What is true, is that within the US Gini has been growing dramatically (in layman's English: GLOBALLY income inequality has been GETTING BETTER, but within the US it has been getting worse), and that is largely because of corporatism, and the increasing consolidation of power and control of political structures by kleptocratic financial interests. That is a major problem. But it isn't "capitalism" - it's corporatism - there is actually a difference, a big difference.
Please read the post, digest the point. You completely and utterly missed 90% of what I wrote, and just picked up one or two keywords. The hypothetical question is, would it be moral to FORCE EVERYONE to take happy pills, if it could provably make everyone happier. It's a thought experiment, designed to evoke structured logical reasoning about an issue.
Is your Google broken or something? If you don't know what a Gini coefficient is, or what an 'ad hominem' is (or strawman, etc.), please, just first Google it, read the results, and then come back. I won't go away. I'd rather discuss somebody better informed, than somebody who shoots his mouth off quickly but accidentally proves beyond a doubt that he doesn't even understand what he responded to.
Sorry, there is always another statistics, for example that there is constantly growing break-up between "the elite" - rich aristocracy of the modern world - and "everybody else"
Uhrm... do you even know what the fuck the global Gini coefficient is? It's a measure of actual facts showing exactly the opposite of what you claim here. Hello, hello.. knock knock.. anybody home...
And no, "evolution" does not take place that quickly on such a scale.
By the way, it's pretty fucking obvious when you look at your comments list, and then ten minutes later look again, and you've had four or five sudden down-moderations across multiple topics from postings on different days, and all also just bad moderations.. e.g. modding an on-topic post 'off-topic'. That ain't random. And I've told you flat-out that I've never listened to talk radio (not that it would be a valid counter-argument even if I had), so rebuke my points using facts and reason now, not logical fallacies. Go on, I know you can do it. Just give it a try, it won't hurt.
Of course, all the foreign pesky brown-skinned workers who are actually benefiting in a meaningful way, I suppose they don't count as "people" in your view?
Some more food for thought (between your shrieks of hysteria): Did you know that the global Gini coefficient has been decreasing (improving) for decades, even as absolutely quality of life has also been improving in virtually all countries?
Most of the hard and uneasy questions of morale and philosophy can be boiled down to simple "how does it work" and "how should it work"
This is what's referred to as a Utilitarian approach to moral philosophy. And it's wrong. It's the idea that moral philosophy should be based on some measurable outputs or statistics. Programmers and engineers in particular tend to make this mistake, perhaps because they want to "engineer society" the way they engineer computer programs or electronics.
Some thought experiments for you:
1. If you could make everyone happy and drastically reduce crime by forcing the entire population to take (hypothetical) "happy pills", would it be morally correct to do so in your political system if you were in charge? 2. If slavery could improve production (i.e. "make things work better"), would that make slavery a valid moral choice in a political system?
Moral / political rights do not stem from statistics / "results". The source of our moral and political rights, and thus the validity of moral/political system, must be based on *reason*.
Logical fallacies aren't "buzzwords" - they're for identifying broken thinking. They're as unemotional as you can get - they are PURE REASON. (Since you don't know what they are, perhaps you should learn first, as if you knew what they were, you would realize you are actually embarrassing yourself with your comments.)
Each of those labels refers to a particular reasoning and argumentation error used by PopeRatzo (it's common convention in debate to just refer to these by name, they aren't insults and they certainly don't lack sense). E.g., an "ad hominem" is when instead of rebuking an argument using facts and reason, you simply insult them instead (actually, what you're doing in your post also). PopeRatzo reverted to an "ad hominem" argument when he simply said 'you are stupid'. Clearly, merely insulting someone does not counter their point (and if you are resorting to insults, which are one of the most primitive logical fallacies, your argument most likely lacks a solid basis).
"Poisoning the well" can be related to ad hominem, but is actually an attempt to, instead of using facts and reason to rebuke an argument, is an attempt to discredit the *source* of the argument - it's an "attack the messenger" approach. For example, PopeRatzo, used "poisoning the well" when he made the sweeping claim that anyone who even mentions the name Marx is automatically stupid and wrong.
"Strawman" is another common logical fallacy, where instead of rebuking an argument using facts and reason, you create a fictitious distorted (but fake) version of your opponent's argument (that superficially resembles it), then you shoot down the more easy-to-rebuke fake argument, and pretend that you shot down the actual argument. PopeRatzo used a strawman argument when he said:
"You don't have to be a genius to know that "free market capitalism" isn't working as advertised"
It's easy to debunk any suggestion that the system we have is "working as advertised". However, it utterly fails to rebuke the ACTUAL argument (as no claim was ever made that the current system works wonderfully).
Hope that helps.
The funny thing here, PopeRatzo committed at three obvious blatant reasoning errors in one post and got modded up. All I did was ask him to please use facts and reason - and that got modded down. It's really telling at how lacking a culture of thinking rationally is, and particularly so given that PopeRatzo's entire point was based on a claim that "programmers" particularly excel at rational thought - his entire thesis was built around that idea.
If you were open to a discussion on why paying Pakistanis less than Romanians for the exact same work doesn't make sense, then you would've said that in your post. YOU DIDN'T. Don't back out now. What you said was, and I quote:
"Hooray for Globalization (Score:3)... There's no meaningful reason to do this other than corporate profits."
Actually, I change my mind - backing out now is exactly the correct thing to do when you realize you are wrong.
Incidentally, in spite of your "insightful-moderated" ad hominem attempt to poison the well while also using a strawman, I in fact have never listened to one single minute of the talk radio you refer to. I learned about Marx by, you know, READING WHAT MARX ACTUALLY WROTE. If you ever care to try debunk an argument using facts and reason instead of lies, insults and logical fallacies, then let me know.
"Stupid people reference Marx, therefore any reference to Marx is stupid."? Pity you use logical fallacies continually in your arguments, in every single post.. because it sounds like you're actually just smart enough to be able to recognize a logical fallacy.. and yet you keep using them. Either you're not recognizing that you're doing it, or you don't care because the logical fallacies suit an agenda. It would be nice to have a more meaningful discussion with you about this stuff if you ever decide you want to stop with the constant logical fallacies for a moment, and really think/talk clearly and earnestly about this stuff. Until then though, it's a waste of time trying.
Sounds like you just want to "make shit up" and then attribute your made-up shit to me, falsely claiming it is my viewpoint. Well done. Now try rebuking my actual arguments, instead of plain straight lying.
Even the janitor at Goldman Sachs can see that "something" isn't working right, but it doesn't make him automatically highly qualified to restructure structure with force.
Call a waaambulance! Would you like some cheese with that whine? Seriously, you sound like buggy whip manufacturers must have sounded at one point in history. The collective whining in here is tiresome. The world is changing, technology is moving fast, and you can either cry your eyes out and demand the world must please stay the same, or you can deal with it pro-actively and learn how to take advantage of the changes. While you're busy whining here, somewhere else someone is figuring out how to improve the world and better their own lot simultaneously with these changes. And yes, the US is still a good place to do that.
And seemingly, anything vaguely Marxist sounding immediately gets modded up to +5. Yawn. I want to discuss tech news, but every single topic is becoming "death to Capitalism! Ra ra."
Microsoft has never really been good at technology.. Bill Gates made up for a weakness in tech, with a mastery of business strategy. Ballmer doesn't have that mastery, and the competitive environment has changed. Still, I think it's a bit too early to be calling Microsoft's demise.
You really think that if a prosecutor is violating due process, nobody can interfere? Come on. They don't interfere because they are complicit, not because their hands are tied.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that 'gloom and doom' are popular and easier to believe, but here are some links that you simply must read/watch:
http://www.voxeu.org/article/parametric-estimations-world-distribution-income
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
What is true, is that within the US Gini has been growing dramatically (in layman's English: GLOBALLY income inequality has been GETTING BETTER, but within the US it has been getting worse), and that is largely because of corporatism, and the increasing consolidation of power and control of political structures by kleptocratic financial interests. That is a major problem. But it isn't "capitalism" - it's corporatism - there is actually a difference, a big difference.
Logic is not flawed; only its application is, when people don't use logic, like PopeRatzo, who refuses to use logic in so much as one post.
Please read the post, digest the point. You completely and utterly missed 90% of what I wrote, and just picked up one or two keywords. The hypothetical question is, would it be moral to FORCE EVERYONE to take happy pills, if it could provably make everyone happier. It's a thought experiment, designed to evoke structured logical reasoning about an issue.
Is your Google broken or something? If you don't know what a Gini coefficient is, or what an 'ad hominem' is (or strawman, etc.), please, just first Google it, read the results, and then come back. I won't go away. I'd rather discuss somebody better informed, than somebody who shoots his mouth off quickly but accidentally proves beyond a doubt that he doesn't even understand what he responded to.
Sorry, there is always another statistics, for example that there is constantly growing break-up between "the elite" - rich aristocracy of the modern world - and "everybody else"
Uhrm ... do you even know what the fuck the global Gini coefficient is? It's a measure of actual facts showing exactly the opposite of what you claim here. Hello, hello .. knock knock .. anybody home ...
And no, "evolution" does not take place that quickly on such a scale.
By the way, it's pretty fucking obvious when you look at your comments list, and then ten minutes later look again, and you've had four or five sudden down-moderations across multiple topics from postings on different days, and all also just bad moderations .. e.g. modding an on-topic post 'off-topic'. That ain't random. And I've told you flat-out that I've never listened to talk radio (not that it would be a valid counter-argument even if I had), so rebuke my points using facts and reason now, not logical fallacies. Go on, I know you can do it. Just give it a try, it won't hurt.
Again, your strategy is lying, and using logical fallacies. Sigh. Could you please JUST ONCE use facts and reason, please, please?
Of course, all the foreign pesky brown-skinned workers who are actually benefiting in a meaningful way, I suppose they don't count as "people" in your view?
Some more food for thought (between your shrieks of hysteria): Did you know that the global Gini coefficient has been decreasing (improving) for decades, even as absolutely quality of life has also been improving in virtually all countries?
Most of the hard and uneasy questions of morale and philosophy can be boiled down to simple "how does it work" and "how should it work"
This is what's referred to as a Utilitarian approach to moral philosophy. And it's wrong. It's the idea that moral philosophy should be based on some measurable outputs or statistics. Programmers and engineers in particular tend to make this mistake, perhaps because they want to "engineer society" the way they engineer computer programs or electronics.
Some thought experiments for you:
1. If you could make everyone happy and drastically reduce crime by forcing the entire population to take (hypothetical) "happy pills", would it be morally correct to do so in your political system if you were in charge?
2. If slavery could improve production (i.e. "make things work better"), would that make slavery a valid moral choice in a political system?
Moral / political rights do not stem from statistics / "results". The source of our moral and political rights, and thus the validity of moral/political system, must be based on *reason*.
Logical fallacies aren't "buzzwords" - they're for identifying broken thinking. They're as unemotional as you can get - they are PURE REASON. (Since you don't know what they are, perhaps you should learn first, as if you knew what they were, you would realize you are actually embarrassing yourself with your comments.)
Each of those labels refers to a particular reasoning and argumentation error used by PopeRatzo (it's common convention in debate to just refer to these by name, they aren't insults and they certainly don't lack sense). E.g., an "ad hominem" is when instead of rebuking an argument using facts and reason, you simply insult them instead (actually, what you're doing in your post also). PopeRatzo reverted to an "ad hominem" argument when he simply said 'you are stupid'. Clearly, merely insulting someone does not counter their point (and if you are resorting to insults, which are one of the most primitive logical fallacies, your argument most likely lacks a solid basis).
"Poisoning the well" can be related to ad hominem, but is actually an attempt to, instead of using facts and reason to rebuke an argument, is an attempt to discredit the *source* of the argument - it's an "attack the messenger" approach. For example, PopeRatzo, used "poisoning the well" when he made the sweeping claim that anyone who even mentions the name Marx is automatically stupid and wrong.
"Strawman" is another common logical fallacy, where instead of rebuking an argument using facts and reason, you create a fictitious distorted (but fake) version of your opponent's argument (that superficially resembles it), then you shoot down the more easy-to-rebuke fake argument, and pretend that you shot down the actual argument. PopeRatzo used a strawman argument when he said:
"You don't have to be a genius to know that "free market capitalism" isn't working as advertised"
It's easy to debunk any suggestion that the system we have is "working as advertised". However, it utterly fails to rebuke the ACTUAL argument (as no claim was ever made that the current system works wonderfully).
Hope that helps.
The funny thing here, PopeRatzo committed at three obvious blatant reasoning errors in one post and got modded up. All I did was ask him to please use facts and reason - and that got modded down. It's really telling at how lacking a culture of thinking rationally is, and particularly so given that PopeRatzo's entire point was based on a claim that "programmers" particularly excel at rational thought - his entire thesis was built around that idea.
If you were open to a discussion on why paying Pakistanis less than Romanians for the exact same work doesn't make sense, then you would've said that in your post. YOU DIDN'T. Don't back out now. What you said was, and I quote:
"Hooray for Globalization (Score:3) ...
There's no meaningful reason to do this other than corporate profits."
Actually, I change my mind - backing out now is exactly the correct thing to do when you realize you are wrong.
Moderation pattern is interesting - very clear I've been targeted - ha ha. Whatever, sock puppets, use up your mod points on me.
Do you actually know the difference between corporatism and capitalism?
You have the makings of a stack overflow there.
Incidentally, in spite of your "insightful-moderated" ad hominem attempt to poison the well while also using a strawman, I in fact have never listened to one single minute of the talk radio you refer to. I learned about Marx by, you know, READING WHAT MARX ACTUALLY WROTE. If you ever care to try debunk an argument using facts and reason instead of lies, insults and logical fallacies, then let me know.
"Stupid people reference Marx, therefore any reference to Marx is stupid."? Pity you use logical fallacies continually in your arguments, in every single post .. because it sounds like you're actually just smart enough to be able to recognize a logical fallacy .. and yet you keep using them. Either you're not recognizing that you're doing it, or you don't care because the logical fallacies suit an agenda. It would be nice to have a more meaningful discussion with you about this stuff if you ever decide you want to stop with the constant logical fallacies for a moment, and really think/talk clearly and earnestly about this stuff. Until then though, it's a waste of time trying.
Sorry: *structure = restructure society
Sounds like you just want to "make shit up" and then attribute your made-up shit to me, falsely claiming it is my viewpoint. Well done. Now try rebuking my actual arguments, instead of plain straight lying.
We see it every single day
Even the janitor at Goldman Sachs can see that "something" isn't working right, but it doesn't make him automatically highly qualified to restructure structure with force.
Call a waaambulance! Would you like some cheese with that whine? Seriously, you sound like buggy whip manufacturers must have sounded at one point in history. The collective whining in here is tiresome. The world is changing, technology is moving fast, and you can either cry your eyes out and demand the world must please stay the same, or you can deal with it pro-actively and learn how to take advantage of the changes. While you're busy whining here, somewhere else someone is figuring out how to improve the world and better their own lot simultaneously with these changes. And yes, the US is still a good place to do that.
When did Slashdot become Marxdot?
And seemingly, anything vaguely Marxist sounding immediately gets modded up to +5. Yawn. I want to discuss tech news, but every single topic is becoming "death to Capitalism! Ra ra."
Way to hijack a discussion of the relative merits of his approach to drive an off-topic political agenda. And a pure straw-man argument, to boot.
Yeah, I might feel a bit shitty right now if I was the tenth-best theoretical physicist in the field.
Microsoft has never really been good at technology .. Bill Gates made up for a weakness in tech, with a mastery of business strategy. Ballmer doesn't have that mastery, and the competitive environment has changed. Still, I think it's a bit too early to be calling Microsoft's demise.
You really think that if a prosecutor is violating due process, nobody can interfere? Come on. They don't interfere because they are complicit, not because their hands are tied.