You're rated +5 insightful, but considering that's precisely how "Hollywood accounting" works, it should be +5 funny.
For example Lord of the Rings trilogy made roughly $6 BILLION worldwide, yet New Line Cinema's accounting report shows "horrendous losses" and no profit at all.
(http://www.pajiba.com/box_office_round-ups/10-movies-that-made-hundreds-of-millions-in-boxoffice-dollars-and-yet-somehow-showed-no-profit.php) Links to explanations in the original page above.
1. My Big Fat Greek Wedding cost $6 million to make and made over $350 million at the box office, and yet lost $20 million. 2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy made over $2.9 billion in box office, and yet showed âoehorrendous losses.â 3. Return of the Jedi made $475 million on a $32 million budget, yet has never shown a profit. 4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made $939 million worldwide, and yet ended up with a $167 million loss. 5. Forrest Gump earned $667 million, yet shows a loss of $31 million. 6. JFK earned $150 million worldwide but showed $0 in profit. 7. Coming to America made $288 million in revenue, yet showed no profit. 8. Michael Mooreâ(TM)s Fahrenheit 9/11 made $220 million worldwide, and yet apparently showed no profit. 9. The Exorcism of Emily Rose made $150 million on a $19 million budget and turned no profit. 10. Batman, which made $411 million worldwide, showed a $36 million deficit.
The idea that cell phones 'heat up your brain' or cause direct brain damage is pretty ridiculous, given the energies involved.
This would seem to suggest that while actual BRAIN damage is still impossible, it's perhaps not impossible that such EMF may interfere with these just-discovered slow-moving signals and whatever they do.
Seems rather conceited for us to say "there's no way they could cover 1/5 of a star in a century" when little more than a century ago one could have found plenty of 'experts' who would poo-poo the idea of powered flight. Hell, only 30 years ago, nearly every single civilian phone in the world was somehow attached to a wall.
And as far as his comments about black-body radiation from such a structure, it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable for a civilization capable of such engineering such a megastructure in the first place, to have figured out how to convert heat energy into something more usable/consumable.
Yes, I'll be honest: part of me would love there to be evidence of other life in the universe. OTOH, part of that would be absolutely terrifying. (http://rithmomachia.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-we-should-quit-searching-for-alien.html)
You know how sometimes if you're working collaboratively on a big project, there's maybe a double-handful of people working really hard at their piece of the pie?
And then there's this single brilliant guy that really leads the team by example, connecting those pieces and developing the cutting edge technologies that everyone else is going to implement to make a terrific new product?
And then there's that ONE guy; the one that does pretty much fuck-all but somehow manages to suck all the air out of every meeting by assuming he's in charge, and spends most of HIS project work time convincing outsiders that he's SUPER important?
Yeah, as far as Doom is concerned, that last one's John Romero.
"Some of them have yet to be opened. "They were collected in the vacuum of the lunar surface, placed inside vacuum sealed tubes, and remain that way to this day.""
Not to mention the basic: If I pull the trigger, and the gun doesn't fire, the whole intrinsic "danger" of the situation has now multiplied what, 10-fold? 100-fold? Is it a misfire? Is it a hangfire? Or did my 'smart' gun fail to be smart? Do I have a dead battery?
Yes, I know the intrinsic danger of pulling the trigger on a firearm is fantastically low. But the moment something unexpected happens, you start getting people 'forgetting' safe handling and turning around WITH THE LOADED AND PURPORTEDLY 'ACTIVATED' GUN IN THEIR HAND, for example. Anyone spending any time around people firing guns a lot will have seen this, and in all likelihood, done it at least once themselves.
The problem is that the vocal minority that are aroused by this issue are simply unable to sway the inertial mass of people in the center. If they were, the lawmakers (who have no moral compass at all and will cheerfully go whichever way the wind blows) would already be on it.
Frankly speaking, NOBODY wants to touch the Constitution any more, and that's part of the problem (or not, depending on how you see it).
The moment the left wing gets a crack at erasing or strongly constraining the 2nd amendment, even they understand that means things like 'right to free speech' or 'no religion' would ALSO be open for amendment by the right wing. And the zealots in both camps secretly, in their heart of hearts, understand that they're the nattering 10% fringe, the other group is the opposite 10% fringe, and there's ~80% in between that are much much harder to convince of the rightness (or righteousness might be a more appropriate term) of what 'needs to happen'.
Everyone want it to be (pardon the term) 'open season' on OTHER PEOPLE'S sacred cows, while their own remain inviolable.
I'll be quite clear about my own view point, just so it's out there: I believe there is an intrinsic balance of power between the government and the governed. Do I believe that me owning a handgun or whatever is going to "fight off the Feds"? No, that's ridiculous. But in the same sense that as a sane, law abiding adult, I'm entitled to operate a chainsaw or smoke or drink, I'm likewise entitled to the mechanisms of my own self-defense should I feel inclined to have them. Clearly, the government should NOT have a right to deprive me of that unless I've shown myself to be a danger to others. I'll admit, I'm one of those who believed in but didn't exercise this right until recently - bought a handgun after training classes last year - because I see this administration as willing to bend/break any rule they can get away with in pursuit of what I see as an anti-constitutional agenda. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
If you seriously need a gun for your job, I'm guessing you too "...require maximum reliability from their weapon".
It's a fucking GUN, not a spoon. If a person needs to use it, one would hope ironically that it's only in the sort of circumstance where their life is in pretty serious danger.
More than a decade ago, I'd ordered my small business's desktops from Dell. Might have been a couple of times, actually.
A few years later, I was looking up drivers or somesuch, and noticed that oddly, the login screen for my Dell account had me misidentified as "Ben".
(My name is nothing like Ben.)
Then I saw a WAVE of spam, as well as dead-tree mail spam, all addressed to "dear Ben". Dell INSISTS that they didn't sell my name to spammers. Despite complaining to Dell, last time I checked it still calls me Ben, and I continue to get spam occasionally addressed to Ben.
I actually thought that MMOs were the industry's evolved response to the perceived "threat" of piracy: a game which FUNDAMENTALLY had to interact with a centrally located, company owned server. How much more locked-down could you get?
Well, it shows how much I know; the resourcefulness and frankly brilliance of the emulator programmers that black-box reverse-engineer server systems so people can run private servers of WoW, etc leave me pretty impressed. Some are a little wobbly, sure, but by and large there are private servers running WoW that you couldn't distinguish from running the commercial version (the only distinction being player numbers and a network back end that is far more bandwidth constrained, which itself leads me to respect the original games' challenges preventing that from being more apparent in the original...)
I keep hearing this concept repeated like a tocsin by "internet experts" (that I've never heard of) but seriously, who is going to buy this crap? Who really wants their coffeemaker or refrigerator attached to the internet at all, much less be willing to pay one cent more to add what amounts to zero functionality but additional points of failure and additional ability for corporate America to grab some other details about our personal lives?
Is there any actual, normal person out there even faintly interested in this crap?
Your response - immediately assuming (despite the actual words written) that I'm somehow casting all rape accusations as lies - precisely proves my point about short attention spans on the internet, assumptions of guilt or innocence, and overwhelmingly emotional reactions.
Look, we all understand the desire to do something good. Particularly in the case of some perceived injustice - a rape victim is disregarded, for example.
The problem is firstly that we don't have a universal definition of good. Missionaries bringing Christianity to the 'heathens' in Darkest Africa thought they were GENUINELY doing good - saving these people's souls, bringing them education, clothes, technology. The next time you start getting all righteous about doing something for someone else's best interest, understand that morally you are PRECISELY in the same position as that Missionary.
The second problem of course is one of information. PARTICULARLY in the age of the internet, we tend to judge in the first few seconds, and then everything else we hear either validates that gut-judgement, or is discarded as "biased". That rape victim? What if she was, in fact, lying?
We have a process for punishing wrongdoers, it's called the Law. It's absolutely not perfect, an in many ways it's outright broken. But THAT is where we need to spend our energy and efforts: fix that, and everything improves.
First, might want to take that rage pill again; your prescription seems to have run out.
1) In some contexts yes, a cop has to enforce the law above and beyond their feelings. It's their job. You'll notice I said "in some contexts" - learn to read. Things will make a lot more sense.
2) and of course people in governance have to have some empathy, but often they have to make 'greatest good for greatest number' sorts of decisions, unless you live in an imaginary universe where everyone can win all the time. That means that SOME people will be unhappy. Good government accepts that. (note where I said we're talking about points on a spectrum, not just a binary situation of "empathy or no"? Again, learn to read.)
Basically, you seem to not understand that there are places where empathy CANNOT be primary.
Here's a quiz: you're about to die from heart failure. You can choose from two doctors for the risky operation: 1) this doctor is kind of a klutz, but he really understands your situation, has spoken many times with your family and with you, helping you all emotionally prepare yourself for the possibilities, and really is committed to empathizing with you and your loved ones, or 2) this doctor is a complete asshole, and doesn't give a shit about you or your family, but is the best heart surgeon on the planet.
Which do you choose? If you said #1, you're lying.
Precisely my point. YOU have decided that empathy is a critically important feature of human interaction (and let's be clear: we're not talking a binary state here, we're talking about points along a spectrum). I don't necessarily agree.
ABSOLUTELY human empathy is significantly needed in some contexts: - raising children - personal relationships - governance...but there are some contexts in which far less relevant, if not to say irrelevant: - engine repair - code writing
Heck, there are some places where human empathy is actually a negative to the effective performance of the role: - governance - being a police officer (in some contexts) or soldier - hunting
So no, I entirely disagree with your assertion that empathy is positive in ANY human endeavor, and suggest that to believe so is part of our cultural problem today: entirely too many people give a shit about how many others feel or feel about them.
Well, the demonstration of stupid I wouldn't disagree with, although you might not like my interpretation: "*Everyone must have a job even if the things you're good at have been replaced by bots or outsourced to the Chinese" Yes, it's not the REST OF US's fault that you majored in Russian Medieval Literature, or (worse) dropped out of free High School before you had marketable skills. If you don't take advantage of those things to GET marketable skills (and college is pretty much FREE if you're poor) that's your choice. And if that's your CHOICE, then you're freeloading and yes, a scumbag. Face it, most people are poor because of shitty life choices. Not all, of course, some ARE entitled to a helping hand from their community. But many aren't, and I don't see any need to share what I have with someone who couldn't be bothered to work 50+ hours a week for 25 years to have what I have.
"*Tremendous poverty, everyone brushes it under the table because everybody is so opposed to the idea of people getting a free lunch" OK I'll have your stuff then. You clearly can afford at least a computer and internet connection so I'll take that first. Oh you don't like that? Why not? The people who seem to be promoting a free lunch are generally not those paying for it. The super-rich promoting higher taxes? Yeah, like they care that they only have $30 billion instead of $60 billion.
"*Nobody wants to give up driving their big automatic pickup to work, even if it can be proven they are causing global warming" Personally, I'd get rid of ALL energy subsidies (and subsidies-in-kind) to any energy industry, be it petro, solar, nuclear, etc. Let them all pay the ACTUAL costs of their choices. Let the market decide.
"*Nobody wants to give up their silly pea-shooter in case of Government aggression even if the government has much better toys that would make very light work of someone toting the said pea-shooter" I'll give up my second amendment when you give up your first, cool with that?
"*Nobody complains about the government pissing away trillions of the aforementioned toys while people starve and die of curable illnesses." Again, we should take your stuff first. I generally see people who campaign for higher benefits basically claiming that everyone ELSE should pay more. Personally, I don't like the idea of government with confiscatory powers. Remember, in the next cycle Trump might have those same powers to use against the Left. Or Muslims.
Criticism on the 'retro' tone from the guy who mande American Graffiti? And then who made a bog-standard space opera comprised of a mashup of cowboy movies and Kurosawa? Really? And did he actually watch episodes 6, 1, 2, and 3? What was intrinsically novel in them?
That, my friends, is irony.
Yes, the Disney film was entirely an homage (read: flat-out-copy) of the first film. It took no risks, but what it did do is retell the first film for an entirely new generation. "Rebooting" is such a popular way to say "copy" today, if they'd just said "we're rebooting it because 2/3 of the source work from the original author we have as a foundation was utter crap" people would be arguing about that.
Yes, it was a naked merchandising enterprise (I believe I saw a 50 yard WALL of merch at Target before the film came out) but SO WAS THE FIRST.
Suffice to say: I loved Star Wars - I was 10 in 1977, and watched it at least 30 times in theaters. It is what it is. All the encrustations of epicness that have been laden on by Lucas and creepily-worshipful fans are just that: extrinsic and irrelevant. If it took a single new film to break that all off and start clean, I'm cool with that.
I hope this means that the NEXT film can be more interesting and a little more daring.
I hear lots of groundswell being generated around 'basic income' systems re the OP and in Finland. I'm a very politically conservative person, so it might surprise you that I'm strongly in favor of them. For those liberal-minded folks who claim to be in favor, I suspect that you haven't REALLY thought through the consequences?
A "basic income" system is generally posited as a more humane and efficient way to deliver services to poor people, rather than a massive, expensive, Byzantine, rules-laden (and thus easily exploitable) bureaucracy. So far, so good.
However, the flip side of delivering funds in this NEW way is stopping them the OLD way. Otherwise, what's the point (except if the real intent is letting people double dip by getting a basic income AND STILL having the whole welfare state remain in place)?
So these poor folks would ostensibly get a basic, living income in lieu of services. That means NOBODY is controlling these funds except them. We're writing them a check and saying "ok, take care of yourself!" All the other services that are specific or constrained to be as idiot-proof and un-gameable as possible - public health, food stamps, WIC, AFDC, cheap school food for poor kids, whatever - GONE.
Haven't these people already more or less proven that they can't do this by the very fact that they're poor?
Is the homeless crackhead on the street going to take that 'basic income' payment and get an apartment? Is he going to go get treatment or even basic medical care? Food? Clothing?
I'm *perfectly* fine with people getting a basic income, and then living (or not) with the consequences of their choices with that money.
I suspect that most people really, in fact, aren't. Most are likely assuming (deliberately or no) that the 'basic income' would just be another added benefit program to all the ones that exist today. In which case, let's make sure we're discussing it in THAT context - simply a giant new payout of funds - and then STILL ask the question: ok, if we don't feel that these people would responsibly spend those funds in my more draconian model, why are we assuming that they would in ANY model?
Slashdot Mirror
You're rated +5 insightful, but considering that's precisely how "Hollywood accounting" works, it should be +5 funny.
For example Lord of the Rings trilogy made roughly $6 BILLION worldwide, yet New Line Cinema's accounting report shows "horrendous losses" and no profit at all.
(http://www.pajiba.com/box_office_round-ups/10-movies-that-made-hundreds-of-millions-in-boxoffice-dollars-and-yet-somehow-showed-no-profit.php)
Links to explanations in the original page above.
1. My Big Fat Greek Wedding cost $6 million to make and made over $350 million at the box office, and yet lost $20 million.
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy made over $2.9 billion in box office, and yet showed âoehorrendous losses.â
3. Return of the Jedi made $475 million on a $32 million budget, yet has never shown a profit.
4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made $939 million worldwide, and yet ended up with a $167 million loss.
5. Forrest Gump earned $667 million, yet shows a loss of $31 million.
6. JFK earned $150 million worldwide but showed $0 in profit.
7. Coming to America made $288 million in revenue, yet showed no profit.
8. Michael Mooreâ(TM)s Fahrenheit 9/11 made $220 million worldwide, and yet apparently showed no profit.
9. The Exorcism of Emily Rose made $150 million on a $19 million budget and turned no profit.
10. Batman, which made $411 million worldwide, showed a $36 million deficit.
The idea that cell phones 'heat up your brain' or cause direct brain damage is pretty ridiculous, given the energies involved.
This would seem to suggest that while actual BRAIN damage is still impossible, it's perhaps not impossible that such EMF may interfere with these just-discovered slow-moving signals and whatever they do.
Interesting data on the variety and strength of EMF we encounter daily is here;
http://www.who.int/peh-emf/abo...
Hopefully someone with a better understanding of how these compare to the "2.5â"5 mV/mm" quoted in the abstract can comment.
Seems rather conceited for us to say "there's no way they could cover 1/5 of a star in a century" when little more than a century ago one could have found plenty of 'experts' who would poo-poo the idea of powered flight.
Hell, only 30 years ago, nearly every single civilian phone in the world was somehow attached to a wall.
And as far as his comments about black-body radiation from such a structure, it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable for a civilization capable of such engineering such a megastructure in the first place, to have figured out how to convert heat energy into something more usable/consumable.
Yes, I'll be honest: part of me would love there to be evidence of other life in the universe.
OTOH, part of that would be absolutely terrifying. (http://rithmomachia.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-we-should-quit-searching-for-alien.html)
Rather "infamous".
You know how sometimes if you're working collaboratively on a big project, there's maybe a double-handful of people working really hard at their piece of the pie?
And then there's this single brilliant guy that really leads the team by example, connecting those pieces and developing the cutting edge technologies that everyone else is going to implement to make a terrific new product?
And then there's that ONE guy; the one that does pretty much fuck-all but somehow manages to suck all the air out of every meeting by assuming he's in charge, and spends most of HIS project work time convincing outsiders that he's SUPER important?
Yeah, as far as Doom is concerned, that last one's John Romero.
"Some of them have yet to be opened. "They were collected in the vacuum of the lunar surface, placed inside vacuum sealed tubes, and remain that way to this day.""
You mean, ASIDE from the ones a couple of interns laid out and had sex on, right?
http://gizmodo.com/5242736/how...
"will start abandoning them and going back to streaming..."
That's a very optimistic use of tense there, Mr (or Ms) dskoll.
Not to mention the basic: If I pull the trigger, and the gun doesn't fire, the whole intrinsic "danger" of the situation has now multiplied what, 10-fold? 100-fold? Is it a misfire? Is it a hangfire? Or did my 'smart' gun fail to be smart? Do I have a dead battery?
Yes, I know the intrinsic danger of pulling the trigger on a firearm is fantastically low. But the moment something unexpected happens, you start getting people 'forgetting' safe handling and turning around WITH THE LOADED AND PURPORTEDLY 'ACTIVATED' GUN IN THEIR HAND, for example. Anyone spending any time around people firing guns a lot will have seen this, and in all likelihood, done it at least once themselves.
A rational viewpoint, certainly. Thank you.
The problem is that the vocal minority that are aroused by this issue are simply unable to sway the inertial mass of people in the center. If they were, the lawmakers (who have no moral compass at all and will cheerfully go whichever way the wind blows) would already be on it.
Frankly speaking, NOBODY wants to touch the Constitution any more, and that's part of the problem (or not, depending on how you see it).
The moment the left wing gets a crack at erasing or strongly constraining the 2nd amendment, even they understand that means things like 'right to free speech' or 'no religion' would ALSO be open for amendment by the right wing. And the zealots in both camps secretly, in their heart of hearts, understand that they're the nattering 10% fringe, the other group is the opposite 10% fringe, and there's ~80% in between that are much much harder to convince of the rightness (or righteousness might be a more appropriate term) of what 'needs to happen'.
Everyone want it to be (pardon the term) 'open season' on OTHER PEOPLE'S sacred cows, while their own remain inviolable.
I'll be quite clear about my own view point, just so it's out there:
I believe there is an intrinsic balance of power between the government and the governed. Do I believe that me owning a handgun or whatever is going to "fight off the Feds"? No, that's ridiculous. But in the same sense that as a sane, law abiding adult, I'm entitled to operate a chainsaw or smoke or drink, I'm likewise entitled to the mechanisms of my own self-defense should I feel inclined to have them. Clearly, the government should NOT have a right to deprive me of that unless I've shown myself to be a danger to others. I'll admit, I'm one of those who believed in but didn't exercise this right until recently - bought a handgun after training classes last year - because I see this administration as willing to bend/break any rule they can get away with in pursuit of what I see as an anti-constitutional agenda. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
If you seriously need a gun for your job, I'm guessing you too "...require maximum reliability from their weapon".
It's a fucking GUN, not a spoon. If a person needs to use it, one would hope ironically that it's only in the sort of circumstance where their life is in pretty serious danger.
More than a decade ago, I'd ordered my small business's desktops from Dell. Might have been a couple of times, actually.
A few years later, I was looking up drivers or somesuch, and noticed that oddly, the login screen for my Dell account had me misidentified as "Ben".
(My name is nothing like Ben.)
Then I saw a WAVE of spam, as well as dead-tree mail spam, all addressed to "dear Ben".
Dell INSISTS that they didn't sell my name to spammers.
Despite complaining to Dell, last time I checked it still calls me Ben, and I continue to get spam occasionally addressed to Ben.
Seems pretty clear to me.
I actually thought that MMOs were the industry's evolved response to the perceived "threat" of piracy: a game which FUNDAMENTALLY had to interact with a centrally located, company owned server. How much more locked-down could you get?
Well, it shows how much I know; the resourcefulness and frankly brilliance of the emulator programmers that black-box reverse-engineer server systems so people can run private servers of WoW, etc leave me pretty impressed. Some are a little wobbly, sure, but by and large there are private servers running WoW that you couldn't distinguish from running the commercial version (the only distinction being player numbers and a network back end that is far more bandwidth constrained, which itself leads me to respect the original games' challenges preventing that from being more apparent in the original...)
...just to lift the cojones of the astronauts brave enough to be on that mission.
A lunar mission "on the cheap"? Eek.
I keep hearing this concept repeated like a tocsin by "internet experts" (that I've never heard of) but seriously, who is going to buy this crap? Who really wants their coffeemaker or refrigerator attached to the internet at all, much less be willing to pay one cent more to add what amounts to zero functionality but additional points of failure and additional ability for corporate America to grab some other details about our personal lives?
Is there any actual, normal person out there even faintly interested in this crap?
Perhaps wit such a devis yu cud bild a Feersum Endjin?
Miss the point a little harder, why don't you?
Your response - immediately assuming (despite the actual words written) that I'm somehow casting all rape accusations as lies - precisely proves my point about short attention spans on the internet, assumptions of guilt or innocence, and overwhelmingly emotional reactions.
Thank you for making my case.
Look, we all understand the desire to do something good.
Particularly in the case of some perceived injustice - a rape victim is disregarded, for example.
The problem is firstly that we don't have a universal definition of good.
Missionaries bringing Christianity to the 'heathens' in Darkest Africa thought they were GENUINELY doing good - saving these people's souls, bringing them education, clothes, technology. The next time you start getting all righteous about doing something for someone else's best interest, understand that morally you are PRECISELY in the same position as that Missionary.
The second problem of course is one of information. PARTICULARLY in the age of the internet, we tend to judge in the first few seconds, and then everything else we hear either validates that gut-judgement, or is discarded as "biased".
That rape victim? What if she was, in fact, lying?
We have a process for punishing wrongdoers, it's called the Law. It's absolutely not perfect, an in many ways it's outright broken. But THAT is where we need to spend our energy and efforts: fix that, and everything improves.
First, might want to take that rage pill again; your prescription seems to have run out.
1) In some contexts yes, a cop has to enforce the law above and beyond their feelings. It's their job. You'll notice I said "in some contexts" - learn to read. Things will make a lot more sense.
2) and of course people in governance have to have some empathy, but often they have to make 'greatest good for greatest number' sorts of decisions, unless you live in an imaginary universe where everyone can win all the time. That means that SOME people will be unhappy. Good government accepts that.
(note where I said we're talking about points on a spectrum, not just a binary situation of "empathy or no"? Again, learn to read.)
Basically, you seem to not understand that there are places where empathy CANNOT be primary.
Here's a quiz: you're about to die from heart failure. You can choose from two doctors for the risky operation:
1) this doctor is kind of a klutz, but he really understands your situation, has spoken many times with your family and with you, helping you all emotionally prepare yourself for the possibilities, and really is committed to empathizing with you and your loved ones, or
2) this doctor is a complete asshole, and doesn't give a shit about you or your family, but is the best heart surgeon on the planet.
Which do you choose?
If you said #1, you're lying.
In short, I think you're completely
....because real Literature professors use words like 'epistemic'.
Precisely my point.
YOU have decided that empathy is a critically important feature of human interaction (and let's be clear: we're not talking a binary state here, we're talking about points along a spectrum). I don't necessarily agree.
ABSOLUTELY human empathy is significantly needed in some contexts: ...but there are some contexts in which far less relevant, if not to say irrelevant:
- raising children
- personal relationships
- governance
- engine repair
- code writing
Heck, there are some places where human empathy is actually a negative to the effective performance of the role:
- governance
- being a police officer (in some contexts) or soldier
- hunting
So no, I entirely disagree with your assertion that empathy is positive in ANY human endeavor, and suggest that to believe so is part of our cultural problem today: entirely too many people give a shit about how many others feel or feel about them.
Well, the demonstration of stupid I wouldn't disagree with, although you might not like my interpretation:
"*Everyone must have a job even if the things you're good at have been replaced by bots or outsourced to the Chinese"
Yes, it's not the REST OF US's fault that you majored in Russian Medieval Literature, or (worse) dropped out of free High School before you had marketable skills. If you don't take advantage of those things to GET marketable skills (and college is pretty much FREE if you're poor) that's your choice. And if that's your CHOICE, then you're freeloading and yes, a scumbag. Face it, most people are poor because of shitty life choices. Not all, of course, some ARE entitled to a helping hand from their community. But many aren't, and I don't see any need to share what I have with someone who couldn't be bothered to work 50+ hours a week for 25 years to have what I have.
"*Tremendous poverty, everyone brushes it under the table because everybody is so opposed to the idea of people getting a free lunch"
OK I'll have your stuff then. You clearly can afford at least a computer and internet connection so I'll take that first. Oh you don't like that? Why not? The people who seem to be promoting a free lunch are generally not those paying for it. The super-rich promoting higher taxes? Yeah, like they care that they only have $30 billion instead of $60 billion.
"*Nobody wants to give up driving their big automatic pickup to work, even if it can be proven they are causing global warming"
Personally, I'd get rid of ALL energy subsidies (and subsidies-in-kind) to any energy industry, be it petro, solar, nuclear, etc. Let them all pay the ACTUAL costs of their choices. Let the market decide.
"*Nobody wants to give up their silly pea-shooter in case of Government aggression even if the government has much better toys that would make very light work of someone toting the said pea-shooter"
I'll give up my second amendment when you give up your first, cool with that?
"*Nobody complains about the government pissing away trillions of the aforementioned toys while people starve and die of curable illnesses."
Again, we should take your stuff first. I generally see people who campaign for higher benefits basically claiming that everyone ELSE should pay more. Personally, I don't like the idea of government with confiscatory powers. Remember, in the next cycle Trump might have those same powers to use against the Left. Or Muslims.
I'm genuinely curious why women's standards of behavior and empathy are the norm to which we ascribe? Why do they get to set the standard definition?
Perhaps male behaviors with a lack of empathy, etc are the norms to which women need to conform?
Wow.
Criticism on the 'retro' tone from the guy who mande American Graffiti? And then who made a bog-standard space opera comprised of a mashup of cowboy movies and Kurosawa? Really? And did he actually watch episodes 6, 1, 2, and 3? What was intrinsically novel in them?
That, my friends, is irony.
Yes, the Disney film was entirely an homage (read: flat-out-copy) of the first film. It took no risks, but what it did do is retell the first film for an entirely new generation. "Rebooting" is such a popular way to say "copy" today, if they'd just said "we're rebooting it because 2/3 of the source work from the original author we have as a foundation was utter crap" people would be arguing about that.
Yes, it was a naked merchandising enterprise (I believe I saw a 50 yard WALL of merch at Target before the film came out) but SO WAS THE FIRST.
Suffice to say: I loved Star Wars - I was 10 in 1977, and watched it at least 30 times in theaters. It is what it is. All the encrustations of epicness that have been laden on by Lucas and creepily-worshipful fans are just that: extrinsic and irrelevant. If it took a single new film to break that all off and start clean, I'm cool with that.
I hope this means that the NEXT film can be more interesting and a little more daring.
...he should probably be in Congress, no?
So wtf do they call a "drone" this week?
Can I still fly my plain-old R/C plane? Because that's NOT A DRONE AND NEVER HAS BEEN (except for the ignorant).
What if it's unpowered (like an RC glider)?
If the language is sufficiently vague, how about model rockets? Bottle rockets? Fireworks?
Hey, maybe they could expand the definition, make it illegal to release a balloon?
I hear lots of groundswell being generated around 'basic income' systems re the OP and in Finland. I'm a very politically conservative person, so it might surprise you that I'm strongly in favor of them. For those liberal-minded folks who claim to be in favor, I suspect that you haven't REALLY thought through the consequences?
A "basic income" system is generally posited as a more humane and efficient way to deliver services to poor people, rather than a massive, expensive, Byzantine, rules-laden (and thus easily exploitable) bureaucracy. So far, so good.
However, the flip side of delivering funds in this NEW way is stopping them the OLD way. Otherwise, what's the point (except if the real intent is letting people double dip by getting a basic income AND STILL having the whole welfare state remain in place)?
So these poor folks would ostensibly get a basic, living income in lieu of services.
That means NOBODY is controlling these funds except them. We're writing them a check and saying "ok, take care of yourself!"
All the other services that are specific or constrained to be as idiot-proof and un-gameable as possible - public health, food stamps, WIC, AFDC, cheap school food for poor kids, whatever - GONE.
Haven't these people already more or less proven that they can't do this by the very fact that they're poor?
Is the homeless crackhead on the street going to take that 'basic income' payment and get an apartment? Is he going to go get treatment or even basic medical care? Food? Clothing?
I'm *perfectly* fine with people getting a basic income, and then living (or not) with the consequences of their choices with that money.
I suspect that most people really, in fact, aren't. Most are likely assuming (deliberately or no) that the 'basic income' would just be another added benefit program to all the ones that exist today. In which case, let's make sure we're discussing it in THAT context - simply a giant new payout of funds - and then STILL ask the question: ok, if we don't feel that these people would responsibly spend those funds in my more draconian model, why are we assuming that they would in ANY model?