We don't need the government to protect us from getting bad customer service during a car ride. We don't need the government to make sure drivers are "qualified" to give people car rides. It's just a car ride.
What's the alternative? Do you think you can convince everyone that deprivation is better than plenty? Do you think the government will suddenly start adopting sound economic policies rather than economic policies to satisfy greed and envy and entitlement and grievance and short-term political goals? What would cause that to happen? And if it happened, what would cause it to continue?
The reason Verizon can stay in business despite having "very limited interest in what their customers want" is because of municipal and state granted monopolies...
I know. So a different answer might be to break up the monopolies and tell local governments that they can't make long term monopoly deals any more.
Why is "government friends with guns" an acceptable argument for them getting their way, but not an acceptable argument against it?
It's not good in either case. We should head in the other direction.
Verizon can afford more government friends than you can. Do you honestly foresee a time when they won't? If not, maybe you shouldn't want things to be decided based on who has more government friends?
Perhaps a rule where cable or satellite TV providers are prohibited from operating centralized peering points. If Verizon had to buy their bandwidth from upstream providers, they wouldn't be able to choke L3. And L3 would have to bid against Verizon's upstream providers to get Netflix's business.
Essentially, less economic centralization in the network infrastructure would provide for more opportunities for competitive bidding all along the chain. Everyone would end up with more customer-focused incentives.
Why should Verizon do the upgrade? Why would they want to? To make Level 3 happy? To make Netflix happy? What is their incentive?
The only answers I've seen for this on Slashdot are: - the government should threaten Verizon and force them to operate the network contrary to Verizon's best interests, - the government should seize Verizon's network - no answer, just crying about how you're entitled to better Netflix video quality
It's also paid for by an Unemployment Insurance Tax, paid by your employer, as a percentage of your income. It's not a deduction from your paycheck, it's an additional amount your employer pays to the government for your work.
Things like regulatory capture happen because big government is too big for anyone to pay attention to what they do unless you personally have a large financial stake in a particular action or government bureau. Who has a large financial stake in regulations? The guys being regulated. Given enough time and a big government, regulatory capture is inevitable.
I pay a gas tax for highways and a property tax for streets, a phone bill (that includes taxes) for phone service, and an electric bill (that includes taxes) for electric service. So why are they also taking ~40% of my paycheck?
If these guys go it alone, we will learn that the rest of the people in the teams they left behind can make good games without them. I think the main benefit of having a big name in charge is that you need a creative authority figure to keep the corporate types from messing up the end product.
It's a cliche in context -- like posting the Ben Franklin security quote and thinking you're clever or insightful.
Just imagine a Letterman style 'Man in the Street' interview...
Is that Slashdot's target audience?
Aahh, a Swiftian proposal - that's certainly a cliche if panopticon is
Yes, but it's less annoying because you seem to be able to communicate an idea without it.
Or is this about reassuring the hoi-polloi that you move in such elite intillectual circles that you do, in fact, hear such referrences near daily? I'm not sure whether to envy or pity you if that's true.
About every third article on the internet that features the loss of privacy contains the word "panopticon". And whenever the article doesn't, someone will use it in the comments, thinking they're clever. If you don't see it an annoying number of times (it's especially annoying because it's a silly exaggeration when applied to any non-fictional place or situation), then you don't read many internet articles on privacy.
If you use the word "panopticon", the message you've succeeded in communicating is "I learned a new word!". It not a very compelling message.
without always using cliches like "panopticon". We'll take you more seriously, we'll assume you can think for yourself rather than just parroting something someone else said, and we might even read the article you linked to. Thanks.
That's speculation, not evidence. I said evidence.
There's no such thing as evidence regarding the future. When the future becomes the present, we can measure it. Until then, we can only predict. Absolutely everyone knows this.
So in fact, the feedback could be greater than the models predict, since (you baselessly allege) the model predictions are uncertain.
Thanks for validating the need for urgent action.
If the models underestimate the feedback, then, short of a holocaust (which I presume you aren't openly advocating) there's no significant action anyone could take. We could do insignificant things for the sake of "doing something", but the benefits would be tiny, even if the costs were huge.
The relative stability of the climate, despite numerous past disruptions, argues against strong positive feedback.
Relatively stability compared to what? Other versions of the earth?
Compared to a climate that gets disrupted a little by some warming event or some additional carbon in the atmosphere, then the strong positive feedback makes it warmer and warmer and warmer until it's too hot to live. If this had happened, we wouldn't be here to talk about it. The Earth's climate is more stable, relatively, than this.
If the feedback were mildly negative instead of strongly positive, the climate would tend toward temperatures within a range -- like the climate we have here on Earth. Disruptions would raise or lower the temperature sometimes, but temperatures would stabilize.
If there were strong positive feedback, past disruptions would have caused the climate to get apocalyptically hot
Slashdot Mirror
Only if you want to understand things. If you're in it for self promotion or social positioning or to get laid, then you're right.
Very few of the people I know personally can (or care to) engage in a serious conversation. Honestly, I often can't do it myself.
It you want to mod disagreement as trolling, you're part of the problem.
Light rain and wind = thousands dead in flying car crashes
We don't need the government to protect us from getting bad customer service during a car ride. We don't need the government to make sure drivers are "qualified" to give people car rides. It's just a car ride.
Were the satellites running Linux or something?
So you'd prefer the opposite order? Wars first, offshore oil exploration later?
What's the alternative? Do you think you can convince everyone that deprivation is better than plenty? Do you think the government will suddenly start adopting sound economic policies rather than economic policies to satisfy greed and envy and entitlement and grievance and short-term political goals? What would cause that to happen? And if it happened, what would cause it to continue?
Verizon can afford more lawmakers than you.
That's not an answer though. It's a description of the problem.
The reality is: they don't seem to care. If you want them to care, shouldn't you try to understand why they don't?
The reason Verizon can stay in business despite having "very limited interest in what their customers want" is because of municipal and state granted monopolies...
I know. So a different answer might be to break up the monopolies and tell local governments that they can't make long term monopoly deals any more.
Why is "government friends with guns" an acceptable argument for them getting their way, but not an acceptable argument against it?
It's not good in either case. We should head in the other direction.
Verizon can afford more government friends than you can. Do you honestly foresee a time when they won't? If not, maybe you shouldn't want things to be decided based on who has more government friends?
Perhaps a rule where cable or satellite TV providers are prohibited from operating centralized peering points. If Verizon had to buy their bandwidth from upstream providers, they wouldn't be able to choke L3. And L3 would have to bid against Verizon's upstream providers to get Netflix's business.
Essentially, less economic centralization in the network infrastructure would provide for more opportunities for competitive bidding all along the chain. Everyone would end up with more customer-focused incentives.
This is a different answer. Thanks.
Customers.
They seem to have very limited interest in what their customers want for Netflix streaming quality. What is their incentive to care?
Those laws are the answers.
I covered that with "the government should threaten Verizon and force them to operate the network contrary to Verizon's best interests".
"I want it and my government friends have guns..." Is this the best we can do?
Why should Verizon do the upgrade? Why would they want to? To make Level 3 happy? To make Netflix happy? What is their incentive?
The only answers I've seen for this on Slashdot are:
- the government should threaten Verizon and force them to operate the network contrary to Verizon's best interests,
- the government should seize Verizon's network
- no answer, just crying about how you're entitled to better Netflix video quality
Got anything better?
It's also paid for by an Unemployment Insurance Tax, paid by your employer, as a percentage of your income. It's not a deduction from your paycheck, it's an additional amount your employer pays to the government for your work.
So why are they also taking ~40% of my paycheck?
Things like regulatory capture happen because big government is too big for anyone to pay attention to what they do unless you personally have a large financial stake in a particular action or government bureau. Who has a large financial stake in regulations? The guys being regulated. Given enough time and a big government, regulatory capture is inevitable.
I pay a gas tax for highways and a property tax for streets, a phone bill (that includes taxes) for phone service, and an electric bill (that includes taxes) for electric service. So why are they also taking ~40% of my paycheck?
First, try not to panic.
This is a stressful time for all of us, but we will get through this.
Racist
If these guys go it alone, we will learn that the rest of the people in the teams they left behind can make good games without them. I think the main benefit of having a big name in charge is that you need a creative authority figure to keep the corporate types from messing up the end product.
It's a cliche in context -- like posting the Ben Franklin security quote and thinking you're clever or insightful.
Just imagine a Letterman style 'Man in the Street' interview...
Is that Slashdot's target audience?
Aahh, a Swiftian proposal - that's certainly a cliche if panopticon is
Yes, but it's less annoying because you seem to be able to communicate an idea without it.
Or is this about reassuring the hoi-polloi that you move in such elite intillectual circles that you do, in fact, hear such referrences near daily? I'm not sure whether to envy or pity you if that's true.
About every third article on the internet that features the loss of privacy contains the word "panopticon". And whenever the article doesn't, someone will use it in the comments, thinking they're clever. If you don't see it an annoying number of times (it's especially annoying because it's a silly exaggeration when applied to any non-fictional place or situation), then you don't read many internet articles on privacy.
If you use the word "panopticon", the message you've succeeded in communicating is "I learned a new word!". It not a very compelling message.
without always using cliches like "panopticon". We'll take you more seriously, we'll assume you can think for yourself rather than just parroting something someone else said, and we might even read the article you linked to. Thanks.
That's speculation, not evidence. I said evidence.
There's no such thing as evidence regarding the future. When the future becomes the present, we can measure it. Until then, we can only predict. Absolutely everyone knows this.
So in fact, the feedback could be greater than the models predict, since (you baselessly allege) the model predictions are uncertain.
Thanks for validating the need for urgent action.
If the models underestimate the feedback, then, short of a holocaust (which I presume you aren't openly advocating) there's no significant action anyone could take. We could do insignificant things for the sake of "doing something", but the benefits would be tiny, even if the costs were huge.
If the models are right, for example, Germany's pioneering $110 Billion energy program will delay the expected temperature increase in the year 2100 by 37 hours.
The relative stability of the climate, despite numerous past disruptions, argues against strong positive feedback.
Relatively stability compared to what? Other versions of the earth?
Compared to a climate that gets disrupted a little by some warming event or some additional carbon in the atmosphere, then the strong positive feedback makes it warmer and warmer and warmer until it's too hot to live. If this had happened, we wouldn't be here to talk about it. The Earth's climate is more stable, relatively, than this.
If the feedback were mildly negative instead of strongly positive, the climate would tend toward temperatures within a range -- like the climate we have here on Earth. Disruptions would raise or lower the temperature sometimes, but temperatures would stabilize.
If there were strong positive feedback, past disruptions would have caused the climate to get apocalyptically hot
No it wouldn't.
Where's your evidence?
I, for one, welcome our new Foxconn overlords.