No it isn't. YouTube will quite readily accept uploads from other politicians. Or that politician's supporters. If a politician chooses not to utilize a media outlet, oh well. It is his or her choice.
Of course, what YouTube can't do is make people watch any given upload. So access may be equal, but viewership is not. And really, thats the case in Japan. Everybody may get equal access and broadcast time, but that doesn't mean everybody is watching every one of those broadcasts.
Well, I'd actually agree that Wiis are not the price of video cards. Of course, that's because video cards I'd be buying for gaming purposes would set me back 4-6 bills.
Not really. If I publish a webpage, I probably want people to view it. Google helps make that happen. I benefit through the exposure Google provides. Google benefits and so do I, either through a potential sale or just from having my ideas distributed.
Turnitin, on the other hand, provides a benefit to themselves and to the professor. Not to me. In fact, Turnitin may harm me. If I write a paper for one class, and then want to use, in whole or in part, the same paper in another class it will get flagged as plagiarized.
If some student wants his or her paper to be included in Turnitin's database, by all means let that student opt-in. Either they are indifferent or they derive some value from knowing they won't be copied.
Actually, no. The government in the US can not take without compensation under the umbrella of eminent domain. They must compensate for what they take. Its a Fifth Amendment protection. The recent Supreme Court ruling was merely that "public use" could be "this corporation is going to generate revenues, which we can tax, and thus provide services to the public".
Of course, given that sort of SCOTUS ruling, receiving a grade may be considered just compensation. I'd call that sort of thing extortion myself, but hey I'm just a student. What do I know.
Indeed, Microsoft is not the police. Which is why they must ask you for your permission for this sort of thing. In those EULAs that nobody reads. Even the police don't have to obtain a warrant to conduct a search. They only need that in order to compel you. If you give them permission, they don't need it.
Which is not to say that I'm fond of the practice. But then.. my last Microsoft product was Windows 2000, and I don't need to update that, since that machine is almost always off. When it isn't, it has no connectivity.
*shrug* I hadn't seen any in hours of playing either. So... if there really were ads, then I'm fine with the ones put in. Of course... they were so ineffective that they may as well have not been there, as far as I was concerned. Probably not exactly what the advertisers wanted.
Well, by that logic we should all just stay at home all the time, since you can never know when you will get by a car. But then again, most accidents take place at home, so we are not safe there either.
In short: the argument that "We should not do this, because then something else might happen" is not really an argument at all.
Way to not comprehend what I said at all. You said that any plan we enact must be ecologically viable. So we avert this terrible human extinction event. And, because of the measures we had to take to prevent it, we instead create an economic catastrophe where much of the human population is in terrible suffering. Its entirely plausible, especially what with all the dire predictions out there. But we don't even know, and can't even scientifically conclude, that there is an ecological catastrophe on the horizon. This is not at all like leaving the house to go to work. If I stayed at home, I would be guaranteed to die. I have no trust fund. I did not win a lottery. Staying at home all the time is a guarantee of death. Leaving to work, or to buy food, or whatever else, is by comparison an infinitesimally small risk. None at all really.
Well, no. In one hand, we have a huge catastrophe and an averted catastrophe. On the other hand we have status quo and somewhat slower economic growth. You are basically making the claim that somewhat slower economic growth ("oh no, 3% instead of 5%!") is about as bad as an unmitigated ecological catastrophe.
No. No. and... truly, no. On the one hand (if you are right), we have a huge catastrophe (ecological) and thats bad. If we do something, we may avert it (but it isn't guaranteed, since our understanding of the climate is so immature). If we do, its good. But the outcomes are 1) avert disaster 2) fail to avert disaster or 3) avert disaster but create another disaster. Thats a vague outcome. 1 good outcome and 2 really bad ones. On the other hand (no disaster looming), we have the status quo if we do nothing. It has problems, but they're familiar problems. If we do something, we create suffering where there wouldn't be. You're being logically inconsistent by claiming that we have a terrible ecological catastrophe waiting for us, but also claiming that a few percentage points less economic growth in output is going to avert it. So no, it is not "well if we do something, a few people will suffer or we'll avert a disaster". It isn't that simple. By a long shot.
No, there will be war and suffering, with or without global warming. Those two have been part on humanity for as long as there has been humans. Even during times of peace and prosperity.
So these millions of people that you say are going to die in wars over resources.. they're still going to die if we avert this ecological catastrophe, and are thus no gain to your point. But you figured you'd throw them in anyway cause it looks good? Nice.
I made no such claims. Like I said, there are simply too many humans on this planet. And that number should be brought down. Either it's done in a controlled fashion, ot it will come crashing down some day. Fact is that our current lifestyles are simply too demanding to the environment. And it isn't just limited to global warming and related pollution.
Made no such claims? Did you truly not. I quote you "We have had economies without the massive environmental issues in the past." I merely asked which economies those might be. Since the only ones I can think of that might qualify are feudal or tribal ones. Which, as I said, I wouldn't exactly qualify as not having massive environmental issues, except that they may not be massive compared to the issues of supporting as many billions of humans as we have now.
Of course, you are also now saying that the number should be brought down, when earlier you said: "No, I'm not saying that we should kill people, directly or indirectly." Funny how those two stat
Overwheliming majority of scientists agree with me. But I guess you call it a "belief" since if I'm right, it would mean sacrifices to our lifestyles. Am I correct in assuming that you are unwilling to make any sacrifices, just as long there is at least one scientists who disputes the connection between CO2 and global warming? I guess it's a lot simpler to simply assume that humans have nothing to do with it, since then you can just keep on living like you have done in the past?
Oh, the overwhelming majority of scientists agree with you. Not that they necessarily do, but if they did, that doesn't in any way make your belief less of a belief. The fact that we can take CO2 in a lab environment and show that it retains thermal energy in no way means we have an understanding of the climate. We don't. And no, you are not correct in assuming that I am unwilling to make any sacrifices, so long as there is one scientist to dispute the connection between CO2 and global warming. What I am not willing to do is to declare that all will sacrifice, regardless of their beliefs, based on my beliefs.
What happens if we do nothing and I'm right? It will end up in a massive catastrophe. What will happen if I'm right and we do something? We will take a hit in the short-term economic growth, but the long-term benefits are substantial. What will happen If you are right, and we still try to limit emissions? We take a hit in our short-term economic growth, but our future would still look bleak (or not). Your belief has the benefit that we can keep on living like we have done so far, and thing would be nice in the short-term, but in the long term things would be bad regardless. But if I'm right, we could avert the approaching disaster by acting now.
If you are right and we do nothing, its a massive catastrophe. If you are right and we act, we possibly avert the catastrophe. Yay. Of course, its also possible that we'd merely displace one catastrophe with another. If you are wrong and we do nothing (or at least nothing radically different), its.. well, the status quo. If you are wrong and yet still we do something, there will be those that suffer, and since it will be for nothing, they will suffer needlessly. Thats a bad outcome and a vague outcome on one side and a bad outcome and a familiar outcome on the other.
No, I'm not saying that we should kill people, directly or indirectly. But people will die if things progress like they have done so so far. We will end up with millions of people starving to death, millions of people dying to pollution, millions of people dying because of wars over resources. If the ecosystem can't support the population, the ecosystem will crash at some point, and it will take lots of people with it.
But if we do something about global warming, everybody will be fed, the environment will be clean, and there will be peace on earth or something? You'll still have death from starvation. Probably more, in fact, since agriculture is going to be reduced what with emissions being limited to an ecologically viable level. And what agriculture we do produce isn't going to have an efficient transport infrastructure to move within. I'm not being sold on mankind suddenly giving up the penchant for war, either. So, I'm not seeing it as likely that there won't be wars for resources. You may be right about pollution related deaths. But since we're talking a lower sustainable population, thats a given anyway. On a per capita basis, I don't know that that would be true and you certainly haven't provided any reason for me to believe there would be.
We have had economies without the massive environmental issues in the past.
Would these be the feudal ones or the earlier tribal ones? Either of which can, I believe, attribute their lack of "massive environmental issues" to their lack of massive populations. You know, less people needing less stuff th
Ah yes. I'm dense because my transactions with UK businesses have gone in the same fashion as transactions with US businesses. I communicated this fact. And you didn't catch it. But I'm dense. When I go to pay, I do not pay X. I pay Z, Y tax added to X price. There is no X price with Y amount going to the government as tax.
It isn't that I'm unwilling to consider doing things differently. It is that I am utterly unconcerned with changing this particular bit of the sales experience. I have never yet gotten an item to checkout only to decide that the taxes make the purchase not worthwhile. Should any merchant in the States change to a system that you describe, I am not suddenly going to think "Ahha that's what I'm actually paying. All this time and I never knew" because I've already accounted for taxes in my purchasing decision making.
In short, we don't care. And since no one cares enough to make the change, it doesn't.
It seems you didn't catch the part of my post where I said that poor responses when you ask about the tax rate is not to be condoned, either. I agreed that when you ask, you should get a proper answer.
I did not, at any point, say that nobody cares about cost. I suggested that it isn't necessary to know the tax rate to be comfortable making transactions. I don't have to know the precise percentage to be able to work out a budget or a rough estimate of how much tax I'm going to pay on any particular item. And as I said before, nobody totals your items before you get to checkout for you either. So, if you are capable of doing the addition to total your multi-item purchase before ringing everything up, then it isn't some torturous process to add on the amount of tax in your head either.
Really.. of all the tax-related issues to be concerned about, the fact that nobody bothers to figure the sales tax out for you before checkout is.. I don't think I can put words to how minor an issue this is.
Truly.. So why is it I'm seeing VATs tacked on to the price of stuff I buy from the UK. At checkout, and not before? Unless the US devoured the UK overnight while I was sleeping..
Determining the taxes that will be assessed is a rather simple application of math. The same as adding up the price tags of the items you plan to buy, which you'll note isn't done for you until you're at the checkout counter either.
I'm not exactly thrilled that, if you asked what the tax was, you received a nasty look instead of an answer. Of course, there is always the possibility that the person(s) you asked didn't know. I can't say that I've asked about the taxes, even when I've been overseas. I just bought something and looked at the receipt.
Semantics. Global Warming is caused by CO2-emissions. And that is a subset of pollution. Well here is your first problem. You're asserting a belief as fact. I happen to believe something similar, although my belief certainly isn't that there is one cause and humans are it. Now, there are certainly a number of issues surrounding pollution. Those are facts. Any argument you take for global warming is rooted, currently, in belief. Which is fine. Just be honest about it.
There are too many of us as we speak. No, I'm not saying that we should start killing people off.... We are ruining the planet as we speak. And here's the second. You don't advocate that we kill people off directly. But indirectly? You're all for it. Just say "I think x% of the population will die off in the transition shocks."
If the ecosystem can cope with it, then it's acceptable. Well.. I know you said earlier that you weren't saying we should dismantle the economies, but if the limitation is that the ecosystem has to be able to cope with it, you're talking about dismantling economies.
You have largely left unstated anything useful to do in order to improve the situation. I can piece together a vague system where we produce and pollute less. Apparently voluntarily. That's an unstable system. Its a prisoner's dilemma on a quite literally global scale. Yes, we all might be better off if we cooperated. However, a small number of defecting countries reap massive benefits. Thus, the dominant strategy is to defect (that is.. produce and pollute). No amount of "we'll all be better off!" is going to change that.
And, incidentally, we (as a global population) aren't "doing nothing." Unfortunately for you, it isn't as much as you'd like. Thus its beneficial for your argument to write it off as nothing.
We have to do it in order to kill the dinosaurs and allow the evolution of mammalian (including us!) life! We provide the means for us to exist and provide ourselves with an energy source. It is brilliant!
Thats an argument about pollution and nothing at all about global warming.
I am sort of curious, though. If we dismantle all these economies and forbid the use of all these technologies with which we produce stuff (and also.. pollute) how then do you propose to support the human population of the planet?
If we don't do such things, whose preferences get to decide what is an "acceptable" amount of pollution? Why are those preferences supposedly better than the way we do them now?
By that reasoning, the first purchase should be priced to cover the entirety of the development costs and all the other sales should be priced at little more than the cost of pressing/shipping the discs. After all that first one was really expensive to get out there and everything else is just an inexpensively made copy of it, right?
Of course the price of an item is what it is because people will pay it. Obviously. If no one paid it, one of two things occur. 1) Price comes down until people will pay it or 2) the product stops getting made. Which of those two occurances comes to pass depends largely on the cost of delivering the product.
If the majority of gamers "stuck up for themselves" I'm sure the price of games would indeed come down. Of course, since development houses have huge budgets to make the games that they currently make, some of which are still steaming piles of bovine excrement, I have no illusions that they'd do better with less of a production budget. If gamers, as a market, signaled that they were unwilling to pay more than $40 for a game, the market would adjust. Adjustments coming in the form of either fewer games shipped to the market at that price or in degraded quality of games shipped to the market. Or some combination of both.
In markets where supply really is endless, a growth in market volume really should drive prices down. But neither video games nor cell service are that. In the case of games, theres a maximum volume per time period of discs you can press, booklets you can print, and units that your distribution channels can handle. Not to mention that part of the price tag is going to the console maker to pay for that "subsidy" you received when you bought the console and part is taken by the retailer for its sales/warehousing costs. Cell service has limits of call volume at any given moment in any given tower. Better equipment or more towers is costly to provide and is reflected in the price you pay for service.
Which isn't to say that I much care for cell providers in the states that don't give price breaks if you don't want/need a new phone. I find it odd that once my contract is up, I have no incentive to stay with the carrier. I won't receive a price break on service. I can get better rebates on new phones by changing carriers. Only if the carrier I'm with has some perceived quality of service that I don't see in others am I motivated to stay. Since numbers became portable, I usually hop carriers. The best I can say about any of the carriers I've had (T-Mobile, with its many positive responses in other threads, isn't in my area) is that the service is "adequate" so.. the bigger rebates are the only incentive I have.
And the reason that stocks earn, on average, more than real estate is because stocks do nothing but generate interest. That is their only value.
Real estate, on the other hand, provides you with a place to build a home. or a business. Or.... and this will be shocking, I know, some apartments with which you can then allow people to rent from you. At which point you'd get to earn not only the 6% real estate but whatever interest your netprofits on the rent earn you.
Uh.. society made someone not take out an insurance policy on your hypothetical couple's home? And society made this couple piss away their nest egg?
Even if you don't want to take out an insurance policy, you'd do yourself a fair second best by putting the money you would pay an insurance company and investing it somewhere. That way, should your house actually burn down, you have resources available. Either way you're hedging your risk of home loss. If you don't do anything about the risk, then why should I care at all when it comes up and bites you?
Ditto with the nest egg. It it was all in some long shot that didn't pay out... well... too bad. I'm not going to shed any tears.
But really, your hypothetical couple is in the horrible situation you propose due to their own bad decision making. If it happened to me, I'm sure I wouldn't be happy and smiling by any means. On the other hand, some hypothetical guy paying cash for a Ferrari didn't have anything to do with my bad decisions.
I do understand that some people just live in poverty. I don't by any stretch think its a great situation to be in. However, people buying second cars and paying electricity on air conditioners clearly believe they have their basic needs met. Which is more than you can say about some people, both in this country and out.
Instead, you'd advocate that universal health care be provided and paid for by... who? Taxpayers, right? Out of those, the rich don't need or want it. The middle class are likely to be financially uneffected. Yeah, they can get out of health insurance payments but only at the cost of increased taxes to pay for the health care system. So.. you'll have the citizens and legal residents in low incomes consuming a disproportionately high amount of care (especially when comapred to how much they contribute in payments) and illegals.
How is that any different, again?
can you tell I'm not exactly keen on government redistribution of wealth programs? I don't know why, they've been ever so good at it thus far.../sarcasm off.
Taxpayers are paying interest on government spending no matter how the government collects the funds to spend.
You can debate on whether government spending is too high or too low, but once that decision is made, it is essentially pointless debating over whether it should raise the funds by taxation, fee collection, or borrowing. Not entirely pointless, as taxation affects residents of the country and fee collection affects those who utilize government services.
However, when the government borrows a dollar from anyone, it taxes the residents by a dollar less. Which means that the residents have a dollar more to invest and earn interest. So that when the government later pays off the loan, the residents have earned enough in interest to cover the government's increased liability. So if the government borrows, the taxpayers will, in the future, indeed have to pay the interest on the loan. But if the government taxes the population, the taxpayers still "pay" on the interest. The payment being the lost interest they can't earn on the money the government collects as taxes. Ask me if I'd rather the government tax me a dollar now or issue debt on it and I'd probably say issue the debt. I'll deposit a dollar and earn interest on it. When the government's debt comes due, they'll tax me the dollar and the 4% interest it compounded. I'll withdraw the amount from my bank account which has been earning 5% compounded and come out ahead.
Which leads to your third point. Governments are not like individuals. If the government runs a "surplus" and sticks it in a rainy day fund that they don't touch, the government is contracting the money supply. The only way that wouldn't happen is if the government invested the money. In which case, the government would be investing your money for you. Do you, perhaps, believe that the government is a better investor than you are? Well.. its possible. But you might look into a proper financial advisor in that case. I'm willing to bet that a lot of people are of the opinion that they're better than the government at investing. They're probably right, too.
Government debt isn't inherently bad. If it accrues debt to cover deficits, thats generally bad. But acquiring debt as an alternative to confiscating taxes isn't usually isn't.
Well.. the economic theory is that top executives are paid so well in order to induce less conservative decision making. If CEOs got paid based on the company's performance, a lot of ideas (okay.. a lot more of the good ones) would get shot down because they're not sure things.
Because the CEO is well off, he's willing to take some extra risk. but because he'd rather not give up his nice income, he isn't going to take just any risk. So the theory goes anyway. I, admittedly, haven't kept up with it much.
I also recall coming across some studies, although this was awhile ago, that showed top executive payouts are significantly down. I didn't vet those studies at all and I couldn't tell you titles or authors at this point. Maybe someone else can point relevant, relatively unbiased studies on the matter.
I'm not a bank either, and I earn interest on my funds every day. Some of which is, indeed, through a bank. But a fair portion is not.
All they need is an account with a bank. stick any funds held by Paypal in it and Paypal earns interest on it. I suspect that they wouldn't even necessarily need an account with a bank for money they freeze. Just because they've frozen the account from the customer's side does not at all imply that Paypal has to leave the money alone. They could just as easily buy up 6 month treasury notes as go through a bank.
And if you think ditching the OS makes good business sense, think again. Imagine for a moment Dell DOES offer the option to not purchase XP on your machine. This added complexity to their construction process (which currently has 3 options: XP Home, Pro, or Media) means that you have to start putting empty hard drives into machines. Empty hard drives == no testing software, guided setup, or continuing support. No backup software sales. No add-on of Antivirus, Office suite, or any number of other products that they can just drop in. Numerous support calls of "I turned it on and it beeped three times and shut off. What does 'No valid system volume' mean?" A net loss. Since Dell already offers no OS computers in both the Dimension and Optiplex families in addition to Linux installs in the Precision families, I don't think you in safe waters claiming that it doesn't make good business sense. Any testware they use is installed, run, and blown off when the OS is installed. For no OS computers, they'd simply... not install the OS. Assuming, of course, that they test with software post-build. I don't see why they would, though. Test the parts before they go in. If its bad, you toss it, rather than putting it in and having to take it out when you find bad ones.
For customers who do not want an OS installed, they obviously will not need guided setup. I also don't see how Dell not needing to offer continuing OS support in any way makes Dell's life more complex. Seems like it makes it just a little bit simpler.
You say "no backup software sales" as if, had this buyer who wants a no OS Dell, was instead faced with a Dell + Windows unit is suddenly going to say "Ah.. of course. I need to buy backup software". Which.. simply isn't true. Buyers who don't want Windows to come on the PC they're buying are very likely either 1) not interested in software for an OS they aren't going to be using or 2) users who already have a Windows license and the applications they need to go with it. Either of which means they're not going to be buying backup software, MS Office, antivirus software, or whatever else Dell offers. It isn't even necessarily true that Dell can't make the optional software sale, anyway. If the software is an option, its probably going to come on its own media (rather than the recovery disc) and thus Dell can still sell it. They just drop the media in with the no OS unit.
Support calls about not having a bootable system from buyers who buy a computer without an OS are going to fall into the "stupid user" category. Stupid user + Windows =/= no support calls. The questions will just be different. And probably more difficult to answer than "You didn't purchase an OS from us. If you would like to buy one, it costs $X. If you would not care to do so, don't call us unless you need hardware service." I'd imagine Dell would be more polite than that, but that is what it would boil down to.
Agreed on the beautiful simplicity of application containers on OSX. Uninstalling could still be improved though. Sometimes I don't mind that the preferences and like stick around. But when I get rid of an app that I know I'm never going to use again, I don't really want any of its files left cluttering up ~/Library or the/Library or.. well. anywhere else. Unfortunately, getting rid of those files is mainly a manual effort. Not a terribly fun one, either. Windows uninstallers, at least, get most of those files it scatters to winds during installation.
It would be really neat if, inside the application container, there was a file detailing the name and location of any files that the application can generate on its own in the course of its use. Then, when the container is placed in the Trash, the user is asked if he would like to have those associated files cleaned up.
Or something.
Hell, maybe some app already exists that does what I want and I just don't know about it. In which cases, we can all feel free to poke fun at me... as long as I find this magic bit o software goodness.
You might have a better argument if your understanding of the english language and US history was improved.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" is a what is known as a clause. It is not a limiting clause but a justifying one. That means that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is not limited to the needs of a well regulated militia. That said, even if I was to accept your assertion that it applies only to the militia, I have news for you. At the time the 2A was written, the militia was all able bodied males aged 17 and up. Today, it is all able bodied males aged 18 and up.
Of course, I don't subscribe to the idea that the 2A covers the right of a militia. It quite clearly states that it is the right of the people. And it is those same people that are explicitly vested rights in the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and tenth amendments.
Slashdot Mirror
No it isn't. YouTube will quite readily accept uploads from other politicians. Or that politician's supporters. If a politician chooses not to utilize a media outlet, oh well. It is his or her choice.
Of course, what YouTube can't do is make people watch any given upload. So access may be equal, but viewership is not. And really, thats the case in Japan. Everybody may get equal access and broadcast time, but that doesn't mean everybody is watching every one of those broadcasts.
Well, I'd actually agree that Wiis are not the price of video cards. Of course, that's because video cards I'd be buying for gaming purposes would set me back 4-6 bills.
and thats why I don't do PC gaming anymore.
Not really. If I publish a webpage, I probably want people to view it. Google helps make that happen. I benefit through the exposure Google provides. Google benefits and so do I, either through a potential sale or just from having my ideas distributed.
Turnitin, on the other hand, provides a benefit to themselves and to the professor. Not to me. In fact, Turnitin may harm me. If I write a paper for one class, and then want to use, in whole or in part, the same paper in another class it will get flagged as plagiarized.
If some student wants his or her paper to be included in Turnitin's database, by all means let that student opt-in. Either they are indifferent or they derive some value from knowing they won't be copied.
Actually, no. The government in the US can not take without compensation under the umbrella of eminent domain. They must compensate for what they take. Its a Fifth Amendment protection. The recent Supreme Court ruling was merely that "public use" could be "this corporation is going to generate revenues, which we can tax, and thus provide services to the public".
Of course, given that sort of SCOTUS ruling, receiving a grade may be considered just compensation. I'd call that sort of thing extortion myself, but hey I'm just a student. What do I know.
Indeed, Microsoft is not the police. Which is why they must ask you for your permission for this sort of thing. In those EULAs that nobody reads. Even the police don't have to obtain a warrant to conduct a search. They only need that in order to compel you. If you give them permission, they don't need it.
Which is not to say that I'm fond of the practice. But then.. my last Microsoft product was Windows 2000, and I don't need to update that, since that machine is almost always off. When it isn't, it has no connectivity.
*shrug* I hadn't seen any in hours of playing either. So... if there really were ads, then I'm fine with the ones put in. Of course... they were so ineffective that they may as well have not been there, as far as I was concerned. Probably not exactly what the advertisers wanted.
Way to not comprehend what I said at all. You said that any plan we enact must be ecologically viable. So we avert this terrible human extinction event. And, because of the measures we had to take to prevent it, we instead create an economic catastrophe where much of the human population is in terrible suffering. Its entirely plausible, especially what with all the dire predictions out there. But we don't even know, and can't even scientifically conclude, that there is an ecological catastrophe on the horizon. This is not at all like leaving the house to go to work. If I stayed at home, I would be guaranteed to die. I have no trust fund. I did not win a lottery. Staying at home all the time is a guarantee of death. Leaving to work, or to buy food, or whatever else, is by comparison an infinitesimally small risk. None at all really.
No. No. and... truly, no. On the one hand (if you are right), we have a huge catastrophe (ecological) and thats bad. If we do something, we may avert it (but it isn't guaranteed, since our understanding of the climate is so immature). If we do, its good. But the outcomes are 1) avert disaster 2) fail to avert disaster or 3) avert disaster but create another disaster. Thats a vague outcome. 1 good outcome and 2 really bad ones. On the other hand (no disaster looming), we have the status quo if we do nothing. It has problems, but they're familiar problems. If we do something, we create suffering where there wouldn't be. You're being logically inconsistent by claiming that we have a terrible ecological catastrophe waiting for us, but also claiming that a few percentage points less economic growth in output is going to avert it. So no, it is not "well if we do something, a few people will suffer or we'll avert a disaster". It isn't that simple. By a long shot.
So these millions of people that you say are going to die in wars over resources.. they're still going to die if we avert this ecological catastrophe, and are thus no gain to your point. But you figured you'd throw them in anyway cause it looks good? Nice.
Made no such claims? Did you truly not. I quote you "We have had economies without the massive environmental issues in the past." I merely asked which economies those might be. Since the only ones I can think of that might qualify are feudal or tribal ones. Which, as I said, I wouldn't exactly qualify as not having massive environmental issues, except that they may not be massive compared to the issues of supporting as many billions of humans as we have now.
Of course, you are also now saying that the number should be brought down, when earlier you said: "No, I'm not saying that we should kill people, directly or indirectly." Funny how those two stat
Oh, the overwhelming majority of scientists agree with you. Not that they necessarily do, but if they did, that doesn't in any way make your belief less of a belief. The fact that we can take CO2 in a lab environment and show that it retains thermal energy in no way means we have an understanding of the climate. We don't. And no, you are not correct in assuming that I am unwilling to make any sacrifices, so long as there is one scientist to dispute the connection between CO2 and global warming. What I am not willing to do is to declare that all will sacrifice, regardless of their beliefs, based on my beliefs.
If you are right and we do nothing, its a massive catastrophe. If you are right and we act, we possibly avert the catastrophe. Yay. Of course, its also possible that we'd merely displace one catastrophe with another. If you are wrong and we do nothing (or at least nothing radically different), its.. well, the status quo. If you are wrong and yet still we do something, there will be those that suffer, and since it will be for nothing, they will suffer needlessly. Thats a bad outcome and a vague outcome on one side and a bad outcome and a familiar outcome on the other.
But if we do something about global warming, everybody will be fed, the environment will be clean, and there will be peace on earth or something? You'll still have death from starvation. Probably more, in fact, since agriculture is going to be reduced what with emissions being limited to an ecologically viable level. And what agriculture we do produce isn't going to have an efficient transport infrastructure to move within. I'm not being sold on mankind suddenly giving up the penchant for war, either. So, I'm not seeing it as likely that there won't be wars for resources. You may be right about pollution related deaths. But since we're talking a lower sustainable population, thats a given anyway. On a per capita basis, I don't know that that would be true and you certainly haven't provided any reason for me to believe there would be.
Would these be the feudal ones or the earlier tribal ones? Either of which can, I believe, attribute their lack of "massive environmental issues" to their lack of massive populations. You know, less people needing less stuff th
Ah yes. I'm dense because my transactions with UK businesses have gone in the same fashion as transactions with US businesses. I communicated this fact. And you didn't catch it. But I'm dense. When I go to pay, I do not pay X. I pay Z, Y tax added to X price. There is no X price with Y amount going to the government as tax.
It isn't that I'm unwilling to consider doing things differently. It is that I am utterly unconcerned with changing this particular bit of the sales experience. I have never yet gotten an item to checkout only to decide that the taxes make the purchase not worthwhile. Should any merchant in the States change to a system that you describe, I am not suddenly going to think "Ahha that's what I'm actually paying. All this time and I never knew" because I've already accounted for taxes in my purchasing decision making.
In short, we don't care. And since no one cares enough to make the change, it doesn't.
It seems you didn't catch the part of my post where I said that poor responses when you ask about the tax rate is not to be condoned, either. I agreed that when you ask, you should get a proper answer.
I did not, at any point, say that nobody cares about cost. I suggested that it isn't necessary to know the tax rate to be comfortable making transactions. I don't have to know the precise percentage to be able to work out a budget or a rough estimate of how much tax I'm going to pay on any particular item. And as I said before, nobody totals your items before you get to checkout for you either. So, if you are capable of doing the addition to total your multi-item purchase before ringing everything up, then it isn't some torturous process to add on the amount of tax in your head either.
Really.. of all the tax-related issues to be concerned about, the fact that nobody bothers to figure the sales tax out for you before checkout is.. I don't think I can put words to how minor an issue this is.
So.. would these amended charters cause these businesses to cease business arrangements with the federal government of the United States of America?
Truly.. So why is it I'm seeing VATs tacked on to the price of stuff I buy from the UK. At checkout, and not before?
Unless the US devoured the UK overnight while I was sleeping..
Determining the taxes that will be assessed is a rather simple application of math. The same as adding up the price tags of the items you plan to buy, which you'll note isn't done for you until you're at the checkout counter either.
I'm not exactly thrilled that, if you asked what the tax was, you received a nasty look instead of an answer. Of course, there is always the possibility that the person(s) you asked didn't know. I can't say that I've asked about the taxes, even when I've been overseas. I just bought something and looked at the receipt.
You have largely left unstated anything useful to do in order to improve the situation. I can piece together a vague system where we produce and pollute less. Apparently voluntarily. That's an unstable system. Its a prisoner's dilemma on a quite literally global scale. Yes, we all might be better off if we cooperated. However, a small number of defecting countries reap massive benefits. Thus, the dominant strategy is to defect (that is.. produce and pollute). No amount of "we'll all be better off!" is going to change that.
And, incidentally, we (as a global population) aren't "doing nothing." Unfortunately for you, it isn't as much as you'd like. Thus its beneficial for your argument to write it off as nothing.
Its better than that, actually.
We have to do it in order to kill the dinosaurs and allow the evolution of mammalian (including us!) life! We provide the means for us to exist and provide ourselves with an energy source. It is brilliant!
Thats an argument about pollution and nothing at all about global warming.
I am sort of curious, though. If we dismantle all these economies and forbid the use of all these technologies with which we produce stuff (and also.. pollute) how then do you propose to support the human population of the planet?
If we don't do such things, whose preferences get to decide what is an "acceptable" amount of pollution? Why are those preferences supposedly better than the way we do them now?
By that reasoning, the first purchase should be priced to cover the entirety of the development costs and all the other sales should be priced at little more than the cost of pressing/shipping the discs. After all that first one was really expensive to get out there and everything else is just an inexpensively made copy of it, right?
Of course the price of an item is what it is because people will pay it. Obviously. If no one paid it, one of two things occur. 1) Price comes down until people will pay it or 2) the product stops getting made. Which of those two occurances comes to pass depends largely on the cost of delivering the product.
If the majority of gamers "stuck up for themselves" I'm sure the price of games would indeed come down. Of course, since development houses have huge budgets to make the games that they currently make, some of which are still steaming piles of bovine excrement, I have no illusions that they'd do better with less of a production budget. If gamers, as a market, signaled that they were unwilling to pay more than $40 for a game, the market would adjust. Adjustments coming in the form of either fewer games shipped to the market at that price or in degraded quality of games shipped to the market. Or some combination of both.
In markets where supply really is endless, a growth in market volume really should drive prices down. But neither video games nor cell service are that. In the case of games, theres a maximum volume per time period of discs you can press, booklets you can print, and units that your distribution channels can handle. Not to mention that part of the price tag is going to the console maker to pay for that "subsidy" you received when you bought the console and part is taken by the retailer for its sales/warehousing costs. Cell service has limits of call volume at any given moment in any given tower. Better equipment or more towers is costly to provide and is reflected in the price you pay for service.
Which isn't to say that I much care for cell providers in the states that don't give price breaks if you don't want/need a new phone. I find it odd that once my contract is up, I have no incentive to stay with the carrier. I won't receive a price break on service. I can get better rebates on new phones by changing carriers. Only if the carrier I'm with has some perceived quality of service that I don't see in others am I motivated to stay. Since numbers became portable, I usually hop carriers. The best I can say about any of the carriers I've had (T-Mobile, with its many positive responses in other threads, isn't in my area) is that the service is "adequate" so.. the bigger rebates are the only incentive I have.
And the reason that stocks earn, on average, more than real estate is because stocks do nothing but generate interest. That is their only value.
Real estate, on the other hand, provides you with a place to build a home. or a business. Or.... and this will be shocking, I know, some apartments with which you can then allow people to rent from you. At which point you'd get to earn not only the 6% real estate but whatever interest your netprofits on the rent earn you.
Uh.. society made someone not take out an insurance policy on your hypothetical couple's home? And society made this couple piss away their nest egg?
... well ... too bad. I'm not going to shed any tears.
Even if you don't want to take out an insurance policy, you'd do yourself a fair second best by putting the money you would pay an insurance company and investing it somewhere. That way, should your house actually burn down, you have resources available. Either way you're hedging your risk of home loss. If you don't do anything about the risk, then why should I care at all when it comes up and bites you?
Ditto with the nest egg. It it was all in some long shot that didn't pay out
But really, your hypothetical couple is in the horrible situation you propose due to their own bad decision making. If it happened to me, I'm sure I wouldn't be happy and smiling by any means. On the other hand, some hypothetical guy paying cash for a Ferrari didn't have anything to do with my bad decisions.
I do understand that some people just live in poverty. I don't by any stretch think its a great situation to be in. However, people buying second cars and paying electricity on air conditioners clearly believe they have their basic needs met. Which is more than you can say about some people, both in this country and out.
Instead, you'd advocate that universal health care be provided and paid for by... who? Taxpayers, right? Out of those, the rich don't need or want it. The middle class are likely to be financially uneffected. Yeah, they can get out of health insurance payments but only at the cost of increased taxes to pay for the health care system. So.. you'll have the citizens and legal residents in low incomes consuming a disproportionately high amount of care (especially when comapred to how much they contribute in payments) and illegals.
... /sarcasm off.
How is that any different, again?
can you tell I'm not exactly keen on government redistribution of wealth programs? I don't know why, they've been ever so good at it thus far
Taxpayers are paying interest on government spending no matter how the government collects the funds to spend.
You can debate on whether government spending is too high or too low, but once that decision is made, it is essentially pointless debating over whether it should raise the funds by taxation, fee collection, or borrowing. Not entirely pointless, as taxation affects residents of the country and fee collection affects those who utilize government services.
However, when the government borrows a dollar from anyone, it taxes the residents by a dollar less. Which means that the residents have a dollar more to invest and earn interest. So that when the government later pays off the loan, the residents have earned enough in interest to cover the government's increased liability. So if the government borrows, the taxpayers will, in the future, indeed have to pay the interest on the loan. But if the government taxes the population, the taxpayers still "pay" on the interest. The payment being the lost interest they can't earn on the money the government collects as taxes. Ask me if I'd rather the government tax me a dollar now or issue debt on it and I'd probably say issue the debt. I'll deposit a dollar and earn interest on it. When the government's debt comes due, they'll tax me the dollar and the 4% interest it compounded. I'll withdraw the amount from my bank account which has been earning 5% compounded and come out ahead.
Which leads to your third point. Governments are not like individuals. If the government runs a "surplus" and sticks it in a rainy day fund that they don't touch, the government is contracting the money supply. The only way that wouldn't happen is if the government invested the money. In which case, the government would be investing your money for you. Do you, perhaps, believe that the government is a better investor than you are? Well.. its possible. But you might look into a proper financial advisor in that case. I'm willing to bet that a lot of people are of the opinion that they're better than the government at investing. They're probably right, too.
Government debt isn't inherently bad. If it accrues debt to cover deficits, thats generally bad. But acquiring debt as an alternative to confiscating taxes isn't usually isn't.
Well.. the economic theory is that top executives are paid so well in order to induce less conservative decision making. If CEOs got paid based on the company's performance, a lot of ideas (okay.. a lot more of the good ones) would get shot down because they're not sure things.
Because the CEO is well off, he's willing to take some extra risk. but because he'd rather not give up his nice income, he isn't going to take just any risk. So the theory goes anyway. I, admittedly, haven't kept up with it much.
I also recall coming across some studies, although this was awhile ago, that showed top executive payouts are significantly down. I didn't vet those studies at all and I couldn't tell you titles or authors at this point. Maybe someone else can point relevant, relatively unbiased studies on the matter.
I'm not a bank either, and I earn interest on my funds every day. Some of which is, indeed, through a bank. But a fair portion is not.
All they need is an account with a bank. stick any funds held by Paypal in it and Paypal earns interest on it. I suspect that they wouldn't even necessarily need an account with a bank for money they freeze. Just because they've frozen the account from the customer's side does not at all imply that Paypal has to leave the money alone. They could just as easily buy up 6 month treasury notes as go through a bank.
For customers who do not want an OS installed, they obviously will not need guided setup. I also don't see how Dell not needing to offer continuing OS support in any way makes Dell's life more complex. Seems like it makes it just a little bit simpler.
You say "no backup software sales" as if, had this buyer who wants a no OS Dell, was instead faced with a Dell + Windows unit is suddenly going to say "Ah.. of course. I need to buy backup software". Which.. simply isn't true. Buyers who don't want Windows to come on the PC they're buying are very likely either 1) not interested in software for an OS they aren't going to be using or 2) users who already have a Windows license and the applications they need to go with it. Either of which means they're not going to be buying backup software, MS Office, antivirus software, or whatever else Dell offers. It isn't even necessarily true that Dell can't make the optional software sale, anyway. If the software is an option, its probably going to come on its own media (rather than the recovery disc) and thus Dell can still sell it. They just drop the media in with the no OS unit.
Support calls about not having a bootable system from buyers who buy a computer without an OS are going to fall into the "stupid user" category. Stupid user + Windows =/= no support calls. The questions will just be different. And probably more difficult to answer than "You didn't purchase an OS from us. If you would like to buy one, it costs $X. If you would not care to do so, don't call us unless you need hardware service." I'd imagine Dell would be more polite than that, but that is what it would boil down to.
Agreed on the beautiful simplicity of application containers on OSX. Uninstalling could still be improved though. Sometimes I don't mind that the preferences and like stick around. But when I get rid of an app that I know I'm never going to use again, I don't really want any of its files left cluttering up ~/Library or the /Library or.. well. anywhere else. Unfortunately, getting rid of those files is mainly a manual effort. Not a terribly fun one, either. Windows uninstallers, at least, get most of those files it scatters to winds during installation.
... as long as I find this magic bit o software goodness.
It would be really neat if, inside the application container, there was a file detailing the name and location of any files that the application can generate on its own in the course of its use. Then, when the container is placed in the Trash, the user is asked if he would like to have those associated files cleaned up.
Or something.
Hell, maybe some app already exists that does what I want and I just don't know about it. In which cases, we can all feel free to poke fun at me
Actually.. my Macbook Pro, in my possession for its first week, came in a matte black box.
You might have a better argument if your understanding of the english language and US history was improved.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" is a what is known as a clause. It is not a limiting clause but a justifying one. That means that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is not limited to the needs of a well regulated militia. That said, even if I was to accept your assertion that it applies only to the militia, I have news for you. At the time the 2A was written, the militia was all able bodied males aged 17 and up. Today, it is all able bodied males aged 18 and up.
Of course, I don't subscribe to the idea that the 2A covers the right of a militia. It quite clearly states that it is the right of the people. And it is those same people that are explicitly vested rights in the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and tenth amendments.