"I don't know anyone who's angry at the recipients of such programs"
I suspect you actually do, but if not then you live in an incredibly tiny bubble. I myself live in a medium sized bubble, and even I know scores of people who are angry at the poor.
In a democracy, taxation is theft the same way masturbation is rape.
No taxation without representation. Yes taxation with representation. Democracy is the mechanism by which government actions, including taxation, become legitimate.
You were defendants in a jury trial and you weren't even there to see how your case was presented?
Anyway, I sure hope you agreed to bear witness! Man, I would relish that chance. I'd make sure to ring up the other lawyer team ahead of time to chat about what I knew and would be willing to say.
For me to ever consider a Microsoft product I would first have to hear them sincerely take blame for Windows, stop selling it, and apologize for it. Until then I can never take them seriously. I suspect most people feel something similar.
"They typically are worse off, because they have amassed all this debt."
No, they are not "typically" worse off. They are "typically" vastly, vastly richer than uneducated people. Student loan debt for an undergraduate degree is extremely low when measured in years-of-marginal-salary. For instance, in 2002 I graduated with $20k in debt, which was about 1 year of marginal earnings when I first graduated, maybe 6 months marginal earnings now. So after that first year (or less), it's been all gravy. An extremely foolish undergrad today could go to, what, $100k at the very top end, which if they are truly foolish is a few years of marginal earnings, meaning for the latter 37 years of their career they will be ahead.
Second of all this pisses me off:
"role models like the billionaire drop-outs who founded Microsoft, Facebook, Dell, Twitter, Tumblr, and Apple"
Superstars have never needed an education to succeed. Eminem didn't need a high school diploma to be a successful rapper, but all those other failed shitty rappers ended up wishing they had one. Guess what? Sometimes people win the lottery, but that doesn't make you smart for counting on being the winner, and it doesn't make others foolish for deciding to build a successful financial life under the assumption that they weren't going to win the lottery.
If you are a one-in-a-ten-million superduperstar, then by all means drop out and be a superstar (and don't call with regrets if you discover that you aren't so super). If you are one of the rest of us 9,999,999, then maybe do the difficult work of going to class and doing your homework.
That article was hilarious! It's long so let me paraphrase for Slashdot readers who don't have time to read it all: "Rural parents refuse to teach their children science, history, sociology, or critical thinking; then invent a conspiracy theory to explain why their kids can't get into college".
I tried to follow you down that path, but I was blocked by logic and reason. A politician could still sell his war vote to an angry foreigner with a warmongering agenda, couldn't he? He could still sell his vote on nonmarket issues, right? Politicians do more than regulate commerce. In any governmental system with politicians, the politicians have prerogatives, and those prerogatives have value, so exercising the prerogatives could be sold for money. Here I'll offer some more examples that I came up with in the five seconds of thinking that you apparently never did:
* The President could sell pardons to high-bidding criminals * A senator could filibuster a justice nominee unliked by a campaign contributor/briber * A congresswoman could accept a bribe to change her vote on impeaching the President * The CIA director could sell access to citizens' emails to Rupert Murdoch
Rather than allowing for society to deal with bad actors you decide that regulations are better.
Regulation is "society dealing with bad actors", except we deal with it before (some of) the bad behavior has occurred, thus saving ourselves the attendant problems.
We aren't talking about the same thing. A free market is a market specifically without any regulations (which is another word for "regulation").
The real problem is that MOST people think of "free market" as a "transparent, competitive" market, but those qualities aren't at all a part of a free market. In reality, it is (light, carefully considered) regulation which produces transparency and competition. So most people want transparent competitive markets but then vote for "free market" ideologues, not knowing that the ideologues are taking advantage of the voters' ignorance. There is a vanishingly tiny number of people who ACTUALLY want free markets because they are the robber barons who would benefit from free markets. Everybody else, the vast vast overwhelming majority don't really want free markets but are fools being duped into supporting a political agenda with a catchy name. Who would be against "free" anything? Free speech, free press, free beer, Free Willy, they all sound great, but in reality free markets are terrible. Regulated markets are the best markets. Choose the regulations wisely and prepare to rescind them.
Slashdot's anti-ad rhetoric aside, content creators or rights holders have a right to monetize if they want to
Yawn. I'll start listening to that argument when 'content creators' start selling their products. Can I buy an ad-free version of NFL games? No. I can buy ad-laden versions, or I can get ad-laden versions for free.
At some point pro-advertising people have to argue for the proposition that advertisers have an inalienable right to try to bother people with their commercial messages, and I'm willing to engage that point because I think it is wrong. I don't think they have that right -- quite the opposite in fact.
Yeah, it turns out that is almost certainly not how it happened. The ape-to-human transition happened over a couple million years among a small population, during which all of the important evolutionary genetic variations occurred. After that there were splits into subgroups of pseudo-humans such as the Neanderthals some of which bred with one another, but that happened over the last hundred-thousand years or so, during which much less evolution could have happened. Furthermore, my understanding is that recent research suggests that intelligence has declined over that time period, so if anything making the humans "farthest away" from apes dumber, not smarter. Personally, however, I don't put a lot of stock in that research.
I know you meant you comment as a jest but I don't want to skip an opportunity to point out that you are literally correct. A free market is a market with zero regulations - zero. In such a market you could buy or sell anything without limitation, certainly including political influence. That is one more illustration why markets are good, free markets are bad. Reasonable adults discuss which regulations are worth their cost and don't blather about how regulations are always bad, which is what it means to advocate for "free" markets.
The answer is that new universe is constantly coming into existence all along the path of the light. The path is is getting longer and longer as it is traversed. That is what scientists mean when they say the universe is expanding.
Indeed. Compare that concept to the concept of vinyl record stores. I'm not into vinyl; most people aren't into vinyl; but you can stake out the niche if you are competent and persistent. But if I had to advise the average video store owner, it would be to pack up and find a new store to open.
"Maybe they thought having no job is better than a having a shitty job working for assholes, and that killing off a company that can't or won't take care of its employees is a message worth sending. If so I'd actually respect that, but I haven't seen that's how this is being reported."
That's how I heard it reported: the union said, no, by 92% we prefer to go find new jobs than the shit jobs you are offering us. If that's the best you can do, then you can stuff it [Twinkies allusion].
Respect for cops has not decreased over the last couple decades. My guess is that you are about thirty or thirty five years old, so you only have a couple decades of memory [me too, by the way; I'm 33]. Cops have always been disrespected for being hypocritical power-hungry douchebags simply because they in fact always have been hypocritical power-hungry douchebags -- cf. Javert from Les Mis.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't know anyone who's angry at the recipients of such programs"
I suspect you actually do, but if not then you live in an incredibly tiny bubble. I myself live in a medium sized bubble, and even I know scores of people who are angry at the poor.
In a democracy, taxation is theft the same way masturbation is rape.
No taxation without representation. Yes taxation with representation. Democracy is the mechanism by which government actions, including taxation, become legitimate.
It seems like this was a missed opportunity to name the project Mace.
You were defendants in a jury trial and you weren't even there to see how your case was presented?
Anyway, I sure hope you agreed to bear witness! Man, I would relish that chance. I'd make sure to ring up the other lawyer team ahead of time to chat about what I knew and would be willing to say.
For me to ever consider a Microsoft product I would first have to hear them sincerely take blame for Windows, stop selling it, and apologize for it. Until then I can never take them seriously. I suspect most people feel something similar.
First of all, this is a false statement:
"They typically are worse off, because they have amassed all this debt."
No, they are not "typically" worse off. They are "typically" vastly, vastly richer than uneducated people. Student loan debt for an undergraduate degree is extremely low when measured in years-of-marginal-salary. For instance, in 2002 I graduated with $20k in debt, which was about 1 year of marginal earnings when I first graduated, maybe 6 months marginal earnings now. So after that first year (or less), it's been all gravy. An extremely foolish undergrad today could go to, what, $100k at the very top end, which if they are truly foolish is a few years of marginal earnings, meaning for the latter 37 years of their career they will be ahead.
Second of all this pisses me off:
"role models like the billionaire drop-outs who founded Microsoft, Facebook, Dell, Twitter, Tumblr, and Apple"
Superstars have never needed an education to succeed. Eminem didn't need a high school diploma to be a successful rapper, but all those other failed shitty rappers ended up wishing they had one. Guess what? Sometimes people win the lottery, but that doesn't make you smart for counting on being the winner, and it doesn't make others foolish for deciding to build a successful financial life under the assumption that they weren't going to win the lottery.
If you are a one-in-a-ten-million superduperstar, then by all means drop out and be a superstar (and don't call with regrets if you discover that you aren't so super). If you are one of the rest of us 9,999,999, then maybe do the difficult work of going to class and doing your homework.
That article was hilarious! It's long so let me paraphrase for Slashdot readers who don't have time to read it all: "Rural parents refuse to teach their children science, history, sociology, or critical thinking; then invent a conspiracy theory to explain why their kids can't get into college".
Then you vote out the civilian leadership who commanded the mission.
I tried to follow you down that path, but I was blocked by logic and reason. A politician could still sell his war vote to an angry foreigner with a warmongering agenda, couldn't he? He could still sell his vote on nonmarket issues, right? Politicians do more than regulate commerce. In any governmental system with politicians, the politicians have prerogatives, and those prerogatives have value, so exercising the prerogatives could be sold for money. Here I'll offer some more examples that I came up with in the five seconds of thinking that you apparently never did:
* The President could sell pardons to high-bidding criminals
* A senator could filibuster a justice nominee unliked by a campaign contributor/briber
* A congresswoman could accept a bribe to change her vote on impeaching the President
* The CIA director could sell access to citizens' emails to Rupert Murdoch
Rather than allowing for society to deal with bad actors you decide that regulations are better.
Regulation is "society dealing with bad actors", except we deal with it before (some of) the bad behavior has occurred, thus saving ourselves the attendant problems.
(I meant to say that rules is another word for regulations.)
"the rules that govern a free market"
We aren't talking about the same thing. A free market is a market specifically without any regulations (which is another word for "regulation").
The real problem is that MOST people think of "free market" as a "transparent, competitive" market, but those qualities aren't at all a part of a free market. In reality, it is (light, carefully considered) regulation which produces transparency and competition. So most people want transparent competitive markets but then vote for "free market" ideologues, not knowing that the ideologues are taking advantage of the voters' ignorance. There is a vanishingly tiny number of people who ACTUALLY want free markets because they are the robber barons who would benefit from free markets. Everybody else, the vast vast overwhelming majority don't really want free markets but are fools being duped into supporting a political agenda with a catchy name. Who would be against "free" anything? Free speech, free press, free beer, Free Willy, they all sound great, but in reality free markets are terrible. Regulated markets are the best markets. Choose the regulations wisely and prepare to rescind them.
Slashdot's anti-ad rhetoric aside, content creators or rights holders have a right to monetize if they want to
Yawn. I'll start listening to that argument when 'content creators' start selling their products. Can I buy an ad-free version of NFL games? No. I can buy ad-laden versions, or I can get ad-laden versions for free.
At some point pro-advertising people have to argue for the proposition that advertisers have an inalienable right to try to bother people with their commercial messages, and I'm willing to engage that point because I think it is wrong. I don't think they have that right -- quite the opposite in fact.
Here is a link to Google Maps for Sandy Island.
The duck.com thing seems untoward to me.
Android as a Google-centric OS... yeah, that's true, but it's their fricking OS so it's hard to blame them.
Is there a collective noun for "congressmen"? I proffer "baboon": a baboon of congressmen.
These folks have some similar suggestions. These folks, too.
Yeah, it turns out that is almost certainly not how it happened. The ape-to-human transition happened over a couple million years among a small population, during which all of the important evolutionary genetic variations occurred. After that there were splits into subgroups of pseudo-humans such as the Neanderthals some of which bred with one another, but that happened over the last hundred-thousand years or so, during which much less evolution could have happened. Furthermore, my understanding is that recent research suggests that intelligence has declined over that time period, so if anything making the humans "farthest away" from apes dumber, not smarter. Personally, however, I don't put a lot of stock in that research.
I'd love to see them re-run that test, but just asking about Benghazi and how Obama left our ambassador to die.
Thank you for illustrating his point.
I know you meant you comment as a jest but I don't want to skip an opportunity to point out that you are literally correct. A free market is a market with zero regulations - zero. In such a market you could buy or sell anything without limitation, certainly including political influence. That is one more illustration why markets are good, free markets are bad. Reasonable adults discuss which regulations are worth their cost and don't blather about how regulations are always bad, which is what it means to advocate for "free" markets.
You mistakenly phrased your sentence in the future tense. You should have phrased it in past tense.
The answer is that new universe is constantly coming into existence all along the path of the light. The path is is getting longer and longer as it is traversed. That is what scientists mean when they say the universe is expanding.
Indeed. Compare that concept to the concept of vinyl record stores. I'm not into vinyl; most people aren't into vinyl; but you can stake out the niche if you are competent and persistent. But if I had to advise the average video store owner, it would be to pack up and find a new store to open.
"Maybe they thought having no job is better than a having a shitty job working for assholes, and that killing off a company that can't or won't take care of its employees is a message worth sending. If so I'd actually respect that, but I haven't seen that's how this is being reported."
That's how I heard it reported: the union said, no, by 92% we prefer to go find new jobs than the shit jobs you are offering us. If that's the best you can do, then you can stuff it [Twinkies allusion].
"Sued." You sue people for civil matters; you charge them with crimes. But the OP educated me on the appropriateness of the jargon in his region.
Respect for cops has not decreased over the last couple decades. My guess is that you are about thirty or thirty five years old, so you only have a couple decades of memory [me too, by the way; I'm 33]. Cops have always been disrespected for being hypocritical power-hungry douchebags simply because they in fact always have been hypocritical power-hungry douchebags -- cf. Javert from Les Mis.