Today's app and cloud concept is more akin to the old PC program and mainframe of the mid 1980's.
And in a similar way, it takes power away from the individuals and transfers it to those who own the mainframes, er... "cloud servers." Wonder if it's a response to Open Source?
That's a good point. It reminds me of the people who drive into lakes because their GPS tells them to turn there, or people treating information from business, government, NGOs and academia as infallible.
You have to admit that a government which could track every citizen at all times through facial recognition software -- enabled by images uploaded to social media -- would provide a safer society. The power of information at work. Of course, there may be a cost; there's always a cost. I just don't think it's the 1984-inspired fantasy that most of its detractors seem to fear.
And all I wanted was a Pepsi...
These are what we might call the minimum functions of government. Given that government is a business, or at least acts like one, and expands its power, it is sensible to cut it to a minimum so that we do not have a single point of failure for most social functions (the importance of this was discovered to their chagrin by the Soviets in about 1991 or so). This keeps society resilient and lowers costs.
The idea that if government controls more than roads and military, "things go bad" is complete nonsense, that isn't demonstrated by the real world. Amongst the happiest nations in the world are the Scandinavian countries that have relatively high taxation, and socialise huge amounts of social services.
In addition to spending more time in English class, you may have benefited from putting in a bit more study of history and philosophy. Results take a long time to be seen. Remember that in the 1930s, most Western intellectuals thought the Soviet method was superior to capitalism. The roots of Scandinavian happiness can be found in many factors unrelated to government; they were "happy" societies long before their modern governments.
Animal-types go through a life cycle: start out dinosaurs, grow big and powerful, realize limitations, and end up as birds, lizards and snakes. Humans are just one face of the monkey animal-type, and we will end up being Bonobos who can write PHP code.
At this point, why rely on visual cues outside of the phone at all? If they're looking at the phone and have location enabled, on-screen notifications could tell them when the light is green. This avoids them having to notice the periphery at all, which is less likely if they're into a particularly intense sexting session or game of Farmville.
However, today the entitlement crowd believes if the content is distributed in an electronic format and accessible on the Internet the content should be free and anyone who disagrees is just an unrepentant capitalist with his boot on the necks of the oppressed.
I don't find it convincing either. But one of the biggest culprits here is that much of this stuff is hard to locate and, given the level of technology we have, there is no reason it should not all be on-demand online for a reasonable price (e.g. not $10/movie).
However, as time has gone on, the bar for IP infringement has gone so low, that with the TTIP, some guy dressing up as Spiderman for a local comic convention can be hit with a six digit fine or prison term. Couple this with the Draconian technological enforcement (more than four people in front of an XBox, movie shuts off), and the spirit of the law has been destroyed. In the past, it was a copyright monopoly for "x" time, then it becomes public domain, for all to use.
It seems to me that what you are saying here is that the punishments are too extreme. There I agree. I think the original idea was that people who infringed on copyright or trademark (as in the Spiderman event) could be sued, and that took care of the problem. Now the police state is being used to protect these properties, and yet Hollywood is having bumper years despite shipping absolute mental goo (Batman vs. Superman) and its claims of being wounded by piracy. You know the old saying: "the entertainment industry cries as it hits you."
The copyright holders and their shell organizations were initially granted a boon from society in exchange for continuing to produce new works. This boon gave them legitimate grounds to assert that society owed them something.
All they're asking for is that their works not be stolen. In many cases, this is legitimate. I have trouble caring about it in the case of mass media, who are not concerned with long-term interests so much as selling trivial products on the basis of novelty. It would be a positive thing for society if Hollywood, television and pop music were to fade away by being unprofitable. These industries were never a good thing to begin with, and now they are parasitic in a different way from what you mention: they help people stay addicted to distraction and reality denial.
The real limiting factor is the degree of cooperation required to maintain a society.
This cannot be achieved by force or threat of force, which is all that government can do. In fact, the more we rely on government, the less we are actually cooperating. We are complying.
The problem is how much taxation is being imposed on productive, middle class, members of the society.
Why do we need so many taxes? It's not roads and defense. I would rather see people have their own money to spend that to try to solve all of our problems through government. This is an unpopular view because most people repeat what they are told, but clearly individuals do better making spending choices than large impersonal bureaucracies.
English may not be your native language, so it's understandable you missed the question of degree. "Overtaxed" means too much taxation. The point of the post was that if government taxes for roads and military, we do OK, but anything more than that and things go bad.
Why isn't Python as cool as Perl? Now that Perl is no longer trendy, we're guerrillas using Perl to reform a web wasted by the financial ambitions of Silicon Valley dweebs.... when will Python catch up?
You're probably just another American who keeps blaming those who produce instead of those of consume.
Insightful. Why would someone do that? One reason is that with blame comes guilt, which justifies taking more from those who produce and giving it to those who consume.
Dictionary.com gives "retrogression" as a synonym for "regression": " Biology. degeneration; retrograde metamorphosis; passing from a more complex to a simpler structure." I think that is part of what the OP means. The other part is that we are not innovating, merely improving existing inventions and coming up with more clever ways to sell them. Our actual ability peaked in the 1970s; now, we are simply adapting that to consumer demands. Much as hackers opposed The Establishment back in the 1980s, our hackers today oppose the establishment comprised of consumers, which pull us in the opposite direction from actual useful invention. Our most exciting contributions seem to be collision avoidance systems and Eliza (Siri/Cortana).
People thrive when government does little, as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington told us. When government handles roads and military defense, society thrives; when government bleeds people by taxation and regulation, life becomes frustrating and boring like in the Soviet Union, although not quite as bad yet. With our technology, we should be working four hours a day and spending the rest on meaningful activities (inb4 the usual bragging about "meaningful jobs": you're just tools). Instead, we work more than ever. As an antiwork conservative, I cannot expect much support from the rest on the Right side, but a few are starting to wake up. Real life is not your career, your car, your house or your shopping list. Real life is out there, and it is not what humans expect at first.
The internet is advertising. At least, as far as profits go, unless you're selling physical products like Apple and Amazon. The real products (physical) seem to be doing OK, but the non-product of advertising -- which is weakened because very few people are doing more than wasting time at work on social media and other internet sites -- shows all the signs of an industry in implosion. At that point, the USA is going to have a recession as the market adjust the value of those assets to match reality.
Microsoft (finally) has a clear direction. Sometimes open source does as well, but when projects become "everyone do what you think might be fun to do" it ends in chaos with each developer pulling in a different direction. That's what is taking down Linux: many people want to contribute what is interesting to them, but few want to do the nitty-gritty work toward a tangible goal.
I agree. Most people could do their jobs in one day a week or less, but their employers and co-workers invent "make-work" activities to look important, which then requires that people spend more time at work. 40 hours a week already is insane; as you point out, two weeks of vacation is nuts. People should be working less since technology has freed us from the labors of the past. So why are we working more? And more importantly: why are so few people talking about this?
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And in a similar way, it takes power away from the individuals and transfers it to those who own the mainframes, er... "cloud servers." Wonder if it's a response to Open Source?
No, I think there's another reason for that, as I stated.
That's a good point. It reminds me of the people who drive into lakes because their GPS tells them to turn there, or people treating information from business, government, NGOs and academia as infallible.
You have to admit that a government which could track every citizen at all times through facial recognition software -- enabled by images uploaded to social media -- would provide a safer society. The power of information at work. Of course, there may be a cost; there's always a cost. I just don't think it's the 1984-inspired fantasy that most of its detractors seem to fear. And all I wanted was a Pepsi...
These are what we might call the minimum functions of government. Given that government is a business, or at least acts like one, and expands its power, it is sensible to cut it to a minimum so that we do not have a single point of failure for most social functions (the importance of this was discovered to their chagrin by the Soviets in about 1991 or so). This keeps society resilient and lowers costs.
In addition to spending more time in English class, you may have benefited from putting in a bit more study of history and philosophy. Results take a long time to be seen. Remember that in the 1930s, most Western intellectuals thought the Soviet method was superior to capitalism. The roots of Scandinavian happiness can be found in many factors unrelated to government; they were "happy" societies long before their modern governments.
I gave it a picture of Ted Cruz, and it came back with "Zodiac Killer." I think it works better than its creators ever knew it would!
Animal-types go through a life cycle: start out dinosaurs, grow big and powerful, realize limitations, and end up as birds, lizards and snakes. Humans are just one face of the monkey animal-type, and we will end up being Bonobos who can write PHP code.
At this point, why rely on visual cues outside of the phone at all? If they're looking at the phone and have location enabled, on-screen notifications could tell them when the light is green. This avoids them having to notice the periphery at all, which is less likely if they're into a particularly intense sexting session or game of Farmville.
I don't find it convincing either. But one of the biggest culprits here is that much of this stuff is hard to locate and, given the level of technology we have, there is no reason it should not all be on-demand online for a reasonable price (e.g. not $10/movie).
It seems to me that what you are saying here is that the punishments are too extreme. There I agree. I think the original idea was that people who infringed on copyright or trademark (as in the Spiderman event) could be sued, and that took care of the problem. Now the police state is being used to protect these properties, and yet Hollywood is having bumper years despite shipping absolute mental goo (Batman vs. Superman) and its claims of being wounded by piracy. You know the old saying: "the entertainment industry cries as it hits you."
So what does it do, automatically take a picture of dinner and quote a Beat poet based on the food items it identifies?
All they're asking for is that their works not be stolen. In many cases, this is legitimate. I have trouble caring about it in the case of mass media, who are not concerned with long-term interests so much as selling trivial products on the basis of novelty. It would be a positive thing for society if Hollywood, television and pop music were to fade away by being unprofitable. These industries were never a good thing to begin with, and now they are parasitic in a different way from what you mention: they help people stay addicted to distraction and reality denial.
This cannot be achieved by force or threat of force, which is all that government can do. In fact, the more we rely on government, the less we are actually cooperating. We are complying.
That's a good point and historically accurate. For a long time, there was not even an income tax.
It seems to me that the more government gets involved in something, the lower quality the end results.
Why do we need so many taxes? It's not roads and defense. I would rather see people have their own money to spend that to try to solve all of our problems through government. This is an unpopular view because most people repeat what they are told, but clearly individuals do better making spending choices than large impersonal bureaucracies.
English may not be your native language, so it's understandable you missed the question of degree. "Overtaxed" means too much taxation. The point of the post was that if government taxes for roads and military, we do OK, but anything more than that and things go bad.
QED. Search your feelings, Luke. You will see that Perl is the path to enlightenment.
Why isn't Python as cool as Perl? Now that Perl is no longer trendy, we're guerrillas using Perl to reform a web wasted by the financial ambitions of Silicon Valley dweebs.... when will Python catch up?
Insightful. Why would someone do that? One reason is that with blame comes guilt, which justifies taking more from those who produce and giving it to those who consume.
Dictionary.com gives "retrogression" as a synonym for "regression": " Biology. degeneration; retrograde metamorphosis; passing from a more complex to a simpler structure." I think that is part of what the OP means. The other part is that we are not innovating, merely improving existing inventions and coming up with more clever ways to sell them. Our actual ability peaked in the 1970s; now, we are simply adapting that to consumer demands. Much as hackers opposed The Establishment back in the 1980s, our hackers today oppose the establishment comprised of consumers, which pull us in the opposite direction from actual useful invention. Our most exciting contributions seem to be collision avoidance systems and Eliza (Siri/Cortana).
People thrive when government does little, as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington told us. When government handles roads and military defense, society thrives; when government bleeds people by taxation and regulation, life becomes frustrating and boring like in the Soviet Union, although not quite as bad yet. With our technology, we should be working four hours a day and spending the rest on meaningful activities (inb4 the usual bragging about "meaningful jobs": you're just tools). Instead, we work more than ever. As an antiwork conservative, I cannot expect much support from the rest on the Right side, but a few are starting to wake up. Real life is not your career, your car, your house or your shopping list. Real life is out there, and it is not what humans expect at first.
The internet is advertising. At least, as far as profits go, unless you're selling physical products like Apple and Amazon. The real products (physical) seem to be doing OK, but the non-product of advertising -- which is weakened because very few people are doing more than wasting time at work on social media and other internet sites -- shows all the signs of an industry in implosion. At that point, the USA is going to have a recession as the market adjust the value of those assets to match reality.
Microsoft (finally) has a clear direction. Sometimes open source does as well, but when projects become "everyone do what you think might be fun to do" it ends in chaos with each developer pulling in a different direction. That's what is taking down Linux: many people want to contribute what is interesting to them, but few want to do the nitty-gritty work toward a tangible goal.
You take all the risk, we take all the money. Silicon Valley is bleeding America dry as its financial system collapses.
I agree. Most people could do their jobs in one day a week or less, but their employers and co-workers invent "make-work" activities to look important, which then requires that people spend more time at work. 40 hours a week already is insane; as you point out, two weeks of vacation is nuts. People should be working less since technology has freed us from the labors of the past. So why are we working more? And more importantly: why are so few people talking about this?