The reason a particular band or singer or tv show gets a chance at stardom, or gets some exposure, has more to do with other things than just talent. For every Spice Girls or Madonna or "Friends", there are 100 people or bands or writers just as talented, who tried for success, but never made, because they did not have the connections, the luck, the good looks, or some other quality, other than talent.
The entertainment industry, thus, manufactures success by choosing one of these hundreds of wannabes, and promoting them, giving them a chance. But many of the rest were just as good.
People will watch or listen to whatever is put in front of them by the TV and music industry, at least to some degree.
Maybe what you are trying to say, which is what many people say, is that the entertainment industry acts as a filter, sampling and discarding hundreds of wannabes, and finding dozens of good ones, and selecting a few of those talented dozens and promoting them.
Point taken. However, that filtering action is no longer needed. Now, we can rely on each other as filters. Music and TV video reviews sites on the web can let us tap into the opinions of thousands of other people, which can be tahbulated and presented to us. Just like here on slashdot.....
Yep. Governments everywhere have always tried to use fear to control the citizenry and to keep them from prying into govt affairs, the better to rip us off. I say make the American govt completely transparent. Cameras everywhere, publically accessible via the web, with audio.
Oh, but the Rightwingers will whine about military secrets being exposed, etc. Kiss my ass! They are just using that for cover. They have been doing it for decades, carrying water for the rich and powerful and the big corporations, supporting dictators overseas in order to keep the 3rd world peasantry from having Leftist governments. Starting wars to feed the profit margins of the military industrial complex and other parasite megacorporations.
Bring on the mini cameras and shove up their asses. I wanna see EVERYTHING!
Seeing the canadians and Brits come on these internet forums and absolutely SHRED the Dittohead rightwinger bots and astroturfers with these personal testimonials is just FANTASTIC!
Please keep it up and do so at every opportunity. You are undoubtedly saving many American lives when you do so because your online testimonials are archived and can be read over and over again by curious and interested Americans. And online is the ONLY PLACE we Americans can really find out what is going on with the healthcare systems in other countries. Thanks to your contributions I am sure that eventually America will have universal healthcare.
What is happening here in America is that we are being extorted for healthcare...
All those countries have govt healthcare...and tehy LOVE IT! Polls show that over NINETY PERCENT of Canadians prefer their GOVERNMENT-run healthcare to the American healthcare.
I am sure you can go over to Rush Limbaugh's website and cut and paste some spin from his website as a rebuttal to my post, but those who are reading this and who have not yet made up their minds on this issue, please think about it. Canadians speak English; they get American TV channels there; they are WELL AWARE of our system. But they would NOT prefer ours to theirs....
THe costs of healthcare are being driven up by doctors and CEOs making millions, too. Better than some poor people get a little money via the lawyers, rather than the rich people getting it all.
I think that is a great idea. I am in the process of writing a script for a politically oriented science fiction movie. One aspect of the movie is a future society where political representatives are randomly selected from a large pool of qualified citizens.
You tell me that some of these news stories aren't bought and paid for? And these news stories are driving our politics and our society in general, so that is much more important than what songs are playing.
The responses on this thread just illustrate perfectly the degree of brainwashing of most Americans. The corporate regime has been able to get Americans to go along with the idea that everyone should spend their lives working hard just like little hamsters on their wheels, little rats running their mazes.
Americans should see America as a business, but one where THEY are the owners, and not the worker drones. Do you see business owners worrying about how "productive" they are, about how many words per minute THEY type? Instead of worrying about helping the corporate plantation squeeze as much work as possible out of ourselves, we should be thinking about how America can be organized so that we have as little work to do as possible.
You wrote: I've always wondered how Republicans could possibly justify their insanse political views. The only reasonable conclusion is that they are mentally ill, you know retarded like.
No, not true. I used to be a Republican. Voted for Reagan in 84, Bush Sr in 88. But over the last few years, I became a Leftist. I now see that the Democratic party is quite conservative, at least compared to most parties in other Western nations.
What Republicans are is ignorant and brainwashed. We are all brainwashed to a certain degree. Or you could substiture the word "socialized" if you prefer. One thing that leads to Republicanism is that these people were first introduced to Leftist ideas via operatives of the Right. The reach of the Right is FAR more powerful and pervasive than that of the Left. They have FAR more money. Indeed, the Right is the machine of Big Money.
And the Right characterizes the ideas of the Left not as Rightwingers, or even as partisan actors, but instead the operatives of the Right portray themselves as neutral. And most Republicans accept these operatives as neutral.
Once you internalize the Right's characterization of the Left, they likely will never really get a clear understanding of the Left's thesis.
THe Rightwing propaganda machine is decades old. It really goes back to around just after the turn of the century, but they REALLY got going about 30 years ago. What happened then was the atomization of much of America, and the disappearance of old channels of political information. Many Americans became politically isolated.
The TV and radio became by far the most powerful avenues of political thought dissemination. This gave the opening that Big Money needed to brainwash/propagandize/socialize/convince/persuade (take the word of your choice) most Americans. And of course Big Media is controlled and managed by Big Money.
As a result, we have a huge chunk of American that is politically ignorant.
Well, there is more to this story, including religion, educational-cultural class warfare, and other aspects, and filters, and social vs economic liberalism, etc., but time's winged chariot draws nigh, or whatever....
and still no cure for the idiocy that afflicts American minds so they we let the military industrial complex and the religious nuts control what we do with our tax dollars.
Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world, leave them in peace, and instead concentrate on curing diseases that kill thousands.
3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...
Everytime any sort of comparison comes up with respect to America versus Europe, all I hear from ordinary Americans or the political right is that European countries are on their asses and that America is the greatest country in the world, yadda yadda. I mean, after all, considering how "socialist" Europe is (at least according to the Right and most ordinary Americans), we are of course beating the pants off them at science, commerce, and of course economically.
Of course from time to time cruel reality intrudes upon that collective delusion. Like right now....
Re:Now if hackers could just learn to hack the gov
on
Good Bad Attitude
·
· Score: 1
You say you are an longterm unemployed IT person, But are you in danger of having to become homeless soon? Please tell us how your government is helping you through this crisis....
Not only were many of MY professors' notes plagiarized, but I found that the best sets of notes for any particular CS core class (OS, Prog langs, automata, etc) had been plagiarized multiple times by many professors all over America, Canada, etc.
That is a PERFECT example of the "turtles all the way down" thinking that is endemic in the Hacker-Youth-Libertarian-free trader-globalization mindset. Haven't you considered the idea that "being the House" is something that -- BY DEFINITION -- can happen only to a few??
I mean, where is your logic to tell N number of people, "Everything will be great for you! Just make sure you are one of the lucky top 10%!"? What about the other 90%?
If you want to know how to beat the house, look at what is happening in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, France, etc. The way to beat the house is to decrease the amount of leverage the powerful (the rich, the business owners, the corporations, etc) have over the populace.
You advocate raw Nature, red of tooth and claw. But why live as an animal?
You almost made some sense, there!
on
Good Bad Attitude
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You finally said something that had an inkling of truth to it!
you wrote:
You completely neglected to mention the FACT that the wealthy use government to deter competition and maintain their control.
I COMPLETELY AGREE! At least that is the case here in America. And that tactic has a LOOOONNNGGG history!
Now go over to Sweden, Finland, Norway, or Denmark (or study them over the Net), and tell me if you think that also applies to the same degee with those countries...
Limited government and free markets undermine that entire system.
No, it leaves a vacuum of power that only ONE group can fill--the Rich and Powerful. Nice going! (please see Russia for an example).
(And seriously... if you're going to say that we should use tools to get back at the wealthy, why stop at government? Why not expand into physical coercion with guns, like government seems to?)
Please read Howard Zinn's _A People's History of the United States_!
Re:Now if hackers could just learn to hack the gov
on
Good Bad Attitude
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Umm... no. Hackers or IT people or programmers or engineers are NOT members of the Elite. Maybe 5% of them are. Again, this is just another aspect of the shell game casino that has become America: work your ass off for most of your short life and maybe you will get a 1 in 10 shot at becoming a member of the elite.
Man, The House ALWAYS wins.....
Now if hackers could just learn to hack the gov't
on
Good Bad Attitude
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Too bad that so many hackers understand well all about how to use tools (e.g., computers), but do not understand how to use the government as a tool for themselves and other ordinary people just like themselves. Instead, many hackers reject government totally. That attitude is akin to Luddism. Government is a tool that can be hacked to work for you, just as a computer can be hacked to work for you.
One problem is that young people seem to think that the wealth and the power is on THEIR side. They seem not to see that the the upper 10% of America owns most of the wealth.
To reiterate, I am saying that the elite operate as a parasitic sub-society by trading influence. I say that the rest of us are being exploited that way. I really do not care whether the elite got there by dint of birth, or talent, or pure accident.
I am saying that what is happening is bad. Once people are elevated into the elite, they use that position to further strengthen their power. This is old animal way, of the evolutionary animal societies. I say let's move beyond animal society. Reject hierarhical power.
You in turn take one of the mechanisms through which this elite parasitic subsociety operates (networking) and you elevate to some special status. Who gives a f*ck? Why should this elite parasitic subsociety be accepted simply because you say "Networking is a good thing". You wave that phrase like some magic wand. YOu use the rhetorical ploy of saying that something inevitable. Nonsense!
Again, you have used circular logic. You assume your conclusion.
No offense meant, of course. I am not attacking you personally. Really, I mean that.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason a particular band or singer or tv show gets a chance at stardom, or gets some exposure, has more to do with other things than just talent. For every Spice Girls or Madonna or "Friends", there are 100 people or bands or writers just as talented, who tried for success, but never made, because they did not have the connections, the luck, the good looks, or some other quality, other than talent.
The entertainment industry, thus, manufactures success by choosing one of these hundreds of wannabes, and promoting them, giving them a chance. But many of the rest were just as good.
People will watch or listen to whatever is put in front of them by the TV and music industry, at least to some degree.
Maybe what you are trying to say, which is what many people say, is that the entertainment industry acts as a filter, sampling and discarding hundreds of wannabes, and finding dozens of good ones, and selecting a few of those talented dozens and promoting them.
Point taken. However, that filtering action is no longer needed. Now, we can rely on each other as filters. Music and TV video reviews sites on the web can let us tap into the opinions of thousands of other people, which can be tahbulated and presented to us. Just like here on slashdot.....
And pretty soon the Republican brand of freedom will no doubt be on the march all over the world.
GOP uber alles!
Yep. Governments everywhere have always tried to use fear to control the citizenry and to keep them from prying into govt affairs, the better to rip us off. I say make the American govt completely transparent. Cameras everywhere, publically accessible via the web, with audio.
Oh, but the Rightwingers will whine about military secrets being exposed, etc. Kiss my ass! They are just using that for cover. They have been doing it for decades, carrying water for the rich and powerful and the big corporations, supporting dictators overseas in order to keep the 3rd world peasantry from having Leftist governments. Starting wars to feed the profit margins of the military industrial complex and other parasite megacorporations.
Bring on the mini cameras and shove up their asses. I wanna see EVERYTHING!
Seeing the canadians and Brits come on these internet forums and absolutely SHRED the Dittohead rightwinger bots and astroturfers with these personal testimonials is just FANTASTIC!
Please keep it up and do so at every opportunity. You are undoubtedly saving many American lives when you do so because your online testimonials are archived and can be read over and over again by curious and interested Americans. And online is the ONLY PLACE we Americans can really find out what is going on with the healthcare systems in other countries. Thanks to your contributions I am sure that eventually America will have universal healthcare.
What is happening here in America is that we are being extorted for healthcare...
All those countries have govt healthcare...and tehy LOVE IT! Polls show that over NINETY PERCENT of Canadians prefer their GOVERNMENT-run healthcare to the American healthcare.
I am sure you can go over to Rush Limbaugh's website and cut and paste some spin from his website as a rebuttal to my post, but those who are reading this and who have not yet made up their minds on this issue, please think about it. Canadians speak English; they get American TV channels there; they are WELL AWARE of our system. But they would NOT prefer ours to theirs....
THe costs of healthcare are being driven up by doctors and CEOs making millions, too. Better than some poor people get a little money via the lawyers, rather than the rich people getting it all.
I think that is a great idea. I am in the process of writing a script for a politically oriented science fiction movie. One aspect of the movie is a future society where political representatives are randomly selected from a large pool of qualified citizens.
You tell me that some of these news stories aren't bought and paid for? And these news stories are driving our politics and our society in general, so that is much more important than what songs are playing.
The responses on this thread just illustrate perfectly the degree of brainwashing of most Americans. The corporate regime has been able to get Americans to go along with the idea that everyone should spend their lives working hard just like little hamsters on their wheels, little rats running their mazes.
Americans should see America as a business, but one where THEY are the owners, and not the worker drones. Do you see business owners worrying about how "productive" they are, about how many words per minute THEY type? Instead of worrying about helping the corporate plantation squeeze as much work as possible out of ourselves, we should be thinking about how America can be organized so that we have as little work to do as possible.
Life is finite, people....
Well, I know it, well I know it. But these topic is about how America spends its money on war, instead of medical.
You wrote: I've always wondered how Republicans could possibly justify their insanse political views. The only reasonable conclusion is that they are mentally ill, you know retarded like.
e (take the word of your choice) most Americans. And of course Big Media is controlled and managed by Big Money.
No, not true. I used to be a Republican. Voted for Reagan in 84, Bush Sr in 88. But over the last few years, I became a Leftist. I now see that the Democratic party is quite conservative, at least compared to most parties in other Western nations.
What Republicans are is ignorant and brainwashed. We are all brainwashed to a certain degree. Or you could substiture the word "socialized" if you prefer. One thing that leads to Republicanism is that these people were first introduced to Leftist ideas via operatives of the Right. The reach of the Right is FAR more powerful and pervasive than that of the Left. They have FAR more money. Indeed, the Right is the machine of Big Money.
And the Right characterizes the ideas of the Left not as Rightwingers, or even as partisan actors, but instead the operatives of the Right portray themselves as neutral. And most Republicans accept these operatives as neutral.
Once you internalize the Right's characterization of the Left, they likely will never really get a clear understanding of the Left's thesis.
THe Rightwing propaganda machine is decades old. It really goes back to around just after the turn of the century, but they REALLY got going about 30 years ago. What happened then was the atomization of much of America, and the disappearance of old channels of political information. Many Americans became politically isolated.
The TV and radio became by far the most powerful avenues of political thought dissemination. This gave the opening that Big Money needed to brainwash/propagandize/socialize/convince/persuad
As a result, we have a huge chunk of American that is politically ignorant.
Well, there is more to this story, including religion, educational-cultural class warfare, and other aspects, and filters, and social vs economic liberalism, etc., but time's winged chariot draws nigh, or whatever....
SBC is still stonewalling on allowing Naked DSL. And our gov't lets them get away with it. Why?
and still no cure for the idiocy that afflicts American minds so they we let the military industrial complex and the religious nuts control what we do with our tax dollars.
Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world, leave them in peace, and instead concentrate on curing diseases that kill thousands.
3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...
Lunacy....
Everytime any sort of comparison comes up with respect to America versus Europe, all I hear from ordinary Americans or the political right is that European countries are on their asses and that America is the greatest country in the world, yadda yadda. I mean, after all, considering how "socialist" Europe is (at least according to the Right and most ordinary Americans), we are of course beating the pants off them at science, commerce, and of course economically.
Of course from time to time cruel reality intrudes upon that collective delusion. Like right now....
where did I advocate communism?
You say you are an longterm unemployed IT person, But are you in danger of having to become homeless soon? Please tell us how your government is helping you through this crisis....
Not only were many of MY professors' notes plagiarized, but I found that the best sets of notes for any particular CS core class (OS, Prog langs, automata, etc) had been plagiarized multiple times by many professors all over America, Canada, etc.
I found that if you googled most of the CS lecture notes, most of them were plagiarized from some other school....
That is a PERFECT example of the "turtles all the way down" thinking that is endemic in the Hacker-Youth-Libertarian-free trader-globalization mindset. Haven't you considered the idea that "being the House" is something that -- BY DEFINITION -- can happen only to a few??
I mean, where is your logic to tell N number of people, "Everything will be great for you! Just make sure you are one of the lucky top 10%!"? What about the other 90%?
If you want to know how to beat the house, look at what is happening in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, France, etc. The way to beat the house is to decrease the amount of leverage the powerful (the rich, the business owners, the corporations, etc) have over the populace.
You advocate raw Nature, red of tooth and claw. But why live as an animal?
You finally said something that had an inkling of truth to it!
you wrote:
You completely neglected to mention the FACT that the wealthy use government to deter competition and maintain their control.
I COMPLETELY AGREE! At least that is the case here in America. And that tactic has a LOOOONNNGGG history!
Now go over to Sweden, Finland, Norway, or Denmark (or study them over the Net), and tell me if you think that also applies to the same degee with those countries...
Limited government and free markets undermine that entire system.
No, it leaves a vacuum of power that only ONE group can fill--the Rich and Powerful. Nice going! (please see Russia for an example).
(And seriously... if you're going to say that we should use tools to get back at the wealthy, why stop at government? Why not expand into physical coercion with guns, like government seems to?)
Please read Howard Zinn's _A People's History of the United States_!
Umm... no. Hackers or IT people or programmers or engineers are NOT members of the Elite. Maybe 5% of them are. Again, this is just another aspect of the shell game casino that has become America: work your ass off for most of your short life and maybe you will get a 1 in 10 shot at becoming a member of the elite.
Man, The House ALWAYS wins.....
Too bad that so many hackers understand well all about how to use tools (e.g., computers), but do not understand how to use the government as a tool for themselves and other ordinary people just like themselves. Instead, many hackers reject government totally. That attitude is akin to Luddism. Government is a tool that can be hacked to work for you, just as a computer can be hacked to work for you.
One problem is that young people seem to think that the wealth and the power is on THEIR side. They seem not to see that the the upper 10% of America owns most of the wealth.
I have absolutely NOTHING against ordinary people doing whatever they have to in order to survive! How on EARTH could one think otherwise?
But perhaps the rich and the powerful should have to operate under special constraints? Just an idea!
You seem filled with hate and rage. That is what you get when you listen to Rush Limbaugh all day. Poor baby....
To reiterate, I am saying that the elite operate as a parasitic sub-society by trading influence. I say that the rest of us are being exploited that way. I really do not care whether the elite got there by dint of birth, or talent, or pure accident.
I am saying that what is happening is bad. Once people are elevated into the elite, they use that position to further strengthen their power. This is old animal way, of the evolutionary animal societies. I say let's move beyond animal society. Reject hierarhical power.
You in turn take one of the mechanisms through which this elite parasitic subsociety operates (networking) and you elevate to some special status. Who gives a f*ck? Why should this elite parasitic subsociety be accepted simply because you say "Networking is a good thing". You wave that phrase like some magic wand. YOu use the rhetorical ploy of saying that something inevitable. Nonsense!
Again, you have used circular logic. You assume your conclusion.
No offense meant, of course. I am not attacking you personally. Really, I mean that.