The fact that it takes this much discussion to determine the answer should tell you you're probably asking the wrong question. There's no need to classify things as either a good or a service. Those classification categories are obviously lacking nuance and don't fit modern reality. So stop using them.
And if you're using these categorizations to try to re-mold reality into a shape that personally benefits you, then stop pretending and stop being deceitful. Reality doesn't cater to your needs. It just is.
The way to have less corruption is for government to have less power over people. Why bribe someone who can't help (or hurt) you? Smaller government is the answer.
This is not about what the US wants. This is about what one part of the US government wants -- specifically, the part of the US government that gains power from natural gas as an auto fuel.
Actual US citizens just want cheap transportation options. We will switch to natural gas or any other fuel when the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
I would like to know if you think that what happened to the Mayans is what you would like to happen (or would not care if it happened) to you.... as you are so eager to minimize it.
No. I would not like to be sacrificed in a futile attempt to prevent climate change. I don't believe in leaders who demand large sacrifices from others but fail to sacrifice themselves. I don't believe in power-seeking doomsayers.
Unlike the ancient Maya, we have a modern transportation infrastructure that includes inventions like the wheel. Food can be efficiently transported over large distances. We have large commodity markets for food, with a wide array of alternatives if supply of something is constrained by a localized drought -- even a prolonged one.
I don't believe we need to make enormous personal sacrifices to prevent climate change. And no one genuinely believes we can avert climate change with small personal sacrifices. Our best bet is to be prosperous and flexible and inventive. Then if we face climate change, we won't be too mired in desperate poverty and corrupt government central planning to adapt. And if we don't face climate change, prosperity is good for that too.
[Lots of oddly contentious strawman arguments deleted]...
And now, since you are the one who brought the subject of AGW...
Nope. I didn't.
You might be better at discussions if you'd focus on what a guy said rather than complaining about stuff he didn't say. You'd probably be worse at communicating propaganda though, so I guess it depends on what you're trying to do.
I should also specifically add that sacrificing lots of people to the gods is very expensive, in several different ways. Presumably, when the priests and kings weren't able to magically produce bountiful harvests, the populace gave up on them. Such an event would necessarily lead folks to be distrustful of priests and kings. And without an alternate model of centralized civilization, that leaves a more rural subsistence-oriented lifestyle as the remaining option.
Centralization and organization are cheaper and more efficient except when they're not. When a farmer can't harvest enough for his family to eat, he isn't going to be too eager to save a share for his king.
The Mayans are still there, living in the land their ancestors lived in. They were not "killed off". Any study that suggests they were "killed off" can be ignored as propaganda.
The Mayans made a transition from living in large, centralized cities to a more dispersed, less organized society. This is likely because their centralization was expensive and only supportable based on specific agricultural conditions and faith in their leaders to be able to sustain them. When those conditions changed, that faith could no longer be justified and the expense could no longer be afforded.
When your society is built on the idea of all-powerful mystic kings, then your society falls when the population loses faith in those kings' power.
This government intrusion into our Facebook profiles is intolerable. Why can't the government stick to overruling our health care and dietary choices and determining how much of our income we should be allowed to keep?
The Federal Government would never interfere with school lunches. That's totally between a parent and her child. It's all 1-percenter propaganda!
And North Carolina? Why should we even believe such a place exists? These capitalist imperialists will stop at nothing to undermine the People's trust in the Revolution.
Yeah, people who don't want their country to go bankrupt are morons. A tech company is exactly like a government. And all those Greek researchers are doing great right now; there's no way they'd be better off if Greece had budgeted responsibly for the last 10 years.
The Greek government funded research. How is that working out for them?
What if they had told their researchers (and everyone else) "no funding until we fix our budget"? What if that had happened 10 years ago, before the crisis?
That's what time it is now in the USA: before the crisis.
It's common to predict the return on investment for a road. This is the largest factor that decides which roads get built and which roads don't. A system of roads also has a predictable return on investment. So you are incorrect with regard to the highway system.
As to your major point, it refutes the people who say "research creates economic growth". If there are completely unknown returns, then that's not the same thing as "growth". Your argument is with them.
You don't need to be able to "see the finish line" to measure progress. All the counter-arguments to responsible budgeting seem to amount to "shut up about results and give us an ever-increasing amount of money for our gadgets and musings, regardless of whether you can afford it". If that's not what you're demanding, then where's the responsible justification? Why should we pay for research instead of (just to pick an example) a road? Or not paying at all?
And if research has indefinite benefits and takes an indefinite amount of time, then why can't it wait until the budget is fixed?
If you truly believe the system has failed, stop talking, and take to the streets with your guns.
That's your governing philosophy? Steal from people and oppress them as much as you possibly can and dare them to shoot you if they don't like it? And call it a "social contract".
If that's the way you want to play it, then you better win the next election. Because you've eliminated right and wrong from decision-making. Anything goes. Absolutely anything.
Ah, so before somebody can assess whether taxes are essential to civilization, they must stop spending things on things which you have deemed to not to be essential to civilization?
It's that just another way of saying "no negotiations unless you do what I want first"? I can only think of one type of civilization where that flies: tyranny.
Letting people keep the money they earned is called "tyranny" by you. Forcing the people who earned the money to negotiate to keep it (or you'll arrest them) isn't "tyranny".
The Department of Housing and Urban Development isn't essential to civilization. Taxes to pay for HUD aren't essential to civilization. Can we get rid of it?
Why should anyone agree to pay an extra dime in taxes while HUD exists?
If you want an honest assessment of whether taxes are essential to civilization, stop flushing the money down the toilet first.
Tell all the "research promotes growth" people that. They're the ones making phony claims about growth.
If the benefits are "diffuse" and "distant" in such a way that they can't even be guessed at, then they can wait an extra couple years until the country has a balanced budget and we're not in such a desperate financial condition.
At the rate we're spending, research won't save the US before all the money is gone. Then who's going to fund it?
Then tell me how much economic growth we're all pretending we're going to get from this research.
So far, the only amount that fits what everyone is suggesting is "enough to fix any possible problem and let us spend as much as we want on anything we want". Are you really saying this?
If your research will create growth, then it should be easier to create a 10-year balanced budget by factoring in a reasonable value for that growth. But you (and the rest of the "research creates economy" crowd) just keep repeating your "investment" nonsense.
It's not an investment if you can't even try to predict a return.
basic research and technology is an investment more than an expense.
For the 5th time:
So balance the budget over 10 years, including a realistic ROI from the research. Stop pretending that the ROI is some infinite number. What number is it? Factor it into the budget.
Are you guys robots? Why are you the 5th or 6th person to offer exactly the same argument for unrestrained spending?
Slashdot Mirror
They sound like the horrific screams of a thousand terrified flies.
The fact that it takes this much discussion to determine the answer should tell you you're probably asking the wrong question. There's no need to classify things as either a good or a service. Those classification categories are obviously lacking nuance and don't fit modern reality. So stop using them.
And if you're using these categorizations to try to re-mold reality into a shape that personally benefits you, then stop pretending and stop being deceitful. Reality doesn't cater to your needs. It just is.
The way to have less corruption is for government to have less power over people. Why bribe someone who can't help (or hurt) you? Smaller government is the answer.
This is not about what the US wants. This is about what one part of the US government wants -- specifically, the part of the US government that gains power from natural gas as an auto fuel.
Actual US citizens just want cheap transportation options. We will switch to natural gas or any other fuel when the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
I would like to know if you think that what happened to the Mayans is what you would like to happen (or would not care if it happened) to you.... as you are so eager to minimize it.
No. I would not like to be sacrificed in a futile attempt to prevent climate change. I don't believe in leaders who demand large sacrifices from others but fail to sacrifice themselves. I don't believe in power-seeking doomsayers.
Unlike the ancient Maya, we have a modern transportation infrastructure that includes inventions like the wheel. Food can be efficiently transported over large distances. We have large commodity markets for food, with a wide array of alternatives if supply of something is constrained by a localized drought -- even a prolonged one.
I don't believe we need to make enormous personal sacrifices to prevent climate change. And no one genuinely believes we can avert climate change with small personal sacrifices. Our best bet is to be prosperous and flexible and inventive. Then if we face climate change, we won't be too mired in desperate poverty and corrupt government central planning to adapt. And if we don't face climate change, prosperity is good for that too.
The science is settled. What's up with these finite-egg deniers?
[Lots of oddly contentious strawman arguments deleted] ...
And now, since you are the one who brought the subject of AGW...
Nope. I didn't.
You might be better at discussions if you'd focus on what a guy said rather than complaining about stuff he didn't say. You'd probably be worse at communicating propaganda though, so I guess it depends on what you're trying to do.
I should also specifically add that sacrificing lots of people to the gods is very expensive, in several different ways. Presumably, when the priests and kings weren't able to magically produce bountiful harvests, the populace gave up on them. Such an event would necessarily lead folks to be distrustful of priests and kings. And without an alternate model of centralized civilization, that leaves a more rural subsistence-oriented lifestyle as the remaining option.
Centralization and organization are cheaper and more efficient except when they're not. When a farmer can't harvest enough for his family to eat, he isn't going to be too eager to save a share for his king.
The Mayans are still there, living in the land their ancestors lived in. They were not "killed off". Any study that suggests they were "killed off" can be ignored as propaganda.
The Mayans made a transition from living in large, centralized cities to a more dispersed, less organized society. This is likely because their centralization was expensive and only supportable based on specific agricultural conditions and faith in their leaders to be able to sustain them. When those conditions changed, that faith could no longer be justified and the expense could no longer be afforded.
When your society is built on the idea of all-powerful mystic kings, then your society falls when the population loses faith in those kings' power.
This government intrusion into our Facebook profiles is intolerable. Why can't the government stick to overruling our health care and dietary choices and determining how much of our income we should be allowed to keep?
Just wait a few years. There will be no need to pretend The value of the fake bonds and the real ones will be about equal.
The Federal Government would never interfere with school lunches. That's totally between a parent and her child. It's all 1-percenter propaganda!
And North Carolina? Why should we even believe such a place exists? These capitalist imperialists will stop at nothing to undermine the People's trust in the Revolution.
Do not listen to them. Be strong!
Yeah, people who don't want their country to go bankrupt are morons. A tech company is exactly like a government. And all those Greek researchers are doing great right now; there's no way they'd be better off if Greece had budgeted responsibly for the last 10 years.
Thanks for that wisdom.
The Greek government funded research. How is that working out for them?
What if they had told their researchers (and everyone else) "no funding until we fix our budget"? What if that had happened 10 years ago, before the crisis?
That's what time it is now in the USA: before the crisis.
It's common to predict the return on investment for a road. This is the largest factor that decides which roads get built and which roads don't. A system of roads also has a predictable return on investment. So you are incorrect with regard to the highway system.
As to your major point, it refutes the people who say "research creates economic growth". If there are completely unknown returns, then that's not the same thing as "growth". Your argument is with them.
You don't need to be able to "see the finish line" to measure progress. All the counter-arguments to responsible budgeting seem to amount to "shut up about results and give us an ever-increasing amount of money for our gadgets and musings, regardless of whether you can afford it". If that's not what you're demanding, then where's the responsible justification? Why should we pay for research instead of (just to pick an example) a road? Or not paying at all?
And if research has indefinite benefits and takes an indefinite amount of time, then why can't it wait until the budget is fixed?
If you truly believe the system has failed, stop talking, and take to the streets with your guns.
That's your governing philosophy? Steal from people and oppress them as much as you possibly can and dare them to shoot you if they don't like it? And call it a "social contract".
If that's the way you want to play it, then you better win the next election. Because you've eliminated right and wrong from decision-making. Anything goes. Absolutely anything.
Ah, so before somebody can assess whether taxes are essential to civilization, they must stop spending things on things which you have deemed to not to be essential to civilization?
It's that just another way of saying "no negotiations unless you do what I want first"? I can only think of one type of civilization where that flies: tyranny.
Letting people keep the money they earned is called "tyranny" by you. Forcing the people who earned the money to negotiate to keep it (or you'll arrest them) isn't "tyranny".
The Department of Housing and Urban Development isn't essential to civilization. Taxes to pay for HUD aren't essential to civilization. Can we get rid of it?
Why should anyone agree to pay an extra dime in taxes while HUD exists?
If you want an honest assessment of whether taxes are essential to civilization, stop flushing the money down the toilet first.
Tell all the "research promotes growth" people that. They're the ones making phony claims about growth.
If the benefits are "diffuse" and "distant" in such a way that they can't even be guessed at, then they can wait an extra couple years until the country has a balanced budget and we're not in such a desperate financial condition.
At the rate we're spending, research won't save the US before all the money is gone. Then who's going to fund it?
So your prediction is an infinite return on investment over 10 years then? Fantasy numbers add up to whatever amount makes you feel good.
Defense is 19% of the 2011 Federal Budget. And zero percent of state and local budgets, of course.
Then tell me how much economic growth we're all pretending we're going to get from this research.
So far, the only amount that fits what everyone is suggesting is "enough to fix any possible problem and let us spend as much as we want on anything we want". Are you really saying this?
If your research will create growth, then it should be easier to create a 10-year balanced budget by factoring in a reasonable value for that growth. But you (and the rest of the "research creates economy" crowd) just keep repeating your "investment" nonsense.
It's not an investment if you can't even try to predict a return.
Wow. Two guys who can't link to any numbers are arguing over which set of un-cited numbers are right and which are wrong.
basic research and technology is an investment more than an expense.
For the 5th time:
So balance the budget over 10 years, including a realistic ROI from the research. Stop pretending that the ROI is some infinite number. What number is it? Factor it into the budget.
Are you guys robots? Why are you the 5th or 6th person to offer exactly the same argument for unrestrained spending?