiencies of the bureaucracy and the built-in culture of bribes and corruption.
Now... as this is apparently hailed as a "low-cost home for the poor", let's go see what the really poor make. You know, countries where that imaginary $1000 is approximately around or over the per capita GDP.
Even at a $1000 per house an average Nigerian could not afford it - regardless of the picture all those CNN commercials for Nigerian banks are trying to paint. At $5,925 he might as well start making plans for a house made out of gold.
I just like house the house can be infinitely expandable, building larger pinwheels around the outside until it becomes insanely difficult to reach the center.
See? This is why Lex Luthor is such a brilliant criminal mind. He knows (as did his father) that the land is the only resource they are not making more of. Well... other than time. They are making even less of that one. But time-travel is not really his thing.
You expand UPWARD - not outward. Expanding out wastes space. That is why all those big population centers, I think they are called cities, have all those tall buildings.
You're missing the point. What I meant was that when compared to say, my parents' generation, my generation clearly has to compete on a different level.
The world did get a lot smaller in the meantime, while the number of competitors surged to twice what the entire population of the world was back then. That's what happens when former ideological enemies become competitors - particularly when the guiding philosophy of the winning side is that "it's a dog-eat-dog world".
Your parents probably had to "compete" with only the local population of your state, or even only the local population of your town. You, me, the next generation... we now have a whole world to compete with. And that is a losing battle for any individual.
Which is why the god invented teams. Or was that one of those Marxists? Groucho possibly? Problem is, when your underlying philosophy is one of competition and individual-hero worship, your teams are only good for breeding leaders and team-commanders through in-team competition.
Which is great for everyone, cause as soon as you have someone above you to command you - you don't have to think for yourself anymore! No... wait... Which is great for everyone cause it breeds an ideology of permanent leader-climbing, making all your team members (and everyone else you know) just another stepping stone on your road to your personal happiness... Hmm... Which is great for everyone cause it's neater to remember just one man than the entire team of people and simpler to ascribe the accomplishments to hard work of many to "the genius" or "the leadership" of one... No... that's not it either...
I GOT IT! Which is great for everyone cause it validates individual greed as the core driving force of the society making it a perfectly moral motivation! Yes! That's got to be it!
Cause we all know that any commie-pinko motivation for the greater good of the team, community, society or the world and the human race leads to all of us speaking Russian and eating borscht. In the snow. Lots and lots of snow. But no Christmas. There is no Christmas (or presents) in the GULAGS!!!
How about we start rounding these people up and "removing them from society."
It's called "the justice and prison system".
Problem is, for those sociopaths to be even noticed by the system above, they have to be highly active in the presentation of their disorders to the public. AND of certain age AND preferably of lower intelligence - cause the smart functioning psychopaths either won't get caught OR they will get away with it.
As for meeting hundred of them in your lifetime and surviving... You're probably meeting hundreds of members of opposite sex daily - are you having sex with all of them, whenever and wherever you meet?
Long exposure can severely impair the functioning of one's sarcasm detector. I mean, it's not like we haven't seen posts like yours or crazier, written in a completely serious tone.
Personally, I find that increasing the amount of sarcasm in the post helps. I.e. you should have added professions like lion tamers, executioners, prostitutes, mimes, clowns and beggars.
Although, even such a list may be misunderstood being how all of those professions (aside from beggars) are a part of the entertainment industry as well. Particularly when clowns and mimes get executed by throwing them to the lions.
All that is missing in that picture is free beer and blowjobs and it would be a closest thing to heaven a working man could hope for on this planet. So feel free to add bartenders to your list.
20% of those points were +1 Funny and 30% were +1 underrated.
As for mod points... They are not what they used to be. Lately I've been getting them constantly. Like, several times in a single week. I'm guessing it has something to do with all those disposable accounts spammers keep opening.
...you can almost hear me shedding a single tear for the Anonymous Coward and his poor reputation and employment status.
Also, it is a minor point in the comment where I call him a stupid asshole and POSSIBLY a racist - not in the Ultimate Scheme of the Ultimate Everything.
Also, EU is not Europe. Europe is a continent. EU is an economic and political union of some states (so far) which are situated on that continent. States with their own laws and social policies.
In a loose translation of a saying that was popular back when I served my term in the army: "You haven't yet earned the right to address someone like me." Literally, "You don't have the days to talk to me". I.e. Your UID is almost 10 times the size of mine.
For future reference, grammar Nazism is not an adult activity. It's a game for arrogant teenage knowitalls, without forethought or consideration for the fact that most people online don't natively speak English. Particularly at places like Slashdot, where you may often bump into people with several foreign languages under their belt. And spellchecker errors happen to the best of us when it's way past our bed time.
Playing a game of grammar Nazi only makes you look childish in such cases. At best. When your grammar Nazi position is your only argument against the parent post, it also makes you look like a troll.
Sure. Do you? You can google it if you're not entirely certain.
Irrational horseshit claims of racism for any remark about a nationality is the number one indicator of being a whiny bastard. Insensitive, sure. Racist? Hardly. Racist would be saying that the radiation from the nukes probably made them in to the inferior sub-human creatures they are today.
While I did say "possibly racist", I did first and foremost characterize the OP as an asshole. A stupid asshole. Your post above, with your fixation on the term I denoted as "possible", your crude example and cruder thoughts on the subject you decided to debate - it all leads me to believe that such a diagnosis might be applicable to you too.
I may not be entirely right. You may be exaggerating your reply for some reason.
But I doubt it. After all... You did decide to reply to a minor point, blow it out of proportion and in a very asshole-like way.
Why are you commenting on my explicitly offensive remark to someone who has clearly deserved it?
I called him an asshole, while providing possible motivation for his post. Yet, you breezed over my offensive remark in order so you could preach "freedom to offend" - by using a quote.
A quote, might I add, from this article - where this also was said, by that very same Rowan Atkinson.
To criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom," he said.
So basically, your preach-quote was spoken in the same breath as that one above where he basically concurs with my diagnosis that the OP is an asshole. Of the stupid sort.
I sure as hell hope that your irony detector was already broken before you posted that. I don't want to be the one responsible for it exploding and killing/maiming you.
...or Swedish rock bands, cause there is no such thing as the "Republic of Europe".
This reminds me of that scene in that TV movie about that TV show's cliffhanger... As the episode is broadcasted around the world, camera cuts to two mustached men sitting in a gray room somewhere in Moldavia, turning to each other with puzzled looks on their faces. Then one of them shrugs and says: "Must be some other Moldavia somewhere.".
BTW... Moldavia? Country in Europe. Also, Russia? That too is in Europe. In Asia too, but definitely also in Europe.
... you live in located? I'd like to emigrate there.
A place where a ditch digger keeps getting payed continuously through the decades, for all those ditches he dug in the past 70 years? Sign me up for citizenship! I'll even bring my own shovel.
In reality, people as a whole aren't very smart, and tend to act in their own self interest rather than for the good of the economy. Communism is great on paper. Better than capitalism, actually. But paper never seems to account for the greedy bastard factor.
It's the other way around. Paper accounts for the greedy bastard factor quite well actually. It's the altruistic, fair, socially responsible, nice and kind bastards that fuck the things up for everyone.
Both the ideal communism and the ideal capitalism make the same basic mistake - replacing the actual "people" with their own version of a "perfect man" multiplied so that the entire population is made out of perfect copies of the said "perfect man". And then jumping to the logical conclusion of such an imagined system.
Anyway, any comparison between capitalism and communism is as logical as comparing apples and bears. One being an economic system and the other being a political system. Or one being a plant and other being an animal. You'd think that people would catch on already, being that there is no Capitalism as a system of government in Civilization. Then again, there is no Fascism either.
Unless one argues that all games where one churns out military units in order to gain and maintain the control of the land and/or resources are actually fascist dictatorship simulators. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
I thought philosophical types specialized in the "shades of grey" areas.
...they've already found the -ism that fits their preestablished view of the world / needs and aspirations.
Then they become -ists of the said -ism, and as such they preach their -ism as a perfect weapon in the endless battle against... well, whatever lies on the polar opposite of their perfectly white -ism. Mostly all shades of gray of all other -isms out there.
It does not matter if you've written your signature by hand, stamped your approval of it or dipped your thumb in the ink bottle and then pressed it on the paper.
The important part is that by faxing your document, sent from a location registered to you/your company (through your phone number, which is listed on the fax), in real-time (no delay while the document bounces around e-mail servers across the planet) - is being received in real-time on the other registered physical location (again - phone numbers and time-stamps on the fax). In physical form. So it is instantly sign-able or file-able by the other side.
And as a bonus, besides the fact that the other side can check your number with the phone company or call you personally to verify - there is the fact that there exists a third party record that you called the number you faxed to and that the call lasted for exactly as long as it took for your fax to get there. It is a physical format intended for dealing with physical (as opposed to virtual) locations and people.
Few lines of code can pretend to be you when emailing something. I am yet to hear about malware which will pick up the phone on the sender's end of the line, answer in his/her voice and resend the page that had a typo or transfer error on it.
As long as you have ONE stupid friend, coworker, relative, acquaintance, neighbor or anyone else who is willing to tag you the same on your "before" and "after" photos/videos.
Basically... only way to be sure is to cut their ties with everyone they know, kill-off their old identity and appearance, and have all undercover police officers wearing scramble suits. Or padded ninja suits, dark sunglasses and voice modulators. Until someone develops an actual scramble suit.
As in, never during your lifetime. You see a camera - duck, turn around, and run in the opposite direction. You should make two whole steps before you run into another camera, if you're in an urban area.
Cause, you know... I can go and tag both Jesus, Elvis AND Mohammed on the photo of an empty wall - regardless if they have a Facebook account or not. As for face recognition bit - the idea would be that you take a photo of a person, open an account with it and just let Facebook's face-recognizing algorithms do their thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. Another century of eating frozen pizza, driving to the mall and playing Super Mario Brothers. What's not to like?
...that you are trying to make that sound bad for some reason.
Inexpensive homes like these can keep people in decent living conditions in rural areas.
Which part of 135% of per capita GDP did you not understand? $5,925 is NOT CHEAP for a Chinese rural family. Nor is a $1000.
And that's a booming economy.
1k house is hailed as a "low-cost home for the poor" - for most of the world's poor even that is an unattainable goal.
$5925 house is the only house from the MIT's $1K house project - THAT ACTUALLY GOT BUILT.
The goal of the MIT project is to produce designs that can be built for only $1000.
I have a goal too. Mine is to be fabulously rich, healthy and immortal while making little or no effort to achieve any of that.
Still haven't figured out all the kinks in the plan, but that is my goal.
As far as building upward... people in rural areas don't have to worry about that. They have lots of land. Seeing a handful of people cram into tall, dense structures when there are thousands and thousands of square kilometers stretching out around is fairly ridiculous. They can rebuild upward when their economy and population density call for it.
Haven't seen many rural third world self-built houses have you?
The equivalent of a $60,000 new house is still fantastic. There are things called loans, and even people who don't make much can get them. Moreover, the cheaper the housing is the more of them we can get built with subsidization and charity given from regions making much more money.
Yup. Haven't seen many rural third world self-built houses.
It starts with a plot of land as close to the geographical center of the town/village OR the road that leads there.
In many cases it ends up being a building with zero squared feet/meters of yard, you literally step out into the street from the front door.
Naturally, it's probably built completely illegally, keeping the bribe money for the officials of the power company and for the representatives of other utilities.
Cause, there are MANY ways for preventing someone from tearing down your illegally built building (from small children, pregnant women, bedridden individuals kept inside the home at all times, various legal loop holes, more bribing and finally guns) but there are precious few ways of providing electricity and running water to a building.
So, first you build the house and then later you can legalize it.
Naturally, it is easier to legalize a house with a smaller footprint - cause if you have money for a large house that indicates that you have the money for a large bribe too.
The new family home is built as a single floor building, with only a concrete slab for ceiling as you don't really need a roof if there is not much snowfall in your area.
Also, outer walls are bare brick with no isolation or facade to speak of. That comes much later.
Family lives in such a house until they come up with more money to continue building the house.
Usually, it's motivated by the fact that the children are coming to a "marriageable age" (more rural areas), or simply growing up to be teenagers (less rural area) - so another "family unit" is built on top of the original one.
Sometimes it takes years until it's in a "move in and live in" stage. Adding one room at a time is a perfectly valid way of building.
Two sons? Two floors. Daughters are married INTO another house.
The best part is, legally you are simply "adapting" your by now legalized home as regulations are mostly concerned only with the footprint of the foundation.
The whole thing usually ends at around three floors, which is when the house gets its final roof and if the owner has enough disposable cash - outer isolation and a facade.
If one or more children decide to leave the family home, i.e. moving to a more urban area, lowest floor is converted into a "business space" (a shop of some kind) or is rented out.
Plus, the price will come down. One has to start somewhere.
Yeah. I keep saying that about space travel. Have a $100 tucked away for my ticket.
Ever heard anyone complaining about of a piece of shit [insert machine here]?
The misconception at play here is that the lives of people who have more stuff are less valuable than the lives of people who have less stuff.
Ergo, it is perfectly moral for people with more stuff to relieve the people with little or no stuff of their lives - without risking their own lives, or even their reputation and moral standing among their own people.
After all, how can you say it was a "bloody war of conquest" if there are no veterans of such a war - on both sides?
Only a pile or two of corpses of very little value.
Such mental and moral exercise would allow the "1st world" country to kill off all combat-able humans in a "3rd world" country on Monday, only to come with care packages and a straight face by Friday - calling the whole thing a "humanitarian effort".
Or an "action of freedom".
...someone more like Stanislav Petrov.
Which is a funny way of writing $1000.
Second, that is slightly over a $1.5k more than the Chinese per capita GDP of about $4,382.
Compared to the average US per capita GDP that is about as much as a $60k house.
Do I really need to comment that?
And all that is before even getting a building permit.
Which is often the greatest single expense when building a house in the third world and other "growing democracies" due to inefficiencies of the bureaucracy and the built-in culture of bribes and corruption.
Now... as this is apparently hailed as a "low-cost home for the poor", let's go see what the really poor make.
You know, countries where that imaginary $1000 is approximately around or over the per capita GDP.
Even at a $1000 per house an average Nigerian could not afford it - regardless of the picture all those CNN commercials for Nigerian banks are trying to paint.
At $5,925 he might as well start making plans for a house made out of gold.
I just like house the house can be infinitely expandable, building larger pinwheels around the outside until it becomes insanely difficult to reach the center.
See? This is why Lex Luthor is such a brilliant criminal mind.
He knows (as did his father) that the land is the only resource they are not making more of.
Well... other than time. They are making even less of that one. But time-travel is not really his thing.
You expand UPWARD - not outward.
Expanding out wastes space. That is why all those big population centers, I think they are called cities, have all those tall buildings.
You're missing the point. What I meant was that when compared to say, my parents' generation, my generation clearly has to compete on a different level.
The world did get a lot smaller in the meantime, while the number of competitors surged to twice what the entire population of the world was back then.
That's what happens when former ideological enemies become competitors - particularly when the guiding philosophy of the winning side is that "it's a dog-eat-dog world".
Your parents probably had to "compete" with only the local population of your state, or even only the local population of your town.
You, me, the next generation... we now have a whole world to compete with.
And that is a losing battle for any individual.
Which is why the god invented teams. Or was that one of those Marxists? Groucho possibly?
Problem is, when your underlying philosophy is one of competition and individual-hero worship, your teams are only good for breeding leaders and team-commanders through in-team competition.
Which is great for everyone, cause as soon as you have someone above you to command you - you don't have to think for yourself anymore! No... wait...
Which is great for everyone cause it breeds an ideology of permanent leader-climbing, making all your team members (and everyone else you know) just another stepping stone on your road to your personal happiness... Hmm...
Which is great for everyone cause it's neater to remember just one man than the entire team of people and simpler to ascribe the accomplishments to hard work of many to "the genius" or "the leadership" of one... No... that's not it either...
I GOT IT!
Which is great for everyone cause it validates individual greed as the core driving force of the society making it a perfectly moral motivation!
Yes! That's got to be it!
Cause we all know that any commie-pinko motivation for the greater good of the team, community, society or the world and the human race leads to all of us speaking Russian and eating borscht.
In the snow. Lots and lots of snow. But no Christmas.
There is no Christmas (or presents) in the GULAGS!!!
How about we start rounding these people up and "removing them from society."
It's called "the justice and prison system".
Problem is, for those sociopaths to be even noticed by the system above, they have to be highly active in the presentation of their disorders to the public.
AND of certain age AND preferably of lower intelligence - cause the smart functioning psychopaths either won't get caught OR they will get away with it.
As for meeting hundred of them in your lifetime and surviving...
You're probably meeting hundreds of members of opposite sex daily - are you having sex with all of them, whenever and wherever you meet?
Long exposure can severely impair the functioning of one's sarcasm detector.
I mean, it's not like we haven't seen posts like yours or crazier, written in a completely serious tone.
Personally, I find that increasing the amount of sarcasm in the post helps.
I.e. you should have added professions like lion tamers, executioners, prostitutes, mimes, clowns and beggars.
Although, even such a list may be misunderstood being how all of those professions (aside from beggars) are a part of the entertainment industry as well.
Particularly when clowns and mimes get executed by throwing them to the lions.
All that is missing in that picture is free beer and blowjobs and it would be a closest thing to heaven a working man could hope for on this planet.
So feel free to add bartenders to your list.
20% of those points were +1 Funny and 30% were +1 underrated.
As for mod points... They are not what they used to be. Lately I've been getting them constantly. Like, several times in a single week.
I'm guessing it has something to do with all those disposable accounts spammers keep opening.
Saying that the "EU is not Europe" is naive.
Well... Saying that EU IS Europe is stupid and ignorant.
"Naive" sure seems favorable to that.
...you can almost hear me shedding a single tear for the Anonymous Coward and his poor reputation and employment status.
Also, it is a minor point in the comment where I call him a stupid asshole and POSSIBLY a racist - not in the Ultimate Scheme of the Ultimate Everything.
...than NATO is.
Also, EU is not Europe.
Europe is a continent. EU is an economic and political union of some states (so far) which are situated on that continent.
States with their own laws and social policies.
In a loose translation of a saying that was popular back when I served my term in the army: "You haven't yet earned the right to address someone like me."
Literally, "You don't have the days to talk to me".
I.e. Your UID is almost 10 times the size of mine.
For future reference, grammar Nazism is not an adult activity.
It's a game for arrogant teenage knowitalls, without forethought or consideration for the fact that most people online don't natively speak English.
Particularly at places like Slashdot, where you may often bump into people with several foreign languages under their belt.
And spellchecker errors happen to the best of us when it's way past our bed time.
Playing a game of grammar Nazi only makes you look childish in such cases. At best.
When your grammar Nazi position is your only argument against the parent post, it also makes you look like a troll.
Come on buddy, do you even know what racism is?
Sure. Do you? You can google it if you're not entirely certain.
Irrational horseshit claims of racism for any remark about a nationality is the number one indicator of being a whiny bastard. Insensitive, sure. Racist? Hardly. Racist would be saying that the radiation from the nukes probably made them in to the inferior sub-human creatures they are today.
While I did say "possibly racist", I did first and foremost characterize the OP as an asshole. A stupid asshole.
Your post above, with your fixation on the term I denoted as "possible", your crude example and cruder thoughts on the subject you decided to debate - it all leads me to believe that such a diagnosis might be applicable to you too.
I may not be entirely right.
You may be exaggerating your reply for some reason.
But I doubt it.
After all... You did decide to reply to a minor point, blow it out of proportion and in a very asshole-like way.
Why are you commenting on my explicitly offensive remark to someone who has clearly deserved it?
I called him an asshole, while providing possible motivation for his post.
Yet, you breezed over my offensive remark in order so you could preach "freedom to offend" - by using a quote.
A quote, might I add, from this article - where this also was said, by that very same Rowan Atkinson.
To criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom," he said.
So basically, your preach-quote was spoken in the same breath as that one above where he basically concurs with my diagnosis that the OP is an asshole.
Of the stupid sort.
I sure as hell hope that your irony detector was already broken before you posted that.
I don't want to be the one responsible for it exploding and killing/maiming you.
...or Swedish rock bands, cause there is no such thing as the "Republic of Europe".
This reminds me of that scene in that TV movie about that TV show's cliffhanger...
As the episode is broadcasted around the world, camera cuts to two mustached men sitting in a gray room somewhere in Moldavia, turning to each other with puzzled looks on their faces.
Then one of them shrugs and says: "Must be some other Moldavia somewhere.".
BTW... Moldavia? Country in Europe.
Also, Russia? That too is in Europe. In Asia too, but definitely also in Europe.
... you live in located? I'd like to emigrate there.
A place where a ditch digger keeps getting payed continuously through the decades, for all those ditches he dug in the past 70 years?
Sign me up for citizenship! I'll even bring my own shovel.
Not if you drop a nuke on them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Maidens
Also, you're an asshole. Possibly a racist asshole, definitely a stupid one.
In reality, people as a whole aren't very smart, and tend to act in their own self interest rather than for the good of the economy. Communism is great on paper. Better than capitalism, actually. But paper never seems to account for the greedy bastard factor.
It's the other way around. Paper accounts for the greedy bastard factor quite well actually.
It's the altruistic, fair, socially responsible, nice and kind bastards that fuck the things up for everyone.
Both the ideal communism and the ideal capitalism make the same basic mistake - replacing the actual "people" with their own version of a "perfect man" multiplied so that the entire population is made out of perfect copies of the said "perfect man".
And then jumping to the logical conclusion of such an imagined system.
Anyway, any comparison between capitalism and communism is as logical as comparing apples and bears.
One being an economic system and the other being a political system. Or one being a plant and other being an animal.
You'd think that people would catch on already, being that there is no Capitalism as a system of government in Civilization.
Then again, there is no Fascism either.
Unless one argues that all games where one churns out military units in order to gain and maintain the control of the land and/or resources are actually fascist dictatorship simulators.
Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
I thought philosophical types specialized in the "shades of grey" areas.
...they've already found the -ism that fits their preestablished view of the world / needs and aspirations.
Then they become -ists of the said -ism, and as such they preach their -ism as a perfect weapon in the endless battle against... well, whatever lies on the polar opposite of their perfectly white -ism.
Mostly all shades of gray of all other -isms out there.
It does not matter if you've written your signature by hand, stamped your approval of it or dipped your thumb in the ink bottle and then pressed it on the paper.
The important part is that by faxing your document, sent from a location registered to you/your company (through your phone number, which is listed on the fax), in real-time (no delay while the document bounces around e-mail servers across the planet) - is being received in real-time on the other registered physical location (again - phone numbers and time-stamps on the fax).
In physical form. So it is instantly sign-able or file-able by the other side.
And as a bonus, besides the fact that the other side can check your number with the phone company or call you personally to verify - there is the fact that there exists a third party record that you called the number you faxed to and that the call lasted for exactly as long as it took for your fax to get there.
It is a physical format intended for dealing with physical (as opposed to virtual) locations and people.
Few lines of code can pretend to be you when emailing something.
I am yet to hear about malware which will pick up the phone on the sender's end of the line, answer in his/her voice and resend the page that had a typo or transfer error on it.
As long as you have ONE stupid friend, coworker, relative, acquaintance, neighbor or anyone else who is willing to tag you the same on your "before" and "after" photos/videos.
Basically... only way to be sure is to cut their ties with everyone they know, kill-off their old identity and appearance, and have all undercover police officers wearing scramble suits.
Or padded ninja suits, dark sunglasses and voice modulators.
Until someone develops an actual scramble suit.
As in, never during your lifetime. You see a camera - duck, turn around, and run in the opposite direction.
You should make two whole steps before you run into another camera, if you're in an urban area.
Cause, you know... I can go and tag both Jesus, Elvis AND Mohammed on the photo of an empty wall - regardless if they have a Facebook account or not.
As for face recognition bit - the idea would be that you take a photo of a person, open an account with it and just let Facebook's face-recognizing algorithms do their thing.