I dont mind paying high taxes for having free healthcare
You're absolutely right. And the free, publicly funded healthcare isn't necessary bad and slow either.
I just had an eye operation last week after a routine check revealed that my retina was slowly becoming detached. After being diagnosed by my doctor, he despatched me to the local university hospital on that very same day and after a few days at the ward my eye was operated successfully. The cost? To me, about $100 for the week's upkeep and some change for the medication (which are government subsidized here too, BTW). To the society, I'd estimate something between $5000-$10000 based on the price of private, medically unnecessary eye operations like fixing a slight myopia with a laser surgery.
I share 20 or 30 times the number of songs per day that I download.
Oh, you're so ELITE!
Shit. Back in the days when I was trading C64 games I realized that counting the "warez" doesn't work. Give all you've got out freely and you'll get everything for free.
When the stuff you trade flows freely, everybody benefits. Yeah, there are unavoidable freeloaders but most traders will appreciate you for sharing freely. Can you argue with that?
Bean-counting warez was a bad mistake back then. It's a bad mistake now.
We're already there. The lawyers are now telling Prof. Ed Felton of Princeton him that he can't release his promised details on what was wrong with the SDMI watermarking systems, because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
It amazes me that you still believe in the almighty power of the consumer. Consumer has no power.
The majority of the consumers will either not care about this or they will be beaten into submission by the relentless PR machine of the content producers. In either case they will go and buy a high-definition TV sooner or late. When the analog signal goes off the air everyone has to make a choice between buying an HDTV or having learn to live without the magic tube.
What I've most liked about the Internet is it's non-nationalistic, cosmopolitan nature. No artificial borders imposed by artificial means and no central government to impose legislation; legislation that would be borne out of the existing culture in that particular country (would you like the internet to be legislated according to the laws of a strict muslim country?). Yes, there are other "borders" such as the available bandwidth and the language, but at least they are natural borders which are easier to accept.
What I'm afraid is that the imminent clampdown of the net will lead to the same nationalistic confrontation bullshit we're familiar in the real world. A good example of this is the French decision to ban certain sites that offend the "public morale" (ugh!).
Up until now the Internet has been a great projection of the entire human culture. Everything from its darkest and seediest side to the greatest cultural achievements have been available to everyone. For awhile the Truth really was out there and the people have been free to choose either to read it or ignore it. Now the governments want back the authority to decide what the citizens are allowed to see.
Yes, the "free world" might be idealistic but nonetheless a worthy cause to fight for.
Since you were indirectly bashing the folding at home project, I'd just like to clarify that the information gained by this distributed project will be published in scientific journals.
Will we get money from it? No.
Will we get our names in the publication? No.
Will we feel good for donating our otherwise wasted CPU cycles to science? Yes!
the superdupercluster could become conscious and ruin us all!
What if it would become conscious and most of its information data base and the way it communicate with the outside world would come from the usenet and sites like Stileproject and Slashdot?
And those few hours are exactly what I'm looking for.
My attitude isn't 'I want to die' or 'I want to live' but 'If I die in the next
second, what will I care?' So I take risks, and I have a reckless attitude about
death. It shows in the way I live my life, my driving, scaling buildings,
leaning off of cliffs, etc. I don't want to die, but if I did it wouldn't
really bother me.
What I want is a few hours of relief from the existence into which we are born, in we are educated, work our fingers to the bone earning
money and then snuff it. All of us. We all die sooner or later, so why
do we spend so much effort on the intervening steps? It is because
the human mind is unable to consider the fact that it is all futile,
that we are wasting our time, that there is no purpose to existence.
So, why live? No reason whatsoever. Except that we lack the courage to
finish that which is worthless. We are frightened of death- but why?
There is no reason.
Most days I can forget that there's no purpose to life and
enjoy whatever I'm doing. But every so often that big black cloud
sort of sneaks up on me and pins me down. That's when I crawl
over to angst IRC channels to whimper for a while, and flame the shit out
of whining but well meaning college boys and girls who believe "that cherished myth - that
falling in love magically solves every problem you're ever had."
(Jello Biafra, "Mate, Spawn and Die" an excellent albeit temporary
cure for depression.)
Then I go home and have a drink or smoke a joint and I'll get my break from the reality.
I know perfectly well that I am poisoning myself with alcohol and smoke, but hell, nowadays you can get cancer from breathing air and a brain-rotting disease from eating meat. I choose to drink alcohol because it makes me feel good. I eat meat because I like it. I smoke because I want to.
You're free to live as you like as long as you don't bother me too much. I just wish you would stop insulting me by suggesting that I would not have chosen to do this if I had had a full knowledge of the potential outcome. I have seen the true risks and know that I'll probably have a similar fate as my uncle. I have no problem with it; why should you?
I drink alcohol and occasionally smoke both tobacco and marijuana.
Having lost an uncle to a liver failure (he was a heavy drinker) and having a friend with lung emphyzema I have no illusions about what booze and tobacco can do to me. However, it's a risk I'm willing to take to make this shitty life a bit more pleasurable.
Currents induced in the brain by strong magnetic fields can indeed cause physiological and psychological effects. I have a friend working here
studing the effects of magnetic fields on human brain. By collimating the field at different parts of brain they can induce different feelings (euphoria, despair,...) as well as physiological effects such as involuntary muscle contraction.
The fields, however, are orders of magnitude larger and much more coherrent than those found in an EMP pulse.
If people have no reason to follow the laws, there would be no society.
So you claim that the only thing that's keeping the society running is the threat of violence from the government?
Nonsense. As I said there is a reason for most of the people behave: life is much easier that way. It's nothing but enlightened self-interest. Those few who won't behave cannot be controlled any better by harsher penalties. It will only make them more desperate and bitter.
Ah, yes. The charity. You are assuming that those individuals would give the same amount of money voluntarily to charity if they were made exempt from taxation. Fat chance.
And if they would, then what are you complaining about? The result is still the same.
What you're trying to justify here is simple greed and the neglect of the less fortunate.
Besides, I don't know any modern country - socialist or otherwise - where the people in general have higher than 30% income tax. I'm well off any my tax percentage is 26 %. Something like 40 % is possible only if you're a filthy rich individual (who also then can afford to pay the tax) or a corporation which really should be paying back to the society.
If you don't want to pay taxes, get out of the society.
Slashdot Mirror
You're absolutely right. And the free, publicly funded healthcare isn't necessary bad and slow either.
I just had an eye operation last week after a routine check revealed that my retina was slowly becoming detached. After being diagnosed by my doctor, he despatched me to the local university hospital on that very same day and after a few days at the ward my eye was operated successfully. The cost? To me, about $100 for the week's upkeep and some change for the medication (which are government subsidized here too, BTW). To the society, I'd estimate something between $5000-$10000 based on the price of private, medically unnecessary eye operations like fixing a slight myopia with a laser surgery.
"And if it works, people will die too -- just not our people."
You will when no-one will make music you like.
Oh, you're so ELITE!
Shit. Back in the days when I was trading C64 games I realized that counting the "warez" doesn't work. Give all you've got out freely and you'll get everything for free.
When the stuff you trade flows freely, everybody benefits. Yeah, there are unavoidable freeloaders but most traders will appreciate you for sharing freely. Can you argue with that?
Bean-counting warez was a bad mistake back then. It's a bad mistake now.
We're already there. The lawyers are now telling Prof. Ed Felton of Princeton him that he can't release his promised details on what was wrong with the SDMI watermarking systems, because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Wake up people.
I suggest using depleted uranium.
Not true. If you're using one-sided DVD-RAM discs you can remove the disc from the cartridge and at least my DVD-ROM unit reads them just fine.
The majority of the consumers will either not care about this or they will be beaten into submission by the relentless PR machine of the content producers. In either case they will go and buy a high-definition TV sooner or late. When the analog signal goes off the air everyone has to make a choice between buying an HDTV or having learn to live without the magic tube.
That already tends to happen to your luggage...
What I'm afraid is that the imminent clampdown of the net will lead to the same nationalistic confrontation bullshit we're familiar in the real world. A good example of this is the French decision to ban certain sites that offend the "public morale" (ugh!).
Up until now the Internet has been a great projection of the entire human culture. Everything from its darkest and seediest side to the greatest cultural achievements have been available to everyone. For awhile the Truth really was out there and the people have been free to choose either to read it or ignore it. Now the governments want back the authority to decide what the citizens are allowed to see.
Yes, the "free world" might be idealistic but nonetheless a worthy cause to fight for.
I bought one about a year ago. You can store about 2 GB on a one-sided disc and 5 GB on a double sided disc. Works in Linux, too.
What is the motive? Whom does it benefit?
Will we get money from it? No.
Will we get our names in the publication? No.
Will we feel good for donating our otherwise wasted CPU cycles to science? Yes!
What if it would become conscious and most of its information data base and the way it communicate with the outside world would come from the usenet and sites like Stileproject and Slashdot?
Scary indeed.
Heh. Nice one. ;-)
This particular bank seems to have almost any service you'd want from a bank on line.
Payments, loans, investments,...
What I want is a few hours of relief from the existence into which we are born, in we are educated, work our fingers to the bone earning money and then snuff it. All of us. We all die sooner or later, so why do we spend so much effort on the intervening steps? It is because the human mind is unable to consider the fact that it is all futile, that we are wasting our time, that there is no purpose to existence.
So, why live? No reason whatsoever. Except that we lack the courage to finish that which is worthless. We are frightened of death- but why? There is no reason.
Most days I can forget that there's no purpose to life and enjoy whatever I'm doing. But every so often that big black cloud sort of sneaks up on me and pins me down. That's when I crawl over to angst IRC channels to whimper for a while, and flame the shit out of whining but well meaning college boys and girls who believe "that cherished myth - that falling in love magically solves every problem you're ever had." (Jello Biafra, "Mate, Spawn and Die" an excellent albeit temporary cure for depression.)
Then I go home and have a drink or smoke a joint and I'll get my break from the reality.
I know perfectly well that I am poisoning myself with alcohol and smoke, but hell, nowadays you can get cancer from breathing air and a brain-rotting disease from eating meat. I choose to drink alcohol because it makes me feel good. I eat meat because I like it. I smoke because I want to.
You're free to live as you like as long as you don't bother me too much. I just wish you would stop insulting me by suggesting that I would not have chosen to do this if I had had a full knowledge of the potential outcome. I have seen the true risks and know that I'll probably have a similar fate as my uncle. I have no problem with it; why should you?
Why do you think GPL would be laughed out of court?
I drink alcohol and occasionally smoke both tobacco and marijuana.
Having lost an uncle to a liver failure (he was a heavy drinker) and having a friend with lung emphyzema I have no illusions about what booze and tobacco can do to me. However, it's a risk I'm willing to take to make this shitty life a bit more pleasurable.
From what I've heard GWB and his cabinet will be pushing for exactly such a system...
The fields, however, are orders of magnitude larger and much more coherrent than those found in an EMP pulse.
I wonder though what the military will do when/if this will get them Slashdotted. Retaliate?-)
With that kind of attitude the America would never have been colonised.
So you claim that the only thing that's keeping the society running is the threat of violence from the government?
Nonsense. As I said there is a reason for most of the people behave: life is much easier that way. It's nothing but enlightened self-interest. Those few who won't behave cannot be controlled any better by harsher penalties. It will only make them more desperate and bitter.
And if they would, then what are you complaining about? The result is still the same.
What you're trying to justify here is simple greed and the neglect of the less fortunate.
Besides, I don't know any modern country - socialist or otherwise - where the people in general have higher than 30% income tax. I'm well off any my tax percentage is 26 %. Something like 40 % is possible only if you're a filthy rich individual (who also then can afford to pay the tax) or a corporation which really should be paying back to the society.
If you don't want to pay taxes, get out of the society.