Who said we'd spend 0 dollars on defense?
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I'm saying we should have a nation of scholars instead of a nation of warriors.
We should be spending equal amounts on both, not almost all our money on the military.
Defense is to defend ourself from assholes, the current government seems to like to bully other countries and try to police the world. This is a bad idea.
We only need enough money to defend our country, you dont need 350-400 billion to defend the country, thats the budget needed to police the entire planet.
I'd say 100 billion is needed to defend the country, and 100 billion to educate the masses.
Why do you assume that throwing money at schools will magicly cause students to become more intrested in learning than in the next album by their favorite band, or if their favorite team will make it to the Super Bowl, or if they can get some good pot this weekend, or if they will get a piece of ass or......
throwing money at the military is no smarter than throwing money at school.
Who said I agree with how schools currently work? Schools need to be completely reformed, and made modern.
Reform the school, currently schools are designed for the 1800s, this is 2002, get rid of chalkboards, replace them with electronic displays, allow programmers to write more interactive learning software, install a touch pad palm style display into all of the desks, no more need for paper, use electronic paper if there is a need.
Internet connect all of this, so the work a person does at school can simply be uploaded to a central server, then when they get home they can continue their learning experience.
Oh, and the reason we should use computers and technology to educate our children, its proven that one teacher can not teach 30 kids properly, and reducing class sizes which is what the government is currently trying to do, is just not going to work.
Accept the fact that public schools will be big, give teachers the tools required to teach a big class.
electronic paper, interactive assignments, complete with videos,students should be taught teamwork and work as a team using the technology provided,homework should be downloadable from the net etc, teachers should be able to use animations to explain things to students on a digital board, an animation should show students how to do their math, show them how the atomic bomb works, etc
Kids dont like school because of how its designed, its not very modern, kids want school to be fun, so why not make it fun, connect the school to the web.
I'm sure some older people here will say "too much technology in school is bad, kids will play and chat, and not learn a thing"
However statistics prove that kids learn more from TV, Games, and Movies than they do from books. Of course before The net, TV, etc exsisted and there were only books, people all learned from books.
Now people learn from the web, they chat, but chatting should be allowed as long as A, everything you say is displayed in public on the teachers electronic board, the teacher can moderate, or should be able to turn this off.
Basically, just like we have the PC designed to help you learn and gather information at home, special devices and tools should be designed to aid in teaching.
Currently its not helping, because people are just throwing PCs at schools, with generic software like microsoft windows, AOL chat, etc.
With a 100 billion dollar budget, a whole industry could form, to develop hardware and software DESIGNED for schools.
This is why the budget should be increased, of course I cant control how the money is spent, and if schools just want to throw money at microsoft and dell, well thats their stupidity.
Re:Depends on how the laser works.
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yes but currently we have until 2019, but even if it were 5 years away, we have the ability to create a laser capable of doing it, its a matter of how much money we want to put into it, also who said it would be a long range mission? You could in theory shoot a craft with lasers on top of it right toward the astriod with the beam hitting it, while the craft moves in closer and closer with the beam still on it.
Of course, if the laser doesnt work, thats when you'd use nuke, of course theres the chance even nuke might not help because nuke could blow the astriod up and create hundreds of smaller ones, which is just as bad because some of them might be on a direct path to earth.
I understand your point howwever
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The United States knew That Nazi Germany had an Atomic Bomb program, but didn't know how far along it was. It was also known that the first nation to develop the bomb would win the war, even if they were on the verge of defeat. Considering Hitler's goals, it would have been pretty fucking stupid to take a chance that Hitler would get the Bomb first.
They did not need to build as many bombs as they did, with the amount of power they had. The bomb being built was mainly a symbol of power at first, but tell me why we kept making these bombs, and making them more powerful all the way through the 80s?
You see, what you are saying is, the USA in self defense, had no choice but to develop the atomic bomb, and this makes sense. But it doesnt make sense why we developed, I dont know how many thousands of these nuclear bombs, and of unbelieveable power, what was the point? Who needs thousands of nuclear bombs? Its enough to destroy the whole world.
The fact that we didnt destroy the world was pure luck. You see, the technology was a bad technology, you can argue the fact that we developed it in self defense at first in response to others, however we did not need to have the cold war, that was bullshit. Where do I put the blame? Not just on the USA, but on all of the ignorant (yes ignorant) leaders of all of these countries, who were either filled with hate (hitler) or just couldnt get along with the USA (Japan and Russia).
You can try to claim the USA was the victim, and that the ignorant leaders in these other countries were responsible for all of this, but it was the USA who used the bomb first, it was the USA who pushed the cold war competition to see who could build the most bombs.
Back then, there was no UN, so it was impossible to stop rogue dictators, like hitler. Today we dont need to develop such massive weapons to stop one guy, you see if bin laden were around back then he could have been as dangerous as hitler or even more so, its not the technology I'm blaming, I'm blaming the people who happen to control it. The people who control it arent the people who make it, and if all of the intelligent genius scientists decide not to make any more weapons, that would be it.
If scientists decide not to make any more spy technologies, none would be made. It cant happen without einstiens and teslas of the world, hitler wasnt smart enough to develop a nuclear bomb, and neither were his soilders, and this is what we must remember.
Why build technologies which we know for a fact, that our leaders cannot handle?
I mean ignorant because they dont understand that when you hate others you also hate yourself, when you kill someone else you are actually killing yourself, they dont understand we are all connected, and we are all one species, and you cant just go around killing people.
This is why I call them ignorant, murder is ignorant. You cannot harm someone else on purpose, and not be considered ignorant, you purposely do harm to others, you actually are doing harm to yourself, your children, its like a ripple effect.
You can claim they do it because they are evil, but evil is ignorant, the nature of evil, not just the effects.
You think knowledge and intelligence equals enlightenment? hell no, alot of sheep have knowledge. But without proper understanding, you'll use your knowledge to destroy yourself instead of to help yourself.
Re:Its cool, its cool unless dumbasses control it
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Some people Hate just because they are mean and evil.
Please define mean and evil. Stupid is a better word.
Hate caused by fear? So hate of self means you fear yourself?
Hate of your own species is hate of self. Not everyone who fears, hates, hate is an instinct that certain people possess, just like certain people are greedy, certain people are violent, etc.
Depends on how the laser works.
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You do realize, theres alot more solar energy in space than there is on earth? You do realize there are particles in space, waves carrying these particles allow solar sails to travel as such great speeds.
In space, you should in theory be able to create a laser thousands of times more powerful than it would be if its on earth, due to the fact that if done right, the suns energy could be harnessed.
Also theres other ways, you could simply use more than one laser aimed at the same target to increase how effective the laser is.
Re:Its cool, its cool unless dumbasses control it
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Care to be more condescending and elitist. Somehow the world has survived through 50+ years of the Cold War and associated nuclear arms race despite the non-existence of Slashdot and the fact that most leaders were not geek-types.
Luck. Its been luck thats kept us out of nuclear war with the russians and Chinese. We cannot leave the fate of humanity, to luck, eventually luck runs out.
First of all the U.S. is a very wealthy nation - we can afford guns, butter, AND a health plan for the elderly. The U.S. spends a lot on defense and a lot on education. In fact I believe the per pupil expenditure in the U.S. is greater than most western countries. It's also not clear that education spending beyond a certain level even correlates with better educational achievement. Here in the U.S. it's generally true that the school districts that spend the most per student typically have the worst academic performance.
Where do you come up with your statistics? First of all, our schools need to learn how to properly spend the money, to make schools more modern. teachers shouldnt still be using chalkboards in 2002, wheres electronic paper? how about touchpads which are net connected for students to do interactive assignments? Japan is spending their money better than us, as well as spending more money. Its not just a matter of us not spending enough money, but we arent spending money on actually improving anything.
Oh and your stats about schools which spend the most money are the worst, its wrong, alot of private schools which have the best funding, happen to be the best, the public schools suck because they lack funding and because they dont know a damn thing about how to use that funding to improve the actual learning tools.
Furthermore, U.S. defense spending also has beneficial effects for the world at large. For instance the U.S. military pretty much guarantees the Freedom of the Seas for the rest of the world and keeps piracy to a minimum. Global trade could not exist without this quiet protection. It also has a dampening effect on regional rivalries and allows other countries (such as Japan) to get by with minimal defense spending since they're under the U.S. protection umbrella.
Its not our responsibility to control the seas of the world and protect the world from all forms of evil, when we accept such a dumb responsibility we actually make ourselves the focus of the worlds evil. Bringing that evil directly to our shores.
Wrong. Terrorism (and hate) may have several causes, but it's doubtful that ignorance and lack of education is among them. After all most of the senior leadership of Al Queda is well educated and familiar with western society. Bin Laden himself actually lived in Europe for a while, and several of the 9/11 hijackers had advanced degrees and had lived in the U.S. and Europe for years. They may hate the U.S. (and western society in general) but it's certainly not because they're ignorant of it or uneducated in general. Sometimes it's intimate familiarity that breeds the most murdurous kind of hate - e.g. Hutus/Tutsis in Rwanda, Serbs/Croats/Bosnians in Yugoslavia./b
Education and Knowledge does not make a person less ignorant and more enlightened, a person must seek enlightenment to find it, and alot of people just refuse to question authority and look for their own answers, so they accept answers from bin laden, hitler, or some man they respect.
No one can doubt that the leaders of the sheep are highly educated, highly educated, intelligent, and confused. Bin laden thinks what hes doing is rightous, he is confused about his religion and in my opinion, because of how he was raised, it taught him islam was the only way, that every other way was wrong, this is how he was raised in his country, he was influenced by ignorant people, and like a virus, hate/ignorance passes on to people.
Hate, is an instinct, first, not everyone is capable of being bin laden, or hitler, you have to be filled with hate, now, if you are filled with hate, you obviously have a problem, bin laden filled with hate, blamed the jews and americans, and is using terrorism for his outlet.
The man is ignorant, perhaps a genius, but ignorant in the fact that he doesnt understand the law of cause and effect, that if something bad is done to you, and you go and do something bad to someone else through terrorism, that it just makes the problem worse, hes trying to fight fire with fire.
Our government at times, is just as ignorant, our leaders are just as dumb, as isreal's leaders can at times be dumb.
Education is needed, but a person also needs to have an open mind, and intellectual freedom to learn information which may not be popular.
The internet allows this for us in America, people in China and the Middle east often do not have access to the world wide web, they dont really understand how everyone in the world is connected, how we are all one, and alot of religions seem to seperate and group people.
The jewish religion says they are the choosen people, according to bin laden anyone who doesnt agree with his religion is an infidel or whatever. If he were taught through his schooling to be more accepting of people with diffrent lifestyles and opinions, he could not hate them.
Re:Its cool, its cool unless dumbasses control it
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what the hell are you talking about?
All hate is caused by ignorance. Terrorism is an act of hate.
Agreed. But know consider it the other way around. Do you really want well educated masses? Able to criticise the current goverment?:)
Yes thats exactly what we need, then the world can change and wars will finally cease.
Humanity can't handle the technology fire responsible. Neither cars, AC, household equipment, food...
But these technologies dont destroy all humanity.
Neither have I faith that humanity will be able to handle nuclear or biological weapons. Still we managed it somehow. Quite on the verge of destruction, but still...
We were lucky. We wont be lucky for much longer.
I hope it does run on windows so we can DOS
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the stupid thing and disable it
You dont need nuke to do that
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A laser cannon could deflect the astriod, the laser could literally beam the astriod and deflect it off its course.
Re:Yeah and thats why the world is fucked up
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The education budget should never be less than half the military budget!
350 billion on the military should mean around 200 billion on education.
Re:This technology is evil
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So you believe the atomic bomb SHOULD have been created? are YOU really that stupid?
This spy fly technology is an impossible to stop technology, you do realize by creating it, you are putting it into the hands of Nazis, KKK, Bin Laden, Saddam, even evil people within our own government.
Yes just like they love nuke, biowarfare, etc
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Just giving another weapon to evil people in the world.
You see, creating more weapons to destroy evil, ALWAYS ends up helping evil in the long run.
The atomic bomb is a good example.
Because most humans are fools
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The technology is a very good technology, but most humans are like apes and monkeys, they go around having wars, hating each other, and doing evil crap.
True theres some good people who will use the technology for good, but if just a handful use this technology for bad, it could ruin it.
Create this technology and let some of the dumbasses in the government get a hold of it and you'll see what I mean.
Yeah and thats why the world is fucked up
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The department of defense (should be offense) is spending hundreds of billions per year developing weapons and spy technologies.
What the fuck is the purpose of spending so much money on technologies which are bad for humanity, but not spending any money on education.
Do they expect a bunch of typical people like bush and others to be able to make the right decisions in using this technology?
This is 2002! I think its time USA stopped trying to be the king of weapons and war and started promoting education to the third world.
All of these terrorists, they dont get any education, all they know is islam, they do whatever their leader says, its all they know in life, and thats the problem
Islam is fine, but people need to understand that War is not fine, and spying on people is not good.
I'm sure people will say "but we have to spy on the good, to stop the bad" and thats true, but if we are going to spend all this time effort and money on spy technology to stop the bad, we should also be spending just as much money to provide education to the masses.
Most people arent bad, most are just ignorant, most Nazis and KKK who hate certain races do so in ignorance, sure the leaders like hitler or bin ladens may be smart, but their followers usually are ignorant sheep instead of free thinkers, perhaps letting some of these ignorant sheep on to the net would be more effective than spying on them and blowing them up, and fighting fire and fire.
Re:Worst Nightmare is on its way
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Haha you really think aids was designed to thin the black population? Actually if aids were made by humans, and I dont deny that fact that it could have been.
It was designed by religious freaks, who hate gays and people who have sex casually.
People often believe its a nightmare, but
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I for once agree with you heretic, I dont think humanity is prepared for this technology at all. With our current leaders, our USA would be as fucked up as the way the taliban was.
Oh and even if USA isnt turned into a taliban like stay, China, and the rest of the world will have access to these technologies and some of them will try to enslave its citizens with it.
Whoever is developing this technology and hopefully reads our posts should think about what they are bringing forth into the world. I've thought about this technology, it sounds good and appeals to all geeks in terms of its use, but this kinda technology should be used for us to explore space or an alien planet, not used to be used on us.
Does humanity hate itself? We invest more money and effort trying to create weapons to destroy ourselves than we do educating ourselves!!
We claim to fight to protect freedom then develop technologies which by design remove it?
Its cool, its cool unless dumbasses control it
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All technologies start of cool, because technologies are usually created by very intelligent enlightened people.
But why should intelligent enlightened people create technologies which dumbass hawks in government will use irresponsibly, to spy on people, harrass, control, and kill people with?
Oh and lets not forget it will eventually spread to people like bin laden, and the next hitler.
Look, geeks in slashdot may be intelligent enough to handle these technologies, but the average idiot, would destroy the world with it.
Governments invest hundreds of billions in weapons, but next to nothing in education, the US government spends less than japan in educating the masses yet spends 350-400 billion on its military.
Look, with the trillion dollar tax cut, and plans for smaller government, what people seem to forget, even with smaller government, you'll still have a country filled with idiots unless you educate the masses on how to use this technology.
The average person cant even use the internet properly, I'm betting george bush doesnt know how to write a program, or do anything more than the average joe who just checks his mail and surfs the web, but this is the guy whos supposed to decide how this new fly technology will be used?
We will let Bush decide who gets nuked? The world is doomed as long as we have leaders who arent as intelligent as the creators of the technology.
The solution? More education, raise the budget on education, and worldwide, so that hopefully we can have a war on ignorance like we have a war on terrorism. Terrorism is caused by ignorance, Hate is caused by ignorance, and both of these are usually results of poor education, lack of knowledge, low intelligence, etc.
Building more weapons, and spy technology only means, the dumb asses of the world will be able to do more damage.
When will society and government learn
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That you cannot invest all this money and effort, into destruction, without destroying the world as the result.
"CNN (and AP) reports on the 'Spy Fly' project. "Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years developing a tiny robot, called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly." Good technical stuff on the Cal Berkeley page. The Pentagon likes the idea for spying and battlefield deployment but their page has no info about weaponization or command / communication technologies."
This basically means, like with the atomic bomb, the government is using technology for evil purposes.
Why do we need a 350-400 billion military budget yet only a 20 billion dollar school budget?
Please tell me what would happen, if I gave some monkeys, a button, and told the monkey not to push the little red button which ends the world, wait lets take it a step further, lets say I give this power to thousands, millions of monkeys.
How long until one of the monkeys pushes the button?
For scientific minds reading this, the second law of thermodynamics clearly explains in a very logical way, that unless humans are educated and evolve mentally as a whole, expect things to collapse, with technologies like this here, the atomic bomb, soon nano technology, just wait until it gets in the hands of bin laden, the next hitler, hell i wouldnt even trust these technologies in the hands of george bush or the average american.
So why are we busy creating technology after technology without educating people in how to responsibly use these technologies we create? Are we supposed to be proud of our technology which will be used to spy on millions of people, ruin millions of lives, get people killed etc?
Everyones nightmare
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Paraniod or not, do you honestly believe we can use this technology responsibly? All of these war weapons and spy technology shouldnt be developed, due to the fact that humanity cannot use them responsibly.
Insect spy technology would be almost unstopable, and has the impact on society that the atomic bomb once had, how is this a good thing? How could it ever be a good thing?!
Too much money is spend on stupid shit like this and not enough money is spent on educating the masses.
What good is spending 350-400 billion a year on the military if you only spend 20 billion a year on public schools? You end up with a nation of irresponsible morons who are going to be controlling weapons of mass destruction.
What the hell? If Nano Technology weapons start to appear, I have absolutely no faith that humanity will be able to handle it.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you -- I wouldn't want healthcare if I didn't deserve it. I earn the "right" to healthcare by the money I earn -- and if I don't make enough to buy health insurance (as is the case right now), then it's right and proper that I don't have it, even if it means discomfort or death.
So what you are saying is money is more important than life itself? I think the majority of people in this world will disagree with you.When they charge for air you'll be the first to say "No, air must no longer be free on mars, you must earn the right to have air."
To take any other position implies that some man has a "right" to the labor of another without his consent. It may be the doctor who your doctrine obligates to work for free, or it may be the average Joe who works an extra hour to pay the taxes that go to paying for the healthcare of others -- in any event, stealing any man's effort against his will is the highest variety of wrong.
I disagree. Greed is wrong, why should we give people a right to be greedy when we can force these people to help the majority? Someone has to pay for the elderly, the childrens education, the police, this stuff is not free. If you believe we should all pay taxes for military and capitalist purposes, well then why cant our tax money go to help people as well?
I can appreciate public schools inasmuch as they are paid for by local property taxes -- one who doesn't wish to reap the benefits of this (or other community services) can avoid paying for them by living outside of city boundaries (or, ideally, by living in a community which doesn't provide them). Of course, few men would reasonably wish to live without the benefits of local government service -- but having it available as an option
Ok this is silly, not all public schools are in the city first of all, even people in rural communities and small towns have public schools, you think theres a place in the USA where you can pay no taxes?
I have a family, of sorts, and find it more a help than a hinderance. Were I the sole wageeearner, then it might be a burden in the event of unemployment -- but as I am not, and even then there is great benefit (economic, even) to having them: the support structure (of friends and non-immediate family) available is all that much greater. Were we unable to pay rent now, there are a great many people who would take us into their homes -- indeed, right now, we are living with friends and cooking, cleaning, coding (two of the three adults can write code), babysitting (theirs as well as ours) and doing dishes for our keep. People can survive, whatever the means, if they're savvy and responsible. People who aren't... that's their own fault.
Consider yourself very fortunate to have such a support structure and such a big family, I dont have any support. What you are saying is, you prefer to beg your friends and family to help you instead of the government. Government help however works better for most people, because not everyone has a family that supports them and or friends that can help them.
My mother and father had all their lives to save for their retirement. If they find themselves financially unwell, it is by their own poor planning; whatever lack of services they receive is thus by their own hands.
Thats just plain selfish and disrespectful to say about your parents. Those are the people who took care of you for all these years, how could they save for retirement so easily when they had to raise you, and put YOU through school, maybe even through college.
Also consider yourself lucky to have the support of a mother and a father to begin with. Your problem is you take things for granted.
"Fair to everyone" is an immediate thing. Every group has been under someone else's boot at some time
Correct at some time they have, but what about the groups who are suffering right now. should those of Irish background receive compensation because of the beatings and unemployment they received when emmigrating to the States during the potato famine?
An Irish person does not have to say they are Irish. A catholic person does not have to tell employers their religion. A gay person does not have to tell anyone their sexuality.
However a woman, or a minority, cannot ever "hide" this, they will always stand out and there will always be a bigot waiting to target them.
You have only mentioned religions, and cultures, you have never mentioned things which cannot ever be kept private, like race or sex. Alot of jews changed their names, and became successful, as did alot of irish, lets not forget alot of jews and irish do not currently to this day get harrassed by people like the nazis, the KKK and other terrorist groups because all they have to do is not tell anyone they are a jew, or that they are irish. Gays simply dont tell anyone from the KKK they are Gay and they dont get harrassed.
Currently if you've been watching TV, police officers are currently beating the hell out of minorities, and theres a racial profiling situation happening due to 911.
The reason for the success of the Irish, the Jews etc, all of these diffrent cultures, religions and groups are from the same race and that in common, even if its the only thing they have in common, it seems to be enough.
so, would you compensate the great grandchildren of American slaves more (for who their parents were) than a recent immigrant from Ghana with a first-class education? After all, the former is more likely to be looked down on in the business world for posessing speech patterns seen by many as indicating a low upbringing and poor education, while the latter's faintly British accent rings of charm and sophistication. Would you have people be compensated based on how they speak, or just go by the color of their skin? And how does this scheme help in "fairness"? What's done is done; old offenses cannot be undone, though they may be avoided for the future.
The best way to compensate is not to just hand them money. Its to create social services, to allow these members of society the chance to create a successful life. Do you really expect these people to educate themselves? No its our responsibility to help these people.
Thats one option, or you can keep paying to put them in jail. You can have full jails, or full schools.
No, no, no. People without money in capital quantities cannot be given the same opportunities as posessed by those having said sums of cash, simply because the opportunities themselves exist in the act of risking such sums. Would you let people risk (and, if their risk works out, benefit from) that which they have not earned? And, simply put, from where would come the money?
You believe money is more important than life itself, I disagree, I believe every human on this planets right to live comes before money, life is more valueable than money in 100 percent of all situations. People should not be competiting for survival when theres more than enough food to feed all the people on this planet, its evil to force people to live in such a way when in reality they dont have to do so.
All Americans have the right to healthcare, education, and food, this is a right as a lifeform, even animals are treated better than humans, they have laws protecting their forests, what laws do humans have to protect the humans right to survival?
Capitalism I though was created to improve our survivability, if its used in the wrong way, it will make us fight each other, and this is why we seem to have a problem with wars.
Let's look at this word "exploiting". What exactly are the actions that you think should be punishable? Violating contracts? Breaking labor laws? Lying about investments? If I hire Joe to clean my yard for $5 when I could afford to pay $10, and you think I should be jailed for that act, you and I will never see eye-to-eye.
No, if you hire joe for $5 and you lie to joe saying you cant give him a raise when he asks for a raise, and his work proves he deserves a raise, you should be punished. If CEOs were honest and would just say "I have the money and you do not deserve a raise" and then give reasons why. Its ok, workers wont be pissed if they dont actually deserve a raise. If however the CEO or boss knows they deserve a raise, and that they earned it by working hard for years, and refuses to move them up the ladder or give them a raise so they can keep the money to themselves this is exploiting the workers.
My mother is trapped in such a situation right now. Its called a deadend job, will she be able to retire? Who knows, but she needs medicare and social security when she does retire because there was no way for her to save making $20,000 a year and raising me on it.
If you want to drive companies overseas, just implement that law. Some country (or thirty) would refuse -- and those countries and their residents would profit tremendously from such refusal, as all the production from the rest of the world moved within their borders.
Only the big companies would go overseas, we dont really need monopolys. Do we really NEED microsoft? hell no. Microsoft leaves to go overseas, or raises their prices too much, and people will begin to buy their competitions products here in the USA. By going overseas Microsoft harms their own profitability. Smaller companies will not be able to afford to go overseas, the high price of training foreign workers, the price of actually moving, etc.
Eh? The price is cheaper! Consumers benefit. Further, the 3rd world workers who are offerred jobs by Pillsburry benefit greatly -- if the job was not such that it benefitted them (by being better than all their preexisting alternatives), they would not accept such employement.
Third world wants to start their own pillsberry, not work for ours. Big companies dont really help anyone, less competition is bad for everyone, and I'd rather china start their own pillsberry company to compete with ours.
It would only be cheaper to move to China if I can't compete with Chinese workers. Perhaps they can live more cheaply than me; perhaps they are willing to accept a lower profit margin; perhaps their tax rates are lower so they can accept gross less income. In the former case, I can reduce my cost of living -- there are a multitude of ways to do this, ranging from cooking my own food to moving to a cheaper area (or even a cheaper country). In the next case, I will need to decide whether to accept the lower profit margin or go into another line of work. In the last case, I will need to move somewhere where taxes are less burdensome. All these are possibilities open to me. I am not afraid of my job being sent overseas -- first because I am very good at what I do (and it would be in my company's interest to send me overseas if they moved), but also because I would be able to survive even if it did happen.
But you shouldnt be forced to do all this, and you wouldnt, if things were fair.
Why cant we live in a fair world? Why must someone or some group always have the advantage over another?
If you want to drive companies overseas, just implement that law. Some country (or thirty) would refuse -- and those countries and their residents would profit tremendously from such refusal, as all the production from the rest of the world moved within their borders.
Don't trust me, though. Go take an economics class, and see if the professor agrees with the bullshit that you speak.
If i took an economics class in a capitalist country learning from a capitalist professor, I'd get capitalist opinions, if I took an economics class in the soviet union, china, or some of the places in europe, I'd get a diffrent point of view.
Its best not to learn from the opinions of just one professor, but to research all the points of view and then decide what you think is right.
Lets state the facts. Currently there is a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.
The Enron, Worldcom type situations, only pisses off the working class.
When you analyze society using this class division, many problems that otherwise defy understanding have obvious solutions. Profit is derived by owning. Wages or salary are derived by labouring, by expending our physical or mental energy working for those who own the means of production and distribution.
The owner of a particular factory may not even know that they own it. It may be just a part of an immense holding company that is administered by someone else. The workers in the factory, however, are directly connected to the production. It is the labour of these workers (including the plant management) that creates the profits that keep the capitalists rich. It is vital that the capitalists pay their workers less than the value that their labour produces. It is this difference between the value of what workers are paid and the value of what they produce that is the source of profit.
Profit is currently exploiting the working class.
As long as the ownership of the means of production and distribution rests with the minority capitalist class, this antagonism will continue to exist. The antagonism is caused by the necessarily differing interests of the classes. No matter how nice capitalists may be on a personal level, they will always have different interests than the working class. It is not a matter of good and evil or anything like that, it is inherent in any class system. Therefore the only way to eliminate the antagonism is to eliminate the class system and establish a system of common ownership where the previous antagonism has no basis.
To define the working class. The working class is a person who must work for a living. The Capitalist class is the class which no longer worries about their survival.
Lets quote you for a moment Rant: Further, America works just fine as it is. I don't have healthcare right now, and I certainly don't want you to buy it for me. One of the principles this country was founded on was individual accomplishment and personal pride therein. Whatever success I have I wish to be my own; likewise for my failures. I don't say this as someone born with a silver spoon -- I've been homeless before, and pulled myself out of it. To put it simply: I'm too good for your damn condescending "assistance", and I want to live in a country where everyone else is too. Whatever handicaps I get stuck with are my own challenges; whatever difficulties you get our yours. Overcoming mine makes me a better man; likewise for yourself. Relying on others (or "the government") to hand you on a platter the opportunities you think you deserve is a disservice to all those who've had to work for what they've earned -- and succeeded despite worse-than-average odds.
This isnt about pride, this isnt about accomplishment, its about survival. A person cannot focus on accomplishment, if they live paycheck to paycheck. A person whos sick who cannot afford medicine WANTS healthcare. You can tell me that if you were sick and had a crap job, you wouldnt want healthcare? You are telling me you dont want public schools?
lets focus on a specific quote I've been homeless before, and pulled myself out of it. To put it simply: I'm too good for your damn condescending "assistance",
Of course, you can say that, I'm assuming you dont have a wife and kid, you are a single male, most likely in your 20s. Someone your age can pull themselves out through enough hardwork. What if you have kids? or get married? That free support starts to look good when you have a wife and kids to take care of. Or even if your mother and father get sick and they need help, that social security and free healthcare support would help them.
Lets focus on the main problem of your arguement. Whatever handicaps I get stuck with are my own challenges; whatever difficulties you get our yours. Overcoming mine makes me a better man; likewise for yourself. Relying on others (or "the government") to hand you on a platter the opportunities you think you deserve is a disservice to all those who've had to work for what they've earned -- and succeeded despite worse-than-average odds
Ok so you believe that minorites in this country should NOT get any help from the government after years of being mistreated? Theres a reason why minorities are strugglings, sure things may be fair now, but how many years did it take just to end stuff like racism, or even sexism? You have to make it fair for everyone,
Just like women should get the same amount of money as men in the workplace, and minorities should be able to make the same amount of money as whites, people of working class SHOULD in theory be able to have the same opportunities given to them as the capitalist class.
What you are saying is, the government should just step out of the way, while capitalists exploit the whole world to stay rich, cant you see that wont work? People get pissed when they lose their life savings due to some worldcom enron nonsense. Minorities get pissed when they dont get fair treatment, and women get pissed when men dont give them the same opportunities.
It has to be fair, rich people should not recieve special treatment just because they are rich, if you do not punish the rich for exploiting the poor, you are basically putting money above the law, and above all morals and ethics.
Yeah its ok for a capitalist to avoid paying taxes, and hire people from china and pakistan to avoid paying american workers, on the other hand, working class is supposed to pay taxes to fund the war on terrorism, and often, taxes are used to fund capitalist objectives, such as pillsberrys expansion into the third world, this harms the US working class, pillsberry will make more money due to cheaper labor, sure the price of their little foods will be cheaper, but their quality wont go up at all, no one benifits from this except a few CEOs at the top.
Lets not forget the manipulation of the stock market.
Do you want to live in a fair world, or do you want to hand the world over to Microsoft, Nike, and other big companies who eventually wont even need your labor anymore?
What happens when your labor is no longer needed, when its cheaper for them to move to China? What happens to your job? You do realize that you only have 2 options, and if you dont regulate capitalism, the USA will eventually be eclipsed by places like China, India, Pakistan, where labor is cheaper, and in an information based economy, people power will matter. Be prepared to lose your job unless theres some regulation which requires them to hire you and establish a global minimum wage.
If you increase the wages of those earning minimum wage you will find that the companies that employ them will tend to look for ways to get the job done with fewer employees. They're not just going to accept the increase in minimum wage and take a cut in their profit..
They are already doing that. so hows raising the minimum wage going to change this? companies already are trying to replace us with machines and workers from other countries to save money.
One of two things will happen:
# They will reduce their workforce. So those that remain will earn more, but you'll have more people unemployed. This will happen if they are in a market that doesn't allow them much room to increase their price due to competition.
# If they can, they will increase what they charge to their customers in order to cover the increase in minimum wage. In that case, the buck is passed to all of the economy, creating pressures on inflation. I need not explain the problems caused by inflation.
Would you rather luxury items cost more, or would you prefer to not even be able to pay your rent? Let the prices for things go up, I dont care, I'm trying to survive not worry about prices of things like computers, or a mc donalds hamburger, because if mc donalds raises the prices they'll simply be replaced by smaller more competitive companies.
That depends on what you define as "easy." If you mean that those that are educated and have a vast amount of technical experience but all they do is sit in the office and write programs and go to meetings while coal miners are stuck 250 feet under the ground, sure. No thats comparing the working class with the working class, programmers are no diffrent than coal miners, I'm talking about management, CEOS, those guys dont write programs, all they do is go to meetings and boss people around, and all it took for them to get where they are, is writing a business plan and knowing the right people in order to get capital. Its not hard work to be bill gates or even an upper level manager.
I agree many (not all) CEOs are paid too much. That said, you'd be surprised how LITTLE you could increase all the employee's salaries by taking it from the high-paid executives. That's the same logic whereby many liberals say, "Hey, let's just take the wealth of the richest 1000 people in the country." It turns out that ends up being enough to run the government for like a month or two. Or if you distributed Bill Gates' WORTH (not all of it is cash, not by a longshot) to every American, each American would only get about $175.
So you are a conservative? You talk about what liberals say, but the whole working class will say the same thing, not just the liberals but even conservatives, poor people demand fair wages because its a class issue, not a political issue. Not all conservatives are rich. If you limit the amount of money a CEO can make, you'd have enough money to raise the minimum wage, We arent talking about running the government here. We arent talking about taking 100 percent of all the wealth from the richest people, we are talking about fair wages. And fair treatment of all classes. Currently, the top 1000 richest people have all the advantages of society, America is such a great place to these people because they have everything! I'm not asking for them to give all their money away, What I'm saying is everyone should be able to survive, its cruel for a person who works hard, to be barely surviving, not be able to afford healthcare, have kids which dont even have the chance to get educated due to the high costs of private schools and lack of government funding of public schools (20 billion for public schools yet 350 billion for the military is alittle bit off balance if you ask me)
What we need for america to work, and for all the classes to get along, is for each class to have the same basic chance at success, everyone has a right to a good education, everyone should have healthcare, everyone should be able to retire and we know the 401k and stock market gamble retirement just cant work due to dishonesty.
You mention distributing bill gates worth, thats a socialist concept, of course its done in the wrong way, you dont do something stupid, like throw money into the hands of the people, you tax the rich in order to give the poor the oppurtunity to be rich, or else the rich will stay rich, and the poor will have no chance at ever being anything but poor, giving them a hopeless exsistance, creating class warfare. This kinda thing is what happened to blacks in the USA, and this is why there was the civil rights movement, fair treatment is required, its not optional but REQUIRED, this means the wages should be fair, everyone should be able to get a good education, money shouldnt determine this, everyone should be able to get medical care.
If the worlds richest companies were forced to pay taxes (currently they avoid paying taxes) the tax money should NOT and WOULD not be given directly to the people, it would be used to fund the school system, healthcare system, to help the workers who actually build these companies.
The majority of the people working for Microsoft, they want to be able to retire, they WANT social security, they WANT healthcare, they WANT good public schools, they dont want to be forced to rely on microsofts stock which tells them if they can or cant retire, they do not want to trust bill gates when it comes to their life savings.
#
In the end, the best way to earn more money is to better yourself. If you're working at McDonald's at minimum wage and you're not studying, be it in high school or college, then you've chosen the easy, low-income route. Don't cry to the government to give you raises when you didn't choose to finish your education. You just dont get it, its not currently a fair route. A rich kid, who may be less intelligent, but who has gone to private schools and has a better education, a kid who does not have to worry about bills, survival, or the struggle, can focus on being successful and moving up the ladder from their birth, they'll have their parents pay for them to go to harvard, where they can continue to gather knowledge without worryinng about how to pay for it all, you see, money buys success for alot of people. People who dont have money have to work twice as hard to be successful, if you didnt get a proper education, its up to you to educate yourself up to the level required and you can forget about going to harvard, community college for you, you have to slowly work your way to transfering to a good college. Lets not forget that all during this time, you wont have rich parents paying for you, you'll have to work full time while getting your education, this means you wont be able to focus 100 percent like a person who doesnt have to worry about bills, survival, rent, food, etc, you cannot focus 100 percent on being successful, if you are focusing 50 percent on survival.
Do the math, and you'll see why its much harder for a poor person to be successful and the goal should be to make it so no matter how much money you have, everyone has an equal chance.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm saying we should have a nation of scholars instead of a nation of warriors.
We should be spending equal amounts on both, not almost all our money on the military.
Defense is to defend ourself from assholes, the current government seems to like to bully other countries and try to police the world. This is a bad idea.
We only need enough money to defend our country, you dont need 350-400 billion to defend the country, thats the budget needed to police the entire planet.
I'd say 100 billion is needed to defend the country, and 100 billion to educate the masses.
Why do you assume that throwing money at schools will magicly cause students to become more intrested in learning than in the next album by their favorite band, or if their favorite team will make it to the Super Bowl, or if they can get some good pot this weekend, or if they will get a piece of ass or......
throwing money at the military is no smarter than throwing money at school.
Who said I agree with how schools currently work? Schools need to be completely reformed, and made modern.
Reform the school, currently schools are designed for the 1800s, this is 2002, get rid of chalkboards, replace them with electronic displays, allow programmers to write more interactive learning software, install a touch pad palm style display into all of the desks, no more need for paper, use electronic paper if there is a need.
Internet connect all of this, so the work a person does at school can simply be uploaded to a central server, then when they get home they can continue their learning experience.
Oh, and the reason we should use computers and technology to educate our children, its proven that one teacher can not teach 30 kids properly, and reducing class sizes which is what the government is currently trying to do, is just not going to work.
Accept the fact that public schools will be big, give teachers the tools required to teach a big class.
electronic paper, interactive assignments, complete with videos,students should be taught teamwork and work as a team using the technology provided,homework should be downloadable from the net etc, teachers should be able to use animations to explain things to students on a digital board, an animation should show students how to do their math, show them how the atomic bomb works, etc
Kids dont like school because of how its designed, its not very modern, kids want school to be fun, so why not make it fun, connect the school to the web.
I'm sure some older people here will say "too much technology in school is bad, kids will play and chat, and not learn a thing"
However statistics prove that kids learn more from TV, Games, and Movies than they do from books. Of course before The net, TV, etc exsisted and there were only books, people all learned from books.
Now people learn from the web, they chat, but chatting should be allowed as long as A, everything you say is displayed in public on the teachers electronic board, the teacher can moderate, or should be able to turn this off.
Basically, just like we have the PC designed to help you learn and gather information at home, special devices and tools should be designed to aid in teaching.
Currently its not helping, because people are just throwing PCs at schools, with generic software like microsoft windows, AOL chat, etc.
With a 100 billion dollar budget, a whole industry could form, to develop hardware and software DESIGNED for schools.
This is why the budget should be increased, of course I cant control how the money is spent, and if schools just want to throw money at microsoft and dell, well thats their stupidity.
yes but currently we have until 2019, but even if it were 5 years away, we have the ability to create a laser capable of doing it, its a matter of how much money we want to put into it, also who said it would be a long range mission? You could in theory shoot a craft with lasers on top of it right toward the astriod with the beam hitting it, while the craft moves in closer and closer with the beam still on it.
Of course, if the laser doesnt work, thats when you'd use nuke, of course theres the chance even nuke might not help because nuke could blow the astriod up and create hundreds of smaller ones, which is just as bad because some of them might be on a direct path to earth.
The United States knew That Nazi Germany had an Atomic Bomb program, but didn't know how far along it was. It was also known that the first nation to develop the bomb would win the war, even if they were on the verge of defeat. Considering Hitler's goals, it would have been pretty fucking stupid to take a chance that Hitler would get the Bomb first.
They did not need to build as many bombs as they did, with the amount of power they had. The bomb being built was mainly a symbol of power at first, but tell me why we kept making these bombs, and making them more powerful all the way through the 80s?
You see, what you are saying is, the USA in self defense, had no choice but to develop the atomic bomb, and this makes sense. But it doesnt make sense why we developed, I dont know how many thousands of these nuclear bombs, and of unbelieveable power, what was the point? Who needs thousands of nuclear bombs? Its enough to destroy the whole world.
The fact that we didnt destroy the world was pure luck. You see, the technology was a bad technology, you can argue the fact that we developed it in self defense at first in response to others, however we did not need to have the cold war, that was bullshit. Where do I put the blame? Not just on the USA, but on all of the ignorant (yes ignorant) leaders of all of these countries, who were either filled with hate (hitler) or just couldnt get along with the USA (Japan and Russia).
You can try to claim the USA was the victim, and that the ignorant leaders in these other countries were responsible for all of this, but it was the USA who used the bomb first, it was the USA who pushed the cold war competition to see who could build the most bombs.
Back then, there was no UN, so it was impossible to stop rogue dictators, like hitler. Today we dont need to develop such massive weapons to stop one guy, you see if bin laden were around back then he could have been as dangerous as hitler or even more so, its not the technology I'm blaming, I'm blaming the people who happen to control it. The people who control it arent the people who make it, and if all of the intelligent genius scientists decide not to make any more weapons, that would be it.
If scientists decide not to make any more spy technologies, none would be made. It cant happen without einstiens and teslas of the world, hitler wasnt smart enough to develop a nuclear bomb, and neither were his soilders, and this is what we must remember.
Why build technologies which we know for a fact, that our leaders cannot handle?
I mean ignorant because they dont understand that when you hate others you also hate yourself, when you kill someone else you are actually killing yourself, they dont understand we are all connected, and we are all one species, and you cant just go around killing people.
This is why I call them ignorant, murder is ignorant.
You cannot harm someone else on purpose, and not be considered ignorant, you purposely do harm to others, you actually are doing harm to yourself, your children, its like a ripple effect.
You can claim they do it because they are evil, but evil is ignorant, the nature of evil, not just the effects.
You think knowledge and intelligence equals enlightenment? hell no, alot of sheep have knowledge. But without proper understanding, you'll use your knowledge to destroy yourself instead of to help yourself.
Some people Hate just because they are mean and evil.
Please define mean and evil. Stupid is a better word.
Hate caused by fear? So hate of self means you fear yourself?
Hate of your own species is hate of self. Not everyone who fears, hates, hate is an instinct that certain people possess, just like certain people are greedy, certain people are violent, etc.
You do realize, theres alot more solar energy in space than there is on earth? You do realize there are particles in space, waves carrying these particles allow solar sails to travel as such great speeds.
In space, you should in theory be able to create a laser thousands of times more powerful than it would be if its on earth, due to the fact that if done right, the suns energy could be harnessed.
Also theres other ways, you could simply use more than one laser aimed at the same target to increase how effective the laser is.
Airforce
current plans to deflect astriods
you can see two sites there with lasers currently in the works which are said to be powerful enough to do it.
See picture
Care to be more condescending and elitist. Somehow the world has survived through 50+ years of the Cold War and associated nuclear arms race despite the non-existence of Slashdot and the fact that most leaders were not geek-types.
/b
Luck. Its been luck thats kept us out of nuclear war with the russians and Chinese. We cannot leave the fate of humanity, to luck, eventually luck runs out.
First of all the U.S. is a very wealthy nation - we can afford guns, butter, AND a health plan for the elderly. The U.S. spends a lot on defense and a lot on education. In fact I believe the per pupil expenditure in the U.S. is greater than most western countries. It's also not clear that education spending beyond a certain level even correlates with better educational achievement. Here in the U.S. it's generally true that the school districts that spend the most per student typically have the worst academic performance.
Where do you come up with your statistics? First of all, our schools need to learn how to properly spend the money, to make schools more modern. teachers shouldnt still be using chalkboards in 2002, wheres electronic paper? how about touchpads which are net connected for students to do interactive assignments? Japan is spending their money better than us, as well as spending more money. Its not just a matter of us not spending enough money, but we arent spending money on actually improving anything.
Oh and your stats about schools which spend the most money are the worst, its wrong, alot of private schools which have the best funding, happen to be the best, the public schools suck because they lack funding and because they dont know a damn thing about how to use that funding to improve the actual learning tools.
Furthermore, U.S. defense spending also has beneficial effects for the world at large. For instance the U.S. military pretty much guarantees the Freedom of the Seas for the rest of the world and keeps piracy to a minimum. Global trade could not exist without this quiet protection. It also has a dampening effect on regional rivalries and allows other countries (such as Japan) to get by with minimal defense spending since they're under the U.S. protection umbrella.
Its not our responsibility to control the seas of the world and protect the world from all forms of evil, when we accept such a dumb responsibility we actually make ourselves the focus of the worlds evil. Bringing that evil directly to our shores.
Wrong. Terrorism (and hate) may have several causes, but it's doubtful that ignorance and lack of education is among them. After all most of the senior leadership of Al Queda is well educated and familiar with western society. Bin Laden himself actually lived in Europe for a while, and several of the 9/11 hijackers had advanced degrees and had lived in the U.S. and Europe for years. They may hate the U.S. (and western society in general) but it's certainly not because they're ignorant of it or uneducated in general. Sometimes it's intimate familiarity that breeds the most murdurous kind of hate - e.g. Hutus/Tutsis in Rwanda, Serbs/Croats/Bosnians in Yugoslavia.
Education and Knowledge does not make a person less ignorant and more enlightened, a person must seek enlightenment to find it, and alot of people just refuse to question authority and look for their own answers, so they accept answers from bin laden, hitler, or some man they respect.
No one can doubt that the leaders of the sheep are highly educated, highly educated, intelligent, and confused.
Bin laden thinks what hes doing is rightous, he is confused about his religion and in my opinion, because of how he was raised, it taught him islam was the only way, that every other way was wrong, this is how he was raised in his country, he was influenced by ignorant people, and like a virus, hate/ignorance passes on to people.
Hate, is an instinct, first, not everyone is capable of being bin laden, or hitler, you have to be filled with hate, now, if you are filled with hate, you obviously have a problem, bin laden filled with hate, blamed the jews and americans, and is using terrorism for his outlet.
The man is ignorant, perhaps a genius, but ignorant in the fact that he doesnt understand the law of cause and effect, that if something bad is done to you, and you go and do something bad to someone else through terrorism, that it just makes the problem worse, hes trying to fight fire with fire.
Our government at times, is just as ignorant, our leaders are just as dumb, as isreal's leaders can at times be dumb.
Education is needed, but a person also needs to have an open mind, and intellectual freedom to learn information which may not be popular.
The internet allows this for us in America, people in China and the Middle east often do not have access to the world wide web, they dont really understand how everyone in the world is connected, how we are all one, and alot of religions seem to seperate and group people.
The jewish religion says they are the choosen people, according to bin laden anyone who doesnt agree with his religion is an infidel or whatever.
If he were taught through his schooling to be more accepting of people with diffrent lifestyles and opinions, he could not hate them.
what the hell are you talking about?
All hate is caused by ignorance. Terrorism is an act of hate.
Agreed. But know consider it the other way around. Do you really want well educated masses? :)
Able to criticise the current goverment?
Yes thats exactly what we need, then the world can change and wars will finally cease.
Humanity can't handle the technology fire responsible. Neither cars, AC, household equipment, food...
But these technologies dont destroy all humanity.
Neither have I faith that humanity will be able to handle nuclear or biological weapons. Still we managed it somehow. Quite on the verge of destruction, but still...
We were lucky. We wont be lucky for much longer.
the stupid thing and disable it
A laser cannon could deflect the astriod, the laser could literally beam the astriod and deflect it off its course.
The education budget should never be less than half the military budget!
350 billion on the military should mean around 200 billion on education.
So you believe the atomic bomb SHOULD have been created? are YOU really that stupid?
This spy fly technology is an impossible to stop technology, you do realize by creating it, you are putting it into the hands of Nazis, KKK, Bin Laden, Saddam, even evil people within our own government.
Just giving another weapon to evil people in the world.
You see, creating more weapons to destroy evil, ALWAYS ends up helping evil in the long run.
The atomic bomb is a good example.
The technology is a very good technology, but most humans are like apes and monkeys, they go around having wars, hating each other, and doing evil crap.
True theres some good people who will use the technology for good, but if just a handful use this technology for bad, it could ruin it.
Create this technology and let some of the dumbasses in the government get a hold of it and you'll see what I mean.
The department of defense (should be offense) is spending hundreds of billions per year developing weapons and spy technologies.
What the fuck is the purpose of spending so much money on technologies which are bad for humanity, but not spending any money on education.
Do they expect a bunch of typical people like bush and others to be able to make the right decisions in using this technology?
This is 2002! I think its time USA stopped trying to be the king of weapons and war and started promoting education to the third world.
All of these terrorists, they dont get any education, all they know is islam, they do whatever their leader says, its all they know in life, and thats the problem
Islam is fine, but people need to understand that War is not fine, and spying on people is not good.
I'm sure people will say "but we have to spy on the good, to stop the bad" and thats true, but if we are going to spend all this time effort and money on spy technology to stop the bad, we should also be spending just as much money to provide education to the masses.
Most people arent bad, most are just ignorant, most Nazis and KKK who hate certain races do so in ignorance, sure the leaders like hitler or bin ladens may be smart, but their followers usually are ignorant sheep instead of free thinkers, perhaps letting some of these ignorant sheep on to the net would be more effective than spying on them and blowing them up, and fighting fire and fire.
Haha you really think aids was designed to thin the black population? Actually if aids were made by humans, and I dont deny that fact that it could have been.
It was designed by religious freaks, who hate gays and people who have sex casually.
I for once agree with you heretic, I dont think humanity is prepared for this technology at all. With our current leaders, our USA would be as fucked up as the way the taliban was.
Oh and even if USA isnt turned into a taliban like stay, China, and the rest of the world will have access to these technologies and some of them will try to enslave its citizens with it.
Whoever is developing this technology and hopefully reads our posts should think about what they are bringing forth into the world. I've thought about this technology, it sounds good and appeals to all geeks in terms of its use, but this kinda technology should be used for us to explore space or an alien planet, not used to be used on us.
Does humanity hate itself? We invest more money and effort trying to create weapons to destroy ourselves than we do educating ourselves!!
We claim to fight to protect freedom then develop technologies which by design remove it?
All technologies start of cool, because technologies are usually created by very intelligent enlightened people.
But why should intelligent enlightened people create technologies which dumbass hawks in government will use irresponsibly, to spy on people, harrass, control, and kill people with?
Oh and lets not forget it will eventually spread to people like bin laden, and the next hitler.
Look, geeks in slashdot may be intelligent enough to handle these technologies, but the average idiot, would destroy the world with it.
Governments invest hundreds of billions in weapons, but next to nothing in education, the US government spends less than japan in educating the masses yet spends 350-400 billion on its military.
Look, with the trillion dollar tax cut, and plans for smaller government, what people seem to forget, even with smaller government, you'll still have a country filled with idiots unless you educate the masses on how to use this technology.
The average person cant even use the internet properly, I'm betting george bush doesnt know how to write a program, or do anything more than the average joe who just checks his mail and surfs the web, but this is the guy whos supposed to decide how this new fly technology will be used?
We will let Bush decide who gets nuked? The world is doomed as long as we have leaders who arent as intelligent as the creators of the technology.
The solution? More education, raise the budget on education, and worldwide, so that hopefully we can have a war on ignorance like we have a war on terrorism. Terrorism is caused by ignorance, Hate is caused by ignorance, and both of these are usually results of poor education, lack of knowledge, low intelligence, etc.
Building more weapons, and spy technology only means, the dumb asses of the world will be able to do more damage.
That you cannot invest all this money and effort, into destruction, without destroying the world as the result.
"CNN (and AP) reports on the 'Spy Fly' project. "Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years developing a tiny robot, called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly." Good technical stuff on the Cal Berkeley page. The Pentagon likes the idea for spying and battlefield deployment but their page has no info about weaponization or command / communication technologies."
This basically means, like with the atomic bomb, the government is using technology for evil purposes.
Why do we need a 350-400 billion military budget yet only a 20 billion dollar school budget?
Please tell me what would happen, if I gave some monkeys, a button, and told the monkey not to push the little red button which ends the world, wait lets take it a step further, lets say I give this power to thousands, millions of monkeys.
How long until one of the monkeys pushes the button?
For scientific minds reading this, the second law of thermodynamics clearly explains in a very logical way, that unless humans are educated and evolve mentally as a whole, expect things to collapse, with technologies like this here, the atomic bomb, soon nano technology, just wait until it gets in the hands of bin laden, the next hitler, hell i wouldnt even trust these technologies in the hands of george bush or the average american.
So why are we busy creating technology after technology without educating people in how to responsibly use these technologies we create? Are we supposed to be proud of our technology which will be used to spy on millions of people, ruin millions of lives, get people killed etc?
Paraniod or not, do you honestly believe we can use this technology responsibly? All of these war weapons and spy technology shouldnt be developed, due to the fact that humanity cannot use them responsibly.
Insect spy technology would be almost unstopable, and has the impact on society that the atomic bomb once had, how is this a good thing? How could it ever be a good thing?!
Too much money is spend on stupid shit like this and not enough money is spent on educating the masses.
What good is spending 350-400 billion a year on the military if you only spend 20 billion a year on public schools? You end up with a nation of irresponsible morons who are going to be controlling weapons of mass destruction.
What the hell? If Nano Technology weapons start to appear, I have absolutely no faith that humanity will be able to handle it.
Im sorry but there is absolutely no way in hell this technology could ever be used for anything good.
The people developing this technology should NOT be praised, and people should be protesting this technology along with the nano dust spy technology.
Why the hell do we want to lose all privacy? This absolutely sucks, its as bad as the atomic bomb was to humanity.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you -- I wouldn't want healthcare if I didn't deserve it. I earn the "right" to healthcare by the money I earn -- and if I don't make enough to buy health insurance (as is the case right now), then it's right and proper that I don't have it, even if it means discomfort or death.
So what you are saying is money is more important than life itself? I think the majority of people in this world will disagree with you.When they charge for air you'll be the first to say "No, air must no longer be free on mars, you must earn the right to have air."
To take any other position implies that some man has a "right" to the labor of another without his consent. It may be the doctor who your doctrine obligates to work for free, or it may be the average Joe who works an extra hour to pay the taxes that go to paying for the healthcare of others -- in any event, stealing any man's effort against his will is the highest variety of wrong.
I disagree. Greed is wrong, why should we give people a right to be greedy when we can force these people to help the majority? Someone has to pay for the elderly, the childrens education, the police, this stuff is not free. If you believe we should all pay taxes for military and capitalist purposes, well then why cant our tax money go to help people as well?
I can appreciate public schools inasmuch as they are paid for by local property taxes -- one who doesn't wish to reap the benefits of this (or other community services) can avoid paying for them by living outside of city boundaries (or, ideally, by living in a community which doesn't provide them). Of course, few men would reasonably wish to live without the benefits of local government service -- but having it available as an option
Ok this is silly, not all public schools are in the city first of all, even people in rural communities and small towns have public schools, you think theres a place in the USA where you can pay no taxes?
I have a family, of sorts, and find it more a help than a hinderance. Were I the sole wageeearner, then it might be a burden in the event of unemployment -- but as I am not, and even then there is great benefit (economic, even) to having them: the support structure (of friends and non-immediate family) available is all that much greater. Were we unable to pay rent now, there are a great many people who would take us into their homes -- indeed, right now, we are living with friends and cooking, cleaning, coding (two of the three adults can write code), babysitting (theirs as well as ours) and doing dishes for our keep. People can survive, whatever the means, if they're savvy and responsible. People who aren't... that's their own fault.
Consider yourself very fortunate to have such a support structure and such a big family, I dont have any support. What you are saying is, you prefer to beg your friends and family to help you instead of the government. Government help however works better for most people, because not everyone has a family that supports them and or friends that can help them.
My mother and father had all their lives to save for their retirement. If they find themselves financially unwell, it is by their own poor planning; whatever lack of services they receive is thus by their own hands.
Thats just plain selfish and disrespectful to say about your parents. Those are the people who took care of you for all these years, how could they save for retirement so easily when they had to raise you, and put YOU through school, maybe even through college.
Also consider yourself lucky to have the support of a mother and a father to begin with. Your problem is you take things for granted.
"Fair to everyone" is an immediate thing. Every group has been under someone else's boot at some time
Correct at some time they have, but what about the groups who are suffering right now.
should those of Irish background receive compensation because of the beatings and unemployment they received when emmigrating to the States during the potato famine?
An Irish person does not have to say they are Irish. A catholic person does not have to tell employers their religion. A gay person does not have to tell anyone their sexuality.
However a woman, or a minority, cannot ever "hide" this, they will always stand out and there will always be a bigot waiting to target them.
You have only mentioned religions, and cultures, you have never mentioned things which cannot ever be kept private, like race or sex. Alot of jews changed their names, and became successful, as did alot of irish, lets not forget alot of jews and irish do not currently to this day get harrassed by people like the nazis, the KKK and other terrorist groups because all they have to do is not tell anyone they are a jew, or that they are irish. Gays simply dont tell anyone from the KKK they are Gay and they dont get harrassed.
Currently if you've been watching TV, police officers are currently beating the hell out of minorities, and theres a racial profiling situation happening due to 911.
The reason for the success of the Irish, the Jews etc, all of these diffrent cultures, religions and groups are from the same race and that in common, even if its the only thing they have in common, it seems to be enough.
so, would you compensate the great grandchildren of American slaves more (for who their parents were) than a recent immigrant from Ghana with a first-class education? After all, the former is more likely to be looked down on in the business world for posessing speech patterns seen by many as indicating a low upbringing and poor education, while the latter's faintly British accent rings of charm and sophistication. Would you have people be compensated based on how they speak, or just go by the color of their skin? And how does this scheme help in "fairness"? What's done is done; old offenses cannot be undone, though they may be avoided for the future.
The best way to compensate is not to just hand them money. Its to create social services, to allow these members of society the chance to create a successful life. Do you really expect these people to educate themselves? No its our responsibility to help these people.
Thats one option, or you can keep paying to put them in jail. You can have full jails, or full schools.
No, no, no. People without money in capital quantities cannot be given the same opportunities as posessed by those having said sums of cash, simply because the opportunities themselves exist in the act of risking such sums. Would you let people risk (and, if their risk works out, benefit from) that which they have not earned? And, simply put, from where would come the money?
You believe money is more important than life itself, I disagree, I believe every human on this planets right to live comes before money, life is more valueable than money in 100 percent of all situations. People should not be competiting for survival when theres more than enough food to feed all the people on this planet, its evil to force people to live in such a way when in reality they dont have to do so.
All Americans have the right to healthcare, education, and food, this is a right as a lifeform, even animals are treated better than humans, they have laws protecting their forests, what laws do humans have to protect the humans right to survival?
Capitalism I though was created to improve our survivability, if its used in the wrong way, it will make us fight each other, and this is why we seem to have a problem with wars.
Let's look at this word "exploiting". What exactly are the actions that you think should be punishable? Violating contracts? Breaking labor laws? Lying about investments? If I hire Joe to clean my yard for $5 when I could afford to pay $10, and you think I should be jailed for that act, you and I will never see eye-to-eye.
No, if you hire joe for $5 and you lie to joe saying you cant give him a raise when he asks for a raise, and his work proves he deserves a raise, you should be punished. If CEOs were honest and would just say "I have the money and you do not deserve a raise" and then give reasons why. Its ok, workers wont be pissed if they dont actually deserve a raise. If however the CEO or boss knows they deserve a raise, and that they earned it by working hard for years, and refuses to move them up the ladder or give them a raise so they can keep the money to themselves this is exploiting the workers.
My mother is trapped in such a situation right now. Its called a deadend job, will she be able to retire? Who knows, but she needs medicare and social security when she does retire because there was no way for her to save making $20,000 a year and raising me on it.
If you want to drive companies overseas, just implement that law. Some country (or thirty) would refuse -- and those countries and their residents would profit tremendously from such refusal, as all the production from the rest of the world moved within their borders.
Only the big companies would go overseas, we dont really need monopolys. Do we really NEED microsoft? hell no. Microsoft leaves to go overseas, or raises their prices too much, and people will begin to buy their competitions products here in the USA. By going overseas Microsoft harms their own profitability. Smaller companies will not be able to afford to go overseas, the high price of training foreign workers, the price of actually moving, etc.
Eh? The price is cheaper! Consumers benefit. Further, the 3rd world workers who are offerred jobs by Pillsburry benefit greatly -- if the job was not such that it benefitted them (by being better than all their preexisting alternatives), they would not accept such employement.
Third world wants to start their own pillsberry, not work for ours. Big companies dont really help anyone, less competition is bad for everyone, and I'd rather china start their own pillsberry company to compete with ours.
It would only be cheaper to move to China if I can't compete with Chinese workers. Perhaps they can live more cheaply than me; perhaps they are willing to accept a lower profit margin; perhaps their tax rates are lower so they can accept gross less income. In the former case, I can reduce my cost of living -- there are a multitude of ways to do this, ranging from cooking my own food to moving to a cheaper area (or even a cheaper country). In the next case, I will need to decide whether to accept the lower profit margin or go into another line of work. In the last case, I will need to move somewhere where taxes are less burdensome. All these are possibilities open to me. I am not afraid of my job being sent overseas -- first because I am very good at what I do (and it would be in my company's interest to send me overseas if they moved), but also because I would be able to survive even if it did happen.
But you shouldnt be forced to do all this, and you wouldnt, if things were fair.
Why cant we live in a fair world? Why must someone or some group always have the advantage over another?
If you want to drive companies overseas, just implement that law. Some country (or thirty) would refuse -- and those countries and their residents would profit tremendously from such refusal, as all the production from the rest of the world moved within their borders.
Don't trust me, though. Go take an economics class, and see if the professor agrees with the bullshit that you speak.
If i took an economics class in a capitalist country learning from a capitalist professor, I'd get capitalist opinions, if I took an economics class in the soviet union, china, or some of the places in europe, I'd get a diffrent point of view.
Its best not to learn from the opinions of just one professor, but to research all the points of view and then decide what you think is right.
Lets state the facts.
Currently there is a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.
The Enron, Worldcom type situations, only pisses off the working class.
When you analyze society using this class division, many problems that otherwise defy understanding have obvious solutions. Profit is derived by owning. Wages or salary are derived by labouring, by expending our physical or mental energy working for those who own the means of production and distribution.
The owner of a particular factory may not even know that they own it. It may be just a part of an immense holding company that is administered by someone else. The workers in the factory, however, are directly connected to the production. It is the labour of these workers (including the plant management) that creates the profits that keep the capitalists rich. It is vital that the capitalists pay their workers less than the value that their labour produces. It is this difference between the value of what workers are paid and the value of what they produce that is the source of profit.
Profit is currently exploiting the working class.
As long as the ownership of the means of production and distribution rests with the minority capitalist class, this antagonism will continue to exist. The antagonism is caused by the necessarily differing interests of the classes. No matter how nice capitalists may be on a personal level, they will always have different interests than the working class. It is not a matter of good and evil or anything like that, it is inherent in any class system. Therefore the only way to eliminate the antagonism is to eliminate the class system and establish a system of common ownership where the previous antagonism has no basis.
To define the working class. The working class is a person who must work for a living. The Capitalist class is the class which no longer worries about their survival.
Lets quote you for a moment
Rant: Further, America works just fine as it is. I don't have healthcare right now, and I certainly don't want you to buy it for me. One of the principles this country was founded on was individual accomplishment and personal pride therein. Whatever success I have I wish to be my own; likewise for my failures. I don't say this as someone born with a silver spoon -- I've been homeless before, and pulled myself out of it. To put it simply: I'm too good for your damn condescending "assistance", and I want to live in a country where everyone else is too. Whatever handicaps I get stuck with are my own challenges; whatever difficulties you get our yours. Overcoming mine makes me a better man; likewise for yourself. Relying on others (or "the government") to hand you on a platter the opportunities you think you deserve is a disservice to all those who've had to work for what they've earned -- and succeeded despite worse-than-average odds.
This isnt about pride, this isnt about accomplishment, its about survival. A person cannot focus on accomplishment, if they live paycheck to paycheck. A person whos sick who cannot afford medicine WANTS healthcare. You can tell me that if you were sick and had a crap job, you wouldnt want healthcare? You are telling me you dont want public schools?
lets focus on a specific quote
I've been homeless before, and pulled myself out of it. To put it simply: I'm too good for your damn condescending "assistance",
Of course, you can say that, I'm assuming you dont have a wife and kid, you are a single male, most likely in your 20s. Someone your age can pull themselves out through enough hardwork. What if you have kids? or get married? That free support starts to look good when you have a wife and kids to take care of. Or even if your mother and father get sick and they need help, that social security and free healthcare support would help them.
Lets focus on the main problem of your arguement.
Whatever handicaps I get stuck with are my own challenges; whatever difficulties you get our yours. Overcoming mine makes me a better man; likewise for yourself. Relying on others (or "the government") to hand you on a platter the opportunities you think you deserve is a disservice to all those who've had to work for what they've earned -- and succeeded despite worse-than-average odds
Ok so you believe that minorites in this country should NOT get any help from the government after years of being mistreated? Theres a reason why minorities are strugglings, sure things may be fair now, but how many years did it take just to end stuff like racism, or even sexism? You have to make it fair for everyone,
Just like women should get the same amount of money as men in the workplace, and minorities should be able to make the same amount of money as whites, people of working class SHOULD in theory be able to have the same opportunities given to them as the capitalist class.
What you are saying is, the government should just step out of the way, while capitalists exploit the whole world to stay rich, cant you see that wont work? People get pissed when they lose their life savings due to some worldcom enron nonsense. Minorities get pissed when they dont get fair treatment, and women get pissed when men dont give them the same opportunities.
It has to be fair, rich people should not recieve special treatment just because they are rich, if you do not punish the rich for exploiting the poor, you are basically putting money above the law, and above all morals and ethics.
Yeah its ok for a capitalist to avoid paying taxes, and hire people from china and pakistan to avoid paying american workers, on the other hand, working class is supposed to pay taxes to fund the war on terrorism, and often, taxes are used to fund capitalist objectives, such as pillsberrys expansion into the third world, this harms the US working class, pillsberry will make more money due to cheaper labor, sure the price of their little foods will be cheaper, but their quality wont go up at all, no one benifits from this except a few CEOs at the top.
Lets not forget the manipulation of the stock market.
Do you want to live in a fair world, or do you want to hand the world over to Microsoft, Nike, and other big companies who eventually wont even need your labor anymore?
What happens when your labor is no longer needed, when its cheaper for them to move to China? What happens to your job? You do realize that you only have 2 options, and if you dont regulate capitalism, the USA will eventually be eclipsed by places like China, India, Pakistan, where labor is cheaper, and in an information based economy, people power will matter. Be prepared to lose your job unless theres some regulation which requires them to hire you and establish a global minimum wage.
Inflation or lose your job?
If you increase the wages of those earning minimum wage you will find that the companies that employ them will tend to look for ways to get the job done with fewer employees. They're not just going to accept the increase in minimum wage and take a cut in their profit. .
They are already doing that. so hows raising the minimum wage going to change this? companies already are trying to replace us with machines and workers from other countries to save money.
One of two things will happen:
# They will reduce their workforce. So those that remain will earn more, but you'll have more people unemployed. This will happen if they are in a market that doesn't allow them much room to increase their price due to competition.
# If they can, they will increase what they charge to their customers in order to cover the increase in minimum wage. In that case, the buck is passed to all of the economy, creating pressures on inflation. I need not explain the problems caused by inflation.
Would you rather luxury items cost more, or would you prefer to not even be able to pay your rent? Let the prices for things go up, I dont care, I'm trying to survive not worry about prices of things like computers, or a mc donalds hamburger, because if mc donalds raises the prices they'll simply be replaced by smaller more competitive companies.
That depends on what you define as "easy." If you mean that those that are educated and have a vast amount of technical experience but all they do is sit in the office and write programs and go to meetings while coal miners are stuck 250 feet under the ground, sure. No thats comparing the working class with the working class, programmers are no diffrent than coal miners, I'm talking about management, CEOS, those guys dont write programs, all they do is go to meetings and boss people around, and all it took for them to get where they are, is writing a business plan and knowing the right people in order to get capital. Its not hard work to be bill gates or even an upper level manager.
I agree many (not all) CEOs are paid too much. That said, you'd be surprised how LITTLE you could increase all the employee's salaries by taking it from the high-paid executives. That's the same logic whereby many liberals say, "Hey, let's just take the wealth of the richest 1000 people in the country." It turns out that ends up being enough to run the government for like a month or two. Or if you distributed Bill Gates' WORTH (not all of it is cash, not by a longshot) to every American, each American would only get about $175.
So you are a conservative? You talk about what liberals say, but the whole working class will say the same thing, not just the liberals but even conservatives, poor people demand fair wages because its a class issue, not a political issue. Not all conservatives are rich. If you limit the amount of money a CEO can make, you'd have enough money to raise the minimum wage, We arent talking about running the government here. We arent talking about taking 100 percent of all the wealth from the richest people, we are talking about fair wages. And fair treatment of all classes. Currently, the top 1000 richest people have all the advantages of society, America is such a great place to these people because they have everything! I'm not asking for them to give all their money away, What I'm saying is everyone should be able to survive, its cruel for a person who works hard, to be barely surviving, not be able to afford healthcare, have kids which dont even have the chance to get educated due to the high costs of private schools and lack of government funding of public schools (20 billion for public schools yet 350 billion for the military is alittle bit off balance if you ask me)
What we need for america to work, and for all the classes to get along, is for each class to have the same basic chance at success, everyone has a right to a good education, everyone should have healthcare, everyone should be able to retire and we know the 401k and stock market gamble retirement just cant work due to dishonesty.
You mention distributing bill gates worth, thats a socialist concept, of course its done in the wrong way, you dont do something stupid, like throw money into the hands of the people, you tax the rich in order to give the poor the oppurtunity to be rich, or else the rich will stay rich, and the poor will have no chance at ever being anything but poor, giving them a hopeless exsistance, creating class warfare. This kinda thing is what happened to blacks in the USA, and this is why there was the civil rights movement, fair treatment is required, its not optional but REQUIRED, this means the wages should be fair, everyone should be able to get a good education, money shouldnt determine this, everyone should be able to get medical care.
If the worlds richest companies were forced to pay taxes (currently they avoid paying taxes) the tax money should NOT and WOULD not be given directly to the people, it would be used to fund the school system, healthcare system, to help the workers who actually build these companies.
The majority of the people working for Microsoft, they want to be able to retire, they WANT social security, they WANT healthcare, they WANT good public schools, they dont want to be forced to rely on microsofts stock which tells them if they can or cant retire, they do not want to trust bill gates when it comes to their life savings.
#
In the end, the best way to earn more money is to better yourself. If you're working at McDonald's at minimum wage and you're not studying, be it in high school or college, then you've chosen the easy, low-income route. Don't cry to the government to give you raises when you didn't choose to finish your education.
You just dont get it, its not currently a fair route. A rich kid, who may be less intelligent, but who has gone to private schools and has a better education, a kid who does not have to worry about bills, survival, or the struggle, can focus on being successful and moving up the ladder from their birth, they'll have their parents pay for them to go to harvard, where they can continue to gather knowledge without worryinng about how to pay for it all, you see, money buys success for alot of people. People who dont have money have to work twice as hard to be successful, if you didnt get a proper education, its up to you to educate yourself up to the level required and you can forget about going to harvard, community college for you, you have to slowly work your way to transfering to a good college. Lets not forget that all during this time, you wont have rich parents paying for you, you'll have to work full time while getting your education, this means you wont be able to focus 100 percent like a person who doesnt have to worry about bills, survival, rent, food, etc, you cannot focus 100 percent on being successful, if you are focusing 50 percent on survival.
Do the math, and you'll see why its much harder for a poor person to be successful and the goal should be to make it so no matter how much money you have, everyone has an equal chance.