Naturally somebody who has done years of OpenGL without understanding what exactly it is abstracting is going to find Vulkan difficult but that is simply because your view of how 3D graphics pipelines work is limited to what you see in the API, meanwhile the hardware that is being abstracted has changed so much that your view is completely wrong now and the API is horribly inefficient because the OpenGL machine description isn't representative of modern hardware.
You keep using the word "abstraction" without apparently understanding what it means. Which is why I asked you the question about what your understanding of the word is, and why it is important.
Furthermore, you don't seem to understand that model OpenGL has moved away from a State Machine oriented model into an object-based buffer model. The performance of modern OpenGL is horrible if you don't know what you are doing and making LOTS of inefficient calls. The 'zero driver overhead' goal is to enable this relatively inefficient style of coding to be less painful (thus enabling some effects that are otherwise expensive). The OpenGL is not "horribly" ineffecient, just less efficient for some operations while being the same or MORE efficient in others. I've already referenced you to benchmarks on this.
With regard to "understanding". As a physicist I understand the hardware at the transistor-level (and the physics of MOSFETS). As a driver writer I understand hardware devices from the kernel level. As an application developer I understand them from the "end-user" of the development chain level. I think Vulkan is broken not because I don't understand what it is trying to do, nor because I don't want to learn anything new, but because the Vulkan *design* forces more work on the developer for what has proven to be a marginal increase in performance in a limited number of cases. I'm simply pointing out that the designers of the spec have produced something that I think will fail to met their objectives and be widely adopted by the mainstream development community. This is what you seem to fail to be able to grok. I *AM* the target audience for Vulkan - and from what I've seen I think it is a step backwards in terms of design. As a result, the risk of porting my product to it is too high, because I don't perceive great longevity in this API - hence I see it as a strategic mistake to move to it, and I am sure many others see this too. At least, not while the good-enough OpenGL model is still around and still progressing.
It's a bit intellectually dishonest to suggest you cannot answer my questions without me first answering these. Clearly mine are very specific and don't need answers to your questions to be able to answer them.
False. My objects are about *design* and *level of abstraction*. You seem to think that these are not concerns for the success of a product. You also don't seem to grok what the word "abstraction" means and why APIs exist at all. You appear to be unable to separate concerns for what a driver is supposed to do verses what an API is supposed to do. Hence, your questions are at the wrong level of abstraction and you are unable to shift gears mentally to address them.
The problem that you seem to want to ignore - because learning something new is too hard - is that OpenGL is a mess of antiquated cruft that is no longer representative of the underlying hardware.
Again you don't understand the purpose of an API. The API is NOT supposed to represent the hardware. It is supposed to allow control of the hardware, relatively efficiently. The driver is the abstraction for the hardware - you keep mixing up the functions of a driver and the application API without seeming to understand the roles. And as I have stated, I have no problem learning something new - but NOT for its own sake (I have more than enough to do creating my product) and not do re-writes for marginal improvement in a limited number of areas at
No, I do not believe the Free Market is the ideal, nor do I believe one can realistically exist any more than a pure democracy or communism.
Prey tell, what do you consider a better ideal than a Free Market based on **voluntary** (and thus, moral) exchange for perceived win-win ? You prefer involuntary (and thus, immoral) win-lose exchanges, such as the system called 'socialism' ?
And there are any number of reasons this country is going to hell but regulation probably is near the bottom of the list.
An alleged independent businessman as yourself wants *more* regulation? ROFL! you are too funny, and rather transparent. But please enlighten us all how your country is not hampered by regulation and how removing regulation would harm the country? I cannot wait to hear this.
Feel free to identify this wonderful land so that we may all feel inferior to your paradise - unless, of course, you feel that we might not agree with you.
I've a better idea. Name an index and I'll tell you whether my country is better or worse than yours. On pretty-much everything except purchasing power parity and military power we're vastly better than the USA. Lower corruption, greater social cohesion, happier populace, lower inequality, debt to GDP, gun crime, broadband availability and speeds, etc. The USA is indeed a very great country, but the smartest and richest people from the USA have been buying up massive estates in my country because once you have made your money in the USA life is MUCH better here.
Let me also add that this country isn't "going to hell" any more than most of the rest of them are - so it would be appreciated if we could keep this discussion inside the bounds of reality.
Yes, when you say "most" this is true. My country is one of the few NOT going to hell - because it follows the policies I'm talking about, and not the ones you are talking about. You are so certain that what you strongly believe in now is the only possible course of action - you are delusional in your ignorance and your bad temper and arrogance is keeping you blind.
No, it's not regulations and even the fact that you would say that shows you have no idea what you're talking about.
Compliance costs money. A LOT of money. This is what makes straightforward things *unnecessarily* expensive - reducing coverage.
But living in Mythical Land, you also are astute enough to understand that if you don't build out a sustainable business model, your competitor will immediately open up and take those more profitable locations. Of course, this gives him the competitive advantage seeing as he is making more per customer (ARPU) and since he is far more profitable than you, he is now capable of building out faster than you are while also controlling the more profitable locat
In 2015 Finland accepted 15,000 more asylum seekers at a cost of EU 15,000 per head. That works out to EU 225 million *more* in 2015 due to some legitimate asylum seekers mixed in with a lot of opportunistic economic migrants: http://sputniknews.com/europe/...
Imagine if a portion of that money had gone to existing citizens instead - and the asylum seekers kept closer to their point of origin while receiving the other portion for their care - it's cheaper to help them closer to their point of origin, like in a neighboring country.
Too bad the politicians and bureaucrats in the West always consider their own citizens and tax payers last when deciding where to spend money taken from those very same tax payers.
Ok, I'll provide answers to your questions, if needed, but we have to get over a conceptual hurdle first. Ok?
Also, we are both on the same team. We both love 3D, we both like OpenGL and what it stands for (portable high-performance graphics) and want it to succeed. We both want great performance. And most of all, we want other people to also use this excellent technologies. Amirite?
Ok, so our (friendly) debate is simply about which has the greater priority: ease-of-use, verses to-the-metal performance. Yes? we are simply debating which is more important.
So my questions for you, which need to be addressed before I can answer your more specific questions, are:
1) What is a the goal of an API ? as in, why use an API rather than assembly where you get maximum control and maximum performance?
2) What is the meaning of the word "abstraction", and why is it important?
3) Does time-to-market matter (enabled by abstraction), or is absolutely raw performance more important?
4) Are there other ways to solve the driver-overhead problem, besides making the application programmer think closer to the hardware?
5) If things are not easy (Einstein's, "As Simple As Possible, But No Simpler"), and new users find the technology too much effort to learn, then what is the point?
6) Is the principle purpose of an API to make the API-author's life easier, or the user's life easier?
7) If an API is successful then hundreds of thousands of application developers will use it, are all these more likely to understand how to make the correct series of optimized calls compared to the driver writer who knows the hardware AND API intimately?
8) Are driver writers really more important than end users? really?
Like I said, the arguments you have advanced were all made before at the application level, between assembly and C/C++, and then again between C++ and Java/C#. It turns out that given enough time, the compiler writers and compilers can do a better job for almost all sections of code than most developers - mainly because time-to-market is main measure of success for any software (software projects don't fail because of the technology, but because the stakeholders abandoned it reached the market/users). Great design is about *simplicity* (that ASAPBUNS - "As Simple As Possible, But No Simpler") for the *end user*.
I don't know if you are a Khronos member who has an emotional interest in this - so my apologies if I have offended you, because I appreciate the great work those guys are doing - and how they are moving OpenGL forward. All I'm saying is the success of an API has a lower weighting on raw performance and a greater weighting on ease-of-use and *longevity* (the latter being OpenGL's strength).
Looking at Vulkan I get shudders. In terms of implementation if may well be more efficient. In terms of API *****design***** what I've seen is AWFUL. It is nearly as bad as Microsoft APIs. Seriously.
Perhaps this comes from my mindset. I have a PhD in Physics (specifically, Astrophysics). I'm used to complexity. But the best approach to complexity is to take a reductionist stance and try to simplify ruthlessly. This is opposite to the 'computer science' mindset who talk about 'simplicity' but they make things far more complicated than they need to - except for some exception individuals who are actually good at API design. IMHO, and I fully appreciate it is merely my opinion, Vulkan is headed in the wrong direction. Hence I predict it'll go the way of Mantle and Metal. A few enthusiastic people will use it - but the greater simplicity of OpenGL probably means Vulkan will be seen as a misstep and after a few years will be slowly abandoned (like so many APIs before which promise great things but fail in terms of simplicity of design - prioritizing driver writers over end-users is a serious fail, and shows how bad at usable design the Vulkan authors are although they may be great computer scientists).
Why exactly? Take glUniform calls for example, having the driver create its own buffer to copy that data into and then transfer that to the GPU memory is far less efficient than having the application map to the GPU directly.
Double-handling is bad. However, the most modern programming languages are multi-threaded and you can't just give application memory to hardware without a rigmarole of pinning memory (to stop a garbage collector from moving memory around during compaction - which is fine with applications but not to give to hardware). And the performance from multi-threading is worth it - hence playing nicely with a application-level garbage collector should be considered in the design of any modern API.
The black box of the driver means that when you allocate memory on the GPU you don't know how much it is using, worse still if it fails and you get an GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY error, which could mean a few different things. Do you have no system or GPU memory left? How much do you need to free up? Instead of that you allocate the memory rather than telling the driver to do it, you already specify pretty much all the parameters when you do it in OpenGL anyway.
I have never, ever seen GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY, and I've been doing this a long time. The current OpenGL drivers are very good at managing memory, far better than most application developers. Pushing driver-level memory management to application developers is a design failure, AFAICS, as I will comment on below.
It's not about having the application developer do more, it's about having the driver do less and more closely mapping the application's resource usage to the GPU instead of the driver acting as an intermediate layer. You know how long you need memory for so why allow the driver to make assumptions about it?
It *is* about the application developer do more. That is the upshot of the API changes. Consider what it is like for people coming to OpenGL for the first time - the number of concepts that must be acquired to load a shader and render a simple 3D line or bitmap is horrendous and FAR greater than earlier OpenGL versions. The OpenGL designers have failed, and Khronos is heading completely in the wrong direction, IMHO.
it's about having the driver do less and more closely mapping the application's resource usage to the GPU instead of the driver acting as an intermediate layer.
This is the same argument for working in assembly. In this day and age it is ridiculous. Furthermore, you end up doing exactly what OpenGL was designed to avoid - writing lots of code paths for different GPU classes. This is a step backward. The ENTIRE POINT of OpenGL is to have the driver act as a hardware abstraction, and the driver writer (who is an expert in the hardware) can write optimizations so that the hundreds of thousands of application developers using OpenGL don't have to. You have the raison d'etre of OpenGL completely backward.
You know how long you need memory for so why allow the driver to make assumptions about it?
There are existing mechanisms to indicate when a buffer is no longer needed at the application level. Then the OpenGL driver decides when it is best to reclaim the memory. If the GPU architecture changes, different decisions can be made by the *driver writer* and not by the application developer. That is the point of any hardware abstraction layer.
Maintaining useless, inefficient cruft that complicates the API is a burden on maintainers and those wishing to learn, why have a multitude of ways to do the same thing? That's just a mess.
Drivers will always have to include shader compilers and/or shader bytecode interpreters - which are much more complex than simple API utilities to make application developer's life easier. Your argument is nonsense, but was put forth by phone manufacturers who wanted to skimp to create
The problem here is the OpenGL driver model, ultimately the real performance gains are around application-specific changes to the behavior of the driver - specifically resource management - so you end up with a monolithic driver that has a lot of application-specific code in it. Vulkan alleviates this by putting this in the hands of the application developer rather than having to rely on the driver.
IMHO this is also a mistake. Having the application developer do driver-level resource management is a fail, IMHO. I like APIs that operate on two levels: one level is the low-level stuff, where you are required to make every decision (Vulkan); then you have another part of the *same* API that has convenience methods for very common things that nearly every application needs (as OpenGL does). Pushing more work to the application developer just so the driver developer can do less is a fail and will result in lower adoption. Isn't convenience and high adoption the goal?
Consider the case for new developers who want to use all the convenience methods of OpenGL 1 and 2, but these were stripped out in OpenGL 4 for the benefit of driver writers. This seemed like a big mistake to me, and arises from a loss of perspective from the spec stewards.
Who are you kidding? If we are going to be honest about this subject, how about if we agree that there never has been anything even close to resembling a free market.
True in that all we see are considered by economists to be "Hampered Free Markets" on one degree or another. But isn't a Free Market the ideal? sure, Government is required to regulate some aspects to preserve competition - but that is not what is seen in the USA. You can't say the USA has a "light touch" regulatory environment, which is why your country is going to hell. An entrepreneur cannot open a lemonade stand in California without requiring 29 permits. You think that is ideal? you think pushing back against this insanity is "not being in the real world" ?
Sure, Somalia is a libertarian paradise. As I know you're just dying to move there and put your money where your mouth is, I won't hold you up any longer.
I wouldn't live there, because I live in a country that is better than Somalia and the USA. But would the Somalians be any better off with more Government? NO! the problem in Somalia is Islamic jihad and Sharia supremacism - nothing to do with the "libertarian paradise" you despise.
I believe in a correctly regulated market, one that levels the playing field.
So do I. The true question is "how much" regulation? I say "less is more". That is why the meme is "Limited Government", NOT "Zero Government" (Anarchy), and you push in your strawman fallacy.
Sure, you run your business along those lines and get back to me as to how that works out long term.
How much profit do you need? once you are profitable you can trade extra profit for other things - supporting your community through *voluntary* charity, for example (as I do). Hence your statement about "squeezing the customer for every last drop of blood we can get, we damn well do it." is utter nonsense. You are being incredibly silly - which leads readers to question your credibility.
Today's quasi-deregulated insanity allows for - get this - one level of broadband in one neighborhood and literally across the street it isn't available.
Is it the REGULATIONS that prevent both sides of the street from being serviced? that is the usual case. There is much work getting to the street, doubling the customer base by doing both sides of a street is not a great additional cost. Again you are being silly.
What color is the sky in your reality? Well there son, how about you pack all of that bullshit and move to a country where you earned income can roam free. Do it, many of us will even chip in to pay for that one way ticket.
As I have said, repeatedly, I and not in the USA. You appear to have impaired reading comprehension. I can repeat this for you as many times as necessary. And as I have also said, the people of my country have benefited *enormously* from avoiding the very model you are promoting - at the moment there is an explosion in choice for cellular and data communications that was not possible when central government tightly regulated everything. Do we regulate? sure - but only in the way of improving competition. The path you are arguing for is failing you, and will make things WORSE for you. This is the reality of my nation's experience talking. But you are so angry you cannot think straight.
And, for the record, when faced with the opportunity to "taking" taxpayer money, I turned it down - multiple times. I should probably add that I did so for reasons very different than what you'd probably think but you'd probably have a hard time believing it anyway.
Good for you. It is pleasing to hear that your "squeezing the customer for every last drop of blood we can get, we damn well do it." (which would including taking the wealth the State took at gunpoint from your fellow citizens - if profit was indeed yo
Thanks for posting. The interesting thing about the Metal framework is that it is a mixed bag of performance compared to OpenGL. In some areas there are performance benefits, but there are also losses. http://arstechnica.com/apple/2...
Given the time required to build and maintain great products (the longer you keep something going, the more money you can make) I personally feel that "portability is THE killer feature". Hence I prefer OpenGL compared to Metal. Developing only for Apple is a losing proposition - especially for something as resource hungry as a modern jet combat simulation (which Apple has inferior hardware for anyway, sadly).
It's great if you're targeting a narrow hardware range because you can now optimize specifically for it but we've had this at the vendor level before (S3, 3Dfx, nVidia, ATi, PowerVR, Matrox, 3DLabs, etc.) and it was a nightmare. Even if the application supported your card that didn't mean it supported it particularly well, or as well as other cards. So picking a graphics card was less about how powerful the card was and more about how popular it was with developers.
The point of OpenGL is you *don't* do this. The point of Metal is you do (and you have to lots of work).
With AMD opening up the GPU it means the OpenGL driver writers can squeeze more performance out, without the application developer having to do the low-level work. This is the model I personally prefer.
Thanks, you have a nice day too. I'm not a reader of Rand - I just look at the economics of optimization. This is simply a matter of balancing short-term tax take and long-term tax take, and finding the optimum constraint conditions. It should be simple for people to consider this - but no, because out cultures have been marinated in cultural Marxism for a century it turns out that "common sense" is not so common. Hence, I burn karma trying to share some new perspectives for my fellow Slashdotters.
I recommend you check out "Yuri Bezmenov" on YouTube. He's an ex-KGB guy that explains *exactly* why you think the way you do - how you've been lied to your whole life, and now the population of the West is unable to see straight (all the while thinking they are doing good). If you prefer book form them Lt Gen Ion Mihai Pacepa's "Disinformation" corroborates this story (Pacepa was the highest-ranked defector to the West during the Cold War). Not only will you start to see through the Matrix around you, you also get to understand who killed JFK, from the *inside* (it's quite simple really - and obvious once explained - the Conspiracy Theories are the conspiracy to cover the truth, as you will see).
I simply ask you to think about the mathematics of constraint optimization, and balancing short-term extraction versus long-term growth and which results in the greatest production in the long term. To get away from the cultural Marxist disinformation in economics perhaps you could think about fish population: take a lot more fish in the short term (overfishing), or take less fish in order to grow the fish stocks - and this latter strategy results in a sustainable system that produces more fish overall. This is the Republican/Tea Party argument.
Now I agree that the Republicans (especially the 'Establishment' Republicans) and Tea Party have their fair share of hypocrites (just like the Democrats, who work to further the interests of their Billionaire donors, eg. Warren Buffet setting Democrat policy to block of Keystone XL so he can get more money from his railroad investments in moving oil - the corruption is vile). However I recommend that when you judge Republican and Tea Party policy you get it from the source, just as you ought to get Democrat policy directly from Hillary Clinton etc. It is good to *also* read critiques from their opponents, but that should not be your only source. This is simply the Scientific Method applied to economics (and, unfortunately, the inextricable politics).
What is clear, is that Big Government/bureaucracy/politicians/crony corporates are not your friend and it have their own agendas that only occasionally coincide with that of the Free citizen. The Free People of the World have to realize that Government only gets money and power by taking those from citizens. Governments don't create prosperity and tolerance/liberty, citizens do! Government is a necessary evil, but they are still evil and need to be kept on a tight leash. This is necessary for the liberty and prosperity of all human beings.
Agree with me or not, please keep thinking about this. I'm not your enemy. I'm trying to give you a perspective from someone who thinks I can decide how to live my life much better than wasteful and insatiable bureaucracies lead by self-selecting sociopaths ("politicians") can. Thank you at least for reading my posts without resorting to "TL". I commend you for that.
Peace, prosperity and most-important of all, *Liberty* to you.
As an indie game developer this is fantastic news. I hope Apple also make good use of this, the Apple OpenGL drivers run at about half the speed of AMD's
Windows OpenGL drivers on the same hardware (a recent Mac Pro with dual D700s under OS X and Bootcamp-ed to Windows).
Hopefully it also means that Open Source folks (FSM bless 'em) will also improve the install process for AMD/ATI drivers on Linux, if not the performance.
This is great news for those working in real time 3D.
This is the dumb Big Government solution that the US always goes to these days. I wonder how much of your USF goes into administration? based on normal Government programs it will be at least 60%.
In my country the Government simply said that ISPs will not be allowed to operate in (profitable) cities unless they also connect up (marginally profitable) country sites too. The cost is part of the regular broadband charge for everyone, no extra and wasteful Government bureaucracy is invented to handle the processing, and because the costs are explicit for the consumer the companies must then compete on price - reducing waste. It is true that some taxpayer money is used thanks to lobbying (grrrrrrrr!), but the system as a whole is vastly better than the USA's Big Government Federal Feeding Trough approach.
See how other countries are solving their problems in ways better than "More tax! More Federal Regulation!". The USA has a mythology of being a Wild West Free Market, but in fact it is nearly as socialist as avowedly-socialistic Canada (and considerably more corrupt).
In my country, the Government wants to foster competition (unlike the corrupt Federal Government of the USA). So it ensures that all communications companies can get access. Most trunk cable is laid along or under highways that are owned by the State, so this is a non-issue. Laying the 'last mile' cable is also a non-issue that no-body has ever opposed. Your argument is nonsense - at least in the First World (which is the USA is exiting thanks to the ineptitude of its Big Government and the unfunded liabilities your bloated entitlement madness has crippled your future with).
The choice of the food you buy is voluntary. The modern West is the first civilization in history where the poor are so rich that obesity is their number one problem. Think about it.
What a cheap form of entertainment so you don't kill yourself from a boring life? You need the Internet(almost all other forms of entertainment is more expensive and entertainment is required for to be psychologically healthy).
Nonsense. Walk to the beach or a park and get some exercise. This is vastly more healthy than hanging around on the Internet whinging pathetically how the State should extort more money from productive people using the threat of coersive force. Hell, go and help your community instead of demanding others do it for you. Sounds like you lack imagination, amigo.
And yes, you have a great deal of choice - even if you are not aware of it.
Pure ad hominem. Of course, you must do this because you cannot refute the economic FACT: decreasing tax rates from the current levels of most countries produces a greater total tax take over the long term. The Republicans and Tea Party (for all their flaws) understand this. Statist Collectivists (Democrats and other Borg) do not. This is FACT - no matter how much you Borg drones try and deflect from the truth.
Ah, ok. Thanks for clarifying. I thought you mean illicit drugs. Yes, cronyism is only possible when governments and bureaucracies have the power to enable it.
"Capitalist textbook" ? you mean "Free Market"? "capitalist" is the Marxist word for the Free Market.
you would understand that only objective is to make money
No, the principal objective is to make *profit* - otherwise the business is unsustainable. But profit can be traded for market share, or social capital or a number of other things. You are not a very good businessman.
Oh, you live in Mythical land! Forgive me, I should have known. And much like Somalia, where infrastructure blossoms in the Spring sun along with the free medical care, your mythical country has free land for these companies which are unfettered by government to build their cable plant, fiber, and/or wireless on, which reduces their cost for such construction projects to nearly zero except for that free hardware.
The interesting thing about Somalia is how well it is growing economically in the absence of Government. Now, Islamic jihad is causing all sorts of problems, as is tribalism and corruption - but it is undeniable that in the absence of Government regulation entrepreneurs are getting on and doing all sorts of stuff. It is clear you are not up with the play with what is going on in Somalia at all.
But your post is completely confused - on one hand you advocate Big Government, and on the other hand you try to portray yourself as some kind of "uber-capitalist". I guess that dichotomy is resolve once we understand that you are a "cronyist" who wants to suck more money from taxpayers that is not gained through voluntary exchange for your service - but is taken through the threat of State violence. Yeah, that explains your position precisely.
Oh, and your "Mythical land" statements are just stupid. Just because you don't understand other countries that are leapfrogging the incompetence in the USA doesn't mean they don't exist.
Bullshit. You live in a country where the government enabled a monopoly to control the infrastructure and for the time being you are seeing the benefit. If history has taught us anything, it is that this will change.
What country do I live in, Einstein? you know NOTHING.
Businesses don't exist to keep their customers happy, that's not our job. We do what we do to keep our investors happy and if that means squeezing the customer for every last drop of blood we can get, we damn well do it.
Clearly you are not in business, otherwise you wouldn't be so dumb as to trot out this cartoonish cultural Marxist meme. I call bs on your claim. Fool.
Rand Paul is not Tea Party. Oh, you were ignorant of this?
You use the cultural Marxist meme of "fair". Define what "fair" means to you? Furthermore, you seem UTTERLY ignorant of the ACTUAL effect of the policies you espouse. Have you not seen the ENORMOUS damage President Holland did to France when he implemented the exact policy you are talking about in your ignorance? the rich simply move to countries where beta males like you don't rip them off for producing wealth and jobs for less talented people.
Your whole shtick is based on the Marxist assumption that the rich only get rich by exploiting the poor. This is stupid, and shows you don't understand the fundamental principle of economics: WEALTH IS ****CREATED***.
Wealth is created through inspiration and perspiration. When Steve Jobs created massive wealth for himself AND OTHERS through mere ideas he took nothing from his workers but gave them jobs and lives. Same with the innovators in many industries.
But because you cannot yet see through the cultural Marxist indoctrination you've received your whole life you think the Free Market system of voluntary win-win exchange is inferior to involuntary (and thus immoral) Statist Collectivist wealth confiscation that impoverishes the country relative to where it could be (although you are not insightful enough to understand the Opportunity Cost).
Hence, you make a counter-factual joke that slanders a segment of society that is more economically literate than you are, and pat yourself on the back to advancing a cultural Marxist meme that is pretty close to bankrupting your country. Sorry amigo, you are just dumb in this regard - but your ego overrides your reason so you refuse to acknowledge the truth - there is an optimal tax rate that is lower than your present tax rate, and this optimal tax rate ****creates wealth**** that makes everyone's standard of life better. Which is why even the poorest person in the USA lives better than the richest did one century ago (medical innovations, communications innovations, choices in clothing and food and transport, etc etc - all possible because of entrepreneurs and innovators whose self-interest also helps society far more than the sanctimonious bleating of wimpy beta males whose reproductive strategy is to get the State to steal on their behalf).
I live in a country that has already leap-frogged America by *AVOIDING* the Big Government solutions you are advocating. What made America great a century ago has been lost as Federal Government (that is, Central Planning) became more and more and more involved in everything. But politicians and bureaucracies are simply not "agile" enough (a software-development term every Slashdotter should know) to react to localized and changing conditions. Hence, every Big Government solution generally creates at least as many problems as it solves.
I don't need to "read" about your public works, my country has already "lived", and more importantly "solved", many of the problems the USA is yet to face in this area. Yes, the Government has a role to play, but it is utterly wrong to think the Government can solve this by itself and the Free Market of voluntary win-win exchange has no place.
However, do you disagree that lowering taxes to 23% such that BOTH the short-term tax take and long term tax take (through increased economic growth) are optimized is one of the best solutions?
As far as your 23%, the effective tax rate is already less than then in the US for many (most?) individuals and most corporations pay *way* less than the official rate (if they pay any taxes at all).
I agree. Make sure the tax rate is lowered, make tax simple (removing loopholes), and make sure *everyone* pays the same rate (both those who are rich enough to currently avoid it, as well as the 47% who currently do not contribute at all). Don't you think that is more fair and just this way?
Therefore, wouldn't you then concede that your initial statement
And any Republican tax plan: lower taxes == more revenue.
is indeed FALSE. That lowering taxes to 23% actually produces more revenue in the long term as the economy grows at a faster rate. Or, in terms so simple even Statist Collectivists can understand: rather than try and get a bigger slice of the pie, the Free Market solution of voluntary win-win exchange is to simply bake more pies (grow the economy).
I'm simply calling out your statement as false and counter to actual economic reality. No need to get upset when your error is pointed out.
With regard to the Tea Party, I'm not a member nor do I care. What I have noticed as an outsider is they are the only ones whose leadership is serious about discussing the USA's impending financial collapse. Every other political group (and groupies) are living in a La-La Land where it is about spending more rather than avoiding a collapse - which is INEVITABLE given your current trajectory. You can call me "obtuse" all you want, but the reality remains you are simply not serious about crashing the system, which will hurt the poor disproportionally (and it is these people I care about).
In short, you can condemn me, but I'm trying to tell you that you need to get real. The economic collapse of the USA is much, much closer than you think once the rest of the World loses confidence in your bonds - thanks to a citizenry that is completely economically illiterate and trying to defy the iron laws of economics (of which your initial statement is an example).
Call me "Troll" if you wish. I'll burn the karma if it wakes but a few Americans up to the fact to the economic reality of your situation. Big Government and Keynsian policies are digging your hole deeper, not getting you out. Bye Bye America, you had such great potential until your citizens lost their grip on economic reality and crashed you.
In my country, the utilities have right-of-way access but the consumer does not pay for it with tax. The Government ensures there is competition. What you are saying is akin to "Everyone must buy and drive only a Lada". I prefer the solution where you get a choice of Lada, BMW, Ford, Porsche, Mercedes, Toyota, Renault, Kia etc and the Government ensures that all competitors play by the same rules and if one requires 'right of way' then all can get access - which is easily solved with broadband (and was easily solved in just this way in my country). America is being shafted because the tax payer is on the hook and Government regulation is used by big players to prevent start-up competition. The solution is more competition, not more regulation.
Where did the citizens have to pay more tax? they don't. Tax is involuntary. Free Market exchange is voluntary. Customers can choose to take a service, or not. the trick is to get more competition so consumers have more (voluntary) choice.
Do you expect your fellow citizens to pay more tax so that you can reap more private profit? are you saying your own business must pay more tax to get this broadband? do you not understand that the Government has no money (and no power), except for the money that it takes off you? so if you want to raise taxes for your pet project, and everyone else raises taxes for their pet project that there is no point in your doing any business at all.
Surely the answer is more COMPETITION, rather than more handouts from a thoroughly bankrupted, and corrupted, Federal Government.
ps. as a small businessman, are you really that bad at macro economics you don't know this?
Slashdot Mirror
Naturally somebody who has done years of OpenGL without understanding what exactly it is abstracting is going to find Vulkan difficult but that is simply because your view of how 3D graphics pipelines work is limited to what you see in the API, meanwhile the hardware that is being abstracted has changed so much that your view is completely wrong now and the API is horribly inefficient because the OpenGL machine description isn't representative of modern hardware.
You keep using the word "abstraction" without apparently understanding what it means. Which is why I asked you the question about what your understanding of the word is, and why it is important.
Furthermore, you don't seem to understand that model OpenGL has moved away from a State Machine oriented model into an object-based buffer model. The performance of modern OpenGL is horrible if you don't know what you are doing and making LOTS of inefficient calls. The 'zero driver overhead' goal is to enable this relatively inefficient style of coding to be less painful (thus enabling some effects that are otherwise expensive). The OpenGL is not "horribly" ineffecient, just less efficient for some operations while being the same or MORE efficient in others. I've already referenced you to benchmarks on this.
With regard to "understanding". As a physicist I understand the hardware at the transistor-level (and the physics of MOSFETS). As a driver writer I understand hardware devices from the kernel level. As an application developer I understand them from the "end-user" of the development chain level. I think Vulkan is broken not because I don't understand what it is trying to do, nor because I don't want to learn anything new, but because the Vulkan *design* forces more work on the developer for what has proven to be a marginal increase in performance in a limited number of cases. I'm simply pointing out that the designers of the spec have produced something that I think will fail to met their objectives and be widely adopted by the mainstream development community. This is what you seem to fail to be able to grok. I *AM* the target audience for Vulkan - and from what I've seen I think it is a step backwards in terms of design. As a result, the risk of porting my product to it is too high, because I don't perceive great longevity in this API - hence I see it as a strategic mistake to move to it, and I am sure many others see this too. At least, not while the good-enough OpenGL model is still around and still progressing.
It's a bit intellectually dishonest to suggest you cannot answer my questions without me first answering these. Clearly mine are very specific and don't need answers to your questions to be able to answer them.
False. My objects are about *design* and *level of abstraction*. You seem to think that these are not concerns for the success of a product. You also don't seem to grok what the word "abstraction" means and why APIs exist at all. You appear to be unable to separate concerns for what a driver is supposed to do verses what an API is supposed to do. Hence, your questions are at the wrong level of abstraction and you are unable to shift gears mentally to address them.
The problem that you seem to want to ignore - because learning something new is too hard - is that OpenGL is a mess of antiquated cruft that is no longer representative of the underlying hardware.
Again you don't understand the purpose of an API. The API is NOT supposed to represent the hardware. It is supposed to allow control of the hardware, relatively efficiently. The driver is the abstraction for the hardware - you keep mixing up the functions of a driver and the application API without seeming to understand the roles. And as I have stated, I have no problem learning something new - but NOT for its own sake (I have more than enough to do creating my product) and not do re-writes for marginal improvement in a limited number of areas at
Did you have better figures than 15,000 new people in 2015 at a cost of EU 15000 per head? Is there a better news source with this information?
No, I do not believe the Free Market is the ideal, nor do I believe one can realistically exist any more than a pure democracy or communism.
Prey tell, what do you consider a better ideal than a Free Market based on **voluntary** (and thus, moral) exchange for perceived win-win ? You prefer involuntary (and thus, immoral) win-lose exchanges, such as the system called 'socialism' ?
And there are any number of reasons this country is going to hell but regulation probably is near the bottom of the list.
An alleged independent businessman as yourself wants *more* regulation? ROFL! you are too funny, and rather transparent. But please enlighten us all how your country is not hampered by regulation and how removing regulation would harm the country? I cannot wait to hear this.
I think your claim is pure hyperbole.
http://www.lemonadefreedom.com...
Yeah, you really need *more* regulation in the US.
http://www.foodrenegade.com/do...
http://articles.latimes.com/20...
http://www.naturalnews.com/043...
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
This level of INSANITY is only possible due to assh0les like you, who cheerlead for it. "Land of the Free" ROFL !
Feel free to identify this wonderful land so that we may all feel inferior to your paradise - unless, of course, you feel that we might not agree with you.
I've a better idea. Name an index and I'll tell you whether my country is better or worse than yours. On pretty-much everything except purchasing power parity and military power we're vastly better than the USA. Lower corruption, greater social cohesion, happier populace, lower inequality, debt to GDP, gun crime, broadband availability and speeds, etc. The USA is indeed a very great country, but the smartest and richest people from the USA have been buying up massive estates in my country because once you have made your money in the USA life is MUCH better here.
Let me also add that this country isn't "going to hell" any more than most of the rest of them are - so it would be appreciated if we could keep this discussion inside the bounds of reality.
Yes, when you say "most" this is true. My country is one of the few NOT going to hell - because it follows the policies I'm talking about, and not the ones you are talking about. You are so certain that what you strongly believe in now is the only possible course of action - you are delusional in your ignorance and your bad temper and arrogance is keeping you blind.
No, it's not regulations and even the fact that you would say that shows you have no idea what you're talking about.
Compliance costs money. A LOT of money. This is what makes straightforward things *unnecessarily* expensive - reducing coverage.
But living in Mythical Land, you also are astute enough to understand that if you don't build out a sustainable business model, your competitor will immediately open up and take those more profitable locations. Of course, this gives him the competitive advantage seeing as he is making more per customer (ARPU) and since he is far more profitable than you, he is now capable of building out faster than you are while also controlling the more profitable locat
In 2015 Finland accepted 15,000 more asylum seekers at a cost of EU 15,000 per head. That works out to EU 225 million *more* in 2015 due to some legitimate asylum seekers mixed in with a lot of opportunistic economic migrants:
http://sputniknews.com/europe/...
Imagine if a portion of that money had gone to existing citizens instead - and the asylum seekers kept closer to their point of origin while receiving the other portion for their care - it's cheaper to help them closer to their point of origin, like in a neighboring country.
Too bad the politicians and bureaucrats in the West always consider their own citizens and tax payers last when deciding where to spend money taken from those very same tax payers.
Ok, I'll provide answers to your questions, if needed, but we have to get over a conceptual hurdle first. Ok?
Also, we are both on the same team. We both love 3D, we both like OpenGL and what it stands for (portable high-performance graphics) and want it to succeed. We both want great performance. And most of all, we want other people to also use this excellent technologies. Amirite?
Ok, so our (friendly) debate is simply about which has the greater priority: ease-of-use, verses to-the-metal performance. Yes? we are simply debating which is more important.
So my questions for you, which need to be addressed before I can answer your more specific questions, are:
Like I said, the arguments you have advanced were all made before at the application level, between assembly and C/C++, and then again between C++ and Java/C#. It turns out that given enough time, the compiler writers and compilers can do a better job for almost all sections of code than most developers - mainly because time-to-market is main measure of success for any software (software projects don't fail because of the technology, but because the stakeholders abandoned it reached the market/users). Great design is about *simplicity* (that ASAPBUNS - "As Simple As Possible, But No Simpler") for the *end user*.
I don't know if you are a Khronos member who has an emotional interest in this - so my apologies if I have offended you, because I appreciate the great work those guys are doing - and how they are moving OpenGL forward. All I'm saying is the success of an API has a lower weighting on raw performance and a greater weighting on ease-of-use and *longevity* (the latter being OpenGL's strength).
Looking at Vulkan I get shudders. In terms of implementation if may well be more efficient. In terms of API *****design***** what I've seen is AWFUL. It is nearly as bad as Microsoft APIs. Seriously.
Perhaps this comes from my mindset. I have a PhD in Physics (specifically, Astrophysics). I'm used to complexity. But the best approach to complexity is to take a reductionist stance and try to simplify ruthlessly. This is opposite to the 'computer science' mindset who talk about 'simplicity' but they make things far more complicated than they need to - except for some exception individuals who are actually good at API design. IMHO, and I fully appreciate it is merely my opinion, Vulkan is headed in the wrong direction. Hence I predict it'll go the way of Mantle and Metal. A few enthusiastic people will use it - but the greater simplicity of OpenGL probably means Vulkan will be seen as a misstep and after a few years will be slowly abandoned (like so many APIs before which promise great things but fail in terms of simplicity of design - prioritizing driver writers over end-users is a serious fail, and shows how bad at usable design the Vulkan authors are although they may be great computer scientists).
Desi
Why exactly? Take glUniform calls for example, having the driver create its own buffer to copy that data into and then transfer that to the GPU memory is far less efficient than having the application map to the GPU directly.
Double-handling is bad. However, the most modern programming languages are multi-threaded and you can't just give application memory to hardware without a rigmarole of pinning memory (to stop a garbage collector from moving memory around during compaction - which is fine with applications but not to give to hardware). And the performance from multi-threading is worth it - hence playing nicely with a application-level garbage collector should be considered in the design of any modern API.
The black box of the driver means that when you allocate memory on the GPU you don't know how much it is using, worse still if it fails and you get an GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY error, which could mean a few different things. Do you have no system or GPU memory left? How much do you need to free up? Instead of that you allocate the memory rather than telling the driver to do it, you already specify pretty much all the parameters when you do it in OpenGL anyway.
I have never, ever seen GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY, and I've been doing this a long time. The current OpenGL drivers are very good at managing memory, far better than most application developers. Pushing driver-level memory management to application developers is a design failure, AFAICS, as I will comment on below.
It's not about having the application developer do more, it's about having the driver do less and more closely mapping the application's resource usage to the GPU instead of the driver acting as an intermediate layer. You know how long you need memory for so why allow the driver to make assumptions about it?
It *is* about the application developer do more. That is the upshot of the API changes. Consider what it is like for people coming to OpenGL for the first time - the number of concepts that must be acquired to load a shader and render a simple 3D line or bitmap is horrendous and FAR greater than earlier OpenGL versions. The OpenGL designers have failed, and Khronos is heading completely in the wrong direction, IMHO.
it's about having the driver do less and more closely mapping the application's resource usage to the GPU instead of the driver acting as an intermediate layer.
This is the same argument for working in assembly. In this day and age it is ridiculous. Furthermore, you end up doing exactly what OpenGL was designed to avoid - writing lots of code paths for different GPU classes. This is a step backward. The ENTIRE POINT of OpenGL is to have the driver act as a hardware abstraction, and the driver writer (who is an expert in the hardware) can write optimizations so that the hundreds of thousands of application developers using OpenGL don't have to. You have the raison d'etre of OpenGL completely backward.
You know how long you need memory for so why allow the driver to make assumptions about it?
There are existing mechanisms to indicate when a buffer is no longer needed at the application level. Then the OpenGL driver decides when it is best to reclaim the memory. If the GPU architecture changes, different decisions can be made by the *driver writer* and not by the application developer. That is the point of any hardware abstraction layer.
Maintaining useless, inefficient cruft that complicates the API is a burden on maintainers and those wishing to learn, why have a multitude of ways to do the same thing? That's just a mess.
Drivers will always have to include shader compilers and/or shader bytecode interpreters - which are much more complex than simple API utilities to make application developer's life easier. Your argument is nonsense, but was put forth by phone manufacturers who wanted to skimp to create
The problem here is the OpenGL driver model, ultimately the real performance gains are around application-specific changes to the behavior of the driver - specifically resource management - so you end up with a monolithic driver that has a lot of application-specific code in it. Vulkan alleviates this by putting this in the hands of the application developer rather than having to rely on the driver.
IMHO this is also a mistake. Having the application developer do driver-level resource management is a fail, IMHO. I like APIs that operate on two levels: one level is the low-level stuff, where you are required to make every decision (Vulkan); then you have another part of the *same* API that has convenience methods for very common things that nearly every application needs (as OpenGL does). Pushing more work to the application developer just so the driver developer can do less is a fail and will result in lower adoption. Isn't convenience and high adoption the goal?
Consider the case for new developers who want to use all the convenience methods of OpenGL 1 and 2, but these were stripped out in OpenGL 4 for the benefit of driver writers. This seemed like a big mistake to me, and arises from a loss of perspective from the spec stewards.
Who are you kidding? If we are going to be honest about this subject, how about if we agree that there never has been anything even close to resembling a free market.
True in that all we see are considered by economists to be "Hampered Free Markets" on one degree or another. But isn't a Free Market the ideal? sure, Government is required to regulate some aspects to preserve competition - but that is not what is seen in the USA. You can't say the USA has a "light touch" regulatory environment, which is why your country is going to hell. An entrepreneur cannot open a lemonade stand in California without requiring 29 permits. You think that is ideal? you think pushing back against this insanity is "not being in the real world" ?
Sure, Somalia is a libertarian paradise. As I know you're just dying to move there and put your money where your mouth is, I won't hold you up any longer.
I wouldn't live there, because I live in a country that is better than Somalia and the USA. But would the Somalians be any better off with more Government? NO! the problem in Somalia is Islamic jihad and Sharia supremacism - nothing to do with the "libertarian paradise" you despise.
I believe in a correctly regulated market, one that levels the playing field.
So do I. The true question is "how much" regulation? I say "less is more". That is why the meme is "Limited Government", NOT "Zero Government" (Anarchy), and you push in your strawman fallacy.
Sure, you run your business along those lines and get back to me as to how that works out long term.
How much profit do you need? once you are profitable you can trade extra profit for other things - supporting your community through *voluntary* charity, for example (as I do). Hence your statement about "squeezing the customer for every last drop of blood we can get, we damn well do it." is utter nonsense. You are being incredibly silly - which leads readers to question your credibility.
Today's quasi-deregulated insanity allows for - get this - one level of broadband in one neighborhood and literally across the street it isn't available.
Is it the REGULATIONS that prevent both sides of the street from being serviced? that is the usual case. There is much work getting to the street, doubling the customer base by doing both sides of a street is not a great additional cost. Again you are being silly.
What color is the sky in your reality? Well there son, how about you pack all of that bullshit and move to a country where you earned income can roam free. Do it, many of us will even chip in to pay for that one way ticket.
As I have said, repeatedly, I and not in the USA. You appear to have impaired reading comprehension. I can repeat this for you as many times as necessary. And as I have also said, the people of my country have benefited *enormously* from avoiding the very model you are promoting - at the moment there is an explosion in choice for cellular and data communications that was not possible when central government tightly regulated everything. Do we regulate? sure - but only in the way of improving competition. The path you are arguing for is failing you, and will make things WORSE for you. This is the reality of my nation's experience talking. But you are so angry you cannot think straight.
And, for the record, when faced with the opportunity to "taking" taxpayer money, I turned it down - multiple times. I should probably add that I did so for reasons very different than what you'd probably think but you'd probably have a hard time believing it anyway.
Good for you. It is pleasing to hear that your "squeezing the customer for every last drop of blood we can get, we damn well do it." (which would including taking the wealth the State took at gunpoint from your fellow citizens - if profit was indeed yo
Thanks for posting. The interesting thing about the Metal framework is that it is a mixed bag of performance compared to OpenGL. In some areas there are performance benefits, but there are also losses.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2...
Given the time required to build and maintain great products (the longer you keep something going, the more money you can make) I personally feel that "portability is THE killer feature". Hence I prefer OpenGL compared to Metal. Developing only for Apple is a losing proposition - especially for something as resource hungry as a modern jet combat simulation (which Apple has inferior hardware for anyway, sadly).
It's great if you're targeting a narrow hardware range because you can now optimize specifically for it but we've had this at the vendor level before (S3, 3Dfx, nVidia, ATi, PowerVR, Matrox, 3DLabs, etc.) and it was a nightmare. Even if the application supported your card that didn't mean it supported it particularly well, or as well as other cards. So picking a graphics card was less about how powerful the card was and more about how popular it was with developers.
The point of OpenGL is you *don't* do this. The point of Metal is you do (and you have to lots of work).
With AMD opening up the GPU it means the OpenGL driver writers can squeeze more performance out, without the application developer having to do the low-level work. This is the model I personally prefer.
Thanks, you have a nice day too. I'm not a reader of Rand - I just look at the economics of optimization. This is simply a matter of balancing short-term tax take and long-term tax take, and finding the optimum constraint conditions. It should be simple for people to consider this - but no, because out cultures have been marinated in cultural Marxism for a century it turns out that "common sense" is not so common. Hence, I burn karma trying to share some new perspectives for my fellow Slashdotters.
I recommend you check out "Yuri Bezmenov" on YouTube. He's an ex-KGB guy that explains *exactly* why you think the way you do - how you've been lied to your whole life, and now the population of the West is unable to see straight (all the while thinking they are doing good). If you prefer book form them Lt Gen Ion Mihai Pacepa's "Disinformation" corroborates this story (Pacepa was the highest-ranked defector to the West during the Cold War). Not only will you start to see through the Matrix around you, you also get to understand who killed JFK, from the *inside* (it's quite simple really - and obvious once explained - the Conspiracy Theories are the conspiracy to cover the truth, as you will see).
I simply ask you to think about the mathematics of constraint optimization, and balancing short-term extraction versus long-term growth and which results in the greatest production in the long term. To get away from the cultural Marxist disinformation in economics perhaps you could think about fish population: take a lot more fish in the short term (overfishing), or take less fish in order to grow the fish stocks - and this latter strategy results in a sustainable system that produces more fish overall. This is the Republican/Tea Party argument.
Now I agree that the Republicans (especially the 'Establishment' Republicans) and Tea Party have their fair share of hypocrites (just like the Democrats, who work to further the interests of their Billionaire donors, eg. Warren Buffet setting Democrat policy to block of Keystone XL so he can get more money from his railroad investments in moving oil - the corruption is vile). However I recommend that when you judge Republican and Tea Party policy you get it from the source, just as you ought to get Democrat policy directly from Hillary Clinton etc. It is good to *also* read critiques from their opponents, but that should not be your only source. This is simply the Scientific Method applied to economics (and, unfortunately, the inextricable politics).
What is clear, is that Big Government/bureaucracy/politicians/crony corporates are not your friend and it have their own agendas that only occasionally coincide with that of the Free citizen. The Free People of the World have to realize that Government only gets money and power by taking those from citizens. Governments don't create prosperity and tolerance/liberty, citizens do! Government is a necessary evil, but they are still evil and need to be kept on a tight leash. This is necessary for the liberty and prosperity of all human beings.
Agree with me or not, please keep thinking about this. I'm not your enemy. I'm trying to give you a perspective from someone who thinks I can decide how to live my life much better than wasteful and insatiable bureaucracies lead by self-selecting sociopaths ("politicians") can. Thank you at least for reading my posts without resorting to "TL". I commend you for that.
Peace, prosperity and most-important of all, *Liberty* to you.
As an indie game developer this is fantastic news. I hope Apple also make good use of this, the Apple OpenGL drivers run at about half the speed of AMD's Windows OpenGL drivers on the same hardware (a recent Mac Pro with dual D700s under OS X and Bootcamp-ed to Windows).
Hopefully it also means that Open Source folks (FSM bless 'em) will also improve the install process for AMD/ATI drivers on Linux, if not the performance.
This is great news for those working in real time 3D.
This is the dumb Big Government solution that the US always goes to these days. I wonder how much of your USF goes into administration? based on normal Government programs it will be at least 60%.
In my country the Government simply said that ISPs will not be allowed to operate in (profitable) cities unless they also connect up (marginally profitable) country sites too. The cost is part of the regular broadband charge for everyone, no extra and wasteful Government bureaucracy is invented to handle the processing, and because the costs are explicit for the consumer the companies must then compete on price - reducing waste. It is true that some taxpayer money is used thanks to lobbying (grrrrrrrr!), but the system as a whole is vastly better than the USA's Big Government Federal Feeding Trough approach.
See how other countries are solving their problems in ways better than "More tax! More Federal Regulation!". The USA has a mythology of being a Wild West Free Market, but in fact it is nearly as socialist as avowedly-socialistic Canada (and considerably more corrupt).
In my country, the Government wants to foster competition (unlike the corrupt Federal Government of the USA). So it ensures that all communications companies can get access. Most trunk cable is laid along or under highways that are owned by the State, so this is a non-issue. Laying the 'last mile' cable is also a non-issue that no-body has ever opposed. Your argument is nonsense - at least in the First World (which is the USA is exiting thanks to the ineptitude of its Big Government and the unfunded liabilities your bloated entitlement madness has crippled your future with).
Buying food is voluntary?
The choice of the food you buy is voluntary. The modern West is the first civilization in history where the poor are so rich that obesity is their number one problem. Think about it.
What a cheap form of entertainment so you don't kill yourself from a boring life? You need the Internet(almost all other forms of entertainment is more expensive and entertainment is required for to be psychologically healthy).
Nonsense. Walk to the beach or a park and get some exercise. This is vastly more healthy than hanging around on the Internet whinging pathetically how the State should extort more money from productive people using the threat of coersive force. Hell, go and help your community instead of demanding others do it for you. Sounds like you lack imagination, amigo.
And yes, you have a great deal of choice - even if you are not aware of it.
Pure ad hominem. Of course, you must do this because you cannot refute the economic FACT: decreasing tax rates from the current levels of most countries produces a greater total tax take over the long term. The Republicans and Tea Party (for all their flaws) understand this. Statist Collectivists (Democrats and other Borg) do not. This is FACT - no matter how much you Borg drones try and deflect from the truth.
Like many Slashdotters, you appear to be this person:
http://www.brennerbrief.com/wp...
Ah, ok. Thanks for clarifying. I thought you mean illicit drugs. Yes, cronyism is only possible when governments and bureaucracies have the power to enable it.
"Capitalist textbook" ? you mean "Free Market"? "capitalist" is the Marxist word for the Free Market.
you would understand that only objective is to make money
No, the principal objective is to make *profit* - otherwise the business is unsustainable. But profit can be traded for market share, or social capital or a number of other things. You are not a very good businessman.
Oh, you live in Mythical land! Forgive me, I should have known. And much like Somalia, where infrastructure blossoms in the Spring sun along with the free medical care, your mythical country has free land for these companies which are unfettered by government to build their cable plant, fiber, and/or wireless on, which reduces their cost for such construction projects to nearly zero except for that free hardware.
The interesting thing about Somalia is how well it is growing economically in the absence of Government. Now, Islamic jihad is causing all sorts of problems, as is tribalism and corruption - but it is undeniable that in the absence of Government regulation entrepreneurs are getting on and doing all sorts of stuff. It is clear you are not up with the play with what is going on in Somalia at all.
But your post is completely confused - on one hand you advocate Big Government, and on the other hand you try to portray yourself as some kind of "uber-capitalist". I guess that dichotomy is resolve once we understand that you are a "cronyist" who wants to suck more money from taxpayers that is not gained through voluntary exchange for your service - but is taken through the threat of State violence. Yeah, that explains your position precisely.
Oh, and your "Mythical land" statements are just stupid. Just because you don't understand other countries that are leapfrogging the incompetence in the USA doesn't mean they don't exist.
Bullshit. You live in a country where the government enabled a monopoly to control the infrastructure and for the time being you are seeing the benefit. If history has taught us anything, it is that this will change.
What country do I live in, Einstein? you know NOTHING.
Businesses don't exist to keep their customers happy, that's not our job. We do what we do to keep our investors happy and if that means squeezing the customer for every last drop of blood we can get, we damn well do it.
Clearly you are not in business, otherwise you wouldn't be so dumb as to trot out this cartoonish cultural Marxist meme. I call bs on your claim. Fool.
Rand Paul is not Tea Party. Oh, you were ignorant of this?
You use the cultural Marxist meme of "fair". Define what "fair" means to you? Furthermore, you seem UTTERLY ignorant of the ACTUAL effect of the policies you espouse. Have you not seen the ENORMOUS damage President Holland did to France when he implemented the exact policy you are talking about in your ignorance? the rich simply move to countries where beta males like you don't rip them off for producing wealth and jobs for less talented people.
Your whole shtick is based on the Marxist assumption that the rich only get rich by exploiting the poor. This is stupid, and shows you don't understand the fundamental principle of economics: WEALTH IS ****CREATED***.
Wealth is created through inspiration and perspiration. When Steve Jobs created massive wealth for himself AND OTHERS through mere ideas he took nothing from his workers but gave them jobs and lives. Same with the innovators in many industries.
But because you cannot yet see through the cultural Marxist indoctrination you've received your whole life you think the Free Market system of voluntary win-win exchange is inferior to involuntary (and thus immoral) Statist Collectivist wealth confiscation that impoverishes the country relative to where it could be (although you are not insightful enough to understand the Opportunity Cost).
Hence, you make a counter-factual joke that slanders a segment of society that is more economically literate than you are, and pat yourself on the back to advancing a cultural Marxist meme that is pretty close to bankrupting your country. Sorry amigo, you are just dumb in this regard - but your ego overrides your reason so you refuse to acknowledge the truth - there is an optimal tax rate that is lower than your present tax rate, and this optimal tax rate ****creates wealth**** that makes everyone's standard of life better. Which is why even the poorest person in the USA lives better than the richest did one century ago (medical innovations, communications innovations, choices in clothing and food and transport, etc etc - all possible because of entrepreneurs and innovators whose self-interest also helps society far more than the sanctimonious bleating of wimpy beta males whose reproductive strategy is to get the State to steal on their behalf).
Sorry, your post is unclear. Please explain the relationship between drugs and tax rates?
I live in a country that has already leap-frogged America by *AVOIDING* the Big Government solutions you are advocating. What made America great a century ago has been lost as Federal Government (that is, Central Planning) became more and more and more involved in everything. But politicians and bureaucracies are simply not "agile" enough (a software-development term every Slashdotter should know) to react to localized and changing conditions. Hence, every Big Government solution generally creates at least as many problems as it solves.
I don't need to "read" about your public works, my country has already "lived", and more importantly "solved", many of the problems the USA is yet to face in this area. Yes, the Government has a role to play, but it is utterly wrong to think the Government can solve this by itself and the Free Market of voluntary win-win exchange has no place.
However, do you disagree that lowering taxes to 23% such that BOTH the short-term tax take and long term tax take (through increased economic growth) are optimized is one of the best solutions?
As far as your 23%, the effective tax rate is already less than then in the US for many (most?) individuals and most corporations pay *way* less than the official rate (if they pay any taxes at all).
I agree. Make sure the tax rate is lowered, make tax simple (removing loopholes), and make sure *everyone* pays the same rate (both those who are rich enough to currently avoid it, as well as the 47% who currently do not contribute at all). Don't you think that is more fair and just this way?
Therefore, wouldn't you then concede that your initial statement
And any Republican tax plan: lower taxes == more revenue.
is indeed FALSE. That lowering taxes to 23% actually produces more revenue in the long term as the economy grows at a faster rate. Or, in terms so simple even Statist Collectivists can understand: rather than try and get a bigger slice of the pie, the Free Market solution of voluntary win-win exchange is to simply bake more pies (grow the economy).
I'm simply calling out your statement as false and counter to actual economic reality. No need to get upset when your error is pointed out.
With regard to the Tea Party, I'm not a member nor do I care. What I have noticed as an outsider is they are the only ones whose leadership is serious about discussing the USA's impending financial collapse. Every other political group (and groupies) are living in a La-La Land where it is about spending more rather than avoiding a collapse - which is INEVITABLE given your current trajectory. You can call me "obtuse" all you want, but the reality remains you are simply not serious about crashing the system, which will hurt the poor disproportionally (and it is these people I care about).
In short, you can condemn me, but I'm trying to tell you that you need to get real. The economic collapse of the USA is much, much closer than you think once the rest of the World loses confidence in your bonds - thanks to a citizenry that is completely economically illiterate and trying to defy the iron laws of economics (of which your initial statement is an example).
Call me "Troll" if you wish. I'll burn the karma if it wakes but a few Americans up to the fact to the economic reality of your situation. Big Government and Keynsian policies are digging your hole deeper, not getting you out. Bye Bye America, you had such great potential until your citizens lost their grip on economic reality and crashed you.
In my country, the utilities have right-of-way access but the consumer does not pay for it with tax. The Government ensures there is competition. What you are saying is akin to "Everyone must buy and drive only a Lada". I prefer the solution where you get a choice of Lada, BMW, Ford, Porsche, Mercedes, Toyota, Renault, Kia etc and the Government ensures that all competitors play by the same rules and if one requires 'right of way' then all can get access - which is easily solved with broadband (and was easily solved in just this way in my country). America is being shafted because the tax payer is on the hook and Government regulation is used by big players to prevent start-up competition. The solution is more competition, not more regulation.
Where did the citizens have to pay more tax? they don't. Tax is involuntary. Free Market exchange is voluntary. Customers can choose to take a service, or not. the trick is to get more competition so consumers have more (voluntary) choice.
Do you expect your fellow citizens to pay more tax so that you can reap more private profit? are you saying your own business must pay more tax to get this broadband? do you not understand that the Government has no money (and no power), except for the money that it takes off you? so if you want to raise taxes for your pet project, and everyone else raises taxes for their pet project that there is no point in your doing any business at all.
Surely the answer is more COMPETITION, rather than more handouts from a thoroughly bankrupted, and corrupted, Federal Government.
ps. as a small businessman, are you really that bad at macro economics you don't know this?