If you're talking about something nonessential like music, definitely. You have the option of not buying the latest album a band releases if you think it costs too much. If you're talking about essential medicine, however, you're giving people the option of "overpaying or dying." that's not a very good option to call "fair."
I just got a medical sticker shock yesterday. I have some hearing loss due to tinnitus and a constant (and very annoying) ringing in my right ear. The audiologist told me that a hearing aid might help me. There was a 60% chance of it working, but the ringing is so bad that I'm willing to do just about anything. Then, she began to explain how the insurance companies buy the hearing aids in bulk to reduce the price. This should have been my cue that sticker shock was approaching. $1,100. For the base model. A better model would cost me $1,500. She began to tout how it would play white/pink noise and/or nature sounds to help my brain stop focusing on the ringing. I responded that I have a free app on my phone that does that already. Why couldn't I use that and a set of Bluetooth earbuds? She said that should work and would be much cheaper.
After doing some more research, I found that some manufacturers are working on "smart earbuds" that essentially replicate the functions of hearing aids for a fraction of the price. Honestly, given how prevalent earbuds are, I don't see why someone can't just modify an earbud to replicate hearing aids at a fraction of the price.
Breaking DRM is technically a crime but it's something that is hard to impossible to prosecute. Suppose you buy a dozen DVDs and rip them, but keep the rips only for your own personal use. You're technically breaking the law, but there's no way for the authorities to know and thus no chance you'll be prosecuted. If, however, you grab clips from these ripped films and include those clips in your own movie, you now have provided proof of your ripping activities. If you offer your film for sale and there's a ripped clip in your movie, you can be charged with a crime. There really is no purpose to this law beyond "the MPAA doesn't like that their precious DRM system was hacked quickly."
I wouldn't call them Nazis because they aren't a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
Semantics wouldn't save me or my family if these people got into power and rounded us up because we're Jewish*. It wouldn't be any comfort to me to say "Sure these people stand for everything the Nazis stood for but since they haven't joined any 'National Socialist German Workers' Party' they aren't technically Nazis." These groups worship Nazis and want to pick up where Hitler left off. I've met one in person and he told me, to my face knowing that I was Jewish, that the only thing Hitler did wrong was not finishing the Jewish people off. These people are Nazis.
* And don't say they wouldn't do that. It might not happen right away, but these people would love to do this if they got enough political power. As for the "it wouldn't happen in America" argument that some trot out, I'd respond with exhibit A: The Japanese Internment Camps during WW2.
Many of the "white nationalists" who marched in Charlotte were wearing swastikas, carrying Nazi flags, and shouting anti-Jewish sayings. The other white nationalists there didn't seem to mind the presence of these folks. As a friendly tip: If you are waving a Nazi flag and shouting anti-Jewish sayings while protesting, chances are you're a Nazi. If the people you're protesting with are carrying a Nazi flag and you don't see anything wrong with that, chances are you're a Nazi.
1) The Deists and others who came to America were fleeing persecution back home in England. They wanted to ensure that the government they were forming wouldn't start persecuting them again for being the "wrong" religion.
2) The government WAS the church in England. The King was the head of the church and could make religious declarations. If the King decided that every Tuesday, people should walk around with a chicken on their head, that would be a religious edict and anyone not following it could be punished. The founders not only didn't want religion to dictate government policy, but they wanted to keep government from dictating religious practice. I challenge anyone who is religious to look at Congress now (I won't even include the President) and honestly say they would want those people deciding how they practice their religion.
I used to volunteer to work on Christmas Day. I don't celebrate the holiday and I can get a lot of work done without people calling/e-mailing with little tasks that take "only two minutes." Sadly, my company decided to stop allowing this a few years ago so now I'm required to take the day off.
Many of the same people who go on and on about the "War On Christmas" (there was never one) and getting everyone to say "Merry Christmas" again (you were never banned from saying it) are also the same people who insist on "putting the Christ back in Christmas." They want to return Christmas to its religious roots instead of it being a commercial holiday whose sole purpose seems to be to generate sales at retail shops and toy stores. Now, I can't say I blame these people for wanting to cut back on the commercialism and restore the religious meaning to their holiday, but that puts it at odds with using "Merry Christmas" as a general greeting. If I were to wish you "Happy Chanukah", would you take it as a general greeting or would you feel like I was implying that you celebrated Chanukah?
That response is still better than my "Merry Christmas" story. We were in a local Wal-Mart doing some shopping before the holiday season. We got in the elevator with another couple. (Yes, this Wal-Mart has an elevator... they converted an old Sam's Club downstairs/Wal-Mart upstairs into a 2 story Wal-Mart.) The couple asked my boys if they were excited for Christmas. My oldest son informed her that we are Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas. She then starts a pitch about how we can worship Jesus and still remain Jewish (no you can't). I politely declined, but she went on about how we should really accept Jesus, etc. etc. etc. When the elevator doors opened, we quickly went away from them. If I'm ever going to change my religious beliefs, it's not going to be in a Wal-Mart elevator, that's for sure!
Prosecutor: We have this grainy video of the defendant committing the crime. Either the defendant or someone who looks completely different than him. It's hard to tell.
The same with those ghost hunter shows. "Let's go into this old, dark house with some video cameras. Did you hear that creak? Did you feel that draft of wind? IT MUST BE A GHOST! GHOOOOOOOST!!!!!"
I would love for things like ghosts, Bigfoot, Nessie, psychic powers, and aliens visiting Earth to be real. Mostly because, with science saying they don't exist, we would need to do some serious science to explain why they do exist. However, the more high quality cameras everyone carries around, the fewer sightings we seem to get. (Or the more they seem to happen "just when my cell phone's battery died" or "when I forgot my phone at home.")
1) He meant that these objects were Unidentified Flying Objects until they were identified. For example, I saw a UFO once. It had the stereotypical alien ship saucer shape. Then, I realized it was a plane taking off. The tail was hidden from my viewpoint, the wings made the saucer, and the front made the top. Once I realized what it was, it went from a UFO to an IFO (Identified Flying Object). No aliens, just a normal everyday occurrence, albeit from a weird angle that made me question what I was seeing for a second.
2) He needs for UFOs to be real because, without them, his department gets no funding. Imagine if the guy in charge of researching UFOs proves conclusively that there are no UFOs? Mystery solved. Close the department. Last one out turn off the lights. Who knows if we'll have jobs the next day. However, if he proves that UFOs ARE real, he can parlay that small department into a larger staff with more funding to look into them. Are they threats? Where do they come from? Is there technology we can take advantage of? It turns from "mission accomplished, now close shop" to "let's' pour money into here to find out more."
Let's not forget that the Bush Administration was manufacturing the lies in the first place. They wanted the war in the first place.
The origins of the Iraq War actually date back to at least the first Bush administration and Kuwait. After Iraq invaded Kuwait and we helped liberate it, many in Bush's administration called on him to keep pushing on into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. Bush Sr rightly saw that this would lead to a quagmire and refused to do so. Many of those warmongers found places in Bush Jr's administration and pushed for the Iraq War again after 9-11. This time, unfortunately, the Bush in office wasn't smart enough to see through the lies and approved the Iraq War. Had he been as good as his father, he would have rejected these calls, would have concentrated on Afghanistan and Al Qaeda/the Taliban, and might have ended the conflict much sooner.
As with everything in life, there are probably multiple reasons. Included in there is likely people doing worse off (or perceiving that they are worse off) and laying blame with a group of "others" just as they've done for thousands of years.
Just as they were in the United States in the past when "those Jews/Irish/Chinese" were "flooding" in and going to destroy our country if we didn't keep them out. Our country was fine - and arguably better for absorbing new groups of people - and this "wave" of immigrants (in quotes because immigration is actually down) won't destroy our country either. However, racist xenophobes in the US might destroy our country in their efforts to protect us from those scary immigrants.
Not to mention that lack of rain/crops can lead to increased poverty which can lead to increased violence. People might be fleeing from the violence, but the root cause might be crop loss due to global warming.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think it'd be any different than the Middle East. I was just pointing out that the people who want a theocracy in the US assume that they would be in charge and thus somehow immune to any bad stuff that happens thanks to a theocracy. This is (one reason) why you can't rationally discuss this with them. They assume there will be no downside because they are in charge and wouldn't do anything to hurt themselves. Therefore, any downside is "someone else's" problem, not theirs.
Of course the reality is that, were a theocracy instituted in the US, the "ruling religion" might be a slightly different sect of Christianity and they'd wind up on the receiving end of religious-based persecution. However, these kinds of people aren't very big on recognizing reality.
If you want to live in a theocracy, go to fucking Iran. And take a good look at the whole area to get an idea what it leads to if you base your laws on the power fantasies written down by bigoted barbarians millennia ago when it was a-ok to just bash someone's head in because he has the wrong imaginary friend.
The problem is that the people who would want to turn us into a theocracy always assume that THEY would be the ones determining which religion is in charge and THEY would be the ones bashing in someone else's head for following the wrong religion (or no religion). They never think that they might be on the other end of that head bashing.
Oh, there were definitely actions Obama took that I disagreed with. Wheeler's appointment was one of them initially. I plenty surprised when he turned out to be a consumer advocate and not an industry shill. Sadly, Ajit Pai turned out to be the industry shill that he appeared to be from the outset.
And that's why seeing it as anything but an offer is just stupid. Transit isn't cheap, but what Netflix offers is even cheaper. Comcast's customers pay Comcast for access to that data. You'd think Comcast would choose the cheapest way to provide that access.
Comcast would, but their ultimate goal wasn't "provide great service for their customers." It was "how can we kill this Internet Video thing before it cuts into our cable TV profits too much?"
Right now, yes, but how long until we develop the technology to mine asteroids? One bonus: You wouldn't need to worry about environmental regulations. If you dump a bunch of asteroid mining byproducts into space, nobody will really care the same way they care when you dump Earth-mining byproducts into someone's drinking water.
And when they change enough that we have a dozen or more ISPs for each household, perhaps we won't need Net Neutrality regulations. Until then, though, mobile broadband isn't ready to take on home usage. My household uses about 500GB of data per month (mostly for streaming videos from Netflix/Hulu/YouTube). Verizon's Unlimited plan reduces speeds if you go above 22GB. Their non-unlimited data plans max out at 100GB which, IIRC was around $700 a month. Having an option that would give me 20% of the data I need for over 10 times the cost is not real competition.
My only real ISP option is Charter. If they messed around with my access to various sites, I'd be forced to either keep paying them or go without Internet. I have no real ISP choice.
Since homeopathy supposedly works by "the lower the dose, the stronger the medicine", then by taking zero dosage*, you're basically taking infinitely strong homeopathic medicine. It's amazing you haven't had a homeopathic OD by now!
* Yes, I realize that there's' no real dosage of anything actual drug in homeopathic "medicine."
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If you're talking about something nonessential like music, definitely. You have the option of not buying the latest album a band releases if you think it costs too much. If you're talking about essential medicine, however, you're giving people the option of "overpaying or dying." that's not a very good option to call "fair."
I just got a medical sticker shock yesterday. I have some hearing loss due to tinnitus and a constant (and very annoying) ringing in my right ear. The audiologist told me that a hearing aid might help me. There was a 60% chance of it working, but the ringing is so bad that I'm willing to do just about anything. Then, she began to explain how the insurance companies buy the hearing aids in bulk to reduce the price. This should have been my cue that sticker shock was approaching. $1,100. For the base model. A better model would cost me $1,500. She began to tout how it would play white/pink noise and/or nature sounds to help my brain stop focusing on the ringing. I responded that I have a free app on my phone that does that already. Why couldn't I use that and a set of Bluetooth earbuds? She said that should work and would be much cheaper.
After doing some more research, I found that some manufacturers are working on "smart earbuds" that essentially replicate the functions of hearing aids for a fraction of the price. Honestly, given how prevalent earbuds are, I don't see why someone can't just modify an earbud to replicate hearing aids at a fraction of the price.
Breaking DRM is technically a crime but it's something that is hard to impossible to prosecute. Suppose you buy a dozen DVDs and rip them, but keep the rips only for your own personal use. You're technically breaking the law, but there's no way for the authorities to know and thus no chance you'll be prosecuted. If, however, you grab clips from these ripped films and include those clips in your own movie, you now have provided proof of your ripping activities. If you offer your film for sale and there's a ripped clip in your movie, you can be charged with a crime. There really is no purpose to this law beyond "the MPAA doesn't like that their precious DRM system was hacked quickly."
Semantics wouldn't save me or my family if these people got into power and rounded us up because we're Jewish*. It wouldn't be any comfort to me to say "Sure these people stand for everything the Nazis stood for but since they haven't joined any 'National Socialist German Workers' Party' they aren't technically Nazis." These groups worship Nazis and want to pick up where Hitler left off. I've met one in person and he told me, to my face knowing that I was Jewish, that the only thing Hitler did wrong was not finishing the Jewish people off. These people are Nazis.
* And don't say they wouldn't do that. It might not happen right away, but these people would love to do this if they got enough political power. As for the "it wouldn't happen in America" argument that some trot out, I'd respond with exhibit A: The Japanese Internment Camps during WW2.
Many of the "white nationalists" who marched in Charlotte were wearing swastikas, carrying Nazi flags, and shouting anti-Jewish sayings. The other white nationalists there didn't seem to mind the presence of these folks. As a friendly tip: If you are waving a Nazi flag and shouting anti-Jewish sayings while protesting, chances are you're a Nazi. If the people you're protesting with are carrying a Nazi flag and you don't see anything wrong with that, chances are you're a Nazi.
And the reasons for all of these were because:
1) The Deists and others who came to America were fleeing persecution back home in England. They wanted to ensure that the government they were forming wouldn't start persecuting them again for being the "wrong" religion.
2) The government WAS the church in England. The King was the head of the church and could make religious declarations. If the King decided that every Tuesday, people should walk around with a chicken on their head, that would be a religious edict and anyone not following it could be punished. The founders not only didn't want religion to dictate government policy, but they wanted to keep government from dictating religious practice. I challenge anyone who is religious to look at Congress now (I won't even include the President) and honestly say they would want those people deciding how they practice their religion.
Today I learned that every call to my parents starts Festivus!
I used to volunteer to work on Christmas Day. I don't celebrate the holiday and I can get a lot of work done without people calling/e-mailing with little tasks that take "only two minutes." Sadly, my company decided to stop allowing this a few years ago so now I'm required to take the day off.
Many of the same people who go on and on about the "War On Christmas" (there was never one) and getting everyone to say "Merry Christmas" again (you were never banned from saying it) are also the same people who insist on "putting the Christ back in Christmas." They want to return Christmas to its religious roots instead of it being a commercial holiday whose sole purpose seems to be to generate sales at retail shops and toy stores. Now, I can't say I blame these people for wanting to cut back on the commercialism and restore the religious meaning to their holiday, but that puts it at odds with using "Merry Christmas" as a general greeting. If I were to wish you "Happy Chanukah", would you take it as a general greeting or would you feel like I was implying that you celebrated Chanukah?
That response is still better than my "Merry Christmas" story. We were in a local Wal-Mart doing some shopping before the holiday season. We got in the elevator with another couple. (Yes, this Wal-Mart has an elevator... they converted an old Sam's Club downstairs/Wal-Mart upstairs into a 2 story Wal-Mart.) The couple asked my boys if they were excited for Christmas. My oldest son informed her that we are Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas. She then starts a pitch about how we can worship Jesus and still remain Jewish (no you can't). I politely declined, but she went on about how we should really accept Jesus, etc. etc. etc. When the elevator doors opened, we quickly went away from them. If I'm ever going to change my religious beliefs, it's not going to be in a Wal-Mart elevator, that's for sure!
Prosecutor: We have this grainy video of the defendant committing the crime. Either the defendant or someone who looks completely different than him. It's hard to tell.
Jury: GUILTY!
The same with those ghost hunter shows. "Let's go into this old, dark house with some video cameras. Did you hear that creak? Did you feel that draft of wind? IT MUST BE A GHOST! GHOOOOOOOST!!!!!"
I would love for things like ghosts, Bigfoot, Nessie, psychic powers, and aliens visiting Earth to be real. Mostly because, with science saying they don't exist, we would need to do some serious science to explain why they do exist. However, the more high quality cameras everyone carries around, the fewer sightings we seem to get. (Or the more they seem to happen "just when my cell phone's battery died" or "when I forgot my phone at home.")
I have two theories:
1) He meant that these objects were Unidentified Flying Objects until they were identified. For example, I saw a UFO once. It had the stereotypical alien ship saucer shape. Then, I realized it was a plane taking off. The tail was hidden from my viewpoint, the wings made the saucer, and the front made the top. Once I realized what it was, it went from a UFO to an IFO (Identified Flying Object). No aliens, just a normal everyday occurrence, albeit from a weird angle that made me question what I was seeing for a second.
2) He needs for UFOs to be real because, without them, his department gets no funding. Imagine if the guy in charge of researching UFOs proves conclusively that there are no UFOs? Mystery solved. Close the department. Last one out turn off the lights. Who knows if we'll have jobs the next day. However, if he proves that UFOs ARE real, he can parlay that small department into a larger staff with more funding to look into them. Are they threats? Where do they come from? Is there technology we can take advantage of? It turns from "mission accomplished, now close shop" to "let's' pour money into here to find out more."
The origins of the Iraq War actually date back to at least the first Bush administration and Kuwait. After Iraq invaded Kuwait and we helped liberate it, many in Bush's administration called on him to keep pushing on into Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. Bush Sr rightly saw that this would lead to a quagmire and refused to do so. Many of those warmongers found places in Bush Jr's administration and pushed for the Iraq War again after 9-11. This time, unfortunately, the Bush in office wasn't smart enough to see through the lies and approved the Iraq War. Had he been as good as his father, he would have rejected these calls, would have concentrated on Afghanistan and Al Qaeda/the Taliban, and might have ended the conflict much sooner.
As with everything in life, there are probably multiple reasons. Included in there is likely people doing worse off (or perceiving that they are worse off) and laying blame with a group of "others" just as they've done for thousands of years.
Just as they were in the United States in the past when "those Jews/Irish/Chinese" were "flooding" in and going to destroy our country if we didn't keep them out. Our country was fine - and arguably better for absorbing new groups of people - and this "wave" of immigrants (in quotes because immigration is actually down) won't destroy our country either. However, racist xenophobes in the US might destroy our country in their efforts to protect us from those scary immigrants.
Not to mention that lack of rain/crops can lead to increased poverty which can lead to increased violence. People might be fleeing from the violence, but the root cause might be crop loss due to global warming.
It needs to be built out of diamondium, not that inferior diamondillium that Wormstrum wants us to use.
Wormstrum!
Don't get me wrong. I don't think it'd be any different than the Middle East. I was just pointing out that the people who want a theocracy in the US assume that they would be in charge and thus somehow immune to any bad stuff that happens thanks to a theocracy. This is (one reason) why you can't rationally discuss this with them. They assume there will be no downside because they are in charge and wouldn't do anything to hurt themselves. Therefore, any downside is "someone else's" problem, not theirs.
Of course the reality is that, were a theocracy instituted in the US, the "ruling religion" might be a slightly different sect of Christianity and they'd wind up on the receiving end of religious-based persecution. However, these kinds of people aren't very big on recognizing reality.
The problem is that the people who would want to turn us into a theocracy always assume that THEY would be the ones determining which religion is in charge and THEY would be the ones bashing in someone else's head for following the wrong religion (or no religion). They never think that they might be on the other end of that head bashing.
Oh, there were definitely actions Obama took that I disagreed with. Wheeler's appointment was one of them initially. I plenty surprised when he turned out to be a consumer advocate and not an industry shill. Sadly, Ajit Pai turned out to be the industry shill that he appeared to be from the outset.
Comcast would, but their ultimate goal wasn't "provide great service for their customers." It was "how can we kill this Internet Video thing before it cuts into our cable TV profits too much?"
Right now, yes, but how long until we develop the technology to mine asteroids? One bonus: You wouldn't need to worry about environmental regulations. If you dump a bunch of asteroid mining byproducts into space, nobody will really care the same way they care when you dump Earth-mining byproducts into someone's drinking water.
And when they change enough that we have a dozen or more ISPs for each household, perhaps we won't need Net Neutrality regulations. Until then, though, mobile broadband isn't ready to take on home usage. My household uses about 500GB of data per month (mostly for streaming videos from Netflix/Hulu/YouTube). Verizon's Unlimited plan reduces speeds if you go above 22GB. Their non-unlimited data plans max out at 100GB which, IIRC was around $700 a month. Having an option that would give me 20% of the data I need for over 10 times the cost is not real competition.
My only real ISP option is Charter. If they messed around with my access to various sites, I'd be forced to either keep paying them or go without Internet. I have no real ISP choice.
Since homeopathy supposedly works by "the lower the dose, the stronger the medicine", then by taking zero dosage*, you're basically taking infinitely strong homeopathic medicine. It's amazing you haven't had a homeopathic OD by now!
* Yes, I realize that there's' no real dosage of anything actual drug in homeopathic "medicine."