You'd expect a few studies to come out with that result due to chance. Thankfully most research shows no link, so overall I think we can be sure that electrosmog isn't the cause for the reported symptoms.
One of my sisters claims to be sensitive to microwave radiation. She refuses to be in our parents kitchen when their combination microwave / grill / convection (fan) oven is turned on, as she can "feel the radiation". She claims she can feel it even when it's on the convection setting; really she's just responding to the sound of the fan and the motor that turns the table, as it sounds exactly the same on the microwave and convection settings.
Of course, there could be some malaise associated with fan ovens. That raises the question as to why she has no symptoms around the much larger fan oven our parents also have in their kitchen.
In Capital he says quite clearly that socialism can only have a "world historical existence".
The Bolsheviks understood this quite clearly. Lenin and Trotsky predicted that the October Revolution would eventually degenerate if it wasn't supported by further proletarian revolutions in the other more developed capitalist countries in Europe.
Covering that up was one of the great ideological lies of Stalinism; the idea that you can have "socialism in one country".
The definition of worker (proletariat) and capitalist (bourgeoisie) are clearly and objectively defined - like "up" and "down".
If you invest capital in order to make a return, you're part of the bourgeoisie. If you sell your physical or mental labour in return for a wage or salary, you're proletariat.
Marx's critique in Capital goes into great depth to discuss how the interests of the two classes in capitalism are contradict each other, and thereby generate class struggle.
You're making the mistake of confusing Stalinist central planning with communism.
Gosplan failed because they measured secondary outcomes. They focused on doing things like moving x amount of steel y number of miles by railroad, resulting in steel being moved from one side of the country and back again to meet the target. Those secondary outcomes were determined on the basis of national pride, so that Stalin could look like a big man and say "our perfect socialism in one country has a much better rail network than your feeble capitalist railways!".
Of course, railways in a capitalist system are only there to serve consumer demand. Steel is only produced insofar as it's needed to make things people want and it's only moved around to get it to the factories that need it. Each link in the chain represents an individual primary outcome.
Capitalism isn't immune from market information crisis; under capitalism you get the crisis of overproduction! Over time capitalism tends towards centralised monopolies, but not necessarily in obvious ways. Certain functions that seem to be integral get outsourced, so things like facilities management for offices become centralised outside of companies, who then simply focus on their own core competencies. This reflects the fact that having a smaller number of organisations doing things is inherently more efficient; you benefit from scale and pooled expertise.
Previous calls for central planning from the left should be understood in that context. Socialists call for an end to all business secrets - in effect making all businesses "open source" - so that the information can be shared amongst everyone. There's no reason why we should have just one central planning authority, there could be several competing projects in the same manner that FOSS projects like GNOME and KDE compete.
Most people will spend their entire lives without getting so much as a sniff of power. If instead of having the current system there were a system of part-time workers councils with direct recall in the style of, say, a trade union branch executive committee, those low-class workers would be better off.
That's what a workers government means. No full time politicians, just regular people taking decisions over things that affect their own lives. The advantage of having a strong revolutionary tradition would also be that, if for some reason the committee became unresponsive to the popular will, a new organisation could be formed to take power.
The big stumbling block (and it is huge) is the level of education required. All of this is really contingent on having a working class who have the attitude and debating skills you'd normally acquire through private schooling. It's not dependant on some magical transformation of human nature.
It's more of an example of a move away from simply recognising property rights and more recognising human rights.
If you think that all rights are based off property rights, then you must surely own your own body. That means you own half your child, as they're made of half of your property. If you own some slaves and they have kids, you own those kids too just as surely as you own a calf from your herd.
In fact the defendants of slavery before the US civil war argued that people should be free to be property.
We've moved on since then and we now recognise that there are human rights that are inalienable.
Your first point is entirely correct. Socialism means that everyone takes part in production and nobody gets a free ride. That means jobs for all; if there's not enough jobs to go around then that means the free time can be shared around too.
As to your second point, I disagree. The USSR had a system of democratic control - the Soviets - that was eroded and eventually disbanded because of Stalin. The problem of personality cults eroding democratic systems isn't unique to socialism.
As Marx said, socialism can only have a world historical existence. You can't build socialism in one country as, due to the global nature of production, you'll still need to trade with capitalist powers in order to have the resources needed for a modern way of life. Maintaining competitiveness with the capitalist market means that you'll be under the same pressure and end up organising production in a similar way.
Then your understanding of Marx's communism is completely wrong.
Marx was not a utopian nor an idealist. He was a materialist and his philosophy is concerned entirely with the material world.
The term scientific socialism was used to oppose Marx's idea of socialism against that of utopian socialism. The point is that we need to use the scientific method to gain an understanding of human beings, human society and the physical world. We should then try and arrange our government and our economic production in a manner that takes account of our scientific understanding of human nature in order to produce a better outcome.
Humanity doesn't need to evolve any more to achieve this. What's holding us back is a lack of political consciousness amongst average working people.
A proletarian revolution is, by definition, a revolution of those at the bottom of society. Most people from that class will die in that class; social progress is largely a myth.
On that basis, worker's government is actually a rational choice for most people. It makes sense from a purely selfish, self-interested perspective.
"Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways, the point however is to change it" - Karl Marx
Marxism is a materialist philosophy. Marxist ideas only have value insofar as they can be implemented in the real world! Anyone who claims to be a Marxist and spouts impossible nonsense about how things should be, or what is to be done, (which is a large share of people who self-identify as Marxists, I'll admit) is just engaging in fake-left posturing.
Funnily enough, that's what Marx was all about too. His approach is characterised as Historical Materialism because it's only concerned with the realities of human nature and things that really happen here, in the material world.
The whole point of Marxism* is to build a political economy that's better/I. than Capitalism. Capitalism is the greatest, most innovative form of political economy devised by mankind but it comes at a terrible price. Marxism is about confronting the reality of the world, which developing a critique of Capitalism in its various forms, and trying to change things for the better.
The only way that struggle can be ultimately resolved is for the working class to gain the consciousness necessary to govern. That change has to come from the bottom up - you can't impose it from above. All attempts to create Socialism from above are doomed to create authoritarian, bureaucratic structures.
Basically, Capitalism as a game is rigged. It rewards making money over performing useful labour (e.g. using knowledge from a medical degree to figure out reasons to refuse insurance payouts rather than using it to treat patients) and results in a world I think most people are clearly unhappy with. The challenge as Socialists is to figure out a better game, a better system of incentives and discouragements to get people doing more useful things.
As to what things are useful, well, that's not a question for one person to answer. It should be decided democratically!
Marx called himself a Humanist. He once said, in reference the the French Marxists with whom he disagreed, "all I know is that I am not a Marxist".
I've just checked my certs in Chrome and DigiNotar isn't there. I've got the "check for server certificate revocation" option ticked, which I guess must be on by default.
It wasn't a judge that imposed this sentence, it was a magistrate. The justices' clerk advised them ignore normal sentencing guidelines, so that most likely the basis that their sentence will be reduced.
Sounds like someone didn't find a decent corp to PvP with:)
Eve PvP is all about ship class. You can be competitive in t1 frigates within a month. Sure, someone who has all their skills trained to 5 will have a ~5% advantage over you with skills at 4, but if you know how to fly your fit then you can make up for that.
If you want to take down larger ships in t1 frigates, join up with other people. A t1 Rifter swarm is one of the most deadly and effective fleets in Eve; you can take down battleships with a Rifter swarm. You'll lose a few ships in the process, but as long as your side gets the odd kill it doesn't matter: their losses will massively outstrip yours.
As for getting ISK, you can run Incursions. Those things spit out ISK! I generally prefer to trade though as it's very little effort for quite decent rewards, if you know where to sell things!
Yea, I think I agree with what you're saying about the importance of having a plan. My understanding is that the protesters in Egypt were united behind a call for democratic elections, but there wasn't any clear ideas behind how that would work or how they would achieve that.
That act is a classic, it also banned "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". It also introduced the other classic anti-dissent offence of "aggravated trespass", yet another law that only ever gets used against protesters.
The problem in Egypt is that the revolution lost momentum due to the army moving in and convincing people everything would be OK. As soon as people started leaving Tahrir Square, they started rounding up the ringleaders.
It was a big error of judgement on the part of the protesters, but hey, now they know to never ever trust the state.
As to how the Terrorism Act is used in the UK, most uses of section 60 are against demonstrators. Our judiciary hasn't lost the plot completely yet as generally, when people sue for wrongful arrest they find against the police and award damages. The coppers don't learn though.
So there you have it. Detained under section 60 of the Terrorism Act (which is almost exclusively used against protesters) and eventually released without charge - after the wedding was over and miles away from where they were picked up.
I'm not sure shooting someone is a proportionate response to being smacked in the face. Even if you're not strong enough to defend yourself, chances are someone else will smack the other guy in the face. That's unless you're an arse who deserved to get smacked in the face of course. In that case, don't be an arse.
See how civilised society regulates itself without firearms?
The Met is actually responsible for national policing issues. We had detectives from Scotland Yard search our workplace with the assistance of local officers when those child benefit discs went missing (we're on contract to the Civil Service and there was a slim chance they might have been sent to us by mistake).
It's one of the major structural problems with the Met; if national policing was split off into a separate agency and the Met was left to focus on policing in London I think both aspects would be better.
I dunno, makes sense if you assume we hit each other more but kill each other less. I suppose that means here people can feel safe smacking someone else in the face knowing at worst they'll end up in hospital. In American, you might get shot!
There's a problem as to how violent crime is measured though. I'd be quite surprised if the definitions of violent crime were the same for police forces across the USA, never mind ours.
If enacted, those provisions would be used against dissenters just like the Terrorism Act is now.
I personally know people who've were detained under the Terrorism Act for walking through Charing Cross station with placards in their bag on the day of the royal wedding. They were released hours later and I believe are planning legal action.
You're a fool if you think laws giving those kinds of powers to police to control social media won't be used against political dissenters.
I think Syria said they approved of Cameron's plans to place controls on social media too.
There was this great dream that somehow opening up closed, dictatorial societies like China and the countries in the Middle East to free flows of capital would inevitably lead to the spread of democracy. What's actually happened is that rather than freedom flowing to them, corruption and authoritarianism is flowing from them.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd expect a few studies to come out with that result due to chance. Thankfully most research shows no link, so overall I think we can be sure that electrosmog isn't the cause for the reported symptoms.
One of my sisters claims to be sensitive to microwave radiation. She refuses to be in our parents kitchen when their combination microwave / grill / convection (fan) oven is turned on, as she can "feel the radiation". She claims she can feel it even when it's on the convection setting; really she's just responding to the sound of the fan and the motor that turns the table, as it sounds exactly the same on the microwave and convection settings.
Of course, there could be some malaise associated with fan ovens. That raises the question as to why she has no symptoms around the much larger fan oven our parents also have in their kitchen.
In Capital he says quite clearly that socialism can only have a "world historical existence".
The Bolsheviks understood this quite clearly. Lenin and Trotsky predicted that the October Revolution would eventually degenerate if it wasn't supported by further proletarian revolutions in the other more developed capitalist countries in Europe.
Covering that up was one of the great ideological lies of Stalinism; the idea that you can have "socialism in one country".
The definition of worker (proletariat) and capitalist (bourgeoisie) are clearly and objectively defined - like "up" and "down".
If you invest capital in order to make a return, you're part of the bourgeoisie. If you sell your physical or mental labour in return for a wage or salary, you're proletariat.
Marx's critique in Capital goes into great depth to discuss how the interests of the two classes in capitalism are contradict each other, and thereby generate class struggle.
You're making the mistake of confusing Stalinist central planning with communism.
Gosplan failed because they measured secondary outcomes. They focused on doing things like moving x amount of steel y number of miles by railroad, resulting in steel being moved from one side of the country and back again to meet the target. Those secondary outcomes were determined on the basis of national pride, so that Stalin could look like a big man and say "our perfect socialism in one country has a much better rail network than your feeble capitalist railways!".
Of course, railways in a capitalist system are only there to serve consumer demand. Steel is only produced insofar as it's needed to make things people want and it's only moved around to get it to the factories that need it. Each link in the chain represents an individual primary outcome.
Capitalism isn't immune from market information crisis; under capitalism you get the crisis of overproduction! Over time capitalism tends towards centralised monopolies, but not necessarily in obvious ways. Certain functions that seem to be integral get outsourced, so things like facilities management for offices become centralised outside of companies, who then simply focus on their own core competencies. This reflects the fact that having a smaller number of organisations doing things is inherently more efficient; you benefit from scale and pooled expertise.
Previous calls for central planning from the left should be understood in that context. Socialists call for an end to all business secrets - in effect making all businesses "open source" - so that the information can be shared amongst everyone. There's no reason why we should have just one central planning authority, there could be several competing projects in the same manner that FOSS projects like GNOME and KDE compete.
You seem to be missing the point.
Most people will spend their entire lives without getting so much as a sniff of power. If instead of having the current system there were a system of part-time workers councils with direct recall in the style of, say, a trade union branch executive committee, those low-class workers would be better off.
That's what a workers government means. No full time politicians, just regular people taking decisions over things that affect their own lives. The advantage of having a strong revolutionary tradition would also be that, if for some reason the committee became unresponsive to the popular will, a new organisation could be formed to take power.
The big stumbling block (and it is huge) is the level of education required. All of this is really contingent on having a working class who have the attitude and debating skills you'd normally acquire through private schooling. It's not dependant on some magical transformation of human nature.
It's more of an example of a move away from simply recognising property rights and more recognising human rights.
If you think that all rights are based off property rights, then you must surely own your own body. That means you own half your child, as they're made of half of your property. If you own some slaves and they have kids, you own those kids too just as surely as you own a calf from your herd.
In fact the defendants of slavery before the US civil war argued that people should be free to be property.
We've moved on since then and we now recognise that there are human rights that are inalienable.
Your first point is entirely correct. Socialism means that everyone takes part in production and nobody gets a free ride. That means jobs for all; if there's not enough jobs to go around then that means the free time can be shared around too.
As to your second point, I disagree. The USSR had a system of democratic control - the Soviets - that was eroded and eventually disbanded because of Stalin. The problem of personality cults eroding democratic systems isn't unique to socialism.
As Marx said, socialism can only have a world historical existence. You can't build socialism in one country as, due to the global nature of production, you'll still need to trade with capitalist powers in order to have the resources needed for a modern way of life. Maintaining competitiveness with the capitalist market means that you'll be under the same pressure and end up organising production in a similar way.
Then your understanding of Marx's communism is completely wrong.
Marx was not a utopian nor an idealist. He was a materialist and his philosophy is concerned entirely with the material world.
The term scientific socialism was used to oppose Marx's idea of socialism against that of utopian socialism. The point is that we need to use the scientific method to gain an understanding of human beings, human society and the physical world. We should then try and arrange our government and our economic production in a manner that takes account of our scientific understanding of human nature in order to produce a better outcome.
Humanity doesn't need to evolve any more to achieve this. What's holding us back is a lack of political consciousness amongst average working people.
That's not true.
A proletarian revolution is, by definition, a revolution of those at the bottom of society. Most people from that class will die in that class; social progress is largely a myth.
On that basis, worker's government is actually a rational choice for most people. It makes sense from a purely selfish, self-interested perspective.
"Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways, the point however is to change it" - Karl Marx
Marxism is a materialist philosophy. Marxist ideas only have value insofar as they can be implemented in the real world! Anyone who claims to be a Marxist and spouts impossible nonsense about how things should be, or what is to be done, (which is a large share of people who self-identify as Marxists, I'll admit) is just engaging in fake-left posturing.
Funnily enough, that's what Marx was all about too. His approach is characterised as Historical Materialism because it's only concerned with the realities of human nature and things that really happen here, in the material world.
The whole point of Marxism* is to build a political economy that's better/I. than Capitalism. Capitalism is the greatest, most innovative form of political economy devised by mankind but it comes at a terrible price. Marxism is about confronting the reality of the world, which developing a critique of Capitalism in its various forms, and trying to change things for the better.
The only way that struggle can be ultimately resolved is for the working class to gain the consciousness necessary to govern. That change has to come from the bottom up - you can't impose it from above. All attempts to create Socialism from above are doomed to create authoritarian, bureaucratic structures.
Basically, Capitalism as a game is rigged. It rewards making money over performing useful labour (e.g. using knowledge from a medical degree to figure out reasons to refuse insurance payouts rather than using it to treat patients) and results in a world I think most people are clearly unhappy with. The challenge as Socialists is to figure out a better game, a better system of incentives and discouragements to get people doing more useful things.
As to what things are useful, well, that's not a question for one person to answer. It should be decided democratically!
Marx called himself a Humanist. He once said, in reference the the French Marxists with whom he disagreed, "all I know is that I am not a Marxist".
I've just checked my certs in Chrome and DigiNotar isn't there. I've got the "check for server certificate revocation" option ticked, which I guess must be on by default.
No, you misread. It's 2,000km long, 80km up!
Now all we need is someone with $10b to spare to see if it works....
It wasn't a judge that imposed this sentence, it was a magistrate. The justices' clerk advised them ignore normal sentencing guidelines, so that most likely the basis that their sentence will be reduced.
Sounds like someone didn't find a decent corp to PvP with :)
Eve PvP is all about ship class. You can be competitive in t1 frigates within a month. Sure, someone who has all their skills trained to 5 will have a ~5% advantage over you with skills at 4, but if you know how to fly your fit then you can make up for that.
If you want to take down larger ships in t1 frigates, join up with other people. A t1 Rifter swarm is one of the most deadly and effective fleets in Eve; you can take down battleships with a Rifter swarm. You'll lose a few ships in the process, but as long as your side gets the odd kill it doesn't matter: their losses will massively outstrip yours.
As for getting ISK, you can run Incursions. Those things spit out ISK! I generally prefer to trade though as it's very little effort for quite decent rewards, if you know where to sell things!
Yea, I think I agree with what you're saying about the importance of having a plan. My understanding is that the protesters in Egypt were united behind a call for democratic elections, but there wasn't any clear ideas behind how that would work or how they would achieve that.
I realise you're just trolling, but still, here's another source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381517/Royal-Wedding-security-Police-swoop-masked-anarchists-London.html
"Ten of the suspects were arrested at Charing Cross railway station carrying climbing equipment and anti-monarchy placards, police revealed."
The placards were in a bag and the "climbing equipment" was a bicycle helmet.
That act is a classic, it also banned "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". It also introduced the other classic anti-dissent offence of "aggravated trespass", yet another law that only ever gets used against protesters.
The problem in Egypt is that the revolution lost momentum due to the army moving in and convincing people everything would be OK. As soon as people started leaving Tahrir Square, they started rounding up the ringleaders.
It was a big error of judgement on the part of the protesters, but hey, now they know to never ever trust the state.
As to how the Terrorism Act is used in the UK, most uses of section 60 are against demonstrators. Our judiciary hasn't lost the plot completely yet as generally, when people sue for wrongful arrest they find against the police and award damages. The coppers don't learn though.
I typed up a longer comment, but /. seems to have lost it. Anyway, here's the FB page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-for-the-Charing-Cross-10/217674331578560?sk=info
So there you have it. Detained under section 60 of the Terrorism Act (which is almost exclusively used against protesters) and eventually released without charge - after the wedding was over and miles away from where they were picked up.
I'm not sure shooting someone is a proportionate response to being smacked in the face. Even if you're not strong enough to defend yourself, chances are someone else will smack the other guy in the face. That's unless you're an arse who deserved to get smacked in the face of course. In that case, don't be an arse.
See how civilised society regulates itself without firearms?
The Met is actually responsible for national policing issues. We had detectives from Scotland Yard search our workplace with the assistance of local officers when those child benefit discs went missing (we're on contract to the Civil Service and there was a slim chance they might have been sent to us by mistake).
It's one of the major structural problems with the Met; if national policing was split off into a separate agency and the Met was left to focus on policing in London I think both aspects would be better.
I dunno, makes sense if you assume we hit each other more but kill each other less. I suppose that means here people can feel safe smacking someone else in the face knowing at worst they'll end up in hospital. In American, you might get shot!
There's a problem as to how violent crime is measured though. I'd be quite surprised if the definitions of violent crime were the same for police forces across the USA, never mind ours.
If enacted, those provisions would be used against dissenters just like the Terrorism Act is now.
I personally know people who've were detained under the Terrorism Act for walking through Charing Cross station with placards in their bag on the day of the royal wedding. They were released hours later and I believe are planning legal action.
You're a fool if you think laws giving those kinds of powers to police to control social media won't be used against political dissenters.
I think Syria said they approved of Cameron's plans to place controls on social media too.
There was this great dream that somehow opening up closed, dictatorial societies like China and the countries in the Middle East to free flows of capital would inevitably lead to the spread of democracy. What's actually happened is that rather than freedom flowing to them, corruption and authoritarianism is flowing from them.