Those 'loony', 'fantasy world' ideals you refer to also just happen to be the closest (amongst all candidates) to the (positive) ideals America was founded on, and those so-called 'revolutionary' ideas are not revolutionary at all, they would simply be a throwback to the not too distant past (the good bits, of course, not the bad bits). I don't know how so many people have lost sight of this, but RP's comparative popularity in spite of so obviously being sidelined seems to show that a significant percentage of Americans still probably at least have some intuitive grasp of this. It would be sad if this was soon lost because rabid masses who don't even understand the issues ran around calling such people "loonies" so much that those ideals become ever more sidelined and consigned to the fringes. I don't even know what you're referring to that could possibly be deemed "loony" - maybe you are just parroting a meme.
It's a thousand times easier to switch search engines than it is to switch OSs. Google grew very quickly (from nothing) BECAUSE it's such a fungible product and they were so much better. A better search engine could just as easily grab that share away again. (You can't argue 'but, but, value of Google brand' either because Google's brand only became valuable after their search engine became popular, people don't get locked into "brands". And in any case, MS and Yahoo both have well-known brands.)
In any case, Google's product isn't a search engine, it's online advertising. And also, in any case, it is pretty much hard to argue that Google gained their search monopoly by making the best mousetrap, and that Microsoft gained their Windows monopoly by strategy, lock-in, user ignorance and marketing. It doesn't invalidate anything, wtf!??!
Google's entire annual revenue fits into Microsoft's profit margin alone. Google is small compared to Microsoft. A little hard to be the 'big bully'. And unlike Microsoft's more diversified revenue stream, Google pretty much relies on one comparatively fragile market, online advertising, a market Microsoft wasn't even interested in until long after Google dmeonstrated it could be so lucrative.
If MS wants to beat Google at online marketing, they should offer better deals to affiliate sites and advertisers.
Or they can start by not buying them. You speak as though they are innocent victims of actions we're forcing upon them. What nonsense. Nobody is forcing them to buy anything.
If those African governments buying guns decided they wanted to instead spend all that money on, say, textbooks, I guarantee, the West would shut down some gun factories and start printing more books.
You also imply that the West is rich *because* Africa is poor, which economically is a complete load of bollocks, nobody in the West gets any richer when an African dies, only poorer.
And as someone else pointed out, pangas etc. are a far more common weapon used in Africa, maybe the innocent victims of panga attacks could use guns for self-defence. Oh, never thought of that, did you.
Wrong, democracy fails because the people don't actually want it. The majority of Islamic people WANT Sharia law, it's fundamental to Islam, and most probably wouldn't even see a problem with this death sentence. Muslims would *democratically* vote in Sharia law. In general in most nations people will vote away their own freedoms the first chance they get. It's terrible but it's the truth. The way you talk, you'd think these people are all poor innocent victims of a tiny fascist minority. This is what the majority want, and the tiny minority who want freedom are the victims.
Subsidies are indeed a huge problem for African farmers. Over the years, I've only found one argument in favour thereof that made me stop and go, hmm, yes, that makes sense, and that was that of food security. It will always (or at least, for the time being) be cheaper to grow food in places like Africa and import it into the US; if global free market forces were allowed to do their thing, it would essentially rout the US agricultural industry; the US would become a full services and manufacturing based economy that imported its food. This would mean that America would depend on random foreign countries (who are mostly easy to take over, I might add) for its most basic need - food - at that point there is an argument based on national security to retain domestic food production capabilities.
I'm certainly not saying its right, in fact I still think its wrong, but I can see that point of view. Perhaps some might argue this would prompt the US to help defend those countries it does rely on for food, which may in turn help everyone more - the US would get cheaper food, and those countries would get more security, which would in turn improve their economies further, 'everyone wins'. But it'll always be harder and riskier helping defend some large foreign territory than your homeland. I wish I could see a way out.
Food 'aid' is another related problem, that should be gotten rid of.
It's true, I have a 2GHz Core 2 Duo system with 2GB RAM, and Vista (apart from breaking several major apps, and having problems with even simple things like USB flash drives) has made this machine painfully slow. Deleting even one file, it first does all this 'calculating' for a couple seconds, then 'delete' progresses another second or two more, and then it winds down for the next second or two... it's retarded. Don't buy the arguments that throwing RAM at Vista will make it fast.
And while we're on the topic, please stop overusing the word "zealot" to apply to anyone who believes anything strongly and fervently and seemingly irrationally. You probably have not ever even MET any actual zealots. That word should really be reserved for the kind of people who e.g. blow up abortion clinics or churches or beat up gays in the street etc., not just as a random insult for anyone you don't like or disagree with.
I don't think you know what "intolerance" really, truly means. Clearly you've never experienced or even observed it. Hint, it's not 'disagreeing with someone', no matter how strongly or fervently they disagree or how poor their arguments might be for doing so.
Zzz.. wake me atheists start blowing up churches, burning crosses on your front lawn, stringing people up, or beating up random Christians in the street, etc.... come to think of it, I don't think I've ever even heard of that happening, and if it has, it would have been so exceptional and anomalous that it precisely disproves your point of atheists being intolerant.
Well, you could hit someone over the head with it!
Nah, seriously, I think such a law is a complete joke, it's not just absurd, it's an affront to liberty, although I suppose most people aren't bothered with that concept these days.
At the absolute most extreme, they could perhaps consider requiring, at most, 'warnings' on uncertified devices, kind of like with cigarettes. Even that's a stretch. But banning possession or even manufacture? That kind of thing always smells like corruption to me, it's market protection... who stands to benefit? Current manufacturers of geiger counters etc., neatly protected from competition by lower cost devices. In the name of "protecting the public", of course.
Under whose definition of "libertarian" did you deduce that there would be no government enforcement? Libertarianism doesn't mean "no government" - that's "anarchy". Libertarianism is, effectively, 'minimal government required to maintain law and order', and that would include contract law.
Contracts and terms of service are also allowed (if I'm not mistaken) in libertarian systems --- at least, last I checked. What GP is confusing libertarianism (minimal government) with is "anarchy" (i.e. basically "everyone does whatever they want and there's no government").
It's not the product that is art, it's the process and the producer that makes it art.
So if you find a painting in an old attic, and nobody has a clue who made it or why, it's not art? That doesn't really make sense.
Art CAN just "be a pretty picture", or whatever. Or do you think it's only art if it's created as a premise for the embodiment or expression of some other philosophical values? The conclusion of this line of thinking reduces art to mere symbols almost arbitrarily associated with a discourse that lives outside them (e.g. Modern Art); I don't buy that. (Unfortunately in reality this viewpoint is manipulated as a tool to drive speculation and inflate the value of pieces.)
Exactly; in fact, if you were NOT benefiting, "nobody's holding a gun to your head, there's the door" --- you must be benefiting because you choose to stay. If you would benefit more by leaving, you would. (GP might argue "but I have to work to eat" - well, now you *can* eat, that is certainly a benefit to you; we weren't born into this world with a right to food, we were born into a dangerous bush with wild animals that ate us and scarce food, moreover, if you claim a right to food, *somebody* has to work to grow that food for you, if it is your "right" (i.e. government enforces someone grow food and give it to you) then you effectively subjugating as a kind of 'slave' the poor food-grower.)
Anyway, if GP wants to buy his daughter a $65K car (or whatever), he is free to attempt to negotiate with IBM a threefold salary increase. IBM is free to either accept the kind offer, or say no thank you, there's another guy over there who will do the same for less. If there are lots of other other guys who can do your job for less, it means your labour/contribution is genuinely just not that valuable.
It remains that you have a right to organise labour, e.g. unions, and attempt to use collective bargaining (suppliers remain free to 'say no' and may even go under if no alternate labour is available - a huge risk, I might add, that your boss's boss takes on and NOT you, and which may be a hint as to why you might not quite deserve to be able to buy lots of cars for the hell of it); the writer's strike is in fact a demonstration that the system 'works', so to speak.
I'm not saying there aren't some worrying inequities and imbalances in the system, but many of these are caused not by the problems of free markets, but by NOT ENOUGH free markets. Excessive CEO bonuses means the labour supply for good CEOs is low (hint: become a CEO, if you can do as well, you can also get those bonuses - chairpeople would always welcome a better CEO, it's not some conspiracy, because they would benefit). You could also increase your ownership stake in companies by investing more of your cash instead of buying toys like iPods, and struggling for years (like many of those board members did to get where they are, I guarantee you). I'm a bit tired of all these people who natter about how they're being 'oppressed' and 'enslaved' by 'big corporates' - come on, we haven't quite reached that level yet. What laws did "IBM write"? OK, maybe some 'patent reform laws', hardly makes them slavemasters.
I must say I'm trying hard not to be cynical about this, but I think you might be right, it looks too much like PR and doesn't make enough sense to really be what it appears to be. He doesn't seem to be calling for a 'kindler gentler' anything so much as he seems to be calling for people to realise that he's really 'a swell guy who *cares* for the poor and improving the world and therefore it makes sense to buy whatever he's selling - I mean, his intentions are good, right?'. But it almost like the doublespeak of politicians who preach a socialist platform to the masses primarily because it sounds good to them, they know it's what people want to hear and will win them support. It's like you're not supposed to analyse what he's actually saying to see if it really makes sense, you're just supposed to get a general 'feeling' about it and the feeling conveyed is one of positivity and some intelligent helpful ideas.
I'm not saying he's devoid of good intentions, of course, probably some part of him believes what he's saying and wants to help people, and quite possibly some of his activities will be net-positive even if not optimal.
A few other odds and ends that may or may not be interesting to some:
A small part of Soweto in Google Maps. (Soweto's very big and sprawling; this section shows Chris-Hani Baragwanath Hospital in the bottom right - a huge state-run hospital, some sources claim it's the biggest hospital in the world, although that's a claim I'd say "[citation needed]" for myself). To the top left is a now decommissioned power plant, the two towers of which dominate a large area of the Soweto skyline (and now painted with murals), I think the plant's now being converted into offices or something. A little bit further in the 'top right' direction you'll see some huge mine dumps which prominently lie between Soweto and Johannesburg, from Joburg's 'mining heydays' when much of the world's gold came from here. (Trees and plants don't grow properly on them, due to some or other important mineral that is missing from the mining process, so they look quite bare; IIRC they have to be specially treated to get stuff to grow on them.)
For those not too familiar with Africa's geography, Soweto is in South Africa, the same country that the founder of Ubuntu (Mark Shuttleworth) is from.
Nelson Mandela had a house in Soweto, it's now a big tourist attraction; I think Google Earth pinpoints it. There are several other major tourist spots, such as the Hector Pieterson memorial (named for the first victim when police shot at protesting schoolchildren, triggering the 1976 Soweto Uprising).
Traffic is hell getting in and out, especially at rush hour; the province (Gauteng, which actually means 'place of Gold' in a local African language) is, more or less, a vibrant industrial economic area accounting for between 25% and 39% of Africa's GDP.
It's an interesting place with an amazing vibe, but it's not for everyone, and not for the meek (um, I briefly had a gf in Soweto, that's why I know too much about it - something else that was illegal in the old South Africa, under the so-called "Morality Act" IIRC;).
He said he has seen those failings first-hand on trips for Microsoft to places like the South African slum of Soweto
Having been there myself several times last year (it's not too far from where I live), I wouldn't really call Soweto a failure of capitalism. It arose primarily under the old apartheid system as a collection of around 30 "black townships" (roughly = "black ghettos"), and the system for the blacks was basically an oppressive fascist police state, while for the whites, at best socialist (e.g. major industries like telecomms, electricity, television broadcasting, steel etc. were nationalised and quite tightly controlled). The Group Areas Act of old also forced certain races to live in certain areas, and other apartheid regulations specifically DID NOT ALLOW much freedom of trade or other commercial activity within black areas like Soweto - the blacks weren't really allowed to just, say, up and build a mall, noone was. That's not capitalism. That was just 14 or 15 years ago, basically.
Now, the current government is still a 'socialist' government - when the old government fell in 1994, the new one implemented a variety of "reforms" such as minimum wage and various welfare grants and "free electricity and water for all" programs, all of which did not exist before, that are certainly far more, um, typically associated with socialism than capitalism. On the other hand they reduced the level of nationalisation of businesses, privating or semi-privatising a number of major industries for example (some of those are disasters but for complete other reasons not relevant to this topic - also not failures of capitalism though). Nonetheless the current government can best be described as "centrist", pushing things neither too far to the right nor left - it is, loosely speaking, a 'free market system for most markets but with some socialist characteristics and a bit of crony capitalism' (not unlike the US), but has only been so for 14 odd years. For Soweto, many of the zoning and movement regulations have been lifted, which means that people and companies are now more free to invest and build etc. in Soweto, and anyone, including blacks are free to start, own, run and trade in any businesses. In spite of the relative poverty, with an estimated population between 1,000,000 and 4,000,000 people (who as a result of the old zoning regs used to have to travel miles to Joburg to buy various stuff), Soweto has a combined estimated annual retail buying power of about 4 billion Rand (roughly US$500million), and this IS currently attracting a lot of investment and development, particularly by the major black 'business elite' that has risen since 1994 --- there is currently loads of development going on - new malls are springing up, office parks are going up, gyms, even hotels and basic broadband infrastructure etc. are being built in Soweto.
So I wouldn't really call this a failure either - it's just the beginning, after all, just 14 years into a semi-capitalist system with mostly poor and poorly educated people, it's starting to turn into a veritable growing metropolis / city in its own right (albeit a dangerous crime-ridden one). Of course it could be going a lot better, but I don't think it can rightfully be called a "failure of capitalism". More like, new-born capitalism is starting to help fix the wreck of a socialist police state.
It should be noted that Soweto is NOT considered one of the "poorer" township areas. It's definitely poor, but compared to most other 'black townships', comparatively wealthy (e.g. almost all houses are brick - small and rundown, but brick, many roads are tarred etc., many streets have lighting and painted lines and there are proper police stations and hospitals and electricity and phone infrastructure - unlike the real poor, 'hardcore' townships like Umlazi and Alexandra which are really thousands of little shacks.)
I don't think the situation is necessarily quite as bad as you portray for 'your mom' and people like that, as many of those 'random' sites already render OK in different browsers, via whatever means (e.g. even if it's ugly hacks like browser detection followed by custom code and CSS, or other browsers supporting IE rendering quirks, they do)... with a Gecko-based browser in Linux, for example, I can use already use most websites with no problems, and most websites also work in Safari and Opera. Nonetheless, there are still a significant enough percentage of sites that *don't* work for it to still be annoying.
Of course, that doesn't mean they're all standards-based, and of course the ideal is to get them there. I have to agree with you, IF Microsoft is *genuinely* trying to become standards-compliant (you must forgive my cynicism, past behaviour is about the best predictor of future behaviour and they forfeited their right to 'benefit of the doubt' long ago, so they'll have to work hard to prove it to people like me who happen to do web development on occasion)... I digress... as I was saying, IF MS is genuinely trying to become standards-compliant, then indeed, I don't see too many other options available to steer the world out of this morass. A giant database of what all websites properly conform to? Hmm, no. A user-selectable option, well, I know plenty enough users probably far less knowledgeable than your mom who wouldn't have a clue. The only other option is using their dominant position to take a hard line - this would REALLY show me they're serious - if they stood up and said, listen, we are so intent on standards, that the default rendering mode will be standards-based, and you'll need to add a meta-tag for IE6/7 rendering. All the major, 'important' sites will definitely do that if needed (banking, news, etc.). That's also a more 'future-sensible' option, as it doesn't pollute with extra tags in the long run. All those companies that built specialised IE6-specific Intranets will have to update them to include the 'IE6/7' tag, or use standards.
Thing is, there are so many IE6/7s out there that we're going to still have to code for the damn things probably five years from now, if not longer (I know I should take a longer term view, of course, but I don't want to be doing websites forever). I Anyway, it would be nice if a little 'forceful persuasion' could be used to get the outdated people onto more standards-based browsers. But that's about as hopeless as getting them to select a user option... arg, indeed, there is no other way. The problem is all those sites out there that won't or can't be updated for whatever reasons to include my hypothetical 'IE6/7' tag -- and you can't just break half the Web. If there is a better way out, I don't see it.
Unfortunately IP-based blocking is *hopelessly* flawed for many reasons (dynamic IPs, transparent proxies etc.)... in some cases significant percentages of entire countries are routed through clusters of transparent proxies (and the headers behind that to determine 'actual' IP are not necessarily reliable, plus could contain private IPs etc.). There seems to be little one can really do about this kind of thing, short of modding the trolls down as quickly as possible into oblivion, and giving them as little attention as possible.
A more correct solution (and better IMO) would be to implement a user option in IE itself e.g. "IE6/7 compatibility for older pages", or something like that. Make the default standards-based, but for older pages users could just select that option. I suppose that'll be too complex for many 'less technically literate' users. But still, MS made this mess, they shouldn't expect others to have to deal with the fallout of fixing it, nor create still new MS-specific tags that the entire world has to use forever just because of their broken client; that reeks of arrogance to me.
Yes, I agree with you; I was only responding to what looked like some confused pre-emptive attempt to defend Microsoft and claim they'd never break apps at all --- or to attempt to purport a double-standard here --- or something, actually, no I still don't get it, even re-reading it, but I must be missing something because it's been modded insightful. Anyway, it's not like MS hasn't done this kind of thing before, they have, but if this Apple case was a genuine mistake, then fine, they should fix it and move on; if not, it's nonsense, but I don't see what Microsoft has to do with this at all. Microsoft surely shouldn't even enter into this discussion.
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Those 'loony', 'fantasy world' ideals you refer to also just happen to be the closest (amongst all candidates) to the (positive) ideals America was founded on, and those so-called 'revolutionary' ideas are not revolutionary at all, they would simply be a throwback to the not too distant past (the good bits, of course, not the bad bits). I don't know how so many people have lost sight of this, but RP's comparative popularity in spite of so obviously being sidelined seems to show that a significant percentage of Americans still probably at least have some intuitive grasp of this. It would be sad if this was soon lost because rabid masses who don't even understand the issues ran around calling such people "loonies" so much that those ideals become ever more sidelined and consigned to the fringes. I don't even know what you're referring to that could possibly be deemed "loony" - maybe you are just parroting a meme.
It's a thousand times easier to switch search engines than it is to switch OSs. Google grew very quickly (from nothing) BECAUSE it's such a fungible product and they were so much better. A better search engine could just as easily grab that share away again. (You can't argue 'but, but, value of Google brand' either because Google's brand only became valuable after their search engine became popular, people don't get locked into "brands". And in any case, MS and Yahoo both have well-known brands.)
In any case, Google's product isn't a search engine, it's online advertising. And also, in any case, it is pretty much hard to argue that Google gained their search monopoly by making the best mousetrap, and that Microsoft gained their Windows monopoly by strategy, lock-in, user ignorance and marketing. It doesn't invalidate anything, wtf!??!
Google's entire annual revenue fits into Microsoft's profit margin alone. Google is small compared to Microsoft. A little hard to be the 'big bully'. And unlike Microsoft's more diversified revenue stream, Google pretty much relies on one comparatively fragile market, online advertising, a market Microsoft wasn't even interested in until long after Google dmeonstrated it could be so lucrative.
If MS wants to beat Google at online marketing, they should offer better deals to affiliate sites and advertisers.
And you don't see that there's a huge element of "self-fulfilling prophecy" in this?
Or they can start by not buying them. You speak as though they are innocent victims of actions we're forcing upon them. What nonsense. Nobody is forcing them to buy anything.
If those African governments buying guns decided they wanted to instead spend all that money on, say, textbooks, I guarantee, the West would shut down some gun factories and start printing more books.
You also imply that the West is rich *because* Africa is poor, which economically is a complete load of bollocks, nobody in the West gets any richer when an African dies, only poorer.
And as someone else pointed out, pangas etc. are a far more common weapon used in Africa, maybe the innocent victims of panga attacks could use guns for self-defence. Oh, never thought of that, did you.
Wrong, democracy fails because the people don't actually want it. The majority of Islamic people WANT Sharia law, it's fundamental to Islam, and most probably wouldn't even see a problem with this death sentence. Muslims would *democratically* vote in Sharia law. In general in most nations people will vote away their own freedoms the first chance they get. It's terrible but it's the truth. The way you talk, you'd think these people are all poor innocent victims of a tiny fascist minority. This is what the majority want, and the tiny minority who want freedom are the victims.
Subsidies are indeed a huge problem for African farmers. Over the years, I've only found one argument in favour thereof that made me stop and go, hmm, yes, that makes sense, and that was that of food security. It will always (or at least, for the time being) be cheaper to grow food in places like Africa and import it into the US; if global free market forces were allowed to do their thing, it would essentially rout the US agricultural industry; the US would become a full services and manufacturing based economy that imported its food. This would mean that America would depend on random foreign countries (who are mostly easy to take over, I might add) for its most basic need - food - at that point there is an argument based on national security to retain domestic food production capabilities.
I'm certainly not saying its right, in fact I still think its wrong, but I can see that point of view. Perhaps some might argue this would prompt the US to help defend those countries it does rely on for food, which may in turn help everyone more - the US would get cheaper food, and those countries would get more security, which would in turn improve their economies further, 'everyone wins'. But it'll always be harder and riskier helping defend some large foreign territory than your homeland. I wish I could see a way out.
Food 'aid' is another related problem, that should be gotten rid of.
It's true, I have a 2GHz Core 2 Duo system with 2GB RAM, and Vista (apart from breaking several major apps, and having problems with even simple things like USB flash drives) has made this machine painfully slow. Deleting even one file, it first does all this 'calculating' for a couple seconds, then 'delete' progresses another second or two more, and then it winds down for the next second or two ... it's retarded. Don't buy the arguments that throwing RAM at Vista will make it fast.
And while we're on the topic, please stop overusing the word "zealot" to apply to anyone who believes anything strongly and fervently and seemingly irrationally. You probably have not ever even MET any actual zealots. That word should really be reserved for the kind of people who e.g. blow up abortion clinics or churches or beat up gays in the street etc., not just as a random insult for anyone you don't like or disagree with.
rage filled rantings and crazed indignation
Wow, THAT BAD, huh?
I don't think you know what "intolerance" really, truly means. Clearly you've never experienced or even observed it. Hint, it's not 'disagreeing with someone', no matter how strongly or fervently they disagree or how poor their arguments might be for doing so.
Zzz .. wake me atheists start blowing up churches, burning crosses on your front lawn, stringing people up, or beating up random Christians in the street, etc. ... come to think of it, I don't think I've ever even heard of that happening, and if it has, it would have been so exceptional and anomalous that it precisely disproves your point of atheists being intolerant.
Who is hurt by having a Geiger counter?
Well, you could hit someone over the head with it!
Nah, seriously, I think such a law is a complete joke, it's not just absurd, it's an affront to liberty, although I suppose most people aren't bothered with that concept these days.
At the absolute most extreme, they could perhaps consider requiring, at most, 'warnings' on uncertified devices, kind of like with cigarettes. Even that's a stretch. But banning possession or even manufacture? That kind of thing always smells like corruption to me, it's market protection ... who stands to benefit? Current manufacturers of geiger counters etc., neatly protected from competition by lower cost devices. In the name of "protecting the public", of course.
Under whose definition of "libertarian" did you deduce that there would be no government enforcement? Libertarianism doesn't mean "no government" - that's "anarchy". Libertarianism is, effectively, 'minimal government required to maintain law and order', and that would include contract law.
I think your straw-man is called "anarchism" and not "libertarian". Big difference.
Contracts and terms of service are also allowed (if I'm not mistaken) in libertarian systems --- at least, last I checked. What GP is confusing libertarianism (minimal government) with is "anarchy" (i.e. basically "everyone does whatever they want and there's no government").
... that makes people lose respect for a general system that does actually have merit (when not abused).
Isn't it more likely corruption?
It's not the product that is art, it's the process and the producer that makes it art.
So if you find a painting in an old attic, and nobody has a clue who made it or why, it's not art? That doesn't really make sense.
Art CAN just "be a pretty picture", or whatever. Or do you think it's only art if it's created as a premise for the embodiment or expression of some other philosophical values? The conclusion of this line of thinking reduces art to mere symbols almost arbitrarily associated with a discourse that lives outside them (e.g. Modern Art); I don't buy that. (Unfortunately in reality this viewpoint is manipulated as a tool to drive speculation and inflate the value of pieces.)
you benefit by continuing to have a job
Exactly; in fact, if you were NOT benefiting, "nobody's holding a gun to your head, there's the door" --- you must be benefiting because you choose to stay. If you would benefit more by leaving, you would. (GP might argue "but I have to work to eat" - well, now you *can* eat, that is certainly a benefit to you; we weren't born into this world with a right to food, we were born into a dangerous bush with wild animals that ate us and scarce food, moreover, if you claim a right to food, *somebody* has to work to grow that food for you, if it is your "right" (i.e. government enforces someone grow food and give it to you) then you effectively subjugating as a kind of 'slave' the poor food-grower.)
Anyway, if GP wants to buy his daughter a $65K car (or whatever), he is free to attempt to negotiate with IBM a threefold salary increase. IBM is free to either accept the kind offer, or say no thank you, there's another guy over there who will do the same for less. If there are lots of other other guys who can do your job for less, it means your labour/contribution is genuinely just not that valuable.
It remains that you have a right to organise labour, e.g. unions, and attempt to use collective bargaining (suppliers remain free to 'say no' and may even go under if no alternate labour is available - a huge risk, I might add, that your boss's boss takes on and NOT you, and which may be a hint as to why you might not quite deserve to be able to buy lots of cars for the hell of it); the writer's strike is in fact a demonstration that the system 'works', so to speak.
I'm not saying there aren't some worrying inequities and imbalances in the system, but many of these are caused not by the problems of free markets, but by NOT ENOUGH free markets. Excessive CEO bonuses means the labour supply for good CEOs is low (hint: become a CEO, if you can do as well, you can also get those bonuses - chairpeople would always welcome a better CEO, it's not some conspiracy, because they would benefit). You could also increase your ownership stake in companies by investing more of your cash instead of buying toys like iPods, and struggling for years (like many of those board members did to get where they are, I guarantee you). I'm a bit tired of all these people who natter about how they're being 'oppressed' and 'enslaved' by 'big corporates' - come on, we haven't quite reached that level yet. What laws did "IBM write"? OK, maybe some 'patent reform laws', hardly makes them slavemasters.
I must say I'm trying hard not to be cynical about this, but I think you might be right, it looks too much like PR and doesn't make enough sense to really be what it appears to be. He doesn't seem to be calling for a 'kindler gentler' anything so much as he seems to be calling for people to realise that he's really 'a swell guy who *cares* for the poor and improving the world and therefore it makes sense to buy whatever he's selling - I mean, his intentions are good, right?'. But it almost like the doublespeak of politicians who preach a socialist platform to the masses primarily because it sounds good to them, they know it's what people want to hear and will win them support. It's like you're not supposed to analyse what he's actually saying to see if it really makes sense, you're just supposed to get a general 'feeling' about it and the feeling conveyed is one of positivity and some intelligent helpful ideas.
I'm not saying he's devoid of good intentions, of course, probably some part of him believes what he's saying and wants to help people, and quite possibly some of his activities will be net-positive even if not optimal.
A few other odds and ends that may or may not be interesting to some:
A small part of Soweto in Google Maps. (Soweto's very big and sprawling; this section shows Chris-Hani Baragwanath Hospital in the bottom right - a huge state-run hospital, some sources claim it's the biggest hospital in the world, although that's a claim I'd say "[citation needed]" for myself). To the top left is a now decommissioned power plant, the two towers of which dominate a large area of the Soweto skyline (and now painted with murals), I think the plant's now being converted into offices or something. A little bit further in the 'top right' direction you'll see some huge mine dumps which prominently lie between Soweto and Johannesburg, from Joburg's 'mining heydays' when much of the world's gold came from here. (Trees and plants don't grow properly on them, due to some or other important mineral that is missing from the mining process, so they look quite bare; IIRC they have to be specially treated to get stuff to grow on them.)
For those not too familiar with Africa's geography, Soweto is in South Africa, the same country that the founder of Ubuntu (Mark Shuttleworth) is from.
Nelson Mandela had a house in Soweto, it's now a big tourist attraction; I think Google Earth pinpoints it. There are several other major tourist spots, such as the Hector Pieterson memorial (named for the first victim when police shot at protesting schoolchildren, triggering the 1976 Soweto Uprising).
Traffic is hell getting in and out, especially at rush hour; the province (Gauteng, which actually means 'place of Gold' in a local African language) is, more or less, a vibrant industrial economic area accounting for between 25% and 39% of Africa's GDP.
It's an interesting place with an amazing vibe, but it's not for everyone, and not for the meek (um, I briefly had a gf in Soweto, that's why I know too much about it - something else that was illegal in the old South Africa, under the so-called "Morality Act" IIRC ;).
He said he has seen those failings first-hand on trips for Microsoft to places like the South African slum of Soweto
Having been there myself several times last year (it's not too far from where I live), I wouldn't really call Soweto a failure of capitalism. It arose primarily under the old apartheid system as a collection of around 30 "black townships" (roughly = "black ghettos"), and the system for the blacks was basically an oppressive fascist police state, while for the whites, at best socialist (e.g. major industries like telecomms, electricity, television broadcasting, steel etc. were nationalised and quite tightly controlled). The Group Areas Act of old also forced certain races to live in certain areas, and other apartheid regulations specifically DID NOT ALLOW much freedom of trade or other commercial activity within black areas like Soweto - the blacks weren't really allowed to just, say, up and build a mall, noone was. That's not capitalism. That was just 14 or 15 years ago, basically.
Now, the current government is still a 'socialist' government - when the old government fell in 1994, the new one implemented a variety of "reforms" such as minimum wage and various welfare grants and "free electricity and water for all" programs, all of which did not exist before, that are certainly far more, um, typically associated with socialism than capitalism. On the other hand they reduced the level of nationalisation of businesses, privating or semi-privatising a number of major industries for example (some of those are disasters but for complete other reasons not relevant to this topic - also not failures of capitalism though). Nonetheless the current government can best be described as "centrist", pushing things neither too far to the right nor left - it is, loosely speaking, a 'free market system for most markets but with some socialist characteristics and a bit of crony capitalism' (not unlike the US), but has only been so for 14 odd years. For Soweto, many of the zoning and movement regulations have been lifted, which means that people and companies are now more free to invest and build etc. in Soweto, and anyone, including blacks are free to start, own, run and trade in any businesses. In spite of the relative poverty, with an estimated population between 1,000,000 and 4,000,000 people (who as a result of the old zoning regs used to have to travel miles to Joburg to buy various stuff), Soweto has a combined estimated annual retail buying power of about 4 billion Rand (roughly US$500million), and this IS currently attracting a lot of investment and development, particularly by the major black 'business elite' that has risen since 1994 --- there is currently loads of development going on - new malls are springing up, office parks are going up, gyms, even hotels and basic broadband infrastructure etc. are being built in Soweto.
So I wouldn't really call this a failure either - it's just the beginning, after all, just 14 years into a semi-capitalist system with mostly poor and poorly educated people, it's starting to turn into a veritable growing metropolis / city in its own right (albeit a dangerous crime-ridden one). Of course it could be going a lot better, but I don't think it can rightfully be called a "failure of capitalism". More like, new-born capitalism is starting to help fix the wreck of a socialist police state.
It should be noted that Soweto is NOT considered one of the "poorer" township areas. It's definitely poor, but compared to most other 'black townships', comparatively wealthy (e.g. almost all houses are brick - small and rundown, but brick, many roads are tarred etc., many streets have lighting and painted lines and there are proper police stations and hospitals and electricity and phone infrastructure - unlike the real poor, 'hardcore' townships like Umlazi and Alexandra which are really thousands of little shacks.)
I don't think the situation is necessarily quite as bad as you portray for 'your mom' and people like that, as many of those 'random' sites already render OK in different browsers, via whatever means (e.g. even if it's ugly hacks like browser detection followed by custom code and CSS, or other browsers supporting IE rendering quirks, they do) ... with a Gecko-based browser in Linux, for example, I can use already use most websites with no problems, and most websites also work in Safari and Opera. Nonetheless, there are still a significant enough percentage of sites that *don't* work for it to still be annoying.
... I digress ... as I was saying, IF MS is genuinely trying to become standards-compliant, then indeed, I don't see too many other options available to steer the world out of this morass. A giant database of what all websites properly conform to? Hmm, no. A user-selectable option, well, I know plenty enough users probably far less knowledgeable than your mom who wouldn't have a clue. The only other option is using their dominant position to take a hard line - this would REALLY show me they're serious - if they stood up and said, listen, we are so intent on standards, that the default rendering mode will be standards-based, and you'll need to add a meta-tag for IE6/7 rendering. All the major, 'important' sites will definitely do that if needed (banking, news, etc.). That's also a more 'future-sensible' option, as it doesn't pollute with extra tags in the long run. All those companies that built specialised IE6-specific Intranets will have to update them to include the 'IE6/7' tag, or use standards.
... arg, indeed, there is no other way. The problem is all those sites out there that won't or can't be updated for whatever reasons to include my hypothetical 'IE6/7' tag -- and you can't just break half the Web. If there is a better way out, I don't see it.
Of course, that doesn't mean they're all standards-based, and of course the ideal is to get them there. I have to agree with you, IF Microsoft is *genuinely* trying to become standards-compliant (you must forgive my cynicism, past behaviour is about the best predictor of future behaviour and they forfeited their right to 'benefit of the doubt' long ago, so they'll have to work hard to prove it to people like me who happen to do web development on occasion)
Thing is, there are so many IE6/7s out there that we're going to still have to code for the damn things probably five years from now, if not longer (I know I should take a longer term view, of course, but I don't want to be doing websites forever). I Anyway, it would be nice if a little 'forceful persuasion' could be used to get the outdated people onto more standards-based browsers. But that's about as hopeless as getting them to select a user option
Unfortunately IP-based blocking is *hopelessly* flawed for many reasons (dynamic IPs, transparent proxies etc.) ... in some cases significant percentages of entire countries are routed through clusters of transparent proxies (and the headers behind that to determine 'actual' IP are not necessarily reliable, plus could contain private IPs etc.). There seems to be little one can really do about this kind of thing, short of modding the trolls down as quickly as possible into oblivion, and giving them as little attention as possible.
A more correct solution (and better IMO) would be to implement a user option in IE itself e.g. "IE6/7 compatibility for older pages", or something like that. Make the default standards-based, but for older pages users could just select that option. I suppose that'll be too complex for many 'less technically literate' users. But still, MS made this mess, they shouldn't expect others to have to deal with the fallout of fixing it, nor create still new MS-specific tags that the entire world has to use forever just because of their broken client; that reeks of arrogance to me.
Yes, I agree with you; I was only responding to what looked like some confused pre-emptive attempt to defend Microsoft and claim they'd never break apps at all --- or to attempt to purport a double-standard here --- or something, actually, no I still don't get it, even re-reading it, but I must be missing something because it's been modded insightful. Anyway, it's not like MS hasn't done this kind of thing before, they have, but if this Apple case was a genuine mistake, then fine, they should fix it and move on; if not, it's nonsense, but I don't see what Microsoft has to do with this at all. Microsoft surely shouldn't even enter into this discussion.