Those telcos are forced to provide service to everybody at the same price, which means they make a profit on tightly packed businesses in the city and that offsets their losses on the more widespread customers out of town.
It's turtles corrupt regulations all the way down! One corrupt regulation begets another!
Ads on the Internet don't just make money for the people selling the ads, they also help bring buyers and sellers together. By analogy, just because you spend $100 on toothpaste per year doesn't mean that a toothpaste-free world would cost you only $100/year; it would likely cost you (or your dental insurance) a lot more.
I don't know what the law is like where you live but if someone said that here it would be illegal. They would likely be prosecuted for discrimination, and you could sue them personally too.
Correct, and I think it is bad for me as a gay man.
I really don't see how that is worse than just accepting you can't get some jobs because of your sexuality.
There are many jobs I can't get for many reasons that I can do nothing about. Are you going to make any such factors illegal? Is there going to be a committee that determines which factors any particular employer can use in any job category? Or where is this going to end?
I'd make the comparison with being black.
You would, of course! How much better to advance an argument than drag race into it! But since you did, employment non-discrimination laws for blacks were justified on the basis of redressing a legacy of slavery, hardly something that applies to us gay folks. It's not that we didn't used to be treated badly, it's that our parents, by and large, weren't gay.
But what is the same in both situations is the harmful effects such legislation has in the long run. It is exactly because I look at what has happened to blacks that I don't want the same to happen to gay men and women.
I don't think many black people would agree
The argument that because "(group X) wants (thing Y)" therefore "(thing Y) must be good for them" is ludicrous, in particular since the same people usually make arguments of the form "we must regulate/outlaw (something) because people cannot be trusted to make the right decisions themselves". Popularity is not an indicator of beneficence.
Furthermore, what "many people" want is irrelevant to what I want. Many gay folks want ENDA and gay marriage laws, but that doesn't mean you should say "the gays want gay marriage and non-discrimination". Stop labeling people ("black", "gays", "white", etc.) and assigning beliefs to them collectively; start treating them as individuals.
that simply accepting overt discrimination is better than having laws and a society that supports equality for them,
"Forcing people to hire (minorities)" vs "accepting overt discrimination"? That's a false dilemma. You can't end discrimination by outlawing it, any more than you can end drug use, poverty, broken families, or bad grades by outlawing them. Supporting ineffective legislation is not supporting equality.
Furthermore, non-discrimination laws don't "support equality"; what they are saying is that some group is economically so weak and socially so despised that if there weren't laws forcing people to hire us, we'd be starving in the streets. It's not only bad economics, it's insulting. And the motivations for non-minorities to pass such laws are simply to assuage their guilty conscience ("I can't be racist/sexist/homophobic because I voted for...") and make themselves feel superior. Don't tell me that amounts to "supporting equality". If you want to support equality, you have to do better than vote for feel-good laws.
I'm sorry you have trouble using your phone. I have my phone in my car charger when I drive, and it's automatically unlocked. I just press an icon on the screen and it starts recording. It syncs automatically in the background. No need to lock it because the recording isn't even visible, but you could automate that too. Well, on Android; on iOS you're SOL.
IMO: if something is happening out in the open, and you are not actually in somebody's way, then you should be able to record it.
I absolutely agree.
Then why so camera shy?
Ferguson apparently had purchased cameras but not installed them yet. Generally, I think cameras are a very good idea, both for citizens and for police, and they should be mandatory. As far as I can tell, police officers are also generally in favor of them.
But police work does attract a certain percentage of jerks, bullies, and criminals. Some police officers don't just pull people from their cars, they bribe officials, buy/sell drugs, extort, and order/carry out hits. You can never eliminate that, but cameras should help. (For that matter, I think our president and top politicians should be recorded 24/7 while in office, with only a delay in making the recordings public.)
I wonder: Would the Ferguson incident have happened if the police knew they were on camera? What about Rodney King?
I think in both cases the answer is yes. The Ferguson officer will almost certainly be found not guilty based on what we know. The actions of the officers in the Rodney King case were found mostly in compliance with the law in two trials; they were found to have used excessive force only with the last few strikes. Police have a legal right to use deadly force in some cases even against non-violent innocent bystanders; public police forces can't function otherwise (there are other ways of dealing with criminals, but we aren't going to implement them any time soon).
It's not a New York City problem or even a big city problem, it's a law enforcement problem.
No, it's a problem with particular police forces and particular cities. There are many cities that have neither a problem with police brutality nor with high crime rates.
There are some apps for Android and iOS that record quietly and in the background and upload to the cloud. They're useful to have on your phone for many reasons.
And now with the cops feeling all big and powerful...
Nothing much has changed. Cops in the US have been killing about 400 people/year for decades, almost all of them people who attack them, threaten others, or suspects who run away from them. All of those are (generally speaking) legal justifications for the use of deadly force (of course, details matter).
We will start to see changes now - I hope
No, we will not, because the majority of people prefer it that way. If you look at polls, people more concerned about being hurt by criminals than they are about being hurt by police.
By the way, the President of the US is THE top of the Executive branch - meaning HE is in charge of ALL the police around the country
The president is only head of the federal government. Police is mostly local and state matter, and policies are set at the local and state level. Police operates the way it does either because local communities like it that way, or because local communities are too stupid to change it.
Well obviously, because you didn't actually hear what he had to say when he accused you of "are not providing a reasoned argument (and) labeling dissenters to cast them out of polite society." I would call that an insult.
I think he was objectively correct. If you felt insulted by his statement, I think the error is with you.
I'm assuming, of course, you really are saying in good faith you were concerned at the time and expressed that concern.
I was "concerned" in the sense that Eich's actions (supporting Prop 8) affected me as a gay man and that I disagreed with them. I wasn't concerned in the sense of being "worried".
Eich's donation simply reflects the mainstream beliefs of the Mormon and Catholic churches. I happen to disagree with those beliefs (in fact, I think the theology of those churches are morally reprehensible in many ways), but that is no reason not to work with such people as long as they are willing to work with me on a professional basis.
Based on what I have seen, I would have no problem working with Eich, even though he may disapprove of my lifestyle. I would have a problem working at Mozilla, because while my coworkers may accept me as a gay man, they have shown that they are unwilling to separate their personal and professional lives, which is exactly the source of discrimination against gay men and women in the workplace in the first place.
I can't really imagine how you could be openly gay and openly discriminated against, yet still be better off than you are today.
For starters, I much prefer open discrimination to hidden discrimination; I prefer hearing "we don't want to hire you because you're gay" to lame excuses, or worse, ending up in a workplace that doesn't accept me.
I could go on, but my general point is that the progressive activist approach of "demanding equality" through legislation is only one of many possible approaches, and one that I believe is ineffective and potentially harmful. So-called "LGBT rights activists" do not speak for all gay men and women, and their means aren't necessarily right just because they pursue ends I may agree with.
Do you really think that gay people want "equality of outcome" when they ask for the right to be married? Do you imagine they are demanding brides and husbands be allocated to them or something?
If you're not gay yourself, stop dehumanizing us by thinking of us as some homogeneous group. And if you are gay, grow up and stop assuming that your preferences represent the preferences of every gay person on the planet. Believe it or not, there are many good reasons for gay folks to oppose the push for gay marriage.
These opinions are harmful to express in their current prevalence due to the harmful social effects on many gays (with consequences including poverty and suicide), and in that sense they are unacceptable.
Harmful social effects are when you get beaten up for being gay, as I was as a kid. Harmful social effects are not some Christian conservative voicing his disapproval of gay marriage. Perhaps you are too pampered to understand the difference.
Any imperative to accept all political opinions as valid doesn't apply.... What draconian attempt?
You said "disliking homosexuals is not acceptable". That isn't a statement about "accepting a political opinion as valid" and sounds threatening to me. Maybe you can clarify what exactly you mean by "disliking homosexuals is not acceptable".
Disliking homosexuals is acceptable in the same way that disliking Catholics, disliking whiny progressives, or disliking having sex with women is acceptable. It may not be a feeling you share, you may prefer that other people didn't have these dislikes, but in the end, you better learn to live with them.
“I just came to the realization that the Republican Party doesn’t represent my principles and values,” LaSalvia told POLITICO. “I’m a small government conservative and they’re for big government. They’re happy to have big government as long as they’re in charge, More importantly, I don’t tolerate bigotry of any kind, whether it’s anti-gay bigotry, anti-Muslim bigotry. And they do and that’s just not OK with me.”
What matters is that rather than addressing concerns that he might be non-inclusive, he insulted those who were concerned.
And who was "concerned" exactly? And how did he "insult" them?
I think I was "concerned" and I didn't feel "insulted", I simply thought he was wrong. If you can't work with or for people who hold political or religious beliefs you disagree with, you have a problem with professionalism.
Being gay means you must be on the left. Ask any homosexual if you doubt.
Well, given the large and hostile Christian conservative presence on the right, it's not like being on the right has been much of an option. The US still lacks a truly liberal party: laissez faire in both social and economic questions.
By your reasoning, any rule that the state imposes could be justified. But just because the state takes my money and builds roads with it, hands it to crony capitalists, and forces me to register my business, doesn't make engaging in social engineering any more legitimate.
And, apart from legitimacy, the problem with the state "requiring that your business not be racist, sexist, etc." isn't that those aren't laudable goals, it's that as policies go, such policies end in failure, if not outright disaster.
Yeah, but the effect of disliking powerful idealogical groups is pretty different from disliking weak inherent groups.
I find it offensive that you consider gay men and women to be "inherently weak".
One, while having a persecution complex, is generally safe from actual effects of that dislike, while the other has legitimate fear of how that dislike will impact their life.
The effects of that dislike will only get exacerbated if you try to mandate it away.
Being gay isn't an ideology. Disliking homosexuals is completely different from not liking capitalists, conservatives, liberals, etc. Disliking homosexuals is disliking people for something that they didn't choose and cannot change. It is not a political opinion, and it is not acceptable.
As a gay man, I have had to accept that people dislike me for something I didn't choose. Your draconian attempts to force others to accept me make things worse for me.
The key issue for LGBT rights activists is freedom to marry, which is "equal treatment under the law," not "equality of outcome."
Organizations like the HRC very much push laws like ENDA, which goes far beyond "equal treatment under the law". As for marriage, a far better way of achieving "equal treatment under the law" is to stop having the state interfere in how people arrange their personal lives or try to come up with legal definitions for religious concepts.
Back when the whole Mozilla controversy was going on there were endless posts about how "just not liking gays" was somehow a perfectly okay position to take, and blaming them for daring to demand equality and human rights.
Yes, not liking a group of people is a perfectly okay position to take. Lots of people who claim to stand up for "equality" themselves dislike lots of other groups (capitalists, conservatives, etc.). Likewise, equality [of outcome] and [positive] human rights are something many people reject, including people ostensibly intended to be "beneficiaries" of such policies. What you are complaining about are valid political positions you simply happen to disagree with.
Under my system, the minor variants get a much shorter patent period while the original drug gets a longer patent period. Well, a longer sales period.
Nothing under your proposal seems to result in longer sales periods for more innovative drugs. I'm not even sure how you would make a determination of which drug would be considered a minor variation.
I'm also unclear as to why "socialized costs for prescription drugs" causes minor variants to be favored over new drugs.
If people had to bear the cost of drugs themselves, they'd choose generics. That would both lower cost and make the development of minor variants unprofitable.
It's possible that the FDA's standards are arbitrary and could be relaxed, but even if they are, it doesn't solve the problem. Currently, if a company finds a problem in testing, they are highly incented to avoid doing additional testing to explore the problem.
Yes, that's because both drug companies and doctors can often avoid paying for the harm that a drug causes, in part because FDA testing and approval gives them cover (and they are immunized through various state laws as well). Civil liability for both drug companies and doctors without the cover of FDA approval would provide incentives for both drug companies and doctors to be more careful when they have to be.
Like all investments in something unproven, there is a lot of risk. And frequently, people who don't know what they are doing are making stupid bets. I don't see the problem.
YOU are the one claiming that this is just an analogy with the past; you people have to back up your claims since you are the ones making them; the skeptics on my side do not have to prove jack.
Well, no, I'm not claiming that it is an analogy with the past at all; I think this technological revolution is completely different from all past ones, just like they have been completely different from each other. It will change human society in ways we can't even imagine yet.
I know two things. First, reducing the amount of labor needed to produce stuff is always a good thing for humanity. Second, people can deal with huge economic and technical advances pretty well and adapt.
there is going to be a huge upset as large job markets are eliminated and people try to migrate into new areas
Slashdot Mirror
It's turtles corrupt regulations all the way down! One corrupt regulation begets another!
Ads on the Internet don't just make money for the people selling the ads, they also help bring buyers and sellers together. By analogy, just because you spend $100 on toothpaste per year doesn't mean that a toothpaste-free world would cost you only $100/year; it would likely cost you (or your dental insurance) a lot more.
Correct, and I think it is bad for me as a gay man.
There are many jobs I can't get for many reasons that I can do nothing about. Are you going to make any such factors illegal? Is there going to be a committee that determines which factors any particular employer can use in any job category? Or where is this going to end?
You would, of course! How much better to advance an argument than drag race into it! But since you did, employment non-discrimination laws for blacks were justified on the basis of redressing a legacy of slavery, hardly something that applies to us gay folks. It's not that we didn't used to be treated badly, it's that our parents, by and large, weren't gay.
But what is the same in both situations is the harmful effects such legislation has in the long run. It is exactly because I look at what has happened to blacks that I don't want the same to happen to gay men and women.
The argument that because "(group X) wants (thing Y)" therefore "(thing Y) must be good for them" is ludicrous, in particular since the same people usually make arguments of the form "we must regulate/outlaw (something) because people cannot be trusted to make the right decisions themselves". Popularity is not an indicator of beneficence.
Furthermore, what "many people" want is irrelevant to what I want. Many gay folks want ENDA and gay marriage laws, but that doesn't mean you should say "the gays want gay marriage and non-discrimination". Stop labeling people ("black", "gays", "white", etc.) and assigning beliefs to them collectively; start treating them as individuals.
"Forcing people to hire (minorities)" vs "accepting overt discrimination"? That's a false dilemma. You can't end discrimination by outlawing it, any more than you can end drug use, poverty, broken families, or bad grades by outlawing them. Supporting ineffective legislation is not supporting equality.
Furthermore, non-discrimination laws don't "support equality"; what they are saying is that some group is economically so weak and socially so despised that if there weren't laws forcing people to hire us, we'd be starving in the streets. It's not only bad economics, it's insulting. And the motivations for non-minorities to pass such laws are simply to assuage their guilty conscience ("I can't be racist/sexist/homophobic because I voted for...") and make themselves feel superior. Don't tell me that amounts to "supporting equality". If you want to support equality, you have to do better than vote for feel-good laws.
They'll make electric cars dramatically cheaper just like they brought us fusion reactors!
I'm sorry you have trouble using your phone. I have my phone in my car charger when I drive, and it's automatically unlocked. I just press an icon on the screen and it starts recording. It syncs automatically in the background. No need to lock it because the recording isn't even visible, but you could automate that too. Well, on Android; on iOS you're SOL.
I absolutely agree.
Ferguson apparently had purchased cameras but not installed them yet. Generally, I think cameras are a very good idea, both for citizens and for police, and they should be mandatory. As far as I can tell, police officers are also generally in favor of them.
But police work does attract a certain percentage of jerks, bullies, and criminals. Some police officers don't just pull people from their cars, they bribe officials, buy/sell drugs, extort, and order/carry out hits. You can never eliminate that, but cameras should help. (For that matter, I think our president and top politicians should be recorded 24/7 while in office, with only a delay in making the recordings public.)
I think in both cases the answer is yes. The Ferguson officer will almost certainly be found not guilty based on what we know. The actions of the officers in the Rodney King case were found mostly in compliance with the law in two trials; they were found to have used excessive force only with the last few strikes. Police have a legal right to use deadly force in some cases even against non-violent innocent bystanders; public police forces can't function otherwise (there are other ways of dealing with criminals, but we aren't going to implement them any time soon).
No, it's a problem with particular police forces and particular cities. There are many cities that have neither a problem with police brutality nor with high crime rates.
There are some apps for Android and iOS that record quietly and in the background and upload to the cloud. They're useful to have on your phone for many reasons.
Nothing much has changed. Cops in the US have been killing about 400 people/year for decades, almost all of them people who attack them, threaten others, or suspects who run away from them. All of those are (generally speaking) legal justifications for the use of deadly force (of course, details matter).
No, we will not, because the majority of people prefer it that way. If you look at polls, people more concerned about being hurt by criminals than they are about being hurt by police.
The president is only head of the federal government. Police is mostly local and state matter, and policies are set at the local and state level. Police operates the way it does either because local communities like it that way, or because local communities are too stupid to change it.
Don't hold your breath for any changes.
I think he was objectively correct. If you felt insulted by his statement, I think the error is with you.
I was "concerned" in the sense that Eich's actions (supporting Prop 8) affected me as a gay man and that I disagreed with them. I wasn't concerned in the sense of being "worried".
Eich's donation simply reflects the mainstream beliefs of the Mormon and Catholic churches. I happen to disagree with those beliefs (in fact, I think the theology of those churches are morally reprehensible in many ways), but that is no reason not to work with such people as long as they are willing to work with me on a professional basis.
Based on what I have seen, I would have no problem working with Eich, even though he may disapprove of my lifestyle. I would have a problem working at Mozilla, because while my coworkers may accept me as a gay man, they have shown that they are unwilling to separate their personal and professional lives, which is exactly the source of discrimination against gay men and women in the workplace in the first place.
When you presume to speak for me because I am gay and you make assumptions about what is good for me, it is very much my business.
It's bad enough when other gay folks presume to speak for me. You are probably not even gay.
I don't need jerks like you standing up for my rights, thank you very much.
For starters, I much prefer open discrimination to hidden discrimination; I prefer hearing "we don't want to hire you because you're gay" to lame excuses, or worse, ending up in a workplace that doesn't accept me.
I could go on, but my general point is that the progressive activist approach of "demanding equality" through legislation is only one of many possible approaches, and one that I believe is ineffective and potentially harmful. So-called "LGBT rights activists" do not speak for all gay men and women, and their means aren't necessarily right just because they pursue ends I may agree with.
If you're not gay yourself, stop dehumanizing us by thinking of us as some homogeneous group. And if you are gay, grow up and stop assuming that your preferences represent the preferences of every gay person on the planet. Believe it or not, there are many good reasons for gay folks to oppose the push for gay marriage.
Harmful social effects are when you get beaten up for being gay, as I was as a kid. Harmful social effects are not some Christian conservative voicing his disapproval of gay marriage. Perhaps you are too pampered to understand the difference.
You said "disliking homosexuals is not acceptable". That isn't a statement about "accepting a political opinion as valid" and sounds threatening to me. Maybe you can clarify what exactly you mean by "disliking homosexuals is not acceptable".
Disliking homosexuals is acceptable in the same way that disliking Catholics, disliking whiny progressives, or disliking having sex with women is acceptable. It may not be a feeling you share, you may prefer that other people didn't have these dislikes, but in the end, you better learn to live with them.
Well, take it from the founder of GOproud:
http://www.politico.com/story/...
And who was "concerned" exactly? And how did he "insult" them?
I think I was "concerned" and I didn't feel "insulted", I simply thought he was wrong. If you can't work with or for people who hold political or religious beliefs you disagree with, you have a problem with professionalism.
Well, given the large and hostile Christian conservative presence on the right, it's not like being on the right has been much of an option. The US still lacks a truly liberal party: laissez faire in both social and economic questions.
By your reasoning, any rule that the state imposes could be justified. But just because the state takes my money and builds roads with it, hands it to crony capitalists, and forces me to register my business, doesn't make engaging in social engineering any more legitimate.
And, apart from legitimacy, the problem with the state "requiring that your business not be racist, sexist, etc." isn't that those aren't laudable goals, it's that as policies go, such policies end in failure, if not outright disaster.
Your entire statement is premised on the erroneous idea that being anti-gay-marriage is being anti-gay.
I find it offensive that you consider gay men and women to be "inherently weak".
The effects of that dislike will only get exacerbated if you try to mandate it away.
As a gay man, I have had to accept that people dislike me for something I didn't choose. Your draconian attempts to force others to accept me make things worse for me.
Organizations like the HRC very much push laws like ENDA, which goes far beyond "equal treatment under the law". As for marriage, a far better way of achieving "equal treatment under the law" is to stop having the state interfere in how people arrange their personal lives or try to come up with legal definitions for religious concepts.
Yes, not liking a group of people is a perfectly okay position to take. Lots of people who claim to stand up for "equality" themselves dislike lots of other groups (capitalists, conservatives, etc.). Likewise, equality [of outcome] and [positive] human rights are something many people reject, including people ostensibly intended to be "beneficiaries" of such policies. What you are complaining about are valid political positions you simply happen to disagree with.
Nothing under your proposal seems to result in longer sales periods for more innovative drugs. I'm not even sure how you would make a determination of which drug would be considered a minor variation.
If people had to bear the cost of drugs themselves, they'd choose generics. That would both lower cost and make the development of minor variants unprofitable.
Yes, that's because both drug companies and doctors can often avoid paying for the harm that a drug causes, in part because FDA testing and approval gives them cover (and they are immunized through various state laws as well). Civil liability for both drug companies and doctors without the cover of FDA approval would provide incentives for both drug companies and doctors to be more careful when they have to be.
Like all investments in something unproven, there is a lot of risk. And frequently, people who don't know what they are doing are making stupid bets. I don't see the problem.
Well, no, I'm not claiming that it is an analogy with the past at all; I think this technological revolution is completely different from all past ones, just like they have been completely different from each other. It will change human society in ways we can't even imagine yet.
I know two things. First, reducing the amount of labor needed to produce stuff is always a good thing for humanity. Second, people can deal with huge economic and technical advances pretty well and adapt.
Yes, isn't it great?