and if the government forced a private company to host content they didn't want to - for whatever reason - that would also be violation of liberty
Just to be even clearer, it's a *contractual* issue. Most likely the fine print in Rackspace's contract allows them to shut down sites they deem objectionable. If NOT (unlikely), then they might be in violation of terms of service. But again, that would be contractual.
Just to be clear though, I do think *RackSpace* has a right to cave in here. They're a private company, and if the government forced a private company to host content they didn't want to - for whatever reason - that would also be violation of liberty. Forcing someone to host content against their will would be the sort of thing communist countries do, quite frankly. Its RackSpace's right to be bunch of yellow cowards, after all, they are the ones whose datacenter would be bombed by a suicide bomber if they don't roll over to Islam's demands on US behaviour. But in this case there are plenty of people of others who would have the balls to host the content.
The *predictable* result of Dove's action is a sharply increased risk of retaliatory attacks killing US soldiers.
So you are basically saying that the United States should simply roll over and voluntarily give up one of its most treasured freedoms, because another group has threatened violence if it doesn't?
Thank god that your ancestors had more stones, or they'd never have been able to win you the right (with their blood) to that freedom in the first place. Someone even *hints* at the threat of violence and you roll over instantly. Incredible.
I've learned from conflict situations in my own country that there are two types of people in this world. Those that fight for what's right. And those that just rally behind whoever they perceive to hold ultimate physical power at the current moment in time. The latter tend to be a majority. I've also learned that you CANNOT tell the two apart until you are confronted with actual real-world situations where allegiances are tested, since they will say what whoever is in power wants to hear, and while that's you, you'll think they're on your side.
Actually, I happen to know a thing or two about running a software business, as that is what I do --- and I can tell you it is EXACTLY how things work. It really is "that simple" --- the single most critical thing I need for my business is *good programmers*, not 'equipment' or 'paying down debt' --- and from the taxes I have paid, I would've been able to make significantly more hires. Literally. It is direct, and simple. Labor is one of the main costs of tech businesses.
Don't provide training or opportunity to gain experience, then complain the labor force doesn't have the skills you need.
In the software industry, the only programmers really worth their salt that I've ever met were those who had the drive to train themselves. If you don't happen to have a passion for it, then you aren't going to be motivated to do it on your own. Those who self-train do it because they hvae a passion for it, and that same passion makes them good, and hirable by companies. When I hear candidates who whine that they should be trained by employers, they often turn out to be lazy and disinterested and not very good *no matter how much* training you give them (and hence bad money you throw at them).
H1-B and it's ilk can provide a useful function but from what I've seen of it's use in the tech industry, it's becoming another tool to externalize risk and cost.
Actually, it's a legal requirement that H1-B recipients are paid at least market-based salaries by their employers. I know some good programmers on H1-B visas and they are earning very, very good salaries. Not only are H1-Bs not notably cheaper than locals, there are also significant extra administrative costs in making an H1-B hire, as well as delays (it typically takes at least a year or so from making a job offer to actually starting --- how is that preferable for any software company) and risks (e.g. most H1-B applications are denied, and if they're denied, oops, you wait another year). Again, if you're trying to run a software business, this wreaks havoc. In practice H1-B's in the tech industry are thus often used to be employ the 'cream of the crop' from other countries, which is good for US job creation (since good programmers create jobs), and good for the competitiveness of US companies against those in other countries, since it depletes the talent pool in other countries.
when you take more and more of the cash companies make from them to fund an ever-expanding state and "bail-outs" (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20014563-38.html)... *of course* it gets harder for companies to be able to afford to hire people and thus create more jobs. No sh-t. Let companies keep more of what they earn and they'll feel more comfortable hiring people, it's that simple. But all those billions floating around, it's just too tempting for governments to not want more of it.
In spite of the superficial similarities of having a display and being 'something electronic', TV is vastly different to a computer from a mental stimulation and interaction perspective. TV is basically mindless zone-out hypnosis for entertainment. Computers *can* be, but can also be complex, stimulating challenging forms of mental puzzle-solving and skills development.
Life is not about mindlessly following little "rules" about what is "supposed to be" age-appropriate or not, it's about thinking about it for yourself. I'm afraid you will pass on your tendency for following "rules" rather than thinking to your kids.
That also set off a red flag for me, but upon re-reading it I realised that's not what he meant, what he meant was that if the child has an interest in learning about technology from early on, that he wants to encourage that -- which is a good thing -- but wants to try do it in a meaningful/useful way that is age-appropriate.
Despite learning reading this "late" the Finnish school system still manages to give you a world class education.
And yet in spite of this too, the United States, one has to admit, remains by a wide margin the world leader in the tech industry, and a major world leader in research of all kinds. Maybe there is something to it after all. OK, the US is much bigger than Finland, but when you really think about it, only one country in the world still continues to dominate and lead the tech industry. Most major tech names you can think of originated in the US, and every 'new big thing' in tech still seems to come out of the US, year after year. Finland has given us, what, Nokia, and Linus Torvalds.
Disclaimer, I'm not an American, just an independent observer making a purely 100% factual observation. The EU zone in general is comparable to the US size-wize and economy-wise, there is no theoretical reason the EU shouldn't have as many 'big tech names', and yet they don't.
The "Baby Einstein" type crap is crap, sure, but that's because it's just "mindless entertainment for toddlers marketed at gullible parents who think it'll give their kids a head start". Just because some people incorrectly try give their kids a head start, it doesn't mean you can't give your kids a head start. You certainly can. I wonder if you'd parented a baby Mozart, if you'd taken him away from his obsession with music in order to make sure he has the "spontaneous play of early childhood" instead.
"Dell's problem is its founding business model - mass-assemble PCs using standardization and volume to bring costs down - doesn't work on any of the new electronics markets"
No, Dell's problem is that they've simply stopped doing their founding business model well. For example, simply ordering a laptop from them online can and easily does take weeks to months (literally, I do not exaggerate) to deliver. Secondly, their system is so ball-sucky that you cannot, I kid you not, even do something simple like change the delivery address during the weeks/months they are busy "processing your order". Third, you phone them to cancel the order, and get not just arrogance, but a refusal to confirm the order cancellation or give a reference, just 'assurance' that your 'order cancellation request will be forwarded to the right people'.
Dealing with Dell feels more like dealing with a broken government bureaucracy than a private company with competition in a free market. We live in a world where nobody needs to, for example, wait weeks just to get a simple laptop... my HP suppliers get me HP laptops same-day or next-day, and they jump to it. What is Dell thinking... nobody can get away with such rigid and arrogant 'bureaucraticness' built into their processes in this market, and that is entirely their own doing, their own decisions, their own management, their own broken processes and systems.
"Is no longer capable of satisfying the bloated expectations of parasitic wall-streeters because it basically just produces an unsexy commodity in quantity, like steel or potatoes"
Actually, many investors are perfectly happy with companies that just continue to do something simple, well. Dell is losing its allure because their service has begun to suck balls, they've forgotten what the business is about, they treat customers badly and with contempt, and provide poor service with the attitude that customers should put up with it 'because they're Dell'. Poor service puts customers off and that in turn puts investors off. Simple as that. Investors don't need a "next big thing"; Dell just needs to become good again at what it used to be good at. Focus on your core business and focus on your customers. I could start ranting about the god-awful experiences we've had with Dell, but I'm sure a lot of people here already have their own stories. Dell hasn't been forced between a rock and hard place by either investors or customers or some "perceptual problem"; they've simply become overly arrogant and cocksure. This isn't a problem for anyone save Dell, since thanks to the free market other suppliers will gladly step in.
It sounds more like a thinly disguised overly-general patent troll to me than an actual product or invention... consider, "The guardian angel can take automated action on behalf of the user for various purposes (e.g., to compensate for memory loss, to remind a user to take medicine"... does this mean anyone who makes software that does mundane things like remind people to take medicine (probably already exists) would have to pay Microsoft royalties?
Secondly, even if assuming it isn't just a broad patent troll, then it would effectively amount to a patent on a general AI, like every robot butler type of thing we've ever seen in the movies --- surely you should not be allowed to patent such a general AI? There's a fair chance we'll see such things appearing in the next 20 years, and it doesn't sound overblown to me to say that MS shouldn't be entitled to automatically extract royalties just because they filed a patent on the idea now. Patents are for INVENTIONS, i.e. methods, not ideas --- you're not supposed to be able to patent the idea, only the method of implementation thereof. And you claim it's a non-issue based on the absolute "blind hope" that the patent expires before they have an opportunity to get royalties from it? Puh-lease. Overblown my ass.
People cooperate socially and obey laws expecting a fair return.
What it boils down to is essentially, to what degree is your government *serving* you, or to what degree is your government just *plundering* you. Some may disagree but personally I think we crossed the line into plundering a long time ago. And then really, what are our options? Rulers have plundered the ruled since time immemorial; sometimes people do something about it, mostly they don't.
Is it just me or do Americans seem to have some kind of blind spot when it comes to government corruption? In any other country, this would've immediately been called for what it is, plain old corruption, and would be a scandal. It is obvious what is happening here.
Next time there is a REALLY unusual cosmic event (supernova within one's own galaxy, collision of two black holes), cast your net a little wider and train your telescopes on a region of the sky surrounding the event. Any advanced civilization will know that lots of other astronomers will be pointing their telescopes in their general direction and, if they choose to make their presence known, will send signals in a direction opposite (to them) of the event. There should be a better chance for them to be noticed.
Just one flaw in your plan, by the time we see those events usually thousands or millions of years have passed (we're looking into the past, due to the speed of light being so danged slow). Assuming an happens 50,000 light years away from each of you (with colliding black holes, you'd want it to be a side further), you'd probably have to wait at least 100,000 years. Finally, telescopes don't "send out signals" in the direction they're pointing; they generally only receive information passively.
it assumes that any civilization should develop technology in the way we did
No, it assumes (hopes) that at least one civilization might have. They're not trying to find every single civilization out there; the goal is just to find *one* right now.
If we can ever _prove_ we're not alone out here, I honestly believe it could sway the attitudes and priorities of many governments.
Government, schmoverment --- what would be far more exciting is the potential it would have to dramatically change our species' direction for private individuals and companies and explorers etc.
The problem is that any sufficiently advanced civilization, who has 'been around long enough' to still be surviving, will have learned that it's far more prudent to hide your presence than advertise it openly until you know the intentions of any hypothetical new other civilization you might run into. And there's a Darwinian aspect whereby those species stupid enough to go around sending "here we are!" signals, are precisely those species who are most at risk from those with bad intentions who like to obliterate naive little civilizations and are smart enough to hide so that they can sneak up on them.
If you come across an alien life form, your first thought will probably 'does this thing want to kill me or is it friendly'. Chances are, the alien is thinking the same thing. Then you'll be thinking, 'well in case it's not friendly, it might be most prudent if I shoot first'. Then the alien will be thinking that too. Then your next thought will be, 'this alien is probably thinking the same thing as I am, therefore it's probably going to decide to shoot first 'just in case' - I'd better shoot first then'.
Presuming other alien civilizations exist, variations of this must play out across the universe every time new contacts are made.
Of course, you have an advantage if you can learn all about some other species before you make contact, but it still doesn't necessarily help you; an alien visiting earth might encounter friendly people, it might encounter violent people... it'll possibly be the same if we meet aliens, some may want to kill us, others may want to befriend us, and there'll be the same doubts and arguments about whether or not we can be trusted etc. that they might have if they encountered us.
Given that advertising your presence and location is highly naive, a more advanced unfriendly civilization may use advertising its presence to set a 'trap' to entice another group to attack it, thinking it is naive. If you come across such a beacon, you anyway won't know if it's a trap or not.
I rather doubt that advanced civilizations though, who have any inter-alien-species experience, would ever purposely advertise their presence and location by anything like radio-waves. Of course they'll need to communicate, and that will involve unintentional signalling, but they will make attempts to hide that. Unless they're very confident they can beat anything that comes along. In our case, we've beamed our presence through naivety, but we're talking about incredibly short timespans here... we might be a lot smarter about all this in just another 100 or 200 years --- long before that beam of naively sent out signals reaches anyone of interest out there.
I mean some relatively straight-forward extrapolations of humans shows *us* colonizing the galaxy in a few million years.
Basically the Fermi paradox says, they are *no* other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy otherwise we would have had dramatic evidence on Earth.
Surely some species has to be 'the first', presuming that type of colonization is technologically feasible - why shouldn't that be us? Moreover, it might just be coincidence; the universe is huge, and we might just happen to be in one of the more poorly populated galaxies. I don't really buy the Fermi Paradox.
So you want to punish him for what some other completely unrelated people _might_ do?
Yeah....that sounds like a country I want to live in......
No, punish him for causing a death through his negligent behavior. This will happen to also have the effect of deterring others from causing deaths through negligent behavior. Is that bad? It's not about "setting an example", he really did do something wrong and somebody innocent died.
If this were a federally-regulated bank they would not be able to do this.
If PayPal were a regulated bank of any sort, they'd be just as small and insignificant as any other provider in the field, and we'd have *nothing* instead of PayPal. No thanks, we're better off with PayPal than with no PayPal (the fact that they're so popular is because they remain so useful). PayPal's problem isn't that it isn't regulated, it's that it has no real competition and the main reason it has no competition is precisely that "real" banks are over-regulated to the point of being crippled. If PayPal had to 'become a bank', as seems to be the trendy thing to push for these days, then we'd cease to have such a service at all. Be careful what you wish for; "regulation" isn't the answer here, it's a big part of the problem.
Maybe paying more will attract better teachers, but if you don't know what a "better" teacher is, you're shit out of luck anyway.
Oh please, for most people it's easy to tell which teachers are good. Most people know a good teacher when they see one. The only "problem" (which isn't really a problem) is that there are no real objective ways to measure who is a "better" teacher; however the subjective methods work extremely well indeed. Unfortunately people for some absolutely bizarre reason think that evaluating people subjectively is somehow "wrong". It's not. It's not perfect, of course, but it's absolutely the best method we have available, i.e. use humans (e.g. principals) to judge teachers.
The thing is, we have to drop firstly the strangely egalitarian communist-like pretense that all teachers are somehow "equal" in quality if only they would be trained correctly and employ the right "methods", and secondly we have to then reward the good teachers with higher salaries, and fire the bad ones.
You don't have to worry so much then about "how to produce" competent teachers, as if their was a magic formula (there isn't), because you'd instead be using standard methods like reward and selection (like any other enterprise, in fact) that will then further help attract good teachers (who want to teach) and keep the bad ones out.
The problem with US education is NOT one of funding; governments have been throwing more and money at education over the past decades and it hasn't made any difference in outcomes:
Of course, it's usually the people who stand to benefit from having even more thrown at this problem, who cry out about how the problem is "we need more money". Which makes me wonder if you're part of the system.
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and if the government forced a private company to host content they didn't want to - for whatever reason - that would also be violation of liberty
Just to be even clearer, it's a *contractual* issue. Most likely the fine print in Rackspace's contract allows them to shut down sites they deem objectionable. If NOT (unlikely), then they might be in violation of terms of service. But again, that would be contractual.
Just to be clear though, I do think *RackSpace* has a right to cave in here. They're a private company, and if the government forced a private company to host content they didn't want to - for whatever reason - that would also be violation of liberty. Forcing someone to host content against their will would be the sort of thing communist countries do, quite frankly. Its RackSpace's right to be bunch of yellow cowards, after all, they are the ones whose datacenter would be bombed by a suicide bomber if they don't roll over to Islam's demands on US behaviour. But in this case there are plenty of people of others who would have the balls to host the content.
The *predictable* result of Dove's action is a sharply increased risk of retaliatory attacks killing US soldiers.
So you are basically saying that the United States should simply roll over and voluntarily give up one of its most treasured freedoms, because another group has threatened violence if it doesn't?
Thank god that your ancestors had more stones, or they'd never have been able to win you the right (with their blood) to that freedom in the first place. Someone even *hints* at the threat of violence and you roll over instantly. Incredible.
I've learned from conflict situations in my own country that there are two types of people in this world. Those that fight for what's right. And those that just rally behind whoever they perceive to hold ultimate physical power at the current moment in time. The latter tend to be a majority. I've also learned that you CANNOT tell the two apart until you are confronted with actual real-world situations where allegiances are tested, since they will say what whoever is in power wants to hear, and while that's you, you'll think they're on your side.
Actually, I happen to know a thing or two about running a software business, as that is what I do --- and I can tell you it is EXACTLY how things work. It really is "that simple" --- the single most critical thing I need for my business is *good programmers*, not 'equipment' or 'paying down debt' --- and from the taxes I have paid, I would've been able to make significantly more hires. Literally. It is direct, and simple. Labor is one of the main costs of tech businesses.
Don't provide training or opportunity to gain experience, then complain the labor force doesn't have the skills you need.
In the software industry, the only programmers really worth their salt that I've ever met were those who had the drive to train themselves. If you don't happen to have a passion for it, then you aren't going to be motivated to do it on your own. Those who self-train do it because they hvae a passion for it, and that same passion makes them good, and hirable by companies. When I hear candidates who whine that they should be trained by employers, they often turn out to be lazy and disinterested and not very good *no matter how much* training you give them (and hence bad money you throw at them).
H1-B and it's ilk can provide a useful function but from what I've seen of it's use in the tech industry, it's becoming another tool to externalize risk and cost.
Actually, it's a legal requirement that H1-B recipients are paid at least market-based salaries by their employers. I know some good programmers on H1-B visas and they are earning very, very good salaries. Not only are H1-Bs not notably cheaper than locals, there are also significant extra administrative costs in making an H1-B hire, as well as delays (it typically takes at least a year or so from making a job offer to actually starting --- how is that preferable for any software company) and risks (e.g. most H1-B applications are denied, and if they're denied, oops, you wait another year). Again, if you're trying to run a software business, this wreaks havoc. In practice H1-B's in the tech industry are thus often used to be employ the 'cream of the crop' from other countries, which is good for US job creation (since good programmers create jobs), and good for the competitiveness of US companies against those in other countries, since it depletes the talent pool in other countries.
when you take more and more of the cash companies make from them to fund an ever-expanding state and "bail-outs" (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20014563-38.html) ... *of course* it gets harder for companies to be able to afford to hire people and thus create more jobs. No sh-t. Let companies keep more of what they earn and they'll feel more comfortable hiring people, it's that simple. But all those billions floating around, it's just too tempting for governments to not want more of it.
In spite of the superficial similarities of having a display and being 'something electronic', TV is vastly different to a computer from a mental stimulation and interaction perspective. TV is basically mindless zone-out hypnosis for entertainment. Computers *can* be, but can also be complex, stimulating challenging forms of mental puzzle-solving and skills development.
Life is not about mindlessly following little "rules" about what is "supposed to be" age-appropriate or not, it's about thinking about it for yourself. I'm afraid you will pass on your tendency for following "rules" rather than thinking to your kids.
That also set off a red flag for me, but upon re-reading it I realised that's not what he meant, what he meant was that if the child has an interest in learning about technology from early on, that he wants to encourage that -- which is a good thing -- but wants to try do it in a meaningful/useful way that is age-appropriate.
Despite learning reading this "late" the Finnish school system still manages to give you a world class education.
And yet in spite of this too, the United States, one has to admit, remains by a wide margin the world leader in the tech industry, and a major world leader in research of all kinds. Maybe there is something to it after all. OK, the US is much bigger than Finland, but when you really think about it, only one country in the world still continues to dominate and lead the tech industry. Most major tech names you can think of originated in the US, and every 'new big thing' in tech still seems to come out of the US, year after year. Finland has given us, what, Nokia, and Linus Torvalds.
Disclaimer, I'm not an American, just an independent observer making a purely 100% factual observation. The EU zone in general is comparable to the US size-wize and economy-wise, there is no theoretical reason the EU shouldn't have as many 'big tech names', and yet they don't.
The "Baby Einstein" type crap is crap, sure, but that's because it's just "mindless entertainment for toddlers marketed at gullible parents who think it'll give their kids a head start". Just because some people incorrectly try give their kids a head start, it doesn't mean you can't give your kids a head start. You certainly can. I wonder if you'd parented a baby Mozart, if you'd taken him away from his obsession with music in order to make sure he has the "spontaneous play of early childhood" instead.
"Dell's problem is its founding business model - mass-assemble PCs using standardization and volume to bring costs down - doesn't work on any of the new electronics markets"
No, Dell's problem is that they've simply stopped doing their founding business model well. For example, simply ordering a laptop from them online can and easily does take weeks to months (literally, I do not exaggerate) to deliver. Secondly, their system is so ball-sucky that you cannot, I kid you not, even do something simple like change the delivery address during the weeks/months they are busy "processing your order". Third, you phone them to cancel the order, and get not just arrogance, but a refusal to confirm the order cancellation or give a reference, just 'assurance' that your 'order cancellation request will be forwarded to the right people'.
Dealing with Dell feels more like dealing with a broken government bureaucracy than a private company with competition in a free market. We live in a world where nobody needs to, for example, wait weeks just to get a simple laptop ... my HP suppliers get me HP laptops same-day or next-day, and they jump to it. What is Dell thinking ... nobody can get away with such rigid and arrogant 'bureaucraticness' built into their processes in this market, and that is entirely their own doing, their own decisions, their own management, their own broken processes and systems.
"Is no longer capable of satisfying the bloated expectations of parasitic wall-streeters because it basically just produces an unsexy commodity in quantity, like steel or potatoes"
Actually, many investors are perfectly happy with companies that just continue to do something simple, well. Dell is losing its allure because their service has begun to suck balls, they've forgotten what the business is about, they treat customers badly and with contempt, and provide poor service with the attitude that customers should put up with it 'because they're Dell'. Poor service puts customers off and that in turn puts investors off. Simple as that. Investors don't need a "next big thing"; Dell just needs to become good again at what it used to be good at. Focus on your core business and focus on your customers. I could start ranting about the god-awful experiences we've had with Dell, but I'm sure a lot of people here already have their own stories. Dell hasn't been forced between a rock and hard place by either investors or customers or some "perceptual problem"; they've simply become overly arrogant and cocksure. This isn't a problem for anyone save Dell, since thanks to the free market other suppliers will gladly step in.
MS seems to be steadily evolving into a patent troll.
It sounds more like a thinly disguised overly-general patent troll to me than an actual product or invention ... consider, "The guardian angel can take automated action on behalf of the user for various purposes (e.g., to compensate for memory loss, to remind a user to take medicine" ... does this mean anyone who makes software that does mundane things like remind people to take medicine (probably already exists) would have to pay Microsoft royalties?
Secondly, even if assuming it isn't just a broad patent troll, then it would effectively amount to a patent on a general AI, like every robot butler type of thing we've ever seen in the movies --- surely you should not be allowed to patent such a general AI? There's a fair chance we'll see such things appearing in the next 20 years, and it doesn't sound overblown to me to say that MS shouldn't be entitled to automatically extract royalties just because they filed a patent on the idea now. Patents are for INVENTIONS, i.e. methods, not ideas --- you're not supposed to be able to patent the idea, only the method of implementation thereof. And you claim it's a non-issue based on the absolute "blind hope" that the patent expires before they have an opportunity to get royalties from it? Puh-lease. Overblown my ass.
People cooperate socially and obey laws expecting a fair return.
What it boils down to is essentially, to what degree is your government *serving* you, or to what degree is your government just *plundering* you. Some may disagree but personally I think we crossed the line into plundering a long time ago. And then really, what are our options? Rulers have plundered the ruled since time immemorial; sometimes people do something about it, mostly they don't.
Ah, so what you're saying is, you want other people to be forced to pay more of their money, so that you can benefit with things like faster Internet.
Is it just me or do Americans seem to have some kind of blind spot when it comes to government corruption? In any other country, this would've immediately been called for what it is, plain old corruption, and would be a scandal. It is obvious what is happening here.
Exactly; people seldom see it this way, but 'useless government jobs' *are* basically just another form of welfare (just not in intent, necessarily).
Next time there is a REALLY unusual cosmic event (supernova within one's own galaxy, collision of two black holes), cast your net a little wider and train your telescopes on a region of the sky surrounding the event. Any advanced civilization will know that lots of other astronomers will be pointing their telescopes in their general direction and, if they choose to make their presence known, will send signals in a direction opposite (to them) of the event. There should be a better chance for them to be noticed.
Just one flaw in your plan, by the time we see those events usually thousands or millions of years have passed (we're looking into the past, due to the speed of light being so danged slow). Assuming an happens 50,000 light years away from each of you (with colliding black holes, you'd want it to be a side further), you'd probably have to wait at least 100,000 years. Finally, telescopes don't "send out signals" in the direction they're pointing; they generally only receive information passively.
it assumes that any civilization should develop technology in the way we did
No, it assumes (hopes) that at least one civilization might have. They're not trying to find every single civilization out there; the goal is just to find *one* right now.
If we can ever _prove_ we're not alone out here, I honestly believe it could sway the attitudes and priorities of many governments.
Government, schmoverment --- what would be far more exciting is the potential it would have to dramatically change our species' direction for private individuals and companies and explorers etc.
The problem is that any sufficiently advanced civilization, who has 'been around long enough' to still be surviving, will have learned that it's far more prudent to hide your presence than advertise it openly until you know the intentions of any hypothetical new other civilization you might run into. And there's a Darwinian aspect whereby those species stupid enough to go around sending "here we are!" signals, are precisely those species who are most at risk from those with bad intentions who like to obliterate naive little civilizations and are smart enough to hide so that they can sneak up on them.
If you come across an alien life form, your first thought will probably 'does this thing want to kill me or is it friendly'. Chances are, the alien is thinking the same thing. Then you'll be thinking, 'well in case it's not friendly, it might be most prudent if I shoot first'. Then the alien will be thinking that too. Then your next thought will be, 'this alien is probably thinking the same thing as I am, therefore it's probably going to decide to shoot first 'just in case' - I'd better shoot first then'.
Presuming other alien civilizations exist, variations of this must play out across the universe every time new contacts are made.
Of course, you have an advantage if you can learn all about some other species before you make contact, but it still doesn't necessarily help you; an alien visiting earth might encounter friendly people, it might encounter violent people ... it'll possibly be the same if we meet aliens, some may want to kill us, others may want to befriend us, and there'll be the same doubts and arguments about whether or not we can be trusted etc. that they might have if they encountered us.
Given that advertising your presence and location is highly naive, a more advanced unfriendly civilization may use advertising its presence to set a 'trap' to entice another group to attack it, thinking it is naive. If you come across such a beacon, you anyway won't know if it's a trap or not.
I rather doubt that advanced civilizations though, who have any inter-alien-species experience, would ever purposely advertise their presence and location by anything like radio-waves. Of course they'll need to communicate, and that will involve unintentional signalling, but they will make attempts to hide that. Unless they're very confident they can beat anything that comes along. In our case, we've beamed our presence through naivety, but we're talking about incredibly short timespans here ... we might be a lot smarter about all this in just another 100 or 200 years --- long before that beam of naively sent out signals reaches anyone of interest out there.
I mean some relatively straight-forward extrapolations of humans shows *us* colonizing the galaxy in a few million years.
Basically the Fermi paradox says, they are *no* other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy otherwise we would have had dramatic evidence on Earth.
Surely some species has to be 'the first', presuming that type of colonization is technologically feasible - why shouldn't that be us? Moreover, it might just be coincidence; the universe is huge, and we might just happen to be in one of the more poorly populated galaxies. I don't really buy the Fermi Paradox.
So you want to punish him for what some other completely unrelated people _might_ do?
Yeah....that sounds like a country I want to live in......
No, punish him for causing a death through his negligent behavior. This will happen to also have the effect of deterring others from causing deaths through negligent behavior. Is that bad? It's not about "setting an example", he really did do something wrong and somebody innocent died.
If this were a federally-regulated bank they would not be able to do this.
If PayPal were a regulated bank of any sort, they'd be just as small and insignificant as any other provider in the field, and we'd have *nothing* instead of PayPal. No thanks, we're better off with PayPal than with no PayPal (the fact that they're so popular is because they remain so useful). PayPal's problem isn't that it isn't regulated, it's that it has no real competition and the main reason it has no competition is precisely that "real" banks are over-regulated to the point of being crippled. If PayPal had to 'become a bank', as seems to be the trendy thing to push for these days, then we'd cease to have such a service at all. Be careful what you wish for; "regulation" isn't the answer here, it's a big part of the problem.
Maybe paying more will attract better teachers, but if you don't know what a "better" teacher is, you're shit out of luck anyway.
Oh please, for most people it's easy to tell which teachers are good. Most people know a good teacher when they see one. The only "problem" (which isn't really a problem) is that there are no real objective ways to measure who is a "better" teacher; however the subjective methods work extremely well indeed. Unfortunately people for some absolutely bizarre reason think that evaluating people subjectively is somehow "wrong". It's not. It's not perfect, of course, but it's absolutely the best method we have available, i.e. use humans (e.g. principals) to judge teachers.
The thing is, we have to drop firstly the strangely egalitarian communist-like pretense that all teachers are somehow "equal" in quality if only they would be trained correctly and employ the right "methods", and secondly we have to then reward the good teachers with higher salaries, and fire the bad ones.
You don't have to worry so much then about "how to produce" competent teachers, as if their was a magic formula (there isn't), because you'd instead be using standard methods like reward and selection (like any other enterprise, in fact) that will then further help attract good teachers (who want to teach) and keep the bad ones out.
The problem with US education is NOT one of funding; governments have been throwing more and money at education over the past decades and it hasn't made any difference in outcomes:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2020&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy11&chart=20-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=20-total
Of course, it's usually the people who stand to benefit from having even more thrown at this problem, who cry out about how the problem is "we need more money". Which makes me wonder if you're part of the system.