>> Instead imagine a world where you spend 100 years working on something you like (and you could take a lot more time to find something you like without having to settle down before you were thirty or so), then perhaps take the next 100 years (!) off just living on savings accumulated! If you are thrifty the first hundred you could probably live off the interest indefinatley. Just recently I read a story about a janitor that managed to save up enough to donate a few MILLION dollors to the school he worked at.
The market sets returns on investment based on risk/reward. If lifespans were to increase by 10x, I would expect returns on investment to decrease commensurately since there is less "time" risk. It is unlikely that by simply living longer, you will become truly "richer" if everybody else that is competing for the same resources also lives just as long.
Re:I will help YOU get a JOB! (Programming puzzles
on
Programming Puzzles
·
· Score: 1
>> 14. Given an array (group) of numbers write all the possible sub groups of this group.
There are 2^N sub-groups in an array of N elements (inluding the NULL group). There is a 1-to-1 mapping from the binary represenatation of all numbers from 0 to (2^N)-1.
Let's say our array has 3 elements
1 2 3
The subsets are
000 = { x x x } 001 = { x x 3 } 010 = { x 2 x } 011 = { x 2 3 } 100 = { 1 x x } 101 = { 1 x 3 } 110 = { 1 2 x } 111 = { 1 2 3 }
Then you're asking for a C++ template solution. You can get templates to evaluate conditionals at compile time to generate the correct code. This makes my head hurt.
Scientific progress occured in the past because scientists were encouraged by the state to explore their ideas (in many cases through the Feudal system, where Kings and Queens and such would fund them). This is not unlike today where many scientists are funded by the state through govt. grants. But again, many more are funded through private industry.
We have never had as free a market as we do today. Who is to say that the profit motive wouldn't have generated new ideas faster than the old way?
I would argue that the market allocates resources to their most productive ends, therefore progress would have been made faster. After all, resource allocation by a few Kings and Queens is far less efficient than a free market because their access to information and ability to process it is limited vs. the pricing system which automatically factors in the desires of millions of people.
Many large corporations have "blue-sky" research departments that regularly publish peer-reviewed papers because it is in their long-term business interests to do so. Think of the acheivements of just a few of the giants like AT&T Bell Labs, IBM and Intel. Economic incentives have a knack for spurring innovation - witness the most recent X-prize success.
Secrecy is necessary to provide an economic incentive to fund the innovation in the first place. Eventually, secrets get out but not before the innovator has had time to recoup his/her initial investment + some profit which is essential motivation for generating the idea in the first place.
Competition and secrecy exist today in academia as well. Research groups compete for limited funding dollars, so there is an incentive to publish something first before your rival so you may continue to receive funding. The question is...is that funding efficiently allocated to the right groups? Academic funding is allocated by bureuocrats in contrast to the market where funding is allocated via the price system which is in turn a reflection of what society wants (is willing to pay for).
Language isn't a static thing. Rules are broken and new ways to use lanaguage evolve over time. Perhaps English will evolve to an abbreviated form using things like "b4" and "u" as an optimization for the sake of 'economy of typing'. As long as the meaning/intent of the language is clear and widely used, it will become part of the language.
Think about how people spoke English 300 years ago. It's very different from today.
Yes, especially when margins on console silicon are close to 0 and IBM microelectronics loses money every quarter. I wonder why there is no Intel or AMD silicon in upcoming consoles?
IBM makes money on software and consulting. Intel makes money on silicon. AMD too (recently).
Re:Could somebody please explain to me..
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
>> RedHat is a company with a market cap of only about $2 billion, and Sun is a $17 billion dollar company. Sun's running about $10 billion in revenue per quarter, and Red Hat's somewhere around $100 million.
That's 11.2 billion per YEAR, not quarter and out of that 11.2 Sun made 1.3 billion. Most of that revenue comes from hardware sales. The only reason that people buy Sun hardware is because the software stack that runs on it is so good (Sun hardware blows relative to the competition)
It's not RHAT profitability is threatening Sun, it's the fact the many high end Sun/Solaris features are slowly moving to Linux thanks to IBM and others thus removing reasons for people to buy Sun hardware.
Re:Could somebody please explain to me..
on
Sun-isms Debunked
·
· Score: 1
What?
Sun is having their workstation lunch eaten by low cost x86 running Linux. Low end servers share have steadily been declining due to low cost x86 running Linux.
>> That distinction is already made. You have computer scientists (people who do research into cool type systems and write lots of papers), and you have software engineers...
The problem is that many software "engineers" are trained with computer science degrees resulting in poorly engineered systems.
>> Interesting reasons. Bloat is still bad, no matter how much CPU you decide you can throw at it.
It's comments like this that make me think that computer science should be taught as an engineering discipline.
It's a tradeoff. Engineers make tradeoffs all day long. Consider the costs and the benefits. In this case it's a tradeoff of how much does the user care about bloat vs. how soon they want the product. As disk and memory and cpu speed all increase EXPONENTIALLY at the same cost point over time, the tradeoff often falls towards bloat since exponentially falling hardware prices make the user more likely to be indifferent.
Did anybody try to run this on a 64-bit Xeon yet? This kind of algorithm naturally wants 64 bit data types. It would be interesting to compare Xeon vs. Opteron performance here.
I guess you don't understand what polymorphic means. It is specifically meant to be determined at run time - hence it is also called late-binding in the literature.
Sometimes it is impossible to know at compile time because the type you are using may be a function of runtime parameters - templates or not.
The problem with C++ in the kernel is also it's strength in other kinds of apps. By hiding implementation details behind abstractions and interfaces, you don't understand how things work under the hood unless you peel back the layers of abstraction to look inside.
Transparency is needed for kernel code.
A = B + C is ambiguous in C++. You need to dig deeper into the various class heirarchies to figure out what the machine is really doing at the lowest levels (like kernel code) -- which defeats the purpose of the abstraction in the first place. The kernel is controlling the machine at the lowest level. It is almost by definition at the bottom of the stack of abstractions and interfaces - so wrapping it up in layers that obfuscate it's core functionality doesn't make sense.
How would c++ fix this code? It just looks like some bit twiddling. What this code needs are better variable names and more comments.
Sometimes, device drivers need to push bits around in a very explicit and direct way since they're controlling hardware after all. You can layer abstractions on top of abstractions and interfaces but AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STACK, (ie - the kernel and drivers), you still need to push those bits around.
Sometimes price != value as you suggest, or sometimes the value of something is not transmitted as information in the form of prices. Got your point there.
I thought you were aiming at another problem with the market where they don't acheive a global optimum because the parties involved each individually try to maximize their local optimums - which is why I thought about the prisoner's dilemma.
Your other point about fire departments is interesting. Since they protect property and not rights - is there not enough incentive to priviatize the fire dept? People can pool resources to fund a fire department privately, much like insurance companies pool capital to mitigate risk. Wouldn't the fire dept. then just be a branch of some insurance company? If you buy a house without insurance, you assume a risk of property damage or even death.
Now your preventative care example is also interesting. If it is cheaper to provide preventative care, then why wouldn't this be the preferred method? You just said it was a lot cheaper...that's incentive enough in a market. Perhaps what you meant to say was that this information is not widely known?
Untreated sick people who spread disease do incur a cost which is reflected in the price system. Spreading disease to others causes the demand for health services to increase which raises prices of health care. The market does not fix this problem - the sick person is maximizing his interest in not getting treated (since presumably he cannot afford it), but his action incurs a global cost. The global optimum is for others to cooperate and pool money to treat him since the cost of treatment is less than the cost of disease spreading, but they don't because they do not see the global optimum and are selfishly maximizing their local utility. This is a tragedy of the commons example which is of course, just a prisoner's dilemma...
So, instead of a simple "OR" instruction that the C code would compile to, you want to support a polymorphic class???
This will compile to an indirect-branch (to figure out which class to use at run-time) --no matter what compiler you use -- and will most certainly slow your DSP application down, since the last time I checked...DSPs don't have indirect branch predictors. In fact, Prescott (latest P4) is the only Intel CPU with an indirect branch predictor.
The reason why embedded and system developers like C, is that it's really close to the hardware -- which they are often trying to control in a very direct way. I think of it as a shorthand for assembly.
The reason to force everyone to invest in things like government-funded research and public schools is the same "free rider problem" that leads us to force everyone to pay for the police and fire department: the people who don't pay would get the same benefits as the people who do, because it is impossible to separate out my benefits from your benefits.
Yes, I understand. It's a prisoner's dilemma from game theory. Or "tragedy of the commons", or whatever else you want to call it.
I advocate a minimal government that supports things that the market won't provide due to this problem.
1) Defense - This is a broad category that includes government research and infrastructure development. Physics research in particular has been given a blank check after the atom bomb. Computer technology itself has some origins in wartime research.
2) Protection of property rights - This is where the courts, police and the fire departments come in.
3) Protection of human rights - Things like the courts and police to enforce the rules.
Things like health care are questionable because the market provides good health care. If the government wants to control prices, it ends up being more expensive and less efficient. Let me use an analogy (borrowed from Sowell). There is a limited supply of beach front houses. There is a large demand for beach front houses - therefore the market adjusts their price to be expensive so that demand matches supply and only those that can afford the house can actually move there. If the government were to come in a decree that it was every person's "basic right" to own a beachfront home, it would not change the underlying reality that there are many more people than there are beach front houses and the allocation of those houses to people would be very difficult to manage manually by some central authority. The market solves this imbalance with prices.
Similarly with health care - doctors and nurses are in short supply relative to demand (due to an aging demographic). Nothing the goverment does will change this underlying reality. The market will raise prices as the demand (aging baby-boomers) will outstrip the supply of doctors coming out of med school. If the government artifically keeps prices low, this will provide a dis-incentive for people to become doctors therefore putting even further constraints on the supply of doctors - leading to even worse conditions. Let the market adjust. If prices keep increasing, more people will have incentives to become doctors or enter the medical field to take advantage thereby increasing supply.
WWII falls under defense, which I advocated. The national highway system was also built primarily for defense - we needed a transportation system to move military equipment around.
Rural electrification and a national highway system are both things that the market could have provided far more efficiently than the government.
Take the railways for example - they were private enterprises. There is no reason to think that roads/highways could not also be private.
No, its the essence of greed and selfishness, because you benefit from these things but don't want to pay for them.
Individual greed and selfishness often lead to a global optimization (I am paraphrasing Adam Smith).
If you want to talk about the moral implications of taxation - consider this - everyone should receive equal benefit from the government in an ideal egalatarian society. Therefore, given those constraints, every single citizen should pay the same amount of tax for the same amount of service rendered. Given that the top 20% earners fund about 80% of the government, I believe a tax overhaul is necessary to "equalize" things. The "greedy" rich already foot the bill for most of the country's expenses not to mention create jobs and value to the economy in their pursuit of "greed". Progressive taxation can also be found in the communist manifesto.
I'm not saying we eliminate all taxes and social programs. Just the extra crap that provides a service that the market already does. Like say -- government health care for everyone. This is a serious market distortion that will create huge changes in the quality and expense of health care. I speak as a former Canadian, who now happily lives in a less broken country.
I am 31, but age is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I don't own a pickup truck, but again, that question is also irrelevant.
Basic social services SHOULD be funded by government insofar as the market does not provide them and provided that the service protects basic human/inalienable rights. I believe I made that point very explicitly.
"Tragedy of the commons" is better explained mathematically by the prisoner's dilemma. Yes, I do understand it.
It's fine if you think that 50k of your salary should go to science, tech, eductation and so forth, but why force EVERYBODY to invest? While you may personally find these to be worth investments, others may not.
If you feel that these are worthy investments, make them yourself and let others be free to CHOOSE where their money goes.
This is the essence of freedom.
In this 2 party system, it is impossible for one party's opinion to please everybody. By letting the individual choose where to allocate resources, only those resources that the majority truly wants will get allocated. In short, a vote with your dollar is far more efficient than a vote for your party who will then "invest" on your behalf through taxation.
Lots of rich people donate their time and money to charity and other causes that they deem worthy. Some do not.
The fact the Brittney Spears makes a lot of money is due to the fact that she provides entertainment value that people are willing to pay for. While you may not like or approve of the value she provides, the people giving her money disagree with you.
So you believe that the government can allocate resources (your increased tax dollars) more efficiently than the free market?
Interesting position...
A small group of government officials somehow knows "better" than the hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people who ultimately CHOOSE how to spend their money with prices determined by supply and demand. If your buddy wants a Bently, he should have one - there is obviously a market for them otherwise Bentlys wouldn't exist.
The goverment should provide services that the market will not - like defense, protection of property rights, protection of other human and inalienable rights etc... and that is about it.
Companies make the most money when you buy as much new hardware as possible rather than keeping your existing stuff that is sufficient. Car manufacturers are the same way. It's inefficient but like everything else we can chalk it up to capitalism.
The words 'inefficient' and 'capitalism' don't belong in the same sentence. Capitalism means that resources are allocated to their most productive ends. It is one of the most efficient means of distributing resources.
When corporations buy new computers (resource allocation), they expect to see a return on that investment (productive end).
If there is little to no return, they will cease to invest in new computers. If they invested too much, their competitors could have invested less and lowered their costs leading to better margins and potentially lower prices to take market share away from their competitor.
So, the reason that you are seeing new computers everywhere is that they must provide some value over an older computer and that there must be some return on that investment.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent answer!
:)
This is the kind of question that might be asked at an Intel interview --- speaking as an Intel engineer myself
>> Instead imagine a world where you spend 100 years working on something you like (and you could take a lot more time to find something you like without having to settle down before you were thirty or so), then perhaps take the next 100 years (!) off just living on savings accumulated! If you are thrifty the first hundred you could probably live off the interest indefinatley. Just recently I read a story about a janitor that managed to save up enough to donate a few MILLION dollors to the school he worked at.
The market sets returns on investment based on risk/reward. If lifespans were to increase by 10x, I would expect returns on investment to decrease commensurately since there is less "time" risk. It is unlikely that by simply living longer, you will become truly "richer" if everybody else that is competing for the same resources also lives just as long.
>> 14. Given an array (group) of numbers write all the possible sub groups of this group.
There are 2^N sub-groups in an array of N elements (inluding the NULL group). There is a 1-to-1 mapping from the binary represenatation of all numbers from 0 to (2^N)-1.
Let's say our array has 3 elements
1 2 3
The subsets are
000 = { x x x }
001 = { x x 3 }
010 = { x 2 x }
011 = { x 2 3 }
100 = { 1 x x }
101 = { 1 x 3 }
110 = { 1 2 x }
111 = { 1 2 3 }
Bonus question.
Why would the XOR swap method run slower than the TMP register method on an out of order processor?
Perhaps they are looking for a recursive solution.
void print_down(int base)
{
if (base == 0) {
return;
} else {
printf("%d\n", base);
print_down(base - 1);
}
}
Hmmm, no conditionals?
Then you're asking for a C++ template solution. You can get templates to evaluate conditionals at compile time to generate the correct code. This makes my head hurt.
Scientific progress occured in the past because scientists were encouraged by the state to explore their ideas (in many cases through the Feudal system, where Kings and Queens and such would fund them). This is not unlike today where many scientists are funded by the state through govt. grants. But again, many more are funded through private industry.
We have never had as free a market as we do today. Who is to say that the profit motive wouldn't have generated new ideas faster than the old way?
I would argue that the market allocates resources to their most productive ends, therefore progress would have been made faster. After all, resource allocation by a few Kings and Queens is far less efficient than a free market because their access to information and ability to process it is limited vs. the pricing system which automatically factors in the desires of millions of people.
Many large corporations have "blue-sky" research departments that regularly publish peer-reviewed papers because it is in their long-term business interests to do so. Think of the acheivements of just a few of the giants like AT&T Bell Labs, IBM and Intel. Economic incentives have a knack for spurring innovation - witness the most recent X-prize success.
Secrecy is necessary to provide an economic incentive to fund the innovation in the first place. Eventually, secrets get out but not before the innovator has had time to recoup his/her initial investment + some profit which is essential motivation for generating the idea in the first place.
Competition and secrecy exist today in academia as well. Research groups compete for limited funding dollars, so there is an incentive to publish something first before your rival so you may continue to receive funding. The question is...is that funding efficiently allocated to the right groups? Academic funding is allocated by bureuocrats in contrast to the market where funding is allocated via the price system which is in turn a reflection of what society wants (is willing to pay for).
Language isn't a static thing. Rules are broken and new ways to use lanaguage evolve over time. Perhaps English will evolve to an abbreviated form using things like "b4" and "u" as an optimization for the sake of 'economy of typing'. As long as the meaning/intent of the language is clear and widely used, it will become part of the language.
Think about how people spoke English 300 years ago. It's very different from today.
>> Looks like a good time to own IBM stock...
Yes, especially when margins on console silicon are close to 0 and IBM microelectronics loses money every quarter. I wonder why there is no Intel or AMD silicon in upcoming consoles?
IBM makes money on software and consulting. Intel makes money on silicon. AMD too (recently).
>> RedHat is a company with a market cap of only about $2 billion, and Sun is a $17 billion dollar company. Sun's running about $10 billion in revenue per quarter, and Red Hat's somewhere around $100 million.
That's 11.2 billion per YEAR, not quarter and out of that 11.2 Sun made 1.3 billion. Most of that revenue comes from hardware sales. The only reason that people buy Sun hardware is because the software stack that runs on it is so good (Sun hardware blows relative to the competition)
It's not RHAT profitability is threatening Sun, it's the fact the many high end Sun/Solaris features are slowly moving to Linux thanks to IBM and others thus removing reasons for people to buy Sun hardware.
What?
Sun is having their workstation lunch eaten by low cost x86 running Linux. Low end servers share have steadily been declining due to low cost x86 running Linux.
>> That distinction is already made. You have computer scientists (people who do research into cool type systems and write lots of papers), and you have software engineers ...
The problem is that many software "engineers" are trained with computer science degrees resulting in poorly engineered systems.
>> Interesting reasons. Bloat is still bad, no matter how much CPU you decide you can throw at it.
It's comments like this that make me think that computer science should be taught as an engineering discipline.
It's a tradeoff. Engineers make tradeoffs all day long. Consider the costs and the benefits. In this case it's a tradeoff of how much does the user care about bloat vs. how soon they want the product. As disk and memory and cpu speed all increase EXPONENTIALLY at the same cost point over time, the tradeoff often falls towards bloat since exponentially falling hardware prices make the user more likely to be indifferent.
Did anybody try to run this on a 64-bit Xeon yet? This kind of algorithm naturally wants 64 bit data types. It would be interesting to compare Xeon vs. Opteron performance here.
I guess you don't understand what polymorphic means. It is specifically meant to be determined at run time - hence it is also called late-binding in the literature.
Sometimes it is impossible to know at compile time because the type you are using may be a function of runtime parameters - templates or not.
The problem with C++ in the kernel is also it's strength in other kinds of apps. By hiding implementation details behind abstractions and interfaces, you don't understand how things work under the hood unless you peel back the layers of abstraction to look inside.
Transparency is needed for kernel code.
A = B + C is ambiguous in C++. You need to dig deeper into the various class heirarchies to figure out what the machine is really doing at the lowest levels (like kernel code) -- which defeats the purpose of the abstraction in the first place. The kernel is controlling the machine at the lowest level. It is almost by definition at the bottom of the stack of abstractions and interfaces - so wrapping it up in layers that obfuscate it's core functionality doesn't make sense.
First you say...
>> In fact, you could transparently support multiple types of registers by overloading operator= of SOMEREG_ptr, which could be a polymorphic class
And then you say...
>> An non-virtual inline operator= will always produce a simple or and store, just like the original C code
Well, if it's non-virtual, then it isn't polymorphic is it? You would have to know the type of your register at compile time.
How would c++ fix this code? It just looks like some bit twiddling. What this code needs are better variable names and more comments.
Sometimes, device drivers need to push bits around in a very explicit and direct way since they're controlling hardware after all. You can layer abstractions on top of abstractions and interfaces but AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STACK, (ie - the kernel and drivers), you still need to push those bits around.
I understand that markets can fail.
Sometimes price != value as you suggest, or sometimes the value of something is not transmitted as information in the form of prices. Got your point there.
I thought you were aiming at another problem with the market where they don't acheive a global optimum because the parties involved each individually try to maximize their local optimums - which is why I thought about the prisoner's dilemma.
Your other point about fire departments is interesting. Since they protect property and not rights - is there not enough incentive to priviatize the fire dept? People can pool resources to fund a fire department privately, much like insurance companies pool capital to mitigate risk. Wouldn't the fire dept. then just be a branch of some insurance company? If you buy a house without insurance, you assume a risk of property damage or even death.
Now your preventative care example is also interesting. If it is cheaper to provide preventative care, then why wouldn't this be the preferred method? You just said it was a lot cheaper...that's incentive enough in a market. Perhaps what you meant to say was that this information is not widely known?
Untreated sick people who spread disease do incur a cost which is reflected in the price system. Spreading disease to others causes the demand for health services to increase which raises prices of health care. The market does not fix this problem - the sick person is maximizing his interest in not getting treated (since presumably he cannot afford it), but his action incurs a global cost. The global optimum is for others to cooperate and pool money to treat him since the cost of treatment is less than the cost of disease spreading, but they don't because they do not see the global optimum and are selfishly maximizing their local utility. This is a tragedy of the commons example which is of course, just a prisoner's dilemma...
So basically we agree?
So, instead of a simple "OR" instruction that the C code would compile to, you want to support a polymorphic class???
This will compile to an indirect-branch (to figure out which class to use at run-time) --no matter what compiler you use -- and will most certainly slow your DSP application down, since the last time I checked...DSPs don't have indirect branch predictors. In fact, Prescott (latest P4) is the only Intel CPU with an indirect branch predictor.
The reason why embedded and system developers like C, is that it's really close to the hardware -- which they are often trying to control in a very direct way. I think of it as a shorthand for assembly.
The reason to force everyone to invest in things like government-funded research and public schools is the same "free rider problem" that leads us to force everyone to pay for the police and fire department: the people who don't pay would get the same benefits as the people who do, because it is impossible to separate out my benefits from your benefits.
Yes, I understand. It's a prisoner's dilemma from game theory. Or "tragedy of the commons", or whatever else you want to call it.
I advocate a minimal government that supports things that the market won't provide due to this problem.
1) Defense - This is a broad category that includes government research and infrastructure development. Physics research in particular has been given a blank check after the atom bomb. Computer technology itself has some origins in wartime research.
2) Protection of property rights - This is where the courts, police and the fire departments come in.
3) Protection of human rights - Things like the courts and police to enforce the rules.
Things like health care are questionable because the market provides good health care. If the government wants to control prices, it ends up being more expensive and less efficient. Let me use an analogy (borrowed from Sowell). There is a limited supply of beach front houses. There is a large demand for beach front houses - therefore the market adjusts their price to be expensive so that demand matches supply and only those that can afford the house can actually move there. If the government were to come in a decree that it was every person's "basic right" to own a beachfront home, it would not change the underlying reality that there are many more people than there are beach front houses and the allocation of those houses to people would be very difficult to manage manually by some central authority. The market solves this imbalance with prices.
Similarly with health care - doctors and nurses are in short supply relative to demand (due to an aging demographic). Nothing the goverment does will change this underlying reality. The market will raise prices as the demand (aging baby-boomers) will outstrip the supply of doctors coming out of med school. If the government artifically keeps prices low, this will provide a dis-incentive for people to become doctors therefore putting even further constraints on the supply of doctors - leading to even worse conditions. Let the market adjust. If prices keep increasing, more people will have incentives to become doctors or enter the medical field to take advantage thereby increasing supply.
WWII falls under defense, which I advocated. The national highway system was also built primarily for defense - we needed a transportation system to move military equipment around.
Rural electrification and a national highway system are both things that the market could have provided far more efficiently than the government.
Take the railways for example - they were private enterprises. There is no reason to think that roads/highways could not also be private.
No, its the essence of greed and selfishness, because you benefit from these things but don't want to pay for them.
Individual greed and selfishness often lead to a global optimization (I am paraphrasing Adam Smith).
If you want to talk about the moral implications of taxation - consider this - everyone should receive equal benefit from the government in an ideal egalatarian society. Therefore, given those constraints, every single citizen should pay the same amount of tax for the same amount of service rendered. Given that the top 20% earners fund about 80% of the government, I believe a tax overhaul is necessary to "equalize" things. The "greedy" rich already foot the bill for most of the country's expenses not to mention create jobs and value to the economy in their pursuit of "greed". Progressive taxation can also be found in the communist manifesto.
I'm not saying we eliminate all taxes and social programs. Just the extra crap that provides a service that the market already does. Like say -- government health care for everyone. This is a serious market distortion that will create huge changes in the quality and expense of health care. I speak as a former Canadian, who now happily lives in a less broken country.
I am 31, but age is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I don't own a pickup truck, but again, that question is also irrelevant.
Basic social services SHOULD be funded by government insofar as the market does not provide them and provided that the service protects basic human/inalienable rights. I believe I made that point very explicitly.
"Tragedy of the commons" is better explained mathematically by the prisoner's dilemma. Yes, I do understand it.
It's fine if you think that 50k of your salary should go to science, tech, eductation and so forth, but why force EVERYBODY to invest? While you may personally find these to be worth investments, others may not.
If you feel that these are worthy investments, make them yourself and let others be free to CHOOSE where their money goes.
This is the essence of freedom.
In this 2 party system, it is impossible for one party's opinion to please everybody. By letting the individual choose where to allocate resources, only those resources that the majority truly wants will get allocated. In short, a vote with your dollar is far more efficient than a vote for your party who will then "invest" on your behalf through taxation.
Lots of rich people donate their time and money to charity and other causes that they deem worthy. Some do not.
The fact the Brittney Spears makes a lot of money is due to the fact that she provides entertainment value that people are willing to pay for. While you may not like or approve of the value she provides, the people giving her money disagree with you.
Welcome to America.
So you believe that the government can allocate resources (your increased tax dollars) more efficiently than the free market?
Interesting position...
A small group of government officials somehow knows "better" than the hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people who ultimately CHOOSE how to spend their money with prices determined by supply and demand. If your buddy wants a Bently, he should have one - there is obviously a market for them otherwise Bentlys wouldn't exist.
The goverment should provide services that the market will not - like defense, protection of property rights, protection of other human and inalienable rights etc... and that is about it.
Neither candidate does that for me.
Companies make the most money when you buy as much new hardware as possible rather than keeping your existing stuff that is sufficient. Car manufacturers are the same way. It's inefficient but like everything else we can chalk it up to capitalism.
The words 'inefficient' and 'capitalism' don't belong in the same sentence. Capitalism means that resources are allocated to their most productive ends. It is one of the most efficient means of distributing resources.
When corporations buy new computers (resource allocation), they expect to see a return on that investment (productive end).
If there is little to no return, they will cease to invest in new computers. If they invested too much, their competitors could have invested less and lowered their costs leading to better margins and potentially lower prices to take market share away from their competitor.
So, the reason that you are seeing new computers everywhere is that they must provide some value over an older computer and that there must be some return on that investment.