I'm sure if you posted a bunch poorly written articles by cat ladies at Gawker, HuffPo, Buzzfeed, Politifact, Snopes all telling me that Hillary Clinton is not corrupt and that their fellow cat ladies were not biased, that would do it!
What would it take to convince you that the Russians didn't 'hack the 2016 election'?
I have a pretty basic standard of evidence for the Russia hack - if intelligence agencies and reputable news sources presented evidence of someone else being responsible, and explained why their previous assessment of Russian responsibility was wrong, I would be happy to revise my opinions. Alternatively, if someone else could offer a parsimonious and credible explanation for why ALL major intelligence agencies and news sources would collude on the subject, and HOW they would execute such a widespread and consistent collusion despite a general lack of inter-agency cohesion and organization, I would be happy to listen.
Since you offer only facetious examples of evidence that would change your mind, it seems that there is no realistic standard of evidence that could impact your beliefs. Therefore, your opinions are not evidence-based, and not worthy of consideration.
Doesn't that describe mainstream media in general?
No, it does not. Mainstream media faces major repercussions for posting false stories, and it becomes a huge scandal. They aspire to journalistic standards of avoiding sole-source stories, and understand that credibility is their greatest asset.
The actual fake news willingly misrepresents the news or outright fabricates it in order to make money and/or push an agenda. Much like you misrepresented the GP's position with your cherry-picked quote, in order to draw a false equivalence and further your personal agenda to discredit professional journalists.
How is a government bureaucrat paying a doctor less of a middleman than an insurance company bureaucrat paying a doctor?
No marketing, no execs with golden parachutes and private jets, no department devoted to denying coverage, no B.S. wrangling between insurance companies to decide who has to pay, no duplication of admin/HR/etc between competing insurance companies, no profit required to send to screaming shareholders... I could go on and on, but instead I'll just post some facts. In the U.S., socialized healthcare costs are already far lower, and growing more slowly, than private health insurance: https://www.healthaffairs.org/...
Total unsubstantiated nonsense. How is it that every other major country in the world has universal healthcare without being bankrupt? Norway has completely socialized healthcare, yet somehow they have very low national debt as a fraction of GDP. Maybe it's because they manage their finances like rational adults, rather than instituting $1.5T in tax cuts to the wealthy in the midst of an economy that's already thriving...
The worst social media offender I know is my baby boomer grandma... she fills her computer and phone with the most inane apps and malware, and when we have family events she's often the one glued to her phone the entire time. Surprise, surprise, she's also the one constantly sharing obviously phony propaganda from the "God Emperor Trump" Facebook page, like one post with a badly shopped image showing the Seahawks burning American flags in their locker room.
Millennials grew up with technology and so at least understand that you can't pass classes or succeed in life if you don't learn to control the video game/social media/tech addiction. They know from screwing around on chatrooms as kids that people will lie to you and troll you continually so you have to be suspicious of everything you hear online. Gullible boomers who catch the bug have no life context to understand that these things are drugs, and will take over your life if you let them. They are the prime targets for extremist propaganda campaigns, just like they're easy money for scammers and televangelists.
No, the younger generation is just as intolerant as the old, they just are bigots/intolerant about other things. In the 60s, your parents were intolerant of gays, coloreds, and communists. Now their grandkids are intolerant of Christians, stay-at-home moms, and capitalism. Try going to Berkeley and carrying a Trump poster or simply reading out loud the Bible and learn all about their "tolerance". Just because YOU agree with their bigotry doesn't mean it's not bigotry...
I can't believe somebody modded this drivel insightful. Where in the U.S. are housewives being lynched? Show me where Christians today are segregated to their "separate but equal" alternate facilities. When was the last time a capitalist was kidnapped and dragged behind a truck until dead? I miss the old republicans... they may have been cold-hearted capitalists and shameless warmongers, but at least they weren't a bunch of pathetic whiners claiming to be oppressed.
That is utter nonsense. The entire federal tax collection in 2016 was 3.46 trillion dollars. That'd be about $24k for 150 million people.
Here's the problem: the amount isn't $24k ($12k is much more realistic) and effectively, it's only going to a small fraction of the population. Everybody technically gets the check, but you would rework the bottom tax bracket so that the first $12k isn't taxed. Then you set the rate higher such that at $60k of total income, or $100k, or whatever we decide is appropriate, the tax cancels out the $12k of UBI. That means that someone making more than the notional $60k sees some numbers shift around, but doesn't end up with any more (or less) in their pocket at the end of the day.
You won't be raising children, owning a home and a vehicle, enjoying the network, consuming utilities, buying new clothing, receiving medical care, etc. on $24k.
Nice strawman. Nobody said that you should be able to live the "american dream" off of UBI. You should be able to afford to rent a room, keep yourself from starving to death, and buy second-hand clothes. $12k can do that easily in most of the country.
The economic system will have to be re-jiggered in a major way to make the available resources and services map to the number of people - and that's almost certainly what's going to happen when automation of most jobs comes along.
BS. We live in the most technologically advanced, prosperous society in all of human history. We have the resources as a country, TODAY, to keep anyone from starvation and homelessness.
Also, $1.5T is the current amount of entitlement spending. Considering that there are ~50M people on welfare and ~60M on social security, that works out to... surprise surprise... $13000 per person. Something very similar to UBI is already happening, but it's following arcane rules that require a complex bureaucracy to administer and the structure provides a disincentive to work. Turning welfare into UBI could even end up saving money in the long run, because it restores an incentive to work, it removes inefficient regulatory bandaids like minimum wage, and it gives people enough of an economic safety net to promote starting small businesses.
On the other hand, if you give people money for doing nothing, and eventually everyone's doing nothing of value, then what is there of value left to buy?
You're misrepresenting or misunderstanding the point of UBI. The idea isn't that you give people so much money that they can buy anything they desire. The point is that you give them enough money that their most basic needs are met: food and shelter. Then, anybody who wants disposable income will need to work for it.
What's more, you are making the classic and completely wrong assumption that people work only for money. Linux and the entire ecosystem of open source software development disagrees with you. People work for social reasons, because of personal interest, because of a desire for fame or recognition, and some people work because they want to have more and better material goods. There's actually some fairly good evidence that in some types of work, people will work far longer and harder for a social good or an internal, intrinsic goal than they will for pay.
The UBI accomplishes a number of great things - it gets rid of the (correctly derided) disincentive that the welfare system creates towards gainful employment. It is also humane, in that it prevents people from starving to death or dying from the cold. It's fair, because it goes to everyone. It allows us to get rid of stupid duct-tape solutions like the minimum wage - a worker with UBI can't really be exploited into working, so companies can offer $1/hr or $10/hr and the market can work it out. UBI provides a safety net that would encourage more people to start businesses.
1. A poster below me already mentioned that your corporate profit figures are off - increase the amount to $2T, and make it quarterly, and you have the right idea. 2. While your comment correctly asserts that the premise of the article is flawed (there isn't enough US corporate profit to realistically pay for UBI) you then make a flaw by assuming that UBI is unworkable by any means, and that's quite untrue.
You have to look at the fact that UBI would replace existing entitlement spending, to the tune of around $2T. It also isn't something that is paid in full to everyone - tax policy would have to be overhauled when UBI is implemented, with the basic idea being that you are taxed only on money above and beyond the UBI, and taxed at a rate such that people with sufficiently high income basically "break even" after the UBI - the get the UBI, but they are taxed at a higher rate, so that at $100k or something, it's a wash. This is more like the "universal pre-bate" that some people have talked about... but the point is, all that's REALLY required to fund a UBI is a rework of the tax policy no more drastic than what the GOP is doing right now, along with replacing entitlements. The only calculations that make it look unrealistic are naively simplistic ones.
As a country, we were clearly designed to create laws that takes away anyone's liberty only as a last resource. Even if that liberty is for one person to buy a billion widgets, destroy them so there is only one left, then sell that remaining one for a gazillion dollars.
Your example is bad. In that case, a single person is abusing their financial power to restrict the liberty of all other people. If it became a consistent problem, the democratic solution would be for all the other people to collectively restrict that anti-liberty behavior, in the form of government intervention. Which is exactly what happens in the case of antitrust legislation, lawsuits and the like.
Here's a question: what is liberty? I mean really, how do you define it? Is it freedom to do whatever you want? Clearly not, because nobody is arguing that murder and theft should be legal (I hope). So it must be something else.
The best definition I've heard is that liberty is defined by the amount of options available to a person. A person with 2 options has more liberty than a person with 1 option. What's useful about this is that it makes it possible to think of liberty in something like economic terms. A more liberal society (in the classical sense) is one which provides more options to its citizens.
In the example you provide, the one person is acting in a way that restricts the liberty of thousands, or millions. So a liberal society shouldn't allow it, as long as the mechanism for preventing it isn't worse than the action it seeks to prevent.
Realistically, though, the example you're talking about pretty much never happens, so no action is needed. Scalpers are different, because they aren't buying the whole supply, and they are basically just speculators who think they've spotted a market inefficiency, and if they are right, they profit from fixing that inefficiency - that is, changing the pricing of an item to more accurately represent the market value of said item, at least to the kind of people that purchase tickets at the last minute from scalpers.
Society and prior generations of lawmakers (and Chuck Schumer) don't seem to agree, though - considering that scalping is illegal in many places. To the extent that most people agree that scalping is wrong, that's democracy working as it ought to.
I got a hit - it just so happens that the comment is pro net neutrality, which I agree with. I suppose there are spambots on both sides of the fight. It could also be someone with the same name, though, so unless you've got a tremendously unique name, I'm not sure how you prove that the comment is fabricated.
He knew far more about the topic than any American wannabe will ever.
This is a meaningless appeal to authority. Make the argument on its own merits.
Silencing freedom of speech is what fascists do. When you use fascism to fight fascism, you become a fascist yourself.
Silencing freedom of speech is what authoritarians do. The communists did it - were they fascist? Antifa isn't using fascism to fight fascism - they are using organized protest, political demonstration, and at some points have advocated for physical violence, at which point they would become criminals and potentially terrorists depending on their particular activities. Nowhere are they using government power to curtail civil liberties (something that real authoritarians and fascists do). They don't have any racial superiority philosophies, or nationalistic tendencies.
Define fascism. It doesn't mean "anti free speech". It doesn't mean "willing to use violence". The term describes a specific, authoritarian political ideology based on nationalism and racism. Provide your own definition, if you don't accept mine. It needs to be specific enough to include Nazis but exclude Soviet communists, otherwise you have failed to provide a usefully descriptive term.
Why does it matter so much to you anyway? Why can't you be content to call antifa criminals, or terrorists? I suspect it's because redefining fascism is critically important to the alt-right. I can't imagine why.
Your vigorous defense of the indefensible makes me think you're one of the two.
I'm not in any way defending antifa - I'm calling you out for arbitrarily redefining words. Anti-fascists are not fascists. Words have meaning. Changing the meaning of words is a classic tactic of authoritarian propagandists - do you realize that you're operating out of Stalin's playbook right now? War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Anti-fascism is fascism.
Using violence to stop people from speaking isn't fighting fascism, it is fascism.
Holy shit. Using violence to oppose fascists is not fascism. You might want to call it political terrorism, or criminal activity - but it isn't fascism. Your insistence on this point actually hurts you, because instead of making meaningful criticisms of antifa, you keep saying things that are obviously incorrect on a very basic level.
When you wear hoods in public to conceal your identity, that means you're the bad guys.
SWAT officers wear balaclavas. Are they the bad guys? Stop using juvenile definitions to try to make it seem like you have a point.
Using violence to stop people from speaking isn't fighting fascism, it is fascism!
Anti-fascists are LITERALLY in direct opposition to fascism. Don't you realize that your own words directly contradict themselves? Or do you have retardation so profound that what you wrote makes sense to you? Fascism:a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Is Antifa nationalist? No, it's an international group. Are they associated with any particular race? No. Are they supporting a dictator? No, their stated purpose is to oppose such. Are they for centralized autocracy and regimented society? No, they tend almost to the point of anarchy in some cases.
You can rightly take a moral stand against Antifa's anarchist or pro-violence positions, but calling them fascist is just stupid and shows that you're a credulous simpleton at best, and what's more, a complicit propagandist, wittingly or no. There is one anti-democratic, anti-liberty, fascist movement in the U.S. right now, and it is represented by the alt-right and their white supremacist, tiki-nazi ilk, who seek to impose their religious and economic fetishes on the rest of the nation and would gladly make Trump a dictator to do so. Authoritarianism is the most un-American thing there is - and Trumpists are wrapping it in the stars-and-stripes and doubling down on it as fast and hard as possible. Stop helping them. You're better than this.
The KKK is defined by white supremacy, racially motivated lynchings, and racially motivated terror campaigns. Antifa, who have been around since the 40's (and so can't really be the new KKK, since they co-existed alongside them) are defined by opposition to fascism, are politically motivated, and have declared their willingness to use violence in their campaigns against fascism.
The only thing they might have in common is a willingness to use violence. But conservatives thrive off of fear, authoritarians like Trump doubly so, and painting Antifa as the new bogeyman (along with Muslims, BLM, feminists, and immigrants generally) is the best tactic in the alt-right's playbook for consolidating power. It's sad that you willingly disseminate such abhorrent propaganda.
I assume you're talking about the guys that got publicly outed for being tiki nazis? Guess what - it's a business liability to hire a known anti-semite. You're welcome to be one if you want, but don't expect to march down the street yelling "jews will not replace us" without some social and professional consequences. No business or individual with even a modicum of decency will willingly associate with white supremacists.
There's a reason the KKK uses hoods, after all, but hilariously the new generation of Trumpist alt-right neonazies aren't sharp enough to take the same basic precautions.
This specific system shows the 200lb value, and as you can see, this isn't a particularly large/complex machine. The legs could be much thicker, the motors could be much larger (and more powerful), and overall, this is one of the very earliest iterations of an almost brand-new technology type, so I expect that they've barely scratched the surface of what's possible.
Importantly, the question is what the main limitation here is in vastly improving the performance of this machine. Currently, it is very lightweight and minimalist in order to accommodate the capability for a human to continue walking in it after the batteries die. If instead, it was going to be constrained to a different role (doing work in a warehouse, for instance, where power is always close at hand) then it could become much larger, heavier, and stronger, and have more powerful and energy-hungry motors to boost the whole thing. A 5x or 10x improvement doesn't seem particularly challenging if you did away with the unpowered walking requirement.
I think it's important to make a distinction here, though: is such a suit technically feasible? Certainly. I don't think there's any doubt. Scaling up performance in an existing technology is usually fairly straightforward. The other, and entirely different question: is this suit going to offer economic and productivity advantages in the near future? There, I think the forklift, being a mature technology, will probably continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. But in niche cases, this could have a lot of utility - which is pretty much the case with any new technology. As it matures, prices will fall, capability will increase, and we'll see more cases where exoskeleton tech makes business sense.
This is still pretty early in the development of this type of tech, but this machine is already providing a higher level of strength (carrying a 200lb pack is no easy task) and simultaneously reducing the effort required by a human, with concrete, measurable numbers in terms of strength increase and efficiency improvement for the human. It seems straightforward to me that arms, weapons, armor, or other useful tech that is usually too heavy for a single human to carry could be attached to this type of machine. So, while the infinitely articulating and energetic armor of Iron Man might be pure fantasy, something like the mech from Aliens, or the exoskeleton from Elysium, seems inevitable once the technology becomes more mature.
Almost, if I could selectively hibernate a "state" and then hide it away and work on something else. So I could have my system state for project 1 ready to go at a moment's notice, or I could instantly switch to the apps and documents for project 2, which I worked on 3 months ago. A VM can provide something very close to this, but is overpowered in some ways because you're providing an entirely new OS, and you don't really need all that just to be able to selectively bring back the state of the desktop from some previously user-defined time.
Hibernate is really just a power-saving feature - it doesn't allow you to stash selected states away for use at a later time.
Why should Comcast get to decide what I am allowed to use my internet connection for? If I pay them for a connection, it doesn't matter if Netflix is 1% or 100% of that traffic - I pay them for a connection that I will use for whatever I want.
You think that movie-like exoskeletons make perfect sense for practical purposes, are physically doable and only a bit far away technologically speaking.
An exoskeleton like the one in Elysium, for instance, is a fairly direct descendant of military hardware that is being tested today, and the usefulness of any technology that allows a soldier to carry more armament for farther distances while retaining complete mobility seems pretty obvious. Do you think there are fundamental technological or physical hurdles that will make this unworkable? Lots of researchers and companies currently doing development in the field would disagree with you. That doesn't mean that we are ever going to see iron man suits, but I think it is pretty inevitable that we will see some kind of power-assisted exoskeletons being put to use, maybe not ubiquitously, but at least in military, industrial, and medical applications where it makes sense.
If you aren't looking to have your opinions challenged, then of course there's no point to continue the discussion, but it still seems to me that you are claiming that exoskeleton technology is impossible/pointless, without any real basis in science or engineering to support your claims.
But what is the point of having a person inside it if he cannot directly perform the moves? Wouldn't be much better to have a remotely-controlled machine?
What's the point of having a person inside an excavator? While machines are powerful, AI is primitive and control is hard. A human is good at making decisions, but is relatively puny, so giving a human an intuitive interface and powerful hardware allows the human to be more productive. The human's natural ability to balance, not get its limbs tangled up, and do all sorts of things that are hard for robots would come in very handy. It really is just the equivalent of construction machinery but with more flexibility and a more direct control interface for the human. And of course, these systems are still primitive, but they've already got a lot of promise for disabled people, soldiers, and construction workers. The main challenge is energy density.
Exerting certain level of force and lifting certain things from certain positions by involving only certain mass is either practically or completely impossible. I didn't mean to just keep the balance, what is already a quite difficult task, but to be in a position to generate certain amount of force while being standing, jumping, moving, etc.
I think you're talking about inverse kinematics calculations. Humans do all these calculations intuitively, and continually. Accomplishing any of the tasks you are talking about is just a matter of calculating the forces and masses involved and fitting a geometry to achieve balance. The calculations aren't simple, but they are clearly solvable because every animal of even moderate complexity is able to do them almost from birth. Standing, jumping, and moving with a 10lb weight and 100lb weight are achievable by an unassisted, healthy human. Doing so with a 1 ton weight is fundamentally no different, as long as the chassis in question has the structural strength and powerful motors to achieve it.
I don't think so. Again, my comment was mostly focused on their suitability to exert certain force under conditions which make such an event almost impossible. The underlying idea to most of these fantasies is assuming behaviours similar to human/animal muscles by extending the boundaries beyond what is physically possible. Creating a tentacle moving like Dr. Octopus's and being able to lift heavy weights isn't just extremely difficult from a technical point of view, but also almost impossible according to physics.
Physical fact: Force is inversely proportional to the length of a lever arm Not a physical fact: Long arms can't lift heavy objects
See the difference? Yes, a long, flexible arm will be RELATIVELY less powerful than a short, solid arm. However, unless you know the strength of the materials and the motors involved, you know nothing at all about what can be lifted by a long, flexible arm. All we can say, based on physics, is that the arm in question could lift much more while extended to 1 meter than when extended to 5 meters. But it still might be able to lift 1 ton when extended to 5 meters.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure if you posted a bunch poorly written articles by cat ladies at Gawker, HuffPo, Buzzfeed, Politifact, Snopes all telling me that Hillary Clinton is not corrupt and that their fellow cat ladies were not biased, that would do it!
What would it take to convince you that the Russians didn't 'hack the 2016 election'?
I have a pretty basic standard of evidence for the Russia hack - if intelligence agencies and reputable news sources presented evidence of someone else being responsible, and explained why their previous assessment of Russian responsibility was wrong, I would be happy to revise my opinions. Alternatively, if someone else could offer a parsimonious and credible explanation for why ALL major intelligence agencies and news sources would collude on the subject, and HOW they would execute such a widespread and consistent collusion despite a general lack of inter-agency cohesion and organization, I would be happy to listen.
Since you offer only facetious examples of evidence that would change your mind, it seems that there is no realistic standard of evidence that could impact your beliefs. Therefore, your opinions are not evidence-based, and not worthy of consideration.
What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that you have fallen victim to a series of fabricated conspiracy theories?
knowingly false for the purpose of monetary gain
Doesn't that describe mainstream media in general?
No, it does not. Mainstream media faces major repercussions for posting false stories, and it becomes a huge scandal. They aspire to journalistic standards of avoiding sole-source stories, and understand that credibility is their greatest asset.
The actual fake news willingly misrepresents the news or outright fabricates it in order to make money and/or push an agenda. Much like you misrepresented the GP's position with your cherry-picked quote, in order to draw a false equivalence and further your personal agenda to discredit professional journalists.
In the sense that a red cross volunteer and criminal warlord are both middlemen for basic food supplies.
How is a government bureaucrat paying a doctor less of a middleman than an insurance company bureaucrat paying a doctor?
No marketing, no execs with golden parachutes and private jets, no department devoted to denying coverage, no B.S. wrangling between insurance companies to decide who has to pay, no duplication of admin/HR/etc between competing insurance companies, no profit required to send to screaming shareholders... I could go on and on, but instead I'll just post some facts. In the U.S., socialized healthcare costs are already far lower, and growing more slowly, than private health insurance: https://www.healthaffairs.org/...
Well, I just can't understand how most of Europe and Canada do it without actually going bankrupt.
The same way the US pays for it's military. By borrowing and going into debt.
Not everybody. Some countries behave like rational adults and show some discipline with their finances.
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
Single-payer would bankrupt the country.
Total unsubstantiated nonsense. How is it that every other major country in the world has universal healthcare without being bankrupt? Norway has completely socialized healthcare, yet somehow they have very low national debt as a fraction of GDP. Maybe it's because they manage their finances like rational adults, rather than instituting $1.5T in tax cuts to the wealthy in the midst of an economy that's already thriving...
Some citations:
https://www.theatlantic.com/in...
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
The worst social media offender I know is my baby boomer grandma... she fills her computer and phone with the most inane apps and malware, and when we have family events she's often the one glued to her phone the entire time. Surprise, surprise, she's also the one constantly sharing obviously phony propaganda from the "God Emperor Trump" Facebook page, like one post with a badly shopped image showing the Seahawks burning American flags in their locker room.
Millennials grew up with technology and so at least understand that you can't pass classes or succeed in life if you don't learn to control the video game/social media/tech addiction. They know from screwing around on chatrooms as kids that people will lie to you and troll you continually so you have to be suspicious of everything you hear online. Gullible boomers who catch the bug have no life context to understand that these things are drugs, and will take over your life if you let them. They are the prime targets for extremist propaganda campaigns, just like they're easy money for scammers and televangelists.
No, the younger generation is just as intolerant as the old, they just are bigots/intolerant about other things. In the 60s, your parents were intolerant of gays, coloreds, and communists. Now their grandkids are intolerant of Christians, stay-at-home moms, and capitalism. Try going to Berkeley and carrying a Trump poster or simply reading out loud the Bible and learn all about their "tolerance". Just because YOU agree with their bigotry doesn't mean it's not bigotry...
I can't believe somebody modded this drivel insightful. Where in the U.S. are housewives being lynched? Show me where Christians today are segregated to their "separate but equal" alternate facilities. When was the last time a capitalist was kidnapped and dragged behind a truck until dead? I miss the old republicans... they may have been cold-hearted capitalists and shameless warmongers, but at least they weren't a bunch of pathetic whiners claiming to be oppressed.
That is utter nonsense. The entire federal tax collection in 2016 was 3.46 trillion dollars. That'd be about $24k for 150 million people.
Here's the problem: the amount isn't $24k ($12k is much more realistic) and effectively, it's only going to a small fraction of the population. Everybody technically gets the check, but you would rework the bottom tax bracket so that the first $12k isn't taxed. Then you set the rate higher such that at $60k of total income, or $100k, or whatever we decide is appropriate, the tax cancels out the $12k of UBI. That means that someone making more than the notional $60k sees some numbers shift around, but doesn't end up with any more (or less) in their pocket at the end of the day.
You won't be raising children, owning a home and a vehicle, enjoying the network, consuming utilities, buying new clothing, receiving medical care, etc. on $24k.
Nice strawman. Nobody said that you should be able to live the "american dream" off of UBI. You should be able to afford to rent a room, keep yourself from starving to death, and buy second-hand clothes. $12k can do that easily in most of the country.
The economic system will have to be re-jiggered in a major way to make the available resources and services map to the number of people - and that's almost certainly what's going to happen when automation of most jobs comes along.
BS. We live in the most technologically advanced, prosperous society in all of human history. We have the resources as a country, TODAY, to keep anyone from starvation and homelessness.
Also, $1.5T is the current amount of entitlement spending. Considering that there are ~50M people on welfare and ~60M on social security, that works out to... surprise surprise... $13000 per person. Something very similar to UBI is already happening, but it's following arcane rules that require a complex bureaucracy to administer and the structure provides a disincentive to work. Turning welfare into UBI could even end up saving money in the long run, because it restores an incentive to work, it removes inefficient regulatory bandaids like minimum wage, and it gives people enough of an economic safety net to promote starting small businesses.
On the other hand, if you give people money for doing nothing, and eventually everyone's doing nothing of value, then what is there of value left to buy?
You're misrepresenting or misunderstanding the point of UBI. The idea isn't that you give people so much money that they can buy anything they desire. The point is that you give them enough money that their most basic needs are met: food and shelter. Then, anybody who wants disposable income will need to work for it.
What's more, you are making the classic and completely wrong assumption that people work only for money. Linux and the entire ecosystem of open source software development disagrees with you. People work for social reasons, because of personal interest, because of a desire for fame or recognition, and some people work because they want to have more and better material goods. There's actually some fairly good evidence that in some types of work, people will work far longer and harder for a social good or an internal, intrinsic goal than they will for pay.
The UBI accomplishes a number of great things - it gets rid of the (correctly derided) disincentive that the welfare system creates towards gainful employment. It is also humane, in that it prevents people from starving to death or dying from the cold. It's fair, because it goes to everyone. It allows us to get rid of stupid duct-tape solutions like the minimum wage - a worker with UBI can't really be exploited into working, so companies can offer $1/hr or $10/hr and the market can work it out. UBI provides a safety net that would encourage more people to start businesses.
Two things:
1. A poster below me already mentioned that your corporate profit figures are off - increase the amount to $2T, and make it quarterly, and you have the right idea.
2. While your comment correctly asserts that the premise of the article is flawed (there isn't enough US corporate profit to realistically pay for UBI) you then make a flaw by assuming that UBI is unworkable by any means, and that's quite untrue.
You have to look at the fact that UBI would replace existing entitlement spending, to the tune of around $2T. It also isn't something that is paid in full to everyone - tax policy would have to be overhauled when UBI is implemented, with the basic idea being that you are taxed only on money above and beyond the UBI, and taxed at a rate such that people with sufficiently high income basically "break even" after the UBI - the get the UBI, but they are taxed at a higher rate, so that at $100k or something, it's a wash. This is more like the "universal pre-bate" that some people have talked about... but the point is, all that's REALLY required to fund a UBI is a rework of the tax policy no more drastic than what the GOP is doing right now, along with replacing entitlements. The only calculations that make it look unrealistic are naively simplistic ones.
As a country, we were clearly designed to create laws that takes away anyone's liberty only as a last resource. Even if that liberty is for one person to buy a billion widgets, destroy them so there is only one left, then sell that remaining one for a gazillion dollars.
Your example is bad. In that case, a single person is abusing their financial power to restrict the liberty of all other people. If it became a consistent problem, the democratic solution would be for all the other people to collectively restrict that anti-liberty behavior, in the form of government intervention. Which is exactly what happens in the case of antitrust legislation, lawsuits and the like.
Here's a question: what is liberty? I mean really, how do you define it? Is it freedom to do whatever you want? Clearly not, because nobody is arguing that murder and theft should be legal (I hope). So it must be something else.
The best definition I've heard is that liberty is defined by the amount of options available to a person. A person with 2 options has more liberty than a person with 1 option. What's useful about this is that it makes it possible to think of liberty in something like economic terms. A more liberal society (in the classical sense) is one which provides more options to its citizens.
In the example you provide, the one person is acting in a way that restricts the liberty of thousands, or millions. So a liberal society shouldn't allow it, as long as the mechanism for preventing it isn't worse than the action it seeks to prevent.
Realistically, though, the example you're talking about pretty much never happens, so no action is needed. Scalpers are different, because they aren't buying the whole supply, and they are basically just speculators who think they've spotted a market inefficiency, and if they are right, they profit from fixing that inefficiency - that is, changing the pricing of an item to more accurately represent the market value of said item, at least to the kind of people that purchase tickets at the last minute from scalpers.
Society and prior generations of lawmakers (and Chuck Schumer) don't seem to agree, though - considering that scalping is illegal in many places. To the extent that most people agree that scalping is wrong, that's democracy working as it ought to.
I got a hit - it just so happens that the comment is pro net neutrality, which I agree with. I suppose there are spambots on both sides of the fight. It could also be someone with the same name, though, so unless you've got a tremendously unique name, I'm not sure how you prove that the comment is fabricated.
He knew far more about the topic than any American wannabe will ever.
This is a meaningless appeal to authority. Make the argument on its own merits.
Silencing freedom of speech is what fascists do. When you use fascism to fight fascism, you become a fascist yourself.
Silencing freedom of speech is what authoritarians do. The communists did it - were they fascist? Antifa isn't using fascism to fight fascism - they are using organized protest, political demonstration, and at some points have advocated for physical violence, at which point they would become criminals and potentially terrorists depending on their particular activities. Nowhere are they using government power to curtail civil liberties (something that real authoritarians and fascists do). They don't have any racial superiority philosophies, or nationalistic tendencies.
Define fascism. It doesn't mean "anti free speech". It doesn't mean "willing to use violence". The term describes a specific, authoritarian political ideology based on nationalism and racism. Provide your own definition, if you don't accept mine. It needs to be specific enough to include Nazis but exclude Soviet communists, otherwise you have failed to provide a usefully descriptive term.
Why does it matter so much to you anyway? Why can't you be content to call antifa criminals, or terrorists? I suspect it's because redefining fascism is critically important to the alt-right. I can't imagine why.
Your vigorous defense of the indefensible makes me think you're one of the two.
I'm not in any way defending antifa - I'm calling you out for arbitrarily redefining words. Anti-fascists are not fascists. Words have meaning. Changing the meaning of words is a classic tactic of authoritarian propagandists - do you realize that you're operating out of Stalin's playbook right now? War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Anti-fascism is fascism.
Using violence to stop people from speaking isn't fighting fascism, it is fascism.
Holy shit. Using violence to oppose fascists is not fascism. You might want to call it political terrorism, or criminal activity - but it isn't fascism. Your insistence on this point actually hurts you, because instead of making meaningful criticisms of antifa, you keep saying things that are obviously incorrect on a very basic level.
When you wear hoods in public to conceal your identity, that means you're the bad guys.
SWAT officers wear balaclavas. Are they the bad guys? Stop using juvenile definitions to try to make it seem like you have a point.
Using violence to stop people from speaking isn't fighting fascism, it is fascism!
Anti-fascists are LITERALLY in direct opposition to fascism. Don't you realize that your own words directly contradict themselves? Or do you have retardation so profound that what you wrote makes sense to you?
Fascism:a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Is Antifa nationalist? No, it's an international group. Are they associated with any particular race? No. Are they supporting a dictator? No, their stated purpose is to oppose such. Are they for centralized autocracy and regimented society? No, they tend almost to the point of anarchy in some cases.
You can rightly take a moral stand against Antifa's anarchist or pro-violence positions, but calling them fascist is just stupid and shows that you're a credulous simpleton at best, and what's more, a complicit propagandist, wittingly or no. There is one anti-democratic, anti-liberty, fascist movement in the U.S. right now, and it is represented by the alt-right and their white supremacist, tiki-nazi ilk, who seek to impose their religious and economic fetishes on the rest of the nation and would gladly make Trump a dictator to do so. Authoritarianism is the most un-American thing there is - and Trumpists are wrapping it in the stars-and-stripes and doubling down on it as fast and hard as possible. Stop helping them. You're better than this.
Antifa are the new KKK.
Look everybody, we found a Trump supporter!
The KKK is defined by white supremacy, racially motivated lynchings, and racially motivated terror campaigns. Antifa, who have been around since the 40's (and so can't really be the new KKK, since they co-existed alongside them) are defined by opposition to fascism, are politically motivated, and have declared their willingness to use violence in their campaigns against fascism.
The only thing they might have in common is a willingness to use violence. But conservatives thrive off of fear, authoritarians like Trump doubly so, and painting Antifa as the new bogeyman (along with Muslims, BLM, feminists, and immigrants generally) is the best tactic in the alt-right's playbook for consolidating power. It's sad that you willingly disseminate such abhorrent propaganda.
I assume you're talking about the guys that got publicly outed for being tiki nazis? Guess what - it's a business liability to hire a known anti-semite. You're welcome to be one if you want, but don't expect to march down the street yelling "jews will not replace us" without some social and professional consequences. No business or individual with even a modicum of decency will willingly associate with white supremacists.
There's a reason the KKK uses hoods, after all, but hilariously the new generation of Trumpist alt-right neonazies aren't sharp enough to take the same basic precautions.
Sorry, this link would have been better, and more specific: http://bleex.me.berkeley.edu/r...
This specific system shows the 200lb value, and as you can see, this isn't a particularly large/complex machine. The legs could be much thicker, the motors could be much larger (and more powerful), and overall, this is one of the very earliest iterations of an almost brand-new technology type, so I expect that they've barely scratched the surface of what's possible.
Importantly, the question is what the main limitation here is in vastly improving the performance of this machine. Currently, it is very lightweight and minimalist in order to accommodate the capability for a human to continue walking in it after the batteries die. If instead, it was going to be constrained to a different role (doing work in a warehouse, for instance, where power is always close at hand) then it could become much larger, heavier, and stronger, and have more powerful and energy-hungry motors to boost the whole thing. A 5x or 10x improvement doesn't seem particularly challenging if you did away with the unpowered walking requirement.
I think it's important to make a distinction here, though: is such a suit technically feasible? Certainly. I don't think there's any doubt. Scaling up performance in an existing technology is usually fairly straightforward. The other, and entirely different question: is this suit going to offer economic and productivity advantages in the near future? There, I think the forklift, being a mature technology, will probably continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. But in niche cases, this could have a lot of utility - which is pretty much the case with any new technology. As it matures, prices will fall, capability will increase, and we'll see more cases where exoskeleton tech makes business sense.
Here's something specific: http://bleex.me.berkeley.edu/r...
This is still pretty early in the development of this type of tech, but this machine is already providing a higher level of strength (carrying a 200lb pack is no easy task) and simultaneously reducing the effort required by a human, with concrete, measurable numbers in terms of strength increase and efficiency improvement for the human. It seems straightforward to me that arms, weapons, armor, or other useful tech that is usually too heavy for a single human to carry could be attached to this type of machine. So, while the infinitely articulating and energetic armor of Iron Man might be pure fantasy, something like the mech from Aliens, or the exoskeleton from Elysium, seems inevitable once the technology becomes more mature.
In windows, it's called "Hibernate".
Almost, if I could selectively hibernate a "state" and then hide it away and work on something else. So I could have my system state for project 1 ready to go at a moment's notice, or I could instantly switch to the apps and documents for project 2, which I worked on 3 months ago. A VM can provide something very close to this, but is overpowered in some ways because you're providing an entirely new OS, and you don't really need all that just to be able to selectively bring back the state of the desktop from some previously user-defined time.
Hibernate is really just a power-saving feature - it doesn't allow you to stash selected states away for use at a later time.
Why should Comcast get to decide what I am allowed to use my internet connection for? If I pay them for a connection, it doesn't matter if Netflix is 1% or 100% of that traffic - I pay them for a connection that I will use for whatever I want.
You think that movie-like exoskeletons make perfect sense for practical purposes, are physically doable and only a bit far away technologically speaking.
An exoskeleton like the one in Elysium, for instance, is a fairly direct descendant of military hardware that is being tested today, and the usefulness of any technology that allows a soldier to carry more armament for farther distances while retaining complete mobility seems pretty obvious. Do you think there are fundamental technological or physical hurdles that will make this unworkable? Lots of researchers and companies currently doing development in the field would disagree with you. That doesn't mean that we are ever going to see iron man suits, but I think it is pretty inevitable that we will see some kind of power-assisted exoskeletons being put to use, maybe not ubiquitously, but at least in military, industrial, and medical applications where it makes sense.
If you aren't looking to have your opinions challenged, then of course there's no point to continue the discussion, but it still seems to me that you are claiming that exoskeleton technology is impossible/pointless, without any real basis in science or engineering to support your claims.
But what is the point of having a person inside it if he cannot directly perform the moves? Wouldn't be much better to have a remotely-controlled machine?
What's the point of having a person inside an excavator? While machines are powerful, AI is primitive and control is hard. A human is good at making decisions, but is relatively puny, so giving a human an intuitive interface and powerful hardware allows the human to be more productive. The human's natural ability to balance, not get its limbs tangled up, and do all sorts of things that are hard for robots would come in very handy. It really is just the equivalent of construction machinery but with more flexibility and a more direct control interface for the human. And of course, these systems are still primitive, but they've already got a lot of promise for disabled people, soldiers, and construction workers. The main challenge is energy density.
Exerting certain level of force and lifting certain things from certain positions by involving only certain mass is either practically or completely impossible. I didn't mean to just keep the balance, what is already a quite difficult task, but to be in a position to generate certain amount of force while being standing, jumping, moving, etc.
I think you're talking about inverse kinematics calculations. Humans do all these calculations intuitively, and continually. Accomplishing any of the tasks you are talking about is just a matter of calculating the forces and masses involved and fitting a geometry to achieve balance. The calculations aren't simple, but they are clearly solvable because every animal of even moderate complexity is able to do them almost from birth. Standing, jumping, and moving with a 10lb weight and 100lb weight are achievable by an unassisted, healthy human. Doing so with a 1 ton weight is fundamentally no different, as long as the chassis in question has the structural strength and powerful motors to achieve it.
I don't think so. Again, my comment was mostly focused on their suitability to exert certain force under conditions which make such an event almost impossible. The underlying idea to most of these fantasies is assuming behaviours similar to human/animal muscles by extending the boundaries beyond what is physically possible. Creating a tentacle moving like Dr. Octopus's and being able to lift heavy weights isn't just extremely difficult from a technical point of view, but also almost impossible according to physics.
Physical fact: Force is inversely proportional to the length of a lever arm
Not a physical fact: Long arms can't lift heavy objects
See the difference? Yes, a long, flexible arm will be RELATIVELY less powerful than a short, solid arm. However, unless you know the strength of the materials and the motors involved, you know nothing at all about what can be lifted by a long, flexible arm. All we can say, based on physics, is that the arm in question could lift much more while extended to 1 meter than when extended to 5 meters. But it still might be able to lift 1 ton when extended to 5 meters.