Angles: 2Pi in a full circle? Somehow it's more satisfying if the proportion of a circle were between 0 and 1: xTau. So half a circle would be (1/2)Tau, not the whole-looking 1Pi.
If you look at various "important" equations, you often end up seeing 2Pi in there. Gaussian, Riemann, Fourier. Another one: h/2Pi, h being Planck's constant. Why not make 2Pi the constant?
Even Pi*r^2 is more appropriate as (Tau/2)r^2, if you compare with (1/2)mv^2.
I have to admit I was not violently emotional when I read the argument though.
Can you point out *any* low incidence, high impact risks that Humanity has dealt with effectively?
Humanity might be smart enough to learn from its mistakes, but it's not smart enough to avoid those mistakes in the first place. In this case, the mistake is likely to be fatal, we won't have a chance to try again.
We've done alright stopping a number of potential epidemics. Not everyone will die of AIDS. Beat smallpox. And a number of recent flu scares went by without wiping us out. These are all things that *might* have caused devastation.
Also, the oil industry is well developed, so if an asteroid is detected on a collision course, we have plenty of staff to deal with it.
Sure, if the world really is like a test tube, we're all screwed. But growth rates have changed over time, and new technologies have changed the quantity and patterns of consumption.
It's a bit rich to quote exponential growth from your high school math course and then call people illiterate.
Actually, looking at some of the fine software that's available for free, I tend to agree. The minimum standard for copyrighted software is raised by having free stuff that works pretty well.
Now, that works for software but what about other technologies? Eg. I don't really have a problem with extremely poor people getting copycat AIDS drugs. It's not obvious they would have paid for it, and it doesn't reduce the supply of the critical piece of information (the recipe). And what are pharmas developing, anyway? Drugs for dudes who don't exercise and can't get a hardon.
IP rights seem to have gone to point where only lawyers benefit. As anyone who's ever been billed by one knows, it's friggin expensive. Probably a lot of the world's productive capacity is used on this kind of paperwork, and with questionable results (will Metallica really stop making music if they didn't have copyright? Are drug patents approved for the drugs people actually need? Etc, big can of worms...). Time for a cleanup. Not sure how, as any transition phase would be internationally fragmented and highly contentious, but we'd all benefit from a less complex system.
"There is really no reason to believe that cars would be safer without the rules. There was and is nothing preventing auto makers from adding alternative safety features."
Some other dude posted saying that some people preferred vehicles built to higher standards than the minimum.
"The consumer can only consume what is produced. It doesn't matter if people would prefer a 5 point harness in the driver's seat when no manufacturer produces one."
Taken at face value, this is trivially true. That doesn't mean they can't ask for something that doesn't yet exist.
"Yes and no. If you fail to wear your seatbelt you become more of a danger to the others on the road due to the increased likelihood of you being unable to retain control of your car in the event of an incident. If your car doesn't have an airbag you create more of a burden on the emergency response system when you have an accident. There is a societal cost involved and to mitigate that cost the society has decided what level of safety a car must have to be driven on the public roadway."
Sure, there's societal cost, a somewhat relevant argument. But then you have to decide what level of control is appropriate, especially if you mandate various technologies. How about something where you could at least choose the level of insurance? No airbag? Sure, but pay us more road tax, just in case you fly out the front window.
Shouldn't it be up to people themselves what level of risk they want to take, and how?
So we should just let the general public decide for themselves how much "risk" they want to take with doctors? Hey this guy here on the street corner seems to stock a lot of "medications" and he says he's a doctor...
You say like it's a rhetorical question. Have you ever taken any free medical advice from your parents ("Stay in bed, son.")? Didn't double check with the certified doctor, did you?
Capitalists didn't make cars safer...bureaucracy (safety regulation) did. Capitalists fought safer cars at every turn and still do today. Seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, mandatory safety tests, etc, etc, etc. All of it pure government bureaucracy keeping you and yours safe on American highways.
Safer than they want to be (think airplanes), and ironically this is potentially less safe than they might be without the rules. Who's to say that people wouldn't have preferred alternative safety features to those that are mandated?
Shouldn't it be up to people themselves what level of risk they want to take, and how?
Could work, but surely if it was such a big deal placing blame someone would have mandated this. No idea about the stats, but I'd guess there aren't that many unexplained car crashes?
With airplanes, they don't crash so often, and it's good to have an explanation for each crash. I suppose this has something to do with the perception of danger and the length of the dev process. With cars, the debris isn't as scattered, there's more crashes, and the fix can be implemented more swiftly.
Not only that, these days we don't even send out that much. Quite a lot of data is inside of undersea cables now, and often digitized into very specific formats, ie not brute force broadcast in every direction. That planet could be in year 2011 and we couldn't talk to them.
Well, the justification is that wealthy guy is already doing his bit. Society needs some amount of money to keep things moving, and everyone needs to pay their share. But we have one guy who is able to pay his dues in one day, while most people take 3 months. Now, we can either force the productive guy to work harder (slavery, big no-no) or let him decide what he wants to with his remaining time. If we say we'll take his 3 months work, he may very well decide not to work. That makes everyone poorer. Or we can just let him keep the fruits of his work. After all, he's paid his bit.
Saying that he doesn't use his wealth isn't a justification for taking it from him. After all, those clothes I mentioned, you wanted them back. You wouldn't be happy if someone took it permanently, would you? Well, people who have lots of money lend it out voluntarily. But they aren't giving away their money.
"Any maximum that is set high enough to let a flat tax theoretically work, isn't going to be doing anything meaningful for the people who get it, these are people who have more money saved than I am ever likely to see (and thats taking the cumulative value of every piece of money I see in my lifetime). That money does nothing for them (or for anyone else for that matter), it just sits there, possibly in some form of investment, possibly not, making them even more money they have no use for."
So what? I'm sure you aren't wearing some of your clothes. Does that mean you ought to let other people use it while you're not wearing it? Should I feel aggrieved if you don't let me wear your unworn clothes? If people want to sit on their fortunes, that's up to them. After all, it represents work they've put in somewhere. You can't just grab it from them because they're not using it.
"There are only so many luxury jets and mansions you can own. This is why you don't live magnitudes of order better no matter how much money you have. That benefit doesn't exist, once you max out the lifestyle scale, you've won the game."
Which is why the rich are not that much better off than the average person, in the West anyhow. So why should they pay so much more?
"Or to look at it from the perspective of it seems wrong to have one guy pay for loads of strangers, I doubt that guy is giving a benefit to society proportional to the combined input of the load of strangers he'd be "paying" for either, so why is his income so much higher to start with ?"
A bunch of people decided to pay him for some work. Voluntarily. That's a measure of benefit to society.
"Conversely a maximum thats low enough that it wouldn't just be removing theoretical money would result in so little tax income it would be useless, most of the world's wealth is owned by a very tiny percentage of the population. "
Wealth and income are not the same thing. Also, we should moderate our government spending to what we can afford, not what we desire to take.
"None of this is to say I think this is a good solution or see a better solution. I've yet to see any social, political or economic measure that is going to survive contact with people. Once you accept that some people aren't going to do the right thing, you need somebody to make sure they will , but these somebodies are people too and no more likely to do the right thing than those who they supervise and given that its easier to accumulate power if you're a liar and a cheat but you look and/or sound good/believable/honest doing it than actually *being* honest, the probability is going to very quickly be that they are on average worse."
Actually, if they're paying that much more, we should be grateful they don't sign out of the system and just hire some guards. Because they could afford it, and it would make more economic sense to do so if you were paying multiples of average salary.
Also, that quote is ridiculously ironic. Civilized society existed before tax rates were as high as they are now. And taxes historically existed mainly to fight wars, mostly in a bloody, uncivilized way.
Most EU countries have VAT which amounts to a (different in every country but currently in the UK:) 20% tax on all sales except essentials (baby milks, children's clothing, most foods - but not "luxury" foods with chocolate in them, etc. - and, strangely, printed books).
This is where the strangeness begins. Is sushi an essential? Well, it's not cooked, so there's no VAT on it. (A friend of mine owns a sushi place). All these little rules and loopholes are insane. For instance, someone wrote a rule exempting certain creative businesses (film, books, music). So what happens next? Someone goes around proposing a tax structure in which the beneficiaries "publish" their own poetry, and through various vehicles get their tax break. The other major issue with having a load of little rules and loopholes is that is completely destroys the moral legitimacy of the system. You're meant to be paying for the upkeep of society, but due to variations in various group memberships, two people on the same income can pay different rates. Someone on a higher income can pay less than someone on a lower income. By less, I actually mean the GBP figure, not the percentage, which I will explain later...
As for a flat 50%, I think that's insane. One of the reasons I left the UK was this whole "go after the rich" thing, which will only be self-defeating. The UK and the other welfare states need to have a serious think about entitlements. The average pensioner receives more than they've put in (Google it yourself). There's a whole lot of waste in various government agencies, and it costs the taxpayer a fortune to have a load of paper pushers. There's also a large proportion of people living on welfare. They need to re-establish the link between getting stuff and working for it. As it is, you get to vote even if you haven't net contributed. And if you're a foreign net contributor, you don't get to vote for Westminster. With this kind of system a politician would promise stuff to the non-workers, paid for by everyone else.
As for tax systems, a flat tax with a maximum figure seems reasonable. Why do I say that? Well, there is some legitimacy in forcing people to pay tax for things that everyone uses and benefits from. And flat tax is definitely simple. But why the maximum? Well, some people's labor is far more sought after than other's. They get paid more, by orders of magnitude. If such a person pays the flat tax, they will essentially be paying for the upkeep of dozens, or even hundred or thousands of other people. While I can appreciate there's going to be some degree of redistribution, it just seems wrong to have one guy paying for loads of strangers. And keep in mind that no matter how much money you have, you won't have a life thats orders of magnitude better than if you were average.
I am aware that a 10-20% flat tax figure would not be nearly enough for the current expenditure. But it shouldn't have gone this far.
Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years. It's no wonder his death is much discussed.
As someone whose persona was so large, and whose death was always going to be controversial, I guess that means he joins Hitler, Elvis, and Michael Jackson on the island of dead people who are regularly sighted.
Seriously? Since when was Hitler the "Evilest Guy Alive"? I must have missed something.
You deny he was alive at some point?
Maybe I need to specify that the title has passed through various people between 1945 and 2001. But most of them have been challengers who never became legends...
I didn't say I agreed with the label... just that if you stop the average Joe on the street and say "Hey, who's an evil guy?" Bin Laden would get a high score...
Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years. It's no wonder his death is much discussed.
As someone whose persona was so large, and whose death was always going to be controversial, I guess that means he joins Hitler, Elvis, and Michael Jackson on the island of dead people who are regularly sighted.
should be the cheapest. Seriously, we need science and engineering majors more then we need liberal arts majors.
Which doesn't mean liberal arts isn't worth anything, it's just that as a country, we needs engineers and scientists.
Aren't the tech people the ones who routinely complain their jobs are being outsourced to India? If that's true, it seems the market doesn't want to hire them. Not in the west, anyway...
1) Do these high-tech toilets mean you don't need any more toilet paper? Someone told me they spray a beam of water up where it's needed. Which I assume means it needs some kind of image recognition... 2) If an AI is sufficiently advanced as to be distinguished from a human, does it have a right to not stare at people's goatses?
Obviously, shouldn't have used the corner brackets. I should have written (Things that evolve) to start with. And "That's because the rate of change of (the thing) will"
Slashdot Mirror
Angles: 2Pi in a full circle? Somehow it's more satisfying if the proportion of a circle were between 0 and 1: xTau. So half a circle would be (1/2)Tau, not the whole-looking 1Pi.
If you look at various "important" equations, you often end up seeing 2Pi in there. Gaussian, Riemann, Fourier. Another one: h/2Pi, h being Planck's constant. Why not make 2Pi the constant?
Even Pi*r^2 is more appropriate as (Tau/2)r^2, if you compare with (1/2)mv^2.
I have to admit I was not violently emotional when I read the argument though.
You're right, if we gave everyone a free 2 inches, the market for these spammers would be gone.
Can you point out *any* low incidence, high impact risks that Humanity has dealt with effectively?
Humanity might be smart enough to learn from its mistakes, but it's not smart enough to avoid those mistakes in the first place. In this case, the mistake is likely to be fatal, we won't have a chance to try again.
We've done alright stopping a number of potential epidemics. Not everyone will die of AIDS. Beat smallpox. And a number of recent flu scares went by without wiping us out. These are all things that *might* have caused devastation.
Also, the oil industry is well developed, so if an asteroid is detected on a collision course, we have plenty of staff to deal with it.
Sure, if the world really is like a test tube, we're all screwed. But growth rates have changed over time, and new technologies have changed the quantity and patterns of consumption.
It's a bit rich to quote exponential growth from your high school math course and then call people illiterate.
Actually, looking at some of the fine software that's available for free, I tend to agree. The minimum standard for copyrighted software is raised by having free stuff that works pretty well.
Now, that works for software but what about other technologies? Eg. I don't really have a problem with extremely poor people getting copycat AIDS drugs. It's not obvious they would have paid for it, and it doesn't reduce the supply of the critical piece of information (the recipe). And what are pharmas developing, anyway? Drugs for dudes who don't exercise and can't get a hardon.
IP rights seem to have gone to point where only lawyers benefit. As anyone who's ever been billed by one knows, it's friggin expensive. Probably a lot of the world's productive capacity is used on this kind of paperwork, and with questionable results (will Metallica really stop making music if they didn't have copyright? Are drug patents approved for the drugs people actually need? Etc, big can of worms...). Time for a cleanup. Not sure how, as any transition phase would be internationally fragmented and highly contentious, but we'd all benefit from a less complex system.
So, what you're saying is they've discovered how to make something addictive, and once you read about this technique, it's no longer fun?
But then surely everything that you enjoy in life is a bit less fun, just because you know how it works?
So poor an imbecile can't think of an argument against it, apparently. And no, it isn't a strawman.
"There is really no reason to believe that cars would be safer without the rules. There was and is nothing preventing auto makers from adding alternative safety features."
Some other dude posted saying that some people preferred vehicles built to higher standards than the minimum.
"The consumer can only consume what is produced. It doesn't matter if people would prefer a 5 point harness in the driver's seat when no manufacturer produces one."
Taken at face value, this is trivially true. That doesn't mean they can't ask for something that doesn't yet exist.
"Yes and no. If you fail to wear your seatbelt you become more of a danger to the others on the road due to the increased likelihood of you being unable to retain control of your car in the event of an incident. If your car doesn't have an airbag you create more of a burden on the emergency response system when you have an accident. There is a societal cost involved and to mitigate that cost the society has decided what level of safety a car must have to be driven on the public roadway."
Sure, there's societal cost, a somewhat relevant argument. But then you have to decide what level of control is appropriate, especially if you mandate various technologies. How about something where you could at least choose the level of insurance? No airbag? Sure, but pay us more road tax, just in case you fly out the front window.
Shouldn't it be up to people themselves what level of risk they want to take, and how?
So we should just let the general public decide for themselves how much "risk" they want to take with doctors? Hey this guy here on the street corner seems to stock a lot of "medications" and he says he's a doctor...
You say like it's a rhetorical question. Have you ever taken any free medical advice from your parents ("Stay in bed, son.")? Didn't double check with the certified doctor, did you?
Flawed analogy.
Capitalists didn't make cars safer...bureaucracy (safety regulation) did. Capitalists fought safer cars at every turn and still do today. Seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, mandatory safety tests, etc, etc, etc. All of it pure government bureaucracy keeping you and yours safe on American highways.
Safer than they want to be (think airplanes), and ironically this is potentially less safe than they might be without the rules. Who's to say that people wouldn't have preferred alternative safety features to those that are mandated?
Shouldn't it be up to people themselves what level of risk they want to take, and how?
Could work, but surely if it was such a big deal placing blame someone would have mandated this. No idea about the stats, but I'd guess there aren't that many unexplained car crashes?
With airplanes, they don't crash so often, and it's good to have an explanation for each crash. I suppose this has something to do with the perception of danger and the length of the dev process. With cars, the debris isn't as scattered, there's more crashes, and the fix can be implemented more swiftly.
Not only that, these days we don't even send out that much. Quite a lot of data is inside of undersea cables now, and often digitized into very specific formats, ie not brute force broadcast in every direction. That planet could be in year 2011 and we couldn't talk to them.
Well, the justification is that wealthy guy is already doing his bit. Society needs some amount of money to keep things moving, and everyone needs to pay their share. But we have one guy who is able to pay his dues in one day, while most people take 3 months. Now, we can either force the productive guy to work harder (slavery, big no-no) or let him decide what he wants to with his remaining time. If we say we'll take his 3 months work, he may very well decide not to work. That makes everyone poorer. Or we can just let him keep the fruits of his work. After all, he's paid his bit.
Saying that he doesn't use his wealth isn't a justification for taking it from him. After all, those clothes I mentioned, you wanted them back. You wouldn't be happy if someone took it permanently, would you? Well, people who have lots of money lend it out voluntarily. But they aren't giving away their money.
"Any maximum that is set high enough to let a flat tax theoretically work, isn't going to be doing anything meaningful for the people who get it, these are people who have more money saved than I am ever likely to see (and thats taking the cumulative value of every piece of money I see in my lifetime). That money does nothing for them (or for anyone else for that matter), it just sits there, possibly in some form of investment, possibly not, making them even more money they have no use for."
So what? I'm sure you aren't wearing some of your clothes. Does that mean you ought to let other people use it while you're not wearing it? Should I feel aggrieved if you don't let me wear your unworn clothes? If people want to sit on their fortunes, that's up to them. After all, it represents work they've put in somewhere. You can't just grab it from them because they're not using it.
"There are only so many luxury jets and mansions you can own. This is why you don't live magnitudes of order better no matter how much money you have. That benefit doesn't exist, once you max out the lifestyle scale, you've won the game."
Which is why the rich are not that much better off than the average person, in the West anyhow. So why should they pay so much more?
"Or to look at it from the perspective of it seems wrong to have one guy pay for loads of strangers, I doubt that guy is giving a benefit to society proportional to the combined input of the load of strangers he'd be "paying" for either, so why is his income so much higher to start with ?"
A bunch of people decided to pay him for some work. Voluntarily. That's a measure of benefit to society.
"Conversely a maximum thats low enough that it wouldn't just be removing theoretical money would result in so little tax income it would be useless, most of the world's wealth is owned by a very tiny percentage of the population. "
Wealth and income are not the same thing. Also, we should moderate our government spending to what we can afford, not what we desire to take.
"None of this is to say I think this is a good solution or see a better solution. I've yet to see any social, political or economic measure that is going to survive contact with people. Once you accept that some people aren't going to do the right thing, you need somebody to make sure they will , but these somebodies are people too and no more likely to do the right thing than those who they supervise and given that its easier to accumulate power if you're a liar and a cheat but you look and/or sound good/believable/honest doing it than actually *being* honest, the probability is going to very quickly be that they are on average worse."
I'm happy to pay for a justice system.
Actually, if they're paying that much more, we should be grateful they don't sign out of the system and just hire some guards. Because they could afford it, and it would make more economic sense to do so if you were paying multiples of average salary.
Also, that quote is ridiculously ironic. Civilized society existed before tax rates were as high as they are now. And taxes historically existed mainly to fight wars, mostly in a bloody, uncivilized way.
Flat is simple, true. But why 24K? Is that some sort of cost of living in the US?
Also, what about an upper limit? Without one, people who earn a lot end up paying quite a few times more than they receive in services.
Most EU countries have VAT which amounts to a (different in every country but currently in the UK:) 20% tax on all sales except essentials (baby milks, children's clothing, most foods - but not "luxury" foods with chocolate in them, etc. - and, strangely, printed books).
This is where the strangeness begins. Is sushi an essential? Well, it's not cooked, so there's no VAT on it. (A friend of mine owns a sushi place). All these little rules and loopholes are insane. For instance, someone wrote a rule exempting certain creative businesses (film, books, music). So what happens next? Someone goes around proposing a tax structure in which the beneficiaries "publish" their own poetry, and through various vehicles get their tax break. The other major issue with having a load of little rules and loopholes is that is completely destroys the moral legitimacy of the system. You're meant to be paying for the upkeep of society, but due to variations in various group memberships, two people on the same income can pay different rates. Someone on a higher income can pay less than someone on a lower income. By less, I actually mean the GBP figure, not the percentage, which I will explain later...
As for a flat 50%, I think that's insane. One of the reasons I left the UK was this whole "go after the rich" thing, which will only be self-defeating. The UK and the other welfare states need to have a serious think about entitlements. The average pensioner receives more than they've put in (Google it yourself). There's a whole lot of waste in various government agencies, and it costs the taxpayer a fortune to have a load of paper pushers. There's also a large proportion of people living on welfare. They need to re-establish the link between getting stuff and working for it. As it is, you get to vote even if you haven't net contributed. And if you're a foreign net contributor, you don't get to vote for Westminster. With this kind of system a politician would promise stuff to the non-workers, paid for by everyone else.
As for tax systems, a flat tax with a maximum figure seems reasonable. Why do I say that? Well, there is some legitimacy in forcing people to pay tax for things that everyone uses and benefits from. And flat tax is definitely simple. But why the maximum? Well, some people's labor is far more sought after than other's. They get paid more, by orders of magnitude. If such a person pays the flat tax, they will essentially be paying for the upkeep of dozens, or even hundred or thousands of other people. While I can appreciate there's going to be some degree of redistribution, it just seems wrong to have one guy paying for loads of strangers. And keep in mind that no matter how much money you have, you won't have a life thats orders of magnitude better than if you were average.
I am aware that a 10-20% flat tax figure would not be nearly enough for the current expenditure. But it shouldn't have gone this far.
Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years. It's no wonder his death is much discussed.
As someone whose persona was so large, and whose death was always going to be controversial, I guess that means he joins Hitler, Elvis, and Michael Jackson on the island of dead people who are regularly sighted.
Seriously? Since when was Hitler the "Evilest Guy Alive"? I must have missed something.
You deny he was alive at some point?
Maybe I need to specify that the title has passed through various people between 1945 and 2001. But most of them have been challengers who never became legends...
Well, it's a draw between Kim Jong Il, Bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc on the "Number of sharks with lasers" stat.
I didn't say I agreed with the label... just that if you stop the average Joe on the street and say "Hey, who's an evil guy?" Bin Laden would get a high score...
Well, Bin Laden had taken over Hitler's spot of "Evilest Guy Alive" for quite a few years. It's no wonder his death is much discussed.
As someone whose persona was so large, and whose death was always going to be controversial, I guess that means he joins Hitler, Elvis, and Michael Jackson on the island of dead people who are regularly sighted.
should be the cheapest. Seriously, we need science and engineering majors more then we need liberal arts majors.
Which doesn't mean liberal arts isn't worth anything, it's just that as a country, we needs engineers and scientists.
Aren't the tech people the ones who routinely complain their jobs are being outsourced to India? If that's true, it seems the market doesn't want to hire them. Not in the west, anyway...
A couple of questions.
1) Do these high-tech toilets mean you don't need any more toilet paper? Someone told me they spray a beam of water up where it's needed. Which I assume means it needs some kind of image recognition...
2) If an AI is sufficiently advanced as to be distinguished from a human, does it have a right to not stare at people's goatses?
Obviously, shouldn't have used the corner brackets. I should have written (Things that evolve) to start with. And "That's because the rate of change of (the thing) will"