So I agree that he was wrong, but so was capitalism. And in the end we did get socialism with weekends off work, pensions, holidays, health care, firefighting, etc.
That isn't socialism. Socialism is where the government owns the means of production; that is to say that the people who create goods that you consume work directly for the government, and the government also sets prices.
There are very few examples of socialism in the US. One example would be municipal water supplies.
Capitalism is where the means of production is privately owned, in addition free market economics. Free market economics means that the prices are set by the market forces of supply and demand without influence from i.e. government.
Also, contrary to popular belief, things like food stamps aren't socialism, rather they're welfare. That is, the government isn't producing your food, rather it effectively gave you money to buy food. The food was actually produced in the private sector.
Ditto for medicare, i.e. the government isn't providing healthcare services, rather it is paying on your behalf for health care. This is in contrast to say England where the health care workers work directly for the government in most cases.
So in that way he was right as well, and so was marxism.
We don't do *anything* that Marx had in mind. At least, not in the US at any rate...Some countries yes, but they are all third world hellholes, i.e. Venezuela and North Korea, and even then, those countries do very little of what Marx wanted, primarily because Marxism was just so flawed in concept that it fails within a very short period of time from when it is implemented. (Icarians are a wonderful case study on why Marxism fails, if you ever want to read up on them.)
Furthermore, Marx wouldn't even like the idea of socialism, because it implied the ownership of things (something he said was bad) and in socialism indeed you can own stuff. Marx also wouldn't like the idea of a quid-pro-quo, i.e. he would view it as immoral that a doctor would expect payment for services, mainly because he viewed money itself as being immoral.
Like how switchboard operators never worked again and starved to death. Like how computer operators never worked again and starved to death.
Obviously, the unemployment rate goes down because the people who used to work these jobs have starved to death, and of course the drivers will starve to death too, so it's not a problem.
Kind of tangential I know, but the keystone pipeline issue seems eerily similar to the Thirty Meter Telescope issue. Essentially a mix of NIMBY and "this land is sacred, unless you pay the right price."
Health insurance companies do make their money by charging premiums for policies that cover treatment. If there suddenly were no disease and no injuries, health insurance companies (and branches of companies) would go out of business, even if this were established by some magical means rather than simply wiping out humanity.
The more health care costs, the more money goes through health insurance companies, and the more money that goes through them the more they can make. Health insurance companies indeed have little fiscal motive to make people healthier. This isn't why they don't fund research, but the sentences you quoted as "not even wrong" are largely correct.
Everything you said above also applies to doctors, hospitals, and scientists that research cures and treatments.
The fact is, insurance companies try to keep you healthier in order to reduce their own costs in the future. Both my current and previous employer reduce the coinsurance cost on my hypertension medication by half, including that for a drug I take called Bystolic that is still under patent and is quite expensive if purchased without insurance. Normally it would be subject to their premium brand copay, but since it is preventative they price it the same as a generic preventative drug.
And that's not all they do. For example, mine also offers a premium discount if you have your BMI, cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure controlled. And if you don't, they will give you the same discount as long as you participate in an approved wellness program.
Believe it or not, most people aren't out to kill you for profit.
You guys remind me of people who think that most of the world molests children, even though it's quite rare:
I don't think it has to do with profit so much as it has to do with people being out of ideas for what to do. Throwing money at a problem doesn't magically make people come up with ideas, rather it can only help develop existing ones.
Why? GMO has been saving lives for decades now. Literally, many people would die without it. And I'm not just talking about starvation, I'm also talking about diabetic patients.
If you want evidence that it's a farce and he is in fact a pissant weasel, look at what Snowden said about Ecuador: The CIA operates with impunity there, and they can make the Ecuadorian government do whatever they want. If Snowden were to go there, he could easily get removed and sent to the US. And, we already know the US has influence on the embassy where Assange is, namely they had Ecuador cut off his internet access for the US election.
If the US wanted him out of that embassy, they would have had him out a long time ago. Assange knows this but doesn't care, he's just trying to avoid going to Sweden.
In fact, if anything I'd wager that the US likes him there because they effectively have him on a leash, and they don't even need to risk putting him to trial.
Snowden didn't use wikileaks, rather he did the responsible thing and passed it off to journalists so that they could properly control information that would put people at risk. Wikileaks doesn't do that. While wikileaks gave him travel assistance, he didn't use them as a medium.
Besides, my beef isn't with wikileaks as much as it is Assange and to a lessser extent, Manning. Oh, and want more evidence that Assange is full of shit about why he's holed up in that embassy? Well, it turns out that if he goes to his intended destination, Ecuador, it would be dead simple for the CIA to snatch him as they basically operate with impunity there. But he doesn't care because he's not trying to avoid the US, rather he's trying to avoid Sweden. Furthermore, it also turns out that the CIA is really good at manipulating latin American governments, and if they really wanted Assange out of that embassy, they could make it happen. By the way, remember how he lost his internet access around the time of the US election? Who do you think wanted that to happen? (Hint: It wasn't Ecuador.)
How do I know this? Because Snowden announced that he's specifically avoiding latin America now because going there would be too dangerous for that exact reason. Everyone around him has advised him that Russia is by far the safest place for him to remain unless he gets asylum anywhere in Europe.
Or perhaps the Austin government is more easily purchased by the taxi mafia than the state government.
Either way, don't be hypocritical on this. I guarantee that you and ShanghaiBill will be complaining in the exact opposite direction about a larger government interfering with smaller ones whenever Congress begins to push its new bill overriding state/county level internet privacy laws.
Anyone who thinks that whistle blowers that inform the public of the illegal, immoral and dangerously counterproductive acts of our government does needs to be prosecuted is clearly favoring the deep state over the people.
And who are you speaking of here? Because I'm pretty sure I spoke in favor of Ed Snowden, so you can't be speaking about me.
Which by the way, Snowden is a whistleblower, while Assange is just a self-aggrandizing prick who does anything to make a name for himself, even if it means putting other people in harm's way (something he has done.) Even other people within wikileaks say as much, and anybody who supports him (yourself included) is a fucking asshole that just wants to watch civilization burn.
Between antifa's brown shirt tactics (literally, they wear actual brown shirts while parading around with weapons and threatening people) and people like yourself that can't stop obsessing over that idiot, I'm thinking Trump is the least of our problems.
Incidentally, generally speaking LCD TVs are still a step back from plasma.
That really depends on how you define better. Plasma TVs use phosphors, which means that they are susceptible to burn in, which means they can be problematic for PC and gaming use. Furthermore, in places where cooling is an issue (here in Phoenix for example) plasma sucks because it produces a LOT of heat, not only using more electricity just to run it, but extra time running the air conditioner as well.
Why shouldn't we? The technical details are not of interest to a general audience, and are already available to those who do have a vested interest.
This is slashdot, whose motto is "news for nerds". Granted, this isn't 2600, but I think getting more to the technical side is at least somewhat warranted.
I honestly despise slashdot's articles that remain the political realm without getting down to some kind of science or engineering (unless it's some sort of life altering event like 9/11 or something.)
I think your understanding of nationalism is different from mine.
In Europe, nationalism means "I live here, and fuck everybody else" hence it is perceived as bad. This is understandable because of Europe's love of fascism and its history of starting world wars.
In the US, nationalism means "I live here, and I think it's nice", so we don't view it the same as you do. Hence it's a bit more common to wave the flag here while also being critical of some of the things the US does. And that is healthy.
Wikileaks won an award for some stuff about Kenya not long before the Manning leak. You only think Wikileaks is US-centric because your local media is (understandably) US-centric.
Ok, let's play a game of "name that tune": Name the second most targeted country by wikileaks, and list the number of times it has had anything leaked. Now compare that number to the US.
Let me know what you find, and then explain to me why you think the US isn't disproportionately targeted.
Easy; in my home of Phoenix the cost of living index is 99, which means it's roughly the national average whereas in SF it's about 192, which means dollar for dollar, I can do nicer things and have nicer things, meanwhile most of their money is going to their rent or their mortgage. It's bad enough that $100,000 a year is considered low income there, whereas here that's quite a good wage.
Those techies at San Francisco have access to much more "technology"... heck, they are the ones inventing it!
Some of them, but not many. What kind of technology are you referring to? I personally have everything I want in that regard, and I work in IT.
In case you didn't catch what I meant, you were talking about a *possible* outcome, not about that outcome to necessarily become true and, in fact, by your very examples, that your expected outcome will *not* become true.
I'm not talking about possible, I'm talking about reality. Out there it's so expensive to live, that it's quite common for multiple families to live in a smaller single family house. Pretty much the only way that happens here is if the families are all related and they all pitch in for a big sprawling mansion.
Bunk. So long as you stay away from foods high in sugar and salt, it's hard to go wrong with mass produced stuff. You call out dairy for example, but yogurt (real yogurt, not the sugary kind,) cottage cheese, hard cheeses (i.e. Parmesan,) and whole milk are all good stuff. Whole milk is especially good just after a workout, though stay away from low fat and skim milks because they're mostly just sugar.
Some mass produced stuff is quite good, like salsa for example (though don't eat too many chips as they're mostly just sugar and salt.)
No, he's quite correct. Doomsayers of automation just assume that money will dry out and people will just do nothing.
Realistically, better technologies tend to allow economies to scale to new heights. Infrastructure reduces your dependence on other people, which means you can accomplish more for less, which means you become more productive, which is why for example, the US is a lot more productive than say Liberia. Automation does the same thing.
The word "computer" used to universally refer to a person's job title, whereas now it universally refers to a machine. Imagine if you had no computers at your disposal; much of your work (for example, making a spreadsheet for bookkeeping) would take considerably longer to accomplish, taking away from your time to do other more productive things that could make you more money, and/or you could use that extra time (or money) to take a longer vacation, or have nice things.
Which by the way, having nice things and vacations are what wealth is; money is not wealth, and neither is income. You can in fact be wealthier with less money; for a real world example of this, look at the techies that live in San Francisco. Most people outside of that area can have a better quality of life on far less income.
Slashdot Mirror
So I agree that he was wrong, but so was capitalism. And in the end we did get socialism with weekends off work, pensions, holidays, health care, firefighting, etc.
That isn't socialism. Socialism is where the government owns the means of production; that is to say that the people who create goods that you consume work directly for the government, and the government also sets prices.
There are very few examples of socialism in the US. One example would be municipal water supplies.
Capitalism is where the means of production is privately owned, in addition free market economics. Free market economics means that the prices are set by the market forces of supply and demand without influence from i.e. government.
Also, contrary to popular belief, things like food stamps aren't socialism, rather they're welfare. That is, the government isn't producing your food, rather it effectively gave you money to buy food. The food was actually produced in the private sector.
Ditto for medicare, i.e. the government isn't providing healthcare services, rather it is paying on your behalf for health care. This is in contrast to say England where the health care workers work directly for the government in most cases.
So in that way he was right as well, and so was marxism.
No.... /facepalm
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/B...
We don't do *anything* that Marx had in mind. At least, not in the US at any rate...Some countries yes, but they are all third world hellholes, i.e. Venezuela and North Korea, and even then, those countries do very little of what Marx wanted, primarily because Marxism was just so flawed in concept that it fails within a very short period of time from when it is implemented. (Icarians are a wonderful case study on why Marxism fails, if you ever want to read up on them.)
Furthermore, Marx wouldn't even like the idea of socialism, because it implied the ownership of things (something he said was bad) and in socialism indeed you can own stuff. Marx also wouldn't like the idea of a quid-pro-quo, i.e. he would view it as immoral that a doctor would expect payment for services, mainly because he viewed money itself as being immoral.
And no self driving car has ever worked properly, what's your point?
A self-driving car is fundamentally a sound concept, communism isn't.
Besides, self-driving cars already seem to work quite well; the reason we haven't started using them yet is more political than technical.
So-called "brownouts" due to demand for electricity exceeding supply are relatively common in Third World countries
Like California?
Alien mega-structures are not blocking the sunlight.
Have they ruled this out as possibly being just a really large planet? I.e. does the star wobble?
Yes, of course.
Like how switchboard operators never worked again and starved to death.
Like how computer operators never worked again and starved to death.
Obviously, the unemployment rate goes down because the people who used to work these jobs have starved to death, and of course the drivers will starve to death too, so it's not a problem.
Kind of tangential I know, but the keystone pipeline issue seems eerily similar to the Thirty Meter Telescope issue. Essentially a mix of NIMBY and "this land is sacred, unless you pay the right price."
Health insurance companies do make their money by charging premiums for policies that cover treatment. If there suddenly were no disease and no injuries, health insurance companies (and branches of companies) would go out of business, even if this were established by some magical means rather than simply wiping out humanity.
The more health care costs, the more money goes through health insurance companies, and the more money that goes through them the more they can make. Health insurance companies indeed have little fiscal motive to make people healthier. This isn't why they don't fund research, but the sentences you quoted as "not even wrong" are largely correct.
Everything you said above also applies to doctors, hospitals, and scientists that research cures and treatments.
The fact is, insurance companies try to keep you healthier in order to reduce their own costs in the future. Both my current and previous employer reduce the coinsurance cost on my hypertension medication by half, including that for a drug I take called Bystolic that is still under patent and is quite expensive if purchased without insurance. Normally it would be subject to their premium brand copay, but since it is preventative they price it the same as a generic preventative drug.
And that's not all they do. For example, mine also offers a premium discount if you have your BMI, cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure controlled. And if you don't, they will give you the same discount as long as you participate in an approved wellness program.
Believe it or not, most people aren't out to kill you for profit.
You guys remind me of people who think that most of the world molests children, even though it's quite rare:
https://www.usatoday.com/story...
The reason Texas is popular for patent litigation is because of the rules they set up that make it considerably easier for plaintiffs to win.
So you are saying that the CIA and other muck up the world agencies are really bad
You fail at reading.
I don't think it has to do with profit so much as it has to do with people being out of ideas for what to do. Throwing money at a problem doesn't magically make people come up with ideas, rather it can only help develop existing ones.
Why? GMO has been saving lives for decades now. Literally, many people would die without it. And I'm not just talking about starvation, I'm also talking about diabetic patients.
If you want evidence that it's a farce and he is in fact a pissant weasel, look at what Snowden said about Ecuador: The CIA operates with impunity there, and they can make the Ecuadorian government do whatever they want. If Snowden were to go there, he could easily get removed and sent to the US. And, we already know the US has influence on the embassy where Assange is, namely they had Ecuador cut off his internet access for the US election.
If the US wanted him out of that embassy, they would have had him out a long time ago. Assange knows this but doesn't care, he's just trying to avoid going to Sweden.
In fact, if anything I'd wager that the US likes him there because they effectively have him on a leash, and they don't even need to risk putting him to trial.
Snowden didn't use wikileaks, rather he did the responsible thing and passed it off to journalists so that they could properly control information that would put people at risk. Wikileaks doesn't do that. While wikileaks gave him travel assistance, he didn't use them as a medium.
Besides, my beef isn't with wikileaks as much as it is Assange and to a lessser extent, Manning. Oh, and want more evidence that Assange is full of shit about why he's holed up in that embassy? Well, it turns out that if he goes to his intended destination, Ecuador, it would be dead simple for the CIA to snatch him as they basically operate with impunity there. But he doesn't care because he's not trying to avoid the US, rather he's trying to avoid Sweden. Furthermore, it also turns out that the CIA is really good at manipulating latin American governments, and if they really wanted Assange out of that embassy, they could make it happen. By the way, remember how he lost his internet access around the time of the US election? Who do you think wanted that to happen? (Hint: It wasn't Ecuador.)
How do I know this? Because Snowden announced that he's specifically avoiding latin America now because going there would be too dangerous for that exact reason. Everyone around him has advised him that Russia is by far the safest place for him to remain unless he gets asylum anywhere in Europe.
Damn right! I am the final boss of the internet.
Or perhaps the Austin government is more easily purchased by the taxi mafia than the state government.
Either way, don't be hypocritical on this. I guarantee that you and ShanghaiBill will be complaining in the exact opposite direction about a larger government interfering with smaller ones whenever Congress begins to push its new bill overriding state/county level internet privacy laws.
Anyone who thinks that whistle blowers that inform the public of the illegal, immoral and dangerously counterproductive acts of our government does needs to be prosecuted is clearly favoring the deep state over the people.
And who are you speaking of here? Because I'm pretty sure I spoke in favor of Ed Snowden, so you can't be speaking about me.
Which by the way, Snowden is a whistleblower, while Assange is just a self-aggrandizing prick who does anything to make a name for himself, even if it means putting other people in harm's way (something he has done.) Even other people within wikileaks say as much, and anybody who supports him (yourself included) is a fucking asshole that just wants to watch civilization burn.
Between antifa's brown shirt tactics (literally, they wear actual brown shirts while parading around with weapons and threatening people) and people like yourself that can't stop obsessing over that idiot, I'm thinking Trump is the least of our problems.
Incidentally, generally speaking LCD TVs are still a step back from plasma.
That really depends on how you define better. Plasma TVs use phosphors, which means that they are susceptible to burn in, which means they can be problematic for PC and gaming use. Furthermore, in places where cooling is an issue (here in Phoenix for example) plasma sucks because it produces a LOT of heat, not only using more electricity just to run it, but extra time running the air conditioner as well.
Why shouldn't we? The technical details are not of interest to a general audience, and are already available to those who do have a vested interest.
This is slashdot, whose motto is "news for nerds". Granted, this isn't 2600, but I think getting more to the technical side is at least somewhat warranted.
I honestly despise slashdot's articles that remain the political realm without getting down to some kind of science or engineering (unless it's some sort of life altering event like 9/11 or something.)
I think your understanding of nationalism is different from mine.
In Europe, nationalism means "I live here, and fuck everybody else" hence it is perceived as bad. This is understandable because of Europe's love of fascism and its history of starting world wars.
In the US, nationalism means "I live here, and I think it's nice", so we don't view it the same as you do. Hence it's a bit more common to wave the flag here while also being critical of some of the things the US does. And that is healthy.
Wikileaks won an award for some stuff about Kenya not long before the Manning leak.
You only think Wikileaks is US-centric because your local media is (understandably) US-centric.
Ok, let's play a game of "name that tune": Name the second most targeted country by wikileaks, and list the number of times it has had anything leaked. Now compare that number to the US.
Let me know what you find, and then explain to me why you think the US isn't disproportionately targeted.
You mean like a confederation?
These are plants.
So, how many more vacation days have USA people now than in the seventies?
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...
How that's possible?
Easy; in my home of Phoenix the cost of living index is 99, which means it's roughly the national average whereas in SF it's about 192, which means dollar for dollar, I can do nicer things and have nicer things, meanwhile most of their money is going to their rent or their mortgage. It's bad enough that $100,000 a year is considered low income there, whereas here that's quite a good wage.
Those techies at San Francisco have access to much more "technology"... heck, they are the ones inventing it!
Some of them, but not many. What kind of technology are you referring to? I personally have everything I want in that regard, and I work in IT.
In case you didn't catch what I meant, you were talking about a *possible* outcome, not about that outcome to necessarily become true and, in fact, by your very examples, that your expected outcome will *not* become true.
I'm not talking about possible, I'm talking about reality. Out there it's so expensive to live, that it's quite common for multiple families to live in a smaller single family house. Pretty much the only way that happens here is if the families are all related and they all pitch in for a big sprawling mansion.
Bunk. So long as you stay away from foods high in sugar and salt, it's hard to go wrong with mass produced stuff. You call out dairy for example, but yogurt (real yogurt, not the sugary kind,) cottage cheese, hard cheeses (i.e. Parmesan,) and whole milk are all good stuff. Whole milk is especially good just after a workout, though stay away from low fat and skim milks because they're mostly just sugar.
Some mass produced stuff is quite good, like salsa for example (though don't eat too many chips as they're mostly just sugar and salt.)
No, he's quite correct. Doomsayers of automation just assume that money will dry out and people will just do nothing.
Realistically, better technologies tend to allow economies to scale to new heights. Infrastructure reduces your dependence on other people, which means you can accomplish more for less, which means you become more productive, which is why for example, the US is a lot more productive than say Liberia. Automation does the same thing.
The word "computer" used to universally refer to a person's job title, whereas now it universally refers to a machine. Imagine if you had no computers at your disposal; much of your work (for example, making a spreadsheet for bookkeeping) would take considerably longer to accomplish, taking away from your time to do other more productive things that could make you more money, and/or you could use that extra time (or money) to take a longer vacation, or have nice things.
Which by the way, having nice things and vacations are what wealth is; money is not wealth, and neither is income. You can in fact be wealthier with less money; for a real world example of this, look at the techies that live in San Francisco. Most people outside of that area can have a better quality of life on far less income.