What you're thinking of are the engineers who laid the original telecom infrastructure, and they weren't called network engineers. There were even fewer of those than there are network engineers of today, namely because they only did their job when they had to expand the physical infrastructure, which wasn't as common as building a network today. In those days, only the phone company did that. Nowadays, practically every medium to large sized company needs people to design, maintain, and build infrastructure, and furthermore, things are quite a bit more complicated now, even though they might seem like they "just work" to you, because you're just used to the packets going from A to B without any trouble most of the time.
I really don't think they'd like a Trabant. It literally sounds like a leaf blower, namely because it uses the same type of motor, and is equally noisy. That also means it uses two stroke gas (where you have to mix the oil and gas at just the right ratio) so you can't exactly go to a local 7/11 and fill up your tank. If you did, you needed to carry around the oil and mix it with the fuel as you went. That is, of course, assuming that you know when you're supposed to fill up your tank, because few models had an actual fuel gauge, and even fewer had one that actually worked; instead you were supposed to open the hood and put a dipstick in its gravity fed (i.e. no fuel line) gas tank. Oh and did I mention that its gas tank only holds 6 gallons, and gets about 25mpg?
In addition to the above, it emitted a lot of toxic fumes and soot, and went from zero to its top speed of 100km/h (about 60mph) in about a day.
Anyways I am a millennial, live in a really nice part of Phoenix called Ahwatukee, and live in a two bedroom luxury apartment (and I do mean that; this place will remind you of a very nice resort) for about $1,390 a month. I also make roughly $83k a year as a network engineer, in addition to collecting rent on a house I own. I also paid $10k cash on my used 2013 Toyota Camry (came fully loaded with all options too.) Oh and by the way, I originally obtained all of this on a $46k per year salary.
American use of socialist as any state with a functioning social security net.
That is by definition welfare, not socialism. Socialism means that industry is government owned and if you work in it, you work for the government. The government also sets prices and controls supply.
The "social security net" you speak of is the government either giving you money or buying things on your behalf. Currently that means the government paying your health care costs, buying your groceries, or paying your housing expenses. In each example, the government doesn't employ anybody who is providing you those things, nor does the government own i.e. the grocery store you go to or the hospital you visit. Again, welfare, by definition.
Marx's communism is about empowering the disenfranchised, not making them powerless to resist.
He claimed that, but his actions said otherwise. In the French commune, he advocated taking everything away from everybody and having the government control it. Even if you were poor, the government would take everything you had, and you were to participate in communal ownership, because the concept of private property was abolished. It was supposed to eventually end up with no government, but as we've seen in communes that would show up later, that never actually happens. Instead what happens is the GDP begins to collapse until somebody starts telling people what they'll do, and then the workers basically become slaves.
In the case of the Icarians, they eventually got tired of being told what to do and people just kept leaving until there was no more commune left.
In the case of the USSR, the same sequence of events occurred, only when people started leaving, the government established the Iron Curtain. It would have otherwise fell apart much sooner.
In the article, it showed Stalin just used "socialism" to cover the system that serve the interest of leaders, and leaded to corruptions.
and another one in 1931, which prove Stalinist system was in fact a capitalist state, which was slave-system that workers served the "communist leaders":
No, it is not capitalist. Capitalist means that prices are governed by the forces of supply and demand. Socialism means that everything is decided centrally by the local governing authority, whether that's a dictator or "the community", which means that everybody effectively is a government employee, and the government also decides prices and supply. Just because it has an actual currency doesn't mean it's capitalist; that's a pretty elementary mistake.
It is correct, however, to say that Stalin and the USSR was not Marxist. Marxism, aka communism, implied that there was no currency at all, and no central government either. No such system has ever lasted beyond a few years, and either the commune disbands or it just converts to a command economy (aka despotic socialism) in order to keep things running. In the case of the Icarians, you started to see the later until people decided that they hated it, and they all just left, so the leaders basically had nothing to govern anymore. The USSR solved this problem by putting up walls, in addition to the concept of the Iron Curtain.
When people say "well, Nordic countries are socialist" they're actually wrong. Those countries are what you'd call a welfare state, with small elements of socialism existing in the form of health care services (where all health care workers work for the government.)
The free health care system in the US (medicaid) is a welfare system. That is, the government pays on your behalf, but health care workers do not work for the government.
Socialist policies are about taking care of the people - they're fine with private industry, so long as the private industry is controlled enough that it's still acting to benefit the people.
No, that's not true. Socialism by definition means centrally (aka government) owned means of production. That means that literally everybody is employed by the government. Stop confusing socialism with welfare.
No, you don't understand. It has to be full-blown, next-to-communism economics, so that it can be easily shown to be inferior (which it is). There's no point in looking at countries like, say, Canada, Germany, Sweden, or even the UK because they can't possibly be doing things any better than the US in any way (e.g., universal healthcare).
Nobody is saying that, just identifying socialism by what it actually is. People too often confuse welfare with socialism. They aren't even remotely the same. If you say you prefer socialism, then I'm likely going to mention the Trabant at some point. If you say welfare state, then that will bring up the discussion about Nordic style government.
No, it fit the textbook definition of socialism. Socialism means that the means of production is owned by the government. So you work for the government, and you can only buy from the government. Communism is similar in concept except there's no currency and no government, rather just a "community". Communism doesn't ever last for more than a few years though; either the commune disbands or it migrates to socialism.
You're likely confusing socialism with a welfare state, and identifying the later as socialism when in reality it's quite distinct from socialism.
How corrupted Mexico, where cops killed and abducted students, and criminal gangs can kill any one?
This is a simple matter of geography: Mexico is an obvious path for the drug trade. Cuba however, being an island, is a very poor choice.
The same as the state of Cuba internet, they can't connect to any one except Venezuela or use expensive satellite connection
Actually that's Cuba's decision. There hasn't been anything truly stopping them from routing traffic through the US, except for themselves. The only thing they couldn't do is contract with US companies to build any infrastructure within their country. However, as for why they have few routes to the rest of the world, that's a decision they made deliberately. Venezuela happens to be the only country in the region to agree with them politically, so it's the only one they trade and otherwise communicate with. Nothing was stopping Cuba from doing business with say, Mexico.
But every time news mention Cuba, they state that Cuba restrict their connection, the fact is, RSF report - even the report tried to blame to Cuba government, but they can't deny:
You're confusing routes with website access. These aren't the same thing. With the way the internet works, you have hardly any idea of what geographical paths you're actually using. Furthermore, internet access in general was (and for the most part, still is) forbidden for everyday citizens. Either you had to work for the government, or you had to be visiting from another country (hence hotel access.) What's the point in having a Great Firewall if hardly anybody has access to begin with? Especially when government workers are almost always party officials.
Not a single one of those countries you mentioned are actually socialist. Socialism means the government owns the means of production. In other words, there are no private businesses whatsoever, it's all owned by the state, and everybody works for and gets paid by the state. You're confusing socialism with welfare state.
Are you suggesting this is a bad thing? Sure, there's money involved in it for them, but personally I hate driving in the morning commute. I'd like it if I could rest or eat breakfast on the way instead of having to contend with my fellow maniac drivers in the morning. My cousin, who has epilepsy, can benefit from more independence. If it takes a superpac to make this happen, to overcome the "omg skynet, think of the children!" crowd, then so be it.
I edit them as well. Having stage 4 CKD, I keep a detailed log of medication taken and blood pressure. Google sheets is quite useful for this on my Nexus 6P.
I also created a spreadsheet to track weight loss goals, and I used the Harris-Benedict equation to figure out calorie goals as weight changed. It worked, by the way.
Even then, most of California isn't that bad. Most doesn't include the SF or LA areas. Where I live, the cost of living is.99% of the national average, so it's roughly *THE* national average, and $50k a year will serve you pretty well.
Oh I think being laid off is the most profitable thing that ever happened to me. Even though I was only there a year, I got a 4 week severance plus 2 weeks worth of dispersed holiday pay. So basically a paid 6 week vacation, plus a new assignment that included a 60% salary increase.
Probably depends what you do, specifically, in addition to who you work for. I literally got laid off of a job that paid about $48k a year, and right afterwards got hired at a new job that pays closer to $78k a year. I'll be doing basically the same work at the new job. Before that even, I had a desktop support job that paid $40k a year.
Don't do BI? So how exactly do you propose to deal with the high unemployment caused by automation?
Same way we always have, to be honest. New technologies have a funny way of creating new industries. The Luddite way of thinking has been disproven every time it has come up.
I'm a network engineer for example. That job didn't even exist more than 20 years ago. The closest thing to my job prior to it existing would be a switchboard operator, which didn't pay as much. And in case it hasn't yet occurred to you, there are no more switchboard operators.
The day we really have a completely automated society is the day that we no longer have a need for jobs. Could that day come? Possibly, but we're quite a ways off.
I think it's probably time to stop glorifying attacks (even electronic ones) against people that we don't like when they haven't done anything other than say shit that we don't like. I keep seeing anonymous talk about how free speech and privacy is wonderful and all, but any time they don't like somebody for the things that they say, what do they do to that person? Intimidate their speech by doxing them. In other words, it seems that they like to take it upon themselves to deprive others of the same things that they claim to value. Their activities against the KKK and Trump are perfect examples.
Though to be honest, I think they don't actually value either free speech or privacy. What they value is feeling that they have a god-like status and can do whatever the fuck they want, and when they do that, they claim that it's in the name of protecting the things their fans value.
I'm curious how they'd respond to the threat of somebody doxing them.
My proposal? Don't do BI. If you really insist on it, then let it happen in one of the countries who are already more inclined towards it first and observe what happens.
I don't think it's any of that. I think it's just plain drug abuse, which isn't helped by the fact that drug abuse is so demonized, and often by people who themselves have abused drugs. I'll bet that if you correlate drug abuse rates by race like they are doing with suicides, and charted both over time, you'd probably see them follow one another closely. Drug abuse is difficult to track without any sort of conviction or anything like that though, and if you admitted it to any body that collects this information, you're painting a big DEA target on yourself. Have a lot of money in your bank account or in cash? Duh, known drug abuser, we'll have to confiscate that, and if you want it back you'll have to prove your innocence. Not to mention being placed on government watch lists, no fly lists, and having your communications tapped.
Android is Google's loss leader. They make their money on bundling GMS. And you can't fault them for this because a ton of other companies have a similar business model and nobody thinks twice about it.
The only thing Apple does better than Google or Microsoft is to make wagonloads of money with the tiny share they have. Apple serves the most profitable minority, while Google and MS take over the rest.
That's mainly due to the "oooh shiny" factor more than anything else. Hell if you want proof of that, look at Beats. The headphones it sells are provably inferior to literally everything else in their price range, yet it takes 64% of the high end headphone market. Why? Well, when it has a high price tag, people tend to think it's good.
Slashdot Mirror
What you're thinking of are the engineers who laid the original telecom infrastructure, and they weren't called network engineers. There were even fewer of those than there are network engineers of today, namely because they only did their job when they had to expand the physical infrastructure, which wasn't as common as building a network today. In those days, only the phone company did that. Nowadays, practically every medium to large sized company needs people to design, maintain, and build infrastructure, and furthermore, things are quite a bit more complicated now, even though they might seem like they "just work" to you, because you're just used to the packets going from A to B without any trouble most of the time.
I really don't think they'd like a Trabant. It literally sounds like a leaf blower, namely because it uses the same type of motor, and is equally noisy. That also means it uses two stroke gas (where you have to mix the oil and gas at just the right ratio) so you can't exactly go to a local 7/11 and fill up your tank. If you did, you needed to carry around the oil and mix it with the fuel as you went. That is, of course, assuming that you know when you're supposed to fill up your tank, because few models had an actual fuel gauge, and even fewer had one that actually worked; instead you were supposed to open the hood and put a dipstick in its gravity fed (i.e. no fuel line) gas tank. Oh and did I mention that its gas tank only holds 6 gallons, and gets about 25mpg?
In addition to the above, it emitted a lot of toxic fumes and soot, and went from zero to its top speed of 100km/h (about 60mph) in about a day.
Anyways I am a millennial, live in a really nice part of Phoenix called Ahwatukee, and live in a two bedroom luxury apartment (and I do mean that; this place will remind you of a very nice resort) for about $1,390 a month. I also make roughly $83k a year as a network engineer, in addition to collecting rent on a house I own. I also paid $10k cash on my used 2013 Toyota Camry (came fully loaded with all options too.) Oh and by the way, I originally obtained all of this on a $46k per year salary.
American use of socialist as any state with a functioning social security net.
That is by definition welfare, not socialism. Socialism means that industry is government owned and if you work in it, you work for the government. The government also sets prices and controls supply.
The "social security net" you speak of is the government either giving you money or buying things on your behalf. Currently that means the government paying your health care costs, buying your groceries, or paying your housing expenses. In each example, the government doesn't employ anybody who is providing you those things, nor does the government own i.e. the grocery store you go to or the hospital you visit. Again, welfare, by definition.
Marx's communism is about empowering the disenfranchised, not making them powerless to resist.
He claimed that, but his actions said otherwise. In the French commune, he advocated taking everything away from everybody and having the government control it. Even if you were poor, the government would take everything you had, and you were to participate in communal ownership, because the concept of private property was abolished. It was supposed to eventually end up with no government, but as we've seen in communes that would show up later, that never actually happens. Instead what happens is the GDP begins to collapse until somebody starts telling people what they'll do, and then the workers basically become slaves.
In the case of the Icarians, they eventually got tired of being told what to do and people just kept leaving until there was no more commune left.
In the case of the USSR, the same sequence of events occurred, only when people started leaving, the government established the Iron Curtain. It would have otherwise fell apart much sooner.
In the article, it showed Stalin just used "socialism" to cover the system that serve the interest of leaders, and leaded to corruptions.
and another one in 1931, which prove Stalinist system was in fact a capitalist state, which was slave-system that workers served the "communist leaders":
No, it is not capitalist. Capitalist means that prices are governed by the forces of supply and demand. Socialism means that everything is decided centrally by the local governing authority, whether that's a dictator or "the community", which means that everybody effectively is a government employee, and the government also decides prices and supply. Just because it has an actual currency doesn't mean it's capitalist; that's a pretty elementary mistake.
It is correct, however, to say that Stalin and the USSR was not Marxist. Marxism, aka communism, implied that there was no currency at all, and no central government either. No such system has ever lasted beyond a few years, and either the commune disbands or it just converts to a command economy (aka despotic socialism) in order to keep things running. In the case of the Icarians, you started to see the later until people decided that they hated it, and they all just left, so the leaders basically had nothing to govern anymore. The USSR solved this problem by putting up walls, in addition to the concept of the Iron Curtain.
When people say "well, Nordic countries are socialist" they're actually wrong. Those countries are what you'd call a welfare state, with small elements of socialism existing in the form of health care services (where all health care workers work for the government.)
The free health care system in the US (medicaid) is a welfare system. That is, the government pays on your behalf, but health care workers do not work for the government.
Socialist policies are about taking care of the people - they're fine with private industry, so long as the private industry is controlled enough that it's still acting to benefit the people.
No, that's not true. Socialism by definition means centrally (aka government) owned means of production. That means that literally everybody is employed by the government. Stop confusing socialism with welfare.
No, you don't understand. It has to be full-blown, next-to-communism economics, so that it can be easily shown to be inferior (which it is). There's no point in looking at countries like, say, Canada, Germany, Sweden, or even the UK because they can't possibly be doing things any better than the US in any way (e.g., universal healthcare).
Nobody is saying that, just identifying socialism by what it actually is. People too often confuse welfare with socialism. They aren't even remotely the same. If you say you prefer socialism, then I'm likely going to mention the Trabant at some point. If you say welfare state, then that will bring up the discussion about Nordic style government.
No, it fit the textbook definition of socialism. Socialism means that the means of production is owned by the government. So you work for the government, and you can only buy from the government. Communism is similar in concept except there's no currency and no government, rather just a "community". Communism doesn't ever last for more than a few years though; either the commune disbands or it migrates to socialism.
You're likely confusing socialism with a welfare state, and identifying the later as socialism when in reality it's quite distinct from socialism.
Cuba:
what if Cuba was not sanctioned?
Cuba is only sanctioned by one country.
How corrupted Mexico, where cops killed and abducted students, and criminal gangs can kill any one?
This is a simple matter of geography: Mexico is an obvious path for the drug trade. Cuba however, being an island, is a very poor choice.
The same as the state of Cuba internet, they can't connect to any one except Venezuela or use expensive satellite connection
Actually that's Cuba's decision. There hasn't been anything truly stopping them from routing traffic through the US, except for themselves. The only thing they couldn't do is contract with US companies to build any infrastructure within their country. However, as for why they have few routes to the rest of the world, that's a decision they made deliberately. Venezuela happens to be the only country in the region to agree with them politically, so it's the only one they trade and otherwise communicate with. Nothing was stopping Cuba from doing business with say, Mexico.
But every time news mention Cuba, they state that Cuba restrict their connection, the fact is, RSF report - even the report tried to blame to Cuba government, but they can't deny:
You're confusing routes with website access. These aren't the same thing. With the way the internet works, you have hardly any idea of what geographical paths you're actually using. Furthermore, internet access in general was (and for the most part, still is) forbidden for everyday citizens. Either you had to work for the government, or you had to be visiting from another country (hence hotel access.) What's the point in having a Great Firewall if hardly anybody has access to begin with? Especially when government workers are almost always party officials.
Not a single one of those countries you mentioned are actually socialist. Socialism means the government owns the means of production. In other words, there are no private businesses whatsoever, it's all owned by the state, and everybody works for and gets paid by the state. You're confusing socialism with welfare state.
I'd like to see the ones who "favor socialism" to be forced to drive the Trabant around for a year.
lawl. Actually it's a reference to my Army MOS, 19D.
That description doesn't really seem to fit Heinlein's works.
Are you suggesting this is a bad thing? Sure, there's money involved in it for them, but personally I hate driving in the morning commute. I'd like it if I could rest or eat breakfast on the way instead of having to contend with my fellow maniac drivers in the morning. My cousin, who has epilepsy, can benefit from more independence. If it takes a superpac to make this happen, to overcome the "omg skynet, think of the children!" crowd, then so be it.
I edit them as well. Having stage 4 CKD, I keep a detailed log of medication taken and blood pressure. Google sheets is quite useful for this on my Nexus 6P.
I also created a spreadsheet to track weight loss goals, and I used the Harris-Benedict equation to figure out calorie goals as weight changed. It worked, by the way.
Even then, most of California isn't that bad. Most doesn't include the SF or LA areas. Where I live, the cost of living is .99% of the national average, so it's roughly *THE* national average, and $50k a year will serve you pretty well.
Oh I think being laid off is the most profitable thing that ever happened to me. Even though I was only there a year, I got a 4 week severance plus 2 weeks worth of dispersed holiday pay. So basically a paid 6 week vacation, plus a new assignment that included a 60% salary increase.
Probably depends what you do, specifically, in addition to who you work for. I literally got laid off of a job that paid about $48k a year, and right afterwards got hired at a new job that pays closer to $78k a year. I'll be doing basically the same work at the new job. Before that even, I had a desktop support job that paid $40k a year.
Don't do BI? So how exactly do you propose to deal with the high unemployment caused by automation?
Same way we always have, to be honest. New technologies have a funny way of creating new industries. The Luddite way of thinking has been disproven every time it has come up.
I'm a network engineer for example. That job didn't even exist more than 20 years ago. The closest thing to my job prior to it existing would be a switchboard operator, which didn't pay as much. And in case it hasn't yet occurred to you, there are no more switchboard operators.
The day we really have a completely automated society is the day that we no longer have a need for jobs. Could that day come? Possibly, but we're quite a ways off.
I think it's probably time to stop glorifying attacks (even electronic ones) against people that we don't like when they haven't done anything other than say shit that we don't like. I keep seeing anonymous talk about how free speech and privacy is wonderful and all, but any time they don't like somebody for the things that they say, what do they do to that person? Intimidate their speech by doxing them. In other words, it seems that they like to take it upon themselves to deprive others of the same things that they claim to value. Their activities against the KKK and Trump are perfect examples.
Though to be honest, I think they don't actually value either free speech or privacy. What they value is feeling that they have a god-like status and can do whatever the fuck they want, and when they do that, they claim that it's in the name of protecting the things their fans value.
I'm curious how they'd respond to the threat of somebody doxing them.
My proposal? Don't do BI. If you really insist on it, then let it happen in one of the countries who are already more inclined towards it first and observe what happens.
I don't think it's any of that. I think it's just plain drug abuse, which isn't helped by the fact that drug abuse is so demonized, and often by people who themselves have abused drugs. I'll bet that if you correlate drug abuse rates by race like they are doing with suicides, and charted both over time, you'd probably see them follow one another closely. Drug abuse is difficult to track without any sort of conviction or anything like that though, and if you admitted it to any body that collects this information, you're painting a big DEA target on yourself. Have a lot of money in your bank account or in cash? Duh, known drug abuser, we'll have to confiscate that, and if you want it back you'll have to prove your innocence. Not to mention being placed on government watch lists, no fly lists, and having your communications tapped.
Android is Google's loss leader. They make their money on bundling GMS. And you can't fault them for this because a ton of other companies have a similar business model and nobody thinks twice about it.
The only thing Apple does better than Google or Microsoft is to make wagonloads of money with the tiny share they have. Apple serves the most profitable minority, while Google and MS take over the rest.
That's mainly due to the "oooh shiny" factor more than anything else. Hell if you want proof of that, look at Beats. The headphones it sells are provably inferior to literally everything else in their price range, yet it takes 64% of the high end headphone market. Why? Well, when it has a high price tag, people tend to think it's good.
Honestly if you're going to blame the US for the state Afghanistan is in, your brain is a fucking joke.