And how arrogant is it to think that Europeans view "American ideals" as "Western ideals"
I was responding to "jalopezp", who expressed his disappointment in the US not being the guardian of "Western ideals" that he had hoped for. I was explaining to him that: (1) US and European ideals are quite different, and (2) the US, by and large, doesn't see it as its job to promote anybody's ideals. Americans elect politicians that do what's best themselves, for US corporations, and for the American people (in that order). And if you think European politicians are any different, you're kidding yourself.
I couldn't be happier if USA simply cut any and every political connections (including corporate lobbying) with, not only western, but all other countries.
Since WWII, the US has been responsible for pretty much all the freedom and wealth Europeans enjoy these days, limited as that may be. The US isn't doing that for humanitarian reasons, it's doing that simply for its own military and economic reasons.
and it's a unlucky non-coincidence that it always involves promoting policies damaging to us and distancing us from western and towards American policies, including benefiting USA at cost of our freedom and well being.
The only people damaging the freedom and well being of Europeans are European voters, European ideologies, and European governments. And that has nothing to do with the US at all, but with centuries of dysfunctional European politics and ideologies. Unfortunately, progressives and academics like Obama have been trying to bring European ideologies and politics to the US. I hope we can still reverse that trend, because once the US goes down the same road as Europe, it's really all over for individual liberties, innovation, and economic growth.
They would blame "the big, greedy corporations and bankers" like they always do. Because, according to them, it's all those big, greedy corporations that prevent us from getting all the stuff we want without harming the environment.
Apparently, the administration is always right there when a new regulation or law manages to funnel large amounts of money to its donors and buddies in industry.
But when public health is actually at risk, such as the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, the Obama administration actually fights against sensible regulations and restrictions.
Earth will go on, some life possibly will also go on but humans are facing the business end of a shotgun at the moment.
Bullshit. Global warming may cause coastal cities to face a bit more flooding and shift around agriculture a bit on the time scale of a few centuries, but that's about the extent of it.
There is no lawyer, Hollywood happy ending or a sudden intervention from God which can save us from this, we have to take responsibility and act.
The only thing we need to be saved from is hucksters like you who make a business out of proclaiming that the end is near. It used to be the apocalypse, overpopulation, mass starvation, global thermonuclear war, and now global warming.
Lazy programmers don't want to have to think about the problem they're trying to solve,
You're right: I don't want to have to think about the problem I'm trying to solve. If a one-line backtracking Prolog program or five line brute force C program solves the problem for me, I don't want to think about the problem or try to understand its intricacies; I can spend my time solving some other, more important problem. Laziness is the cause of progress.
When people are trying to create a low-cost, open source, ubiquitous computer, what they really need is an proprietary resource hog of a language on it that will require them to buy an expensive license to continue to use what they learned later!
Do yourself a favor and use Python or something similar instead.
The world has changed in many fundamental ways over the last century. Thinking that historical cycles will continue the way they have is as dumb and unreasonable as thinking that things will just go on like this forever.
For a high-ranking Google employee to make such comments is downright stupid; it's not an argument he's going to win, and it's not an argument Google has to win either.
It's also wrong. How and what information we share is a combination of both how information works and choices we make as individuals and society. There are many choices that are ineffective or logically impossible; much of the so-called "data protection" in the EU falls into that category. But there are privacy choices that we can make and enforce. For example, we can impose restrictions on which private information is admissible as evidence, we can require large search engines to filter some easily identifiable information (like credit card numbers), and we already have penalties for defamation.
Until then, don't claim everyone else should martyr themselves.
I'm not telling Assange what to do, and I don't really care what happens to the guy. I just pointed out that Snowden and Manning do not constitute a precedent as you and others incorrectly claimed. In fact, so far, there is no reason to believe he'd even get charged in the US.
Except for Assange who would be sitting in a concrete block during the time it takes to make the "test case". It's always easy to claim someone else should be the martyr isn't it?
Assange chose this path long ago when he released large numbers of classified documents. He knew this might have legal consequences and turn into a test case. Getting upset about the potential legal consequences now is rather disingenuous.
Nevertheless, the legal situation for both Manning and Snowden is completely different than for Assange. There simply is no precedent for Assange. If the administration tries to make a test case out of Assange, it would actually be a good thing for all involved, because SCOTUS could clarify the legal situation.
Unfortunately, most states have a monopoly on lotteries. Otherwise, there would be many uses for lotteries. For example, savings can be encouraged with a lottery (prize-linked savings):
Manning was in the US military and charged and convicted for violating his duties within the military. Snowden was an NSA contractor and violated the terms and conditions of his employment, including a requirement for secrecy. Assange is a civilian, has never worked for the military or secret service, and he is not even a US citizen. Neither Manning nor Snowden set a precedent for him. The US might charge Assange, but he would likely not get convicted, and that would set a useful precedent for journalists.
"you want some leader to wave a magic wand" when did i say this? I didn't....you're projecting these arguments on me... It is possible to think government works without thinking it is magic.
I'm not projecting anything onto you. Of course, you don't believe that that's what you want. That's your problem: your belief system is inconsistent. You think you are advocating rational policies that promote your values, when in reality the policies you advocate are actually ineffective and often harmful.
Figures of speech like "you want some leader to wave a magic wand" are intended to get you to see how ridiculously naive and simplistic your position is.
you've memorized a narrative instead of trying to understand reality...
I used to be a progressive myself; it took a lot of reading and research until I actually figured out what was going on. It's exactly because reality is complex that the simplistic solutions people like you favor and the kind Obama attempts to implement keep failing. Progressivism started out as the idea of making progress through rational policies and individual liberties, but it abandoned those origins long ago.
My values have not changed: I strongly believe that the nation should aim for every American having health care, a good education, and financial security. But I realize that the policies espoused by progressives fail to achieve, and actually hurt, those goals.
"And when government policies to address these issues fail and cause more harm than good, as they predictably do," so all government policies always fail all the time.. so how does anything ever get done?
No, I was referring to "these issues", not "all government policies". Specifically, I was referring mostly to modern progressive and conservative policies, where people like you want to see more government action and people like me want the government (and, in particular, the federal government) to butt out.
There are a few areas where the federal government should operate: defense, constitutional, international, and interstate issues, and some additional areas where state and local governments should operate. But, by and large, government simply shouldn't "get things done"; the purpose of government is to protect the freedom of people to "get things done". Most things should get done, and are getting done, by individuals and private enterprise.
The best evidence I've seen, generally in Science magazine (sorry, I don't have the citation handy) is that about 50% of intelligence, as measured in standard tests, is genetic, as inferred by twin studies, and 50% is due to the environment.
Yes, where "environment" mostly is epigenetic and very early childhood. Hence, you proved my point: given what we know about nature and nurture, you would predict significant differences in college attendance by class.
I would like to see that data, in a peer-reviewed science journal (and not an economics journal).
What about you providing hard evidence that spending more on education leads to better outcomes. So far, you have provided nothing.
You give kids the best education you can, starting from preschool and continuing to graduate school, vocational school, or whatever works. (Something like Germany.)
Yes, what about Germany? A smaller percentage of people goes to university. While tuition is low and student loans are partially subsidized, the majority of Germans take out student loans to pay for university.
If we brought people up to a Scandinavian level of income, and provided a Scandinavian level of education, I would like that even if it didn't make them economically more productive
Bringing up? Leaving out Norway, which is simply oil-rich, Scandinavian levels of income and GDP are lower than the US; Americans complete university at higher rates than Scandinavians; US adult science literacy is higher than the Scandinavian countries; and Scandinavian growth is anemic. And, of course, to the degree that they work at all, Scandinavian policies work in Scandinavia only because those are small countries with homogeneous populations.
So, what you're actually saying is that you want to drag down the US economy and education to Scandinavian levels.
I'd like to see everyone have adequate food, comfortable housing, and the necessities of life -- even if we had to tax the rich to pay for it. That's how devious I am.
Every American has adequate food, comfortable housing, and the necessities of life available to them. What people call "poverty" in the US these days is simply low income relative to the median, not privation.
There aren't enough jobs to go around. Let them enjoy themselves for four years. When you do that, they seem to come up with something useful.
We have moderately high unemployment and relatively low growth because the kind of policies you advocate are destroying jobs and growth. And if people like you keep going, we'll achieve what you want: end up like Europe, which is far worse than our current situation.
After looking at the data, she realized that the major factor associated with educational achievement was family income. The higher the income, the higher the educational achievement.
Yes, that's clear: there is a modest correlation.
They're advancing mostly according to their family's money.
A much simpler explanation (that happens to agree with the data) is that smart parents both make a lot of money and also produce smart kids.
if you want everyone to be educated to their full potential,
You keep using the term "potential". What "potential" are you exactly talking about? Genetic potential? Epigenetic potential? Potential after early childhood experiences? Potential after high school? Each of those stages progressively limits the academic potential of students. How far are you willing to limit parental freedoms to make decisions for their kids in order to let them "reach their full potential"?
One of the differences between income, OTOH, and strength and height, OTOH, is that you can change income, by giving the poor money.
But you cannot increase intelligence by giving people money.
I think that a modern economy will be more efficient and profitable when we educate people to their maximum capacity.
Paying young adults to sit on their asses at university and be lectured at for four extra years is not "more efficient" for the students or the economy. And it is destructive to academia and universities as well, because they increasingly become little more than vocational schools. And that situation gets even worse if you look at European universities where they have reduced inequality among universities, which means that future scientists are now forced to study side by side with future office clerks and web designers.
In different words, you still haven't even explained why we even want more than 50% university graduates in the country.
That's what you are failing to do. Instead of accepting that reality is messy and complex and that there are no simple solutions, you want some leader to wave a magic wand and fix health care, drug abuse, the environment, the economy, inequailty, education, immigration, etc. And when government policies to address these issues fail and cause more harm than good, as they predictably do, you come up with all sorts of rationalizations and blame the people who predicted that they were going to fail in the first place.
Face reality: most big real-world problems cannot be fixed by government, at least not without paying a price that is too high.
Obama is doing an **excellent** job overall...comparatively he's amazing...
That's utterly ridiculous. Stop living in a fantasy world.
I can see where this is coming from. The remaining difference is explained by circular logic. Since they didn't graduate, it must have been their own fault.
And I can see where your error is. You think that, given the same environment, you'll get the same outcomes, so if you observe different outcomes, someone must have been unfairly disadvantaged. But kids aren't a tabula rasa. Academic achievement (strongly correlated with income) is passed on through the generations just like strength, height, and athletic achievement. It makes no more sense to aim for equal representation of all classes in the Harvard graduating class than it makes sense to aim for equal representation of all heights in the NBA.
I don't know the specific facts in your case, so I don't know how you got through college without loans or parents' assistance,... But I've often heard people brag about how they made it themselves, and then when I found out more about them, it turned out that they had all the advantages of social class
Of course I had the advantages of social class: although my parents worked their way out of poverty, they were fiercely smart and solidly middle class. You just got the causation wrong: my parents weren't middle class because someone handed them a wad of money, they were middle class because they were smart and worked hard. And they passed that on not by handing me a wad of money, but by requiring me to work hard and achieve myself. So, make that: "Yeah, my father could have helped me, but he required me to achieve it myself."
OK, we'll take some more of your money away in taxes. You'll get by. It'll just be a little harder.
I have lived in high tax countries, and part of my family lived in socialist countries, so I can tell you from first hand experience that it won't make any difference.
Slashdot Mirror
By the way, that statement is ironic given Finnish history and Finnish social and political reality.
I was responding to "jalopezp", who expressed his disappointment in the US not being the guardian of "Western ideals" that he had hoped for. I was explaining to him that: (1) US and European ideals are quite different, and (2) the US, by and large, doesn't see it as its job to promote anybody's ideals. Americans elect politicians that do what's best themselves, for US corporations, and for the American people (in that order). And if you think European politicians are any different, you're kidding yourself.
Since WWII, the US has been responsible for pretty much all the freedom and wealth Europeans enjoy these days, limited as that may be. The US isn't doing that for humanitarian reasons, it's doing that simply for its own military and economic reasons.
The only people damaging the freedom and well being of Europeans are European voters, European ideologies, and European governments. And that has nothing to do with the US at all, but with centuries of dysfunctional European politics and ideologies. Unfortunately, progressives and academics like Obama have been trying to bring European ideologies and politics to the US. I hope we can still reverse that trend, because once the US goes down the same road as Europe, it's really all over for individual liberties, innovation, and economic growth.
Hope that clears that up.
They would blame "the big, greedy corporations and bankers" like they always do. Because, according to them, it's all those big, greedy corporations that prevent us from getting all the stuff we want without harming the environment.
Apparently, the administration is always right there when a new regulation or law manages to funnel large amounts of money to its donors and buddies in industry.
But when public health is actually at risk, such as the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, the Obama administration actually fights against sensible regulations and restrictions.
Bullshit. Global warming may cause coastal cities to face a bit more flooding and shift around agriculture a bit on the time scale of a few centuries, but that's about the extent of it.
The only thing we need to be saved from is hucksters like you who make a business out of proclaiming that the end is near. It used to be the apocalypse, overpopulation, mass starvation, global thermonuclear war, and now global warming.
An economic melt-down.
You're right: I don't want to have to think about the problem I'm trying to solve. If a one-line backtracking Prolog program or five line brute force C program solves the problem for me, I don't want to think about the problem or try to understand its intricacies; I can spend my time solving some other, more important problem. Laziness is the cause of progress.
When people are trying to create a low-cost, open source, ubiquitous computer, what they really need is an proprietary resource hog of a language on it that will require them to buy an expensive license to continue to use what they learned later!
Do yourself a favor and use Python or something similar instead.
The world has changed in many fundamental ways over the last century. Thinking that historical cycles will continue the way they have is as dumb and unreasonable as thinking that things will just go on like this forever.
For a high-ranking Google employee to make such comments is downright stupid; it's not an argument he's going to win, and it's not an argument Google has to win either.
It's also wrong. How and what information we share is a combination of both how information works and choices we make as individuals and society. There are many choices that are ineffective or logically impossible; much of the so-called "data protection" in the EU falls into that category. But there are privacy choices that we can make and enforce. For example, we can impose restrictions on which private information is admissible as evidence, we can require large search engines to filter some easily identifiable information (like credit card numbers), and we already have penalties for defamation.
I'm not telling Assange what to do, and I don't really care what happens to the guy. I just pointed out that Snowden and Manning do not constitute a precedent as you and others incorrectly claimed. In fact, so far, there is no reason to believe he'd even get charged in the US.
Assange chose this path long ago when he released large numbers of classified documents. He knew this might have legal consequences and turn into a test case. Getting upset about the potential legal consequences now is rather disingenuous.
Nevertheless, the legal situation for both Manning and Snowden is completely different than for Assange. There simply is no precedent for Assange. If the administration tries to make a test case out of Assange, it would actually be a good thing for all involved, because SCOTUS could clarify the legal situation.
Unfortunately, most states have a monopoly on lotteries. Otherwise, there would be many uses for lotteries. For example, savings can be encouraged with a lottery (prize-linked savings):
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/lottery-savings-accounts
http://freakonomics.com/2012/04/26/lottery-loopholes-and-deadly-doctors-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
Name calling, ad hominems, denial, and fabrications: that's all people with your political views really have. Typical.
And Assange chose to engage in adult activities under Swedish law.
Manning was in the US military and charged and convicted for violating his duties within the military. Snowden was an NSA contractor and violated the terms and conditions of his employment, including a requirement for secrecy. Assange is a civilian, has never worked for the military or secret service, and he is not even a US citizen. Neither Manning nor Snowden set a precedent for him. The US might charge Assange, but he would likely not get convicted, and that would set a useful precedent for journalists.
I'm not projecting anything onto you. Of course, you don't believe that that's what you want. That's your problem: your belief system is inconsistent. You think you are advocating rational policies that promote your values, when in reality the policies you advocate are actually ineffective and often harmful.
Figures of speech like "you want some leader to wave a magic wand" are intended to get you to see how ridiculously naive and simplistic your position is.
I used to be a progressive myself; it took a lot of reading and research until I actually figured out what was going on. It's exactly because reality is complex that the simplistic solutions people like you favor and the kind Obama attempts to implement keep failing. Progressivism started out as the idea of making progress through rational policies and individual liberties, but it abandoned those origins long ago.
My values have not changed: I strongly believe that the nation should aim for every American having health care, a good education, and financial security. But I realize that the policies espoused by progressives fail to achieve, and actually hurt, those goals.
No, I was referring to "these issues", not "all government policies". Specifically, I was referring mostly to modern progressive and conservative policies, where people like you want to see more government action and people like me want the government (and, in particular, the federal government) to butt out.
There are a few areas where the federal government should operate: defense, constitutional, international, and interstate issues, and some additional areas where state and local governments should operate. But, by and large, government simply shouldn't "get things done"; the purpose of government is to protect the freedom of people to "get things done". Most things should get done, and are getting done, by individuals and private enterprise.
Yes, where "environment" mostly is epigenetic and very early childhood. Hence, you proved my point: given what we know about nature and nurture, you would predict significant differences in college attendance by class.
What about you providing hard evidence that spending more on education leads to better outcomes. So far, you have provided nothing.
Yes, what about Germany? A smaller percentage of people goes to university. While tuition is low and student loans are partially subsidized, the majority of Germans take out student loans to pay for university.
Bringing up? Leaving out Norway, which is simply oil-rich, Scandinavian levels of income and GDP are lower than the US; Americans complete university at higher rates than Scandinavians; US adult science literacy is higher than the Scandinavian countries; and Scandinavian growth is anemic. And, of course, to the degree that they work at all, Scandinavian policies work in Scandinavia only because those are small countries with homogeneous populations.
So, what you're actually saying is that you want to drag down the US economy and education to Scandinavian levels.
Every American has adequate food, comfortable housing, and the necessities of life available to them. What people call "poverty" in the US these days is simply low income relative to the median, not privation.
We have moderately high unemployment and relatively low growth because the kind of policies you advocate are destroying jobs and growth. And if people like you keep going, we'll achieve what you want: end up like Europe, which is far worse than our current situation.
Incidentally, the US already has one of the highest university completion rates in the world:
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/education/university-completion.aspx
Yes, that's clear: there is a modest correlation.
A much simpler explanation (that happens to agree with the data) is that smart parents both make a lot of money and also produce smart kids.
You keep using the term "potential". What "potential" are you exactly talking about? Genetic potential? Epigenetic potential? Potential after early childhood experiences? Potential after high school? Each of those stages progressively limits the academic potential of students. How far are you willing to limit parental freedoms to make decisions for their kids in order to let them "reach their full potential"?
But you cannot increase intelligence by giving people money.
Paying young adults to sit on their asses at university and be lectured at for four extra years is not "more efficient" for the students or the economy. And it is destructive to academia and universities as well, because they increasingly become little more than vocational schools. And that situation gets even worse if you look at European universities where they have reduced inequality among universities, which means that future scientists are now forced to study side by side with future office clerks and web designers.
In different words, you still haven't even explained why we even want more than 50% university graduates in the country.
That's what you are failing to do. Instead of accepting that reality is messy and complex and that there are no simple solutions, you want some leader to wave a magic wand and fix health care, drug abuse, the environment, the economy, inequailty, education, immigration, etc. And when government policies to address these issues fail and cause more harm than good, as they predictably do, you come up with all sorts of rationalizations and blame the people who predicted that they were going to fail in the first place.
Face reality: most big real-world problems cannot be fixed by government, at least not without paying a price that is too high.
That's utterly ridiculous. Stop living in a fantasy world.
And I can see where your error is. You think that, given the same environment, you'll get the same outcomes, so if you observe different outcomes, someone must have been unfairly disadvantaged. But kids aren't a tabula rasa. Academic achievement (strongly correlated with income) is passed on through the generations just like strength, height, and athletic achievement. It makes no more sense to aim for equal representation of all classes in the Harvard graduating class than it makes sense to aim for equal representation of all heights in the NBA.
Of course I had the advantages of social class: although my parents worked their way out of poverty, they were fiercely smart and solidly middle class. You just got the causation wrong: my parents weren't middle class because someone handed them a wad of money, they were middle class because they were smart and worked hard. And they passed that on not by handing me a wad of money, but by requiring me to work hard and achieve myself. So, make that: "Yeah, my father could have helped me, but he required me to achieve it myself."
I have lived in high tax countries, and part of my family lived in socialist countries, so I can tell you from first hand experience that it won't make any difference.