They're not saying that Tesla can't sell their cars in Texas. They're saying that Tesla can't deal them without using a third party dealership.
Its one of the old monopoly laws. Another one would be movie theaters. They used to be owned almost entirely by movie studios. That is, universal, etc would literally own the theater. They broke up most of those relationships and now you have to have separate corporations for many of these things.
Tesla could probably sell their cars just fine if they contracted with the local dealerships. Why they don't... I do not know.
Regardless, I agree that companies should be able to sell their products directly. After all, doesn't Apple have Apple stores that sell apple laptops directly? And then there are all the direct internet retailers. I can buy a computer direct from dell or a pair of socks direct from the gap. And the gap "makes" those socks. They're "gap" socks.
So I agree, the law is dumb. But it is actually very easy to get around it by just dealing with the dealerships instead of setting up your own.
AGAIN... I agree... it s dumb. But its manageable.
Your definition of real freedom appears to be anarchy and your definition of governance appears to be unrestrained unlimited government peonage.
I do not see how you can make the argument that I can only have one of those two options.
What's more, anarchy is self defeating. So you're really saying I have no choice but peonage. I will resist that.
What I want is for them to have enough authority to deal with extreme situations but for the power to be awkward enough that it won't be used in anything but extreme circomstances.
There is no possibility of having reasonable counter measures to hostile forces AND civil rights?
Give me an f'ing break.
What are you advocating for here? Mass human enslavement? Or are you advocating for the dissolution of human society itself?
Reevaluate your argument. Its irrational and politically counter productive.
In the words of my generation... your comment is retarded. Try again.
Before you presume to be offended, I'll point out you came off as hostile to me without any provocation from me. So I'd ask you to take this rebuke as fair turnabout.
I am saying it is fine if the government can breach the security and get the information.
It just have to be complicated and labor intensive to such an extent that they don't do it unless they have probable cause.
I don't see why everything has to be easily searchable by automated computer systems when what we're tracking is a minority of a minority of a minority.
The real trick here will be to get a two way system of CASH to bitcoins. From a physical untraceable medium of exchange to a digital one.
Many governments of course have a problem with it. We'll see what happens.
I am of two minds about it.
I think the average person should be able to do this sort of thing. I also want the government to be able to track and trace this stuff if they really need to do it.
I guess, I want there to be some way to track it but I want it to be complicated, time consuming, and generally not worth it unless they REALLY want to know. If there were some terrorists going to blow up thousands of people... I'd want there to be a way to stop that. But I generally want to be personally left alone to do what I want.
1. As to your first point, I've already addressed why competition is a viable means of quality control in private education.
2. Rewards and penalties are inherent and indivisible from free enterprise. The consequences of bad performance are often not immediate. An oil company for example that slacks off and stops producing oil might not actually see a decline in their bottom line for months given that most refineries keep on hand a large inventory that can be sold off over a longer period of time.
Likewise, you'll find throughout business countless examples where the consequences of bad behavior would not be met immediately.
And yet the system works. Which means immediate consequences are not essential. What is important is that they happen without a period of years and that they be inevitable. Private schools like any other service provider, market themselves on the quality of their service. If that service is substandard then it impacts their ability to retain and attract customers. Eventually, that is fatal.
The above is elementary and should be boring obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary high school education. Which is in large part why I've found your line of argument to be either tediously naive or deceitful.
I do not know if you're profoundly clueless or trying to play stupid games with me. Its one of the two. No offense. Truly. I have no intention of insulting you. I am merely explaining my attitude towards you in this matter. Your line of argument can only be interpreted in one of two ways at this point.
I download kindle books all the time but I don't have a kindle. I download them to my PC, strip the DRM off of them as you can do with ANY DRM. DRM is garbage the instant the content is on your machine and ANY portion of your system has the ability to decrypt the file. Well, my kindle PC reader can read the files. Which means the encryption key is on my machine. Which means all the software has to do is find the key, use it, and then I can convert the file to anything I want.
No special equipment needed and it takes about 2 minutes to convert it from a kindle file to whatever I want.
If I say "avoid crime ridden areas" I am not saying "avoid these races"... That crime ridden areas and given races happen to correlate is a coincidence and not actually something that people are intentionally trying to avoid.
The tendency to label things as racist has really gotten out of control. I think my favorite example of this was a greeting card from Hallmark that had an astronomy theme. It was a verbal greeting card that talked. And part of its little rant included references to "black holes" which is an astronomy term with no racial meaning. Regardless, the NAACP claimed that the cards really said "black hoe"... they didn't... and the NAACP also found the term "black hole" to be inherently racist which of course it isn't.
But this sort of thing happens because we give as a society these advocacy groups license to redefine what racism means to include pretty much anything including very innocent behavior.
If I am in a bad neighborhood is it racist to avoid packs of young men? Not really. What if they're also of some touchy minority race that like to turn everything into a civil rights issue? Doesn't matter. You're not avoiding them because of their race. You're avoiding them because its a pack of young men in a bad neighborhood.
People really need to learn the difference between causal and correlative statistics. Simply because you can show various variables correlating doesn't mean a given variable causes the other variable. Often there are third or fourth variables which themselves caused BOTH or even more correlative variables to all move in the same direction.
For example, why is it that certain races have bad neighborhoods? Does the literal color of their skin cause their crime to be higher? Unlikely. So there are other issues which ACTUALLY cause the crime. NOT the race.
Address those issues and the crime will statistically reduce to national norms. And what's more, once it gets known that the crime has gone down and people are statistically as safe... then suddenly people won't be so inclined to avoid those areas.
It has NOTHING to do with race and is therefore not a racial issue. Race is at most a correlative variable that is otherwise irrelevant to the situation.
Sounds like they weren't used or stored... so where did they go?
The lean mouse did not have more energy then the fat mouse. And the lean mouse didn't store excess energy like the fat mouse. So... where did it go? If their ability to store fat was inhibited then that means the energy WOULD have been stored were the mice able to do so... but they couldn't so the energy was either wasted somewhere or excreted.
"Think of the word "efficiency". The useful energy they get from their food is less than the thin people. Thus, there is a lot more "waste" - both fecal waste and unwanted things making it into the body but NOT being used for energy (e.g. fat)."
Except for what are they actually getting from the food that fat people aren't?
Do they have more energy? Are they using those calories for something? Because if they're just pooping the calories out that's not actually processing the food. That's just passing it through the digestive tract. By that logic, human beings are amazingly efficient at digesting cellulose. We don't metabolize it at all. It just passes right through our digestive system untouched.
So if you had a cow eating grass... and getting fat off the grass. And you had a human being eating the same grass. Which of the two is more efficiently processing the grass?
See, I would think it is the cow. It is after all getting something from the grass. And it is building up a reserve of energy in its body. Where as the human being is likely just making himself sick if anything.
So going back to the skinny people, what are they getting from the food that the fat guy isn't? See, we have evidence that the fat guy is getting FAT. That's calories right there being stored in his body. That's the point of fat in the first place. It is a store of energy.
So if the skinny guy is not only getting all the energy the fat guy is getting but EVEN MORE then where is it all going?
See the problem?
If guy A and guy B are eating the SAME amount of the SAME food and one gets fat and the other doesn't... how are you to say the fat guy has a LESS efficient digestive system.
Lets back out again and think about this in an evolutionary context. 50,000 years ago which of the two people would likely have superior survival traits? The one that gets fat or the one that doesn't?
I'll point out that this tendency to get fat seems to be an extremely common phenotype. It is expressed in most animals and humans amongst them. Which implies it is a survival trait. Which means the skinny gene is likely not a survival trait.
That's speculation but I find it compelling.
That fat slob eating pizza today would have been a different specimen 50,000 years ago. First, there would have been a lot less food. Second, there was no means to preserve food besides eating it and getting fat. Third, we lived much more physically active lives meaning we built up muscles and so while you might get fat there would be a lot more muscle under the fat. Sure, we all died at 30 from something but by the standards of most animals of our size and activity that's pretty good.
As to what I'd want were I cave man, you seem to forget that we're opportunists by nature. We're not carnivores or herbivores but rather opportunist omnivores that will eat just about any high quality food source whatever its source. Furthermore, we not only can eat a varied diet but we MUST eat such a diet. Cows can eat grass all day. Wolves can eat meat all day. Omnivorous like ourselves, need lots of things.
Consider what that means in an evolutionary context. We were hunter gatherers with a strong emphasis on the gathering. Even much of our prey were more gathered then anything. Shell fish for example aren't so much hunted as picked off the beach. And this behavior is unlikely to give you a constant source of energy especially not from any one source. Rather, you'll get little bits in varying concentrations and being able to store what you've eaten will be a big deal.
We survived the ice age. The shelters made by people living in the ice, making homes out of mammoth bones and leather have been unearthed. There are fat times and lean times. You down a big animal and eat very well for as long as it lasts. And then its all gone or started to rot. And you might not get very much for some time. You'd rely on your gathering at that point. Eating roots, insects, whatever. And then you'd get lucky and get another big animal
That wasn't intercepted. It was directed at us in a manner they knew we'd intercept. How do I know that? I'm omniscient. Seriously though, it is in their interest for us to know that because it could serve as a deterrent. Its not like our relations with iran are anything but horrible right now... and they've been horrible for longer then I've been alive. SOO... why do the iranians care?
Look, I'm done with the middle east at this point. I'll back up israel to a point because they have a real democracy and they're some of the few comprehensible people you'll find in that region of the world. However, the rest of the middle east? Let it do as it will. The US is neither capable nor responsible for acting as a global police force. We cannot do it even if we want to do it... and I really think a majority of americans do not want to do it. So lets not.
Does that mean that some horrible dictator somewhere is going to start eating his own people or making torture gardens of their bones? Sure... terrible people have always been around and when you get a psychopath on the throne then you're going to get horrors all over. What are we supposed to do about it? Fight them? All of them? And keep doing it? Forever?
I'll tell the global community something... if you want my blood, I want something for it. I'm not interested in doing the right thing. Morality is cheap. If they want us to fight, I want territory. Then I'll actually bother defending the land because it will be mine.
Does this mean I actually want this land or that I covet their territory? Not at all. But if you want my blood, I want something for it. I want something I can give future generations. And simply ridding the world of one scumball dictator only to have the same idiots in that region of the world appoint another scumbag dictator isn't good enough.
So... how badly do you want me to liberate your country? Because were it up to me, the price would be getting turned into a US territory under the permenant aegis of the American people. Taxes, laws, culture... total transfusion. Hey, you'd all be Americans instantly.
Again... I do not covet their land. They can do as they please where ever forever. But you ask me to spill my blood on your soil? Then its mine. I won it by right of conquest. You couldn't hold it. I could. Its mine the same way any country belongs to any people. No ruling people on earth were the first to take the land they live upon. Every nation and culture got their land from someone else one way or another.
My nation took their land from the native americans and truth be told many of them took the same land from each other over the years. Welcome to humanity... we do that.
I am tired of the US going to various hellscapes the world to fight for causes that often have nothing to do with American interests. Often we do it for allies. Often we do it for vague geopolitical reasons that tend to boil down to bullcrap.
That's fine. If we're going to keep playing that game then keep playing it. But bring something home. You can't eat nobility. Nothing we've ever done in any conflict has ever earned us any honor or respect as a nation. Even WW2 got us very little. We profited more by the destruction of our industrial rivals then through the gratitude of our allies.
So that's fine. From now on, I want something if we kill and die.
The Saudis etc said they'd pay for our war with Syria in full. Not good enough. If we're going to be their mercenaries then I want to make a profit. Not interested in paying what the best military in the history of the human race is worth? Fine. We don't need to fight your silly regional pissing contests. You go fight Syria. I'm tired of my nation being referred to as the great Satan when always we operate in a network of relationships that push us towards these choices. Why must we be the international sin eaters? Suffer your own calamities. The US has more then enough of its own.
If I went back 50 thousand years and saw two guys... a fat guy and a skinny guy... which would I assume was more prosperous? The association of fatness with poverty, ill health, etc is a modern association born of our great resources.
A man that needed 10,000 calories a day simply to survive could live in our society rather easily. However, 50,000 years ago he'd be a dead man.
Today, the standard of health is not what it was in our genetic past. That is not to say that the standard is wrong or that people that are skinny are TODAY healthier. However, implying that the fat people have less efficient digestive systems implies that somehow people are getting fat while extracting less from their food. Well... how did they get fat then?
Its possible I'm reading the wrong things into this and they're implying that the fat people NEED to eat more to get their base nutrition which leaves them with excess empty calories which leads to obesity. However, the experiment said they fed both sets of mice the same food. Which means Mouse 1 got fat on food X and Mouse 2 did not. Well where did those extra calories the skinny mouse got go if not into fat? Me thinks the little stinker pooped them out which doesn't seem like efficiency.
Possibly the solution here is to have a LESS efficient digestive system. Lots of dieting drugs effectively do that. I think there was one that made it hard for people to metabolize fat. It worked apparently... but had the unfortunate side effect of causing people to lose bowl control as an oily mess exploded from their rectums. I tried to put that both accurately and maturely... but... its not easy.
Look, I'm just pointing out the logical incongruity here of saying that a more efficient digestive system leads to a skinny mouse. That makes no sense.
In any case, great research... I await the bacterial transplants that will let us all eat like pigs while still looking smoking in our bathing suits.
You car company analysis doesn't take into account my point.
If a company goes down, the market for that service is otherwise healthy, and its competitors thrive, then that company failed to compete.
You seem to think you can invalidate the last 400 years of economic history by being obtuse. It is not a viable rhetorical strategy.
Please don't pretend to be stupid. I know you're not stupid. So if you have a point, make it directly and stop dancing around trying to trip me up on rhetorical points that I will ignore for being irrelevant.
It merely wastes time. Make your point. I will make my point. We will move on.
As to schools closing down due to low standards, actually its redundent in most cases.
Lets say a car company goes out of business. Why would a car company go out of business when other car companies do not? Because other companies provided a superior product or had a superior price which is really the same thing since the cost is a variable of the product or service.
A private school that closes due to poor attendance is a school that customers decided did not offer a competitive product/service.
The only situation where such a school would not be held as at fault would be schools in low population areas where there is a decline in the actual number of possible customers. So all rural NON-boarding schools can be removed from the search or urban schools in neighborhoods with significant population declines. Everything else is customers choosing a different provider which leads to the closure of those schools.
As to your assertion that supply and demand doesn't work in private education or that competition doesn't work in private education, you've offered no logic to justify that private education alone is immune a fairly basic and universal law of both economics and human psychology.
That a mistake that many people make in these matters. They think its an economic argument and they get their little ideologies tied up in things that they think opinions can touch. They can't. You're dealing with the way the human mind works. Its not a matter of opinion. Its a matter of basic human psychology which ultimately defines the behavior and sustains the principle.
Look for private school closures. You'll see that there are lots that close due to poor enrollment.
That is how they die.
As to your claim that competition for business has no impact on quality, the reality of the last 300 years of capitalism disproves that notion.
Why do you use one product rather then another? Because its better or cheaper or more available.
If a product is worse, more expensive, and harder to get ahold of then you won't use it.
Ah, but what if I force you to use it exclusively? They're boned. And that's how public education works. You must use it. And even if you don't use it, you must pay for it.
Which is why we need a school voucher system that allows parents to take state education funding and contribute it to whatever school they actually want to attend.
Do that, and public schools will rapidly grasp that they are in direct competition with private schools for attendance. And they will either adapt or die.
Its a national issue because it stems from national political alliances. These unions form ties at the federal level and with national political alliances.
These relationships are quid pro quo. You are right, that it is not literally impossible to fire a bad teacher.
However, what you might not appreciate is that classifying a teacher as such is nearly impossible. The amount of evidence required, political will to maintain through all the process and formality, and of course the attention of the media required to keep them from simply sweeping it under the rug is immense.
You can't just do it. You have to bring a similarly powerful political alliance to bare upon it and have the unstoppable force slam into the immovable object... and let the results play out.
it shouldn't be that way. And the only way to stop that is to sever the teacher's unions from the national political alliances. And the only way to do that is to break the unions up into small enough bits that they're not useful for national political organization. And having no big impact on that sphere, they'll cease to be protected.
Until that happens, the whole situation will merely invite further corruption.
I'm not interested in your redefinitions of the word "is" or other rhetorical nonsense.
The fact of the matter is that private organizations can and are fired. If they preform badly they tend to go out of business.
Government organizations compel resources by force. They do not require the consentual cooperation of students or parents to fund themselves or even to get attendence.
In such a situation, a failing school is sustainable as a public entity because it is subsidized and compels membership. private organizations can neither force people to buy their goods/services or force people to exclusively use their goods/services.
Public entities can do that and do use that ability with impunity. As such, they can remain solvent despite being horrible at their jobs.
Even when you try hard to be a smart ass, you fail.
First, there is no correct base. The base is arbitrary. Though the convention is to use base ten which you imply is not correct which is asinine.
I can only assume you're thinking base 3 will let you make that argument.
Base three equivalents: 010 = 03 110 = 13 210 = 23 310 = 103 410 = 113
Even in base 3 you can't make that argument. The only way you're going to say 1+1=3 is by redefining what plus means. In effect, you'd require circular logic which likely your primary mode of cognition... being an idiot.
Nice try and come play with me any time. I enjoy playing fetch with dumb animals.
More fun stuff. Its a whole political alliance. They cover each other and facilitate group corruption.
Here you have a journalist trying to rationalize teacher on student pedophilia.
Its a thing.
And it won't stop until the teacher's unions are broken down into small enough entities that they're not useful for large scale political action. See, they're related.
If the teacher's unions can be used for political action, you then need to give a reason for the teachers in the unions to offer themselves up for that. What do they get? Well, they get protected by the political establishment. They get protected from audits. They get protected from the LAW. Oh and lots of money in benefits and job security that they wouldn't have otherwise.
And in return the teachers organize for the politicians. And it gets worse because the other allies of the politicians such as this tame journalist will cover likewise.
Its sickness and corruption and should be burned out with fire.
Slashdot Mirror
They're not saying that Tesla can't sell their cars in Texas. They're saying that Tesla can't deal them without using a third party dealership.
Its one of the old monopoly laws. Another one would be movie theaters. They used to be owned almost entirely by movie studios. That is, universal, etc would literally own the theater. They broke up most of those relationships and now you have to have separate corporations for many of these things.
Tesla could probably sell their cars just fine if they contracted with the local dealerships. Why they don't... I do not know.
Regardless, I agree that companies should be able to sell their products directly. After all, doesn't Apple have Apple stores that sell apple laptops directly? And then there are all the direct internet retailers. I can buy a computer direct from dell or a pair of socks direct from the gap. And the gap "makes" those socks. They're "gap" socks.
So I agree, the law is dumb. But it is actually very easy to get around it by just dealing with the dealerships instead of setting up your own.
AGAIN... I agree... it s dumb. But its manageable.
Your definition of real freedom appears to be anarchy and your definition of governance appears to be unrestrained unlimited government peonage.
I do not see how you can make the argument that I can only have one of those two options.
What's more, anarchy is self defeating. So you're really saying I have no choice but peonage. I will resist that.
What I want is for them to have enough authority to deal with extreme situations but for the power to be awkward enough that it won't be used in anything but extreme circomstances.
So I need to accept anarchy or despotism?
There is no possibility of having reasonable counter measures to hostile forces AND civil rights?
Give me an f'ing break.
What are you advocating for here? Mass human enslavement? Or are you advocating for the dissolution of human society itself?
Reevaluate your argument. Its irrational and politically counter productive.
In the words of my generation... your comment is retarded. Try again.
Before you presume to be offended, I'll point out you came off as hostile to me without any provocation from me. So I'd ask you to take this rebuke as fair turnabout.
I don't think you appreciate what I'm saying.
I am saying it is fine if the government can breach the security and get the information.
It just have to be complicated and labor intensive to such an extent that they don't do it unless they have probable cause.
I don't see why everything has to be easily searchable by automated computer systems when what we're tracking is a minority of a minority of a minority.
The real trick here will be to get a two way system of CASH to bitcoins. From a physical untraceable medium of exchange to a digital one.
Many governments of course have a problem with it. We'll see what happens.
I am of two minds about it.
I think the average person should be able to do this sort of thing. I also want the government to be able to track and trace this stuff if they really need to do it.
I guess, I want there to be some way to track it but I want it to be complicated, time consuming, and generally not worth it unless they REALLY want to know. If there were some terrorists going to blow up thousands of people... I'd want there to be a way to stop that. But I generally want to be personally left alone to do what I want.
1. As to your first point, I've already addressed why competition is a viable means of quality control in private education.
2. Rewards and penalties are inherent and indivisible from free enterprise. The consequences of bad performance are often not immediate. An oil company for example that slacks off and stops producing oil might not actually see a decline in their bottom line for months given that most refineries keep on hand a large inventory that can be sold off over a longer period of time.
Likewise, you'll find throughout business countless examples where the consequences of bad behavior would not be met immediately.
And yet the system works. Which means immediate consequences are not essential. What is important is that they happen without a period of years and that they be inevitable. Private schools like any other service provider, market themselves on the quality of their service. If that service is substandard then it impacts their ability to retain and attract customers. Eventually, that is fatal.
The above is elementary and should be boring obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary high school education. Which is in large part why I've found your line of argument to be either tediously naive or deceitful.
I do not know if you're profoundly clueless or trying to play stupid games with me. Its one of the two. No offense. Truly. I have no intention of insulting you. I am merely explaining my attitude towards you in this matter. Your line of argument can only be interpreted in one of two ways at this point.
I regret that neither one is flattering.
Good day, sir.
I simply refuse to allow you to cloud the issue with rhetorical games.
I'm not an idiot and such ploys only work on idiots or those so autistic that they they'll mindlessly go through the formality as if in compulsion.
I am neither an idiot nor a machine. I am not confused by simplistic rhetorical games nor will I be mazed by formalities.
Respond to the argument and the issue in a way that respects both our sapience and our humanity.
I download kindle books all the time but I don't have a kindle. I download them to my PC, strip the DRM off of them as you can do with ANY DRM. DRM is garbage the instant the content is on your machine and ANY portion of your system has the ability to decrypt the file. Well, my kindle PC reader can read the files. Which means the encryption key is on my machine. Which means all the software has to do is find the key, use it, and then I can convert the file to anything I want.
No special equipment needed and it takes about 2 minutes to convert it from a kindle file to whatever I want.
If I say "avoid crime ridden areas" I am not saying "avoid these races"... That crime ridden areas and given races happen to correlate is a coincidence and not actually something that people are intentionally trying to avoid.
The tendency to label things as racist has really gotten out of control. I think my favorite example of this was a greeting card from Hallmark that had an astronomy theme. It was a verbal greeting card that talked. And part of its little rant included references to "black holes" which is an astronomy term with no racial meaning. Regardless, the NAACP claimed that the cards really said "black hoe"... they didn't... and the NAACP also found the term "black hole" to be inherently racist which of course it isn't.
But this sort of thing happens because we give as a society these advocacy groups license to redefine what racism means to include pretty much anything including very innocent behavior.
If I am in a bad neighborhood is it racist to avoid packs of young men? Not really. What if they're also of some touchy minority race that like to turn everything into a civil rights issue? Doesn't matter. You're not avoiding them because of their race. You're avoiding them because its a pack of young men in a bad neighborhood.
People really need to learn the difference between causal and correlative statistics. Simply because you can show various variables correlating doesn't mean a given variable causes the other variable. Often there are third or fourth variables which themselves caused BOTH or even more correlative variables to all move in the same direction.
For example, why is it that certain races have bad neighborhoods? Does the literal color of their skin cause their crime to be higher? Unlikely. So there are other issues which ACTUALLY cause the crime. NOT the race.
Address those issues and the crime will statistically reduce to national norms. And what's more, once it gets known that the crime has gone down and people are statistically as safe... then suddenly people won't be so inclined to avoid those areas.
It has NOTHING to do with race and is therefore not a racial issue. Race is at most a correlative variable that is otherwise irrelevant to the situation.
Sounds like they weren't used or stored... so where did they go?
The lean mouse did not have more energy then the fat mouse. And the lean mouse didn't store excess energy like the fat mouse. So... where did it go? If their ability to store fat was inhibited then that means the energy WOULD have been stored were the mice able to do so... but they couldn't so the energy was either wasted somewhere or excreted.
Objectively, I can say they made worse decisions. Their environment presented given challenges and they failed to meet them.
If competitors in their environment subjected to similar circumstances survived then they succeeded.
This is elementary and I really feel debating it is beneath educated people.
"Think of the word "efficiency". The useful energy they get from their food is less than the thin people. Thus, there is a lot more "waste" - both fecal waste and unwanted things making it into the body but NOT being used for energy (e.g. fat)."
Except for what are they actually getting from the food that fat people aren't?
Do they have more energy? Are they using those calories for something? Because if they're just pooping the calories out that's not actually processing the food. That's just passing it through the digestive tract. By that logic, human beings are amazingly efficient at digesting cellulose. We don't metabolize it at all. It just passes right through our digestive system untouched.
So if you had a cow eating grass... and getting fat off the grass. And you had a human being eating the same grass. Which of the two is more efficiently processing the grass?
See, I would think it is the cow. It is after all getting something from the grass. And it is building up a reserve of energy in its body. Where as the human being is likely just making himself sick if anything.
So going back to the skinny people, what are they getting from the food that the fat guy isn't? See, we have evidence that the fat guy is getting FAT. That's calories right there being stored in his body. That's the point of fat in the first place. It is a store of energy.
So if the skinny guy is not only getting all the energy the fat guy is getting but EVEN MORE then where is it all going?
See the problem?
If guy A and guy B are eating the SAME amount of the SAME food and one gets fat and the other doesn't... how are you to say the fat guy has a LESS efficient digestive system.
Lets back out again and think about this in an evolutionary context. 50,000 years ago which of the two people would likely have superior survival traits? The one that gets fat or the one that doesn't?
I'll point out that this tendency to get fat seems to be an extremely common phenotype. It is expressed in most animals and humans amongst them. Which implies it is a survival trait. Which means the skinny gene is likely not a survival trait.
That's speculation but I find it compelling.
That fat slob eating pizza today would have been a different specimen 50,000 years ago. First, there would have been a lot less food. Second, there was no means to preserve food besides eating it and getting fat. Third, we lived much more physically active lives meaning we built up muscles and so while you might get fat there would be a lot more muscle under the fat. Sure, we all died at 30 from something but by the standards of most animals of our size and activity that's pretty good.
As to what I'd want were I cave man, you seem to forget that we're opportunists by nature. We're not carnivores or herbivores but rather opportunist omnivores that will eat just about any high quality food source whatever its source. Furthermore, we not only can eat a varied diet but we MUST eat such a diet. Cows can eat grass all day. Wolves can eat meat all day. Omnivorous like ourselves, need lots of things.
Consider what that means in an evolutionary context. We were hunter gatherers with a strong emphasis on the gathering. Even much of our prey were more gathered then anything. Shell fish for example aren't so much hunted as picked off the beach. And this behavior is unlikely to give you a constant source of energy especially not from any one source. Rather, you'll get little bits in varying concentrations and being able to store what you've eaten will be a big deal.
We survived the ice age. The shelters made by people living in the ice, making homes out of mammoth bones and leather have been unearthed. There are fat times and lean times. You down a big animal and eat very well for as long as it lasts. And then its all gone or started to rot. And you might not get very much for some time. You'd rely on your gathering at that point. Eating roots, insects, whatever. And then you'd get lucky and get another big animal
That wasn't intercepted. It was directed at us in a manner they knew we'd intercept. How do I know that? I'm omniscient. Seriously though, it is in their interest for us to know that because it could serve as a deterrent. Its not like our relations with iran are anything but horrible right now... and they've been horrible for longer then I've been alive. SOO... why do the iranians care?
Look, I'm done with the middle east at this point. I'll back up israel to a point because they have a real democracy and they're some of the few comprehensible people you'll find in that region of the world. However, the rest of the middle east? Let it do as it will. The US is neither capable nor responsible for acting as a global police force. We cannot do it even if we want to do it... and I really think a majority of americans do not want to do it. So lets not.
Does that mean that some horrible dictator somewhere is going to start eating his own people or making torture gardens of their bones? Sure... terrible people have always been around and when you get a psychopath on the throne then you're going to get horrors all over. What are we supposed to do about it? Fight them? All of them? And keep doing it? Forever?
I'll tell the global community something... if you want my blood, I want something for it. I'm not interested in doing the right thing. Morality is cheap. If they want us to fight, I want territory. Then I'll actually bother defending the land because it will be mine.
Does this mean I actually want this land or that I covet their territory? Not at all. But if you want my blood, I want something for it. I want something I can give future generations. And simply ridding the world of one scumball dictator only to have the same idiots in that region of the world appoint another scumbag dictator isn't good enough.
So... how badly do you want me to liberate your country? Because were it up to me, the price would be getting turned into a US territory under the permenant aegis of the American people. Taxes, laws, culture... total transfusion. Hey, you'd all be Americans instantly.
Again... I do not covet their land. They can do as they please where ever forever. But you ask me to spill my blood on your soil? Then its mine. I won it by right of conquest. You couldn't hold it. I could. Its mine the same way any country belongs to any people. No ruling people on earth were the first to take the land they live upon. Every nation and culture got their land from someone else one way or another.
My nation took their land from the native americans and truth be told many of them took the same land from each other over the years. Welcome to humanity... we do that.
I am tired of the US going to various hellscapes the world to fight for causes that often have nothing to do with American interests. Often we do it for allies. Often we do it for vague geopolitical reasons that tend to boil down to bullcrap.
That's fine. If we're going to keep playing that game then keep playing it. But bring something home. You can't eat nobility. Nothing we've ever done in any conflict has ever earned us any honor or respect as a nation. Even WW2 got us very little. We profited more by the destruction of our industrial rivals then through the gratitude of our allies.
So that's fine. From now on, I want something if we kill and die.
The Saudis etc said they'd pay for our war with Syria in full. Not good enough. If we're going to be their mercenaries then I want to make a profit. Not interested in paying what the best military in the history of the human race is worth? Fine. We don't need to fight your silly regional pissing contests. You go fight Syria. I'm tired of my nation being referred to as the great Satan when always we operate in a network of relationships that push us towards these choices. Why must we be the international sin eaters? Suffer your own calamities. The US has more then enough of its own.
Is fatness a sign of inefficiency or efficiency?
If I went back 50 thousand years and saw two guys... a fat guy and a skinny guy... which would I assume was more prosperous? The association of fatness with poverty, ill health, etc is a modern association born of our great resources.
A man that needed 10,000 calories a day simply to survive could live in our society rather easily. However, 50,000 years ago he'd be a dead man.
Today, the standard of health is not what it was in our genetic past. That is not to say that the standard is wrong or that people that are skinny are TODAY healthier. However, implying that the fat people have less efficient digestive systems implies that somehow people are getting fat while extracting less from their food. Well... how did they get fat then?
Its possible I'm reading the wrong things into this and they're implying that the fat people NEED to eat more to get their base nutrition which leaves them with excess empty calories which leads to obesity. However, the experiment said they fed both sets of mice the same food. Which means Mouse 1 got fat on food X and Mouse 2 did not. Well where did those extra calories the skinny mouse got go if not into fat? Me thinks the little stinker pooped them out which doesn't seem like efficiency.
Possibly the solution here is to have a LESS efficient digestive system. Lots of dieting drugs effectively do that. I think there was one that made it hard for people to metabolize fat. It worked apparently... but had the unfortunate side effect of causing people to lose bowl control as an oily mess exploded from their rectums. I tried to put that both accurately and maturely... but... its not easy.
Look, I'm just pointing out the logical incongruity here of saying that a more efficient digestive system leads to a skinny mouse. That makes no sense.
In any case, great research... I await the bacterial transplants that will let us all eat like pigs while still looking smoking in our bathing suits.
You car company analysis doesn't take into account my point.
If a company goes down, the market for that service is otherwise healthy, and its competitors thrive, then that company failed to compete.
You seem to think you can invalidate the last 400 years of economic history by being obtuse. It is not a viable rhetorical strategy.
Please don't pretend to be stupid. I know you're not stupid. So if you have a point, make it directly and stop dancing around trying to trip me up on rhetorical points that I will ignore for being irrelevant.
It merely wastes time. Make your point. I will make my point. We will move on.
Email it.
Phones are for people that like to hear the sound of their own voices.
As to schools closing down due to low standards, actually its redundent in most cases.
Lets say a car company goes out of business. Why would a car company go out of business when other car companies do not? Because other companies provided a superior product or had a superior price which is really the same thing since the cost is a variable of the product or service.
A private school that closes due to poor attendance is a school that customers decided did not offer a competitive product/service.
The only situation where such a school would not be held as at fault would be schools in low population areas where there is a decline in the actual number of possible customers. So all rural NON-boarding schools can be removed from the search or urban schools in neighborhoods with significant population declines. Everything else is customers choosing a different provider which leads to the closure of those schools.
As to your assertion that supply and demand doesn't work in private education or that competition doesn't work in private education, you've offered no logic to justify that private education alone is immune a fairly basic and universal law of both economics and human psychology.
That a mistake that many people make in these matters. They think its an economic argument and they get their little ideologies tied up in things that they think opinions can touch. They can't. You're dealing with the way the human mind works. Its not a matter of opinion. Its a matter of basic human psychology which ultimately defines the behavior and sustains the principle.
You're bad at searching things on the internet.
Look for private school closures. You'll see that there are lots that close due to poor enrollment.
That is how they die.
As to your claim that competition for business has no impact on quality, the reality of the last 300 years of capitalism disproves that notion.
Why do you use one product rather then another? Because its better or cheaper or more available.
If a product is worse, more expensive, and harder to get ahold of then you won't use it.
Ah, but what if I force you to use it exclusively? They're boned. And that's how public education works. You must use it. And even if you don't use it, you must pay for it.
Which is why we need a school voucher system that allows parents to take state education funding and contribute it to whatever school they actually want to attend.
Do that, and public schools will rapidly grasp that they are in direct competition with private schools for attendance. And they will either adapt or die.
Hash? Welcome to planet Earth, deal with it.
Not abolished. Disaffiliated. Unlinked.
Its a national issue because it stems from national political alliances. These unions form ties at the federal level and with national political alliances.
These relationships are quid pro quo. You are right, that it is not literally impossible to fire a bad teacher.
However, what you might not appreciate is that classifying a teacher as such is nearly impossible. The amount of evidence required, political will to maintain through all the process and formality, and of course the attention of the media required to keep them from simply sweeping it under the rug is immense.
You can't just do it. You have to bring a similarly powerful political alliance to bare upon it and have the unstoppable force slam into the immovable object... and let the results play out.
it shouldn't be that way. And the only way to stop that is to sever the teacher's unions from the national political alliances. And the only way to do that is to break the unions up into small enough bits that they're not useful for national political organization. And having no big impact on that sphere, they'll cease to be protected.
Until that happens, the whole situation will merely invite further corruption.
I'm not interested in your redefinitions of the word "is" or other rhetorical nonsense.
The fact of the matter is that private organizations can and are fired. If they preform badly they tend to go out of business.
Government organizations compel resources by force. They do not require the consentual cooperation of students or parents to fund themselves or even to get attendence.
In such a situation, a failing school is sustainable as a public entity because it is subsidized and compels membership. private organizations can neither force people to buy their goods/services or force people to exclusively use their goods/services.
Public entities can do that and do use that ability with impunity. As such, they can remain solvent despite being horrible at their jobs.
End of argument.
Rook takes king, Good game.
Even when you try hard to be a smart ass, you fail.
First, there is no correct base. The base is arbitrary. Though the convention is to use base ten which you imply is not correct which is asinine.
I can only assume you're thinking base 3 will let you make that argument.
Base three equivalents:
010 = 03
110 = 13
210 = 23
310 = 103
410 = 113
Even in base 3 you can't make that argument. The only way you're going to say 1+1=3 is by redefining what plus means. In effect, you'd require circular logic which likely your primary mode of cognition... being an idiot.
Nice try and come play with me any time. I enjoy playing fetch with dumb animals.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sex-between-students-and-teachers-should-not-be-a-crime/2013/08/30/dbf7dcca-1107-11e3-b4cb-fd7ce041d814_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage
More fun stuff. Its a whole political alliance. They cover each other and facilitate group corruption.
Here you have a journalist trying to rationalize teacher on student pedophilia.
Its a thing.
And it won't stop until the teacher's unions are broken down into small enough entities that they're not useful for large scale political action. See, they're related.
If the teacher's unions can be used for political action, you then need to give a reason for the teachers in the unions to offer themselves up for that. What do they get? Well, they get protected by the political establishment. They get protected from audits. They get protected from the LAW. Oh and lots of money in benefits and job security that they wouldn't have otherwise.
And in return the teachers organize for the politicians. And it gets worse because the other allies of the politicians such as this tame journalist will cover likewise.
Its sickness and corruption and should be burned out with fire.
actually it does:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Chicago+teacher+sex&form=MOZSBR&pc=MOZI
I'm not really interested in arguing with you about whether 1+1=2.
It does. Move on.
Actually, it was said that parents were more a hindrance.
I didn't say that. Read again.