Remember economics class? Remember them talking about stuff like supply and demand, etc.? Yeah? Remember them talking about the essential role whatever politicians sit in the White House play in the function of the economy? No? Huh...
I personally like seeing Wikipedia at the top of Google's search because I think Wikipedia helps to break the hegemony of academia on the dissemination of knowledge. Even with all its flaws, Wikipedia is more democratic than any other encyclopedia and has changed the way information is shared around the world.
(In my apparent desire to be burned at the stake by all other Slashdoters, I would like to make a contradictory statement. It's short, I promise.)
School shootings are the manifestation of some sort of breakdown among a few people because we have a culture of violence. Video games are, without a doubt, part of that culture.
Politicians demonize violent video games and then go attend the latest military parade.
There is nothing cool about new toys to kill people with. I'm somewhat disturbed by every one of these military tech articles, but this quote goes beyond geeky fascination with all things hi-tech. This is simply "damn, killing people is awesome!"
Which is the greater benefit: saving 340 homes at $500,000 each, or giving 2 million attendees hope for the future with a big ceremony?
I assumed you meant the answer to that rhetorical question to be saving people's homes... you know, helping people in desperate times rather than giving people warm fuzzy feelings with inspiring words and marching bands.
For an election that wasn't supposed to be about race, we sure do hear a lot about it.
You heard that most often during the Democratic primary, which was, in fact, *only* about race and sex. Cause I sure didn't see any difference otherwise.
I don't know what to be more frightened of, Bush's right-wing, conservative, religion wackos or the mass of people that Obama has mobilized into believing that something will be vastly different with him in charge.
Personally, I have great hope in the latter. When Obama fails to really Change anything, we'll have lots of young folks newly excited about politics learning the lesson that change won't come through elections. And hopefully some of them will start looking looking for answers.
All joking aside, who has ever been actually harmed by viewing goatse, child or adult?
It's come to really interest me how self-evident the idea that exposing kids to things "too early" will fuck them up is supposed to be. It's probably true in a few special cases, but on the whole it seems to me that our society finds it necessary to carefully delay the onset of maturity.
I never called it a rational period, but neither was it a random aberration of history as you seem to think. I suggest reading what I wrote instead of reacting out of anger.
Let's take another example from history. I'm sure we both agree that the Third Reich was an entirely negative event in history. Yet you have no hope of understanding or learning anything from it if you refuse to look at how it resulted from the struggle between socialism and capitalism in Germany.
1) The capitalist roaders were in the regime. 2) Like you said, they weren't allowed. That's what the Cultural Revolution was all about. It certainly wasn't to win favor with the masses, which the government already had. I suggest you look at what those the Cultural Revolution was waged against did upon gaining power (in other words, Deng Xiaoping on).
The Cultural Revolution was an attempt at countering the natural tendency of feudalism to make way for capitalism, a far-fetched idea that obviously failed. There are many way to criticize the Cultural Revolution, but to call it a witch hunt is silly and dismisses one of the most interesting and noteworthy events of the 20th century.
Because to say that Sun, AMD or even Novell will be acquired or out of business by December 31st, 2009 is like betting on your favorite American Football team to win the Super Bowl in 2025.
But that only works in the West because the people here are already complacent. I mean, we had a presidential election stolen in the homeland of democracy and the extent of popular protest was a lot of hanging chad jokes that, admittedly, weren't censored by the government.
China has a situation ready to explode (though not in the way we in the West expect it to be). The government does all this censorship because it's *scared*.
If I understand correctly the situation in China, the main reason why the Chinese people let the Communists in power is their double digit yearly economic growth. Since the recent economic downturn, it seems very unlikely that China will manage to maintain a satisfactory growth, which would trigger unrest.
I would agree with this statement. However, when the Chinese people become disillusioned with capitalism, where are they going to turn? The irony of capitalist China being led by a "Communist" party only grows larger.
At the end of the Cold War it seemed like the Communists would lose power in China just like in Eastern Europe. Vast student demonstrations took place in Beijing during Gorbachev's visit, similar to the ones in Europe that brought down communist governments in a couple of months. The difference was that the Chinese government managed to find soldiers willing to put crush the demonstrations later.
It was only after this that the Chinese Communist Party abandoned the communist economic system for a version of fundamentalist capitalism.
Not true, really. Remember the Cultural Revolution? It was primarily against the "capitalist roaders" in the Party. When Mao died, the capitalist roaders quickly seized power (which explains the very clear denunciation of the Cultural Revolution by the government ever since) and have steadily been dismantling public ownership ever since.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus if the Whitehouse doesn't get your fancy
Remember whitehouse.com?
Remember economics class? Remember them talking about stuff like supply and demand, etc.? Yeah? Remember them talking about the essential role whatever politicians sit in the White House play in the function of the economy? No? Huh...
I'll get modded down for this, and I'm no fan of Al Gore, but he's the one who got elected, not Bush.
I think this statement sums up the WTO fantastically well. It's a club for schoolkids, pretending to be important.
It's a club for schoolkids who are very, very, very important.
"...and four more Spore expansion packs with the first of them titled Spore: Galactic Adventures.' All of them will be arriving in 2009."
Will Wright: Creative genius and big, big fan of money.
I've yet to find a single link to the websites where terrorists supposedly post their videos, on Wikipedia, in any relevant article. Just sayin'.
I personally like seeing Wikipedia at the top of Google's search because I think Wikipedia helps to break the hegemony of academia on the dissemination of knowledge. Even with all its flaws, Wikipedia is more democratic than any other encyclopedia and has changed the way information is shared around the world.
Stephen Colbert, is that you?
And why do we care?
(In my apparent desire to be burned at the stake by all other Slashdoters, I would like to make a contradictory statement. It's short, I promise.)
School shootings are the manifestation of some sort of breakdown among a few people because we have a culture of violence. Video games are, without a doubt, part of that culture.
Politicians demonize violent video games and then go attend the latest military parade.
There is nothing cool about new toys to kill people with. I'm somewhat disturbed by every one of these military tech articles, but this quote goes beyond geeky fascination with all things hi-tech. This is simply "damn, killing people is awesome!"
Which is the greater benefit: saving 340 homes at $500,000 each, or giving 2 million attendees hope for the future with a big ceremony?
I assumed you meant the answer to that rhetorical question to be saving people's homes... you know, helping people in desperate times rather than giving people warm fuzzy feelings with inspiring words and marching bands.
But I reread and now I'm not sure.
For an election that wasn't supposed to be about race, we sure do hear a lot about it.
You heard that most often during the Democratic primary, which was, in fact, *only* about race and sex. Cause I sure didn't see any difference otherwise.
All right, now how about the separation of corporation and state?
What's the difference?
I don't know what to be more frightened of, Bush's right-wing, conservative, religion wackos or the mass of people that Obama has mobilized into believing that something will be vastly different with him in charge.
Personally, I have great hope in the latter. When Obama fails to really Change anything, we'll have lots of young folks newly excited about politics learning the lesson that change won't come through elections. And hopefully some of them will start looking looking for answers.
You always come closest to unattainable things while you're still striving to reach them.
Moderators: Flamebait is NOT a substitute for the unavailable "-1 Disagree".
Wait, methane = life? So that's why aliens always begin with our anuses when studying us.
All joking aside, who has ever been actually harmed by viewing goatse, child or adult?
It's come to really interest me how self-evident the idea that exposing kids to things "too early" will fuck them up is supposed to be. It's probably true in a few special cases, but on the whole it seems to me that our society finds it necessary to carefully delay the onset of maturity.
I never called it a rational period, but neither was it a random aberration of history as you seem to think. I suggest reading what I wrote instead of reacting out of anger.
Let's take another example from history. I'm sure we both agree that the Third Reich was an entirely negative event in history. Yet you have no hope of understanding or learning anything from it if you refuse to look at how it resulted from the struggle between socialism and capitalism in Germany.
1) The capitalist roaders were in the regime. 2) Like you said, they weren't allowed. That's what the Cultural Revolution was all about. It certainly wasn't to win favor with the masses, which the government already had. I suggest you look at what those the Cultural Revolution was waged against did upon gaining power (in other words, Deng Xiaoping on).
The Cultural Revolution was an attempt at countering the natural tendency of feudalism to make way for capitalism, a far-fetched idea that obviously failed. There are many way to criticize the Cultural Revolution, but to call it a witch hunt is silly and dismisses one of the most interesting and noteworthy events of the 20th century.
Because to say that Sun, AMD or even Novell will be acquired or out of business by December 31st, 2009 is like betting on your favorite American Football team to win the Super Bowl in 2025.
See the error in that analogy now?
When the Witch Trials ended, did witchcraft start growing in Salem? No? Not a good analogy then.
But that only works in the West because the people here are already complacent. I mean, we had a presidential election stolen in the homeland of democracy and the extent of popular protest was a lot of hanging chad jokes that, admittedly, weren't censored by the government.
China has a situation ready to explode (though not in the way we in the West expect it to be). The government does all this censorship because it's *scared*.
If I understand correctly the situation in China, the main reason why the Chinese people let the Communists in power is their double digit yearly economic growth. Since the recent economic downturn, it seems very unlikely that China will manage to maintain a satisfactory growth, which would trigger unrest.
I would agree with this statement. However, when the Chinese people become disillusioned with capitalism, where are they going to turn? The irony of capitalist China being led by a "Communist" party only grows larger.
At the end of the Cold War it seemed like the Communists would lose power in China just like in Eastern Europe. Vast student demonstrations took place in Beijing during Gorbachev's visit, similar to the ones in Europe that brought down communist governments in a couple of months. The difference was that the Chinese government managed to find soldiers willing to put crush the demonstrations later.
It was only after this that the Chinese Communist Party abandoned the communist economic system for a version of fundamentalist capitalism.
Not true, really. Remember the Cultural Revolution? It was primarily against the "capitalist roaders" in the Party. When Mao died, the capitalist roaders quickly seized power (which explains the very clear denunciation of the Cultural Revolution by the government ever since) and have steadily been dismantling public ownership ever since.